MASTER T V *•# NO 92-80828-2 M ICKOFILMED I9Q ■» CO 1.1 MB!A UNIM Y LIBR \Kil'S/M:VV YORK IS pari of the V Foiin I lationsof WcMcn ( 1V1 lizaiiDii Prescrva lion Project 11 IsATiON AL end { Funded bv trie )\VMHN' k)R Tlli'^ hlmamties Reprodiicuons nia\ n Co! urn oi be made wifii^aj i pc nil ission froin bia University Librarx COPYRIGHT S T ATEMENT The copyright law of the United States -- Title 17, United States Code - concerns the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material... Columbia University Library reserves the right to refuse to accept a cop>^ order 'if, in its judgement, fulfillnient of the order vvouio mvolxx- violation of the copvright law. AUTHOR BAGSHAWE, FREDERIC GLADSTONE A M, A A^AZf # THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL FAMILY ... PLACE: LONDON DATE: [1912?] Kesiriciions on Use, COT l^\miA UNIVERSITY LlDRARms ■MION DEPARTMENT Master Negative # i^ ^lUOGRAPHICMICRO _F^)1^\| lARGET Original Material as Filmed - Pxisfino- Rii.^ r~i^ ~ uiiieu i.xisting tiibnugraplnc Record / ■r'" — 942 B147 1 cleric Gladstone, 1845- xne iiii^lury of iho rnvnl fnr>i;Ur ^r in i -, , i'/> n T) 1 lojai lamily oi Enerland bv Frnri 23 cm Bagshawe, The eric pany^in]2?j 2 V. XXVI gencal. tab. "A Vi the sev^i^ J^n^"^crqueens'oi1hei^r?,JM^^°'''^i'^^ P"^^^^' ^'Story of diate descendants or reSes as h.v. n ! !,"' ^"^ ""^ 'V<^^ of their imme- or have lived in Knglan r-^v I % ] ^^ ^"^ ^^'^ ^" ^"^^^^^ history, 1. Gt. Bnt.~Kings and rulers. 2. Gt. Brit.-Nobility. Library of C OIK' res s {^ 12-2S400 DA28.1.B3 TECMNICAT.. MICROFORM DAr]\ FILM SiZi:: ^DCOin IMAGF PLACl'Air-NfFlA ~llT DATE FII.Mfi). ''-^^O iii 2i :. A_( 1 1 J . , 1 ^i i.,ATIONS. INC wrv->i->Hpf^p CT T T > Jili REDUC T I ( ) N I< A ■] • i ( ) :_/// \ r Association for information and image iManagement 1 1 00 Wayne Avenue, Suite 1 1 00 Silver Spring, Maryland 20910 301/587-8202 Centimeter 12 3 4 1 5 IlllllllllllllllllllllllillllllllUlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllillllllllllllllll TTT Inches Ml 1 7 8 lllllllUll ITT rrr 1.0 I.I 1.25 9 10 11 iiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiili I I I f 12 13 14 15 mm mi Iti 2.8 2.5 |10 |56 3.2 2.2 |63 13.6 ^B i^ u& 1 ^ 2.0 IX *~ u buu 1.8 1.4 1.6 TTT llllllllllllllllllllll m 'S' MfiNUFflCTURED TO fillM STflNDfiRDS BY APPLIED IMAGE, INC. » ,f+> Ijj . '/•i '.*- \.4i '< -xJ^ '^\'^ Citbtittbia ®ittiie»ttp mt&e«rftpoflfetogorit \ LIBRARY ! This book is doe two weeks from the last date stamped below, and if not returned at or before that time a fine of five cents a day will be incurred. ttATv j ^ ^ p%*v 4^ A951 ^h^r TB^ '^ R THE HISTORY THE ROYAL FAMILY OF ENGLAND. THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL FAMILY OF ENGLAND, THE HISTORY OF THE ROY ^ \i FAMILY OF ENGLAND BY FREDERIC G. BAGSHAWE, BARRISTER-AT-LAW. IN TWO VOLUMES— VOLUME /. LONDON, EDINBURGH & GLASGOW SANDS & COMPANY ST. LOUIS, MO. B. HERDER, 17 SOUTH BROADWAY 1912 ^LL RIGHTS RESERVED ^ ' ' i - 9 V- \ r cr 1+3 w To My Friend W. H. V. K. TO WHOM I AM UNDER GREAT OBLIGATIONS IN THE PREPARATION OF THIS BOOK. F. G. B CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. ♦ ■•■♦ CHAPTER I. The Saxons.— Edgar the Atheling.— St. Margaret, CHAPTER II. The Normans.— William the Conquerer.— The Conqueror's Marriage. — Gundreda Countess of Surrey, CHAPTER III. Matilda of Flanders. — The Conqueror's Daughters.— Robert II., Duke of Normandy. —William Clito.— William Rufus. — Henry I. — Henry's Wives, .... CHAPTER IV. The Empress Matilda.— Stephen and his Wife. —Henry de Blois, Bishop of Winchester. — Matilda's Younger Sons. — Stephen's Sons. — Mary Countess of Boulogne, CHAPTER V. Henry 1 1.— Eleanor of Aquitaine.— Henry's Daughters, . CHAPTER VI. Henry and Geoffrey, Sons of Henry II. — Constance and Prince Arthur. — Richard I. — John. — Eleanor of Aquitaine. — Berengariaof Navarre. — John's Wives. — John's Daughters Joanna and Isabella, ..... CHAPTER VII. King Henry III. — His Wife. — Richard Earl of Cornwall, titular King of the Romans. — His Wives and Sons. — Simon de Montford, Earl of Leicester.— Eleanor his Wife, Sister of Henry 1 1 1.— The de Montfords.— The Daughters of Henry III. PAGK. r 15 16-31 32-46 47-62 63-78 79-94 95-110 VI Contents. Contents. Vll CHAPTER VIII. Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster.— Thomas and Henry his Sons, second and third Earls of Lancaster. -Henry First Duke of Lancaster. -Edward I.- His Wives.— His Daughters Eleanor and Joanna, . . . • CHAPTER IX. Edward I.'s younger Daughters.— Thomas Earl of Norfolk.— The Mowbrays.— Edmund Earl of Kent.— Edward II.— Isabella of France.- John of Eltham.— Edward II.'s Daughters, ....••• CHAPTER X. Edward III. -Queen Philippa.— The Black Prince.— Joanna of Kent.— Richard II. — His Wives.— The Hollands, CHAPTER XI. Edward 1 1 I.'s Daughters.— Thomas Dukeof Gloucester —The Staffords.— Lionel Duke of Clarence.— The Mortimers, . CHAPTER XII. Edmund Duke of York.— His Sons, Edward Duke of York and Richard Earl of Cambridge.- John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster.— John of Gaunt's Daughters.— The Nevilles. — The Beauforts, ...... CHAPTER XIII. Henry IV.— Joanna of Navarre.— Henry IV.'s Daughters.— Thomas Duke of Clarence.— John Duke of Bedford.— Humphrey Duke of Gloucester.— Henry V. CHAPTER XIV. Henry VI.— Margaret of Anjou. — Richard Duke of York.— Edward IV.'s Sisters.— The de la Poles, . CHAPTER XV. Edmund Earl of Rutland.— George Duke of Clarence.— Clarence's Son and Daughter, Edward Earl of Warwick and Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury.— The Poles.— Edward IV.— His Wife.— The Woodvilles and Greys.— Richard III.— His Wife, . . • . • PAGE. 111-129 130-148 149-167 168-188 189-209 210-229 230-245 PAGE. 265-281 282-297 298-311 312-323 CHAPTER XVI. Katherine of France and the Tudors. — Margaret Countess of Richmond. — Henry VII. — Edward IV.'s Daughters. The Courtenays, ....... CHAPTER XVII. Henry VIII. — Katharine of Aragon, .... CHAPTER XVIII. Anne Boleyn. — Jane Seymour. — Anne of Cleves, CHAPTER XIX. Katharine Howard. — Katharine Parr, .... CHAPTER XX. The Howards. — Edward VI. — Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset. — The Dudleys. — The Percys, . CHAPTER XXI. The Claimants to the Throne on the Death of Edward VI. — Mary I. ...... . CHAPTER XXII. Queen Elizabeth. — Mary Tudor, Queen of France and Duchess of Suffolk. — Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, — Henry and Frances Grey, Duke and Duchess of Suffolk, t CHAPTER XXIII. Jane Grey. — Katharine Grey, Countess of Hertford.— The Seymours, ....... 324-332 333-351 352-366 366-374 246-264 History of the Royal Family of Endand. ♦•♦ CHAPTER I. The Saxons. — Edgar the Atheling. — St. Margaret. TO write anything like a complete history of the English Royal Fannily would be to write an extreniely compre- hensive History of England, as there have been few events in which England has been concerned in which her reigning family have not taken an active part. I have no such ambitious or far-reaching intention. What I propose to do is to give a short account of what I may call the private, as opposed to the public, history of the several Kings and Queens, of their children, and of such of their immediate descendants or relatives as have played any part in English History, or have lived in England ; and in doing this I wish to avoid, as far as possible, reference to those great political events which are in the province of regular historians, and are more or less known to all readers. Many of those of whom it will be necessary to speak are persons whose lives are bound up in the history of their country, whose minutest actions, so far as they are known, are recorded in many histories and biographies, and over whose characters and motives there have been prolonged, and often acrimonious, discussions. Of such persons I have nothing new to say, and I will say no more than is necessar)^ A I i History of the Royal Family of England. The Saxon Kings. to make the narrative intelligible. There are, however, many English Princes and Princesses, and other persons nearly related to or connected with the Sovereigns, whose names are barely mentioned in general histories, and, if mentioned at all, are mentioned only in connection with some leading event in their lives. Nevertheless, these persons, though the majority of readers know little about them, influenced, more or less, or at all events may reasonably be supposed to have influenced, general history, and they are well worth knowing something about. Many readers, taking their ideas from abbreviated histories, are often in a state of hopeless confusion as to who some of the persons who are named precisely were, how they came to be in the position in which they are found, or what became of them. Who, for instance, is not more or less bewildered among the various Dukes of York, Dukes of Gloucester, Dukes of Exeter, Dukes of Somerset, &c., who figure in the Plantagenet and Tudor periods, and how many persons going to see the plays " Richard III. " or " Henry VIII. " have any very definite idea as to the exact historical position of a third of the persons represented ? Nevertheless nearly all of those persons were in fact connected by blood or marriage with the Kings, and did play more or less important parts in the times in which they lived. I myself was so much irritated by this state of confusion, that I took some pains to disentangle the puzzle for my own amusement and instruction : and it has since occurred to me that there may be others who would be interested by reading the result of my labours. I am, however, modest, and I disclaim once and for all any pretence to originality or antiquarian research ; and nothing will be found in these pages which any reader of ordinary industry might not find out for himself by consulting well-known and tolerably accessible works, which indeed are the only works I have myself referred to. I believe, however, that there are a substantial number of persons who, with a taste for history, are unable to read many books, and I shall be fully content if I can be of use to some of these by dove- tailmg the narratives of other and far more learned writers Of course m wntmg of well-known and interesting persons' It would be impossible to conceal, and I have not attempted to conceal, my own views as to their characters, but no doubt my views are largely coloured by my personal prejures religious and political, and I ask no one to adopt them with out readmg what has been said of the persons in question by hose authors who have made them their more' pt^uS study. I have, however, endeavoured to be impartial and \ apologise beforehand for anything I have said Thich 'may_^ I am sure without intention on my part-wound the su^cepti- bihties of any of my readers. ^ui>cepn ^ I have selected the Norman Conquest as my starting pom , the per.onal history of the earlier Kings Ldhel families being for the most part too vague and too much overlaid with legend to be relied on, but in order to make the history of William the Conqueror and his family in tellS We It IS necessary to ^^^^ some short account of the lat^r Sn Kings and also of the immediate ancestors of the Conquero" whn V' m""'"'!!^ '"'^P^'^ '^^' ^^^^'^ ^^^ ^he first Sovereign who could with any semblance of truth be styled KinTof whotSedtrHfrK''' '^'" Cerdic, a Saxon invader III. of .K i" ^"^i^"^ ^bout 495, and established the King- dom of the West Saxons or Wessex. Egbert died In 8.0 ^Sod^oVtt^n^ fi" ^'^ ^T ^^^^ (--^^'^^ ^^^^^^ o^ thTh. A ^7"'^;^^^ y^^'^ during which the country was in ttZt '^^^^^^^^^^^^ -- "-^-^^y at aVTat^ direct maleLerrCel-:^^^^^^^^ '^ ^^^ It must not, however, be supposed that the system of orimo geniture, as now understood wa« In .„ ^ ^-y^em ot prime- 4 History of the Royal Family of England. The Saxon Kings. to reign, that son was usually chosen, yet when the Witan (which mav be described as a sort of rudimentary Parliament) thought fit, it did not upon occasion hesitate to set aside the sons in favour of a brother, or other male relative of the deceased monarch. No better illustration of this can be given than the case of St. Edward the Confessor, who is the last of the ancient line of Kings. . It is certain that no English King was ever chosen with greater unanimity, and that no English King ever occupied the throne with a more assured seat, or inspired his own or succeeding generations with greater personal reverence and respect than Edward the Confessor. Nevertheless, accord- ing to modern ideas, he was as much an usurper as, say Henry IV. or Richard III., for, at the date of his election, there was living, though in a distant country, his nephew, Edward, who was the son of his elder brother Edmund Ironside, and who if he had lived some centuries later would have been universally regarded as the lawful King. It is customary in nearly all histories to speak of the younger Edward and his son Edgar as the heirs of the Confessor ; but this is a mistake, for they, in fact, represented the elder line, and he the younger line, of their common ancestor Ethelred 1 1., known as Kthelred the Unready. (See Table I.) This King died in 1016 after a long, but for many years a merely nominal, reign of thirty-seven years, leaving his kingdom virtually in the hands of the Danish King, Canute. For some years before, and some months after the death of Ethelred, his eldest son Edmund Ironside carried on a gallant struggle against the Danes, but at the Battle of Assandune he was compelled to divide the kingdom with Canute, and very shortly afterwards, in November 10 16, he died, or, as some say, was treacherously murdered. There- upon Canute became and remained till his death in 1035 practically undisputed King of England. Canute was succeeded by his sons Harold I. and Hardi- canute, who died, the one in 1040 and the other in 1042, and with the death of Hardicanute in 1042 the Danish dynasty, having lasted for about twenty-five years, ceased, and no' serious attempt to re-establish it was ever made. In 1042 Edward the Confessor, the eldest surviving son of Ethelred II., was duly elected King, and he reigned till his death in January 1066. The crown was then claimed, under a bequest, real or supposed, from St. Edward, by the famous Earl Harold, the brother of Edward's wife, Edith, who caused himself to be elected and crowned in the same month. Harold was defeated and killed at the Battle of Hastings in October 1066 by the Norman Duke William II., who was afterwards crowned, and is known in English History as William the Conqueror. Ethelred II. was twice married, first to a Saxon lady whose name is uncertain, but who was the daughter of one Toreth, and secondly to Emma of Normandy, the daughter of Richard I., and sister of Richard II., Dukes of Normandy. By each wife he had two sons— by the first Edmund, sur- named Ironside and Edwy ; by the second Alfred ' and Edward the Confessor. Edmund Ironside, who was born in the year 981, married in 1015 Algiva, the widow of Sigefride, Earl' of the Northumbrians. What became of this lady is not known but she had by Edmund two sons, Edmund and Edward who were sent by Canute to his half-brother Olaf, Kin'cr of Sweden, with, as it is said, instructions to have them put to death. Olaf, however, sent them on to the Court of St. Stephen, King of Hungary, who took compassion on them* and received them kindly, and there Edmund, the elder of the two, died, as a child, a natural death, and his brother Edward was brought up. Edwy, the second son of Ethelred II., was banished by Canute, and having secretly returned to England, was murdered in the year 1017. He never married. Edward the Confessor, the youngest son, had no child and his elder brother Alfred, who during the reign of Harold f •ifmi'f-^k:'^ History of the Royal Family of England, King St. Edward the Confessor. 1. was put to depth under circumstances of exceptional cruelty, was unmarried. So far as is known at the time of his death, Ethelred II. and his sons were the last descendants in the male line of Cerdic or Egbert, and it will therefore be seen that on the accession of Edward the Confessor he and his nephew Edward, the son of Edmund Ironside, were the sole representatives in the male line of the ancient Royal House. It is not within the scope of the present work, and it is not my intention, to criticise the action of the Saxon Kings, and least of all St. Edward the Confessor, who is a Canonised Saint, and whose personal virtues are beyond all question. It must, however, be admitted that to ordinary minds many of the actions of this illustrious King seem to require some explanation, though no doubt, if we were better informed than we are as to his actual position and surroundings, such explanation would be forthcoming and satisfactory. No man ever had a more bitter experience of the woes of civil war, and of the evils of a disputed succession. When he ascended the throne he was a man of forty and unmarried, and he must have known that, if at his death there was not a Prince of his house who could, according to the customs of the Anglo-Saxons, be elected King, and who would be tolerably certain of being so elected with some unanimity, there was a certainty of civil war. In fact it is clear from the accounts of his death-bed that he did foresee that there would be such a war, as it is needless to say there was. Under these circumstances I should have supposed that it was highly desirable for Edward to have provided a Prince to succeed him. This he might have done, either by taking the obvious course of marrying in the ordinary way and bej^etting children of his own, or, if he felt it his duty to remain unmarried, by bringing his nephew to England and presenting him to the people as a suitable heir. The younger Edward was at this time a man under thirty, and though he had been educated abroad, he had been born in England, and as the son of a crowned King, and that King the heroic Edmund Ironside, it is probable that he would hive been favourably looked upon by most of the English people. King Edward did indeed marry, and he did send for his nephew. He married Edith, the daughter of Earl Godwin and sister to Harold, but it was upon a previous agreement that they should live together, not on the ordinary conjugal terms, but as " brother and sister " ; and he did not send for Prince Edward till many years after his accession and till his nephew was already a middle-aged man, and probably quite unable to adapt himself to the manners of a strange country. In about the year 1054 or 1055, at least twelve years after his accession, the King sent an embassy to invite his nephew to England, and as the result the younger Edward arrived in England in the year 1057, accompanied by his wife and his three children. He came, however, only to die, which he did a few days after his arrival, never having as far as appears seen the King ; and, though it is certain that his widow and children continued to live in England till the King's death in 1066, there is no reason to suppose that he in any way noticed or put them forward. Of the previous career of Prince Edward little is now known. As has already been related, on the death of his father he was sent to Sweden and thence to Hungary, where he was honourably received and brought up at the Court of St. Stephen, King of that country. Ordericus Vitalis asserts that he married the daughter of St. Stephen, and himself became King of Hungary, but in this, as in many other cases, the chronicler is altogether wrong. It is certain that Edward did not marry the daughter of St. Stephen, and that he never was King anywhere. The name of his wife was Agatha, and according to the late Professor Freeman she was the niece of the Emperor Henry II. and of his sister Gisela, who was the wife of St. Stephen. Edward had three children : Edgar, known in history as 8 History of the Royal Family of England. Edgar the Atheling or Prince ; Margaret, known as St. Margaret and afterwards Queen of Scotland ; and Christina, afterwards Abbess of Romsey in England. The character of Edgar the Atheling has always been of some interest to me, possibly because considering his very important position so little is known about him positively, and so much is left to the imagination. In all histories he is mentioned, and he is usually mentioned with great disparagement and contempt ; but as a rule no attempt is made to give any consecutive narrative of the events of his life, and I propose to do this, very shortly, now. The date of his birth is quite uncertain, and in estimating his character it is, of course, very important to know whether he was a child, a youth, or a full-grown man at the great crisis of his career — namely, the Norman Invasion. He was certainly living in 1057 when his father died, and must therefore have been at least nine years old at the death of King Edward, but as Edgar's father was about forty-two when he died, and as men married very early in those days, Edgar might easily have been a full-grown inan in 1066. He is, however, usually spoken of by the contemporary writers as being at the time of the Conquest still a boy " puer," — and therefore, though I imagine he was no longer a mere child, it is probable that he was a youth of about thirteen or fourteen. When King Edward died, the crown, as has been stated, was seized by his wife's brother, Earl Harold, and the claims of the young Edgar were not seriously put forward by any one, but when Harold had been killed at the Battle of Hastings, Edgar was formally elected King at a Witan held in London, and presided over by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York ; and though he was never crowned, he so far exercised the rights of Sovereignty as to confirm the Abbot of Peterborough in his office. This was immediately after the Battle of Hastings, but in the course of a i^w weeks Edgar seems to have been advised that it was useless to contest the victorious progress of the Conqueror, for in December 1066 Edgar the Atheling. he, accompanied by the Archbishops, met William at Berkhampstead and did homage. Whatever may be thought of William's character, it is to his credit that he received his young rival with kindness. According to the amiable customs of those times it might have been expected that he would either have put Edgar'^to death, or at the least put out his eyes and shut him up in a monastery. William did in fact keep Edgar as an honourable captive at his Court, taking him to Normandy in 1067, and bringing him back to England in 1068. In the latter 'year Edgar, accompanied by his two sisters, and probably by his mother, escaped from England and landed in Scotland, though it is supposed that they intended to return to Hungary^ and were driven on the Scotch coast by stress of weather.' There they were most hospitably received by Malcolm III. or Malcolm Canmore (the Malcolm of " Macbeth "), King of Scots, who, according to some writers, then, but more probably some years later, married Edgar's sister, Margaret. In the following year the Danes and the Northumbrian Earls, Edwin and Morcar, invaded England, and in this expedition they were joined by Edgar. The expedition was abortive except that the city of York and some other places were ravaged, and great cruelties were committed ; and after it was over the invaders returned home —the Danes to Denmark, the Northumbrians to their own country, and Edgar to Scotland ; and it was probably then (1070) that King Malcolm and Margaret, Edgar's sister were married. Edgar remained in Scotland till 1072, when Wilham the Conqueror invaded that country at the head of a large force. No battle, however, took place, for Malcolm met William at Abernethy, and there made submission, and it was probably one of the terms of the treaty of peace then made that Edgar should leave Scotland, for we next hear of him in Flanders. In 1074, however, he was again in Scotland, and m that year received an invitation from King Philip I of France (who was then at war with William) to take up his abode at the Castle of Montreuil, on the borders between lO History of the Royal Family of England, Edgar the Athelhtg, II Flanders and Normandy, where it was supposed his presence would be an embarrassment to King William. Edgar, accord- ingly set out with this purpose, but, being driven back by a storm both he and Malcolm are said to have taken this as an indication by Divine Providence that Edgar was no longer to oppose the existing order of things in England. There- upon Edgar sent an embassy to William in Normandy, and this being favourably received, he himself proceeded to Nor- mandy, again did homage, and was again taken into favour by the King. It is to be observed that, though he had broken the oath taken in 1066, when he was still very young,this second oath, taken as a man, was always kept with perfect loyalty. Edgar lived quietly in Normandy from 1074 until 1086, and it was probably during that time that the strong friend- ship between him and the sons of the Conqueror, a friendship which lasted through their lives, and which is testified to by many writers, was established. In 1086 Edgar, at the head of a body of two hundred knights, set out for Italy, where a Norman band of soldiers were engaged in establishing the Norman Kingdom of Sicily, an exploit of great interest and importance in European history, but which I cannot further refer to here. Edgar, whose proceedings in Italy do not seem to have been remarkable, returned to Normandy either shortly before or immediately after the death of William the Conqueror in 1087, and he was resident at the Court of William's eldest son, Duke Robert of Normandy, when that Prince's dominions were invaded by his brother William Rufus in 1091. Professor Freeman suggests that it was part of the Treaty of Peace between the two brothers signed in that year that Edgar should leave Normandy, but, for this suggestion, the only apparent ground is that shortly afterwards Edgar was again in Scotland, and the suggestion seems improbable, as there is every reason to believe that Edgar was treated with as much confidence by Rufus as he, undoubtedly, was by Robert. In 109 1 Robert and William Rufus, who were for the time friends, marched together into Scotland to invade King 4 I 'f Malcolm, but, as on the occasion of the last English invasion, Malcolm did not show fight, but again met the English King and made submission. It is expressly stated that this peaceable termination was brought about by the joint mediation of Robert and Edgar, and Edgar certainly returned with Robert to Normandy in 1092. In the following year Edgar was again in England, and was present at a meeting between William Rufus and Malcolm which took place in England, but later in the same year Malcolm, having for the fifth time invaded England was killed in an ambush, and his children by Mar^^aret were driven into England by Malcolm's brother, Donald Bane. They were received by Edgar, who placed his nieces, Edith and Mary, under the charge of his sister, their aunt Christina, who at that time had become Abbess of Romsey, and other- wise provided for his nephews. He then seems to have gone immediately to the Holy Land, to join Duke Robert of Normandy in the first Crusade, and they probably returned together some time before 1097. In 1097 William Rufus organised an expedition to Scotland to establish on the throne Edgar, the eldest surviving son of Malcolm III. and Margaret, and the com- mand of this expedition was given to Edgar the Atheling, who was the maternal uncle of the young Prince Edgar. The expedition was successful, the younger Edgar being firmly established on the throne of Scotland ; and his uncle on this occasion seems to have behaved as an able and prudent commander. At the date of the death of William Rufus (iioo), Edgar the Atheling was once more in Normandy, and he probably accompanied Duke Robert in his abortive invasion of England in the year iioi, and returned with him to Normandy. He was present at the decisive Battle of Tinchebrai in 1 105, when Henry I., having returned the invasion, finally defeated Robert, and took him and most of his followers, including Edgar, prisoners. 1 2 History of the Royal Family of England. St. Margarety Queen of Scotland. 13 It is remarkable, that though Robert, Henry's brother, was doomed to a life-long imprisonment, and William, the Earl of Cornwall, who was Henry's first cousin of the half- blood (see post), was put to a cruel death, Edgar was at once pardoned and restored to the King's favour. He probably owed this, however, to the influence of his niece, Edith, who was already married to King Henry. From this date we hear of Edgar no more, and the time and place of his death, as of his birth, are uncertain. He never married, and with him the ancient line of Saxon Kings and Princes came to an end. It has been the custom of all historians, almost without exception, to speak of Edgar with great contempt, but this seems to me unjust. It is indeed true that he probably felt in himself no great capacity for ruling ; but, on the other hand, it may be that he saw the impossibility of establishing himself as King without the cost of enormous bloodshed and misery to his country, and he may as well be credited with patriotism, as with cowardice, in having abstained in his mature years from attempting to do so. There is every reason to believe, as might well be expected from a man who was so nearly related on both sides of his house to great Saints, that his personal life was in all respects above reproach. That he succeeded in winning the strong personal affection of all who came across him, as well of the semi-barbarous Malcolm of Scotland, as of the fierce sons of the Conqueror — that he could and did fight bravely when compelled to fight — that in his expedition to Scotland he displayed the qualities of a skilful general and diplomatist, and that, at all events, after the year 1074 ^^ loyally kept the oath of allegiance which he had taken to the Conqueror, no one has ever as far as I am aware attempted to dispute. I would gladly linger over the history of his great sister Margaret, but it is too well known to justify me in doing so. She was, as has been already said, married to Malcolm III. King of Scots, and all writers of every denomination, and of every age, agree in praising her. She was not only a great Saint who has been Canonised by the Catholic Church, but also a woman of the most singularly sweet and tender character a most loving wife and mother, and by universal testimony she did very much to civilise and ameliorate the physical condition of her husband's subjects. I cannot do better than refer such of my readers as desire to know more about her to Mrs. Oliphant's charming book, '' Royal Edinburgh," in the first chapter of which an eloquent and picturesque account is given of Margaret's life and death. She had long been ailing at the time of her husband's last expedition, and although it is almost impossible to say at this distance of time how far the wars between England and Scotland were morally justifiable, and who was to blame, still it is satisfactory to know that Margaret strongly opposed this expedition, which ended fatally for Malcolm, and for her, inas- much as the news of his death was the immediate cause of hers. Mrs. Oliphant is in error in saying that the marriage between Malcolm and Margaret certainly took place immedi- ately after Margaret's first landing in Scotland in 1068. It is clear that there was in the first instance considerable opposition to the marriage on her part, and on the part of her relatives, and it is far more probable that it did not take place till after the unsuccessful expedition against England in 1069. Mrs. Oliphant is also in error in speaking of Malcolm as a bachelor when he married Margaret, for it is almost certain that he was, in fact, a widower. He had certainly an acknowledged son, Duncan, whose mother was named Ingebiorg ; and it is both more creditable to all parties, and more probable, to suppose that this lady had been his wife. In 1072, when William the Conqueror invaded Scotland, Malcolm gave up this son to William as a hostage for his observance of the peace then agreed upon, and it is not likely that William would have considered the boy of sufficient importance if he had been admittedly a bastard. Moreover, some years later William Rufus seems to have recognised this t'f 1 4 History of the Royal Family of England. Duncan as having a good title to the Scotch Throne, notwith- standing the existence of Malcolm's sons by Margaret. Duncan remained a captive in England till the death of William the Conqueror, when he was set at liberty, and in 1094, shortly after the death of Malcolm, William Rufus sent Duncan on an expedition against Donald Bane, Malcolm's brother, who had seized the Throne and was for a short time King of Scotland. The expedition was temporarily successful, and Duncan was recognised as King, but Donald Bane soon afterwards re-established himself, and thereupon Duncan disappears from history, having probably been killed. Malcolm and Margaret had eight children, a son whose name is not certain but is sometimes given as Edward, Ethelred, Edmund, Edgar, Alexander, David, Edith and Mary. The eldest son perished with his father, and Ethelred the second also was with his father when Malcolm was killed. He lived long enough, however, to bring back the sad news to St. Margaret, his mother, but shortly afterwards he either died or was put to death by his uncle Donald Bane. The third son Edmund became a monk, and his three younger brothers and their sisters escaped to England. It has already been told how in 1097 William Rufus sent a second expedition into Scotland, this time under the com- mand of Edgar the Atheling, with the result that Edgar, the fourth son of Malcolm, became King of Scotland. He reigned from 1097 till 1107, and dying without legitimate issue, was succeeded by his next brother, Alexander I., who also dying without issue was succeeded in 11 24 by the youngest son, afterwards the celebrated David I. From David I., the Kings of Scotland were descended in the direct male line till the death of Alexander HI. in 1275 ftemp : Edward I.), and in the female line till James VI., who became James I. of Great Britain. The two daughters of Malcolm and Margaret were placed in the Abbey of Romsey, under their aunt Christina, and of them we shall hear again. < d bo C o N1 Q H (I) o . in »- > o H C/2 -o 2 en .vi C^ O >-• . 0). z fjj s ° W5 4) r^l o 2 ^ . a U o 1-3 bo <.S PS < o <: ^•^ H o o bo c 4) • IK "^ pC o 4_> HI c • •s too OS S o 05 :r . c ffi.s < o^ oi be— - ^ -a c o JS QO M O M e fjJ "3 o < M o s u; c M-§ l/l O V» ftl h ><1 rt u *, •2 c,;, 41 *-» ^o o o « u (•> M O .i " bfi 12 P . 1^ •J o >■? P^ c o < 1^ 00 -;>i w u c L^ tea ^^^ ffi O CHAPTER II. The Normans.— William the Conqueror.— The Con- queror's Marriage. — Gundreda Countess of Surrey. IN the year 911 the Northmen, who had for so long ravaged the Coasts of England and France, effected a permanent footing in that part of France which for them came to be known as Normandy. Their leader was the famous RoUo, who having, at any rate nominally, become a Christian, was recognised as the first Duke of Normandy. Rollo died in 931, and was succeeded as Duke by his son William I., known as William Longsword, who was murdered by the Flemings in 942. William Longsword left an only son, then a mere child, who afterwards came to be known as Richard I., or the Fearless. Novel readers may remember a very pretty story by Miss Charlotte Yonge called " The Little Duke," of which Richard the Fearless is the hero, but though substantially the main facts are historically true, it may be doubted whether Richard or his father were the almost perfect characters the book suggests. Richard I. was the father of a son, Richard II., or the Good, who reigned from 996 till 1026, and of a daughter Emma, who married, first Ethelred II., King of England, and secondly, King Canute, the Danish Conqueror, who succeeded him. By Ethelred, Emma was the mother of St. Edward the Confessor, and by Canute she was the mother of Hardicanute ; and she was thus the wife of two Kings, and the mother of two Kings of England. Emma's marriage to Ethelred was, in its way, a great event in English History. It was she who first introduced 16 Dukes of No7"fnandy. 17 into England many of the foreign customs and manners which paved the way to the Norman Conquest ; and more- over, after her marriage with Canute, her sons by Ethelred, Edward and Alfred, took refuge at the Court of their uncle, Duke Richard II., and it was there that St. Edward acquired that strong predilection for foreigners which he evinced throughout his life, and which greatly influenced the course of public events. This marriage also, no doubt, in some degree suggested the conquest of England to the enterprising Duke William, who was already about sixteen years old when his cousin Edward left Normandy to become King of England. Emma's history is remarkable, if only on account of the marked divergence of views as to her character and conduct, which is displayed by the contemporary and later chroniclers, and it would be interesting though it is not possible in this book to follow it in detail. Richard II. of Normandy died in 1026, leaving two sons, Richard and Robert. Richard, who became Richard III. of Normandv, was almost im- mediately assassinated by his brother Robert, who became Duke Robert I. and won for himself the unenviable title of "Robert the Devil." He is the hero of Meyerbeer's opera " Robert le Diable," according to the story of which he was not the son of Richard the Good, but of the Devil in propria persona ; and no doubt he was in fact a remarkably wicked man. Nevertheless, he did much in the course of a short reign to extend the power and dominion of the Norman Dukes, and having, as it is said, repented of his crimes, he * set out on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, in the course of which he died — as some say, by poison, in the year 1035. He left to succeed him a son William, who having been born in 1027 was only eight years old when his father died, and who became William II., Duke of Normandy, and afterwards the famous William I., or the Conqueror, King of England. (See Table 11.) The late Professor Freeman says that " Of all Princely lines the Ducal House of Normandy was that which paid B i8 History of the Royal Family of E ngland. least regard to the Canonical laws of marriage or to the special claims of legitimate birth." and >t would certamy be difficult to trace, or defend, the matrimonial or quas - matrimonial, arrangements of the Norman Dukes. Th>s much, however, is certain that William the Conqueror was unquestionably a bastard. He himself admitted .t, and no one has ever attempted to deny it. His mother, whose name is variously spelt as Arlotta or Herleva, was the daughter of a tanner of Falaise, though it was afterwards said, but apparently with little foundation, that on her mother s side she was descended from noble and even Koyal English stock After Robert's death, or as some say before Arlotta married Count Herlwin of Conteville, by whom she had two sons. Robert and Odo (the latter of whom will be remembered by the most cursory reader of history), and a daughter, Adelaide, all of whom were more or less connected with the Norman Thr'two half brothers of William, Robert and Odo, accompanied him in the invasion of England and w-ere present at the Battle of Hastings, and they both enjoyed m a marked degree his confidence and favour. Robert the elder, was created Earl of Cornwall, and was killed in suppressing one of the Northern Insurrections in 1087 and he was succeeded in the Earldom of Cornwall by his son William, who, on the death of William Rufus, fled to Normandy, and there espoused the claims to succession of that Kincr's eldest brother Robert. William of Cornwall was present a't the Battle of Tinchebrai, in 1 105, and was there, as has been already mentioned, taken prisoner by Henry I., who notwithstanding that he was his first cousin of the half-blood, secluded him in a Monastery, and, as it is said, put out his eyes He died soon afterwards and unmarried. William's second brother, Odo, became a priest, and was at a very early age thrust into the Bishopric of Bayeux. He was however, by nature more a warrior than a Churchman, • having been present in a combative capacity at the Battle of Hastings and taken part in nearly all the military operation.-* s o 4) Q O .J o til < I- 13 Si in >* bo < o l-H V 0) V) s ° PtS U5 ■So ei J? • So t-i a H w o « ^>. ^ — c -::§- o < o as" w_ ■— ■ CI ^2 •—1 «o •r- en > O o HZ O ■<3 Q >« *^ I Si o •3 Q ■^ o u 20 History of the Royal Family of England, Relatives of William the Conqueror. 21 of his brother's reign. During William's frequent absences in Normandy, Odo was usually appointed one ^^^ ^he joint Regents of England, and to him there is no doubt that some of the worst acts of cruelty which disfigured his brother's reign are to be attributed. He was created Earl of Kent, and in his later years formed the ambitious scheme of getting himself elected Pope, and he was about to set forth at the head of an armed force with this object, when he was met in the Isle of Wight by his brother William, who threw him into prison, and kept him there till 1087. When William died in that year, Odo was released and returned to Normandy, where he was in high favour with his nephew, Duke Robert II., for some time. He died in 1097 at Palermo, on his way to the Holy Land. Odo was no doubt an extremely bad man, cruel, ambitious, licentious, and grasping, but he had his good pomts, and according to Norman chroniclers, he ruled his diocese of Bayeux, no doubt by proxy, in a praiseworthy mannen William's half-sister Adelaide married one Odo ot Champagne, who became first Earl of Albemarle or Aumerle. The title of Aumerle, or as it is now called Albemarle, is one of the oldest in the Kingdom Odo who married the Conqueror's half-sister came with him to England-obtained large grants of land there, and ranked as an English Earl, but his title was derived from lands^ in Normandy, and this is still so, in the case of the existmg Earl of Albemarle, though in fact the lands from which he derives his title passed out of the possession of his pre- decessors in title in the reign of King John, when Normandy was taken by the French. Stephen and William, Earls of Albemarle, who were somewhat prominent persons in the twelfth century, were the son and grandson of Odo and Adelaide, but on the death of the latter in 1 179, their descendants in the male line became extinct, and the Earldom passed to the family of de Fortibus 'oy the marriage of Hawyse, heiress of Earl William, with William de Fortibus. To this family I must refer again. Adelaide, half-sister of the Conqueror, had also a daughter Judith, who was given in marriage by her uncle to the illustrious Saxon Waltheof, Earl of Northumberland, North- ampton and Huntingdon, whose judicial murder by William is one of the darkest stains on the personal character of that King. It is generally asserted that it was to a large extent through the treachery of his wife Judith that Waltheof met his death, and she is said thenceforth to have been regarded with horror by the people, and with disgust even by her uncle himself. Waltheof and Judith had a daughter Matilda, who married David I. of Scotland, and carried with her the title of Earl of Huntingdon, which was held or claimed by the Scottish Kings, to the time of Richard I. of England, when it was borne by David, brother of William the Lion of Scotland, to whom I shall refer hereafter. It would be presumptuous and outside the intention of this work to enter into any detailed account of the life and reign of William the Conqueror. Every historian has written of them at length, and Pro- fessor Freeman in his " Histor}" of the Norman Conquest," has made the subject his own, discussing in a minute and exhaustive manner every incident that is known, and many incidents that are merely conjectured, of William's life. In spite of his youth, the admitted stain on his birth, foreign enmity, and domestic dissensions, William succeeded before he had well attained to eariy manhood in establishing himself as the most powerful Duke of his line that had ever lived, and thereupon he undertook the task of almost super- human difficulty of subduing England, a task which he accomplished with truly marvellous rapidity and solidity. He was aged thirty-nine at the date of the Invasion of England. Of right to the English Throne he had none at all. He was indeed nearly related to St. Edward the Confessor, in that his grandfather, Duke Richard II., and Edward's mother, Emma of Normandy, were brother and sister (see Table II.), ^ Vi I \\ ■^ mv 22 History of the Royal Family of England, but this gave him no more title to the Throne of England than have the relatives of every other lady who has married an English King. William himself alleged that St. Edward had promised the succession to him, and that Harold, who on Edward's death seized the Throne, had sworn to promote his succession, and it is probable, indeed, almost certain, that Edward had, at some time, given some such promise, and that Harold had, though under coercion, taken some such oath. It is, however, clear that Edward had no right to make such a promise, and that Harold had no right to take such an oath, and it seems also clear that at the date of Edward's death neither Edward nor Harold regarded the promise or the oath as binding. On the other hand it is fair to say that William undertook the Conquest of England with the express sanction and under the formal blessing of the Pope, Alexander H., and with the hearty concurrence, not only of his own Barons, but of the Norman Bishops and Clergy, headed by the illustrious and saintly Lanfranc, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury ; and it would really appear that both he and they regarded the expedition as a kind of religious Crusade. That William was guilty of great crimes of oppression, tyranny and cruelty no one can deny, but on the other hand in his day, rights, both public and private, were ill-defined, and wars and conquests were engaged in and undertaken by even good men on what now seem the most frivolous and unjust grounds. It must also be said that almost all men, even the best, were according to modern ideas more or less cruel. William was a man of extraordinary courage, energy and ability, both regal and military. If he sometimes oppressed the Church he A^as also a great benefactor to the Church, and did much to reform the abuses within her; and he was certainly a man of strong religious instincts, and deeply impressed with the truths of Religion. Some of the worst cruelties of his reign were perpetrated in his absence, and he himself could, and did, upon occasion, act with clemency and William the Conqueror. 23 magnanimity, as witness his behaviour to Edgar the Atheling already spoken of Lastly, it is generally asserted, and apparently with good grounds, that in his private life he gave an example of the virtues of Temperance and Continence, which was ex- tremely remarkable in a Sovereign of that time. William died in 1087 aged sixty, and was buried in Normandy. William the Conqueror married Matilda, the daughter of Baldwin V., Count of Flanders (who was a grandson of a daughter of Alfred the Great, King of England), and of Adelais, the daughter of Robert and the sister of Henry I., Kings of France. Matilda was therefore of very illustrious descent, and as her father was not only one of the best, but also one of the most influential Princes of his time, the match was, in a political point of view, a very good one for the bastard Duke of Normandy. It is, however, remarkable, considering the rank and position of the parties, that the details of the marriage should be involved in a very great degree of mystery. There were, undoubtedly, great difficulties in bringing it about. Miss Strickland, the author of the " Lives of the Queens of England," to whom I am under great obligations, tells a story, that the lady having objected to William, on the score of his birth, he proceeded to the town of Lille where she was, and having forced his way into the Palace, knocked her down, beat her, and otherwise ill-used her ; and the author suggests that this extraordinary form of wooing found favour in the lady's eyes, and that, though her father resented it, she did not. The above story is to be found in several of the chroniclers, but they do not agree as to time, place or details, and inas- much as the ancient chroniclers bear a remarkable family likeness to modern society journalists, I doubt if it proves more than that before the marriage William had a per- sonal interview with Matilda, possibly of a stormy character, in the course of which he found means to remove her J ? ?l % \ 24 History of the Royal Family of England. Wtllia^n the Conqueror s Marriage. 25 objections to him as a husband. The date of the marriage is variously given by different writers at. dates between 1050 and 1056. Professor Freeman, however, fixes it with what he regards as certainty in the year 1053. Miss Strickland, who places it in 1052, after mentioning a certain threatened war between Henry I. of France and William, which was averted by the former's death, goes on, " Scarcely, however, was he (William) preparing himself to enjoy the happiness of wedded life when a fresh cause of annoyance arose. Mauger, the Archbishop of Rouen, an illegitimate uncle of the young Duke, who had taken great pains to prevent his marriage with Matilda, finding all the obstacles which he had raised against it were unavailing, proceeded to pronounce sentence of excommunica- tion against the newly-wedded pair under the plea of its being a marriage within the forbidden degrees of consanguinity. William indignantly appealed to the Pope against this sentence, who, on the parties submitting to the usual fines, nullified the Archbishop's Ecclesiastical censures, and granted the dispensation for the marriage on the condition of the young Duke and Duchess each building and endowing an Abbey at Caen, and an hospital for the blind. Lanfranc, afterwards the celebrated Archbishop of Canterbury, but at that time an obscure individual to whom William had ex- tended his protection and patronage, was entrusted with this negotiation, which he conducted with such ability as to secure to himself the favour and confidence both of William and Matilda." This passage is altogether misleading as to the real facts of the case. The negotiations for the marriage w^ere un- doubtedly commenced in 1049, and in the following year assembled the Council of Rheims, which if not called ex- pressly for the purpose, was mainly occupied in regulating the laws of marriage and censuring those persons who had offended against them, and the decrees of which were formally approved by Pope St. Leo IX. By a decree of this Council, Baldwin, Count of Flanders, was expressly forbidden to give his daughter in marriage to " William the Norman," who was forbidden to receive her. This prohibition certainly delayed the marriage for several years, and when it actually took place, Pope Leo was not in a position to denounce it, seeing that he was himself at the time a prisoner. It can, therefore, not have been an unexpected circum- stance that the parties who had thus disregarded a decree of the highest Ecclesiastical authority should have been excom- municated by the chief Bishop of Normandy. Mauger, however, was a man of bad personal character, whose words carried comparatively little weight, and the excommunication might have been disregarded if Lanfranc, who was by no means " an obscure individual," but who was then Abbot of the famous Monastery of Bee, and had already acquired a wide reputation for learning and sanctity, had not taken the matter up and denounced the marriage in strong terms. William was, indeed, "very indignant," but his indignation took the form, not of an appeal to Rome, but of deposing Mauger, ravaging and burning the lands and property of the monks at Bee, and banishing Lanfranc. Nevertheless, Lanfranc contrived to see the Duke before he left Normandy, and it was then arranged that he should go to Rome, and endeavour by his personal influence to get the prohibition removed. Professor Freeman seems to think that there was some inconsistency in Lanfranc's conduct, but I fail to see why Lanfranc should not have said, as he probably did, " As a Priest I am bound to denounce a marriage which has been forbidden by a decree of a Council of the Church, but if I can get tliat decree reversed I will do so." Lanfranc did proceed to Rome, but had apparently great difificulty in obtaining the required dispensation ; for he did not, in fact, obtain it till 1060, during the Pontificate of Nicholas II., there having been two intermediate Popes since the death of Leo IX. Neither the original prohibition nor the dispensation states the grounds of objection to the marriage, but it must f 26 History of the Royal Faintly of England. be admitted that under the circumstances above detailed they must have been of a very grave nature. Nearly all writers, including Freeman and Miss Strickland, allege con- sanguinity as the obstacle, but Mrs. Everett Green, to whom I am even more indebted than to Miss Strickland, denies the consanguinity, and boldly asserts in her " Lives of the Princesses of England," that the objections to the marriage were of a purely political character. This suggestion is, however, clearly inadmissible, for though, no doubt, political considerations might, and did, influence the Popes in some cases, in granting or withholding dispensations, no Pope ever attempted to forbid a marriage without having so7ne show of Canonical Law on his side, and any such attempt would have been so monstrous an inter- ference with purely secular rights, that it could not have passed unchallenged in any age. Miss Strickland says that Matilda's grandfather, Baldwin IV. of Flanders, married a sister of William's father, Robert the Devil, and if this lady had been Matilda's grandmother, as the writer suggests, William and Matilda would have been first cousins once removed, and therefore clearly within the prohibited degrees of kindred. Freeman, however, shows conclusively that, though Baldwin IV. did marry a sister of Robert the Devil, he married her as his second wife, and when his son, Matilda's father, was a grown man. This marriage, therefore, only established some affinity between William and Matilda, and that not in a degree which could have been alleged, even in the eleventh century, as a serious obstacle to the marriage, even if, which I doubt, some formal dispensation was thereby made requisite. Freeman, though he rejects the theories of both the ladies above quoted, falls back on the plea of consanguinity, but he admits that he is unable to say where the consanguinity came in. I submit that when two writers of such learning and research as Freeman and Mrs. Green are unable to discover any degree of relationship between two persons of such William the Cofiqueror^s Marriage. 27 position as the Duke of Normandy and a daughter of the Count of Flanders, no such relationship existed. I believe that Matilda, before her marriage with William, had been married to one Gerbod, who was hereditary advocate of the Abbey of St. Bertin in Flanders, that Gerbod was living when Matilda married William, and that what Lanfranc did, was to procure a declaration that the marriage between Gerbod and Matilda was invalid, possibly on the ground, which is suggested by his office, that Gerbod was a Cleric. It is well known that in the eleventh century the validity of the marriages of Clerics (who at that time d'd sometimes marry) was what would now be called a burning question. It may be taken as tolerably certain that Matilda had a daughter, Gundreda, afterwards Coui.tess of Surrey, and as probable that she had a son, Gerbod, afterwards Eari of Chester, who were born before her marriage to William, and of whom William was not the father. Freeman considers it proved that the advocate of St. Bertin, Gerbod, was the father of these two children, and he assumes, and I think rightly, that, if so, Gerbod and Matilda had been married. He also assumes that Gerbod had died before 1049, on the ground that we cannot suppose William would have offered marriage to a woman who had another husband living. If, however, Gerbod was dead in 1049, the difficulties in the way of the marriage remain unexplained, whereas if he was alive, and if William and Matilda thought, as they very possibly did, that the marriage between him and Matilda was invalid, his existence would not I think have been regarded as an insuperable obstacle in those days, and in the eyes of a Norman Duke, to a marriage which was very desirable both from a political and personal point of view. If Gerbod were alive at the date of Matilda's marriage to William, abundant explanation is furnished for the subsequent action of the Ecclesiastical authorities and the difficulties in obtaining the dispensation. I must apologise for devoting so much space to this 28 History of the Royal Family of England. question, but it seems to me to be of some interest as affect- ing the character of the first Queen of England, for the wives of the Saxon Kings were not styled Queen but " the Lady." It may be convenient here, and before returning to the family of William and Matilda, to say a few words of Gundreda and Gerbod, the supposed children of Queen Matilda. That Gundreda was Matilda's daughter I think it impossible to doubt. The evidence on the point is over- whelming, and except Mrs. Green, no writer has in fact ever doubted it. On the contrary, most writers, including Miss Strickland, assuming that because she was certainly Matilda's daughter, she must have been also William's, speak of Gundreda as one of William's daughters, and she is treated as such in nearly all genealogies. Mrs. Green, feeling herself unable to contend that Gundreda was Wtlliam's daughter, and unwilling to admit that Matilda could have been guilty of any indiscretion, sug- gests that she was a relative or god-child, whom the Queen had adopted and treated as a daughter. For this suggestion she offers no kind of proof, and it appears to be inconsistent alike with the positive evidence, and with the manners of the eleventh century. The positive evidence that Gundreda was the daughter of William rests upon one solitar)^ document — a charter given by William the Conqueror to the Monastery of St. Pancras, near Lewes, in which the monks are directed in consideration of a grant of land " to pray for the souls of my lord and predecessor, King Edward, and for the soul of my father. Count Robert, and for my own soul and the souls of my wife, Queen Matilda, and our children and successors, and for the soul of William de Warrenne and his wife Gundreda, my daughter, and their heirs." If this document were authentic as it stands, it would not be conclusive, as if Gundreda had been William's step- daughter he might still, not improperly, have styled her " his daughter " but Mrs. Green says positively that the words " my daughter " (the original is in Latin) are interpolated at a later period, and in a different handwriting. Gundreda, Countess of Surrey. 29 The negative evidence is very strong : — (i) Ordericus Vitalis, the special historian of William and his family, gives in two places lists of William's daughters, and gives special accounts of each of the daughters, whom he names, and he does not include Gundreda in these lists ; but (2) he was aware of her existence and twice names her, once as the sister of " Gerbod the Fleming," and again in enumerating the honours conferred by William on his followers after the battle of Hastings, he says," King William conferred the Earldom of Northampton on Waltheof, the son of Earl Siward, the most powerful of the English nobility, and in order to cement a firm alliance with him gave him in marriage his niece Judith, who bore him two beautiful daughters. The Earldom of Buckingham was given to Walter Giffard, and of Surrey to William de Warrenne, who married Gundreda, Gerbod's sister." The historian who thought it necessary to mention that Judith was William's niece would surely have stated that Gun- dreda was William's daughter if such had been the case, but \{ Gundreda was the daughter of Matilda by an obscure Fleming, the Royal Family were probably not proud of the fact, and the historian may well have thought it prudent to ignore it altogether. (3.) Gundreda's husband, William, Earl of Surrey, in a charter to the Priory of Lewes, given after that of William, makes his grants of lands conditional on prayers " for the repose of my soul, and the soul of Gundreda, my wife, and for the soul of my Lord William who brought me into England, and by whose licence I brought over the monks, and who confirmed my first donation, and for the soul of my Lady Matilda, the Queen, the mother of my wife, and for the soul of William the King, her son, after whose coming into England I made this grant, and who made me Earl of Surrey." With regard to this charter it may be observed that Ordericus Vitalis distinctly says de Warrenne was created Earl of Surrey by the Conqueror, but he was probably confirmed in the title by William Rufus. De Warrenne was one of the I I I I ■MHNB-iVK.. 30 History of the Royal Family of England. Earls of Surrey. 31 most faithful friends of the Conqueror, and it appears to me that if he had been the King's son-in-law, he would have said so, and not used such very ambiguous language as he does. (4.) Gundreda's husband, son and grandson were suc- cessively Earls of Surrey, the son having died in 11 38, three years after the death of Henry I., and the grandson having died in 1148, late in the reign of Stephen. It is difficult to suppose that if the son and grandson had been the direct descendants of the Conqueror, the fact would not have been insisted on during the Wars of Succession which followed the death of Henry I., when the claims of everyone who had any connection with the late King were more or less canvassed. As a matter of fact no one ever mentions them as having any connection with the Royal Family, which is easily to be accounted for if the connection, which it seems certain did exist, were of the nature above indicated. Gundreda married de Warrenne about the year 1078, and she died in 1085, having had four children. She is buried in the church at Isfield in Sussex. It may be mentioned that the title of Earl of Surrey has been held almost exclusively and consecutively from the time of the Conquest to the present day by four great families, the de Warrenne's, the Fitz Alans, the Mowbray's and the Howard's, the title having passed into each of the three last named families on the marriage of its representative with a daughter and heiress of the preceding family. Thus, whoever Gundreda was she is undoubtedly the ancestress of " All the Howards," the present Duke of Norfolk being also Earl of Surrey, which is one of the titles given by courtesy to his eldest son. In modification, however, of the above statement it should be said that there was, so to speak, a break in the family of de Warrenne. Isabel de Warrenne, the great grand-daughter and heiress of Gundreda, married first, William de Blois, a son of King Stephen, by whom she had no child, and secondly, Hamelin Plantagenet, a natural son of the father of Henry S5 II., who on assuming on his marriage the title of Earl of Surrey, thought proper to assume also the name of his wife and through whom the family of de Warrenne, which would otherwise have beeri extinct, was continued. I should s^y also that in 1397, after the attainder of Kichard Fitz Alan, second Earl of Surrey of his family, the mie of Duke of Surrey was conferred by Richard II on Thomas Holland, his nephew on his mother's side, and was held by Holland till he was beheaded three years later, when the Earldom went back to the Fitz Alans. Gundreda's brother, Gerbod, was certainly present at the Battle of Hastings and afterv/ards was created Earl of Chester, but on the death of Balden V. of Flanders (who was as I suggest, his grandfather) he obtained leave to go to Flanders, where he disappears from English history r ^.%^^^ "^''^' ^^^" ^^'^ "^y ^"y^"^ to have been the son of Wilham, and the evidence that he was the son of Matilda rests chiefly upon the fact that he is stated to have been Gundreda's brother. For the grounds on which it is believed that Gerbod the advocate of St. Bertin was the father of Gundreda and Gerbod, I must refer my readers to Freeman's ^' History of the Norman Conquest," where the question is discussed with far more learning and research than I can pretend to. Queen Matilda of Flanders. Z2> CHAPTER III. Matilda of Flanders.— The Conqueror's Daughters. Robert II. Duke of Normandy. — William Clito. — William Rufus. — Henry I. — Henry's Wives. MATILDA of Flanders was, according to Miss Strick- land, born in 103 1, and if so, she was twenty-two when she married William of Normandy, thirty-five at the date of the Norman Conquest, and fifty-two when she died in 1083, four years before her husband. She has found many panegyrists, ancient and modern, and at all events after her marriage with William she seems to have been an excellent woman. During her husband's frequent absence- from Normandy she was appointed Regent of the Duchy, with, however, probably more nominal than real power, and in 1068 she paid a brief visit to England, where she was crowned Queen at Winchester, and where she gave birth to her youngest son Henry, afterwards Henry I. She was a great benefactor to the Church, but she will chiefly be remembered as the reputed originator, and probably one of the workers of the famous Bayeux tapestry, in which the history of the Norman Conquest of England is given in needlework, and which is one of the most valuable— I was about to say documents, but at any rate historical records now extant. A facsimile of it is to be seen in the South Kensington Museum. Three matters are alleged to Matilda's discredit. It is said that before her marriage she was in love with one Brihtric Meau, a Saxon, who rejected her love, and that after the conquest she incited her husband to put Brihtric to death, 32 and to grant h.s lands to herself. There certainly was such a person as Bnhtnc Meau, he .... put to death, and Matilda |/^^get his lands, but Professor Freeman rejects the story of love and vengeance as apocryphal, and it is certainly improbable. tnxmy It is said that William had a mistress whom Matilda put to death with great cruelty, but this story may also be safely rejected, for to the conjugal fidelity of the King there is a considerable amount of weighty testimony. Lastly it is said, with truth, that in the quarrels between the Conqueror and his eldest son, Robert, Matilda, in spite of the direct prohibition of her husband, assisted her son with money and otherwise ; but as Robert was treated by his father with, if not injustice, certainly with great harshness, this does not appear to be altogether to her discredit She certamly obtained and retained to the last the very warm affection of her husband, of which, whatever may have been his faults, she had good reason to be proud William and Matilda had four sons, Robert, afterwards Robert II., Duke of Normandy, who was born in 1054 • Richard, and William (afterwards William II. of England)' the dates of whose births are uncertain, and H en rv, afterwards Henry I. of England, who was born in 1070. ^Robert was certainly their eldest and Henry their youngest child They had also three daughters. Cicely, afterwards Abbess of the Abbey of the Holy Trinity founded by her mother at Caen • Constance, afterwards Duchess of Brittany; and Adela' afterwards Countess of Blois, whose histories are wel/ ascertained and authenticated. Also, leaving out Gundreda whose parentage and history have already been, I fear, more than sufficiently discussed, they had certainly one, probably two, and possibly three other daughters ; but of these ladies nothing certain, not even their names, can be told, except that no one of them married. It is certain that when Harold visited Normandy and took his much discussed oath of allegiance to Duke William one of William's daughters was promised to him in marriage,' 34 History of the Royal Family of England. though having regard to the somewhat complicated matri- monral or serni-matrimonial arrangements of the great Earl, how the ladv was to be fitted in is not very apparent. It is also certain that after William had landed in England he offered one of his daughters to the Earl Edwin of Northumberland, who, with his brother Morcar, played so prominent a part in resisting the Norman Invasion, and there is no doubt that one of the Conqueror's daughters was engaged to marry Alfonso, King of Castile, Leon, and Gallicia, and that she died on her journey to Spain. It is also suggested that besides Cicely, William had another daughter who became a nun. It is clear that neither Cicely nor Adela, nor is it probable that Constance, was the daughter offered to Harold or to Edwin, but possibly one and the same daughter, not being one of these three, was offered to both Harold and Edwin, and ultimately died on the Spanish journey. It is, however, more probable that the lady proposed for Harold either died young or became a nun, and that the lady who was intended for Edwin became engaged afterwards to Alfonso. Ordericus Vitalis tells a rather pretty story of a daughter of William's, whose name, he says, was Agatha, who, having been engaged to Harold, was so much in love with him, that on being forced by her father to become the affianced wife of Alfonso, she prayed for death as a deliver- ance from another bridegroom, and died accordingly. Un- fortunately, however, Harold was some years older thah the Conqueror, and as Harold's visit to Normandy cannot have been later than 1064, the lady cannot at that time have been more than eight years old, for Robert, born in 1054, was undoubtedly King William's eldest child, and Cicely was undoubtedly his eldest daughter. No doubt Norman and Plantagenet Princesses were precocious, and were frequently married at an age when young ladies of the present day are still in the nursery, but I find it impossible to believe that even in the eleventh century a lady should have died for love of a man whom she William the Conqueror's Daughters. 35 had only seen for a short time when she was eight years old and who was older than her own father ' Mrs. Green, though she is unable to maintain that Harold's fiancee was the Princess in question, cannot bring herself to abandon so romantic a story, and therefore mafntain hat Ordencus mistooR Harold for Edwin, and that the lady who died for love was Edwin's promised bride. She however gives her name as Matilda. "owever Cicely was certainly the eldest daughter of William the Conqueror, and she was born in the year 1055. In 1067 she was solemnly dedicated to religion as an expiation for th irregulanty of her parent's marriage, and in 1074 she became XhX aft"" ^"^^1^^^^>^ ^' '^^ Holy Trin?y at Caen of Which she afterwards became second Abbess She died at the age of seventy in the year 1126 (temp • no icT ^' . K ^"'^' ''■°"' "''^* ""^y ''^ -"-d '^^ obituary woman. ' ''' """^' '''' ^^^ ^" ^^--^'V g°°d The date of the birth of Constance is uncertain but is g.ven by Mrs. Green as ,057. For some reason which has not been explained she remained unmarried till she was no onger very young, and it was not until 1086, some years after her mother's death (when, if Mrs. Green' figures are maS AfaT ''''" ^^ ^--'y-"'-). that Constance married Alan Fergeant, Duke of Brittany. It would at first sight seem probable that the delay in'her marri4e w" occasioned by the fact that she was the subject of one or other of the proposed alliances before referred to, but she is ZlrT"u"u°T''''°'' ''''''' ^'*«^'^"d both hkd become .mpossib e by the death of the proposed husbands mam marriage been one of the most formidable opponents of her fether, having refused to do that homage for his Duchy which Wilham as Duke of Normandy demanded, and, no'^doubt he marnage was part of the terms of a reconciliation between he two sovereigns. The Duchess Constance died in the yea" 1090, four years after her marriage, without having had any I t il ,'f :|J 36 History of the Royal Family of England. child, and it is illustrative of the difficulties of historians, that whereas Ordericus Vitalis presents her as a model of all Christian virtues, William of Malmesbury, who wrote m the time of Henry I., says that she was poisoned by her husband's subjects on account of the harshness of conduct to which she incited him. Adela, who was the youngest of the Conqueror's daughters, was born in the year 1062, and in 1080, after she had been the subject of various matrimonal schemes which failed, she married Stephen, Count of Blois and Chartres, who was one of the minor French Princes, his dominions corresponding pretty nearly with the modern County of Orleans. Adela's husband, who appears to have been a man of somewhat impulsive and irresolute character, in 1096 joined the first Crusade, where he did not distinguish himself. In point of fact he ran away from the Battle of Alexandretta and came back to Blois. Afterwards however, he returned to the Holy Land, at the strong instance of his wife, who would appear to have made herself, no doubt with reason, very disagreeable on the occasion, and in iioi he was killed at the Battle of Ramula. Adela, during the absences of her husband and the minority of her second son, Theobald, who succeeded him, governed her husband's dominions with much intelligence and tact, but, after Theobald was of age to act for himself she became a nun in the Abbey of Marcigny in the diocese of Autun, where she died in the year 11 37 in the second year of her son Stephen's reign in England. There can be no doubt that Adela was a woman of the most excellent character. Throughout her life she kept up what was, for the time, an active correspondence with England, and she was an intimate friend of St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canter- bury, whose cause she ardently espoused in his contests with her brothers, William H. and Henry I., and whom she twice entertained on his journeys to Rome. Adela had a very large family. Two of her younger sons, Stephen, afterwards King of England, and Henry, after- Adela Countess of Blois, n th::^ uSirLit rr ^^'- ^-^^ -- - ^-^'-^i. and o^ man whose fa„,i,y and wealth7ake ht p^ ve'rj" r "^ ^""' that he was rather an unambftfous and C 't^ ' ' ""'?"" defect ve in intellect Th„ \ ^ ®' P^''^°" than to his father's ites and t "^ '°"' ^'''°'^^''^' ^"^^^^^ed the Continen , but ;s t is noT ' '^"'"'^' "°^^^ ^^ °" English History it I I'l ^^--y d.rectly connected with this work. ^ ""necessary to refer to him further in Ear?oTches';:r':n?S h' ""TT' """^'^ ""-^ R-^^-d VVilh-an,. the ;'n ;'3r of H n"r? l'' ^"' "^f ^°"^'" P™- "White Ship" in ^„,. ticta^E ;, oTih'XlSisT d'^ husband, was the son of Huph D'A,,., \ ^"^f ^'^' t*^'^ 'ady's Ear] of Chester in ,r.Z ""^^.^ ^^'^^"ches, who was created said to SvTbeen 'deprived of'thTp^ '''' ^'^"'"^ ^ "Official Baronage of EngSnd") ^"'^ ^°^'^'^ To^tt i^te i^:r'^-r ^~ "— -'- ants of WilllHe e t husl Ldi:^-* ''''' °'''' ^--"<^- Richard and William Rnf,"'^ '' '° '^>' ^'' '^^° ^""s was a natural so: of hif son Ro"be't ^""''°"' ""''''''' ^''^ as a sign of Divine vengeance for the T".?'""^"^ ''^'"'''' in enclosing that forest "^' ^^ committed was an unfortunate person. unf^ulte^.^'^^LrSraTd temperament, unfortunate in his ednr.H?. ^/^''^^' *"d ne appears to have been unpre- 1 i 1 '1 i ' - ' »>#(^wwaa»Mwwit» s «» ^^ 38 History of the Royal Family of England, Robert II. Duke of Normandy. 39 possessing in person and uncouth in manners, and he was markedly inferior in abilities to his father and brothers, and it would seem that, as he grew up, he became the object of an almost personal dislike to the King, who uniformly treated him with harshness and unkindness. When he became a man he was naturally anxious to be placed in a position of independence, and this was the more reasonable, as it had always been the custom for the Sovereign Princes in France, from Pepin downwards, either to associate their sons with them in their own Gevernment, or to grant to them large "appanages," which they held nominally as vassals, but • practically independently of the King or other Sovereign from whom they received them. No doubt this system had worked badly and had led to many inconveniences, but if anyone had a right to be placed in an independent position it was Robert, who, as a boy, had been associated with his mother in the Government of Normandy, who had been repeatedly declared heir to the Duchy, and received homage in that capacity, and who, on the conquest of Maine by William, had been put forward to do homage to the French King for that Province, not as representing his father, but as if he had been the actual Lord of his father's conquest. Nevertheless, when Robert claimed some independence, he was put off with the saying of his father, which has become proverbial, that '' he would not put off his clothes till he went to bed." Consequently, William's eldest son was allowed to spend his youth and early manhood as a hanger on at his father's Court, without position or means, unable to marry, or to provide for his friends aud followers, and exposed to the cold severity of the King and the brutal jests of the young Princes, his brothers, who were, in every way, preferred to himself. It is not surprising under these circumstances that Robert should have left his father's camp in 1077, irritated it is said by a practical joke played upon him by the Princes, and, after an unsuccessful attempt to seize Rouen, should have thrown himself into the arms of his father's enemy, Philip I. of Qur Malr '" °"'" '--' ^°-'"' ''^'•"^ ^•^^ -phew of hi, ^'^^ ''"' "■"""::'" '**" '^"^''^ °f William, Robert and h.s father were, w.th but short intervals, continually at war The story .s well known how at the Battle of Archembra ' Robert, w,thout knowing his father, was brought into pe^sS conflict wuh him, and how, as the son was on the p"nt ol who hf ""■ ''' ''"" '°"" ""'' ^™^ -he" he discovered who h,s opponent was, and begged his father's forgiveness Th,s mcdent did not. as might have been expected bnng about greater personal good-feeling, and Robert was s^.ll jt enmity with King William when the latter did It is generally said that William left Normandy to Robert to saftft '°'^''"^" ^"'"^•'"' '*^-'^ he mo^^^-e accurate to tXth ''P*'''' '" =°"^^'^"« at the last, he left things to take the.r course, assuming that Robert would succeed to h.s patrimonial dominions, and rather wishing, than directing, act Roh' f ° hecome King of England. As a matter f RMfn, J^v K '""' u'T'^ ^^ *'^" ''^°^'"^"= a^ Duke, and Rufus dtd become the English King. This, however, was not wholly without opposition from his elder brother, for Robert after a delay, long enough to enable Rufus t; secure his' not lea"HT' ^" ^^P^,^''""" ^'g-n^t England, which he did not lead himself and which was totally and ingloriouslv defeated. As might have been expected, William lost no time in returning the invasion, and with more success, for he speedily became master of nearly half his brother's dominions. A peace was then concluded by which each brother was to retain the possessions he actually held, and each was to be the heir of the other, if he should die wiihout issue. William and Robert thus combined against their younger brother Henry, who was to be excluded from all share in his fathers dominions, and whom they united in besieging in the Castle of Domfront. During this siege, Henry being feduced to the last stage of distress from want of water, Robert, who -j»-~~g-gS!Sa!«BS«srrJ«**^ 40 History of the Royal Family of England. William Clito, 41 i . on manv occasions showed kindness and good nature, allowed Henry, to the great indi-nation of William, to obtain supplies. Robert thus practically broke up the siege, and saved Henry from falling into William's hands, from which, I thmk, he would hardly have escaped with his life. After this, Robert and William joined in the expedition against Scotland, which has been already mentioned, and in 1096 Robert joined the first Crusade, where he seems to have behaved with gallantry. It was on his return from the Holy Land that he married an Italian lady, Sibyl of Conversana, of whom little or nothing is known, except that she died soon after, leaving an only child, William, known in history as William Clito— Clito being the Norman equivalent for Atheling or Prince. Robert was in Normandy when William Rufus died in 1 100, and after the accession of Henry I. he again made an attempt to recover England, this time leading the expedition in person. It was during this expedition that he again gave an instance of good nature, for, as he was marching upon Winchester, having heard that his sister-in-law. Henry's wife, was in childbed in the city, he diverted his course, probably to the detriment of his ultimate chances of success. This expedition resulted in a peace between Robert and Henry, Robert renouncing his claims upon England, and accepting a pension, which, however, he was soon after in- duced or compelled to give up. But Henry was not the man to allow a possible competi- tion for his Throne to remain in permanent peace, and in 1 105 he made an excuse to invade Normandy, where, at the famous Battle of Tinchebrai, he took his brother prisoner. From that time till his death, a period of twenty-eight years, Robert was kept a close captive in England. It has been said by the Norman chroniclers that he was blinded, but this is denied by English writers, and to the credit ot human nature, I am happy to say that it is more probable, upon the evidence, that he was treated with as much consideration as his strict captivity allowed. I He died at Cardiff Castle in 1134, a year before Henry, at the age of eighty. At the date of the Battle of Tinchebrai, William Clito, Robert s only legitimate child, was a mere boy, and was under the charge of his brother-in-law, Helias, Count of St. Saen, who had married a natural daughter of his father. Helias proved a good friend, and urged the young William's cause in every quarter, and it was in fact taken up successively by every Prmce who happened to be at war with Henry and dropped with facility, as, and when, these Princes found 'it to their own advantage to make peace with the powerful English King. It would be tedious and difficult to follow Clito's adventures, but in ,127 he married Adelais, daughter of Keignier, Count of Montserrat, whose half-sister was married to Louis the Fat of France (Louis VL), and through that Kings influence Clito became Count of Flanders on the assassination of Charles the Good in the same year. Ever since the death of Baldwin V. in 1073, Flanders had been a prey to civil wars of succession, the details of which do not fall within the scope of this work, but I may say that Charles the Good vvas a son of St. Canute, King of Denmark, by Alice daughter of Robert the Fri.^ian, son of Baldwin V., and that Cl.to s claims to Flanders, such as they were, were traced through his grandmother, Matilda of Flanders. Clito how- ever did not long enjoy his new position, for he died, or as it IS alleged, was killed the same year (1,27), without issue, seven years before his father, who is said to have been made aware of his death in a dream. If he had lived, William Uito might probably have become King of England on the death of his uncle, Henr> I. William and Henry, the third and fourth sons of the Conqueror, successively reigned as Kings of England, the one from 1087 to 1 100, and the other from 1 100 to 1 135. Both were in my opinion bad men, though in a different degree, and I venture to say that, in a sense, both were good Kings. Both were undoubtedly men of exceptional energy and il J '^^ST&S^^^^^^^^^^^ 42 History of the Royal Family of England. King Henry I. 43 ability, both added greatly to the power and prosperity of the kingdom, and, on the principle that it is better for a nation to be ruled over by a strong, even if a bad, Prince, than by one who, however good, is not strong enough to maintain law and order, they probably contributed more to the happiness of their subjects than would have done their brother Robert, or than did their nephew and successor, Stephen. Neverthe- less both Robert and Stephen were personally far more amiable men. William II. was probably the worst man who ever sat on the English Throne, hardly excepting John or Henry VIII. Hideous and terrible in appearance, cruel, savage, and absolutely heartless in all his personal dealings, possessed with a positive hatred of religion and all holy things, and abnormally vicious in his private life, no one has been found to say a good word for him ; whereas John has had his advocates, and Henry VIII. has found an even enthusiastic admirer in that accurate and profound historian the late Professor Froude. William never married, and was accidentally killed in the New Forest whilst hunting, and I cannot forbear quoting the eloquent passage in which Professor Freeman in the " Norman Conquest " concludes his notice of his reign ; " The Red King was at the height of his power and his pride, he was Lord from Scotland to Maine, he had nothing to disturb the safe enjoyment of his own will, there was no enemy to dread, no troublesome monster to rebuke or warn, but nevertheless warnings as men deemed were not wanting. Strange sights and sounds showed themselves to men's eyes and ears, strange warnings came to the doomed King himself, and, if Anselm was gone, less renowned prophets of evil arose to play the part of Micah. All warnings were vain. As all the world has heard, the Red King died, by what hand no man knew, in the spot which his father's cruelty had made a wilderness, glutting his own cruelty to the last moment of his life by the savage sports which seek for pleasure in the infliction of wanton suffering. Cut off without shrift, without repentance, he found a tomb within the old Minster at Wmchester ; but the voice of Clergy and people, like the voice of one man, pronounced, by a common impulse, the sentence of excommunication which Rome feared to utter. As Waltheof and Simon and Thomas of Lancaster received the honours of a popular canonisation, so Rufus received the more unique brand of a popular excommunication. No bell was tolled, no prayer was said, no alms were given for the soul of the one baptized and anointed Ruler whose eternal damnation was taken for granted by all men as a thing about which there could be no doubt." Henry I. was a very different kind of man. He was for his age a man of extraordinary culture, and though he was an oppressor of the Church, at times atrociously cruel and vindictive, in his youth extremely licentious, and apparently at no time actuated by any other principle than that of securing his own aggrandisement and power, he was habitually gentle and gracious in manner, he maintained the decencies of religious observance, and after his marriage he was, as far as appears, regular in his life, and certainly a kind and affectionate husband and father. Henry I.'s first step, after his accession in iioo, was one that was very popular with his English subjects. He married Edith, eldest daughter of Malcolm III. of Scotland and St. Margaret, niece of Edgar the Atheling, and great grand-daughter of Edmund Ironside (See Table I.). It will be remembered that on the death of Malcolm and Margaret in the year 1093 their infant children, including their daughters Edith and Mary, fled to England, where the Princesses found refuge in the Abbey of Romsey, of which their mother's sister, Christina, was Abbess. Considerable opposition to the marriage between Henry and Edith was raised by the Abbess Christina, who, to put it mildly, seems to have been an extremely unpleasant person. Christina firmly asserted that Edith was a nun, and was not at liberty to marry, and it is perhaps not unfair to suggest that the good lady was actuated in this pretention as much byopposi- ^1 44 History of the Royal Family of England. King Henry /. 45 tion to the Norman Invaders as by religious scruples. She was met, however, with equal firmness, by her niece, who maintained that she was not a nun, and at length St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, was called in to adjudicate, and having assembled a Provincial Synod, and taken the evidence of the parties (which is given with much detail, and some unconscious humour by Eadmar, his secretary), he finally decided that Edith had taken no vows, and was therefore free to marry. The persistence of the young lady in declining to be a nun, gave rise to an impression that Edith and Henry had already met and formed an attachment, though how a girl brought up in a convent under the eyes of the Abbess Christina could possibly have met any man it is difficult to imagine. Henry and Edith (whose name on her marriage was, in deference to Norman prejudice, changed to Matilda) were married at Westminster in the year iicx), and Edith or Matilda, as she now was, was crowned at the same time. At the date of the marriage King Henry's age was thirty- two, but Matilda's age is quite uncertain. Judging, however, from her conduct, and from the fact that before her marriage with Henry, negotiations for her marriage with several other persons had been started, and had been rendered abortive by her aunt, it is probable that she was not under twenty. Though Matilda had so decidedly no vocation for a conventual life, she proved to be one of the best of the Queens of England. She was noted for her extreme piety and her large-minded and wide-spread charity. She obtained the marked respect and affection of her husband, and she was long known amongst his subjects as the " good Queen Maud." She died in 1 1 18, and is buried at the feet of St. Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey. Henry and Matilda had only two children ; William, born in iioi, and Matilda (known in history as the "Empress Matilda "), born in 1 102, though some writers place the date of her birth some years later. William was looked upon by the English with much interest, as the son of a King born and ancTent K ^i ' '"^ °' ^ '"-^^ ^^^^^"^^^ from their thole L^M ^"°""'' ^''^"'' "^ '° "''^ *^^^'='-' l'"' o" the whole he would appear to have been a youth of promise Count o?'a "'^^ "^t^'T^ '° * y°""& ^='"g'^t«^ of Fulk. toun of Anjou, who had been one of the most formidable enem,es-^of his father. The marriage took place at Z sTeux n '"^'hS^husb^nf '-'' - "° -""^ - --" - E"^'-^ The story is well known how the young Prince on his journey home, flushed, it is said, with wine,Tnsisted in "pi e ' Wh!r>Jh'"?' °' *": ''"°" '■" ^""''"g '°' England, how the Wh to Sh,p" went down with all on board, how the Prince h.s Illegitimate sisters and was drowned, and how all perished kLT'-^y.""' "'':° "'''^.'° *"" '^' "^"^ '° 'he unhappy father. The event created a profound impression in Europe and well it might, in England at any rate, for it was the followed the death of Henry I. It is said that Henry I. " never smiled again," but b° that wif^ rT' I '°'' "° *™^ '" ""^^^y"^ ^S^'"- His second wife (whom he married in ,120) was Adelais, daughter of Godfrey the Great, Duke of Brabant and Lower Lorraine bhe IS said to have been exceptionally beautiful and was of very illustrious descent, her father claimi„g to be the re presentative of the elder line of Charlemagne. At the date' of the marriage Henry was fifty, but the age of Adelais .s uncertain. She must, however, have been very young fo she was Henry-s wife for fifteen years, and by her sec'ond husband whom she did not marry till three years after Henry s death, she had four children. Adelais was crowned in 1 121, her husband taking the opportunity to be crowned Coronation" ''"'^ '""^ ''^'"'"'''' '* '" '^''^' ''" ^'' P'^^'°"^ Very little is practically known about Queen Adelais but she must have been a person of much tact, for notwithstan'dine her beauty, and the fact that she had no child by Henry f« ItnilMIMMIM* A . I 46 History of the Royal Family of England, (which was a great disappointment), she seems to have avoided scandal, and been much loved by her husband. What is still more remarkable is that Adelais lived in peace and amity with her singularly disagreeable step-daughter, the Empress Matilda, a feat which, at any rate at that period of the Empress' life, few persons if any had achieved. As part of her dowry Queen Adelais received the Castle of Arundel, which is still in existence, and is the principal seat of the present Duke of Norfolk. , In 1 138, three years after Henry's death, Adelais married William de Albini, a gentleman of ancient descent, and presumably of great attractions, seeing that another Queen Adelais, the widow of Louis VI. of France, not only proposed to marry him, but on his refusing, on the ground that he was engaged to the Dowager Queen of England, is said to have shut him up in a cave with a live lion, from which position, however, he happily escaped. Albini in right of his wife assumed, or was granted, the title of Earl of Arundel, a title which has since remained almost continuously, and quite exclusively, in three families, passing from one to the other by the marriage of the heiress of the former with the representative of the latter. These families were the De Albini's till 1243 (temp: Henry III.), the Fitz Alans from that date till 1580 (temp: Elizabeth), and since then the Howards, whose chief, the Duke of Norfolk, is now Earl of Arundel, and is descended in the female line from Queen Adelais and William de Albini. Adelais died in 1 1 50. CHAPTER IV. The Empress Matilda.-Stephen and his Wife MATILDAS Younger Sons. -Stephen's Son<; Mary Countess OF Boulogne. QN the death of Henry I. in 1135, not only did no man V / know who actually would succeed to the Throne but no man ventured to say with any assurance wLVf any one i the death trFd /In' '^P^^"^' '^^^^^' -' — P^ on tne death of Edward VI. never happened a^ain The C:Z::.LTT \l' ^^^^ "^-^^'-^"^ ^^ ''y -^^ aLred^S assuried that h^ ""'"'^' ^'^^^"^ '' ^^^ ^^"^--ly h msdf the L f r'' '" '""' ""^' ^^^ ^^^ ^''' known to himself, the lawful successor of St. Edward, and that there had been a complete continuity of laws between the Saxon and Norman periods, and this assumption was taken up and carried on by his two sons. ^ It must be remembered that by the Saxon Laws, or rather Customs the Monarchy was elective; the right of bein. ejected being limited to Princes who were descended in hf male line from the Royal House, and down to this period at all events during the Saxon dynasty, no woman, and no In claiming through a woman, had ever sat on an EngTish Throne, or as far as we know, had ever been suggested as a person capable of doing so. ^gestea as a No doubt Harold H., the successor of St. Edward, was no and^^f h/rh"' 1'" r^" '^' '^^" ^^^^^ -^ unfortunate and It had been the policy of the Normans to treat it as non' 47 ); 48 History of the Royal Family of England. existent, and if he had lived he must have been regarded as *^ret;f t^hoSh'Xrihere had been a Prince, as to .hortrp^blic ^ind had been ce-in that e wou d b alerted King he had been to some extent, treated as tne Sr! no Saxon Monarch had ever assumed to nommate h,s '"Tis'true that Edward the Confessor and William the Conqueror had on their death beds each expressed a wish fhe one that Harold, and the other, that Rufus should respectWely succeed them ; but the Conqueror had d.sre- Tarded Edward's wishes, as his sons Robert and Henry after fvards refused to be bound by his own ; and it was not untj he reign of William Rufus that any King took upon h.mself o appoint his successor. Rufus did this in the treaty w-th his brother Robert, in which it was agreed that .f he d.ed without issue Robert was to succeed h.m, but Henry L treated this provision as inoperative, and it was wholly ooDOsed to all the traditions of the country. This being the state of the law, there was no one who election. ■_ according to modern ideas, the David I. of Scotland was, according lineal heir of Edmund Ironside (see Table I.), his ri^M was ierived through his mother St. Margaret, and would not have been recognised by the Saxons. Moreover public opinion was by no means ripe for an union btren^England and Scotland, and that Englishman luTd have been a bold man who had proposed the Scotch K^nlas even a possible candidate for the English Throne. Ihe on'y lawful grand-children of the Conqueror were the Empre s MatildJ daughter of Henry I., who was not only a woman, but a most unpopular woman, and (assummg th Gundreda, Countess of Surrey, was not Williams ; u. > fV,^ rhildren of Adela Countess of Blois. '^^thS' waV ilTd f descendant of WiHiam who in a„ personal qualities was most fit to reign. This was Robert Robert Earl of Gloucester. 49 Earl of Gloucester, a natural son of Henry I He was a rbe," t^^ °'"'"^' '^' '^■■^ ™^-'^^^ -*h a gre" h^ s. Mabell Fitz.Haman,a man of immense wealth and nosses wa°s' deSed t ''' ''""'^ f ^'" ''^'^""'^^ °^ tharwh^°h he" was destined to prove, namely, that he was not only a great ™.tay commander, and a person of exceptional ^abilftTes ?or va^dnes's " A f" ' ^^' ^°"°" ' ^^ ^- toruardness. A century before he would probably have been elected King, notwithstanding the stain' on h birth but since the days of the Conqueror public moralitv had so far made progre,ss that it would have been impo'ss.ble o propose that a bastard should be made King of England and certainly no such proposition was in fact ever made or suggested by Robert himself, or on his behalf held° men.^n'"'^' "'" '*'' "°"'^ °'" «'°''-'^' '1^^ ^"dest had been held menta ly incompetent to succeed even to his father's comparatively petty dominion,s, and the second Theobald though he did at first make claim to the Duchy of Normand. appears to have withdrawn his claims in favour of his EiiglTnd ' ' °" ^'"P'^'"'' "''^"■°" *° *^ Throne of Practically, therefore, the contest was between Steohen third son of Adela, and his cousin the Empress, I"d of fhe"; previous lives it is necessary to say a k.y words. Matilda, the only daughter of Henry I., was born in uo2 and at the age of seven, in 1 109, she was married at Mavence to the Emperor Hen^^ V. of Germany, and she was then a"d A 1 K iT""'. n-^'^P''"''' ^"'"- '^^'d "P ■•" the arms of the Archbishop of Treves for the purpose. Her husband is a person who played a great nart in European politics, but of whose career it would be fmposs b le to treat in this work. At the date of the marriage he was a uI'^TTm"''^:!^"'^ '' ^^' necessarily not until some years later that Matilda assumed the duties of wife and Empress Accounts differ as to how the Imperial pair got on"^ but' judgmg^from the character of the Emperor and the subsequent 5° History of the Royal Family of England. conduct of the lady, I myself much doubt whether the.r relations were very amicable. They had no ch.ld and the Emperor died, or disappeared, in 1125. I say or dis- apXed," bec;use there was for a long time a strong and pefsisten; rumour that he was not dead, but had refred into, or been shut up in, a monastery. There is no doubt that Matilda, who was then twenty- three, and who as Empress Dowager had an immense dowry, and it is said many suitors, would willmgly have remained in Germany. Her only brother, however, was dead and her father, who had been five years married to l^-^econ^ wife, and had, and was likely to have, no more children was naturally anxious that his daughter should return to England. This she reluctantly did in 1126, and Henry thereupon took the unprecedented course of presenting her to his subjects as his successor, and requiring them to take an oath of allegiance to her in that capacity. The first to take the oath in respect of his English possessions was her materna uncle, King David of Scotland. Then there arose a contest for precedence between her half-brother, Robert, Earl of Gloucester, and her cousin, Stephen, which was decided in favour of the latter, and after them came all the greater Barons and Prelates of the kingdom. . .u • .u It is said, and there may be some shadow of truth in the story that there was at this time an attachment, at all events on the lady's side, between Matilda and Stephen. This rumour is confirmed by the indisputable fact that, in later years her second son, Geoffrey Plantagenet, claimed his fathers patrimonial dominions (the County of Anjou) on the ground that his father on his death-bed had declared Matilda s eldest son, afterwards Henry H., not to be his son, but the offspring of Stephen by Matilda. Princes of the twelfth century were not remarkable for delicacy of feeling, but, even in that age, a man would not have made such a charge against his own mother without some shadow of probability ; and many of the Angevin nobles confirmed the fact that Matildas husband did make such a declaration. The Empress Matilda. 51 A marriage between Stephen and Matilda would have been a most beneficial measure, but unfortunately Stephen had already a wife, whom he either could not, or would not, put aside. I say "would not'* because in those days the Canonical restraints on marriage, chiefly on the ground of consanguinity, were so numerous that there were few marriages, at all events among what I may call the " Royal Caste," in which a hole might not be picked, on the ground that some objection had been overlooked, and not properly removed by ecclesiastical dispensation. It would indeed almost appear that such obstacles were sometimes over- looked with, so to say, intention, and with a view to future contingencies. Inasmuch, however, as Stephen was not attainable, and the lady was getting on, Henry in 1127 arranged a marriage for his daughter, which was not only (why is not very clear) intensely unpopular with all classes of his subjects, but ex- tremely distasteful to the parties. The selected husband was Geoffrey Plantagenet, son and heir to Fulk, Count of Anjou, whose sister had been for a few days the wife of Matilda's unfortunate brother, William. Matilda was, by universal admission, a woman of very haughty disposition and ungovernable temper, and she never for a moment forgot that she was the daughter and acknow- ledged heiress of a great King and the widow of an Emperor, and that she was as much superior to her second husband in rank as unfortunately she was in age, while Geoffrey, who was a high-spirited, and not too steady, lad of sixteen, was, from the first, unwilling to submit to the claims of superiority which were put forward by his wife, a woman nine years older than himself, and whom he had never even professed to love. After the marriage Geoffrey and Matilda proceeded to Anjou, where they very speedily quarrelled, and in the following year Matilda came back to England alone, and in a pretty considerable temper. Henry took this opportunity of getting the oath of allegiance, which had been taken to his daughter before her marriage, renewed, and he spent most of 52 History of the Royal Family of England. Ki7ig Stephen. 53 his t-me during the last few years of his life in endeavouring to make and keep peace between her and her very ill-chosen husband He so far succeeded that they did, from time to time live together, and at the date of his death Matilda had two sons, the younger of whom was born only a few weeks before that event. This is the lady who was presented to the English as their first female Sovereign, and it is not to be wondered at that, notwithstanding all the oaths which had been taken, the prospect was not agreeable. Stephen, who was born in 1 103, and was thirty-two at the death of Henry I., was the third son of the Countess Adela of Blois, that King's sister. At a very early age he had been sent to England, where he had been brought up at his uncle s Court, and it is certain that he enjojed a large measure of the King's confidence and affection. All agree that he was a man of remarkable personal beauty, and of most gracious manners, and though events proved that he had no great force of character, he had for years set himself to win the regard of the English people, and in particular of the citizens of London, who, even then, had a great voice in public affairs. Stephen had been created by his uncle Count of Mortein, in Normandy, and some years before the King's death he had contracted a marriage, which was both brilliant and popular. His wife was Matilda, only child and heiress of Eustace, Count of Boulogne, a province, small indeed, but which, from its command of the English coast, had long been a source of continual dread to the inhabitants of the South Eastern Counties. The celebrated Godfrey and Tancred of Boulogne, whose deeds in the Holy Land had made all Europe ring with their fame were her father's brothers, and her mother was Mary of Scotland, second daughter of Malcolm III. and St. Margaret, and sister of the "good Queen Maud," first wife of Henry I., so that Stephen's wife, like her cousin on her mother's side, the Empress Matilda, was descended from Edmund Ironside. (See Table I.) heirfss but ', f """"'"^"^ ""^ "°* °"'>' - ?--' wol A ''"' "' ^^' ^^ "PP^^--^ ^" a-^iable and Jood woman, and certainly a woman of infinite pluck energy totrht^nd'" "^^°" '-'' "' ''^ ^^--' P°-'^"« value On the death of Henry I., Stephen hastened to England m niter hir%^'K°-" ^'"'^'^ ^'"^' ^"^ "^^^ ^' WeS minster his wife being crowned in the following year iu6 For a time it seemed as if he would have it all hlU' way for the Empress Matilda did not arrive in England till 1,40 and even her brother. Earl Robert of Gloucester, in the fim instance, made .submission to Stephen, with, however, so it r;?1' T;r"°" "'"^^ "^^'^ ^^^^^ £">?-- »•. and when they should be put forward. It is generally said that Stephen was an usurper. In the eWt d K-'''*'t °//'' "'"' ^"' ^^^'"S 'hat he was certai Jy elected King, I fail to see this, but it must be admitted that he was guilty of a somewhat mean and treacherous act in breaking two oaths which he had solemnly taken to his uncle and benefactor to protect the interests of his cousin buch oaths, however, were so often taken and so lightlv tfr:\ ""'^"^ ''^^^' ''''' Stephen's conduct slems hardly to have attracted notice or reprobation at the time To trace the incidents of the civil war which followed would be outside my intention. Matilda's husband did not come to England but he did her, and himself, great service, for he succeeded, apparently without much difficulty in getting himself recognised as Duke in her right of Normandy • and he held the Duchy in tolerable peace until within a few years of his death, when he and Matilda renounced their rights in the Duchy in favour of Matilda's eldest son Henry then a youth of nineteen. It must be admitted that this proceeding tends to negative the suggestion that Count Geoffrey doubted the legitimacy of Henry. In England the contest was carried on between Matilda >n person, supported by her half-brother, who, in spite of t History of the Royal Family of England. The Civil War. 55 1 ; 54 :::::;::::^ouragen,ents and f ontsjn.- the truculent Express was f^ ^^^ ^se^ Id S e^ht' aUd b'y his T*tt^as°sSng\i':: a aU times, during two periods when ;f ;rs In and oLe when he was in captivity took upon ^.L^r^the who. hurden of the war an^ ..^a^^^^^^^^^^^ ah,e ^° ToSg rwe^tS^r -dl was the -e.^a™^^^^ figure of Henry 5e Blois, Stephen's youngest brother Of Srcetb2ed%erson Ordericus V^ali^ says, ;nhe o„n^ son " (of Stephen Count of Blo.s .-"'^ .^^^f '^^^^^^^^^'^^ the devoted from infancy to the service of the Church ^t ibbey of Cluny. and under the --t. ~ - / ^'^ tr : li "hrwU be l" hf. .r Kin"do^m of Heaven rnfpresenra memorable example of contempt for the world '° Th'e' note Tdistrust which I find in this passage was • .7fied Henry de Blois did not lon^ remain a monk, or, 'Tleventf secluded from the world. The date of h.s at all events, seciu younger than Stephen, who birth .s uncer am ^u* ^^ j;^,""^;,,,,^;^^ Him to have was born m 03^ I" i^ ( , ^^enty-five), Henry been born m "°4. he would ^ ^^^ ^^^^^^ „,„y was consecrated bisliop oi w m^ years of Stephen's reign his brother exercsed the h..h functions of Papal Legate to England. -Tcannot b^e -.ed -t ^^^^^ TZ^ ^ ^ SUiof eVn^:^t hV -l and position; but though •^rfhis dltance of time it is difficult to judge how far he wasi sti ed i,: the course he took, 1 cannot say that as a Prelate he appears to have been altogether a credit to the Set At^U events, it cerJinlKsee^^^^ ItcfttaTmtf urVht :trictly Ecclesiastical powerf 'agist his opponents for the time bemg than was justifiable. It is not known if he actually took the oath of allegiance to his cousin Matilda, the oath having originally been administered in 1 126, and repeated in 11 28, whereas Henry did not become Bishop till 1129 ; but it is at all events not improbable that he did, and he certainly in the first instance espoused the cau.^e of the Empress as against his own brother. Then having quarrelled with Matilda, he became one of her most active and formidable opponents, taking a personal part in the siege of Winchester and other military operations against her. When Matilda landed in England in 1 140, she does not seem to have been received with enthusiasm, and her first step was to take refuge in Arundel Castle, the residence of her step-mother, Queen Adelais. Here she was besieged by Stephen, who, however, with much courtesy, and as, I think, with some folly, at the request of Adelais eventually allowed Matilda to depart unmolested. After this Adelais and her second husband remained neutral in the contest, which thenceforward raged merrily. At one time Matilda seemed to have the ball at her feet. Stephen was a prisoner in her hands (and it is characteristic that she treated him, if not with actual cruelty, with much personal indignity), and she herself was mistress of London, the stronghold of the enemy, and was on the eve of being crowned Queen, a point to which the English at that time attached much importance. She seized this opportunity, however, for one of those bursts of rage and ill-temper, which embittered her enemies and discouraged her friends. The citizens rose, and Stephen's wife, Queen Matilda, arriving opportunely at the gates, the Empress had much difficulty in effecting her escape. Shortly afterwards the Empress' brother, the Earl of Gloucester, fell a prisoner to the Queen (who, be it observed, notwithstanding the indignities with which her own husband had been treated, refused to make reprisals), and the ladies unable to get on, the one without her husband, the other without her brother, agreed to change prisoners. Other incidents (though they are well authenticated) I sfBB 56 History of the Royal Family of Englarid. sound like the inventions of a romancer. Matilda, the Empress, escaping from Winchester where she was besieged, and pursued through an unfriendly country, assumed the habiliments of a corpse, and was carried for miles on a bier, as if to burial; and again, the same lady, besieged at Oxford, in the depths of winter, was let down from the walls of the Castle in a snowstorm, and dressed in white, passed as a snow drift through the besieger's camp. One can only suppose that the absolute impossibility of erecting Matilda into a heroine has hitherto prevented any historical romancer from utilising such golden material ! At length in 11 53 all parties were fairly worn out, and perhaps it was felt that the country could bear no more of a war, during which every petty Baron, in the absence of all control, had become a tyrant. Stephen had lost his wife, who died in 1151, and his eldest son, who died in 1 153, and he was himself the victim of disease, and Matilda had lost her husband, who died in 1 151, and, a far greater loss, her brother, the Earl of Gloucester, who died in 1147, and she herself, worn out with fatigue, and approaching old age, had in 1 1 50 renounced all her rights in favour of her son Henry, and retired to Nor- mandy. Consequently, when the opposing forces under Stephen and the young Henry met at Wallingford in 1 153, it was arranged on the mediation of the Bishop of Winchester, to his credit be it said (i), that Stephen should reign for life ; (2) that he should be succeeded by Henry, but (3) that Stephen's surviving son, William (then a mere youth), should be secured in the possessions to which, if his father had never been King, he would have been entitled in right of his father Stephen, and of his mother Queen Matilda. Stephen did not long survive the treaty of Wallingford, for he died in the following year (1154) aged fifty-one, when the treaty was carried out, and Matilda's son, Henry, already Duke of Normandy, succeeded to the English throne without opposition, possibly because there was practically no one left to oppose him. Henry de Blots, Bishop of Wir Chester. 57 Stephen's brother, the Bishop of Winchester, survived till 1 171, and he took a considerable part in the great struggle between Henry H. and the Archbishop St. Thomas A'Beckett of Canterbury, which convulsed England during the succeed- ing reign. On the whole he seems to have supported the Archbishop, though it was he who, at the Council held at Northampton in 1 164, was deputed to pronounce the sentence of fine against Thomas, which Henry had frightened the Bishops and Barons into adjudging, and he was one of the most urgent of those who counselled the Primate to resign his See. When Bishop Henry lay dying at Winchester in 1171, his relative King Henry H. went to see him, and then, at any rate, the dying prelate spoke out with such bitter re- proaches, and prophetic warnings of coming evil, that Henry is said to have been reduced to one of those fits of almost insane remorse and terror with which he occasionally varied his ordinary course of rampant wickedness. Matilda, as we have seen, had long since retired to Normandy, where she survived until the year 1167, having attained the age of sixty-five. She appears to have been treated by her son Henry with courtesy and consideration, and to have taken a large share in the administration of the Duchy of Normandy. According to a writer of the time (cited by Mrs. J. R. Green in her life of Henry H.), Matilda counselled her son " That he should delay all the business of all men, that whatsoever fell into his hands he should retain a long while, and enjoy the fruit of it, and keep suspended in hope all who aspired to it," adding this illustration, " Glut a hawk with his quarry, and he will hunt no more. Show it him, and then draw it back, and you will ever keep him tractable and obedient." Whether it is true that she actually gave such advice I do not know, but there certainly seems to have been a marked similarity in the characters of mother and son. In the differences which arose between King Henry and Thomas A'Beckett, Matilda was appealed to on both sides. II' 5 8 History of the Royal Family of England. and skilfully avoided committing herself to either Shortly before her death she took the veil at Fontevraud in Nor- mandy, but this appears to have been -^ef y ^form^fo^ f^ did not live in the convent or die there. She is buried in the Abbey of Bee. , , , The Empress Matilda had three children by her second husband. Henry, Geoffrey, and William. Their father on his death-bed exacted from Henry an oath that, on his accession to the English Throne he would make over his continental dominions derived from his father to his brother Geoffrey, an oath which, it is needless to say, Henry did not keep. On the contrary, he deprived his brother even of those dominions which had been directly given to him by his father in his father's life. Neither Geoffrey nor William, the younger sons of Matilda, married. They both died comparatively young, and so far as appears took no part in English affairs. In Burke's Peerage it is stated that Matilda had a daughter named Emma. This is a mistake. The Emma mentioned was one of the bastard children of Matildas husband, of whom he had almost as many as his father-in- law, King Henry I., himself, and she was given in marriage by her half-brother, Henry H.. to one of the Welsh Princes Before entering on the rei-n of Henry II. it is necessary to say a few words as to the children of King Stephen and Matilda of Boulogne. They had five, Baldwin and Matilda, who were born and died as infants, before Stephen's accession to the Throne, and three, Eustace. William and Mary, who were born after that event in 1 1 3 5- Of these Eustace appears to have been a youth of violent temper and some ability. He died or, as some say, was murdered, early in the year 1 153 and no doubt his death greatly conduced to the peace of Wallingford. His wife, to whom he was married when he was of the mature age of four, was Constance, a sister of Louis VH. of France, the match having been brought about with infinite pains by Eustace's mother, but as Eustace was King Stephens Children, 59 barely eighteen, and his wife younger, when he died, and as they had no child, these pains were thrown away. Stephen's second son, who cannot have been more than eighteen at his father's death, would seem to have acquiesced in the new state of things with tolerable equanimity. By the treaty of Wallingford, he became on his father's death Count of Boulogne, in right of his mother, a title which, when he died, passed to his sister Mary, thereby bringing on an innocent head a series of misfortunes scarcely paralleled in the annals of female royalty. William married, as has been already said, Isabel, the great heiress of the De Warrennes, Earls of Surrey, but had no child. He died in 1160, six years after his father, and it is fair to the memory of Henry II. to say that he seems to have treated his cousin William with some good nature. There is a practice which obtains in some Eastern countries of putting to death the younger brothers and sisters of the Sovereign on the latter's accession to the Throne, and it has often occurred to the present writer that this practice, though no doubt, immoral, would have had its advantages, if it had obtained in Europe in the Middle Ages, or even later. It would certainly have been a great advantage to genealogists. Mediaeval Sovereigns, however, did not think so, and indeed they seem to have attached an extraordinary import- ance to marrying their daughters, and to have retained in spite of many shocks an almost child-like faith in the advan- tages to be derived from doing so. This view on the part of their fathers and brothers gave to marriageable Princesses an extreme, and I should suppose, at times, a ver>- unpleasant, importance in the eyes of the world. It is of course to be presumed that political marriages did sometimes tend to promote peace, but as a rule their only apparent effects were to impoverish the native lands of the brides, which had to provide them with dowries, to embitter family disputes, and to give rise to all sorts of claims, real or ima^rinary, on the part of the husbands, sons, and grandsons m\ pjiM i n 60 History of the Royal Family of England. Mary Countess of Boulogne. 61 of the ladies, a-ainst the dominions of the male relatives, who had been so anxious to give them in marriage. Considering, however, the eagerness of the early Kmgs to marry their daughters, it is somewhat remarkable that Stephen, having only one daughter, and being certamly as much in need of extraneous assistance as any bovereign who ever lived, should not have married her to some one of importance at the earliest possible moment. Nevertheless, it appears to have been agreed to on all hands, almost as soon as the young lady was born, that she should become a nun. -r u u J u This might have been accounted for if she had been physically or mentally incapable of marriage, or had had time to evince any very strong predisposition to a con- ventual life ; but subsequent circumstances showed that she was by no means a fool, and that she could, and did, have children ; and though, no doubt, she may have been, and pro- bably was, a respectable woman, she does not appear to have been remarkably religious. Mary was entered at a very early age (the date is uncertain) in a Convent in Stratford, whe.ice she was transferred to a Convent at LiUechurch in Kent and finally to the famous Convent at Romsey, in which so many English ladies of rank had taken the veil. The reason of the transfer to LiUechurch was that certain French nuns, who, so to speak, formed her suite, objected strongly to the discipline at Stratford, which they found too strict. Mary was Prioress both at LiUechurch and Romsey, and though, of course, her election to that office at LiUechurch, when she was almost a child, may be regarded as a compli- ment to her rank, this cannot be said of her election at Romsey. This election was not made till some years after her father's death, and it took place when her brother William was still living, and likely to have children, and when the chances of Mary's attaining to any political importance, or becoming in any sense a great heiress, were remote. It may therefore be assumed that Mary's election at Romsey was due in some degree to her own merits, or at all events that she was not conspicuously unfit to fill the position of Abbess. In 1 160, when her brother died, Mary, who was at least twenty-three years old, had been a nun for many years, and being, as a nun, " civilly dead," she could not lawfully succeed to her brother's dominions, which ought by law to have passed to one of the French Princes. Henry II., however, was not the man to let such a place as Boulogne slip through his hands, and he conceived the project of carrying off the lady and marrying her to a friend of his own, Matthew, who was a son of Thierry, the then reigning Count of Flanders. This project was carried out. In the dead of night Mary was carried off from her convent and forcibly married, by whom it is not known, to Matthew of Flanders, and then immediately taken to Boulogne to take possession of her mother's dominions. There is no sort of ground for supposing that Mary was a willing party to her marriage, or that she was in any way consulted in the matter. So great an outrage on the religious and even civil feelings of the time could not pass unnoticed, for, be it observed, convents in those days were the refuge of all women who for any reason desired to retire from active life, and any violation of their sanctity was justly regarded by all men, apart from religious feeling, as a violation of the homes provided for those women of their families who could not, or did not, wish to marry. Accordingly, the Pope Alexander III. immediately ex- communicated the enterprising husband, and laid the County of Boulogne under an interdict (which was repeatedly renewed), and the feeling of all Christendom (including that of Matthew's own father) was so roused, that for several years the County of Boulogne was in a constant state of actual or threatened invasion, and its state must have been truly deplorable. Few persons now realise the horrors of an interdict when it was enforced. The churches were closed, the public administration of the Sacraments was forbidden, the dead were m 62 History of the Royal Family of England. ii / When to the e miseries were added those of constant fore.gn Lain, or threatened invasions, and oi internal d.ssens^ns, t can hardly be doubted that the name f^ary the cause however innocent, of these afflictions must have been loaded hv the Boulo-nese, as indeed it would appear to have been. ^ At length aft;r nine years, matters became unbearable and wee compromised. In 1.69 Mary was allowed to go b 1" a ConvLt, not indeed as Abbess and to a Convent ,n her native land, but as a simple nun to a Conven* ^n Montreuil, where she lived for fourteen years, and where she '"The ma'rriage between Matthew and Mary was dissolved butTheir two daughters (they had no son), Ida .-d Mat.lda were somewhat inconsistently declared legitimate and Matthew"f Flanders, who was the chief culprit, was allowed to retain possession of Boulogne. He afterwards married again Tut his subsequent career does not appear to have been either prosperous or distinguished. Mary's daughters were both married, and were more or lesf notable fibres in European History, but theu_ career did not affect England, or the history of the Engl^h Roya^ Family, and therefore it is unnecessary to pursue them further. CHAPTER V. Henry II.— Eleanor of Aquitaine.— Henry's Daughters. WITH the reign of Heny II. we enter upon a new era of English History. As much a foreigner to England as the Conqueror, and far more of a foreigner than the Conqueror's sons or Stephen, it has been calculated that in a reign of thirty-five years, Henry was not in England for any period exceeding two years at a stretch, and there can be little doubt that his vast continental dominions occupied his attention far more than the Island which, though it gave to the Norman Dukes the title of King, was in the eleventh and twelfth centuries regarded rather as a fruitful and useful colony for the Normans than as in itself any great centre of power. Nevertheless, it is certain that in Henry's reign took place the practical amalgamation of the two hostile races, Normans and Saxons, and that in his reign were laid the seeds of that great system of government and jurisprudence which have since developed into the " British Constitution," of which all Englishmen, however much they may decry it in detail, are as a whole justly proud. Many volumes have been written about Henry II. — of his reign and of his character, and of his influence on great questions of universal interest. He was, in my opinion, a man of extreme wickedness, but he was also certainly a man of extreme ability— possessing in an eminent degree all those qualities which enable a man to dominate and rule his fellow- creatures, and gifted with a physical energy and strength which were truly extraordinary. His most enthusiastic 63 64 History of the Royal Family of Engla7id. King Henry II.' s Marriage. 65 It I admirers admit that he was liable to fits of almost demon.acal raee and fury, which, from time to time, overpowered h,s iud-ment, and that he was at all times tyrannical, covetous, icentious and cruel, no one has denied or "n deny _ He himself laid claim to, and he is usually credited with, the virtue of paternal love, but it is certain that his sons hated him, and I must confess that the misery they caused him seems to me to have been rather produced by baffled ambition than by true affection on his part. A S^^at man, Heracleus, Patriarch of Jerusalem, is reported, speaking to h.n. of his sons, to have once said, " From the devil they came and to the devil they will go." and they certainly were what would be called now a "bad lot"; but if any human being can be held responsible for the crimes of another, then, I think, Henry was responsible for the crimes of his sons As I do not wish to rely on my own personal views as to this King's character. I will only say that if any preacher wishes to point a moral on the end of human .greatness, built on wickedness, he might well select for a subject he closing scenes of Henry's life, and choose for h.s text he ktelt biography of Henry, written for the series of Twelve Eminent Tstatesmen," by Mrs. J. R. Green, a writer who cannot be accused of undervaluing any good qualities Henry possessed, and who, indeed, appears to be his ardent ^''ToTn in 1 1 32, Henry was not twenty-two when he was called upon to rule over a greater European territory than any of his predecessors or any of his successors on the Enelish Throne. . , Edward III. and Henry V. perhaps were in name rulers over even a greater dominion, but their rule was to a great extent nominal, and it was certainly evanescent ; whereas Henry during his reign was in fact not only King of England, wUh more or'less sovereignty over Ireland and U'ales but also actual and effective Prince over at least half of France From his father and his mother he inherited Anjou and Normandy, and in right of his wife he became Duke of Aquitaine or Guienne which included the greater part of Southern France. It has been said that, but for two obstacles, Henry might have become de facto^ that which so many of his successors claimed to be de jure^ King of France. These obstacles were his persistent and bitter contests with the Church, and the unnatural strife which arose between him and his sons. Of the former subject it would be unsuitable to treat in this work, but to the latter some reference must be made later, and I will only say now, that of the four sons who reached maturity, two, Henry and Geoffrey, died in open enmity with their father, and the other two, Richard and John, were in open rebellion against him when he died. His last interview with his son Richard, who succeeded him, is thus recorded by Mrs. J. R. Green, the author above mentioned. " Then for the last time he spoke with his faithless son Richard. As the formal kiss of peace was given, the Count caught his father's fierce whisper, ' May God not let me die until I have worthily avenged myself on thee.' The terrible words were to Richard only a merry tale with which, on his return, he stirred the French Court to great laughter." Henry s last conscious act of intelligence before he died was to grasp the fact that John, his youngest son, had joined his enemies. In the year 1152 Henry married Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, he at the date of the marriage being in his twenty- first year, and Eleanor it is supposed twelve years older. Eleanor was the grand-daughter and heiress of William IV., Duke of Aquitaine, a Prince whose territories abutted on the south of Henry's patrimonial County of Anjou, and covered a large portion of France. In 1 1 37, fifteen years before her marriage with Henry, Eleanor had been married with extraordinary pomp and solemnity at Bordeaux to Louis, eldest son of Louis VI., and himself shortly afterwards Louis VII. of France. Within a few days after this marriage Louis and Eleanor became King and Queen of France and Duke and Duchess E ft! > 66 ffislory of the Royal Family of England. of Aquitaine, by the death of King Louis VI. and the abdica- tion of Duke William IV., who took the opportunity of his grand-daughter's marriage to retire into a monastery. ^ The marriage had been brought about by the diplomacy of Sug^r, the celebrated minister of Louis VI. and Louis VII and was justly regarded as a great triumph for France, as if Louis and Eleanor had had a son, that son would have inherited dominions extending over two-thirds of what is now France, and obtained a great preponderance of po^^'er in Europe. They had, however, no son who survived ^f^ncy and the marriage was signally unhappy. Louis was no doubt a -ood and religious man, but of somewhat narrow under- standing, and of austere and, if I may venture to say so, some- what priggish manners. Eleanor was a lively young woman with a strong love of pleasure, no principle, and little respec for her husband, with whom she stood on terms of unusual equality, in that she was an independent Sovereign with at least as much power as he. As the result, the quarrels between the French King and Queen, and the levity, not to say licence, of the Queen became notorious throughout Europe. Among the numerous lovers, real or supposed, with whom Eleanor is credited were, I regret to say, Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, the father of her second husband, and Raymond of Poitou, Count of Toulouse who was her own paternal uncle. To these there may be added a Saracen Emir named Saladin, whose acquaintance she made during the second Crusade in the Holy Land. To this Crusade she went in the character of a crusader, and the dress of an amazon, and I may add that her going to the Crusade and her proceedings during it were a source of infinite annoyance to her husband. King Louis, and of great discredit if not actual disaster to the Christian forces. At the end of 1 151, Henry II., then Duke of Normandy, went to Paris to do homage for his duchy to the French KincT and became, there can be no doubt, the Queen's lover. Matters were brought to a crisis by the discovery that Eleanor who had two daughters by Louis, was pregnant Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, 67 with a child, of which Henry and not Louis was the father. In this emergency, Eleanor boldly appealed to a council of Bishops assembled at Beaugenci, and claimed the dissolution of her marriage with Louis, on the ground that she was his fourth cousin. This was granted with extraordinary rapidity on the i8th of March 1152 ; six weeks later, on the 1st of May, Eleanor was married to Henry, and on the 17th August she gave birth to a son named William. Happily this son died as a young child, seeing that he stood in the unique position of having been begotten when his mother was the wife of the King of France, and born when she was the wife of the Duke of Normandy, who afterwards became King of England. Louis seems to have been a willing party to the dissolution of the marriage, probably regarding the loss of his wife as a fair compensation for the loss of her dominions. It may be here mentioned that he had two subsequent wives, by one of whom he had two daughters, Margaret and Alice, of whom we shall hear again, and by the other a son, afterwards Philip II., or Philip Augustus, King of France. The Catholic Church has at no time recognised the possibility of divorcing two persons once lawfully married, but it must be admitted that in the Middle Ages, when a marriage between two persons of sufficient rank was found to be inconvenient, it was remarkably easy to obtain a declaration that the parties had 7tever been lawfully married ; and thus, practically, to obtain all the advantages of a divorce. In those days, two persons who were related in blood, either law- fully or unlawfully, in the romote degree of fourth cousins, that is to say, two persons who had had a great great-grand- father ^ or grandmother in common, were according tD Ecclesiastical Law within the prohibited degrees of kindred, and forbidden to marry without Ecclesiastical dispensation! As a matter of fact neariy all those who may be called of the "Royal Caste" were related one to another within the pro- hibited degree, and it seems to have been no one's business to fi 68 Hisioiy of the Royal Family of England. see that when two persons, however illustrious, were tnarr.ed proper inquiries as to their relationship were made, or proper dispensations granted. Consequently, when two marned persons of rank disagreed, all they had to do was to d.scove or invent some common ancestor in the course of the last century or two in order to separate and marry again. In the particular instance of the marriage of Louis VII. and Eleanor, I assume that Louis and Eleanor '.vere, in fact, fourth cousms, though I am not a sufficiently good genealogist to say precisely how. The difficulty, however, is to see how it came about that, if so, no dispensation was granted, or if granted, how the n^arriag; came to be dissolved. It is idle to suppose that in an age when the greatest store was set upon noble birth and descent, the fact that two persons of such rank and position as the King of France -^^he D"f -\°;^r Wn were related, if they '^ere related, should not have been known to many persons, including the Bishops -"^ Canonists who took part in a marriage solemnized with unu ua publicity and splendour ; and it is almost inconceivable that if there was anv known impediment to a marnage. on wh.ch so momentous an issue as the union between two great States was expected to turn, such impedimeiU, if it existed, should not have been removed. With these remarks, which, though in perhaps a less pointed degree, apply to the dissolution of other marnages to which I shall have to refer, I leave this question, which is a somewhat delicate matter, for a layman to treat of, but which has certainly been a cause of great scaiidal and per- plexity to a great many readers of history, both Catholics and Protestants. . . it r u„„r.r As might have been expected, the married life of Henry and Eleanor was in no way happy, but it is fair to Ekanor to say that we hear no more of lovers, probably because Henry was a far more formidable kind of man than Louis, and Eleanor was clever enough to realize the difference. The earlier years of her married life were chiefly occupied in bearing children, and after the birth of her youngest child, Queen Eleanor of Aquilaine. 69 John, in 1166, she went for some time to reside at Bordeaux, the capital of her own Duchy of Aquitaine, where, however, she was allowed no particular authority, and seems to have been closely watched. She remained at Bordeaux till 1173, when the rebellion of her elder sons having broken out (a rebellion she seems to have encouraged in every way), she attempted to escape — it is said in the clothes of a man — to join them in Paris, at the Court of her former husband, Louis VII. She was, however, taken prisoner, and shortly afterwards, Henry arriving in Bordeaux, carried her and his daughter-in-law Margaret, the wife of his eldest son, Henry, back to England, as prisoners, in his train. Thenceforward until Henry H.'s death in 1 189, a period of sixteen years, Eleanor's life was, with but short intervals, passed more or less in captivity. This circumstance added much to the difficulties which beset Henry in his later years, in that it was equally resented by Eleanor's sons and her own subjects in Aquitaine. Henry was fifty-seven when he died in 1 189, and therefore Eleanor must have been then about sixty-nine, but she survived him for thirteen years, and played a conspicuous part in the reigns of her sons Richard and John, and we shall hear of her again in speaking of those Princes. There is no story more thoroughly accepted by the English people, or which is the subject of more poems and ballads, than the tale of " Fair Rosamond Clifford and the wicked Queen Eleanor " ; according to which Queen Eleanor tracked Rosamond to her bower at Woodstock, and there forced her to take poison. As a matter of fact, Rosamond Clifford ivas the mistress of King Henry, and bore him two sons, but it has been, I think, clearly proved that the connection between Henry and Rosamond ceased very shortly after, if not before, Henry's marriage ; Rosamond then entered a convent at Godstow, where she remained till she died a natural death about the year 1 173, having, it is said, lived for many years a life of great penitence and virtue. I ft 70 History of the Royal Family of England. Henry's sons by Rosamond Clifford were the famous William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, who played a pro- minent part in the reigns of Kings John and Henry HI., and who figures in Shakespeare's play of " King John " ; and Geoffrey, who, having entered the Church, was at a very early age made Bishop of Lincoln and afterwards Archbishop of York. William Longsword left a son who succeeded him, but was deprived of his rank and estates by Henry HI., and died in 1226, leaving a son who died without male issue in 1256. This son left a daughter Margaret (great-grand- daucrhter of the original " Longsword "), who is sometimes referred to as Countess of Salisbury, and who married the famous Henry de Laci, Earl of Lincoln, whose only daughter and heiress, Alice de Laci. married Thomas Planta^^-enet, Earl of Lancaster, nephew of Edward I., to whom I must refer later. Geoffrey, the younger son of Rosamond Clifford by Henry, was with his' father when the King died, and from him Henry 1 1 appears to have derived such comfort as was allowed to him from family affection. After Henry's death Geoffrey spent the rest of his life in constant and bitter disputes with his half-brothers Richard L and John, and ultimately died m exile. There is a darker story than that of Rosamond Clifford connected with the private life of Henry H., the facts of which are tolerably well authenticated, though, I observe, that the panegyrists of Henry are very shy in alluding to them, and generally ignore them altogether. In 1 160 a marriage, which on account of the connection between the parties is certainly somewhat repugnant to modern ideas, was arranged between Henry, the eldest surviving son of Henry and Eleanor (then a boy of five years old), and Margaret, the eldest daughter of Louis VII., Eleanor's former husband, by his second wife ; and two years later Richard, the young Henry's next brother, was betrothed to Alice, Margaret's younger sister. Unhappily for her, Alice, then little more than an infant, was sent to England to be there educated, and there is strong reason to suppose Alice of France. 7' that King Henry, in defiance of all laws of hospitality and decency, afterwards seduced this young girl, entrusted to his hands as the affianced wife of his own son. It is even said that Alice of F'rance bore him a child, and that Henry at one time contemplated repudiating his wife in order to marry Alice. It is certain that Alice of France remained in England (the place and circumstances of her residence being more or less a mystery) from 1162 till 11 89 — a peroid of twenty-seven years — that in spite of the constant remonstrances of Prince Richard and the lady's father and brother, Louis VII. and Philip Augustus of France, Henry never could, or would allow the marriage between Richard and Alice to take place, and that finally, after his father's death, Richard, then King, positively refused to marry- Alice on the ground that she had been his father's mistress. It was not till long after Henry's death, till indeed nearly the end of Richard's reign, that Alice was allowed to return to France ; and she seems to have passed the intermediate years as a captive of Queen Eleanor, a position which, under the circumstances and considering the Queen's character, can- not have been agreeable. What ultimately became of her I do not know. In estimating the merits of the quarrels between Henry and his sons we cannot leave this story out of consideration. Alice was the sister of the younger Henry's wife, and the affianced bride of Richard, and though it may well be that Richard, under the circumstances, did not exactly desire to complete his marriage with Alice, he was in fact kept through- out his youth and early manhood in a kind of half-married condition which cannot have been pleasant, and which greatly exasperated his not too amiable temper. Henry II. and Eleanor had eight children: (i) the son William, whose birth and early death have been mentioned ; (2) Henry, born in 11 55 ; (3) Matilda, afterwards Duchess of Saxony, born in 1156 ; (4) Richard, afterwards Richard I. of England, born in 1 1 57 ; (5) Geoffrey, born in 1 1 59 ; (6) Eleanor, afterwards Queen of Castile, born in 1162 ; (7) Joanna, some- 72 History of the Royal Family of England. Kiftg Henry II.' s Daughters. 73 i» • time Queen of Sicily, and then Countess of Toulouse, born in 1 165 ; and (8) John, afterwards King, born in 1166. I propose, for the sake of convenience, to speak first of the three daughters of Henry II., and then to revert to his sons, through John, thj youngest of whom the Royal line is continued. In dealing with Henry II. 's daughters, and the other Plantagenet Princesses, I must again express my acknow- ledgment to Mrs. Everett Green's "Lives of the Princesses of England, " a work in six volumes, in which much valuable and curious information is contained. Such information, however, is combined with many suggestions, as to tlie probable or possible beauty, virtue and excellent sentiments of the ladies, which seem to me to emanate rather from the amiable conjec- tures of the writer than to be based on ascertained facts, and wliich are couched in language rather too flowery to be accept- able to the ordinary male reader. Matilda, Henry's eldest daughter, was engaged in 1165 and actually married in 1168 to Henry "the Lion," Duke of Bavaria, Saxony, Brunswick and Luneburgh, of whom Dr. Lingard says " that he was at one time the most powerful, afterwards the most unfortunate, Prince in Europe." Henry was the head of the great house of Guelph of which the present Duke of Cumberland is the existing repre- sentative, he having descended in the direct male line from Henry the Lion and Matilda. The Duke of Saxony, unfor- tunately for himself, came into collision with the Emperor Frederic I. (Barbarossa), and was in 1182 driven into exile, and took refuge with his wife and family in England at the Court of his father-in-law Henry II. In 1185 he returned to his dominions, but was again exiled for a short time, and during this second exile his wife died. He himself died in 1 195, having for several years before his death become, it is said, a most exemplary character. At the date of her marriage with Henry, Matilda was twelve years old and Henry thirty-six. He had been pre- viously married to Clementina of Thuringia, with whom he lived seventeen years, and by whom he had a daughter Gertrude, but at the end of the seventeen years his wife having brought him no son, it was discovered that Henry and his wife were within the prohibited degrees of kindred, and the marriage was dissolved. This daughter was however declared to be legitimate. Of Matilda, his second wife, little is practically known, but there is every reason to suppose that she was a very respectable woman. She died in the year 11 89, eight days before her father, being thirty-three years old. Henry the Lion and Matilda had six children, four sons and two daughters. Their second .son was afterwards the Emperor Otho IV., and their youngest son William, who was born in England, had a son Otho, who became on the partition of his grandfather's dominions Duke of Brunswick. This Otho is the direct ancestor of Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover, who was the father oi George I., King of England, from whom his present Majesty is descended through his grandmother the late Queen Victoria, but who, as I have said, is represented in the male line by the Duke of Cumberland. I wish I could dwell at greater length than it is possible to do on the history of Eleanor, second daughter of Henry II., and her husband the King of Castile, to which it is refreshing to turn in dealing with the family of the first Plantagenet King. Alphonso was, I think, the ninth King of Castile of that name, but I may remark that the numeration of the Spanish Kings is extremely difficult to follow. Spain was originally divided into a number of small kingdoms which, as time went on, amalgamated. The choice of names for the Spanish Kings was apparently very limited, and it not infrequently happens that the same Alphonso being King of two origin- ally distinct kingdoms, is referred to by one number when one kingdom is under notice, and by another number in reference to the other. Therefore, whenever I hazard a number in regard to any early King Alphonso, I always pause to be corrected by anyone who knows anything about Spanish history. 74 History of the Royal Family of England, King Henry IIJs Daughters. 75 % m This particular Alphonso, however, became King almost at his birth, and appears to have been a really good man, a great King, and a distinguished soldier. He was even merciful to the Jews, which in a mediaeval Spanish Monarch was a sign of liberality quite beyond his age, and his wife seems to have been quite worthy of him, and the history of their reign and of Alphonso's campaigns against the Moors is both exciting and interesting reading. Alphonso and Eleanor were married in the year 1168 when Alphonso was fifteen and she was eight, and after a long life spent together in the greatest domestic happiness, they died in the year 1 2 14, within twenty-five days of each other. The Queen was struck down on hearing of her husband's death with an illness from which she never recovered. Alphonso and Eleanor had eleven children, of whom only seven, two sons and five daughters, survived infancy. The elder of the two sons, Ferdinand, who seems to have been a most promising youth, died in 1209, immediately after his return from his first campaign against the Moors, in which he had distinguished himself greatly. The second son succeeded his father as Henry I., King of Castile, but having reigned for only three years he was accidentally killed, or, as some writers suggest, murdered while still a youth. This was perhaps a good thing for Spain, as it resulted in the union of the Spanish kingdoms of Leon and Castile, for by Henry s death his eldest sister, Berengaria, who had married the King of Leon, became by right Queen of Castile, and she, having resigned her rights to her eldest son, he became in time King of both provinces, and is known as Saint Ferdinand HL of Castile and Leon. Of Eleanor's four other daughters, one became a nun, and two were respectively Queens of Aragon and Portugal. The fourth was the celebrated Blanche of Castile, who, as is well known, was married at the instance of her maternal uncle, King John of England, to Louis VHI. of France, by whom she was the mother of St. Louis IX. She was a most prudent and wise guardian to her son during his minority, and to his kingdom during his absences at the Crusades, and she was also, no doubt, a truly religious woman. I think however that her domestic virtues must, from their very intensity, have been uncomfortable to her less pious relatives, and must, at all events, have given cause for the exercise of great virtue on the parts of her son St. Louis and his wife, into whose private affairs she entered with a minuteness of observation and interference which in the nineteenth century would have been found extremely trying even by the most devoted of sons and daughters-in-law. Queen Eleanor through her daughters is ancestress to nearly every Royal Family in Europe. In particular, as will be seen later, through her daughters Berengaria and Blanche, Queen Eleanor is the ancestress of the Royal Family of England. Joanna, the third daughter of Henry II., was the first of a long series of Princesses of that name who flourished in the reigns of the Plantagenets. She married in 1 176 Robert II. (known as the Good), King of Sicily, a descendant of the celebrated Norman Robert Guiscard, who a century before had founded that kingdom. At the date of the marriage Robert was twenty-three and Joanna eleven. Robert seems to have been a v^ery good man, and though Joanna had by him only one child, who died as an infant (which was a great disappointment), he and his wife lived together on very friendly terms till his death in 1 189, in which year Joanna's father, Henry II., also died. On Robert's death ensued a contest for succession between his recognised heiress, his Aunt Constance, who had married Henry, the eldest son of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, and Tancred, a bastard son of Robert's father's eldest brother — a contest which caused considerable commotion in Europe for very many years. It is supposed that Joanna took the part of Constance, and at any rate Tancred, who was in possession, immediately shut her up in prison, where she remained till the following year, when her brother, Richard I. of England, on his way to the Holy Land i\ 76 History of the Royal Family of England. descended like a deus ex machind on the Coast of Sicily and set her at liberty. Joanna revenged herself by demanding in addition to her dowry, which was sufficiently large, a great quantity of valuable portable property, which she alleged, perhaps truly, had been left to her by her husband. These articles or their money value she ultimately succeeded in getting, being backed up by Richard and Philip Augustus of France, who had arrived on the scene, but she had never- theless to pay a very large commission on their value to her Royal deliverers. Joanna then went to Messina, where she met her mother, Queen Eleanor, and Berengaria of Navarre, the betrothed bride of her brother, Richard I. ; and subsequently she went with Richard and Berengaria to the Island of Cyprus, where the King and Berengaria were married, and thence they all proceeded to the Holy Land. On this journey, however, they met with many adventures, perils by sea, from a storm during which they were in great danger and exceedingly sea sick, and perils by land from the machinations of Isaac the " Emperor," as he styled himself, of Cyprus, who ill-used some of their followers and nearly captured Berengaria (not yet married) and Joanna. Isaac was amply punished for these proceedings by Richard, who ravaged his territories, sacked his capital, and carried off as a prisoner his only daughter, a lady with the very odd name of Bourgigne. Richard, his wife and Joanna, with the captive Bourgigne, anived at Acres in May 1191, and the two Queens returned to Europe in August 1 192, having had it would seem by no means a " bad time " during their Crusading adventures. in 1 196 or 1 197 Joanna married as her second husband Raimond VI., Count of Toulouse, of whom Mrs. Everett Green observes that his name "will be for ever immortalized by his association with the persecuted sect of the Albigenses,'* and of whom she seems very proud as a sort of Protestant hero. Joanna died in 1199 in giving birth to her second child by Raimond, which died at its birth, and she is buried at Raimond VI., Count of Toulouse. 77 Fontevraud with her father and her brother Richard I. Her only child who survived infancy became Raimond VII., Count of Toulouse, whose only daughter and heiress married Alphonso (brother of St. Louis IX. of France), in consequence of which marriage the County of Toulouse was ultimately annexed to France. I do not for a moment propose to offer any observations as to the religious tenets of the Albigenses, which, however, strike me personally as a little peculiar ; but, viewed in the light of a saint and hero, Raimond VI. of Toulouse is rather difficult to iTianage. In the first place, when he was caught by the "persecutors" he promptly recanted— did public pen- ance, and offered personally to join in the "persecution," and although when he got off, he again adopted the cause of the Albigenses, it is said that when he was caught a second time he again changed his views ; though, as to this last charge, Mrs. Green says it is a libel. In the next place, his matrimonial arrangements were, to say the least, complicated. His first wife was Ermensinda de Pelet, who died in 1176. His second was Beatrice de Beziers, who, in obedience to a somewhat strong hint from her husband, though not without protest, became a nun. How he was thereupon entitled to marry again I cannot conjecture, but he did, in fact, marry as his third wife the Lady Bourgigne of Cyprus already alluded to, whom he repudiated almost immediately. On what grounds I do not know. His fourth wife was Joanna, and at the date of his marriage with her Beatrice and Bourgigne were both alive. Even Henry VIII. drew the line at two wives living at the same time, but the great Raimond had three. After Joanna's death his subsequent career, till he died in 1208, was suffi- ciently stormy, but it may be added that after her death he married yet again, his fifth wife having been Eleanor of Aragon. So many persons draw their ideas of history so entirely from plays, ballads, operas and novels that, though I rejoice when general attention is in any way directed to historical yS History of the Royal Family of England. questions, it is matter for regret when a popular novel is grossly wrong in its history. King Richard I. in particular, notable person as he certainly was in reality, is chiefly realised by most people through Sir Walter Scott's novels of " Ivanhoe" and "The Talisman." I do not quarrel with the aspect under which the King is represented in these novels, which, though it does not disclose the darker side of his character, is probably that in which he did appear to many ; but it is a little hard on Queen Berengaria, who was in fact an extremely demure and excellent person, that she should be represented as having been such a very skittish dame as the Queen appears to be in " The Talisman." I do, however, complain that with such excellent and true materials for a romance as the great writer had, in the presence, in the Holy Land, at the same time, of Richard's sister Joanna and her future husband Raimond of Toulouse (to say nothing of the Lady Bourgigne), he should have insisted on inventing as his heroine an imaginary — not to say impossible — *' cousin " to King Richard in " Edith Plantagenet," and that, having invented her, he should have married her to — of all persons in the world — the " Sir Kenneth" of the novel, who turns out to be David, Earl of Huntingdon, "Prince Royal of Scotland." The David, Earl of Huntingdon, in question, was a brother of William "the Lion " of Scotland, and must have been known personally to King Richard, as he had carried the Sword of State at Richard's own coronation, at which date he was probably himself already a married man. At anyrate the lady he did marry was Maud, daughter of Hugh de Meschines, Earl of Chester ; and inasmuch as it was from this marriage that the rival claimants to the Scottish Throne in the reign of Edward I., that is to say, Baliol, Bruce and Hastings, all derived their title, the identity of David's wife may, I think, be considered too well known to admit of any mystery or romance about it. The only other possible " Prince Royal of Scotland " was Alexander, son of William the Lion, who, if born, was a baby at the time of Richard's crusade. CHAPTER VL Henry and Geoffrey, Sons of Henry H. — Constance AND Prince Arthur. — Richard!.— John.— Eleanor OF Aquitaine. — Berengaria of Navarre.— John's Wives. — John's Daughters, Joanna and Isabella. HAVING in the previous chapter disposed of the, daughters of Henry II., I must revert to his sons, who are a less pleasing subject. There was a tradition in the house of Anjou that one of their ancestresses had been a witch, and that there was a curse on the family ; and it is related of Geoffrey, Henry's third son, that when a messenger of peace came to him from the King, he said, " Dost thou not know that it is our proper nature, planted in us by inheritance from an ancestress, that none of us should love the other, but that every brother should strive against brother, and son against father? I would not that thou shouldst rob us of our nature." I do not suppose Geoffrey really uttered these words, but it is certain that the Princes of Henry's family did not love one another ; and when the sons were not combining against their father they lost no opportunity of fighting among themselves. I have no sympathy for Henry, but it is impossible to feel sympathy for sons, who, whatever were their grievances (and they were many and great), treated their father with the brutal and persistent enmity with which Henry's sons treated him. Henry, the eldest, and, as far as I can judge, the most amiable of the four, who reached maturity, was born in 1155 and died in 11 83, being twenty-eight at his death. He was married, as has been said, while still a young child to Margaret, daughter of Louis VII. of France by that King's 79 ■WW 8o History of the Royal Family of England. King Hen7y II.'s Sons. Si second wife, but he had no issu. As ^WWren Henry and Mamaret were placed under the charge of St. Ihomas A'Becke t Td. iL all who came into personal contact w,th fha'ttreat .a;, they fell much under ^^ ^^^^"^ there is reason to suppose that, among other causes oi SeL between HeTry II. and his ^on^^'lJ^Z^ Henrv and his wife espoused the cause of the Archmsnop a":;^ their father, which must certainly have been very '"'Sn"; Hen'r;'^v;:f 'seems to have had an idea of forming vounse Heiy's wife, did not share, and her fether great y younger ocm/ » Henrv would resented the supposed slight ; but, m fact, "^""^y eladly have associated his daughter-m-law w.th h.s sw^ The lady however, declined to be crowned by anyone but I,t Archbishop of Canterbury who was then m b^n.hment^ on the ground that it ^-^^^X' t' P^ had^ o^^^^^^^^^ to crown the sovereigns, and that tne rope i (as herin fact, had) the other Bishops to take part n, the ''TinrHenry and his eldest son took vastly different views of the Iffect of the latter's Coronation, the one regardmg .t a XmLdu^g to his own aggrandisement, wh.le the other reeaVded t as a /«.A giving him equal authority with his fXr and, as a consequence of this difference of views, their relations became extremely strained. We are told that when the young Henry was with his father the two Kings " eat daily at the same table and slept in the same bed" but so very uncomfortable a state of things seems to me to argue more of distrust than affection on the parTof the father, and, I think, residence at his fathers Cou meant in fact the son's imprisonment, and that the constant Tar"! of ingratitude levelled against the younger Henry are ha dly weU founded. At all events he took an early .! ,P opportunity (1173) of escaping to the Court of his father- in-law, Louis VII. of France, and from that time, till his death in 1183, he was constantly at enmity with Henry II though before his death some messages of reconciliation were exchanged. The younger Henry had no child, and on his death his brother Richard became heir to the Throne, and to Richard I must return later. The next brother, Geoffrey, was born in 11 59, and as a baby was betrothed, or rather married, to Constance, Duchess of Brittany in her own right. This lady was descended from Alan Fergeant (who had married another Constance, dau<^hter of William the Conqueror) by Alan's second wife "^Her mother, Margaret of Scotland, was a grand-daughter of David I., and sister of William the Lion, Kings of Scotland so that she was distantly related to her husband, David I.^ having been as will be remembered a brother of Matilda wife of Henry I. (See Table I.) The guardianship of the two children, Geoffrey and Constance, and of the Duchy of Brittany was committed to or assumed by King Henry, and Geoffrey's main grievance in later life against his father was the latter's delay in giving up to him his wife and her dominions, both of which, how""- ever, he did recover before his death. He was accidentally killed at a tournament in Paris in 1 187, aged twenty-eight, and IS buried in the Cathedral of Notre Dame. He was in open enmity with the King at the time of his death. Geoffrey left a widow, Constance, and two children Eleanor and Arthur, the latter of whom was a posthumous child. The genius of Shakespeare has made the names of Constance and the " little Prince " Arthur almost household words m every English home. Nearly every child has learnt by heart the exquisite poetry in which Prince Arthur in the play of " King John " pleads for life to Hubert de Burgh, and Constance in the same play is the very embodiment' and expression of intense maternal love. As a matter of fact Arthur, who was born in 1187, died F 82 History of the Royal Family of England. u J,. wanstan , \r T„i,„ At no previous period was he m the hands oi Kmg John. At no prev. y uncertain, T^Vin and the precise manner ot his aeatn is qu John, ana tne p ^^^ ^ ^^^y jjgtm- ulL^-r r.r:rythat thi; ^snogr^un. whoever ;=n^::ot;:rrorto^=;-fi^^ rls before him. In the year a^^^r Geo Jrey ^ ^^^a^^ff £ rescTiLSTarl'^f SSVh ^^^^ r^^J^thl Brittany '" ^f .i';:^;! ^ ^ ^Idf f d^o nl know. A^corX^To one disdnguished wrifer. Carte. " Great scanda arose after the death of Geoffrey regarding the Duchess ConstanTe and her brother-in-law John till his marriage w.th Sr of Angoul^me. He was constantly h-ting her A r.r. fl^U Arcount it is supposed Henry II. atter tne Dirui :fherpo humous son, Arthur, forced the Duchess to marry i TT iTf Chester as Prince John's attentions to h.s s.ster- ' U v'cau ed coSke able comment." Another great writer, *Cale sayVthat Chester repudiated Constance " by reason 4.U04- i-hf- Kinp- haunted her company. I can hardly suppose that Constance was forced to marry Lord Chester n consequence of John's attentions, and was repudiated by Chester many years later on the same ground and Car e is'clearly in some error, for Constance married Constance Duchess of Brittany. 83 Chester in 1188, and John did not marry Isabella of Angou- leme, who was his second wife, till 1200. He did, however marry his first wife, Hawise of Gloucester, in 1 189, though not till after his father's death. The date of Constance's separa- tion from Lord Chester is not certain, but it was probably not long before John's marriage to Isabella of Angouleme for Constance afterwards married Sir Guy de Thouars and died in 1 20 1, after giving birth to a daughter, Agnes, who eventually succeeded to the Duchy of Brittany. In any view of the case, however, the Duchess Constance can hardly be regarded as an exemplary or admirable person. The fate of Eleanor, the daughter of Geoffrey and Constance, is not accurately known, but it is certain that she never married, and that for some time she was kept in prison by her uncle John. It is supposed that she eventually entered a Convent. Richard and John, the remaining sons of Henry II successively became Kings of England, the one reigning from' ii89till 1199, and the other from 1199 till 1216. Richard was born in 11 57 and was thirty-two when he became King and forty-two when he died. John was born in 1166 and was twenty-three when Richard became King, thirty-three when he himself ascended the Throne, and fifty when he died. Richard I., or, as he is frequently called, Richard " Cceur de Lion," is a hero of romance, whose reputation is dear to every Englishman. His extraordinary physical strength— his extraordinary feats of valour in the Holy Land— his long captivity in Austria— the romantic circumstances which really did attend that captivity and his release ; the still more romantic circumstances, with which a series of plays, ballads and operas have overlaid those events, and last, but not least' the genius of Sir Walter Scott in the two novels before referred to, "Ivanhoe" and "The Talisman," have invested him with a poetic glamour which it would be a pity to destroy At the same time I do not think that any one reading any iiistory of his reign can acquit him of great acts of cruelty and extreme rapacity. Apart from personal bravery there I is no reason to suppose that he was in any sense a mihtary genius, and though his marriage was genuinely a "love match " he proved neither a kind nor a faithful husband. Scott and most other writers speak of him as a sort of typical" Enghshman," but, in fact, he was less English than any King who, between the reigns of William the Conqueror and George I., ever sat on the English Throne. His youth and early manhood were spent in Aquitaine, of which, by concession from his mother, he was, from an early age, nominally, and for a considerable period more or less really, Duke It is doubtful whether, between the periods of his birth and his accession to the Throne, he was ever in England, or at all events for more than a very short time, and after- wards during a rei-n of ten years he was in England only twice, each time for much less than a year. John was the youngest child of two very bad parents, from whom he inherited all their vices without, as far as one can see one redeeming quality. His father and brothers were at least men and truly virile even in their vices ; but John was a coward, mean, shabby, and as it would probably be said now "dirty" in all his dealings with mankind. To his father,— who to him, at any rate, seems to have been a kind father, he was a bad son. Once and once only when his old mother was besieged and in great distress, he showed some spirit, but it is said and on good authority, that the atrocious cruelties with which he celebrated this unwonted triumph broke her heart. To his brother Richard he was a traitor,— he murdered his nephew Arthur, the son of his brother Geoffrey, and he grossly ill-treated both his wives. When he ascended the Throne he was a great Continental Potentate, but at his death he had not only lost a great part of his Continental possessions, but he left England, for the first and last time since the Norman Conquest, in the hands of foreign invaders Having oppressed his people to an almost unprecedented degree, when, at length, the Barons rose against him, he ceded everything they asked with the timidity of a whipped cur. And with the same sincerity, for having hitherto oppressed King John. 35 and insulted the Church, he instantly appealed to the Church to assist him against the rebellious Barons with a servility and duplicity which, whatever may be the religious views of my readers, cannot but be regarded as disgusting and unmanly. Finally, having led a life which was an outrage on every principle of morality, I should think It IS diflRcult for any one reading the account of his deathbed to attribute his repentance to any feeling of true sorrow, or to anything but a terrified spasm of remorse. However, of course, notwithstanding the sentiment of a contemporary writer, that " Hell felt itself defiled by the presence of John," he may have been sincere, and I certainly hope he was. It is generally said that John was an usurper. He certainly was the murderer of the young nephew who might be supposed to stand between him and the Throne, but 1 think that in his day the hereditary principle was not sufficiently established to make it possible to say of anyone who was accepted and crowned as King, as John certainly was, that he was an usurper. It is clear that, though in the first instance Richard wished that failing his own issue his nephew Arthur should succeed him, yet when Arthur's mother, Constance, refused to ^xv^ her son up into his custody which she did, the King thenceforth regarded John, and allowed John to regard himself, as his possible successor ; and there is no reason to suppose that the English people' were seriously disturbed by John's succession, notwithstanding the existence of his nephew. When Richard I. ascended the Throne, his mother Queen Eleanor, was still in prison. Richard at once set her at liberty, and during the remaining years of her life, her career was m all ways respectable. During a great part of Richard's reign she was Regent over his dominions, and she seems to have conducted herself with wisdom, prudence and dignity. During her son's captivity, she exerted herself with spirit and ultimate success to procure his release, and though when he returned she interposed between his just wrath and his brother John, she certainly was in no way a party to the 86 History of the Royal Family of E^igland. \ latter's treachery to Richard. Finally, notwithstanding Shakespeare, she did her utmost to save the life of her un- happy grandson, Arthur Duke of Brittany. Eleanor must certainly have been a woman of extra- ordinary physical strength, for considering the fatigues and dangers of foreign travel in those days, the frequency and extent of her' journeys are truly remarkable. In 1191 we find her at Messina, whither she had gone to escort her future daucThter-in-law, Berengaria of Navarre, to meet King Richard, and^'nine years later she was at Bourgos in Spain negotiating the marriage of her grand-daughter, Blanche of Castile, with Louis VIII. of France. The last public act of her life was her defence of the Castle of Mirabel in 1202, when she must have been considerably over eighty years old, and which she conducted with courage and capacity which would have been remarkable in a young woman. Almost immediately after this, broken down, it is s^id, by the murder of her grand- son Arthur, and the cruelties and iniquities perpetrated by John, she became a nun at Fontevraud, where she died in 1204. King Richard I. married Berengaria of Navarre, a princess whom he had met and fallen in love with some years before, and to whom he proposed immediately after he had released himself from his engagement to Alice of France. Of this lady there is little to be said, except that she appears to have been an extremely good woman, that she had no child, and that, excepting the unhappy Sophia, wife of George I., she was the only English Queen who never set foot in England. She was the daughter of Sancho, called the Wise, King of Navarre, her mother having been a Spanish Princess. In 1192 she met King Richard at Messina, and thence proceeded with him and his sister Joanna, Queen of Sicily, to the Island of Cyprus, where she was married. She then went to the Holy Land with her husband, but in 1 192 she returned to Europe. King Richard was, at no time, a faithful husband, and though he returned from his captivity in 1194. it was not till Christmas 1195 that he saw his wife, notwithstanding various remonstrances addressed to King John s Marriages. 87 him on the subject. During the last three years of Richard's life, however, the King and Queen lived together, and Berengaria was with him when he died. She afterwards took up her residence at Mans in Maine, where she built a monastery and where, having previously become a nun, she died. It is characteristic of John that he endeavoured to deprive her of her dowry, but she appealed to the Pope, and one of the minor causes of the famous Interdict by Innocent III. was the King's behaviour to his sister-in-law, and one of its results was the restoration of Berengaria's property. The dates of Berengaria's birth and of her death are extremely uncertain, but she died between 1230 and 1240. In 1189, on the occasion of Richard's Coronation, his brother John, whose chances of succeeding to the Throne were, at that time, remote, married one of the three co-heir- esses of William Earl of Gloucester. My readers will remember the great Robert Earl of Gloucester, who was a natural son of King Henry I. He died in 1 147 (temp. Stephen) and was succeeded by his eldest son William, who died without male issue in 1183 (temp. Henry II.) leaving three daughters; and from that time till 1226 (temp. Henry III.) the Earldom of Gloucester was bandied about in a manner which is somewhat confusing to readers of history. Earl William's daughters were (i) Mabell, who married Almeric de Montfort, Count of Evreux,in Normandy ; (2) Isabel, who married Richard de Clare, Earl of Hertford,* and (3) a lady whose name is variously spelt as Havvise, Amicia and A visa, who married (i) John, afterwards King • (2) on the dissolution of her first marriage, Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Essex, and (3) the well known Hubert de Burgh, but who had no child by any of her husbands. The title of Earl of Gloucester was successively borne by John, the husband of the third sister from 1 189, till he became King in 1 199, and by Geoffrey de Mandeville, who succeeded him as the lady's husband, from 1213 till 1216. From 1216 till 1226 it was borne by Almeric, the eldest son of Mabell, Earl William's eldest daughter, and on his death without issue it 88 History of the Royal Family of England. passed to his cousin Gilbert de Clare, the eldest son of Isabel, the second daughter of Earl William, in whose family it con- tinued till 1313 (temp. P:dwaid II.), and of whose grandson we shall hear again in treating of the daughters of Edward I. John and Hawise were both great-grandchildren of Henry I (his grandmother and her grandfather having been half brother and sister), and consequently John and Hawise were second cousins of the half-blood, and within the prohibited degrees of kindred. This fact must have been well known, but no difficulty seems to have been raised by the English Bishops who were present at the marriage, which was cele- brated at the time of Richard I.'s Coronation. The Pope, however, on hearing of it declared the marriage invalid, and forbade the parties to live together. In this order John seems to have acquiesced to the extent of not troubling Hawise with much of his personal society, but he retained the name of her husband and her property until he became King. Then, as he wished to marry another lady, he allowed his first marriage to be dissolved. In 1 199 King John, at the wish of his mother, went to visit Hugh de Lusignan, Count de la Marche, a Prince whose territories abutted on the Duchy of Aquitaine, and whose friendship was of much importance to the Sovereigns of that Duchy. This Prince's eldest son— also Hugh de Lusignan, who was at the time absent, was engaged to and on the point of marrying Isabella, only child and heiress of Aymer Count of Angouleme— a young lady of fifteen. She was by all accounts of great beauty, and in accordance with the custom of those times, had been brought up, and was then resident, at the Court of her future father-in-law. John fell in love with Isabella, and with the connivance of her parents carried her off to Bordeaux, where he married her in the year I2CX). There is no doubt that this marriage produced very grave political consequences. The younger de Lusignan greatly resented the carrying off of his promised bride, and though probably he himself could have done little to avenge his wrongs, he found a ready ally in Philip Augustus of Queen Isabella of Angouleme. 89 France, who made them one of the pretexts for breaking off the treaty he had just signed with John, and that treaty being broken, the war began which cost John the greater part of his continental dominions. De Lusignan himself fell a prisoner to John at the siege of the Castle of Mirabel above referred to, and was kept in prison for several years, being treated the while with much indignity. Having, however, at length obtained his freedom and returned to his dominions (to which on the death of his father he had succeeded),' he again became formidable, and in 12 14 King John thought it expedient to make his peace with him, and one of the terms of this peace was that de Lusignan should marry Joanna, the eldest daughter and child of John and Isabella. The young lady was too young for actual marriage, but her future husband insisted that she should be placed in his charge and brought up in his Court, and this was agreed to. Joanna was accord- ingly sent abroad, where she remained for several years. In 1216, however, John died, and shortly afterwards his widow Isabella returned to Jier native land, and there she met and, notwithstanding the claims of her young daughter, married her old lover, who it is to be presumed set off her rank and dowry as Queen Dowager of England against the fact that she was a widow over thirty, and mother of five children. John is said to have been in the first instance much in love with Isabella of Angouleme, and to have been regarded with much contempt by his courtiers on account of his extremely uxorious habits. Nevertheless he seems to have speedily got tired of her and to have treated her very badly; but this did not prevent him from being very jealous. Whether this jealousy was well founded is an unsettled question. Dr. Lingard says it was, but Miss Strickland, with her usual amiability, thinks it was not. It is, however, certain that for sometime Isabella was kept in confinement by her husband, and that on one occasion John, as an obliging surprise, hung the bodies of three men, whom he had put to death, over her bed. It is alleged that one was her supposed lover, and the other two his followers. 90 History of the Royal Family of England. King John s Children, 91 Isabella's subsequent career was sufficiently stirring. Her second husband was, mainly owing to her, engaged in constant difficulties with St. Louis IX., King of France, and that King's brother Alphonso, in which difficulties Isabella contrived to involve her son by King John, Henry III. of England, with very disastrous results to him, as well as to her husband and herself. In 1244 Hugh de Lusignan, who^ had in the meantime been deprived of his dominions, was accused of an attempt to poison King Louis, and though Isabella was not directly charged with the crime, the general impres- sion that she was its originator was very strong; and she herself deemed it expedient to retire to the Abbey of Fontevraud, where she died two years later. On her death her husband was at once reconciled to King Louis. Hugh and Isabella had five sons and several daughters, and they were kind enough to send their four younger sons and a daughter to England to pursue their fortunes at their half-brother's Court. This proceeding greatly exasperated the English, who were already highly in4ignant at the favours shown to the foreign relatives of King Henry's own wife. Alice, the daughter of Isabella by de Lusignan, married John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, who was a strong adherent of her half-brother. King Henry, and by whom she became an ancestress of the great Howard family. The sons, some of whom were called de Lusignan, -after their father, and some de Valence, after the place of their birth (a circumstance which gives rise to some confusion), were all strong supporters of King Henry. One of them, Guy de Lusignan, was killed at the Battle of Lewes, and another, Aymer de Valence, was Bishop of Winchester from 1250 till 1260. A third, William de Valence, was more celebrated. He was created Earl of Pembroke shortly before the Battle of Lewes in 1264 (that title having become vacant by the extinction of the great family of Marshall), and he was a very turbulent and influential person throughout the reign of Henry III. He died in 1296 (temp. Edward I.) and was succeeded by his son, Aymer de Valence, who in the reign of Edward II. took a prominent part in the civil wars, having in the first place assisted the Earl of Lancaster, the King's cousin, to put the King's favourite, Gaveston, to death, and then presided over the execution of the Earl of Lancaster himself. For this act (described at the time as " a mercenary and time serving act of infamy ") his own violent death in France a few years later was supposed to be a judgment. He died without issue, whereupon his title became extinct, but from his sister, who like himself was a grandchild of Queen Isabella by Guy de Lusignan, many noble families, and in particular the present Earl of Shrews- bury, claim descent. Notwithstanding the disciples of the School of Heredity, it appears to me to be plain that Nature abhors extremes, and that whereas men of ordinary goodness or badness, or possessing in an ordinary degree any other quality, some- times produce children possessing the parent's characteristics in a greater degree ; the children of a man who is extra- ordinarily good or bad, able or the reverse, either react to the qualities which are the direct reverse of those possessed by their parent, or turn out to be very commonplace persons. One would have supposed that the children of John and Isabella would have been little short of monsters, but in fact they were persons, not indeed of any great force of character or ability of any kind, but on the whole respectable and good- natured, with strong religious and domestic instincts, and who in a later age and under different circumstances would have made admirable citizens. John and Isabella had five children : (i) Joanna, afterwards Queen of Scotland, born in 1203; (2) Henry, afterwards King Henry III., born in 1207 ; (3) Richard, afterwards Earl of Cornwall, and generally known in history as the King of the Romans, born in 1208; (4) Isabella, afterwards Empress of Germany, born in 12 14; and (5) Eleanor, sometime Countess of Pembroke, and afterwards Countess of Leicester, born in 121 5. The histories of Henry, Richard, and Eleanor are so closely connected that before referring to them I n V 9? History of the Royal Family of Efigland. shall say shortly what is known of their sisters Joanna and The date of Joanna's birth is uncertain. Miss Strickland places it at 1209, but the more accurate Mrs. Everett Green gives it at 1203 ; and this is certainly more probable, as she married Kin- Alexander of Scotland in 1221, and she was then regarded as being for an unmarried Princess of fully mature age, which she would hardly have been if she had been only twelve. It has already been told how Joanna as a child was engaged to be married to Hugh de Lusignan, Count de la Marche, and how her mother subsequently cut her out with her affianced husband. Marriageable Princesses, however were then a very valuable commodity, and it was not without great difficulty, involving many negotiations, an appeal to tlie Pope, a threatened war, and a delay of five years, that her stepfather and her mother could be induced to give her up to her brother in 122 1. She was thereupon promptly married to Alexander II. of Scotland, who, after the custom of the Scottish Kings, had been occupying his leisure moments in invading England and generally making himself disagreeable to the English ; but who, it was hoped, would be soothed in his feelings by an English wife with a large dowry. Alexander was twenty-four when he married, and appears to have been a fairly respectable person, but the marriage was not a success. Joanna, who ultimately died of consumption, was alwa^ s sickly, and the sudden removal from the south of France, where she had been for so many years, to the bleak climate of Scotland, which can hardly be regarded as having been an entirely civilized country in the thirteenth century, cannot have conduced to her health or comfort. The Scotch hated England and the English, and the new Queen was not popular. She brought her husband no child, and as time went on, and he became involved in further dissensions with her brother, her sympathies seem to have been rather with her native country than with Scotland. She died in 1238 (at the age of thirty-five) in England, whither Isabella^ Ge7^man E^npress. 93 she had gone on a long visit, and she was buried in a Convent at Tarente, in Derbyshire. King Alexander subsequently married Marie de Coucy of the illustrious French house of that name, by whom he had an only child, afterwards Alexander III. John's daughter Isabella is by some writers said to have been his youngest daughter, but Mrs. Green shews that she was the second, and was born in 1214, her sister Eleanor having been born a year later. It has been suggested that Isabella was not what would now be called " very bright, " and this is given countenance to by the fact that as a giri she lived a good deal apart from her family, and according to Matthew Paris in " Vigilant Custody. " Moreover, after her marriage with the Emperor Frederic II., she lived in the most absolute retirement and privacy, but this latter circumstance may be accounted for by the fact that the domestic manners, as well as the religious views, of that eminent person were to a large extent modelled on those of the " Grand Turk. " Before her actual marriage, which did not take place till 1235, wlien she was twenty-one, Isabella was the subject of numerous matrimonial treaties, having been at one time spoken of as a wife for St. Louis of France. In 1235 Frederick II., being a widower for the second time, did her the honour to propose marriage, a proposal which was accepted on her behalf, and she was married in that year, with a large dowry, and a most extravagant trousseau, including among other things, a set of chessmen, which I think must have been of use to her in her subsequent seclusion. It would be outside my purpose to make any reference to the career of that very remarkable person, the Emperor Frederick II., for in his life Isabella played no appreciable part. She was at once shut up, in what may safely be called his harem, and there she remained, taking no part in public cere- monials, and rarely seen by anyone ; so that even her brother Richard, King of the Romans, when in Germany could only succeed with difficulty in seeing her once, and that without II 94 History of the Royal Family of England. privacy, and for a very short time. She died in 1241, aged twenty-seven. . Isabella had several children, of whom only two survived infancy— a son Henry, who survived his father, and was styled " King of Jerusalem," and who was assassinated at an early age, at thelnstance, as it is supposed, of one of his numerous bastard brothers ; and a daughter Margaret, who married Albert Marquis of Thuringia. This lady after a most unhappy life was driven into a Convent and there died, but through her the Empress Isabella was the direct ancestress of the Duke of Saxe Coburg and Gotha, who was the grandfather both of the late Queen Victoria and of her husband the Prince Consort, as well as of many German Princes. Only three English Princesses have ever sat upon the Imperial Throne of Germany. Matilda, daughter of Henry I., Isabella, daughter of John, and Victoria, eldest daughter of the late Queen Victoria. CHAPTER VII. King Henry III.-His Wife.-Richard Earl of Corn- wall, TITULAR King of the Romans.-His Wives and Sons. -Simon de Montfort, Earl of LFICESTER.-ELEANOR, his Wife, Sister of Henry H.7 TTT ^^ Montforts.~The Daughters of MENRY III. jy-ING HENRY III. was born in ,207. and he was IV exactly nine years old when he became King in 1216 at a time of almost unexampled difficulty for England, which was virtually m the hands of the French, and when, Lut for the prudence and courage of William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke (first Earl of his name), it is probable that the Angev-in Dynasty would have come to a speedy end. Henry reigned for fifty-six years, and died in the year 1272 aged sixty-five, when he was buried in Westminster Abbey He was a man of no particular ability or energy of mind or body, and peculiarly unsuited to the position of King of a disturbed country ,n the Middle Ages. All the same he was a man of good personal character_a devoted husband_a kind and affectionate father-m the main well-meaning and good natured, and with a distinct and graceful taste for literature and the arts, a taste which contributed much to make Eng- land pleasant and beautiful. It is to King Henry III. we owe Westminster Abbey, which he rebuilt, and which; beautiful as ,t IS now, must have been indeed a "thing of beauty" before the monumental atrocities of the last few centuries were erected, and it is to him also that we owe that revival of the Cult for the old Saxon Saints and heroes which putting aside the religious question, brought Norman En-land 95 ^ i other hand Henry III. ^=^^.;^^t/J^^'^;„" e fell under the influ- aon and habits, and he eas.ly and at o„ce^_^^ ^^^ _^,^^^^^ .^ ence of any strong cha acter ne J ^^^^^^^ things; temper,andconsequentlyoftensa.danddd y ^^^^^^ ^^^^^ he was f^^f^^':^SS:^^^^r^^ to all who for display of al k'nds ana n -^ ^^ney to an came across him, made h.m exUs^S^^ ^^^^ .^ extent which had S-^ .^^^^aTestation of life, he would more peaceful times, and m a private st ^^^^ ^^ ^.^_ probably have been an -^^f ^^^^'i7„,h rfspect for him, anf-f;:f;*V:'rtuch loSed down upon ir. his own times. . wars— wars with France __wars with S'=°t'^"'* /!;^3g ,o„tests did Henry personally civil wars. In none of these co ^.^ ^^^^.^^ ^^^^^ distinguish himself, and I do not th ^_^ ^^ ^^ ^^^ either in their .^f -;°J, ^^^ ' Ltisfacdon. As to the civi Englishmen with any P=^™^" ^-^^^ to be taken, but wars, there are '^ . .InT^Ls^erc both right and personally I think that ^o h Part s w ^^^^ .^^^^^^^^ ^rong. and that ^'-J^XXpu themselves in the wrong^ but being in P^-^^mTtte so general history and of much These, however are mauersot g ^^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ controversy, and I wiU mereiy ^^^^^^ ^^^ Battle of Lewes in 1264 Kng Henry ^^^ ^^^^^^_ ^^^^ Edward, his brother R^j^^J^- 1^ S ^^ ^^ ^^ Richard's son Henry all he^^^e P Leicester, who «r^'^':d^*^:g Hrys\!ItT;Sanor; and that Prince had married Kmg Hen > following year (1265) ^'^-^^'!, '=^d"k1 Jre M^rat the Battle of Evesham, and defeated and killed de MO ^^^^^ ^^^ Government to a restored Kmg Henry, in ^^^^ afterwards great extent ell -- ^f ^ 3\;tas the greatest King and r oftirbS mTntho ever'sat on the English Throne. Rebellion of Simon de Montfo7't. 97 The rebelhon of Simon de Montfort no doubt estranged King Henry III. from his sister the Countess of Gloucester (of whom m her youth he seems to have been very proud), but with that exception, the harmony and affection which sub- sisted in the latter part of King Henry's reign between all the -members of the Royal Family would appear to have been sincere and great. The King and Queen, their children, the Kings only brother Richard, King of the Romans and his wife (who was the Queen's sister) and their sons, all seem to have been genuinely fond of one another, and to have lived together in almost unbroken amity and confidence. The King and his brother, who were nearly of an age, and remark- ably alike in character, tastes, and, it is said, appearance hved during the greater part of their lives in unusually closj intimacy-the friendship between the fathers was continued in their eldest sons. Prince Edward and Prince Henry while they both lived, and it would be difficult to find a parallel to the perfect confidence on the one side, and the respectful deference and solicitude on the other, which existed between the King and his heir. This was the more remarkable as the ineptitude, weakness and folly of the old King must have been extremely trying to his relations, and in particular to Prince Edward, who from the first showed himself to be a man of unusual ability, resolution and force of character. For some reason, which is not very apparent, Kin- Henry did not marry till he was considerably past the age at which European Princes were accustomed to undertake the responsi- bilities of wedlock, and it was not till 1236, when Henry \\\ was twenty-nine years old, that he was married at Canterbury to Eleanor, second of the four daughters of Berenger, Count of Provence. This Berenger was one of the minor French Princes, but he was not a person of much power or influence and he is chiefly known as having been regarded, in his own times, as a distinguished poet. ^ There was either at that time a dearth of marriageable Princesses in Europe, or the Provencal Princesses were exceptionally attractive, for they all married kings. Margaret G Q y m 98 History of the Royal Family of England. Richard King of the Romans, I, \\ the eldest, was the wife of St. Louis of France ; Eleanor, the second, of King Henry of England ; and Sanchia, the third, of Henry's brother Richard, titular King of the Romans ; Beatrice, the youngest, married Louis IX.'s somewhat un- worthy brother Charles of Anjou, King of Sicily, and as Berenger had no son, ultimately succeeded to her father's dominions. Queen Eleanor was about fifteen when she married, and she speedily became, and she remained all her life extremely unpopular with the English, so much so that on one occasion the Londoners pelted her barge with stones when she was on the Thames. Nevertheless she seems to have been free from any very violent faults, and to have been on the whole a good kind of woman. King Henry was at all times in great difficulties about money, and was frequently very extravagant. His wife, who quickly obtained almost unbounded influence over him, shared to the full his love of splendour and display ; and it was supposed, and probably with truth, that it was mainly at her, instance and to gratify her that the King's constant and importunate demands upon his subjects for money were made. Moreover, when Eleanor came to England, she was followed by an immense train of foreigners of all ranks, who, contrary to well established practice, were not sent back to their own country but remained in England, carried off all places in the gift of the King and Queen, and generally preyed on the land of their adoption. Prominent among these were the Queen's maternal uncles Peter and Boniface of Savoy. Of these the latter, by Eleanor's direct intervention, was made Archbishop of Canterbury, to the great annoyance of the English clergy and people, while the former found means to amass enormous and undue wealth, which, however, he to some extent applied well, for he built the Palace of the " Savoy," of which the beautiful Savoy Chapel still exists. Eleanor's influence with the King was to some extent opposed in the first instance by that of the King's brother 99 frifaf 9^'^" ''^' ^^*^^"^^ "^^^^^'^^ her sister Sanchia over iZ^r ""T '' '^^^ ^'^^^"^^ - --h -fl-nce over Richard as Eleanor had over Henry and as th-^ "Z^I^ "^f ^^' ^•'^ Q--. '" - a>l eve s t, Thirf i no""'' T '''"'"^"*^'' '"■'^'^^^^ °f the situation. DurW thr 7 . *"ru'° ^^ ^^'^ =^''°"' Q"e-" Eleanor. Sf "nee anH r''^.:''^'™"'''^^ ""^ 'he Barons she was efforts to rel T ^'V^^ ""^^^ '°™« not very effectual yearTand n rll K ."'^"^- ^^" survived him nineteen years, and m 1280 she took up her residence at the Convent of Ambresbury in Wiltshire, where four years later she made her profess,on as a nun. With her were professed two of he oTBrten' "h' ^^^>'' ^-S'^'- "^ Edward I., and Beatric t I2Q2 and in h° '^ r'""°""'' '"*"•'• Q"^^" Eleanor died in 1292, and m her later years seems to have been extremely rehgious, and though not liked by her subjects ?t i^ fa^ o say that her husband, children and relatives genlS^ a,l seem to have had a very sincere regard for her ^ .nH h^^'l'-'^'"^ """'^'^ ""'y '^^t'^^^' was born in 1200 £n alreSrsald'^r IT"' r°"''^ "^^^"^^ *« ^■•"^- ^shT^ much aiat^ H ' ^™"'"'' ^'""'^ physically and mentally much alike, and were un.ted by an unusually strong affection but on the whole Richard would appear to have been tlie stronger and better man of the two. In 1226, when he was eighteen, he was created Earl of Cornwall, and put into pos ess.on of estates which, for a time, made him one of "he Tthe H , f ^."'J"'^""«^'"E"-P- I" I34lhew „t to the Holy Land, travelling with extraordinary splendour and magnificence. Two years later there was a contest as to Rfclard" H ' ,^"P'T, °' ^^™^">'' '"^^ candidats be ng Richard and King Alphonso of Castile. Richard bv enormous bribes obtained the suffrages of three of thtl '' Flertnrc " K,. u ^, », "mages oi tnree 01 the seven vot« L n. ^ the Emperor was chosen, the other four votes being given td Alphonso, and Richard, though in a minority immediately assumed the title of " King of he Romans," which was the title borne by the German Emperors between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries, priorToTe " loo History of the Royal Family of England. Sons of Richard King of the Romans. lor r coronation at Rome. He retained that title till his death, there having been in fact no effective German Emperor from the death of Conrad IV. in 1243 till the election of Rudolf I. in 1273. It was however an empty title, and it cost him dearly, exhausting in bribes and subsidies the greater part of his immense wealth, but probably in his own opinion not too dearly, as he and his brother and their respective wives appear to have derived from it a very large measure of satisfaction. Richard's political relations in England were on the whole just and patriotic. In the first instance he espoused the cause of the Barons, but not to such an extent as to estrange him from the King ; and latterly, when the Barons assumed too much, he took the part of the King, with whom he was taken prisoner at Lewes. Richard was three times married. He married first, probably in 1230, when he would have been about twenty-two, Isabel Marshall, daughter of that great Lord Pembroke who during the early part of Henry's reign had been virtually Pro- tector of the Kingdom. This lady must have been consider- ably older than Richard, for when some y^ears before, in 1221, her elder brother, William Marshall, married Richard's younger sister, Eleanor, there was a disparity of over thirly years between the ages of William and Eleanor. Moreover, at the date of her marriage witli Richard Isabel was already a widow (having previously married Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Hertford and Gloucester) with several children. Nevertheless she had five children by her second husband. She died in 1240, and in 1242 Richard married as his second wife Sanchia, sister of his brother's wife Queen Eleanor. Sanchia died in 1261, and in 1268 Richard married a third time, liis third wife being a young German lady, Beatrice de Falquemort or Falquestein, the daughter of a small German Baron and niece of the Archbishop of Cologne. This lady survived him and returned to Germany, and I believe nothing is known of her subsequent career. Richard had by his first wife five children, a son Henry, and three sons and a daughter, who died as infants in his H H^' .u^^.^'^'f ?"'^ ^"'^^ ''^ •'^^ ^" ^"'y '^^"■'d named Edmund. His third wife brought him no child. Henry, the elder of the two sons of Richard who reached maturity, was born in 1235, and is usually called Henry of Almam or Henry of Germany, from his father's pretensions to the Imperial Throne. He was four years older than his cousin Pnnce Edward, with whom he lived on terms of great friendship and intimacy, and whom he proposed to accompany on the last Crusade in 1272. On his way to the Holy Land however, Henry was summoned back to England by news of his fathers illness, and on the return journey, while he was assisting at Mass, almost at the moment of the Elevation of the Host he was cruelly murdered by his cousins Simon and Guy de Montfort in revenge, it is supposed, for the death of their father at the battle of Evesham. Henry of Almain's death in 1272, when he was thirty seven was immediately followed by the deaths of his father and his' uncle King Henry. It is remarkable that notwithstand- ing the great interest which the King of the Romans seems to have taken in the building of Westminster Abbey, he and his son were not buried there but at the Abbey of Hales founded by the former. Henry of Almain died without issue, and I believe un- married and his father was succeeded in the Earldom of Cornvyall by his younger son Edmund, who, both on his others and mother's side, was first cousin to King Edward I Edmund was about nineteen in 1372 when his cousin became J^ing, and during the greater part of Edward I.'s reign he was more or less engaged in the King's wars, and became a d,stin..uished soldier. He died in 1300, seven years before tdward having married Margaret de Clare, daughter of Richard de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, by whom he had no issue ■ and on his death the Earldom of Cornwall and the descen- dants of Richard, King r.{ the Romans, became extinct. Eleanor, the youngest daughter of King John, was born in I2IS, and was only one year old when her father died. In 1219 William Marshall, the great Earl of Pembroke died I02 History of the Royal Family of England. Simon de Montfort. 103: N and was succeeded by his eldest son, also William, who, though he inherited his father's great power, did not so it would appear altogether inherit his father's loyalty or ability. It was, however, thought necessary to conciliate this great person by giving him the King's sister in marriage, and accordingly the marriage took place in 122 1, when the husband was over forty and the wife barely seven. Lord Pembroke died in 1231 without issue, and after his death his widow (it is said owing to her great grief) took with some solemnity a vow to become a nun. She did not, however, carry out her intention, and in 1238, seven years later, when the lady was twenty-four, notwithstanding her vow, she privately married the celebrated Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester. The marriage was kept secret for some months, and when it was published it created a considerable sensation, and so much reprobation on the part of the Clergy on account of the vow before mentioned, that it became necessary for Leicester to go to Rome in order to obtain a dispensation for the marrias^e. Simon de Montfort is one of the greatest and most inter- esting figures in English history, and there are few persons whose character and conduct have been the subject of more controversy. On the one side many persons in his own day, and at later periods, have regarded him as a hero and a martyr, and on the other side he was and is regarded as little better than a demagogue. I take it that he was a man of excellent personal conduct, great ability, and extraordinary personal influence over most of those whom he came across, but I think that his patriotism was greatly leavened by private ambition, and I decline to accept him at the estimate of his more enthusiastic admirers. Like everything else about him, the origin of his family is in dispute, but, according to the more probable view, he was descended from Almeric de Montfort, a natural son of Robert, King of France. His father was the Simon de Montfort, known in history as the friend of St. Dominic and % f/ the "persecutor" of the Albigenses, who, by many Catholics, is regarded as a Saint and by most Protestants as one remove from a Devil. This Simon married Amicia, daughter and heiress of Robert de Beaumont, surnamed Fitz Parnel, fourth Earl of Leicester of his family, and Amicia carried the Earldom of Leicester into the de Montfort family. Simon, the husband of Eleanor, was the second son of his parents, but he obtained a renunciation of the Earldom from his elder brother, and was recognised as Earl of Leicester from, at all events, the year 1236. From his first coming into England he obtained an extraordinary ascendancy over his fellow Barons and over the King, who appears to have regarded him with a some- what ludicrous mixture of affection, admiration and terror. Henry was certainly present at Simon's private marriage with Eleanor, but when the marriage became public and was strongly resented by a large section of the community, he turned round and loaded both husband and wife with reproaches, even suggesting that Leicester had seduced his, Henry's sister, before marriage. This was probably the first cause of the complete estrangement which ultimately ensued between the King and his brother-in-law. Some time after his marriage Simon went to the Holy Land, and afterwards he was for some years in Gascony or Aquitaine, of which province Henry HI. was Duke, and of which de Montfort, was the Governor, but on the breaking out of the disputes between the King and the Barons he came to England and became the recognised leader of the latter. At the famous Battle of Lewes the King and his son became his prisoners, and for about a year Simon was virtually Ruler of England, but the fortunes of war then changed, and Simon was killed at the Battle of Evesham. All these circumstances, however, are matters of general history with which my readers are probably familiar. Of Eleanor's career during her husband's life little can be known, but her biographer, Mrs. Everett Green, gives many ill # , „-.« 1 111 i \ 104 History of the Royal Family of E7igla7id. interesting extracts from her household books, which give us a great idea of the splendour and almost regal magni- ficence in which the greater Barons lived in the thirteenth century. Lord Leicester's chief seat was the Castle of Kenilworth, which has been the scene of so many interesting events, and the ruins of which still exist. The Countess Eleanor was at Dover when her husband died. She found a kind friend in her nephew, Prince Edward, but ultimately retired to France, where she died in the year '275, aged about sixty. Simon and Eleanor had six children, Henry, Simon, Guy, Richard, Amalric and Eleanor. Whatever may be thought of the great Simon as a ruler of men, he was certainly not successful as a ruler in his own family, for his sons were men of notoriously savage and vindictive character, who used their father's great position entirely for their own private and usually bad purposes. The fate of Henry and Richard, the eldest and the fourth sons, is uncertain, but they are supposed to have been killed at the Battle of Evesham. Miss Yonge has made them the heroes of a very graceful tale, " The Prince and the Page," a book which is, in its way, a model for all historical romancers, in that it is nowhere inconsistent with known facts, and suggests nothing that viight not have happened. Simon and Guy de Montfort, the second and third sons of the Earl and Countess of Leicester, were the murderers of their cousin Henry of Almain. The former, according to Trivet's annals, " Cursed of God like Cain, became a wanderer and vagabond upon the earth," and died soon afterwards. Guy spent nearly ten years in prison in Italy, but having obtained his libei t\- he married into a noble Tuscan family, and ultimately became the founder of an Italian family of de Montfort which flourished for many generations. Amalric, the youngest son, died unmarried, and either was or intended to become a Priest. Eleanor, the only daughter, after the death of her father, Eleanor de Montfort, 105 accompanied her mother to France. While there a matri- monial treaty was concluded between her and Llewelyn, the last of the independent Welsh Princes; and in 1275,' just before the death of her mother, the marriage between Llewelyn and Eleanor was solemnized by proxy. In the following year the Princess and her brother Amalric set out for Wales to join her husband, but on the way there they were taken prisoners by their cousin Edward I., and for two years they were kept in more or less strict imprisonment. In 1278, however, Edward and Llewelyn having concluded a short lived peace, the latter was personally married to Eleanor de Montfort at Worcester with great magnificence. The marriage was of short duration, for a fresh war broke out between the King and the Prince of Wales, in the course of which the latter was killed, and, his body being decapitated, his head was placed on the battlements of the Tower. Happily for her, his wife died shortly before this event in the year 1282, leaving an only daughter who became a nun. No one of the sons of the great Earl Simon succeeded him in his titles, nor after his death does the de Montfort, family appear in English history. King Henry III. and his wife had nine children, and I hasten to add that of these five died as infants. Their children were (i) Edward, named after St. Edward the Con- fessor, and afterwards Edward I., born 1239; (2) Margaret afterwards Queen of Scotland, born 124O; (3) Beatrice, afterwards what would now be called hereditary Princess of Brittany, born 1242; (4) Edmund, afterwards first Earl of Lancaster, born 1243, and five younger children, named respectively Katharine, Richard, John, William and Henry, who all died as infants. Following the course I have hitherto taken, I will speak first of King Henry's daughters. In 1249 King Alexander II. of Scotland died suddenly, leaving an only child (then a boy of eight), who succeeded him as Alexander III., and two years later, when the bride- groom was ten and the bride was eleven, Alexander III. and Margaret, Henry's eldest daughter, were married with great III H 1 06 History of the Royal Family of E7tgland, pomp and solemnity at York. I regret to say that on this occasion King Henry sought to take advantage of the youth of his son-in-law to exact from him the much disputed homage for the Kingdom of Scotland, but the young King> who acted with great spirit and discretion, positively refused to commit himself in any way. Takinj.^ him altogether, Alexander III., who reigned from 1249 till 1285, was one of the best of the Scottish Kings. He was a man of great mental and physical activity — he appears to have acted throughout his reign with prudence and firm- ness, and he was a faithful and kind husband, which can be said of but few of his successors. For some years after their marriage the King and Queen of Scotland were virtually prisoners in the hands of the various factions which from time to time became dominant, and during this period Margaret, who seems to have kept up a secret and close correspondence with England, sent urgent appeals to her father for assistance. As the result, in the year 1254, King Henry sent Richard de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, to Scotland, and he and his followers having by a stratagem obtained access to Edinburgh Castle where the King and Queen were confined, succeeded in carrying them off in triumph to Roxburgh. Thenceforth the independent reign of Alexander, though he was still a mere boy, may be said to have commenced. Of Margaret person- ally we know very little, except that throughout her life the relations between the Scotch and English Courts were most intimate and friendly, and that she and her husband came to England as visitors every two or three years, and that they were present at the Coronation of Edward I. Margaret died in the year 1275 at the age of thirty-four. Her husband, who survived her for eleven years, married in 1285 Yolande de Dreux, and he would seem to have been much attached to this lady, for in the following year, having been present at certain festivities in Edinburgh, he in spite of the remonstrances of his followers insisted upon returning to her at Kinghorne that same night, and in the midst of a terrible storm. In the course of his ride home he was thrown from his horse and Claimants to the Scottish Crown, IQ^J killed on the spot. Alexander had three children only—all by his first wife, Alexander, David and Margaret. Alexander died in the year 1283 at the age of twenty, leaving no issue, though he had been married to a Flemish Princess. David died as a boy in 1281, and Margaret, who had married Eric, King of Norway, died in the year 1283 leaving an only child, known in history as the " Maid of Norway." This poor little girl who, on the death of her grandfather became Queen ot Scotland, died on the journey from Norway to her own kingdom, as I cannot help thinking happily for her, and thereupon began the disastrous wars of succession which convulsed Scotland for the next fifty years. William the Lion, King of Scotland, left an only child, Alexander II., and Alexander II. left an only child, Alexander III. ; and therefore on the extinction of the issue of Alexander III. it became necessary to revert to the descend- ants of David Earl of Huntingdon, next and only younger brother to William the Lion. This Prince had three sons who died unmarried, and four daughters, Margaret, Isabella, Maud and Ada, and of these Maud also died unmarried. Margaret, the eldest sister, married the Lord of Galloway, by whom she had two daughters, one of whom died without issue, and the other, Devorgoil, married John Baliol, and her third son, John Baliol (whose elder brothers had died without issue), was in 1291 declared King of Scotland by Edward I. in his character of Over-Lord of the Scottish Kingdom, but was afterwards deposed. Isabel, second daughter of David, married Robert Bruce, and was the mother of the Robert Bruce who claimed the Scotch Crown in 1291. This Robert Bruce was the grandfather of the great Robert Bruce who was crowned King of Scotland in 1306, and is known in history as Robert I. of Scotland. Ada, the youngest daughter married Henry Hastings, and her great grandson John Hastings was one of the claimants of the Scottish Throne in 1291, or more accurately to one-third of Scotland, his con- tention being that the Kingdom should be divided between the descendants of Margaret, Isabella and Ada. The husband i I 1 08 History of the Royal Family of England, of Ada, daughter of David Earl of Huntingdon, and his descendants were Englishmen of rank and distinction, and from John Hastings, the competitor for the Scotch Crown, a great number of the English nobility at the present time claim descent. (See Table HI.) There have been only two English Princesses named Beatrice — Beatrice, second daughter of Henry HI., who was named after her maternal grandmother Beatrice of Savoy, and Beatrice, the youngest daughter of the late Queen Victoria. The matrimonial connections between England and the Duchy of Brittany are sufficiently numerous. As my readers will remember Constance, daughter of William the Conqueror, married Alan Fergant, Duke of Brittany, but died without issue. Alan's great granddaughter (by his second wife), Constance, Duchess of Brittany in her own right, married Geoffrey Plantagenet, son of Henry H., but her issue by this marriage having become extinct, she was succeeded by her daughter by her third husband, Sir Guy de Thouars, who was named Acrnes. The Duchess Aijnes married one Pierre Manclerk, and was succeeded by her son John, who was Duke John I. of Brittany, in the year 1260, and it was to the eldest son of this Duke, also John, that Henry HI.'s second daughter Beatrice was married in that year. At the date of the marriage she was eighteen years old. The relations between the young John of Brittany and his wife's parents, the King and Queen of England, were extremely intimate, and there is reason to suppose that the young people spent more of their time in England than was agreeable to the Duke of Brittany, or possibly to the English people, whose complaints as to the residence in England of the King's foreign relations were constant and emphatic. The Prince and Princess of Brittany accompanied Prince Edward to the Holy Land on the last Crusade, and on their return they were present at the Coronation of Edward. Beatrice died in Brittany in the year 1275 «^t the age of thirty-two, and by her own request her body was sent to ■ CO 1 1 % ■ urn ■ H ■ 1 1 K2 Oi • a; 00 c ■- s Z Z Z>i *tJ X II — < ^4 < ^ NH \ Hastin aron Hasti' :or for the S n 1291). d. Walter, ord Steward of Scotland. o~ x: Hi-, t^ - CS >x -' < Oi z 2 HN id B petii ne ii N-H bi c Se2 hJ H a^- X -> 8:S II -&i po t/i II H Zi Ii CA --^T^ Cz} b ^ > Oi . >J2 • n J rv/ .1/: M PS . to M M « 2 U Oi Pi v: ERT Bruce npetitor for the Throne in 1291). d. 1295. Pi . W Bruce. , King of d. 1329. M IV. m U Da^ Huntini 5 ERT ert I land. • C n 03 II Rob (Coi Scotch 09 Rob R.b Scot! 1— 1 ^ I rt J Ot3 H 7 >jt 1 m Isabel Baijol. 1268. ALIOL, ig of Scot- resigned •4- M t»1 < S Da ng of Scotl . bo c LLAN, ord of lloway. Z>i X 11 John B Crowned Kii land 1292 ; M X M L 1 M < a J »* « is •«< 1 Q rgaret = 1 G Pi Two Sons who died j./». Edwari: (Hisclaim t( Crown \v; by Edw He died j Q (the Li( and. d. i > Q • ^•6 H 5 ; ^1 Mar ueen d.s.f . — w.s o- W^ • VI M at • > ■ >i < -s E • 1— • TS m *— < . LU 1 -COL tland. DER cotlar 49- c -^ (1 00 • -J Mai King of Scoi Alexan King of S d. 12 4 Ci^" Alexan King of! d. I I/'" ' fl « I lo History of the Royal Family of England. England, and buried in Christ's Church, Newgate. Her husband, who survived her for thirty years, and shortly after her death became Duke John II. of Brittany, never married again, which is almost unique in the annals of Royal widowers. John and Beatrice had a large family. Their eldest son Arthur succeeded his father as Duke of Brittany, and of his descendants we shall hear again in treating of the daughters of Edward III. Their second son John lived altogether in England, and on the death of his brother Arthur was created Earl of Richmond. This John enjoyed the greatest possible favour from his uncle, King Edward I., and was largely employed in the Scotch and French wars. He was taken prisoner at the Battle of Bannockburn, and was afterwards exchanged for Eleanor, Queen of Scotland, the wife of Robert Bruce, who was at that time a captive in England. John of Brittany never married, and died in the year 1334. Of the other children of Beatrice it is unnecessary to speak, as they had nothing to do with English history, but several of them made good marriages in France, and as I have already mentioned one of her daughters, named Beatrice, was professed as a nun in the Convent at Ambresbury at the same time as her maternal grandmother, Queen Eleanor. CHAPTER VIII. Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster.— Thomas AND Henry, his Sons, second and third Earls of Lancaster.— Henry, first Duke of Lancaster.— Edward I., His Wives.— His Daughters Eleanor and Joanna. EDMUND, second son of Henry III., was slightly deformed, and in accordance with the amiable customs of those times, was commonly called Edmund Crouchback \n reference to the fact. He was born in the year 1245, and was therefore twenty-seven when his father died, and his brother Edward became King of England, and he died in the year 1296, twelve years before his brother, at the age of fifty. He appears to have been a person of no great ability or distinc- tion, but he enjoyed great wealth, and bore many titles, and his relations with his brother were uniformly friendly In Doyles " Official Peerage of England," he is styled Eari of Lancaster, Leicester and Derby. He was created Eari of Leicester in 1265 and Eari of Lancaster in 1267, and in i'>66 he was "invested with the honours of Derby," whereby I presume he became Earl of Derby. When he was eight years old, the Norman Kingdom of Sicily, which was, or was supposed to be, in the gift of the pope, was, so to speak, going a begging, as it had been offered to and been refused by several Princes, including Edmund's uncle Richard, afterwards Kmg of the Romans. Henry HI., dazzled by the title of King, accepted it for his young son Edmund, and made an abortive expedition to the Continent with a view to obtaining the Kingdom. This proceeding, however, was exceedingly unpopular, for the English people were, naturally, unable to III i'< i I/-- ill ' f I 12 History of the Royal Family of England. Thomas, Second Earl of Lancaster. IIS « see what possible benefit they could derive from Edmund s becoming King of so distant a Kingdom as Sicily, or why English blood and treasure should be expended m the attempt to obtain that Kingdom for him. In genealogies and histories Edmund is sometimes styled " King of Sicily," but it was practically a mere empty title, which he himself does not appear to have assumed in his later years. In the year 1293, King Edward I. was involved in a contest with Philip IV of France, which took its origin in a quarrel between Eno-lish and French soldiers. As a result of this dispute, Philip summoned Edward as Duke of Aquitaine to appear before him, and the King's brother Edmund was sent as an ambassador to arrange matters. Philip, who was a far abler man, completely overreached Edmund, who was induced to si-n'a treaty, by which the legal, and in some cases actual, possession of parts of the Duchy was given up to the French with results that were somewhat disastrous to England. Edmund himself was subsequently sent at the head of a small expedition against France to retrieve, if possible, the false step he had taken, but the expedition was abortive, and he is said to have died from an illness brought on by extreme mortifica- tion at his political and military failures. The details, how- ever, of the disputes between the Kings Edward and Philip are matters of general history, and are hardly a subject for this work. In 1269, when he was twenty-three, Edmund married Avelina de Fortibus, daughter and heiress of William de Fortibus, Earl of Albemarle, who, as has been already said, was descended from Adelaide, half-sister to William the Conqueror. This lady, however, died without issue m the following year (1270), and in 1276, when Edmund was thirty- one he married Blanche, widow of King Henry of Navarre. This lady was the daughter of Robert Count of Artois, third son of Louis VIII. and brother of St. Louis IX., Kings of France. On the death of her first husband, Blanche, with her daughter Joanna or Jeanne, who then came to be Queen of Navarre in her own right, had been driven out of Navarre and taken refuge at the Court of her cousin Philip III. of France, and when she married again she left her daughter maTerih^r" r jT"n ' ^" i'^""^"' ^^^'^ ^^^^ ^^^-'-^^' married Phihp IV. (called le Bel) of France, by whom she became the mother of three Kings of France, Lou'i's X., Ph li^ V and Charles IV., and of a daughter Isabella, the infamous she-wolf of France," wife of Edward II. of England Blalhe of Navarre survived her second husband, and^died in f 02 Edmund and Blanche had three children, Thomas and Ioh7;ho'H''r^^ r'"^ '"' '^"^ ^^''^ ^' Lancaster, and jonn, who died an mfant. Thomas, second Earl of Lancaster. Leicester and Derby and .„ „ght of his wife Earl of Lincoln and Salisbury, is one' of those persons of whom the late Professor Freeman says that ' Vox^T TT'^^^I P^P"'""" ='"'^™-ti"n." but thesaying unabl to"^" °" i-omewhat delusive, and I am myself regarded. <;'"': ^'T^' "P°" "'"^'^ ''''' ^"^^^ ^an be was probably born m ,277 and he was therefore about thirty when h,suncle Edward L died, and his cousin Edward Il.came Zu , I • '"'^ ^''°"' forty-four when he himself was beheaded m. 322. He was not only the first cousin of Kinc. Ou en lia' ""t °'''^'"""-'^'°°^ (^'^'■-^"h his half-siste^ yueen Joanna of France and Navarre) to Queen Isabella hatSiled ^Th ""^''^ '^•^' '"' ^'■"■^ thefirltheappea^ :■ her husCd Th ^- "' •!;"''^^ ''' ""^^ °' '''' Queen against the dv nr^H 1' " """I t° ^^'"^ ^'■'' '■" P^rt the result of ast F "f f,"?°""°"^ °f his father-in-law, Henry de Lacy, Lancaste^ th ^" I'^T"'"^ ^' having addressed the Earl of Lancaster thus : " See'st thou the Church of England here- n^^he kT"'''' ■'"' '""^' ^"^'^^^^^ ''y ^--h oppre'ssfons pele imnf ""-""fV^^-tfo"^ ? See'st thou the common cond tionTf ' '' ^y "■"'"'"^ =*"^ ^^^«' ^"d from the nobU itv f t '"'"' '"^'''^'^ *° ^^'■^'■'"d^ ■' See'st thou the hT^nTZ' ""'""' throughout Christendom vilified thee in .h °7 "'*'^^ "°""">' ^ I therefore charge thee m the name of Christ to stand up like a man, L 1 1 4 History of the Royal Family of England. the honour of God and his Church, and the redemption of thy country, associating thyself to that valiant, noble and prudent person Guy Earl of Warwick, when it shall be most proper to discourse of the public affairs of the Kingdom, who is so judicious in counsel and so mature in judgment Fear not thy opposers who shall contest against thee in the truth. And if thou pursuest, this my advice, thou shalt gain Eternal Heaven." This speech of Lord Lincoln, if made, was, it seems to me, very " tall talk," for there is really no reason to suppose that either the Church or the common people or the nobility were in a worse position under Edward II. than they had been in a great many of the previous reigns. There was, however, a legiti- mate grievance in the extraordinary and excessive influence obtained over the King by Piers Gaveston, a Gascon gentle- man who had been brought up with him, and whom he had created Earl of Cornwall, and married to the King's own cousin Margaret de Clare ( s^^ post). The Barons, under the joint leadership of Thomas Earl of Lancaster and Guy Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, besieged Gaveston in the year 1 3 12 in Scarborough Castle, and he, destitute of provisions, surrendered, after an express promise from them that he should be conducted to and allowed free communication with the King before he stood his trial by the Parliament. Not- withstanding this promise, Gaveston was hurriedly conveyed to Warwick Castle, and there, after what seems to have been a mock trial by his enemies, he was beheaded. There is no doubt that on this account Earl Thomas was afterwards regarded by King Edward II. with much disfavour, and some years later, when he had taken up the cause of the Queen against Hugh le Despencer, who had succeeded Gaveston as Edward's favourite. Earl Thomas was himself taken prisoner and put to death at Pontefract, with as short shrift as he him- self had allowed to Gaveston, and under circumstances of great personal ignominy. It is to be observed, however, that amongst those who sentenced him to death were three of his cousins, Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, who was the >s 45 u I go? [^ i-Jt-i W " II H2 PQ o ^ I o O -Z IT pq II bo a > CO D O -1 — V Pi rt Wo ^ c X 6 00 >i :::>j UJ < C/J . I—I V O 2 _ fti o i-t c ' ►J 2 Oh O c i4 w^ o > o z ■ W W -a ^ S ^•? H ■ Z .< o. S "^ n « in o 5 c - o 2 4> > « *— l^ '^ -Jo " flHJ2 Pi C O < W ^^ Q M^ W t4 •^ oo ■< •-' ■o 2' < S - *- o ^.j « > M II 3.2 . 1^ ™ V Q ^ Wei; . > C n o o> f»1 E U -Z < .-I I— I tN c'-o I', 1 1 6 History of the Royal Family of England. Henry, Third Earl of Lancaster. 117 grandson of Isabella of Angouleme (mother of Henry III.) by her second husband (see ante\ Edmund Plantagenet, Earl of Kent, half brother to Edward II. and John of Brittany, son of Henry III.'s daughter Beatrice. These persone, what- ever may have been their faults, must have known all the facts, and there is no reason to suppose that they were wholly without any sense of justice, or unreasonably prejudiced either in favour of the King or against the Earl of Lancaster. Dugdale, who gives the account of Thomas' death, says, "Touching his merits there happened afterwards very great disputes, some thinking it fit that he should be accounted a Saint, because he was so charitable, and so much an honour to the religious ; as also that he died in a just cause, but chiefly because his persecutors came within a short period to untimely ends. On the other hand, many there were who taxed him for adultery in keeping of sundry women notwithstanding he had a wife. Aspersing him like- wise for cruelty in putting to death some persons for small offences, and protecting some from punishmentwho were trans- gressors of the laws ; alleging also that he was chiefly swayed by one of his secretaries, and that he did not fight strictly for justice, but fled, and was taken unarmed. Nevertheless many miracles were reported to have been afterwards wrought in the place where his corpse was buried, much confluence of people coming thereto in honour thereof, till the King, through the intervention of the Spencers, set guards to restrain them. Whereupon they flocked to the place where he suffered death, and so much the more eagerly as endeavours had been used to restrain them, until a Church was erected in the place where he suffered." Earl Thomas married Alice de Lacy, only child and heiress of the Lord Lincoln before mentioned, but had no issue. On his death he was attainted as a traitor, when his various honours became forfeited. Henry, third Earl of Lancaster, ^vas born about the year 1 28 1, and therefore when his brother was beheaded in 1232 he was about forty years old. He, like his brother, was uncle of the ha f-blood to Isabella, Edward II.'s Queen (see Table I v.), and like his brother, he was her strong adherent. After his brothers death he was one of the chief leaders of the ' ^Z^^ ^A^'^.^T ''^^''"^^ ^^ ^^^ Despencers, and who deposed Edward II., though there is no reason to suppose that he was a party to the murder of that Prince. He was, however appointed Captain General of the forces in Scotland, and President of the Council of Regency, which was constituted to govern the Kingdom during the minority of the young Kine Edward III., but, like everyone else, he speedily became disgusted with the conduct of Isabella and her lover, Ro^er Mortimer, and in 1328 he took up arms against them. A civil war was for the time prevented by the intervention of the Archbishop of Canterbury, with the result that the Queen shortly afterwards took an opportunity to arrest and put to death the Earl of Kent (Edward II.'s brother), who like Lancaster had taken up arms against her. There is little doubt that the same fate would have overtaken the Earl of Lancaster if King Edward III. had not immediately after the execution of the Earl of Kent succeeded in throwing over the dominion of his mother and Mortimer, whereupon he personally assumed the reins of government. Earl Henrv IS styled in Doyle's " Official Peerage of England" Earl of Lancaster, Leicester and Derby, and even in his brother's life- time is sometimes styled Earl of Leicester, though he was only summoned to Parliament as a Baron (under what title does not appear) in 1299. In 1324, however, two years after his brothers death, he was created Earl of Lancaster and Leicester, but how he became Earl of Derby I do not know iiarl Henry died in the year 1345, about nineteen years after the accession of Edward III., and he is buried at Leicester He married Maud, daughter of Sir Patrick Chaworth, a Knight who though not of noble was of good descent, and the Countess Maud seems to have been regarded as a lady of considerable personal importance. By her Earl Henry had issue one son, Henry, who succeeded him, and six daughters One of these ladies became a nun, and the other five married %i 1 1 8 History of the Royal Family of England. into distinguished English families, and from them a great number of persons, distinguished or otherwise, who at the present date claim Royal descent, are descended. The eldest, Maud, was married twice, first to William de Burgh, third Earl of Ulster of his family, and secondly to Sir Ralph de Ufford. She had two daughters, one by each marriage, namely, Elizabeth de Burgh and Maud de Ufford. Elizabeth de Burgh married Lionel, Duke of Clarence, son of Edward III., and it is throus;;h this marriage, which will be referred to again, that Edward IV. claimed the throne. {Sqq post.) Maud de Ufford married Thomas de Vere, eighth Earl of Oxford of his family, and became the mother of the well known Thomas de Vere, ninth Earl of Oxford, and Duke of Ireland, who was the most distinguished of the favourites of Richard II., and to whom also I must refer later. Eleanor, another daughter of Earl Henry of Lancaster, married Thomas, last Lord Wake, whose sister was the wife of Edmund Plantagenet, Earl of Kent. The other three daughters married into the illustrious families of Mowbray, Fitz Alan, and Percy. The date of the birth of Henry, only son of the last mentioned Earl, and himself fourth Earl of Lancaster, is not certain, but it was probably about 1299, so that he was about thirteen years older than Edward III., with whom through- out his life he was united in the most intimate and strict friendship, and to whom he was doubly related in that their respective paternal grandfathers, Edward I. and Edmund, first Earl of Lancaster, were brothers, and that Duke Henry's father and the King's maternal grandmother, Joanna Queen of France and Navarre, were half brother and sister. (See Table IV.) This Duke Henry is styled in Doyle's " Official Baronage of England," Duke and Earl of Lancaster, Earl Palatine of Lancaster, Earl of Derby, Leicester and Lincoln, Baron of Hinckley, Lord of Monmouth, Kedwelly and Carwathlan, Earl of Moray in Scotland, and Lord of Bergerac and Beaufort in France. He was summoned to Parliament as Henry, First Duke of La7icaster. 119 Henry of Lancaster in 1335, and in 1337 in his father's life was created Earl of Derby. He succeeded his father as Earl of Lancaster and Leicester in 1345, and was subsequently HI 1347 created Lord of Bergerac and Beaufort. In 1349 he was created Earl of Lincoln, and in 1359 (by David II of Scotland) Earl of Moray. He was one of the original Knights of the Garter, and in 1352 was created first Duke of Lancaster. Some years previously an Act of Parliament had been passed by which Edward Prince of Wales, the eldest son of Edward III, had been created Duke of Cornwall, and by virtue of which the eldest son of every Sovereign, on his birth or the accession to the Throne of his parent, becomes de facto Duke of Cornwall, but with this exception, Duke Henry of Lancaster is the first British subject who bore the great title of Duke. Duke Henry was a most distinguished soldier, and was one of the greatest of the leaders in the French wars of Edward III, wars which, if they were disastrous, were certainly glorious to the English nation, and many pages of the Chronicles of Froissart are devoted to the Duke's exploits. He died in 1361, having married Isabella Beaumont, daughter of the first Lord Beaumont, by whom he had two children only both daughters,— that is to say, Maud, who, though she was' twice married, the second time to the Duke of Zealand and Bavaria, died young and without issue, and Blanche, who married the celebrated John of Gaunt, son of Edward III. who in her right became Earl of Lancaster, and by whom' she was the mother of the Prince who afterwards became Henry IV. of England. (See Tables IV. and V.) To this marriage I shall have to refer again. I must now return after this^ digression to King Edward I. himself. He was born in 1239, ascended the Throne, in 1272, when he was thirty-three years old, and died in 1307, after a reign of thirty-five years, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. I have already said that in my estimation Edward was one of the greatest Kings, and one of the best men, that ever sat on the English Throne. The public events of his life— the great legislative enactments of his reign, and the history of his wars JH^-l 120 ° ^w^'^O' (^f^/ie Royal Fatnily of England. in Wales, of which he maybe said to have become the conqueror in France, and above all in Scotland, is well known. It is of course a matter of controversy how far these wars were morall v justifiable, but It seems to me that there is very much to be said m each case m favour of the course taken by the King ■ and at all events, it may be said with confidence, that they were just wars m comparison with those undertaken by his descendants, Edward III. and Henry V., of which Englishmen are accustomed to speak with .so much pride In his private life Edward I, was entirely above reproach. H,s father was a weak and somewhat silly man, and Edward was undeniably a strong and able man, but they had this much .n common, that they were both, notwithstanding many questionable actions on the part of the former, sincereij rehgious-that both were faithful and loving husbands, and kind and affectionate fathers, and that if we except their relations with the de Montfort family, from whom they Llnd'r '^^^''^'^'^ provocations, both lived on the most kindly and affectionate terms with their numerous relations Edward s affection for his father and mother, and his father s brother, the King of the Romans, and tha^ Prince's sons, has already been referred to, and the pages of history abound with small but significant instances shewing the strong family affection which subsisted between Edward and his brother and sisters and their children. to fII "^"^ ^1^'^'^; '*'"" ^ """^ °^ '^'"*^^" y^^'^' '"^^ "tarried to Eleanor of Castile, the date of whose birth is uncertain but who was some years younger. This Princess was third m descent from Eleanor Plantagenet, sister of King John Her grandmother was Berengaria, eldest daughter of that Princess, and her father was St. Ferdinand III of Castile Berengaria's son, (See Table V.) Her mother was Joanna' Countess of Ponthieu. Eleanor of Castile died in the yea; 1290, eighteen years after her husband's accession to the Throne, and is buried in Westminster Abbey. She was one of the most admirable of the Queens Consort of England but her virtues were eminently domestic, and the public w Jf . , u';^ i2 .g > C C S!a ^ ^ M "i Q — % C c fa, 'o.s 'S -t^^-: 2« »— • c • feS II < JiS- . w £/D >— « ^ >*■ >-< r" T >" X2 H- . o.s Xo •— 1 <-; C/3 C -1« c 1-^ 1-1 ^5 II u K — ^ 2 :d ^ 5^ M 0. - c >-4 -' ^« Hi4 Edward King of England. d. 1307. i 0^ >< l-H • s °. 6 < < Cod II 1 — W 2^2 bo < c (K« c l-H — ' ••< ^'n^. fi W — ^:"o 0^ •«• 1 <:\ • W 3 > PqC ^ ^ h3 z H 0-'- M ttj (_) u 2: £ b« ^^ X W > 5 oi-oX-" ^ ^vZ-^ il ^O'^ -; "H * 5! . c "^^t^ « K c 5: v^ C/3 I- — w^' II II • 1 Henry III. King of England. d. 1272. H Lii be c (2 < s 2 iS M 122 History of the Royal Family of England. Edward i:s Daughters. 12% events of her life are very few. She accompanied her husband to Palestine on the last Crusade, and the story is well known how that, when they were there and Edward was wounded by a poisoned lance, Eleanor sucked the poison from the wound and thus saved his life. This story has been disputed, but it seems to me to be reasonably well authenti- cated. There can be no doubt that Edward and Eleanor were united by the most close and tender affection, and his deep regret for her is testified by a series of crosses which he erected on the several places where her body rested on its funeral progress from Grantham, where she died, to West- minster. Of these crosses the most celebrated was that erected on the place now known as Charing Cross, Charing being a corruption of the French words, " Chere Reine." In 1299, nine years after the death of Queen Eleanor, Edward married Margaret, youngest daughter of Philip III. of France by his second wife, Mary of Louvaine, and there- fore granddaughter of St. Louis IX. She, like her predecessor, was descended through her great grandmother, Blanche of Castile, from Eleanor, sister of King John. (See Table V.) She was, however, still more nearly related to King Edward, in that her grandmother, Margaret of Provence, wife of St. Louis, and his mother. Queen Eleanor, were sisters. At the date of this marriage King Edward was sixty and Margaret was probably very young, inasmuch as her parents were not married till 1272, and she was the youngest by several years of their three children. King Edward seems to have been very kind to her, and, as far as can be judged, she was an excellent person, but there is very little known about her. She survived her husband ten years, living chiefly at Marlborough Castle, where she died in 13 18, and she was buried in the Church of Grey Friars at Newgate. Edward I. had fifteen children, twelve by his first and three by his second wife, but my readers will be relieved by hearing that of these seven died as infants or young children. They were (i) Eleanor, afterwards Duchess of Bar, in France, who was born in 1264 i (2, 3 and 4), John, Henry and Joanna, oorn in 1273, and who died as a boy of eleven in r^s^ , f„ months after the birth of h;. ■>'"' Eleven in 1284, a few Mars^ar^t .ft ^^ ? ' ""^^ '"■°'her Edward ; (7) Margaret afterwards Duchess of Brabant, born in 127/- S^ Berengana, born in 1276, who died an infant fo/k? - who was'b '' ''''Tf' ' """ ' ^-^ ^" unnanS^d? uS' Counre: of HolLnd"';"/'^^' ^"^ ^'■-^^''^' --"-« born n .282 rlTp^ f f "^''^^ Countess of Hereford, and X ; ^J} Edward, first Enghsh Prince of Wales and afterwards Edward II., born in l284-(these were ht' Ear o?i.f b'"'-"'^"''^^^^^^ ^'^^ ThoLarafterL of Kent ho' " '" '^°' ' ^'4^ Edmund, afterwards Earl dLd fn .'sr '" ''"'' '"' ^''^ ^^^^"°'-' '^-" ■■" '304, who It will be seen that Edward I. therefore had only five daughters who reached maturity, and who thouTh^he" daughters, will be, for convenience, referred to hereafter as his eldes . second, third, fourth and fifth daughters Eleanor, the eldest daughter, was born in' 1264 and in .272, when her father became King, she was heiSs to the bo^^'ArK'"''^" J°^" -^ H-O' being de did her thT iTe of^Toh "°' ^'?r ■' '"" ^- -->' years durfng Edward L^u^ ''"Vfu^"^"'' '^' ^'^"^ °f Ws brothef deaTh t '^K°Kr' u^^^'^ ^^' '° ^^'''^t-^ and his early father's her- "''' '""^"°'"' ^^^^^^ "°' exactly he^ ow£ to th f '• "" '''■'''"""^ ^° ■■'^^^■•^^d. It is probably owing to this circumstance that she was kept in England till n 1^76 hi" \''' 'u' """"•^'^ "^^ ^Se of twenty-nine. so emnt o^o "■■' J " ''' ""^ °"'^ '^" ^^^^ °'d, she was A rons"^ m K 'r .""^'"'^^ '° ^'Ph°n«°. -forwards she w.. R"^ of Aragon, and six years later, in ,282, actinlarr" ' ^""^ '" *'^^* P"'"^^' °"'^' J°'- ^e Vescy acting as her representative. The disputes between Pedro W 1 24 History of the Royal Family 0/ Efigland, III., the father of the young Alphonso, and Charles of Anjou, brother of St. Louis of FVance, for the Kingdom of Sicily are matters of European history, and, though Edward I. of England did not take an active part in these disputes, his sympathies were with the Frenchman, who was his own second cousin (Blanche of Castile, Charles' mother, having been first cousin to King Henry III. (see Table V.)), and whose wife, Beatrice of Provence, was the sister of Margaret and Eleanor respectively, wives of St. Louis of France and Henry HI. of England. (See afite) 'Frequent and strong representations were made on behalf of the Spanish King to King Edward as to the propriety of sending Eleanor to her husband's Court, but whether by reason of the importance of Eleanor herself in regard to the succession to the English Throne, or the opposition of the King to the pretensions of Pedro and his son to the Crown of Sicily, it is certain that Edward persistently refused to allow his daughter, to whom he seems to have been warmly attached, to leave him. Alphonso died in 1291 without ever having seen his wife, who, however, is frequently spoken of in genealogies as Queen of Aragon, and did in fact for a time assume that title. In 1293 Eleanor was married to Henry, Duke of Bar-le-Duc, in France, a personage of no very great distinction or importance, and who, within two or three years after his marriage, became involved in a dispute with Philip IV. of France and his wife Joanna, Queen of Navarre, in the course of which he was taken prisoner, and he remained in captivity till 1 301, when he with difficulty obtamed his release. He died in the following year in defending the • Island of Cyprus against the Sultan of Egypt. Eleanor did not long survive her marriage, for she died while her husband was still in prison in 1298, nine years before her father. She left two children, a son John, who succeeded to his father's dominions, and who died of the plague at Famagosta in Cyprus, and, as I believe, unmarried, and a daughter, Joanna, who was sent to England, and married in the year 1306 John de Warrenne, last Earl of Surrey of that family. This lady's Joanna Countess of Gloucester, 125 Joanna, second dauorhter of Kino- T7^ j t the Holv T C...A ' "^"'■^^ 01 ^ing Edward I., was born in she was'^to n^arry th^E^l ^e d t'on ^T f ^''^'^ and Joanna s ultimate fate was less splendid ^ ' During the reign of Henry III. one of the .Greatest nf th. English Barons was Gilbert de Clare Far! of ri Hertford, whose greatgrandL^he ' wa Ami^ric'^' daughter of William, second Earl nf r\ . ' , ^°"'^ daughter of Robert Earl of pT f '°"=f te-". ^nd grand- brother Of the EmTres^ta IdTcr :;r°Gir:t''^ 'f contemporary and personal Mend of k£ Edfa d 7" 1' whom he had fouo-ht at thp Piaffi^ r ir r "^^^^^^ ^'> ^ith had accompan.-ed^L^lt,fSsa1e'rn?i:r ::;r of immense wealth and influence He hJ f ^ "^^ nLtLryTars:;? ''' °^" ''^'''- j-""-*-^- ^ ^'' 5 be clSed^'ir*'' '" '^" ""' ''^'y S'''''' ''"' -hat would now be called the marriage settlements were highly favourable to he Princess, seeing that on failure of issue ofGilh^nJ^ Joanna, the Earl's great English estates wer: se^Jeru^n 126 History of the Royal Family of England. The Countess of Gloucester s Children. 127 Joanna and her descendants by any subsequent marriage to the exclusion of Gilbert's own relations. The principal residence of the Earl and Countess of Gloucester was. of ^al places ,n the world, at Clerkenwell, a district which s thus described by Fitz Stephen, a chronicler of the twelfth century : In the north suburbs of London are choice sprin J of water, sweet wholesome and clean, and streaming forfh from among glittering pebbles, one of which is called Pons Clericorum or Clerkenwell, because in the evenings the youth and students of the City are wont to stroll out Thither to take the a,r and taste the fountain." There was in the neighbourhood a Priory of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, and a Convent of nuns which stood on the banks of the river " Holeborne " (which I believe ;« „^ . u u- u 11 iL ^ , ^"'"^" ' oeiieve is now represented by High Holborn), and these banks are said to have been "clothed with vines," and to have "abounded in romantTc steeps and secluded dells." romantic Joanna appears to have lived with extraordinary magnificence, and to have travelled about, when she did travel, with an enormous retinue and a somewhat appalling amount of luggage. Her husband spent much of his tfme "n Wales and Ireland, where he had great estates, and it would seem that Joanna accompanied him on these journeys He died in the year ,295 when Joanna was twenty-four and after his death his widow retired to Wales. There about fourteen months later, she married privately a certain Ralph de Monthermer, a person of whose origin nothing is known but who had been one of the Squires of her household and on whom, shortb^ before she married him, she had induced her unsuspecting father to confer the honour of Knighthood A coup e of centuries later under the gentle rule of the Tudors this marriage would have led to the lifelong imprisonment of the lovers, but it would appear that after ! short period of anger, King Edward not only for<.ave them but took Monthermer into high favour, and durinjthe ,.TeTf his wife Monthermer bore the title of Earl of Gloucester After Joanna's death he was created Baron Monthermer a„d he subsequently married Isabella de Valence, a daughter of Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, who was the first cousin of the half-blood to Edward L, being descended from that King's grandmother Isabella of Angouleme. Joanna died in 1307, shortly before her father, her second husband surviving her till 1325. The Countess Joanna had by her first husband four children, Gilbert, Eleanor, Margaret and Elizabeth, and by her second husband she had three children, Thomas, Edward and Mary. The children of Joanna by her second marriage may be somewhat briefly dismissed. Thomas, the elder son, who ■succeeded to his father's title of Baron Monthermer, died in 1340, leaving an only daughter Margaret, who married Sir John de Montacute, second son of William de Montacute, first Eari of Salisbury of that family. This lady's eldest son became third Eari of Salisbury and with him the Barony of Monthermer passed to the Earis of Salisbury. It is now said to be in abeyance among several noble families, of which that of the Marquis of Hastings is one. Edward, the second son, seems to have been summoned to Pariiament in the reign of Edward III., but nothing else is known about him. Mary, the daughter, is believed to have died young and unmarried. Gilbert, the only son of Joanna by her first husband Gilbert de Clare, succeeded his father as Earl of Gloucester, and married Maud, daughter of Richard de Burgh, Eari of Ulster, but he was killed at the Battle of Bannockburn in 13 1 3 and died without issue, whereupon the great family of de Clare became extinct. Eleanor, the eldest daughter of Joanna, was married when a young giri (in 1306) to Hugh le Despencer, who afterwards became the notorious favourite of her cousin Edward II. The Despencers were of an ancient and distinguished Baronial family, which had flourished in England from the time of the Conquest, and the elder of the two Despencers, who afterwards gained such evil influence over Edward II., had enjoyed great favour from that Prince's illustrious father Edward I., and it was in the year before Edward I.'s death (jinaaJ^*^, / 1 2 8 History of the Royal Family of England, The Countess of Gloucester s Daughters. 129 that the younger Despencer married King Edward's grand- daughter, Eleanor de Clare. After the fall of Piers Gaveston, the Despencers, father and son, rose rapidly in King Edward II.'s favour. The elder was created Earl of Winchester, and when the young Gilbert Earl of Gloucester fell at Bannockburn, the Earldom of Gloucester, which had fallen into abeyance among his sisters, was called out of abeyance in favour of Eleanor, the wife of the younger Despencer, who thereupon assumed the title of Earl of Gloucester. The awful fate of the two Despencers in 1326 IS matter of general history, and after the death of her husband, Margaret and her children were for some months confined in the Tower but were then released by Edward III and the lady subsequently married one William la Zouch of Mortimer and died in 1337. By her first husband she had a large family, and notwithstanding the fact that the two Despencers had been attainted before their deaths the children of Hugh by Margaret de Clare enjoyed much favour and advancement from Edward III., and the daughters were married into noble families, and their descendants are very numerous at the present time. Hugh Despencer, the eldest son of the Eari and Countess of Gloucester, died without issue, after a very distinguished career, in 1349. He before his death had been created Baron Despencer, but on his death the Barony expired. It was however afterwards con- ferred by a fresh grant on his nephew (the son of his next brother; Edward Despencer, who fought at Poitiers under the Black Prince, and like his uncle was a very great soldier His son Thomas Despencer married Constance Plantagenet daughter of Edmund Duke of York, and granddaughter of Edward III., and having succeeded in inducing that lady's cousin King Richard II. to reverse the sentence of banish- ment passed on his ancestor Hugh Despencer, he was advanced by that King to the rank and title of Eari of Gloucester. I o this distinguished person I must refer again later Margaret, the second daughter of Gilbert de Clare Eari of Gloucester, by Joanna, daughter of King Edward I was after the accession of her cousin Edward II., married at his instance to his favourite Piers de Gaveston, whom he had created Eari of Cornwall— a marriage which with reason gave great offence both to the nobility and to the country at large After the execution of Gaveston in 1314, the details of which 1 need not here refer to, his widow married one Hu^h de Audley, who in 1337 was created by Edward III. E^ri of Gloucester, but died without issue ten years later. Margaret de Clare had only one child (who was by her first husband) a daughter who died young. Elizabeth, the youngest of the three daughters of Joanna Countess of Gloucester, married John de Burgh, Eari of Ulster, by whom she was the grandmother of the Elizabeth de Burgh who, as will appear later, married Lionel Planta-e- net, Duke of Clarence, second son of Edward III. *^ Though little or nothing is known of these three sisters Eleanor, Margaret and Elizabeth de Clare, personally, they were, through their mother Joanna Countess of Gloucester the granddaughters, nieces and first cousins of the Kin-s' Edward I. and Edward II. and Edward III. respectivelvl- their marriages had at the time considerable influence^ on public events-the immediate descendants of the eldest and youngest were by reason of their royal descent and connec- tions persons of some note, and the ladies themselves were important links in the chain which in the time of the later Plantagenets connected neariy every family of importance with the Sovereigns in more or less close relationship, and which in my opinion greatly tended to diminish the power and authority of the Plantagenet dynasty. For these reasons the identity of these ladies is worth fixing in one's mind ^^:^0^^% I Edward I. 's Younger Daughters. 131 CHAPTER IX. Edward I.'s younger Daughters.-— Thomas Earl of Norfolk. — The Mowbrays. — Edmund Earl of Kent.— Edward II.— Isabella of France.— John of Eltham. — Edward I I.'s Daughters. MARGARET, the third daughter of Edward I., was born in 1275 ; in 1284 she was betrothed, and in 1290, when she was fifteen, and her husband twenty, she was actually married to John II., afterwards called the Pacific, Duke of Brabant He was the eldest son of John I., " the Victorious," and the father by Margaret of John III., "the Triumphant" Duke of Brabant. In the year 1284 John, Margaret's husband, then a boy of fourteen, was sent to England to be educated at the Court of King Edward. He was married to Margaret in 1290, and he remained in England until the death of his own father in 1296. His wife did not then accompany him to Brabant, and it was not till 1297 that she arrived at Brussels, which was the capital of her husband's dominions. Amongst the Court records of King Edward's daughters, which Mrs. Everett Green has collected from the household Rolls, is one which was made a short time after Margaret's marriage, and which may amuse my readers. '' Sunday the 9th day before the translation of the Virgin paid to Henry the Almoner for feeding 300 poor men at the King's com- mand, because the Lady Margaret, the YJin<^s daughter, and John of Brabant, did not hear Mass, 36s. 6d." This is equal to ^27 now. The marriage between John and Margaret was not a happy one, the Duke having been notoriously a very faithless 130 husband, and Margaret seems to have lived a somewhat lonely and uncared for life after she left England. She was however, present with her husband at the marriage of her brother Edward II. at Boulogne, and they afterwards went to England to be present at the King's Coronation. Her husband died in 1312, and she survived him for six vears and died in 13 18. She is buried in the Church of St. Gudule at Brussels. Margaret had only one child, namely, John the Triumph- ant before mentioned, whose career, however, it is unnecessary to speak of, as it did not affect the history of the English Royal Family. Mary, the fourth daughter of Edward I., was born in 1178, and in her earliest childhood it was settled that she should become a nun. In fact she appears to have been professed at Ambresbury, together with her paternal grand- mother. Queen Eleanor, in 1284, when she was only six years old. She outlived all her brothers and sisters and died in the year 1332, aged fifty-four. Her life as a nun by no means corresponds with modern ideas of conventual seclusion. Though she never attained to the rank of Prioress, she was a great person in the Convent, drawing a large income granted to her by her father, and confirmed by her brother and her nephew, Edward II.' and Edward III. She was a constant visitor at the Courts of her father and brother, and at the houses of her sisters, the Countesses of Gloucester and Hereford ; she received many distinguished visitors herself, and she appears to have spent a considerable portion of her time in making pilgrimages ; in the making of which, as we learn from Chaucer, the pilgrims combined a large measure of secular entertainment with their pious exercises. On these occasions Mary seems to have been attended by a Princely retinue, and to have spent a good -deal of money. Elizabeth, the fifth and youngest daughter of Edward 1., was, according to a certain Bartholomew of Norwich, a con- Ih 1 3 2 History of the Royal Family of England. temporary writer quoted by Mrs. Green, not called Elizabeth but Walkiniana, and I must confess that I tremble to think what would have been the fate of the English nation if such a name had been handed down among the female " Royalties." She was born in 1282, and in 1284 was betrothed to John, eldest son and heir of Florence V., Earl of Holland, who was at that time certainly under seven. In 1285 this young Prince, like his brother-in-law John of Brabant, was sent over to England to be educated, and there he remained till his marriage in 1297. His position, however, cannot have been very pleasant, for the relations between his father and King Edward were by no means amicable, and King Edward did not hesitate to remind both father and son that the position of the latter was, or might easily be converted into, that of a hostage. In 1296 John's father, Florence, was murdered, and urgent messages were sent over to John to invite his return to his native land. He did not, however, choose to go, or possibly was prevented from doing so, till after his marriage in 1297, which was celebrated with much magnificence at Ipswich. According to Mrs. Everett Green, King Edward wished Elizabeth to go with her husband, but she refused, and an altercation ensued between her and her father which resulted in something like personal violence on the part of the King. The author's authorities are, however, somewhat vague, and the story sounds improbable ; but it is certain that Elizabeth did not in fact go to Holland till some months later, and that she was escorted thither by her father in person. Her residence in Holland was brief and stormy. The Province was rent by internal dissensions, and her husband (who was a feeble creature) was practically always 'a captive in the hands of the person who was for the time being at the head of the faction in power ; while Elizabeth lived a somewhat neglected life at the " Manor of the Hague." John of Holland died of dysentery in 1299, and in 1300 his widow, who had had no child, returned to England, where Elizabeth Countess of Hereford, 13 father'"' *° ""^^^ '^*" '^""■^'' '"'* "'"''' ^'^""°" ^y her In 1302 she married Humphrey de Bohun, fourth Earl of Hereford of h>s very illustrious family. He was at the date of the marrmge twenty-one (Elizabeth being twenty), and he was a man of great wealth, power and influence After her second marriage Elizabeth's time was chiefly occupied ,n bearing children, of whom she had ten-eight sons (one of whom bore the classic name of ^neas) and two daughters, and she died in childbirth in 1315, at the age of thirty-five, eight years after the accession to the Throne of her brother, Kmg Edward U. Her husband survived her, and having opposed the King Edward II. m h.s disputes with the Barons, was ultimately k.Iled at the Battle of Boroughbridge in 132,, at which battle 1 homas, second Earl' of Lancaster, was taken prisoner, and may be said to have died, for he was executed immediately afterwards. ^ Of Elizabeth's eight sons, only one left a son, and this son, Elizabeth s grandson, was named Humphrey. Of the other sons of Elizabeth, two, John and Humphrey, were successively Earls of Hereford, and died without issue, and on the death of the younger in 1363 (temp. Edward HI.) the Earldom passed to his nephew Humphrey above mentioned. On this Humphrey's death in ,372 (temp. Edward III.) without a son, the family of Bohun became extinct. The last Earl Humphrey however, left two daughters and co-heiresses, Eleanor and Mary, who were married respectively, Eleanor to Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, the youngest son of Edward III., and Mary to Thomas's nephew, Henrv of Lancaster, afterwards King Henry IV., by whom she became the mother of Henry V. To these marriages I must refer Elizabeth'.s two daughters Eleanor and Margaret were married, Eleanor to James Butler, first Earl of Ormonde, and Margaret to Hugh Courtenay, second Earl of Devon and from these marriages the present Marquis of Ormonde and ..0.' -,. 134 History of the Royal Family of England, the present Earl of Devon are directly descended in the male line, and a considerable number of other noble families also claim Royal descent. Of the six sons of Edward I. it has been shewn that the three elder died as children. The fourth was Edward II., to whom I shall return. The fifth was Thomas, usually called Thomas de Brotherton, from Brotherton in Yorkshire, where he was born. This event took place in 1301, and he was consequently six years old when his father died, and his half- brother Edward II. came to the Throne; twenty-six on the death of Edward II. and the accession of Edward III., who was his nephew, and thirty-seven when he himself died in the year 1338 (temp. Edward III.). He was the elder of the two sons of Edward I. by his second wife, Margaret, daughter of Philip III. of France, and consequently was of as illustrious descent on his mother's as on his father's side. Inasmuch as Edward II. married Isabella, daughter of Philip IV. of France, who was the brother of Thomas's mother, Thomas was doubly related to King Edward III. through that King's mother as well as through his father (see Table VI.), a circumstance which possibly accounted for the great preferment in later years of Prince Thomas's descendants. In 13 1 2, five years after the accession of Edward II., Prince Thomas, who was then eleven, was created Earl of Norfolk, a title which had become vacant in 1307 on the extinction of the family of the Bigods (who had been Earls of Norfolk from the time of Kin<^ Stephen), and at the same time Thomas was made Marshal of England, an office which had been previously held by the illustrious family who took their name from it, which family also had become extinct. Froissart describes Prince Thomas as "of a wild and dis- agreeable temper," and though he was to some extent employed in military matters during the reigns of his brother and nephew, he does not seem to have distinguished himself in any way. In the disputes between King Edward II. and his wife the Earl of Norfolk took the latter's part. Thomas was twice married, first to Alice, daughter of Sir •a c ctf «-^ bo C o bo c OS CI] < O < H £: - w rt ^ W^ C/3 O ^ c IX, o Y^ 00 O ^ II — I— ^ <« II H CO < O « o < o ro T3 u V J3_ O < H _< IS is W H is o o (4 O. Q Pi Q W s V 00 Oh CO m o < "^ o •— » ii Q o Cfl !^ o X E- Ul o a < CQ ^ CO -^ f3 o «>i C «' 3 *> II ^0 W5 t— I c9 Q.5 H O < O 00 CO ^« Q t c 136 History of the Royal Fa^nily of England. 7'he Mowbrays. ^Z1 Roger Halys, and secondly to Mary, daughter of William, Lord Koos, and widow of William Braose, and he had three children, Margaret and Alice by his first wife, and John by his second. Of the son John all that is known is that he became a monk, and thereby becoming " civilly dead " did not, if he survived his father, which is not known, inherit his father's titles. The younger daughter, Alice, married William de Montacute, and left a daughter, Joanna, who married William de Ufiford, Earl of Suffolk, and died without issue. It is uncertain when Margaret, eldest daughter and eventually heiress of Thomas de Brotherton, was born, but the date is commonly fixed about 1320, in which case she would have been seven years old at the accession of Edward III., fifty-seven at the accession of Richard II., and seventy- nine in 1399, in which year that King was murdered and she herself died. On her father's death she succeeded him as Countess of Norfolk in her own right, and at the Coronation of Richard IL she claimed to execute, by deputy, the office of Marshal of England, which had been conferred upon her father, but this claim was disallowed. Two years before her death, how- ever, King Richard created her Duchess of Norfolk, for her life only, and at the same time he created her grandson, Thomas Mowbray, sixth Baron Mowbray, liereditary Duke of Norfolk, and conferred upon him the hereditary office of Earl Marshal of England, an office which has been claimed ever since by the Dukes of Norfolk, and is filled by the present Duke. The Duchess of Norfolk was twice married, first to John, third Lord Segrave, and secondly to Sir Walter Manny, who was one of the most distinguished of Edward II I. 's generals. She had three children, Anne, Elizabeth, and another Anne, the first two by Lord Segrave, and the youngest by Sir Walter Manny. The elder of the two Annes became a nun, and the younger married John Hastings, second Earl of Pembroke of his family, by whom she became the mother of vear L? K°" T f 1"^"^ '^'"^°"' '"^^"^ '" ^is seventeenth Sfzabeth ^ M "'^ ""^''"^^ ^^""y became extinct, tl zabeth Segrave, Margaret's second daughter, married John Mowbray, fourth Baron Mowbray, whose mother was Joanna L ncasTe" tT' t ^'^ '^"^''^^^ °^ "'="^>- ^^'^d iarl of Alt r ^''^^'' '°" ^"^ l^eir Of this marriage suc- ceeded h,s father as fifth Baron Mowbray, but died unmarried and under age, and was succeeded by his next brother cri^Ef rlT '' f'*^ ^^^°"- ^W^ nobleman was created Earl of Nottingham on his brother's death in 1,8, ana two years later, in ,385, he was made Earl Marshal of Zf^ I ' ^' ^""^ b^^" ^'■'^^dy ^'^ted, when his grand- crelS' n"f "'• f "^''^^ °'" "r"^""^- °f Brotherton. was created Duchess of Norfolk for her life, he was created hereditary Duke of Norfolk. There were four, and by rights there ought to have been five, Dukes of Norfolk of the Mowbray family. The firs" above :^entioned, who was Duke of Norfolk and Earl of Nottingham is he whose memorable contest with Henry of Bo„ngbroke, afterwards Henry IV., is commemorated in the opening scene of Shakespeare's play, " Ricliard XI." He was banished as ,n the play appears, and died in the year 1400 Norfoi't TL '^ "°' '""^'^^ '^™ '" '"^^ *'"e of Duke of • T 2 M K TT" '^^ *'*'" °'" E^^^l Marshal, and is the H^n V fv ' h' °' ''" "^°"' P^--' °f '""^ P'^y °f " King Henry IV. He was executed in 1405 as having taken part •n a conspiracy against King Henry IV. and died without issue. "-ii^uL N. ^ il "f "^f 'l?'^^'' thereupon became second Duke of Norfolk of the Mowbrays. and was duly succeeded one after the other by his son and grandson as third and fourth Dukes. 1 he fourth Duke, who died in the time of Edward IV. left an only daughter and heiress, Anne Mowbray, who, as a very young child was married by that King to his own younger son, Richard. Duke of York, afterwards one of the Princes murdered ,n the Tower, and who during his short life was styled Duke of Norfolk as well as Duke of York ^ jj'JSSftAiKiSi* 1 38 History of the Royal Fa77zily of Eyigland. His little wife, who was younger than himself, died before him, and with her expired the great family of the Mowbrays ; but their honours and titles were afterwards in the reign of Richard III. divided between the representatives of Isabella and Margaret Mowbray, daughters of the first Duke. Isabella married James, fifth Lord Berkeley, and her son received the Earldom of Nottingham ; and Margaret, her sister, married Sir Robert Howard, and her son became first Duke of Norfolk of the Howards. To the illustrious family of the Howards I shall have to return later on in this work. I may, however, say here that the ancient Barony of Mowbray was held by the Howards, Dukes of Norfolk, until the year 1777, when, being a Peerage which passed in the female line, it fell into abeyance between the Stourton and Petre families, and so remained until 1887, when it was revived in favour of Lord Stourton, who thereupon became Lord Mowbray and Stourton. I now revert to Edmund, the youngest .son of Edward I. He was born in 1302, and was therefore only five years old when his father died, and twenty-seven when he himself was put to death in 1329, two years after the accession to the Throne of his nephew. King Edward III. In 1320 when he was eighteen, he was created Earl of Kent, a title which had been previously borne by only three persons, each of whom died without male issue. They were Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, half-brother to the Conqueror, William de Ypres, one of King Stephen's generals, and the celebrated Hubert de Burgh, of the reigns of John and Henry III. From this date (1320) Edmund was constantly involved in the quarrels between the King and Queen, which disgraced and desolated England, during the later years of Edward II. Edmund fought on the King's side in 1321 at the Battle of Boroughbridge, at which his brother-in-law Humphry de Bohun, the widower of his half-sister Eleanor, was killed on the other side ; and he was afterwards one of the presidino- judges at the trial, if trial it can be called, of his cousin Edmund Ea^^l of Kent. 139 Thomas of Lancaster. His own untimely end was, as we have seen, afterwards said to have been a judgment upon him for his share in Thomas' execution. After this date Edmund seems to have been won over to the cause of the Queen Isabella, who it may be remembered (s'ee TaWrViT''" '^'"""^^ ^'^^ ^""'^^'^ ^''^'''' ""^ ^''"'"• He accompanied Isabella when she withdrew to France m 1325, and was with her in her wanderings over the Conti- nent in that year, and in 1326, and for a short time after her return, he seems to have been one of her most energetic supporters. Speedily, however, he became disgusted at the excesses and revolting cruelties perpetrated by Isabella and Kini'^FH' T^. Mortimer, and especially at the murder of King Edward II., and in 1328 he and his brother Thomas of Brotherton and his cousin Henry of Lancaster, withdrew from Court and threatened open war. A peace was for a time patched up, but in the following year Isabella caused Edmund to be suddenly seized at Winchester, and after a mock trial he was executed next day. This judicial murder was the culminating point of Queen Isabella's wickedness It aroused public indignation to the highest pitch, and incited the young King Edward III., then little over seven teen, to take those vigorous measures for the relief of himself and his kingdom which are related in all histories, and which were so completely successful. Edmund, Earl of Kent, married Margaret Wake, daughter of John first Lord Wake, and had issue four children Edmund, John, Margaret and Joanna. Both his sons suc- ceeded him as Earls of Kent, but the elder died as a child and the younger, who survived till 1352, and who married Elizabeth, daughter of the Duke of Juliers in the Netherlands had no child. ' Of the daughters, Margaret died young, and Joanna, to whom I must again refer at some length, and who is known in history as the "Fair Maid of Kent," ultimately married Edward the Black Prince. MO History of the Royal Family of England. Edward II. King Edward II. was born in 1284, and was twentv-three when he became King in 1 307, and forty-three when he died. Ihe story is familiar to everyone, how his father, the Conqueror of Wales, presented him as an infant to the Welsh as their Pnnce ; and since then, with one exception, the eldest son of every English Sovereign has been created Prince , ^t " '''"""' "' ^'^ ''''■*'' "' '^^ accession of his father to the Throne. Of late some historians have credited Edward I f. with considerable abilities, and as having at any rate enter- tained pronounced political plans. His abilities may, I think be doubted, but there can hardly be any doubt that morally he was a contemptible and vicious person, but the extremitv of his misfortunes begets compassion, and it is impossible to read the hi.story of his reign without feeling how strongly the unfortunate circumstances of his position fought against him Edward, morally weak, and it is said of a bad physical constitution, was interpolated between two Princes, his father and his son, who were in every possible respect strong con- trasts to himself, and he seems to have reverted to the type of his grandfather, Henry III., whom he greatly resembled, and of vvhose career his own, under happier circumstances, miffht easily have been a reproduction. Edward Land Edward III. were both men of herculean strength and courage, and of extraordinary physical energy. Ihey were both great military leaders, they were both, though in different degrees, of very considerable intellectual power, and of both it may be said that their defects as well as their virtues were eminently those of strong and rather stern men Henry III. and Edward II. were alike irresolute, mdolent and timid ; their abilities were, so it seems to me inferior, they were without a spark of military genius, and their faults as well at their good qualities were those rather ot women than of men. Henry III., however, had great advantages over his grand- son. He succeeded a King upon whom almost anyone must have been an improvement, and the circumstances of his position were well calculated to develop such good qualities 141 as he possessed. His domestic surrour.dings were exceotion plans, defects with which he could h! , ! ^^'"^ °" *»'^ from the undue restraint of his youth. Moreover Ed '''d ,T the eleventh child of his nar^nt. J^oreover Edward II., i, cinu lur 3 ears, it would aooear ffi^f r^ people expected that he himself could be reared Edwards marriage completed his misfortunes If h. .t1h^rd^fcr arpr^d—rr r ^^^^ Phi.ippaofHainault,orrn1 romt othit"f '^fbreTf mind, who could have shared and entered in o his "3^; .^ l.fe might probably have been very different U u ever, his fate to marry a woman of grea TabTtv and ^ °^" and who was as vicious and cruel 'arshe re eveT'S Isabella despised and hated her husband ^LTT\ clear, that she lost no opportunity opubHshnLnd'dlat- " on her husband's faults (which it was necessarv th ' ^^ should magnify in order \o conceal her own Talso dea rthinT'i^°o"'rf'"^ *° '^^^^"^ ^"--^^ or pSliL r "es"' I think It only fair to remember that much we h^=>r J I comes from Isabella and her partizans,"n?to say te° etst lost nothing in the telling. ^ ^^**' Edward certainly had some good qualities. The inter estmg letters published by Mrs. Everett Green in her lives o^ 1 42 History of the Royal Family of England, Isabella of France. the English Princesses bear ample evidence, under all their formality, of a strong affection between him and his sisters ; and the almost passionate constancy with which he supported his favourites, unworthy as they were, contrasts favourably with the callous levity with which some great sovereio-ns have allowed their friends to be sacrificed on the slightest emergency. Isabella, the wife of Edward II., was the only daughter who reached maturity of Philip IV. (called le Bel) of France, and was the sister of three French Kings, Louis X., Philip V. and Charles IV. Her mother was Joanna, Queen of Navarre, and her maternal grandmother, Blanche of Artois, took for her second husband, as has been shown, Edmund Crouchback, first Earl of Lancaster, by whom she became the mother of Thomas and Henry, second and third Earls of Lancaster. (See Table IV.) Consequently Isabella was the niece of the half-blood to those Princes, and she was also first cousin to her husband's half-brothers, the Earls of Norfolk and Kent, inasmuch as their mother, Margaret of France, was her father's sister. (See Table VI.) It is necessary to bear these relationships in mind in estimating the attitude of the Princes of the Royal Blood in the quarrels between Edward and Isabella, because their having taken the latter's part is sometimes relied on, more than I think is just, as telling against Edward and in Isabella's favour. Isabella was born in 1295, and she was only four years old when she was betrothed to Edward, at the same time that Edward's father married Isabella's aunt, Margaret of France. The actual marriage between Edward II. and Isabella was solemnised in Boulogne in January 1 308, when Edward was twenty-four and Isabella barely thirteen ; and it may well be said that the somewhat cavalier treatment which the young Queen received from her husband on her arrival in England, and of which she made such bitter complaints to all the world, was a not unnatural result of this disparity of age, and the extreme youth of the Queen. In the present day, at any rate, a young man of twenty-four would hardly be expected 143 to take very seriously or to treat with «,, u ^ r of thirteen. '^^ "'"''^ deference a girl the'^KinfTnf n" '"'''" '^' -domestic, relations between ^e Kmg and Queen so gravely affecteH th^ w , ^^" England, and are so well known fh.. '^°'^ °^ dwell upon them furtheTne^therTs f '' ""necessary to not be pleasant, to dvvell on the ^',,r.^^^^.^' -"^ ^^ would having become, it is sS, ILnlln Ltef;^^^^^ i-n„iisn people, by whom even in her nmr. i.r u was called the "she wolf of France" a nLr III ^^^ since stuck to her. trance, a name which has ever Edward and Isabella had four children ■ Crl VA j c wards Edward III., born in ...^ fT'c ^'^'^^^^''■ Cornwall, born in ,i, A^ FI ' ^ / afterwards Earl of Guelderland, born in 'is^td tlToa '"T'^ ^""^'^^^ °^ of Scotland, born in .321 ^^^ "^ "' ^^^^'^^ds Queen Elth'at 'from thTptrof t:^^ TT ""^' •'°''" °^ vear \i^f\ of fK r ^irth, died unmarried in the year 1330 at the age of twentv-thr^^f- -^^a u wxi natural sons, who was succeeded by !f i. 1 44 History of the Royal Family of E7igla7id. Richard, who was the natural son of the above-mentioned Reginald. John, before he became King, was for a short time Earl of Cornwall, and after the accession of Henry III. the Earldom was granted to that King's brother Richard, afterwards King of the Romans, who was succeeded as Earl of Cornwall by his son Edmund. Lastly, Edward II. granted the Earldom to Piers Gaveston, who, it may be remembered, was the first husband of the King's cousin, Margaret de Clare. John, son of Edward II., was the last Earl of Cornwall, but after his death Edward III., in 1337, created his own eldest son Duke of Cornwall with a special limitation, under and by virtue of which the eldest son of every Sovereign becomes on his birth, or the accession of his parent, Duke of Cornwall. The daughters of Edward II. appear to have been much neglected in their childhood by their mother, and during the absence of the Queen in France and in the Low Countries in 1325 and 1326, they and their brother John were placed by their father under the charge of the elder Despencer, the father of the King's notorious favourite, Hugh Despencer. They were actually with the King and the Despencers at Bristol when the King and his friends fell into Isabella's hands, and Froissart, who either felt or thought it expedient to affect considerable admiration for that Princess, specially records the joy she felt at reunion with her children. I do not know if the joy was mutual, but the shocking and dis- gusting scenes of cruelty which followed that event, and which in the case of the elder Despencer must have been perpetrated almost under the eyes of the children themselves, would probably have driven two modern little girls silly. In fact both Eleanor and Joanna, so far as details of their lives are known, appear to have been melancholy and despondent, though very gentle and good women. Eleanor, after having been the subject of more or less brilliant matrimonial plans formed by her father and brother, was ultimately married in 1331, four years after her father's Eleanor Countess of Guelderland. M5 death, and when she was fifteen, to Raynold II. (called the Swarthy), Count of Guelderland. I do not know the age of Raynold, but he was a widower with four daughters, and was therefore considerably his wife's senior. He does not appear to have been a particularly affectionate husband, for at one time he sent his wife away from him and announced his mteiition of getting a divorce on the ground that she was a leper, though all the evidence on the point shows that this was a mere pretence. In fact Eleanor acted with some spirit, and took very effectual and what under less trying circumstances might have been considered somewhat in- delicate means of showing to her husband and his courtiers that she was not a victim to any skin disease. Thereupon she was, at any rate, nominally reinstated in her position as Count Raynold's wife. Ra>nold, however, if not a good husband, was a very vigorous and useful ally to his brother-in-law Edward III., whom he very materially aided both in his Scotch and in his F'rench wars, but his services were not entirely disinterested, for the King paid him for them several very large sums of money, and used his influence with the Emperor to get the county of Guelderland erected into a Duchy, which was done. Raynold died in 1343, leaving Eleanor, who was then twenty-five, his widow, and two sons named Raynold and Edward, of whom she was the mother. For some years after his death Eleanor acted as Regent of the newly erected Duchy, and appears to have shewn considerable ability and prudence in that capacity, but when her sons grew up they quarrelled violently with one another and with their mother, whom they reduced to extreme poverty and obscurity. The younger, who was the more enterprising of the two, took his brother prisoner, and kept him in prison for ten years, and by way of delicate satire on his brother's corpulence, which was great, he put no door or bars to his prison chamber, but constructed the entrances of such narrow dimensions that the prisoner could by no means squeeze or be squeezed throuo-h them. *" I -*^r- II 146 History of the Royal Family of England. Neither of the sons of Eleanor left issue, and on the death of Raynold, the elder, who was the survivor, his father's line became extinct. Eleanor herself passed the later years of her life in a Convent at Deventer, where she died in 1355, ^g^^ thirty- seven, and where she is buried ; her tombstone is inscribed with one word only, " Eleanora." Joanna, the second daughter of Edward II., was married in 1328, the year after her father's death, to David Bruce, only son of Robert I. (the famous Robert Bruce), King of Scotland. At the date of the marriage David was eight and Joanna seven. As the illustrious Edward I. had in Edward II. a most unworthy son, so the heroic Bruce, who was certainly the greatest of the Scottish Kings, had an only son David, who was probably the worst. The marriage between David and Joanna, was brought about by Queen Isabella, and formed part of the treaty of Northampton, which was justly regarded by the English as very humiliating, and was so distasteful to the young King Edward III. that he positively refused to be present at his sister's marriage. Robert I. died in the following year, whereupon David became at the age of nine King David II. of Scotland. In 1333 Edward III., who had emancipated himself from the tutelage of his mother, thought proper to take up the cause of Edward Baliol, son of the '' mock King," John Baliol, whom Edward I. had so strenuously endeavoured to place upon the Scottish Throne. He accordingly invaded Scotland, where, at the age of twenty-one, he won his first great battle, that of Halidon Hill. The Scotch, afraid lest their young King should fall into Edward's hands, had previously sent David and Joanna to the Court of Philip VI. of France, and by him they were kindly received. They remained in France, chiefly in Normandy, till 1341, when they returned to Scotland, David having previously bound himself to the French King to oppose Edward in every way. Joanna, Queen of Scotland. 147 Whatever the Scotch King may have learnt in France or whatever may have been the advantages of his sojourn there It is certam that he returned to Scotland a most accomplished hbertme, and he paraded his debauchery after so shameless and reckless a fashion that the Scotch, although they were not m those days what may be called prudish, were greatly incensed. In 1347, Edward being in France, and engaged in his foreign wars, David fulfilled his promise to King Philip of France by invading England, having previously announced his intention to " scatter the nation of the English till their name be no longer remembered." He was met by a small body of Englishmen at Neville's Cross under the command of Lord Percy, and encouraged by the personal presence of Edward's wife. Queen Philippa. There David sustained a complete and inglorious defeat, and was taken prisoner and carried to London, where he was kept in more or less strict captivity for the next ten years. During a great part of this time Joanna was also in England, but probably by her own wish, she was not with her husband, who, notwithstanding his imprisonment, seems to have found means to solace himself with much and varied female society. It is beyond my province to enter into the details of the humiliating terms upon which David recovered his liberty, but he returned to Scotland in 1357, his wife being with him. Shortly afterwards David sent to England for a woman named Mortimer, who had been his mistress, and she notoriously obtained such extreme and evil influence over him that she was ultimately assassinated while riding by his side. Before this event, however, Joanna, who had had no child, determined to leave Scotland, where her position had become intolerable, and accordingly in 1358, with the concurrence of her brother Edward III., she repaired to England, where she lived in extreme privacy at Hertfort till her death in 1362, when she was forty-one years old She was buried in the Church of the Grey Friars at Newgate. 1 48 History of the Royal Family of England, King David survived till 1370, and after Joanna's death he married a woman of inferior position, whom he speedily divorced. He left no issue. David was succeeded by Robert Stuart (Robert II.), the son of Walter, the Lord High Steward of Scotland, by Marjory, eldest daughter of King Robert I. and sister of David II., and it is from Robert II. that the illustrious line of the Stuarts who reigned over Scotland and afterwards over Great Britain for so many centuries are decended. (See Table III.) CHAPTER X. Edward III.— Queen Philippa.— The Black Prince.— Joanna OF Kent.— Richard II.— His Wives.— The Hollands. EDWARD III. was born in 13x2, and was about fifteen when his father (the exact date of whose death is not known) was murdered. He was seventeen when he threw over the Regency of his mother, and sixty-five when he died in 1377. It is an illustration of the increased longevity of the present times that in the fourteenth century King Edward, dying at the age of sixty-five, when nowadays a man would hardly be thought to have passed middle life, was looked upon and spoken of as a man in the extremity of old age, who had and might reasonably be expected to have fallen into his second childhood. It is usual to compare Edward III. with his grandfather Edward I., and in the glamour of his extraordinary military achievements to compare them in a manner favourable to the later King, but in fact the more the histories of the two Sovereigns are looked into, the more it will be seen, that with many points of resemblance, Edward III. was inferior in nearly every possible respect, except perhaps in military genius, to his grandfather. It is of course open to question whether the Scotch wars of Edward I. were justifiable, but it is at least arguable that they were. Edward and all his predecessors had claimed to be the Over Lords of Scotland, and this claim had been admitted by some, at any rate, of the Scotch Kings. It was the acknowledged right of the *' Over Lord " to settle questions of 149 50 History of the Royal Family of England. disputed succession — the succession to the Scotch Throne was bond fide in dispute, and the intervention of the King of England had been asked for by at least one of the claimants to the Throne. Matters, however, were in a very different position on the accession of Edward III. Robert Bruce had been King of Scotland, accepted by the people, and reigning practically without dispute for over twenty years. His title had been expressly recognized by the English at the treaty of North- ampton, a treaty solemnly cemented by the marriage of Edward's sister with Robert's son ; and under these circum- stances I cannot myself see how Edward Ill's attempt to force Edward Baliol on to the Scotch Throne can possibly be justified by anyone. The severity, even cruelty, of Edward I. has been justly commented on, but it was equalled if not exceeded by that of his grandson in that terrible invasion known as " Burnt Candlemas." Edward III.'s claims on France were even more unjusti- fiable. Indeed it is impossible to state them without their absurdity becoming apparent. He alleged, as I think most untruly, that the Salique Law had not become the Law of France, and was not binding upon him, and he therefore claimed, in right of his mother, to be King of France. It is however quite immateral whether the Salique Law was or was not in force, for Isabella had had three brothers, each of whom had left a daughter or daughters, and by every possible law of succession the right of these ladies to succeed in pre- ference to their aunt, Edward's mother, must have prevailed. After the Battle of Poictiers, Edward, with the aid of his heroic son the Black Prince, seemed to have touched the summit of human greatness, but from that time the power and reputation of both father and son speedily declined. England, strained of her wealth and manhood by the constant Foreign wars, was profoundly discontented, and the ill-judged, if chivalrous, attempt of the Black Prince to force the infamous Pedro the Cruel on to the Throne of Castile alienated his father's French subjects, so that one by one the French Edward III. 151 provinces were lost to the English Throne. It is a melancholy picture to see the father and son, who, whatever were their faults, were great men, sinking side by side into the grave, the one from premature old age, the other from wasting sickness, and both from the effects of constant and repeated mortifica- tions and misfortunes. King Edward was singularly fortunate in his wife, Queen Philippa. She was not of very exalted rank, being the younger daughter of the Count of Hainault, a compara- tively petty Flemish Prince, but the King had seen her in his journey to the Low Countries with his mother in the year 1325 and had fallen in love with her, and the marriage was one of genuine affection. When they were married in the year 1327 they were both about fifteen, and though Edward was not as irreproachable a husband as his grandfather had been, he retained a constant regard for his wife, and was tolerably respectable in his private life till she died in the year 1 369, eight years before her husdand, at the age of fifty- seven. Philippa, both as Queen and woman, may favourably com- pare with any of her predecessors or successors on the English Throne. At a time of great peril to the English Kingdom when in the absence of her husband the Scotch King invaded England, she, by her courage and presence of mind, turned, or at all events aided materially in turning, what might have been a signal disaster into the brillant victory of Neville's Cross. Her intercession for the citizens of Calais, which has been so often celebrated in picture and story, saved her husband from an act of cruelty which would have irreparably stained his reputation ; and her establishment of the Flemish weavers at Norwich gave an important impetus to British trade and commerce. Her conduct as wife and mother, and in all the domestic relations of life, is beyond the shadow of reproach, and the story of her death as told by Miss Strickland is truly touching. After her death her husband, already, as we may believe, falling into his dotage, fell under the evil dominion of a woman \ 52 History of the Royal Family of England. named Alice Ferrers, whose influence clouded and disgraced the later years of his life, and it is said, though I believe not wholly with truth, that this great King died in his old age absolutely alone, and deserted by all the world. I confess that when I come to deal with the children and descendants of Edward III. my heart fails me. That King had twelve children, of whom nine lived to maturity, or at least to a marriageable age, and six left issue. Consequently in the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries the number of Edward's descendants was very large, and they all or nearly all lived in England, married Englishmen or Englishwomen, and played more or less conspicuous parts in the history of their country. Moreover the inter-marriages between different branches of the Royal Family were frequent— the more distinguished persons constantly changed sides in the civil wars which dis- tracted Engrland, the authentic records of their proceedings are extremely scanty, and they nearly all came to a violent end. Under these circumstances it must be admitted that to give a tolerably clear account of "who was who" during the period in question is not an easy task, and I must ask the indulgence of my readers before I undertake it. King Edward ill. had twelve children— (i) Edward the Black Prince, born 1330 ; (2) Isabella, afterwards Countess de Coucy and of Bedford, born 1332 ; (3) Joanna, born 1333, (4 and 5) two sons, both named William, and who both died as infants ; (6) Lionel, afterwards Duke of Clarence, born 1338 , (7) John, called John of Gaunt, from the town of Ghent where he was born, and afterwards Duke of Lancaster, born 1340 (8) Edmund, afterwards Duke of York, born 1341 ; (9) Mary afterwards Duchess of Brittany, born 1344; (10) Margaret afterwards Countess of Pembroke, born 1346; (11) Thomas, who died an infant; and (12) Thomas of Woodstock, after- wards Duke of Gloucester, born 1354. I propose to deal first with Edward the Black Prince and his wife Joanna of Kent ; secondly, with their son Richard II. ; thirdly, with the Holland family, descended from Joanna of Edward the Black Prince. 15 Kent by an earlier marriage (which family, by reason of their own Royal descent, of their near connection with King Richard II., of their frequent inter-marriages with other branches of the Royal family, and of the great position to which some of them attained, must necessarily be spoken of in some detail) ; fourthly, with the daughters of Edward III. ; fifthly, with his youngest son the Duke of Gloucester, whose descendants can be kept more or less distinct, and played a less conspicuous part in the wars of succession than those of his elder brothers ; sixthly, with the Dukes of Clarence and York, whose united families were the leaders of the great " York " party in the Wars of the Roses ; and lastly, with John of Gaunt and his descendants, the Kings Henry IV., Henry V., and Henry VI., and the Beaufort family, from which sprung Henry VII., whose marriage with Elizabeth Plantagenet, daughter of Edward IV., united the factions of York and Lancaster, and from whose reign we must take a new departure. Edward the Black Prince was born in 1330, at which date his father was only eighteen, and he died in 1376 at the age of forty-six, one year before his father. He was a very great and on the whole I think a good man, to whom a large, if not the larger, part of the lustre which is shed on the early years of his father's reign is due ; and who, if he had retained his health and become King, would probably have been one of the greatest English Sovereigns. After the Battle of Poictiers, he was virtually the independent Sovereign of Aquitaine or Guienne, as it had come to be called, and in that capacity he unfortunately took up the cause of Pedro the cruel of Castile, who had been driven from his dominions by his natural brother Henry of Transtamare, and whom Edward succeeded in re-establishing after the Battle of Navarette in 1367. This enterprise, though temporarily successful, and in a manner glorious, was ill-judged, and produced no good effect to anyone. Pedro was such a hateful wretch that no nation could be expected to bear with him, and he was speedily again overthrown and killed by 154 History of the Royal Family of England. his brother. Thereupon followed the war of succession in Castile between Henry of Transtamare and the Black Prince's brothers, the Dukes of Lancaster and York, who had married Pedro's daughters, and in whose right they claimed the Castilian Throne. To this war I must again refer later. Edward the Black Prince in undertaking to re-establish Pedro had involved himself in tremendous expenses, to raise which it was necessary to tax his subjects to the utmost, and they, resenting this, invited the intervention of the P'rench King. Consequently a fresh war with France ensued, in which the English were as unsuccessful as they had been successful in their previous undertakings ; and as the result the English lost nearly the whole of their dominions in P>ance. This result would probably not have followed if the Black Prince himself had not been, slowly but surely, sinking under a fatal disease ; and to the irritability produced by a life of constant sickness and pain, may fairly be attributed those stains, such as the massacre at Limoges, which have tarnished the military reputation of this Prince in his later years. Previously he appears to have been one of the most chivalrous and merciful, as well as one of the bravest of the mediaeval soldiers. The Prince returned to England in 1374 and died in 1376, and he is buried at Canterbury. (See " The Black Prince," by Dunn Pattison.) It is said that Prince Edward from a very early age entertained a strong affection for his cousin Joanna of Kent (known as the *' Fair Maid of Kent "), and remained single on her account, and it is certain that he did not marry till 1 36 1, when the lady had become a widow and was able to become his wife. At this date he was thirty, and the Princess, who was already the mother of five children, was thirty-five. She was the daughter, and on the early death without issue of her two brothers and her sister, the sole heiress of Edmund Plantagenet, Earl of Kent, the youngest son of King Edward L by his second wife, Margaret of Joanna of Kent. 155 France. Consequently Joanna was very nearly related to E^dward III., both through his father and his mother. (See Tables IV. and VI.) She was a great heiress, and by common consent a great beauty, but she seems to have been of a somewhat flighty and frivolous character, and her reputation as a woman was by no means unquestioned, though much that has been said against her may, as emanating from political opponents, be received with reserve. It is certain that the Prince's relations were strongly opposed to the marriage, and ultimately consented to it with great reluctance. Joanna had been twice previously married, her first husband having been William de Montacute, second Earl of Salisbury of his family, from whom she was divorced. The grounds for this divorce are stated to have been a pre-con- tract of marriage on the lady's part, and it may here be said that this Lord Salisbury married again, and that his second wife, Elizabeth de Mohun, was the Countess of Salisbury whom Edw^ard III. so greatly admired, and in w^hose honour he is said to have instituted the famous Order of the Garter. Joanna married secondly Sir Thomas Holland, the second son of John, first Lord Holland, who is said to have been of ancient family. Sir Thomas Holland was a great soldier, who had fought at the Battle of Crecy and otherwise distinguished himself in the French wars, and had obtained many honours from the King in consequence. In the year 1360 he assumed in right of his wife the title of Earl of Kent, and he died a i^v^ months later, whereupon, after a very short interval, his widow married the Black Prince, with w^hom there is every reason to believe she lived till his death on terms of great affection. Joanna survived Prince Edward and died in the year 1384, seven years after the accession of her son King Richard II. The circumstances of her death are somewhat melancholy. Sir John Holland, afterwards Duke of Exeter, who was her son by her second marriage, and half-brother to the King, killed in a quarrel the eldest son of Lord Stafford. Richard, who was deeply incensed, sentenced him to death, and the 1 56 History of the Royal Family of England. Princess of Wales, who had vainly interceded for his pardon, thereupon became sick with grief, and died after an illness of four days. Richard, who appears to have been warmly attached to his mother, was greatly shocked by the event, and after her death granted the pardon which she had vainly asked for in her life. The sentence of death was commuted into one of perpetual banishment, but after a very short interval Sir John Holland was allowed to return to England and restored to favour, and subsequently created Duke of Exeter. Joanna was, or is said to have been, a strong partizan and patroness of Wickliffe, who was the founder of the sect known as the Lollards, and on that account is not in favour with Catholic Historians. The Black Prince and Joanna had two children, Edward, who died in his father's lifetime, aged seven, and Richard, who, on the death of his grandfather Edward HI., became King of England. Richard H. was born in 1366 and was only eleven in 1377 when he became King, and thirty-three when he was deposed and murdered in 1399. He is said to have been remarkably handsome, and, as far as can be judged, was naturally of a very amiable disposition, but his conduct both as a King and as a man has always been the subject of much discussion and difference of opinion. In 1382, on the insurrection of Wat Tyler, he displayed courage, presence of mind and magnanimity far beyond his years, and which contrasted favourably with the behaviour of the nobles about him, most, if not all, of whom seem to have lost their heads ; but the promise thus early shewn was not borne out in his later life, though there has always been a tradition that at the time of his murder he shewed remark- able courage. It must be remembered, however, that Richard was placed in a position of extraordinary difficulty- Except during her life, his first wife, and possibly his mother, he does not appear to have had a single relative or friend upon whose loyalty or Richard II, 157 whose disinterested support he could for a moment rely. In his reign nearly every noble family was related to or con- nected by blood or marriage with the King, and he was surrounded by relations— half-brothers, uncles, and cousins, all of whom, almost without exception, were turbulent and unprincipled persons, who, during the years of Edward III.'s senile weakness and Richard's minority, had risen to a degree of power and influence scarcely consistent with their position as subjects. Of these nobles there does not appear to have been one who would have hesitated to have sacrificed the King or the Kingdom to his own ambition if he had seen his way to do so. Richard consequently lived in an atmo- sphere of constant strife and contention, there was no one whom he could trust, or did trust, and probably the only way in which he could maintain his position at all was by playing off the greater Barons one against the other. If, under these circumstances, he was sometimes guilty of treachery and injustice, it is hardly to be wondered at. It must also be remembered that Richard was succeeded by a King who had dethroned him and put him to death, and who could only justify his own conduct by blackening the memory of his predecessor, and therefore much that has been said by writers, who wrote under the auspices of Henry IV. and the Lancastrian Princes, must be accepted with great caution. On the whole I think that, though Richard was not a particularly able or good man, he was neither foolish nor more vicious than his neighbours, and taken altogether, he does not contrast unfavourably with the other Princes of his time. In 1382, when Richard was sixteen, he married Anne of Bohemia, who was born in 1367, and was therefore a year younger than himself Anne was of a very illustrious family. Her paternal grandfather was the blind King of Bohemia whose death and exploits at Crecy have been celebrated by all the historians of that Battle, and from whom the Black Prince took the plumes and motto which have ever since ! u 1 5 8 History of the Royal Family of England. been part of the arms of the Princes of Wales. Her father (■Charles IV. of Luxembourg) and her brother (Sigismund o Luxembourg) were successively elected to the Imperial Throne of Germany, and the latter subsequently became the well known ally of Henry V. of England. Anne herself appears to have been a remarkably amiable and good woman, and there seems to me to be no reasonable doubt that the conjugal relations between Richard and Anne were uniformly of the most affectionate description. She arrived in England immediately after the suppression of the insurrection of Wat Tyler, and when the nobles enra-ed at the presumption of the common people and nossrWy at the somewhat sorry figure they themselves had cut, were engaged in making the most bloody and vmdictive reprisals Anne, probably at the suggestion of King Richard, took the opportunity of her Coronation to ask for and obtain the pardon of a great number of persons who were then under sentence of death, and she thus won for herself the title of " good Queen Anne," and she retained her popularity, notwithstanding that she had no child (which was of course a great disappointment to the nation), until her death in I XQ\, at the age of twenty-four. She like her mother-in-law, is said to have been a patroness of Wickliffe, and Miss Strickland describes her arid four other ladies, namely, Anne Boleyn, Katharine Parr, Lady lane Grey, and Queen Elizabeth, as "the five nursing mothers " of the Reformation. Whether Anne, if she could have foreseen it, would have accepted the association with any pleasure is to my mind extremely doubtful. After her death King Richard was urged, very reasonably, to marry again, and he certainly shewed some perversity, m spite of many remonstrances, in insisting on selecting as his second wife a little girl of nine years old. I n 1 396 he married Isabella, eldest daughter of Charles VI. of France, who was born in the year 1 387. There is ample evidence that Richard and his young Queen were very fond of one another, but their relations were necessarily those which would naturally *:■ Isabella of France. 159 subsist between a good-natured man of thirty and a young child who was still in the school-room. Therefore the re- proaches which Shakespeare in "Richard II." puts in the mouth of Bolingbroke as addressed to the King's friends, Bushey and Green — "You have in manner with your sinful hours Made a divorce between his Queen and him, Broke the possession of a Royal bed. And stain'd the beauty of a fair Queen's cheeks With tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs" — are simply absurd. Shakespeare, however, either by mistake or with a view to dramatic effect, has advanced the Queen's age by many years, and represents her throughout the play as a grown up woman, whereas she was in fact only twelve when her husband died. After Richard's death Isabella returned to France, and some years later married Charles, second Duke of Orleans. This Prince's father, Louis Duke of Orleans, a younger son of King Charles V. of France, had been assassinated by his cousin the Duke of Burgundy. Duke Charles (after the death of Isabella, who died without issue in I44)0, aged 22) was taken prisoner by King Henry V. of England at the Battle of Agincourt, and was kept in England for over 20 years. After his return to France he married the Princess Marie of Cleves, by whom he was the father of Louis Duke of Orleans, who succeeded Charles VIII. and became King Louis XII. of France. Henry IV., with much indecency, considering that he was the supplanter, and, as can hardly be doubted, the murderer of King Richard, hardly waited until his victim was cold in his grave before he proposed a marriage between his own son, afterwards Henry V., and Richard's widow Isabella. To the credit of the French Court this proposal was positively rejected, though it was renewed at intervals with more or less persistence for several years, and until Isabella had actually married again. King Richard had no child by either wife. .■^■^■\i--i r TT^^t bv her second husband, His -°*«^'^rr„fKe^tSSht of his wife), had five Thomas Holland. Earl of Kent (in r, ^^^ he.r °f ""f^„^°"^' fe of his grandfather, she married having died m the life ot n g ^j. ^^^_ secondly the Count ^e Saint Po^ at en ^^^^. siderable distinction, but she had no ch^ld by ^.^^ ^^ Joanna, the --;;V"f'Br tuny wh° will be afterwards John de M ontfort. Duke of Brittanj , wno deferred to, but she also died chUdess^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ v'''°"tanna ^^Uy^d a -siderable part i. English hiX; and of the'm 'and their descendants I must say a few words. _ ^^^,5^^ the Black Joanna was thirty-five w ^.^^ ^^^ ,^^^^^ Prince in 'S^L and R.chard wa^ ^ ^^ Holland, who was and consequently he eldest son ^^^^ ^. ^.^^^_.^ born in '350, was sixteen yea s ^.^ ^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^ He was regarded with mucn la ^ engaged in the Black Prince, and ^f ;;'^;,:3£7'o7 4 half^rother he 'P^"'1 ::n";d:rabre"prefermTnt, though he did not assume received c°"^'f ^^ ? .,) ^^^^, the death of his mother in the title of Earl ^^^^fj]^'"-^' t^o years before King ,384. He himse f ^'ed •" iSQ^'^^^rtion of that King's Richard, having for J ^^'ff J'^^ .^al of England. He reign exercised the '"gh oft^^ °*^ ^^^^,^^ ^f Richard married Margate Fitz- Alan second ^_ g^ ^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^ Fitz-Alan, Earl of A^""dd, a a y pi,„tagenet. r ofthrdtrh^rl^H^^^^^^^^^ -rl of Lancaster (see ""'In Thomas of Kent had eight children. Thomas and The Holla7ids. 161 Edmund, who successively became Earls of Kent, Alianora, Margaret, Joanna, Eleanor, Elizabeth and Bridget Alianora Holland married Roger Mortimer, fourth Earl of March of his family, and to this marriage I must refer again. Margaret Holland, the second daughter, married first, John Beaufort, first Earl of Somerset of his family, who was the eldest son of John of Gaunt by Katharine Swynford, and by this marriage Margaret Holland became the direct ancestress of King Henry VH. After the death of Lord Somerset she married Thomas Duke of Clarence, second son of King Henry IV. and brother of King Henry V., by whom she had no child. Joanna Holland, the third daughter, became the second wife of Edmund Duke of York, son of King Edward HI., and uncle to the Kings Richard H. and Henry IV. She had subsequently three husbands, but had no child by any of the four. The date of this lady's marriage to the Duke of York is not certain, but his first wife, Isabella of Castile, did not die till 1394, three years before the death of King Richard. There must have been therefore great disparity in age between the Duke and his second wife. Shakespeare in the play of " Richard II." makes the Castilian Duchess of York a prominent and interesting character, and represents her as having been alive after the deposition of that King, but in point of fact she was dead, and the '' old Duke of York," the King's uncle, had married the King's young niece before the principal events in the play occurred. Eleanor Holland, the fourth daughter, married Thomas de Montacute, fourth Earl of Salisbury. He was the son of the ''Salisbury" who appears in "Richard II." and was the last Earl of his family. By Eleanor Holland, Salisbury became the father of an only child, Alice de Montacute, who married Sir Richard Neville, who in her right became Earl of Salisbury, and who was the great Lord Salisbury of the Wars of the Roses. He was the father by Alice de Montacute of Richard Neville, the " King maker," Earl of Warwick L 1 62 History of the Royal Family of England. and Salisbury, whose name and fame are familiar to '"Kbeth Holland, the fifth daughter, married Sir John Nevnt eldest son of the first Earl of Westmore^nd of he Neville family, and half-brother of the S>r Regard NevUle who married Alice de Montacute. F^°'" Elizabeth Holland The Earls of Westmoreland down to the time of Queen Elzabl were descended, as is . also at the Pre-t day th Marquis of Abergavenny now living. (See Table VII. 1 he "° Bridget Holland, the youngest daughter of Earl Thomas, 'Tha^e^^eferred to the marriages of these ladies c.tH Holland family to most of which I must refer later, because they shev^th xtraordinary complexity of relationship which existed between the leading families of England m the fifteenth century, and even betu.en the leaders of the two great factions during the Wars of the R°ses, and cannot help thinking that to these -lat-" ships -me .>f the raoid changes of front on the part of the leaders which Tso perpLing to ordinary readers may fairly be '"T'htm'as Holland, second Earl of Kent, the father of the ladies above mentioned, died in the year 1397, aged forty- seven and was succeeded by his eldest son Thomas, who became third Earl of his family, and during the short residue ShTreign of his uncle Richard II. was greatly distinguished '^ ofeStfe most painful tragedies in the reign of Richard was the death of Richard Fitz-Alan, ninth Earl of Arundel This distinguished person had during the earlier years of ShafdSered great military services to the State, both on sea and land, and had acquired great popularity^ He was however, strongly opposed to the influence wh.h had been obtained over the King by Robert de Vere. Earl of Oxford and Duke of Ireland, and he was one of the noble who assembled at Haringhay Park, now Hornsey, to obtain and CO Q < o III X H Ul -J CQ < o o .s v « c C/3 13 -CO "2- S° ^ a 3 w • C « 3 V M u w Si-" ^ g CO o o Q 1 O W-a d - - ^ c o o rt •♦ O Ja •^ JO "ffi i-J - 5- -) " O H a§>; ^ U I E ^ " — O « < c «> c o «^ Q <: ►-3 o (1 ti r>i^ c I— I o -1 O C « 3^ ~ ■ " 5 c 4) "O w 41 «rf cS O H -5 s 2-7- -a 3 5 3 S? « " H ET-r «i 1) « •- H •- X ^ Q dj o T3,« o II W c >< w ^ W S E pi < o < o „ i) C -v. - - ►« n 5 S J3 Jh O sj O II g c «..g^ 4) '-a 3 o « (J 2 a HO ? <^ < o Pi II -f= Mi: u If rt cs rt o ,#, <" 4) <1 •a V •"* 'J V Q ~ 64 History of the Royal Family of England. The Hollands. 165 who did obtain that person's banishment. King Richard never seems to have forgiven any of the enemies of de Vere, and in the year 1397 he caused Lord Arundel to be arrested and executed after a mere pretence of trial. The Earl was beheaded at Cheapside in the presence of the King himself, and was led to the scaffold by his son-in-law, Thomas Mowbray, first Duke of Norfolk (who is even said to have acted personally as executioner), and by his nephew (the son of his sister) Thomas Holland, second Earl of Kent. It is said that after rebuking these persons for being present on such an occasion, the Earl of Arundel added, " For the time will come when as many shall wonder at your misfortunes as they now do at mine." This prophecy, if made, was fulfilled. Almost imme- diately afterwards the Duke of Norfolk was banished, and died it is said of a broken heart in the year 14CO ; and the Earl of Kent, who on the death of his uncle Arundel was created Duke of Surrey, was after the deposition of King Richard taken pri.soner by Henry IV. and beheaded at Cirencester. He married Joanna Stafford, daughter of the second Earl of Stafford, and leaving no issue, was succeeded after an interval as third Earl of Kent of his family by his brother Edmund. This person seems to have enjoyed some degree of favour from King Henry IV., but he also died with- out issue in the year 1407 (temp. Henry IV.), whereupon the elder branch of the Holland family became extinct. (See Table VH. The Hollands.) John Holland, third son of Joanna of Kent by her second husband, has been already referred to as having assassinated the young Lord Stafford in the year 1382, and as having been banished in consequence. His banishment, however, did not last long. He was a person of very violent character, and was a strong personal adherent of John of Gaunt, whose daughter he married, and whom he accompanied on his expedition against Spain. In the year 1388 he was made Earl of Huntingdon, and in 1397 he was created Duke of Exeter. In the last two years of Richard's life, the Duke of Exeter took the part of the King against his own brother-in-law, Henry of Bolingbroke, afterwards Henry IV., and was accord- ingly deprived by Henry on his accession to the Throne of his rank of Duke of Exeter. Shortly afterwards, having engaged in one of the numerous conspiracies against King Henry, he was beheaded at Chelmsford in the year 14CX). John, Duke of Exeter, married Elizabeth Plantagenet, second daughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and by her he had three children, Richard, who died unmarried in his father's lifetime ; John, whom I shall mention presently, and Constance. Constance of Exeter became the wife of Thomas Mowbray, eldest son of the first Duke of Norfolk of that name, who, as already mentioned, never assumed his father's title and left no issue, and afterwards she married Sir John de Grey, eldest son of the third Lord Grey of Ruthyn. Her eldest son by this marriage, Edmund de Grey, was created Earl of Kent by Edward IV., and the Earldom' of Kent remained in the de Grey family till 1740, when it became extinct. The last Earl before his death was created Duke of Kent. The Barony of Grey de Ruthyn, which passed in the female line, is still extant. John Holland, the only surviving son of the first Duke of Exeter, did not immediately succeed to his father's honours, and in point of fact, in the year 1416, King Henry V. created his own uncle, Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter. Never- theless John Holland was "restored in blood" shortly after the accession of King Henry V., and enjoyed considerable favour from him and his son Henry VI., who in the year 1442, after the death without issue of Thomas Beaufort, created him Duke of Exeter. John Holland, second Duke of Exeter of the Holland family, died in the year 1446, having been twice married, and leaving a son Henry who succeeded him, and a daughter Anne who married John Neville, brother to the second Earl of Westmoreland, by whom she became the mother of Ralph Neville, third Earl. 1 66 History of the Royal Family of England, The Hollands, 167 The career of Henry Holland, last Duke of Exeter, is exceedingly melancholy. He was one of the strongest adherents of the Lancastrian party, having taken part in most of the great battles during the Wars of the Roses, and at one time, after the Battles of Hedgeley Moor and Hexham, he was reduced to such distress that, according to Philip de Commines, he was seen running on foot and with bare legs after the train of the Duke of Burgundy and begging for bread. He was, however, present at the Battle of Barnet, which destroyed the Lancastrian party, and he escaped the massacre which ensued. He died, it is said, by drowning shortly afterwards, and at all events his body was found in the sea between Dover and Calais. The circumstances and dates of his later years are, however, involved in great obscurity. Though so strong a Lancastrian, he married Anne Plantagenet, one of the sisters of Edward IV., a lady to whom I must again refer, and who somehow contrived to divorce him, though on what grounds is not very clear. By her the last Duke of Exeter had a daughter Anne, and there is considerable confusion, or at all events considerable differ- ence of opinion, among genealogists about the history of this lady According to one account she was betrothed to one of the nephews of Richard Neville, the King maker. Earl of Warwick, and Queen Elizabeth, wife of Edward IV., bribed the Duchess of Exeter (Anne's mother) to break off the marriage with Neville and marry the young lady to Thomas Grey Marquis of Dorset, who was Elizabeth's son by her first marriage. It is said by Mr. Oman in his life of Warwick that this breach of faith induced by Edward's Queen was one of the causes which led to the final rupture between Warwick and King Edward. It does not, however, appear to be certain that Anne Holland ever actually married Lord Dorset, and at all events she was certainly not the mother of his children. This Lord Dorset, to whom I must refer later, was by a subsequent marriage the ancestor of Lady Jane Grey. The "Duke of Exeter," who appears in the first part of Shakespeare's " King Henry VI." is Thomas Beaufort, and the " Duke of Exeter " who appears in the third part of the same play is Henry Holland. With the death of Henry Holland, last Duke of Exeter, the family of Holland became extinct (see Table VII. The Hollands), but a very large number of noble and distinguished families at the present day claim Royal descent in the female line from them. Isabella Countess de Coucy, 169 CHAPTER XI. Edward III/s Daughters.— Thomas, Duke of Glou- cester. — The Staffords. — Lionel, Duke of Clarence. — The Mortimers. I MUST now revert to the daughters of King Edward III. Isabella, the eldest, was born in 1332 and was not married till 1365, when she was thirty- three years old. She was, however, before her actual marriage the subject of several matrimonial treaties. As early as 1340 it was pro- posed that Isabella should marry Louis, the son and heir of the Count of Flanders, but this proposal fell through at the time, owing to the celebrated insurrection of the Flemish Burghers under James van Arteveld (the father of Philip van Arteveld). This insurrection was instigated and aided by King Edward, and in consequence of it the Count of Flanders fled to France, where he was ultimately killed at the Battle of Crecy. After the battle his son Louis, who had succeeded his father as Count, was strongly urged both by King Edward and his own subjects to marry Isabella. For some time he refused on the ground that he regarded King Edward as the murderer of his father, but at length, being in fact placed under restraint by the Flemings until he should consent, he pretended to do so, and all preparations were made for the marriage, which it was intended to solemnize with great magnificence. Almost on the eve of the marriage day, however. Count Louis found means to escape to France, leaving the English Princess in the lurch, an evasion which, it is said, caused the greatest mortification to her and her father. In 1349 a treaty was commenced for the marriage of 168 Isabella to Charles of Luxembourg, King of Bohemia and German Emperor (Charles IV.), but this also came to nothing, and two years later, with her father's consent, she accepted the proposals of a certain Count d'Albret This marriage like that with the Count of Flanders was broken off almost at the last moment and when all preparations had been made. The reason is unknown, but the proposed hnsband subse- quently became a monk. At the Battle of Poictiers in 1356 King John of France was taken prisoner and brought to England, and he remained a prisoner till his death in 1364 ; but in 1360, after the treaty of Bretigny, he was allowed to return to France for a short time to arrange terms for his own ransom, which he failed to do. During his absence a number of distinguished French- men were left in England as hostages for his return, and amongst these was Ingelram de Coucy, Sieur de Coucy, la Fere, and Oisi ; and it is to be presumed that Ingelram and Isabella fell in love, for they were married at Windsor Castle with much splendour in 1364. De Coucy came of a very illustrious French family which had given a Queen to Scotland (Marie de Coucy, second wife of Alexander II.), and had otherwise formed alliances with several of the reigning families in Europe. He himself was, through his mother, the great grandson of the Emperor Albert I., and was a great personage in France, but neverthe- less he can hardly be considered to have been of sufficient rank to marry the eldest daughter of so powerful a King as Edward III. At the date of the marriage de Coucy was twenty-seven, and Isabella was thirty-three. They immediately proceeded to France, where Isabella gave birth to two daughters, Mary and Philippa. De Coucy is described by all writers as having been a very handsome man, and, so to speak, a model knight, brave, chivalrous and honourable, and all the circumstances of his life bear out this account, but nevertheless the marriage does not appear to have been a very happy one. i I 70 History of the Royal Family of England. It was celebrated in a time of truce, which was expected to become a lasting peace, and when hostilities again broke out between France and England de Coucy's position became, intolerable, in that he could not, or would not, fight either against his own lawful King or his wife's father. Conse- quently for some years he seems to have wandered about Europe as a kind of Knight Errant, while his wife and children took refuge in England. Ultimately, in the year 1377, shortly before the death of Isabellas father, a kmd of amicable separation was arranged, by which de Coucy and his eldest daughter were to remain in France, and Isabella and the younger daughter were to continue in England. It should have been mentioned before that shortly after his marriage with Isabella, de Coucy had been created Earl of Bedford, a title which had been previously borne by only one person, namely, Hugh de Bellomont, in the time of King Stephen. The Countess of Bedford survived her father two years, and died in the year 1379, aged forty-seven. She was buried at Christ Church, Aldgate. After her death her husband married agam, and his second wife subsequently came to England as " Gouvernante " to Isabella, second wife of Richard IL, and in that capacity she gave cause for many complaints by reason of the extrava- gance of her habits and the arrogance of her demeanour. Isabella's eldest daughter, Mary, married in France, and left an only son who died without issue. Philippa, the younger, was betrothed (it does not appear that she was actually married) to Robert de Vere, ninth Earl of Oxford, in the year 1371, when de Vere was ten years old and Philippa was five. De Vere was a man of ancient race, and, like all the English nobles of his time, was connected with the Royal Family, his mother, Maud de Ufford, hav- ing been the daughter, by her second marriage, of Maud Plantagenet, daughter of Henry, third Earl of Lancaster. (See Table VIII.) From a very early age de Vere appears to have been c "a c o l..l^lllf LU -J < I- Ul^6 o « "J ^- W - r>» -OS J. < "m Wo c > a. u ct •a I— i < "hfl ^ W w° be c 0-3 ■ . in e o U I— I .w I" W U < u Q.S Q S: ^•>j Pi B 1 72 History of the Royal Family of England. Edward Ill's Daughters. "^IZ brought up with King Richard, over whose mind he gained great ascendency, and who in 1386, nine years after his accession, and when de Vere was only twenty-five, conferred upon him the extravagantly great title of Duke of Ireland. Like all favourites, de Vere incurred the enmity of the nobles and much unpopularity with the people, but I am inclined to think that he was not so bad as he is usually painted. As is well known, in 1386 he was banished in consequence of an armed demonstration on the part of the King's uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, and the other nobles, at Haringhay Park (now Hornsey), and though he afterwards returned to England, he, on that ,occasion, narrowly escaped falling into the hands of Gloucester, and with difficulty made his way to the Continent, where he died in the year 1392, aged about thirty. One charge which is commonly made against de Vere and King Richard, and which was the ostensible ground for the hostile assemblage at Haringhay Park before referred to, appears to me to be unfounded, or at all events to admit of much palliation. It is certain that when de Vere grew up he fell in love with one of the German ladies in the suite of Richard's wife, Ann of Bohemia, and that he proposed to divorce, or rather, as it is not certain that he was actually married, to put an end to his engagement with the King's cousin, Philippa de Coucy, and it is said that the King favoured this proposal. Considering that, at the date of their marriage or engage- ment, whatever it was, de Vere and Philippa were young children, it does not appear to me so very unreasonable that when he arrived at years of discretion he should have desired to get rid of an alliance for which, even if it amounted to a legal marriage, he was not in its origin responsible. Nor, considering how very numerous were the King's relations, does it strike me as so very monstrous that Richard should have been willing to acquiesce in the putting away of his cousin, if he thought, as he probably did, that her marriage with de Vere would not couduce to the happiness of anyone. ^i'i It was said at the time, however, and is always suggested, that King Richard in allowing the proposal to be made tamely submitted, out of love for his friend, to a gross out- rage on his dignity, and that of all the other members of the Royal family. If so, I can only say that a good many other Kings have submitted to even greater indignities without, so far as appears, exciting any great degree of reprobation. The Countess of Oxford, as Philippa was always styled, died without issue somewhere about the year 1401. Joanna, second daughter of Edward III., was born in 1333, and in 1347 she was engaged to Peter the Cruel, King of Castile, as his second or third wife (his matrimonial arrangements were so complicated it is not easy to say which), and in the following year, on her way to be married, she died of the plague known as the Black Death. Con- sidering the character of her proposed husband, her death may be regarded in the light of a happy release. It has been already stated in an earlier chapter of this book that Beatrice, second daughter of Henry III. of England, married John, eldest son of John I., Duke of Brittany. She died in the life of her husband's father, but her husband succeeded to the Duchy and became John II., and on his death in 1305 he was succeeded by his eldest son by Beatrice named Arthur, who, in his turn, was succeeded by his eldest son John (John III.), who died in 1341, fourteen years after the accession of Edward III. of England. On the death of John III. a contest as to the rights of succession to the Duchy of Brittany arose, the circumstances of which are matters of general history, inasmuch as they are largely mixed up with the English and French wars. John III. died childless, and the rival claimants were his niece, Jeanne de Penthievre, daughter of his next brother, Guy, and the wife of a French Prince (Charles de Blois) on the one side, and the lady's uncle, John de Montfort, who was a younger brother of John III., and of the father of Jeanne de Penthievre on the other. The French strongly espoused the cause of the wife of Charles de Blois, and the English that 1*1 1 74 History of the Royal Family of England. of John de Montfort ; John de Montfort himself was taken prisoner at an early stage of the war, and remained a prisoner till 1345, when he escaped, but he died a few months after- wards. The contest, however, was carried on by his wife (who was a woman of extraordinary courage and ability), on behalf of her infant son John (afterwards John IV. of Brittany), and, as a measure of precaution, she brought the boy to England in 1343, and left him there to be brought up at the Court of Edward III. In 1344 Mary, third daughter of Edward III., was born, and she was almost immediately betrothed to the young heir of Brittany. In 1361 the Prince (whose prospects at the time were not very brilliant) was actually married to the Princess Mary, but within seven months of the date of the marriage she died without issue. Her husband ultimately became John IV. of Brittany and lived for many years. He subsequently married (i) Joanna Holland, half sister of Richard II. (see ante), and (2) Joanna of Navarre, to whom, as she was afterwards the second wife of Henry IV. of England, I must refer later. Margaret, the fourth daughter of Edward III., was born in 1346, and in 1359, when she was thirteen, she was married to John Hastings, second Earl of Pembroke of his family. Lord Pembroke had been brought up as the ward of King Edward III. at his Court, and had there contracted a very strong friendship for the King's son, Edmund, afterwards Duke of York. They were sworn " brothers in arms," and Froissart relates their military exploits with much spirit. Owing to the youth of the parties, the young Earl and Countess of Pembroke did not live together, and the Earl with Prince Edmund set off immediately after his marriage on his first campaign in the French wars. Before his return his wife died in the year 1361, almost at the same time as her sister Mary, and the two Princesses were buried together at Abingdon. Lord Pembroke survived till 1375, and his subsequent career was extremely adventurous and romantic. His second wife was Anne Manny, daughter of the celebrated general of Tho^nas Duke of Gloucester, 175 Edward, III. Sir Walter Manny, by Margaret Plantagenet, Duchess of Norfolk, the daughter of Edward I.'s son Thomas de Brotherton, who has been before mentioned. By this lady Lord Pembroke had an only child, a son who succeeded him, and died as a boy unmarried. As has been already said, Edward III. had eight sons, Edward the Black Prince, of whom mention has been already made, three who died as infants, and four others, Lionel, John, Edmund and Thomas ; and for the sake of convenience I propose to refer to these four sons, who were in reality the fourth, fifth, sixth and eighth sons, as the second, third, fourth and fifth sons of Edward III. In accordance with the plan already indicated, I shall begin with Thomas and his descendants, before attempting to enter upon the complicated genealogy of the rival claimants to the Throne who, during the Wars of the Roses, claimed from one or other of his elder brothers. Thomas, the fifth son of Edward III. was born in 1354, and was only twenty-three when his father died, and his nephew Richard became King, and he was forty-three when he was put to death in the year 1397. He was thirteen years younger than Edmund, the youngest of his four elder brothers, and was only twelve years older than his two nephews, Richard II. and Henry IV., who were born in the same year ; and he may therefore be considered as having belonged rather to their generation than to that of his own brothers. Shakespeare makes John of Gaunt describe his brother Thomas as a " plain well meaning soul," but it would be difficult to find more inappropriate words to describe a person, who seems to have been eminently scheming, turbulent and ambitious ; and who it seems to me, \i King Richard had not put him to death, would probably have anticipated Henry of Bolingbroke in deposing Richard him- self In saying this, however, I do not mean that I am prepared to defend the fact, still less the manner, of Gloucester's execution. At the date of Richard's Coronation Prince Thomas was \l ,%% 1 76 History of the Royal Family of England. created Earl of Buckingham, and from that date until 1385 he was largely engaged in the foreign wars. He then returned to England and was advanced to the dignity of the Duke of Gloucester. His brother Lionel was dead, and his brothers John and Edmund were mainly occupied with their expedition against Castile, which will be referred to later. Thus for some years Gloucester became, next to the King, the principal person in the Kingdom, his chief opponent being Robert de Vere, Duke of Ireland, already mentioned. It was in order to get rid of this rival in power and influence, that Gloucester put himself at the head of the Barons, in what can only be considered as an open rebellion against the King. This was for a time successful and resulted in the banishment of de Vere, but the King never forgot the part which his uncle had taken, and seized the first opportunity of avenging himself. Froissart, Dugdale and other writers give slightly different accounts of the Duke's death, into the circumstances of which it would be too long to enter upon here, but there can be little doubt that he was put to death illegally and without any form of trial. It may however be argued that Gloucester had in fact committed high treason, and deserved his fate, and certainly there is not one of Richard's successors of the Plantagenets or Tudors who would under the like circumstances have spared his life. The place of his death was Calais, but his body was afterwards brought to Westminster Abbey and was there buried. In speaking of this eminent person, who played a great part in the history of his time, as of other Princes, who were not only Princes but statesmen or warriors or both, I must again repeat what I said at the beginning of this work, that I do not profess to speak in detail of those events of their lives, which are to be found in all general histories, and therefore I do not apologise for what I am aware is a very inadequate notice of the life of a man, who was a person of great weight and importance in his time- The Duke of Gloucester married Eleanor de Bohun> daughter and co-heiress of Humphrey, last Earl of Hereford The Staffords, 177 of his family, and great granddaughter of Elizabeth, youngest daughter of Edward I. (see ante). This lady is the' Duchess of Gloucester in " Richard II." She survived her husband and died a year or two afterwards. The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester had four children, Humphrey (a name which had been borne by nearly all the de Bohuns, Earls of Hereford), Anne, Joanna, and Isabella. Humphrey, after the death of his father, was imprisoned in Ireland until after the accession of Henry IV., when he returned to England, but he died at Chester immediately after his landing. He was unmarried, and was never allowed to assume the title of Duke of Gloucester. Joanna died young and unmarried, and Isabella became a nun. Anne, who became her father's heiress, married Thomas de Stafford, third Earl of Stafford, who came of a very illustrious family; but this nobleman died without issue, and was succeeded as Earl, one after the other, by his two brothers William and Edmund, the latter of whom married his widow, Anne Plantagenet. With regard to this lady's second marriage, however, it is to be remarked that her father was married in 1374, when he was twenty. She was married to her first husband in 1392, and it is said she was very young at the date of the marriage. Her husband died the same year, and before, as it is said, the marriage was completed; and she was afterwards allowed by the Ecclesiastical authorities to marry his younger brother as her second husband, expressly on the ground that the first marriage had not been completed. By her second husband, Anne Countess of Stafford had three children Humphrey, Philippa and Anne. Philippa died young, and Anne married first, Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, to whom I shall refer presently, and secondly, John Holland, who was created Duke of Exeter in the reign of Henry V. (see ante\ by whom she became the mother of the last Duke of Exeter, whose misfortunes and death, after the Battle of Barnet, have been already mentioned. Humphrey the son was created Duke of Buckingham, and was the first M J 1 78 History of the Royal Family of England. of a long series of Dukes of Buckingham of different families, nearly all of whom were distinguished men. He married Anne, Neville, a daughter of Ralph, first Earl of West- moreland. The first Duke of Buckingham and his eldest son, the Earl of Stafford, were strong partisans of the Lancastrian cause and were both killed in battle, the son at the Battle of St. Albans in 1455, and the father at the Battle of Northampton in 1460. The Earl of Stafford married Margaret Beaufort, one of the daughters of the second Duke of Somerset, of whom some account will be given later. He had a son, Henry Stafford, who became second Duke of Buckingham, and who was beheaded in the reign of Richard HI. in the year 1483, and under circumstances sufficiently well known. The second Duke of Buckingham married Katharine Woodville, whose sister Elizabeth was the wife of King Edward IV., and he left a son, Edward Stafford, who was the third Duke of Bucking- ham, and who in 1 521, in the reign of Henry VIII., was also beheaded, also under well known circumstances. The son of this Duke (by a lady of the great house of Percy) was not allowed to inherit his father's dignities, but in the reign of Edward VI. he was created Baron Stafford, and he married Ursula Pole, sister of Cardinal Pole, and this marriage also will have to be spoken of in a later chapter. It will be seen that the three Staffords who were Dukes of Buckingham all came to tragical ends, and the fate of each was more or less connected with the Royal descent which they claimed through Thomas Plantagenet, Duke of Gloucester ; and this must be my apology for speaking of them at so much length. These three Dukes all appear as prominent characters in Shakespeare's plays, the first in the second part of" Henry VI.," the second in " Richard III.," and the third in " Henry VIII.," where, however, Shakespeare makes him speak of him- self as " poor Edward Bohun." His name was Stafford, and he had no further connection with the name of Bohun than Lionel Duke of Clarence. 179 that his remote ancestress (the wife of Thomas Plantagenet, Duke of Gloucester) was one of theco-heiressesofthat family. It may be added that the Duke of Buckingham, beheaded by Henry VIII., was not only descended from Thomas Plantagenet, Duke of Gloucester, but was also more nearly related to the King, as Elizabeth Woodville, wife of King Edward IV., a.nd Katharine Woodville, wife of the second Duke, were sisters. Consequently Queen Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV. consort of Henry VII., and mother of Henry VIII., was first cousin to the third Duke. Many younger sons of the house of Stafford were killed in the wars of the Roses, and most of the daughters made great marriages ; and from the daughters a large number of the English nobility of the present day are descended. (See Table IX. The Staffords.) Lionel, Duke of Clarence, second son of Edward HI., was born in 1338, and in 1362, when he was twenty-four, he was created Duke of Clarence, a title which does not appear before in English History and which was derived from the " Honour" of Clare. He died in the year 1368, aged thirty, and nine years before his father. He is said to have been of gigantic size, having attained to the height of seven feet, but I collect that, notwithstanding his size, or possibly on account of it, he was a less able man than any of his brothers, and his only interest in history is derived from the extraordinary influence which indirectly, and as far as appears not from any desire of their own, his descendants exercised over the course of events in the fifteenth century. It is hardly necessary to remind my readers that Edward the Black Prince having left an only child, Richard II., and Richard II. having died child- less, the heirs of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, second son of Edward HI., became by law, heirs to the Throne— a fact which, though ignored as far as possible during the reigns of Henry IV., Henry V., and Henry VI., was never entirely forgotten by any one. In the year 1361, when he was twenty-three, Lionel was married to Elizabeth de Burgh, who was one of the greatest 1 80 History of the Royal Family of Engla^id. heiresses in England, aiid who brought him his second title of Earl of Ulster. She was the daughter and sole heiress of William de Burgh, third and last Earl of Ulster of his family, and she was doubly connected with the Royal family in that her mother was Maud Plantagenet, a daughter of Henry, third Earl of Lancaster, and her father's mother was Elizabeth de Clare, whose mother was Joanna, second daughter of Edward I. (see ante:) In the year 1366 the Duchess of Clarence, who was probably very young at the date of the marriage, died in giving birth to an only child, Philippa Plantagenet, who was the innocent cause of so many mis- fortunes to her country. Two years later Lionel married a second time Violante, daughter of Duke Galeazzo of Milan. By this lady he had no child, and in fact he died a few months after the marriage, his death having been, it is said, the result of the festivities, or rather orgies, which were held to cele- brate his marriage. Philippa Plantagenet was married in the year 1370, she being then only four years old, to Edmund Mortimer, third Earl of March of his family, who at that date was aged eighteen, and it may be well here to say a few words of his ancestors. The Mortimers had come over to England with the Conqueror, and were remotely connected in blood with him, inasmuch as they were descended from a relative of his great grandmother Gunnora, wife of Richard I, Duke of Normandy. Ralph Mortimer, who came over with the Conqueror, was entrusted with the defence of the '^ Marches " of Wales,' that is the boundaries between Wales and England, and in conse- quence the family settled in Wales. The title of Earl of March which they ultimately held, and which is derived from no county or city, took its origin from the military charge so conferred upon their ancestor, and which was more or less continued to his descendants. The first Earl oi March was the Roger Mortimer whose history is so unhappily connected with that of Isabella, wife of Edward II. He had been a somewhat distinguished soldier in the reign of Edward I., but having taken up arms against Edward II., he was in the year to Q- % Q o tJJ CD < 3 a. S, Q O « u . W 12 — »Q w S ^ N 3 Q U ui ~Q o < C/2 * 13 a H Ui 15 O < H Z _< _] is < H Ui O < H V rt V E -;r' «'"- Pi < ffio M o c o -- Wo o o ^ ~« .u w o V V o < H < ►J Pi >< X ° > > (A Z. W -X Q o -W 13. - IE S K > t;5 I— I -5; >-• M » o o f* c 2 « 1^4 > -ffi r Q P< O < H .^ "> o"-* fc^ •5; 1= ^ < -. ' < N - p o.S „" c O < < 'III ■a "a 0< 0T3 '■< w aj > 3T3 H [A Z , U ^^ f5 :: - <3 > -5 Z ^ > :§ 2 11= ci > ^ \0 -v. Qh 7^> td ?;s H-Q 2 WW — i-ri - » m a ^ * ■— 1 z -I t5 OS ;r"3 <^y S Z 5 M = A ^ -i ^ So "^ < ■'— - *» o ^^ i) •!> "5 - ]i ii 1 82 History of the Royal Family of England. I 1322 taken prisoner and confined in the Tower, where the Queen was then living, and it was there that the acquaintance between them commenced which led to so much crime and bloodshed. His subsequent career is well known, and I need not remind my readers that in 1330 the young King Edward III, having emancipated himself from the Queen's rule caused Mortimer to be impeached and put to de^th under circum- stances of much ignominy and some cruelty. Mortimer was made Earl of March in 1328, and he had previously married a French lady, by whom he had a large family of legitimate children. It may be mentioned as a somewhat odd circum- stance that of his four, brothers, three became priests, and of his three sisters, two were nuns. Mortimer's children, though they were not allowed immediately to succeed to his rank, because all his honours were forfeited, nevertheless seem to have been treated with much kindness by Edward III., and several of them made brilliant marriages. Ultimately, in the year 1353, His grand- son Roger Mortimer (the eldest son of his eldest son), was " restored in blood," and became second Earl of March. This Roger Mortimer married a lady of the Montacute family, and was the father of the Edmund Mortimer, third Earl of March who married Philippa Plantagenet. * The date of Philippa's death is not known, but her husband, who is believed to have survived her, died in the year 1381, four years after the accession of Richard II., leaving by his wife a family of five children, of whom the eldest son Roger (who became fourth Earl of March), was then only seven years old. These children were Roger, Edmund John Elizabeth, and Philippa. Elizabeth Mortimer, the eldest daughter, married the famous Henry Percy (Hotspur), eldest son of the then Earl of Northumberland, and from her the great house of Percy, from which the present Duke of Northumberland derives, is descended. It was in consequence of this alliance that the Percy family were induced to take part in the rebellion against Henry IV., which had no doubt for its object the elevation to The Mortimers. 183 the Throne of one of the Mortimers, and ended so tragically for the insurgents. This insurrection is the subject of Shakespeare's two plays of " Henry IV." It may be added that this lady, Elizabeth Mortimer, married ai^ain after Hotspur's death, notwithstanding the passionate lamentations which Shakespeare puts into her mouth ; and that her second husband was the first Lord Camoys, and I believe from her second marriage the present Lord Camoys is descended. Philippa Mortimer, Elizabeth's younger sister, is said to have been three times married. Her first husband was John Hastings, last Earl of Pembroke of his family, who died as a boy, but there seems to be considerable uncertainty as to her subsequent career, and I cannot find that she had any child. Edmund Mortimer, the second son of Philippa Plantage- net, married a daughter of Owen Glendower, the celebrated Welsh Chieftain whose rebellion against Henry IV., before referred to, was so important an event in that King's reign, and Edmund Mortimer himself took part in that rebellion. What became of him is not certain, nor is it certain whether he left any child, but in Burke's " Extinct Peerage " it is stated " that his descendants are said to have settled in Scotland." " Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March," is a character in Shake- speare's " Henry IV." part L, but it is clear Shakespeare confused the Edmund Mortimer who married Owen Glen- dower's daughter (who is also introduced into the play) with his elder brother Roger, who was declared heir to the Throne in the reign of Richard II. {sQ&post), and who had been Earl of March. This Roger was dead at the time of the insurrection (he died in the life of Richard II.), and had been succeeded in his title by his young son Edmund, who at the time in question was a little boy, and a captive in the hands of King Henry IV. It is, however, possible that, as the younger Edmund Mortimer was not available, there was some idea of establishing his uncle Edmund as King, but the precise objects of Glendower's rebellion are not very clear. The third son of Philippa Plantagenet is the Sir John ill l!i_J^^!f!2:^^ff^^^;f^^^/j' of England. Mortimer who appears in the third part of " Henru Vr " a .sdescnbedas "uncle to the Duke of York" h/ ' demned to death in the time of Henry VI ^"^^ ""'"' executed The ^tV i^ r T,>r • "cnry vj., but was not m-.„tioned in the a,^"l '""""v" '^"'"^^ '° ^ir John." was the uncle or ratW ^''^ ""^ ^ "^""^''^^d- ^fr John that his niece Anne Morr "."""'u" '''" ^""^^ ^^ ^"'"k. >" Roger, uas the DuLfmotr; ^"''^''^^ °^ ""'' ^'^^ '''■°^'- that'L'clt' Xve' ™'"'^ °i "^ ^^^^'^^■^ '"f I ->' '^^ once ever made on behalf nf^^' ' "^ ''"" '° '""^ throne was the two daughters of Phi7 °" °' ''" *"° -^°""-^^^ -- - eideS:; waT or^'in^^t fht °' ""Tr ^"' ^"^"'^P^'^ or Richard II.. and in , S^hf ^e ri^ ^^ ''^ ^"^"'■"" youth and everv wpv .f "^-.f '"g described as "a hopeiul -ent. by reas'n^of hfs desS L ' .-^^'^^^'-^d in Prriia- to be heir presumptive totlTK ^'°"'' ^"^^ of Clarence, issue. Shortly afterwards hf °".'' '''""^ ^""^ ^^^^ard's but as he was^ o^Tbt' wX""; rrforriv' '^^'^"'• presume that his authority was Nomina H ' *™'' ^ and remained there till hJZHt "^^"^ 'o Ireland deposition of KinV Richard H '" '^^^ shortly before the against the Irish infurgents "'''" '^'""'^ '" ^ ''^"le Thomal H^lInTtcon^^r r ^'f "'^^ ^'^^^' ^^^hter of niec^of the half blood of Tc'u^'"' °^ ^'' '"^'"''y. ^nd by h;r he had four ch Hre"^ R'chard (see Table Vrf.).and Eleanora. ''"'''"'"' ^^'"""d, Roger. Anne, and was mTried t 'sw"Lt!'Tr '""'' ^"' ^"■-°-' '"ough she of Devon, also c^rdtS Suf"^'' ^''^^' ^°" ^^^''^ ^arl lastKaTofM^rST/'h-^atr ^""' ^ ^^^ ^^''-nd his family, was born in .392, and was Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March. 1 85 therefore only seven years old when King Richard died and Henry IV. seized the Throne, so that he may fairly be excused for not having then asserted his own claims. At that time he was placed by King Henry IV. under the guardianship of his own son, Henry Prince of Wales, after- wards Henry V., who, whatever may have been his merits or demerits, had the faculty of attaching those who were about him to himself; and there is reason to believe that, notwith- standing the difficulties of their relative positions, Henry V. and Edmund Mortimer felt and maintained a strong friend- ship for one another throughout their joint lives. The Earl of March took a distinguished part in Henry V.'s French campaigns ; and after the King's death, such confidence was reposed in him that he was appointed by King Henry VI.'s guardians Lieutenant of Ireland. He died two years later in the year 1425 without issue, having married a lady of the house of Stafford. On the death of Earl Edmund the elder line of the Mortimer family became extinct, but their rights to the Throne unhappily became vested in Edmund's only surviving sister, Anne Mortimer, whose name and identity I will ask my readers to bear in mind. She was married to Richard Plantagenet, Earl of Cambridge, and was the grandmother of Edward IV. ; but with this marriage I shall deal in speaking of the descendants of Edmund Duke of York, fourth son of Edward III. (See Table X.) It has been the custom of historians to compare the Princes, for so, having regard to their relations to the Throne, they may fairly be called, of the house of Mortimer, with Edgar the Atheling, and to speak of them as feeble and contemptible persons, who sacrificed their just rights to a love of ease and possibly to cowardice. Nothing in my opinion can be more unjust. There were only two male Mortimers, Roger and Edmund, the fourth and fifth Earls of March in the line of succession, failing King Richard's heirs. Roger died in Richard's life, while Richard was a young man, who might, and probably would, have i I 1 1 ^^^ History of the Royal Family of England. children. His own claims to the succession, which, having regard to probable events, were sufficiently remote, had been fully acknowledged, and any attempt on his part to press them further, or to set them up against King Richard, would have been an act of open rebellion against a King whose title was admittedly good, and who, as far as I can see, had done nothing to forfeit his right to reign. Edmund was a little boy when Henry IV. became King, and by the time he had arrived at man's estate, Henry v! was well established on the Throne, and was the most powerful Prince in Europe, and it would, I think, have been the act of a madman to have sought to depose him. Edmund might, indeed, when King Henry died, and left an infant of less than a year old to succeed him, have taken advantage of the new King's infancy and weakness to establish his "own claim, but to have done so would in my opinion have been exceedingly ungrateful and extremely foolish. There is no doubt that if Edmund was deprived of the Throne, he was at the same time treated with great personal consideration and kindness by the Kings Henry IV. and Henry V. ; in contrast to which, he may well have remem- bered, the fate of other childish and more assured heirs, left in the hands of powerful relatives who had usurped their rights. Moreover, though Edmund Mortimer was, no doubt, by the laws and customs of descent which had gradually obtained in England, lawful heir to the Thone, his case was by no means that of a Prince born and brought up in the purple, and who had been educated to look forward to Royal authority. His father's position was simply that of a noble- one, and by no means the most powerful or influential, of a large body of nobles, all more or less related to the reigning Sovereign, and his father had probably up to the moment ol" his death no real expectation of ever becoming King, having mdeed nothing to reckon upon beyond, in legal phraseology, a somewhat remote contingent reversionary interest. Edmund himself by a sort of accident— by the marriage • § ? " u? 5^- p. 2° ARD ambri \nne 9^ M "^ as -1 P3 0^~ £.« HH 2 J^ 3" »« M II "^"^ 3 1 M F Gaunt), ancaster. 199- > s > • > Pi ■ ^j QiJ '^^ - iT-i * rc ^ H ->— 'U. w ** P ^H ^; «^' o>j ^■^ O^s W S-" H • ^4 2 »4 I >^ -_. u: 14 ^a,^ 1 Q 1 3 • AGENET (l 3rd Earl I. NH -^ Os IS ^B >st H £i? H ^S I W SI . MOR Plant ge, beh 1 J3 1 PPA R Mo Marcl l<1 1 Q 0-£=: H ^M M ^H ^^ >.*_• ^^H ^^■^ ■ H SEi *■* H 05 . N-4 H c^^ ^-H H « '^ Q ^1 0( 5l 1 ^ •"T •— I 0\ ^ ? ^B H^ ^ I v_^ O ^B > <'^ I CO ^ — ^ I ^ w -. Co / i ill 1 88 History pf the Royal Family of Efigland. of his grandfather to a lady who at the date of the marriage was probably not regarded as a person of any political importance— and by a series of unforeseen and improbable events, had come to be de jure heir to the Throne in priority to a number of Princes of far greater rank and influence than his own, and all of whom would have opposed his claims to the utmost extent of their great power. Many years later the Duke of York, Edmund's nephew through his sister— a man who, on his own father's side, was a far nearer actual connection to the Kings than Edmund— who bore the Royal name of Plantagenet, and who was himself, by reason of his great wealth and position, the greatest subject in the realm, did lay claim to the Throne ; and this same Dnke after deluging England with blood— almost exterminating half the noble families in the Kingdom— and sacrificing his own life and the lives of a multitude of his kindred, and aided by the known mental weakness of King Henry VI, did get the Throne— but only for his son. Under these circumstances is there any man of sense who would say that Edmund Mortimer, knowing, as he must have done, all the difficulties in his way, did not act wisely and well m accepting the "goods the gods provided," and acquiescing in a state of things which had existed for at any rate twenty years, or that he would not have acted wickedly if he had tried to anticipate the course taken by his nephew ' Personally I consider him almost the only sensible historical personage of his time. CHAPTER XII. Edmund Duke of York. — His Sons, Edward Duke OF York and Richard Earl of Cambridge.— John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. — John of Gaunt's Daughters. — The Nevilles. — The Beauforts. Fj^ DMUND, who is called Edmund of Langley, the fourth . son of Edward III., was born in 1341, and was therefore thirty-six years old when his father died. He was fifty-eight at the death of his nephew King Richard II., and sixty-one when he himself died in the year 1402. He is described as having been of a somewhat easy and indolent temper, and he certainly enjoyed more of his nephew's favour than either of his more energetic brothers, John of Gaunt and the Duke of Gloucester. Nevertheless, when, before his dethronement, Richard started on his ill-fated expedition to Ireland, leaving Edmund Regent of England, the latter practically betrayed him. Shakespeare in "Richard II." makes him meet Boling- broke, and after some parade of indignation, say : " It may be, I will go with you ; but yet I'll pause For I am loath to break our country's laws, Nor friends, nor foes to me, welcome you are ; Things past regret, are now, with me, past care." This speech states, accurately enough, the attitude which Edmund took up ; but it is needless to point out that a man who holds the office of Regent for a King, and then tells an armed invader of that King's territories, that he is neither his, the invader's, " friend nor foe," can hardly be said to have 1S9 ^' j^ii 1 90 History of the Royal Family of England. discharged his office loyally, and in fact when Bolingbroke got the upper hand the Duke of York espoused his cause with some warmth, and enjoyed his confidence during the short residue of his own life. In his youth and during his father's life Edmund was a distinguished soldier, and in 1 362, when he was twenty-one, he was created Earl of Cambridge, the title by which he is known till 1385, eight years after the accession of Richard II., when he was advanced to the dignity of Duke of York. In the reign of Stephen, William de Albemarle is said to have been Earl of York, and in the reign of Richard I. that King's nephew, Otho, afterwards the Emperor Otho IV., who was the second son of Richard's sister Matilda Duchess of Saxony, claimed, though without success, the Earldoms of Albemarle and York, under some supposed grant from the English King. With these exceptions, Edmund of Langley is the first person in English history who bore the title of York. The Duke of York married in 1372, five years before the death of his father, Isabella, second daughter of Peter the Cruel, King of Castile, whose elder sister Constance was married to Edmund's elder brother, John of Gaunt ; and as is well known, John of Gaunt and his brother Edmund claimed the Castilian Throne in right of their respective wives, and thereby England became involved in a long and disastrous Spanish war. The attitude of Edmund in respect of this war is not very clear, for though it is usually stated by historians, and in particular by Dr. Lingard, that both the Duke of Lancaster and the Earl of Cambridge (which was then Edmund's title) made pretensions to the Castilian Throne, practically the claim seems to have been made on behalf of Lancaster's wife, and Lancaster alone reaped such advantages as accrued to the English arms from the war. The Duchess Isabel died in 1394 five years before King Richard, and, as has been already stated, Edmund married, Edmund Duke of York. 191 secondly, Joanna Holland, who was King Richard's niece. Therefore the famous scene in "Richard II." in which the Duchess of York pleads to Henry IV. for the life of her son Albemarle is unhistorical, for Albemarle's mother had, at that time, been dead some years. The Duke of York had three children, Edward, Richard and Constance, all by his first wife. Constance married Thomas Despencer, last Earl of Gloucester of his family, and the last person who bore the title Earl of Gloucester. (See ante^ Despencer had three children by Constance Plantagenet, a son who survived him but died without issue, and without having been allowed to assume his father's title, a daughter who became a nun, and another daughter, Isabel, from whom many distinguished families are descended. The history of this lady's marriages and descendants, however, is extremely complicated and is of no particular interest. Edward, eldest son of the first Duke of York by Isabel of Castile, was probably born about the year 1373, and was about six years younger than his cousins Richard II. and Henry IV. He was therefore about four years old when Richard became King, and about twenty-six when that King died, and forty-two when he himself was killed at the Battle of Agincourt. King Richard seems to have felt for him some affection, which he appears to have returned, and he was, at all events, a strong supporter of that King. After Richard's death, having engaged in a conspiracy against Henry IV., Edward was banished, but in 1406 he was restored to his rank. He commanded the right wing at the Battle of Agincourt, and was one of the few people of note killed on the English side in that battle. Edward Plantagenet was created Earl of Rutland in 1390, and Duke of Albemarle in 1397, at the same time that his cousin, Henry of Bolingbroke, was made Duke of Hereford, and in 1406 he was allowed to assume his father's title of Duke of York. He was contracted in marriag-e while he was still a child to a Portuguese Princess, but % 1 92 History of the Royal Family of England. Richard Earl of Cambridge. 195 •/? h the treaty was broken by the Portuguese King. He subse- quently married Philippa de Mohun, a daughter of the second Lord Mohun, a lady who had been twice previously married and who survived him. He had no child. Edmund of Langley's second son, Richard, was probably born about 1374, and is a somewhat mysterious person. In 14 1 4, when he was about forty, he was created by King Henry V. Earl of Cambridge, the title which had been previously borne by his father, and had been forfeited by his elder brother, but in the following year he was charged with being engaged in a conspiracy against the King and summarily beheaded. He was married twice, his first wife being Anne Mortimer above mentioned, whose grandmother Philippa Flantagenet was the only child and heiress of Edward IH's. second son Lionel, Duke of Clarence ; and it may be mentioned that Philippa, though grandmother to Cambridge's wife, was first cousin to Cambridge himself. (See Table X.) The date of the marriage between Cambridge and Anne Mortimer is not given, but their only son was born in 141 2. The Earl of Cambridge had no child by his second marriage. The object of the conspiracy which caused Cambridge's death is involved in some mystery, for he cannot have expected to procure the Throne for himself, either in right of his wife or in his own right, during the lives of his wife's brother Edmund Mortimer, and his own elder brother Edward, both of whom were living ; and it is tolerably certain that neither of those persons was either a party to or in any way approved of his designs. It has indeed been said that Edmund Mortimer was informed of his plans, and betrayed them to the King, but for this suggestion there is no evidence. I may add here that the long scene in the second act of the first part of " Henry VI." in which Edmund Mortimer dies, and in which Cambridge's son Richard, Duke of York, plays a prominent part, has no foundation in history. Mortimer was born, as has been shewn, in 1392, and died in 1424, and therefore was not more than thirty-two when he died. whereas he is represented as in the extremity of old age. He says : " Even like a man new ha'led from the wreck So fare my limbs from long imprisonment." And again, speaking of his claims to the throne, he says : " That cause, fair nephew, that imprison'd And hath detain'd me, all my flow'ring youth Within a loathsome dungeon." In point of fact, as I have already said, his youth and boy- hood were spent under the care of Henry V., then Prince of Wales, to whom perhaps he was nominally a captive, but for whom he formed and maintained a strong affection. He was one of the leaders in Henry's French wars, and after Henry's death, was appointed lieutenant of Ireland ; nor does it appear that he was, at any time, either imprisoned or sus- pected by the Government of Henry VI. In fact he died two years after the accession of that King ; and when his nephew Richard Plantagenet, afterwards Duke of York, who in the play appears as a full grown man, could not have been more than twelve. The Earl of Cambridge had two children only, Richard and Isabel, both by his first wife, Anne Mortimer. Isabel married Henry l^ourchier, a person who, although he received much favour from King Henry VI., espoused the cause of the Yorkist party, and was created Earl of Essex by Edward IV. The Earl and Countess of Essex had a large family, of whom all that it is necessary to say here, is that their only son died in his father's lifetime, leaving an only child Henry, who succeeded his grandfather and died without male issue in the reign of Henry VIII. Thereupon the Earldom of Essex passed into the Devereux family by the marriage of Cicely Bourchier, granddaughter of the first Earl, to Sir William Devereux ; and it was through this lady that Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, Queen Elizabeth's well- known favourite, claim.ed Royal descent and remote kinship to the Queen. N . \ I I I ^11 tp ; 4 1 94 History of tlie Royal Family of England. John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. 195 I I ^ 1*^ ! Richard Plantagenet, only son of the Earl and Countess of Cambridge, ultimately became, as heir to his uncle Edward, third Duke of York, and he was the father of King Edward IV. He was, as has been shewn, through his father, grand- son of Edmund Duke of York, fourth son of Edward III and through his mother, Anne Mortimer, and her errand- mother Philippa Plantagenet, heir and representatfve of Lionel Duke of Clarence, second son of Edward III. Through his mother he claimed the Throne from Henry VI, who derived from John of Gaunt, third son of Edward HI. ; and it was this claim that gave rise to the disastrous Wars of the Roses. To this very remarkable man I must return again, when I have spoken of John of Gaunt and his descendants. John of Gaunt, so called from Ghent, where he was born and which, probably, then as now, was pronounced by the British tongue - Gaunt," was born in 1340, and was therefore thirty-seven when his father Edward HI. died, and fifty-nine when he himself died, a few months before the deposition of his nephew Richard II. and the accession to the Throne of his own son Henry IV. in the year 1399. In " Richard II " he is addressed by the king as "Old John of Gaunt, time honoured Lancaster," but I doubt if in the present day any gentleman of fifty-nine would much relish bein^ saluted as " time honoured " ! ^ He was, as has been already said, the third son of his father, and was a great political personaoe during the latter part of Edward HI.'s reign and the whole of Richard II 's In his father's declining years, he was practically adminis- trator of the Kingdom, and so wielded his power as to become peculiarly hated by the people. So much was this the case that in the Parliament known as the "good Parlia- ment" held in 1376, Lancaster's chief adherents were im- peached by the Commons and imprisoned, and he himself would probably have met the same fate if the death of his elder brother, the Black Prince (who had espoused the popular side), had not, for a time, discouraged his opponents. After the accession of Richard, that King regarded his eldest living uncle with profound, and as far as can be judged well- founded, suspicion ; and the conduct of the latter, having been again called in question by the Commons, John deemed it prudent to retire to Scotland, and afterwards he shut himself up in, virtually, a state of siege in Pontefract Castle. An apparent reconciliation was brought about by the King's mother, whose son, John Holland, by her earlier marriage, and who was afterwards Duke of Exeter, was the Duke of Lancaster's son-in-law and strong partizan. Shortly after this an event happened which, for a time, removed Lancaster from England. John of Gaunt had married, as his second wife, Constance, the eldest daughter of Peter the Cruel of Castile, who had no son. It will be remembered that Peter the Cruel had been dethroned and put to death by his bastard brother Henry of Trastamare, who became King of Castile as Henry II. Henry II. died in 1379, and was suc- ceeded by his son John I. A somewhat similar state of things subsequently arose in Portugal, where Ferdinand the Handsome was dethroned (he died shortly afterwards) by his bastard brother, who became John I. of Portugal; and in 1386, this King John I. of Portugal proposed an alliance with John of Gaunt against John I. of Castile, with the view of deposing the latter, and establishing Lancaster as King of Castile in right of his wife Constance. This alliance was accepted, and in the same year, 1386, John of Gaunt, accompanied by his wife Constance and two of his daughters, Philippa and Katharine, set out for Spain, with the strong encouragement of King Richard, who, there is every reason to suppose, devoutly hoped he would never return. A long and somewhat disastrous campaign ensued, which was ultimately settled on the terms that the Duke and Duchess of Lancaster, who received large pecuniary compensation, should renounce their claims to the Castilian Throne, and that Philippa, the Duke's daughter by his first wife, Blanche of Lancaster, should marry John I. of Portugal, and Katharine, his only child by Constance, should marry 196 History of the Royal Family of England. John of Gaunt' s Children. 197 Henry, eldest son of John I. of Castile. These marriages were accomplished, and John of Gaunt returned to England where, however, he did not regain his former power or in- fluence. He died as has been said in 1399. (See for an exhaustive account of his life «'John of Gaunt," by S. Armistead Smith.) John of Gaunt was, for a time at all events, a vicrorous supporter of the well known Wickliffe, and if, as is commonly said, VVicklifife was the "precursor" of the English Reformers of the sixteenth century, it is a painful coincidence that his patron, like theirs, was a man of remarkably immoral life, for John's matrimonial arrangements were a cause of ^reat scandal in his time. He was married three times. In 1359, when he was nine- teen, he married Blanche Plantagenet, second daughter and on the death of her sister sole heiress of the great Henry Plantagenet, fourth Earl and first Duke of Lancaster who was the grandson of Edmund Crouchbank, second son of Henry HI. and first Earl of Lancaster. (See Table IV) It was as this lady's husband, or rather as the result of this marriage, that John was created in 1362 Duke of Lancaster He had previously been created in 135 1 Earl of Richmond and was £«r/ of Lancaster in right of his wife; and in 1390 he was created Duke of Aquitaine. The Duchess Blanche died in 1369, and in 1372, when he was thirty-two, John married Constance of Castile. After the deposition of Peter the Cruel, his two daughters, Constance and Isabel, were left under the charge of the Black Prince, and they were ultimately sent to England, where they were married, the one to the Duke of Lancaster, and the other, as has been related to his brother the Duke of York. The Duchess Constance died in 1394, and in 1396, twojyears before his death, the Duke saw proper to marry as:his third wife a widow named Katharine Swynford, whose maiden name was Roet. This woman had been his mistress, as is specially stated, before, during and after his marriage with Constance, and had brought him four natural children, who, born before their parent's marriage had assumed the name of Beaufort, a name taken from the Castle of Beaufort in France, which formed part of the dowry of Blanche of Navarre, wife of Edmund Crouchbank, and which still formed part of the Lancaster estates. John of Gaunt's marriage with Swynford was greatly resented by the Royal family, and by the world at large, and a small commotion was raised among the ladies of Royal birth by the claims of the new Duchess to be present, and as wife of the King's eldest uncle to take precedence, at the reception of King Richard's second wife, Isabella of France. The Duchess Katharine survived her husband, and died in 1402. King Richard, to gratify his uncle, caused an Act of Parlia- ment to be passed legitimatising this Beaufort progeny. It was afterwards pretended that this Act, which was passed in 1397, contained a reservation precluding them from succeed- ing to the Throne ; but it has been now well established that this reservation was interpolated into the Copy of the Act on the Patent Rolls at a later date, and that in the original Act there is no such reservation, and I shall therefore treat the Beauforts as legitimate. For, though it is not within the competence of Parliament to make a bastard lawfully begotten, it cannot at the present day be denied that it is within the competence of Parliament by an Act duly passed to place a bastard in Xho, position of one lawfully begotten. John of Gaunt had altogether, including the Beauforts, eight children. By his first wife, Blanche of Lancaster, three — (1) Philippa, afterwards Queen of Portugal ; (2) Henry, afterwards Henry IV. of England, and (3) Elizabeth, afterwards Duchess of Exeter. By his second wife, Constance of Castile, one — Katharine, afterwards Queen of Castile ; and by Katharine Swynford, four, who were all born before marriage — (i) John Beaufort, afterwards Earl of Somerset; (2) Henry Beaufort, afterwards Cardinal Bishop of Winchester ; (3) Thomas Beaufort, afterwards Duke of Exeter, and (4) Joanna Beaufort, afterwards Countess of Westmoreland. I will speak first of the four daughters of John of Gaunt, 198 History of the Royal Family of England. John of Gaunf's Datighters, 199 then of the two younger Beauforts, Henry and Thomas neither of whom left issue, then of John Earl of Somerset and his descendants, and lastly of Henry IV. and his descendants During the reign of Richard H. there was a scarcity of marriageable English Princesses. He had no daughter and no sister on his father's side. His half-sisters through his mother, and his cousin Philippa, daughter of his eldest uncle, Lionel Duke of Clarence, were married before he became King (see as to these ladies preceding chapters), and conse- quently his cousin Philippa, eldest daughter of John of Gaunt stood first in point of rank amongst the unmarried women of England. It was proposed by her father that she should marry the King, but both Richard and the nobility in general were opposed to this suggestion, nominally on the ground of the near relationship between the parties, but probably in reality from a dread of the overwhelming ambition of the Duke of Lancaster. Nevertheless, it is probable that such a marriage might have removed many difficulties. Ultimately, and after various intermediate proposals for her marriage, Philippa did, as has been said before, marry John I King of Portugal. She was older than her brother Henry IV., and must have been over twenty at the date of her marriage. Her lot was fortunate, for John L was probably the greatest of the Portuguese kings, and in his rei-n there was a great literary, scientific and artistic movement which there is reason to believe Queen Philippa did her best to foster, and which, coupled with the King's military achieve- ments, placed Portugal for a time in a position of great importance among European nations. John I. and Philippa had a large family, nearly all of whom distinguished themselves, and one of their youn-er sons was the celebrated - Henry the Navigator," who may^'be counted as the first of the Spanish and Portuguese explorers to whom the world owes so much. For a further account of Queen Phil.ppa and her children I must refer my readers to a very interesting book by Mr. Morse Stephens, " Portugal " one of the series of « Stories of the Nations " ' Katharine, third daughter of John of Gaunt, was, as I have already said, married at the same time as her sister Philippa to Henry HI., King of Castile, by whom she became the grandmother of the great Queen Isabella of Castile, whose marriage with King Ferdinand of Aragon consolidated Spain into one great, and for a time, immensely powerful Kingdom. From these two Lancastrian Princesses, Philippa and Katharine, were descended two Queens Consort of England, both of whom, though in a different degree, were very unhappy in their lives. Katharine of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, first wife of Henry VIII., was the great grand- daughter of Katharine of Lancaster, and Katharine of Portugal, wife of Charles II. was descended from Queen Philippa of Portugal. I ma>' add that the present King of Spain and the ex-King Manuel of Portugal, as well as many other Royal and noble families, claim descent from one or other or both of these two daughters of John of Gaunt. Elizabeth, second daughter of the Duke of Lancaster, was married, as I have already mentioned, to that very trouble- some person John Holland, Duke of Exeter, who was the half-brother of King Richard II. The date of the marriage is uncertain, but it was probably in 1387. The Duke of Exeter was a strong supporter of his father-in-law, and on one occasion did him great service. In 1387 a Carmelite Friar having placed in the hands of Richard II. papers supposed to implicate the Duke in a conspiracy against his nephew, the Friar was committed to the custody of Sir John Holland (as he then was), who thought the best means of exculpating his friend was to kill the Friar, which he did by strangling him with his own hands. John Holland afterwards murdered Lord Stafford and was banished, but he returned to England and ultimately became a strong partizan of King Richard, and notwithstanding his near connnection with Henry IV. was beheaded by that king in 1400. Of the descendants of the first Duke of Exeter by Elizabeth Plantagenet, two of whom subsequently became I : 200 History of the Royal Family of England. Dukes of Exeter, I have already given some account in a previous chapter. (See Table VII.) The date of the death of the Duchess Elizabeth is not known. Joanna Beaufort, half-sister of Henry IV., was twice married, first to Sir Robert Ferrers, who was created first Baron Ferrers of Wenne, by whom she had an only son Robert, who succeeded his father and left two daughters and co-heiresses, from whom various families of the present time claim descent, but Joanna's descendants by her first marriage did not take any prominent part in English History. Joanna married secondly, about the year 1397, Ralph Neville, first Earl of Westmoreland. For an account of this very distinguished man and his family I will refer my readers to Mr. Oman's "Life of Warwick the Kingmaker" in the "English Men of Action" series. He was descended from the Nevilles of Raby, and was probably the most powerful and influ(?ntial, and as far as I can see, one of the most respectable of the Barons of his time. His influence was largely based on the inter-marriages between his family and nearly every other family of distinc- tion in the Kingdom, but to give anything like a clear account of the Nevilles, or even of the descendants of Earl Ralph him- self, it would be necessary to write a by no means small volume on the subject. He was twice married, first to a lady of the great Stafford family, and secondly to Joanna Beaufort, and when I say that by his first wife he had nine, and by his second wife he had thirteen children, and that nearly all these children married and had families, I think I may be excused from giving any detailed account of them. I will therefore confine myself to two, Cecily, his fifth and youngest daughter by Joanna Beaufort, and Richard, his eldest son by the same lady, though by no means his eldest son, taking his first family into account. Cecily Neville married Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, by whom she became the mother of the Kings Edward IV. and Richard III., and of her I shall speak again when I The Kingmaker, Earl of Warwick. 201 revert to the history of her husband. Sir Richard Neville, her brother, was born in the year 1400 and married Alice Montacute, daughter and sole heiress of the last Earl of Salisbury of that family, in whose right he himself became Earl of Salisbury. He played a great part, only over- shadowed by that of his still more distinguished son, in the Wars of the Roses, and was ultimately beheaded after the Battle of Wakefield while fighting on behalf of the Yorkists in the year 1460. By Alice Montacute he had a large family, of whom it is only necessary to speak of his eldest son, Richard Neville, who was born in 1428, and is known in history as the " Kingmaker," or from Lord Lytton's novel as the " Last of the Barons." The Kingmaker married Anne Beauchamp, heiress of the family of Beauchamp, Earls of Warwick, and in right of this lady he became Earl of Warwick, and on his father's death he became Earl of Salisbury. He was ultimately killed while fighting with the Lancastrians at the Battle of Barnet in the year 147 1, aged forty-three. The Earl of Warwick left two daughters and co-heiresses, Isabel, married to George, Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV., and Anne, married first to Edward, Prince of Wales, son of Henry VI., and afterwards to Richard III., and to these ladies I must return later. In estimating the character of the great Earl of Warwick, and the somewhat remarkable changes of front which he executed during the civil wars, it is fair to consider the some- what complicated state of his family connections. It has been said, and with good authority, that his grandmother, the Countess Joanna of Westmoreland, was a very clever woman, who set immense store by her connection with Henry IV., and it is certain that the Neville family were, at all events until the breaking out of the civil wars, firm friends of the Lancastrian Kings. Therefore Warwick, both by family connection and tradition, and from the intimacy which sub- sisted between himself and his father with the Lancastrian Princes, may well have had from the first some lurking . M l,:i 202 History of the Royal Family of E?igland. inclination to take their side. On the other hand, through his aunt Cecily, he was first cousin to her sons by the Duke of York, who afterwards became Edward IV. and Richard III., Kings of England ; and finally, as I have already said, he had a daughter married to a Prince on each side, though the marriage of his daughter Anne to the Prince of Wales, son of Henry VI., did not take place till after his first breach with Edward IV. As is well known, Warwick was in the first instance a strong Yorkist, but afterwards, from causes, which have been the subject of much discussion, he became Lancastrian, and he died fighting on that side. (See Oman's " Life of Warwick " before quoted.) The Countess Joanna of Westmoreland died in the year 1440, eighteen years after the accession of Henry VI., and thirty one years before his death. Henry Beaufort, third son of John of Gaunt, was born about the year 1376. He was consecrated Bishop of Lincoln in 1398, when he was about twenty-two, and translated to the See of Winchester in 1404. He was made a Cardinal and Papal Legate in 1427, and he died in 1447. He was therefore twenty-three years old when his half-brother Henry IV. became King, having been raised to the Episcopal dignity a year earlier. He was thirty-six on the accession of Henry V., forty-six on the accession of Henry VI. and seventy-one when he died, twenty-four years before his great nephew, the last named King. The history of this great man is in a large measure the history of England during his life, for, at all events after the accession of Henry VI., he was almost, if not quite, the most prominent person in the realm, and was intimately concerned with all public events. The story of his constant quarrels, in which it seems to me that he was always, or nearly always, in the right, with the King's uncle and his own nephew, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, is known to many people through the medium of Shakespeare's play of " Henry VIII." which, grossly inaccurate as it is in many particulars, states fairly enough the position of these two eminent men. Person- Tke Beauforts. 203 ally, I do not much admire political prelates, and there are many things in the conduct of Cardinal Beaufort which are open to much comment ; but on the whole I think that he contrasts favourably with most of the statesmen of his age. There does not appear to me to be any evidence that his private life, at all events after his early youth, was otherwise than regular, and his public conduct was, as a rule, just and patriotic. (See the Life of Cardinal Beaufort by L. Rudford in the series called, " Makers of English History.") His younger brother, Thomas Beaufort, was born a year later than the Cardinal, in 1377, and died in 1427 at the age of fifty, five years after the accession of Henry V. He was eminently and exclusively a soldier, having throughout his life been almost always engaged in military matters, and in the wars of Henry V. he distinguished himself greatly. In the year 14 16, shortly after the accession of Henry V., he was created Duke of Exeter, a title which had been rendered vacant by the execution of John Holland, brother of Richard II. Thomas Beaufort married a lady of the Neville family, but died without issue. There is in history a most irritating confusion between the several Dukes of Exeter, and at the risk of some repeti- tion, I will say again that there were four : (i.) John Holland, who was Duke of Exeter from 1397 to 1399, that is for the last two years of the reign of Richard II., and who was beheaded in 1400 by Henry IV. He was half-brother on his mother's eide to Richard II., and through his wife Elizabeth, daughter of John of Gaunt, he was brother-in-law to Henry IV. (2.) Thomas Beaufort, who was Duke of Exeter from 1416 to 1427, that is during the reign of Henry V., and the first five years of Henry VI. He was half-brother to Henry IV., and consequently uncle of the half blood to Henry V. (3.) John Holland, son of the first Duke of Exeter, and who was himself Duke of Exeter from 1443 to 1447 in the reign of Henry VI. ; and (4.) Henry Holland, son of the last Duke, who was Duke of Exeter from 1447 till his death after the Battle of Barnet in 1473. He was a somewhat distant cousin III I 204 History of the Royal Family of England, to Henry VI., and married and was divorced from the sister of Edward IV. (See Tables VII. and XI.) John Beaufort, eldest son of Joiin of Gaunt by Katharine Swynford (through whom Henry VII. derived his title, such as it was), was born in 1375 and died in 1410, aged thirty-five. He was therefore twenty-four when his half-brother Henry IV. became King, and thirty-three when that King died. The Act by which he and his brothers and sister were declared legitimate was passed in 1397, two years before the death of Richard II. John Beaufort was a soldier of some distinction, but was not a very prominent man. There is some confusion in his titles. In the same year, 1397, he was created successively Earl of Somerset, Marquis of Dorset, and Marquis of Somerset. In 1399 he was deprived by Henry IV. of his Marquisates on the ground that he had been a party to the execution of the King's and his own uncle, Thomas Duke of Gloucester. In 1404 he was again made Marquis of Dorset, but he does not seem to have used that title, and at all events his eldest son succeeded him only as Earl of Somerset, and therefore I shall refer to him only as the first Earl of Somerset. He married Margaret Holland, daughter of Thomas Holland, second Earl of Kent of his family, and niece of the half blood of Richard II. (see Table VII.), and consequently he was nearly connected with that King, whose part he seems on the whole to have taken. The first Earl of Somerset had a family of five children, Henry, John and Edmund (who were successively either Earls or Dukes of Somerset), Joanna and Margaret. Joanna Beaufort, his eldest daughter, married James I., King of Scotland. The story of that King's long captivity in England, of his ultimate release and tragic end, is well known. While in England he formed a passionate affection for Joanna which he celebrated in verse, his poems being almost the earliest Scotch poetry now extant. Queen Joanna survived James I., and became painfully well known in \ UJ -J OQ < h r, IB «0 > . fa -<^:^ > 1— < Q < I E . s ^ U a. C <-< Q 3 w - W .. it wife) ifter tl nford ) fa OS u "^ •- «» < ^> ^c 1 — > c 3 II w 9s ID °£* ^ "C^-o W " « II J < «n WYNFORD (3rd not take place till s s children by K. Swy Oil"— ►J-o fa S- t-2 'jr « 3 *» 2^1 7^ X v.- -^ l-J « < D « fa .i!« 0^ •-I II n — ^ <.-3 « • ^ NTS • u, "5 W^S 05 ■'^ " <; 3 D 5 '^•5 fa M NT. f Ga aster. CG - PS ° • < - fa JJ — e-5: ^ ,^ ~ PQ S PLA ohn of Lane 2: 03-^ P.:4 - fa 3 . fa r"? ^^^ <3 sT" SI fa og>i Oi § E IS 5 "^ 2-- 3^ H ::::-i 05 fa« ^c? H <- fa «j « < Q « CO -^ Ji wife). = J fa 2 < w >^ 5. H ^• fa K 1 " •-4 4>' ^ s"^ < s-^ Q-g^ AGENET (is {Table IV.) « > — fa ^ .0 S "^ • - u fa !i *> H^-5 ^l • > ^ > "^Ji >i *—t S|«| fa 3 U > > > PQ.S tt 06 06 »:JdM < CJ gj- z Z . f^'^s.s fa-o-ra 1? w .; fa « cq f^:S < HH '«• hri ti _s r ^J — 3, - >'0-^ « §^ g-^ 2 NM h4 »« Q <: fa^ j: H US ^ M W II k«ri CO c> «, NN »N Cx:c8X' ■^^"^ ^— ' ■J 'I s m '1 ^ I 2o6 History of the Royal Family of England. The Beauforts. 207 history from the awful cruelties she inflicted on her husband's murderers after his death. Her great grandson, James IV. of Scotland, married Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII., and great granddaughter of Joanna's brother John, and through this last-mentioned marriage the Crown of England passed to the Royal house of Stuart. (See as to her descendants, post.) Margaret Beaufort, Earl John's second daughter, married Thomas Courtenay, fifth Earl of Devon of his family, and had a number of children. Her husband and her three sons and one of her sons-in-law were killed fighting on the Lancastrian side. Her issue in the male line became extinct in the reign of Henry VII. Henry, the eldest son of John, first Earl of Somerset, succeeded' his father as second Earl, but died in his minority, and was succeeded by his next brother, John, who was born about 1404. He was therefore six years old when his father died in 1410, fourteen when he succeeded, on the death of his brother, as third Earl of Somerset, and forty when he died in 1444. Although this Lord Somerset died nearly ten years before the actual breaking out of the civil war, he was distinguished throughout his life for his strong enmity to the Duke of York, which seems to have amounted to personal hatred. It was he who first adopted the " red rose " as his badge, in opposition to the " white rose," assumed by York as the emblem of the Yorkist party. My readers will be familiar with the famous scene laid in the Temple Gardens in the first part of " Henry VI.," in which the quarrel between York and Somerset is represented, and they adopt the rival roses as their respective emblems, and also with the later scene in the same play in which King Henry himself assumes the "red rose" as his own badge. Somerset was a distinguished soldier in France, but the English arms were much hampered by the continual bicker- ings between him and York. He died in the year 1444, having been the year previously advanced to the rank of Duke of Somerset. M He married a lady of the Beauchamp family and left an only daughter, Margaret Beaufort, to whom I must return, and to whom I direct my readers' special attention, as by her first husband, Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, she became the mother of the Prince who was afterwards Kin^ Henrv VIL (See Table XL) ^ John Beaufort, third Earl and first Duke of Somerset, was succeeded as fourth Earl (his Dukedom expired at his death), by his next brother, Edmund, who was a year or two younger than himself, and was therefore at this time about thirty-eight. This Edmund was the most notable— I can hardly say famous— of the Somersets. He succeeded his brother as Earl, but in 1448 he also was created Duke of Somerset. After the deaths of his uncle Cardinal Beaufort and of Michael de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, to whom I must refer again, he acquired complete ascendancy in the Councils of the King Henry VI. and his Queen ; and it was during his administration in France that the series of disasters took place which finally deprived the English of Henry V.'s conquests. On this and other accounts he was extremely, and I think justly, hated by the people, and repeated demands were made for his exclusion from the Royal Councils. Ultimately he was for some time imprisoned in the Tower at the instance of the Duke of York, who was for the moment in power, but he was liberated in 1455, and was killed in the same year at the Battle of St. Albans, which battle may be counted as the opening of the civil war, though it was followed by some years of comparative peace. Earl Edmund also married one of the Beauchamps and had a family of eight children,— three sons, Henry, Edmund, and John, and five daughters. His daughters all married, but excepting two, their marriages do not call for any special notice. Alianora, the eldest, married James Butler, a son of the fourth Earl of Ormond, who was created Earl of Wiltshire, and who after the death of his father-in-law became one of the most 2o8 History of the Royal Family of England. The Beauforts. prominent and detested adherents of Queen Margaret of Anjou. Lord Wiltshire was ultimately beheaded in 146 1, and had no children. Margaret, the fifth daughter of Earl Edmund of Somerset, married Humphrey Stafford, Earl of Stafford, eldest son of the first Duke of Buckingham of that family. (See Table VII.) Her husband like her father was killed at the Battle of St. Albans, but he left by her a son Henry, who on his grand- father's death became second Duke of Buckingham of his family. Of him I have already spoken, but I may here repeat that he was beheaded by Richard III. Edmund, second Duke of Somerset, was succeeded as fifth Earl and third Duke by his eldest son, Henry, then a youth of under twenty. He also acquired great weight with the Oueen Margaret, and was a prominent leader among the Lancastrians. He took refuge with Queen Margaret in Scotland, where, however, he greatly damaged her cause, having it is said incurred the enmity of the Queen Dowager of Scotland, Mary of Gueldres, by boasting, either truly or falsely, that he had been her lover. Having thus made Scot- land too hot to hold him, he made peace with the Earl of Warwick, then the leader of the Yorkist party, and received Edward IV.'s pardon in 1462. In the following year at the Battle of Bamborough he fought against his former friends, thereby, it is said, '' proving manfully that he was a true liegeman to King Edward." He was taken into high favour by Edward, from whom he received many honours, having according to one account " supped at the King's board, slept in the King's chamber, served as Captain of the King's guard and jousted with the King's favour on his helm." Nevertheless, in the midwinter of the years 1463-64, with- out the slightest provocation or warning, Duke Henry of Somerset left the Court, and once more took up arms on behalf of the Lancastrians, thereby beginning anew the civil war, which at that time had almost been extinguished. In the same year he was taken prisoner at the Battle of Hexham and beheaded next day. He was then about twenty-seven. 209 Duke Henry was never married, and he was succeeded at all events in the estimation of the Lancastrians, by his next brother Edmund, who in their view became sixth Earl and fourth Duke of Somerset. He was about twenty-five at his brother's death, and for some years afterwards Edmund and his younger brother, John, were in exile, and in great poverty. Dunng the temporary restoration of Henry VI. in 1470-71 they came to England, and they were both present at the Battle of Tewkesbury, where John was killed, and Edmund taken prisoner and immediately afterwards beheaded. With them the male line of the Beauforts, all of whom had played so great a part in the history of the fifteenth century became extinct, but as has been already said, such rights as they possessed to the Throne passed to Margaret, daughter and heiress of John Beaufort, first Duke of Somerset, whose son, as claiming through her, was afterwards recognised as King Henry VII. of England. It should, however, be said that Henry, the third Duke, left a natural son, who assumed the name of Somerset, and from him the present Duke of Beaufort is descended. Thus the present Duke of Beaufort whose family name is Somerset, is descended from a Duke of Somerset whose family name was Beaufort. (See Table XL) O Henry IV. 21 I CHAPTER XIII. Henry IV. — Joanna of Navarre. — Henry IV.'s Daughters.— Thomas Duke of Clarence.— John Duke of Bedford.— Humphrey Duke of Glou- cester.— Henry V. HENRY of Bolingbroke, eldest son of John of Gaunt by his first wife, Blanche of Lancaster, and afterwards Henry IV., was like his cousin Richard II. born in 1366, and was therefore thirty-three when in 1399 he dethroned that King, and himself assumed the Crown. In his early manhood he was a great traveller, having made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and having been employed on several diplomatic services on the Continent ; and he does not appear to have given any special signs of excessive ambition. He was made Earl of Derby, a title previously held by his father in 1388, when he was twenty-two, and in 1397 he was advanced to the rank of Duke of Hereford. In that same year, however, there arose the quarrel between him and Thomas Mowbray, first Duke of Norfolk, which has been rendered famous by Shakes- peare's play of "Richard II.," and which led to the banish- ment of both Dukes. In the beginning of 1399 John of Gaunt died, and Richard took advantage of his death, and of Henry's absence, to seize the great estates and property of the late Duke, whereupon Henry, in defiance of the decree of banishment which had been made against him returned to England. Whether he had at the first any idea of making himself King, or whether he merely intended, as he himself said, to recover the estates of which he had been unjustly deprived, is an historical problem which it would be difficult to solve. I myself believe that he was a man naturally just 210 and conscientious, and that, on his first landing, he had no designs against the King personally ; but I think that finding Richard in Ireland, and the Kingdom undefended, and being possibly more or less deceived by the rumours of the King's death, he yielded to a sudden temptation to seize the Throne for himself Certainly no sin was ever punished more terribly than Henry's. He knew, and never forgot, that he had no title to the Throne, and that even if, which he could hardly have believed, Richard by his crimes had disentitled himself to reign, there remained the Mortimers, who by the laws of suc- cession, then fully established, were and had been fully recognised by the King in Parliament as being Richard's heirs. Henry knew that his action in deposing a lawful Sovereign was viewed with alarm and consternation by every Prince in Europe, and he knew that the great nobles, even his own nearest relatives (like the Duke of Exeter, who had married his sister), regarded his proceedings with jealousy and mistrust. The great Barons were all, or nearly all, his own relatives, men of almost as distinguished birth as' his own, and many of them possessed of immense wealth and influence. They could with difficulty brook the authority of a King whose title they recognised as valid, and it was not to be expected that they should accept the authority of a King whose title they did not recognise, and who a year or two before had been no more than one of themselves. Conse- quently there was hardly a single man on whom Henry could rely, and from the hour of his accession to the hour of his death there was hardly a moment in which he was not tormented with suspicion and distrust of all about him, even, it IS said, at times of his own son ; or in which he was not either strugghng with, or threatened by, open or smoulderin- rebellion. ^ He was not as it seems to me like some of his successors a man, bloodthirsty, cruel and callous to all human feeling' and yet the fatal step once taken he was hurried on from' crime to crime. It cannot be doubted that Richard II was 21 2 History of the Royal Family of England. Henry IV. 213 murdered, or that Henry was the insfgator of the cnme and though a man. believing himself to be justly K.ngm putUng to death rebels against his authority may feel himself well justified in doing so.it is difficult, indeed almost impossible to suppose that Henry himself regarded the executions which followed his accession as other than murders. Henry IV.'s reign was. compared to the reigns of his pre- decessors, of comparatively little interest, and at all events it is not my place to refer to it in detail ; I must, however, mention one circumstance which, in its singular disregard to justice and international law. has. I think, scarcely met with the reprobation it deserves, and which throws an evil light on the King's character. ui u j Henry in the time of his own banishment and trouble had met with much kindness and hospitality in many European Courts, and his father, in hts time °ff°"ble had found refuge and safety in Scotland. In 1405 Robert III. of Scot- land (great grandson of the great Robert Bruce) sent, his voun- heir James afterwards James I. of Scotland to France. It wa"s a time of truce between the two kingdoms, but never- theless the young Prince was intercepted and brought to the English Court, where he remained a prisoner until after the accession of Henry's grandson, Henry VI. I do not see how any one could, and I do not believe that anyone has justified Henry IV. died in 1412 at the age of forty-six, though Shakespeare, who for romantic purposes chooses to represent everyone not in the prime of youth as bowed down by age represents him at his death as an old man. The great dramatist had. however, in this instance the excuse that Henry was prematurely old, and was the victim of disease, so much so that in the opinion of many his abdication had become necessary He died distrusting all men to the end, keenly conscious of the crimes by which he had attained to power and yet evilly counselling his son how he was to retain hat power. Whether it is true, as suggested by Shakespeare, that he actually advised the French war, I think there is little doubt that Henry V., like many other Sovereigns of doubtful title, undertook that war in the hope that by foreign con- quest his subjects might be dazzled, and their attention dis- tracted from domestic affairs, and that his policy was to a great extent based on the precepts of his father. For a time Henry V. succeeded, deluging France with the best blood of England, but the glory and power which he gained for Eng- land were lost almost as speedily as they had been obtained, and when once public attention did return to the internal affairs of the Kingdom, there followed a civil war which in ferocity is almost unequalled in European annals, and which, directly or indirectly, led to the destruction of all his father's descendants and half the noble families with which he was connected. On Henry IV.'s accession to the Throne, the Duchy of Lancaster merged in the usual way in the Crown, but in the reign of Edward IV. that King passed an Act of Parliament by which this Duchy was, so to say, re-established and was settled with its great estates as a sort of permanent provision for the Sovereigns. A similar and confirmatory Act was passed in the reign of Henry VH., and by virtue of these Acts of Parliament his present Majesty on his accession became not only King of England but Duke of Lancaster, and receives the rentals derived from the ancient Duchy. Henry IV. was twice married. In 1384, when he was eighteen, he married Mary de Bohun, second daughter and co- heiress of the last Earl of Hereford of the Bohun family. He probably owed his subsequent title of Duke of Hereford to this marriage. This lady's elder sister Eleanor had married Henry's uncle Thomas, Duke of Gloucester ; and the Duke of Gloucester, having married one of the co-heiresses of Here- ford, seems to have thought it would be a good arrangement if the other became a nun, and at all events he pointed out the advantages of a conventual life to his sister-in-law with much energy. He had, however, to do with a person even more astute than himself, namely his elder brother, John of Gaunt, who, taking advantage of Gloucester's temporary -I 2 1 4 History of the Royal Family of England. Charles the Bad, King of Navarre. 215 absence, and with the assistance of some of the lady's female relations, contrived that Mary de Bohun should pay him a short visit at Fleshy Castle. There Lancaster introduced the young lady to his own son, Henry of Bolingbroke, who was then remarkably handsome, with the result that the young couple were promptly married. It is said that the Duke of Gloucester on hearing of the event " became melancholy, and never loved the Duke of Lancaster as he had done before." At the date of the marriage Henry was, as I have said, eighteen and the young lady was fourteen. Mary de Bohun died while her husband was still Earl of Derby in the year 1394, aged twenty-four. In 1403 Henry IV., then aged thirty-seven, married Joanna, second daughter of Charles the Bad, King of Navarre. It will be remembered that Edmund Crouchback, first Earl of Lancaster and second son of Henry III., married Blanche of Artois, Queen Dowager of Navarre. This Princess by her first husband had an only daughter Joanna, who eventually became Queen of Navarre in her own right, and who married Philip IV. of France, whereby the Crowns of P'rance and Navarre were for a time united. Philip and Joanna had three sons, Louis, Philip and Charles, who were successively Kings of France as Louis X., Philip V. and Charles IV., and a daughter Isabella, who married Edward II. of England. The three Kings before mentioned died without male issue, but each of them left a daughter or daughters. It was held that the Salique Law, which excluded females from succession to the Throne, was the law of France, and accordingly the daughters of the three Kings in question were excluded from the succession to the Crown of France ; and on the death of Charles IV. that Crown passed to his cousin Philip VI., who was the grandson of Philip HI. It could not be contended, however, that the Salique Law applied to the Kingdom of Navarre, and accordingly on the death of Louis X. his only daughter Joanna became Queen of Navarre in her own right, and this Princess was the mother of Charles the Bad. 'i-\ As is well known, Edward III. of England denied that the Salique Law was the law of France, and having by some process of reasoning best known to himself ignored the claims of the daughters of his mother's three brothers, Louis X., Philip V. and Charles IV., he claimed the Throne for him- self in right of his mother, Isabella, wife of Edward 11. of England, whence ensued the first of the two great French wars. In this war Charles the Bad of Navarre played a prominent part, and being probably exasperated by the fact that both parties had concurred in ignoring his own claims to the French Crown through his mother, daughter of Louis X., he seems to have done his best to injure both English and French with a fine impartiality. It is not my province to enter into the details of his conduct, but in the fourteenth century he obtained a reputa- tion for extraordinary and abnormal wickedness. This, as the vices of cruelty, rapacity, and adultery were too common to call for much attention, was mainly due to the fact that he was commonly believed, and possibly believed himself, to be an adept in the black art of magic, and his evil reputa- tion was brought to a culminating point by the circumstances of his death. Being ill, he caused himself to be sewn up in a sheet steeped in spirits of wine, which he probably thought would have a stimulating effect upon his constitution. The sheet somehow caught fire and he was burnt alive; and it is needless to say that he was generally believed to have been carried off by the devil. The bad reputation of her father attached itself to his daughter Joanna of Navarre, who, notwithstanding that, throuohout a long life, and in positions of great difficulty, she behaved with, as far as appears, a most exemplary patience, prudence and temperance, was constantly pursued with vague charges of being addicted to magical arts. On this account she became extremely unpopular and suffered many misfortunes, and indeed her misfortunes in a sense pursued her after death, for to a comparatively recent period, in the character of a 2 16 History of the Royal Family of England. Joanna of Navarre. 217 " Witch Queen," she was supposed to haunt her palace at Havering. The date of her birth is uncertain, but at an early age she became the third wife of John IV., Duke of Brittany, a Prince who, as has been already mentioned, had been previously married, first to Mary, third daughter of Edward III., and then to Joanna Holland, daughter of Joanna Princess of Wales, and half sister of Richard II. Neither of these ladies had brought him a child, but Joanna of Navarre made up for this, as by John IV. she was the mother of nine children. It would appear that Henry of Bolingbroke, when he was in banishment, visited the Court of Brittany, and there saw the Duchess and admired her, and at all events four years later, when she had been a widow for two years, and he was King of England, he married her. It is probable that she was well over thirty at the time. Joanna's career as Queen of England seems to have been absolutely irreproachable, and the only tangible suggestion made against her is that, being extremely rich, she was too fond of her property. As, however, this suggestion came from persons who wanted, without having any particular right to, the property in question, I do not think it need be taken very seriously. After Henry IV.'s death Joanna's stepson, Henry V., got up the old story of witchcraft and shut her up in prison, where she remained till on his deathbed, being ashamed of himself, he ordered her release. It is possible that Henry really believed the charge, for in those days the fear of witchcraft amounted to a kind of mania, which attacked persons of all ranks and of great intelligence. But as Henry not only shut her up in prison but seized her property, and gave the same to his own wife, his motives cannot be said to have been purely religious, or in any sense disinterested and his most ardent admirers do not attempt to defend his conduct in this matter. Even Miss Yonge in her novel of The Caged Lion, in which Henry V. is represented as a Saint (indeed someone after his death has a vision of him ■ n in Paradise), he is allowed to be a little uncomfortable on his deathbed in regard to his behavour to his " stepdame." Joanna survived Henry V. fifteen years and died in the year l\^, having passed the remainder of her life in pro- found retirement and comparative poverty. She is buried in Canterbury Cathedral. She had no child by Henry IV., and it is not necessary for me to speak of her children by her first marriage,' except perhaps of one, her second son Arthur. William the Conqueror created Alan Duke of Brittany, who had married his daughter Constance, Earl of Richmond in Yorkshire. From that time down to the time of Henry V. there was a constant claim on the parts of the Dukes of Brittany to the Earldom of Richmond, a claim which was sometimes allowed, and sometimes resisted by the English Kings, and which gave rise to an immense amount of wrang- ling. John IV., or, as he is sometimes called, John the Valiant, the husband of Joanna, was on the occasion of his first marriage with Mary, daughter of Edward III., un- doubtedly confirmed in the Earldom. He was afterwards declared to have forfeited it on account of the part he took in the first French war, and he is usually accounted the last foreign Earl of Richmond. In point of fact, however, his second son, Arthur, was allowed to assume the title, and did homage to the English King as Earl of Richmond. In the second French war Arthur took the part of the French, and was taken prisoner by Henry V., who subjected him to a long and an unusually strict imprisonment. This was on the ground that as Earl of Richmond Arthur was an English subject, and consequently not merely a rebel against Henry in the sense in which Henry chose to consider that all Frenchmen, who defended their country, where rebels against him as King of France, but also a rebel against Henry as an English subject fighting against the English King. This Arthur afterwards became famous in French History as a great soldier, and he is known as the " Comte de Richemonte," Constable of France. TEST^-" 2 1 8 History of the Royal Family of England, Henry IV. had six children, all by his first wife Mary de Bohun ; (i) Henry, afterwards Henry V., born in 1386; (2) Thomas, afterwards Duke of Clarence, born in 1387 ; (3) John, afterwards Duke of Bedford, born in 1389; (4) Humphrey, afterwards Duke of Gloucester, born in 1391 ; (5) Blanche, afterwards Princess of Bavaria, born in 1 392, and (6) Philippa, afterwards Queen of Denmark, Sweden and Norway, born in 1393- Of these six children only two left issue — Henry, an only son, afterwards the unfortunate Henry VI., and Blanche, an only son, who died as a boy. Henry IV.'s children were not born in the purple, for when he became King, an event which, until it actually happened, can hardly have been expected by anyone, his eldest son was thirteen, while Philippa his youngest child was six. After his accession the King was desperately anxious to contract Foreign alliances for his children, and he seems to have hawked the hands of his sons and daughters over Europe in a manner that was both undignified and ridiculous. He found it, however, very difficult to find suitable partners, and after several snubs, was glad to accept proposals to marry his eldest daughter Blanche to Louis, eldest son of Rupert, Duke of Bavaria, Elector Palatine and German P^mperor. Tliese titles sound sufficiently splendid, but in point of fact Rupert was never crowned, and was only partially acknowledged as Emperor, and even his title to the Duchy and Electorate was in dispute. The marriage was celebrated at Cologne in 1402, the Princess Blanche being then ten years old, and among the other nobles who attended her to Cologne was her father's half-brother, John Beaufort, first Earl of Somerset. Blanche died five years later in 1407, at the age of fifteen, in giving birth to her only son, a boy who survived her and died un- married at the as^e of nineteen. Her husband survived her, and afterwards on the death of his father became Duke of Bavaria and Elector Palatine. Philippa, Henry's second daughter, was married in the Children of Henry IV. 219 I I year 1406, when she was thirteen, to Eric VI., who united the Crowns of Denmark, Sweden and Norway. The marriage was celebrated at Lund in Sweden, the Princess being escorted there by her father's cousin Richard Plantangenet, Earl of Cambridge. Eric was a wretched creature, cowardly, cruel and debauched, and his wife had a bad time of it. In 1430, when Queen Philippa was thirty -seven and had been married twenty-four years, she became pregnant for the first time, and died shortly afterwards in a premature confinement, brought on by the personal ill-usage of her husband. Eric was after- wards dethroned and his three kingdoms divided. Both the daughters of Henry IV. appear to have been very amiable women, and Philippa shewed some capacity, for her husband having at one time set out for the Holy Land on an expedition of combined devotion and diversion, he left her Regent of his Kingdoms, and during his absence she repelled a very formidable invasion by the people of Schleswick-Holstein with much energy and spirit. Thomas, second son of Henry IV., was born in 1387, and was therefore twelve when his father became King, and twenty-five at his father's death and the accession of his brother Henry V. in 141 2. His whole life appears to have been spent in military employment, and he took little or no part in political affairs. In 141 2, on the accession of his brother, he was created Duke of Clarence, and in I42i,a year before his brother's death, he was killed at the Battle of Beaugy, aged thirty-four. Thomas Duke of Clarence married Margaret Holland, daughter of Thomas Holland, second Earl of Kent of his family, and niece of King Richard II. This lady had been previously married to his father's half-brother John Beaufort, first Earl of Somerset. The marriage, of which there was no issue, took place in 141 1, a year after the death of the Earl of Somerset, and when Thomas himself was twenty-four. John, third son of Henry IV., was born in 1389, and was therefore ten when his father became King, twenty-three on the accession of Henry V. and thirty-three at that King's death. From his earliest youth he shewed great military ,1 1 1. ft ••*•» 2 20 History of the Royal Family of England, capacity, and when Henry V. died he was, in accordance with that King's directions, appointed Regent of France, a position in which, by common consent, he displayed military and civil ability of a high order. The position, however, was untenable. It is one thing to overrun and, for the moment, conquer a great country— it is another to maintain an alien dominion over a Foreign country of which every inhabitant hates its rulers, and is watching for the first opportunity to take advantage of any weakness on their part. It is difficult to conceive how, in the fifteenth century, any sane Englishman could seriously have supposed that the English could retain permanent rule over a nation so brave, so enterprising, and so intensely patriotic as the French ; and moreover John was in a very different position from that of his elder brother. Henry V. was a man of extraordinary genius ; he was for all practical purposes an absolute King, and during his short reign he had concentrated upon himself a sort of personal enthusiasm on the part of his subjects which, for a time, made nothing impossible. The Duke of Bedford was only one of a group of nobles in whose hands the Government was reposed, and he was constantly thwarted and hindered by their jealousies and disputes, and in particular by the feud between his brother Humphrey Duke of Gloucester and his uncle Cardinal Beaufort. The Cardinal with unusual foresight avowedly wished for peace, almost on any terms, and Gloucester, though the professed advocate of the war party, was too much absorbed in his own schemes and selfish ambition to render effectual aid to his brother in France. The extraordinary rise of Joan of Arc, and the apparently miraculous success which at first attended her arms, was the beginning of the long series of disasters which resulted in the final expulsion of the English from France. Bedford lived to see the defeat and capture of the Maid of Orleans, and his memory, otherwise among the men of his day in high repute, is stained by the cruelties inflicted upon her. He died shortly afterwards in 1435 at Rouen, where he is buried. JoJm Duke of Bedford. 221 In the slightly ridiculous scene in the first part of" Henry VI.," in which Bedford is carried in on a chair, and stuck down outside the walls of Rouen, apparently in the midst of a battle, and in which he dies, Lord Talbot says with some sense : — " Come my Lord We will bestow you in some better place Better for sickness and for crazy age." Bedford is thus represented as an old man, but he was in point of fact only forty-six when he died. He is buried in Rouen Cathedral, and one of the few magnanimous acts recorded of Louis XI. of France is that, when he was asked to deface Bedford's tomb, he refused, saying, '' Wherefore I say, first God save his soul, and let his body rest in quiet, which when he was living, would have disquieted the proudest of us all ; and as for his tomb, which I assure you is not so worthy as his acts deserve, I count it an honour to have him remain in my dominions." John was created Duke of Bedford in 1414, and he was twice married. In 1423 he married Anne, sister of Philip II. (called the Good) Duke of Burgundy, then the great ally of the English. This lady died in 1432, and within six months of her death the Duke married Jacquetta of Luxembourg, daughter of the Count de St. Pol, a lady of very distinguished family. The Duke of Burgundy was, or pretended to be, extremely annoyed at the haste with which his brother-in-law married again, and this was one of the causes assigned for his defection from the English, which was completed at the Congress of Arras in 1435, shortly after Bedford's death. This^ defection practically put an end to the English dominion in France. Bedford had no child, but his second wife who survived him, was an important person in English History, in the reigns of Henry VI. and Edward IV. After Bedford's death his widow married Richard Woodville, a person of very inferior position. This marriage gave great offence on account of the disparity of rank between the parties, and Woodville ' ll 2 2 2 History of the Royal Family of Englaftd. was for a time imprisoned as having married a '* tenant of the Crown" without the Royal licence, but he was afterwards liberated and created first Baron and then Earl Rivers. Lord Rivers and the Duchess of Bedford had a large family, of whom we shall hear later, seeing that Elizabeth Woodville, one of their dau<,^hters, married King Edward IV. Humphrey, fourth son of Henry IV., who probably received the name of Humphrey in memory of his maternal ancestors, the Earls of Hereford, several of whom had borne that name, was born in 1 391, and was therefore eight years old when his father became King, and twenty when his brother Henry V. ascended the Throne. In 1414, two years after his brother's accession, he was created Duke of Glou- cester, and at the accession of Henry VI. he was thirty. He was fifty -four when he was killed in 1446. On his brother's death he was appointed Lord Protector of the Kingdom, and from that time till his death the internal History of England is the history of Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, or rather of his endless disputes with his uncle, Cardinal Beaufort, in which disputes, I have already said, I think Gloucester was almost always in the wrong. For some reason which I do not understand he is frequently spoken of as " the Good Duke Humphrey," but I cannot see anything in his public or private life to justify his being so described. On the contrary, I should have thought the "Bad Duke Humphrey" would have been nearer the mark. His matrimonial arrangements were, in a high degree, complicated, and were sources of extreme embarrassment and scandal to England both at home and abroad. Shortly before the death of Henry V. there arrived at the English Court Jacqueline Countess of Holland, Zealand and Hainault. She was one of the greatest heiresses in Europe, and the heir to her dominions, failing her own issue, was the Duke Philip of Burgundy, the great ally of Henry V. in his French campaigns. Jacqueline had been married to John, one of the sons of Charles VI. of France, who was for a short time Humphrey Duke of Gloucester. 223 Dauphin of France, and who died as a child, and she had subsequently married the Duke of Brabant, who at the date of the marriage was a boy of sixteen. The Duke and Duchess of Brabant had quarrelled violently, and Jacqueline came to England to obtain the protection of Henry V. After her arrival Duke Humphrey fell in love with her, or possibly with her great fortune, and notwithstanding the Duke of Brabant, wanted to marry her. This King Henry, who naturally set great store by the friendship of the Duke of Burgundy (who was a strong partizan of the Duke of Brabant), positively forbade. Shortly after King Henry's death, however, and notwithstanding, it is said, a personal appeal made to him by the King on his deathbed, and the remonstrances of the Duke of Bedford and the whole Council of Regency, Humphrey went througli a form of marriage with Jacqueline in the year 1421, and they promptly set out at the head of an armed force to take possession of the lady's dominions. They alleged that Jacqueline's marriage with the Duke of Brabant was invalid on the ground of consanguinity, and, of course, the Duke of Brabant and Jacqueline were within the degrees of kindred which prior to the Council of Trent were by the laws of the Catholic Church prohibited. Everyone who was, so to speak, anyone was almost necess- arily within such degrees of kindred to everyone else who was anyone ; and in the fifteenth century a Papal dispensa- tion had come to be almost as necessary a preliminary to marriage among the "classes" as a marriage licence is to marriages in England at the present day ; and it is certain that such a dispensation had been obtained for the marriage of Brabant and Jacqueline. The proceedings of Duke Humphrey set all Europe in a turmoil. The Pope threatened excommunication, the Duke of Brabant claimed his wife, or rather her dominions, and the Duke of Burgundy sent an army to assist him, and thence ensued a war which lasted for many years which greatly hampered the English arms in France, and which contributed largely to the alienation of Burgundy from England. In this war Humphrey did not I i 2 24 History of the Royal Family of England. take much personal part, for at an early stage of proceedings he left Jacqueline in Holland and returned to England, and he never saw her again. Jacqueline was shortly afterwards taken prisoner at Mans, but being a woman of some spirit, she and some of her women contrived to escape in the dress of men, and she carried on the war with slight and inter- mittent assistance from Humphrey for several years. The connection between Humphrey and Jacqueline which had caused so much trouble and bloodshed came to a somewhat ludicrous termination. In 143 1, after the death of the Duke of Brabant, and when there would have been no particular difficulty in Humphrey's contracting a lawful marriage with Jacqueline, he, ignoring his previous connection with her, declared himself to be married to a woman named Eleanor Cobham. Jacqueline afterwards married a certain "Frank of Bursellen," who got into considerable trouble on her account, and she died without issue in 1428. The Eleanor Cobham above mentioned was a lady who, in the words of that severe historian Dr. Lingard, had before her marriage " contributed to the pleasures of several noble- men," and, amongst others, to the pleasures of Duke Humphrey himself, whom she had accompanied on his ex- pedition to Hainault, even while he was supposed to be the husband of Jacqueline. As may be imagined, this marriage gave great public scandal, all the more as the ci-devant Eleanor Cobham thereby became the first lady in England, for the King was not yet married, and the Duchess of Bedford as the wife of the Regent of France was permanently resident abroad. Eleanor appears to have obtained great ascendancy over Duke Humphrey, and in a general way to have misbehaved herself greatly, and in particular she is said to have adopted the practice of what were supposed to be magical arts. It is probable that these practices would have done no great harm to anyone but herself, but in 1441, no doubt as a political move against her husband, she was solemnly charged Humphrey Duke of Gloucester. 22 with compassing the King's death by magic. She pleaded guilty, was condemned to walk for three days barefoot through the streets, carrying a lighted candle (which she did), and afterwards to perpetual imprisonment and loss of rank. His wife survived Duke Humphrey for many years but her subsequent career was extremely obscure and was passed in confinement. Five years later, in 1446, Duke Humphrey, whose influence had been steadily on the wane, was summoned to meet the Parliament at Bury St. Edmunds, and was there arrested, and a few days afterwards he was found dead in his bed, and there is no doubt that he was murdered. He, like his brothers Clarence and Bedford, left no issue. Shakespeare, from whom so many persons take their views as to the personages of the Plantagenet period, was possessed with an extraordinary prejudice against Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry VI., and Cardinal Beaufort, whose characters he omits no opportunity of blackening, and whose enemies, by implication at all events, he always places in a favourable light. Accordingly his view was distinctly favourable to Humphrey, and, though he represents Eleanor in the act of having a conversation with an evil spirit, he, nevertheless, appears to regard her as a somewhat ill-used person. At all events he represents that Eleanor fell into a trap deliberately set for her by the Queen and the Cardinal, and that the Queen and the Cardinal were the murderers of Gloucester, and he gives a horrid scene of the Cardinal's despairing and impenitent deathbed. As a matter of fact Margaret did not come to England till 1445, four years after the condemnation of Duchess Eleanor ; she must therefore be acquitted of any ill behaviour to the Duchess of Gloucester and as to the Duke, even if there were any evidence to implicate her in Gku- cester's murder in 1446, which there is not, it is to the last degree improbable that a girl of seventeen, as she then was, would have taken part or been trusted in so grave a matter. Cardinal Beaufort was born in 1377 and died in 1447, and therefore was even in 1441, the date of the accusation of the \ { 2 26 History of the Royal Family of England. Duchess of Gloucester, a man of sixty-four, which in the fifteenth century was considered a great age. It is clear that even before that date his influence with the King had been to a large extent superseded by that of William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, and that in that same year, 144 1, the Cardinal finally retired to his diocese, and gave up further interference in public affair^. It is possible that he may have been concerned in the charge against Eleanor, but as that lady pleaded guilty, and her husband did not attempt to defend her, that is not a very gra\e charge. When Gloucester was murdered, Beaufort was himself a dying man, and dying in what was then con- sidered the extremity of old age, and it is next door to impossible that he should have been concerned in his former rival's death. As t^ his deathbed, all the evidence that exists goes to shew that the last years of the Cardinal's life were pass d in the exercise of constant acts of piety and charity, and the story of his death as told by Shakespeare may be regarded as a fiction without the slightest historic foundation. [See " Cardinal Beaufort," by L. Rudford in the series of " Makers of English History," and " Humphrey Duke of Gloucester," by K. H. Vickers.] The person who in all probab lity was answerable for Gloucester's death was the Duke of Suffolk. Henry V. was born in 1386, and was therefore thiiteen at his father's accession, twenty-six when he himself became King, and thirty-six when he died. Since the Norman Conquest there have been few Sovereigns so completely English as this King. His mother, Mary de Bohun, and his paternal grandmother, Blanche Plantagenet, had been English- women, whose fathers and mothers, and grandfathers and grandmothers, had all been English men and women born and bred ; and in Henry's own blood, the latest foreign strain was that of his father's paternal grandmother, Philippa of Hainault, wife of Edward HI. There is no English King whose personality is so distinct to Englishmen as Henry V., but I think that the Henry of our imagination is a very different person from the Henry Hetiry V, 227 of reality. Everyone has read Shakespeare's " Henry IV.," and everyone recalls the " Madcap Prince " — the gay, witty, careless youth whose jokes and pranks are so amusing, whose graver moments are so delicately and touchingly rendered, whose character is so lovable, and whose development into the hero of Agincourt is so brilliant and satisfactory. Un- fortunately, however, every succeeding historian has been obliged more and more to take from the illusion, and Henry's latest biographer, the Rev. A. Church in the series of " Men of Action," has destroyed it altogether, though he leaves in its place the picture of a perhaps finer character. In the play Henry IV. compares the military exploits of Hotspur with the frivolity of his son, and wishes that the former had been given to him for a son instead of his own Henry ; but in fact. Hotspur was nine years older than Henry v., and Henry V. himself had obtained high military distinc- tion before he was fifteen, which surely must have satisfied the most warlike and exacting of fathers. Throughout the whole of Henry IV.'s reign his eldest son was constantly and almost uninterruptedly charged with impotant military and civil employments — employments which he discharged on the whole to the eminent satisfaction of his father and his father's Council, and which could have left him little time or opportunity for the amusements of life even if he had been inclined for them. His friend Sir John P'alstaff was not the graceless old knight of fiction, but a man of strong and severe religious principle, and it is certain that Henry himself, at all events from the date of his accession to the throne, led a life of strict and even ascetic morality, and there is not a shadow of evidence that in his youth his life was otherwise. And lastly, alas ! the story of the upright Judge Gascoigne, who sent the Prince to prison for striking him, and of the Prince who submitted, and commended the Judge s conduct in such noble terms, when it comes to be examined falls to the ground. Shakespeare had not a particle of historic foundation for the story, against which there is strong negative evidence, and it is certain that Gascoigne 2 28 History of the Royal Family of England. Henry V. 229 ceased to be Chief Justice when Henry IV. died. This fact however implies no blame to him, or to the new King, for at that date Gascoigne had reached an age when he may well have considered himself and been considered too old for active employment. Henry V. seems to have been a man of a cold and stern character ; by nature deeply religious, conscientious and even ascetic. His father had been an usurper, but it may well be the case that Henry V., after his father had reigned for thirteen years, considered that his father's title had been accepted by the English people, and that he himself was entitled to succeed to the English Crown. His claim to the French Crown however, in prosecuting which he sacrificed and shed such oceans of blood, seems to us in these days, or to me, at any rate, absolutely unjust, and even absurd ; and it is difficult to conceive on what grounds he justified it to himself, I believe however that he did persuade himself that it was just, and certainly amongst all those who surrounded him, of the clergy, as well as the laity, nay, even amongst the French clergy, there was not found one to protest. On the contrary, as far as can be judged, they all in their hearts regarded the French invasion as the legitimate exercise of the natural love of conquest in a young and energetic King. Henry appears to me, though I am no great judge of such matters, to have been almost the greatest general that England has ever produced, and to have made an immense stride in military science. He was, for instance, the first commander who employed physicians as a regular part of his army. In the prosecution of the French wars he committed acts of cruelty, the recital of which makes one feel sick, but cruelty was regarded as a necessary part of war, and such incidents as the massacre of prisoners, and the deliberate starvation of non-combatants, old people, women and children, seem to have excited neither horror nor surprise, nor even reprobation. It is said and truly, that Henry loyally observed the " rules of war," as they were generally understood,— that he faithfully kept his word, and that he enforced discipline I among his troops with a firm and impartial hand ; and finally, Henry had the power of attaching to himself almost everyone, enemies as well as friends, whom he personally came across. James I. of Scotland was detained, and I think it must be admitted, unjustly detained, as a captive by Henr)' throughout the latrer's reign, and Edmund Mortimer had a better title to the Throne than Henry and was excluded by him ; and yet is is certain that both James and Edmund were united to Henry by the ties of a strong personal attachment. In 1420 Henry married Katharine, youngest daughter of the mad King of France Charles VI., whom he himself had virtually dethroned. She was the younger sister of Isabella, who was the second wife of Richard II. Queen Katharine in December 1421 gave birth to Henry's only child, afterwards Henry VI., and in August 1422 Henry died. Katharine appears to have been a somewhat shallow flippant wo.rian, and it is said that she did not respond to her husband's affection as she might have done, but to my mind it is wonderful that any French woman could have brought herself to marry Henry under any circumstances, let alone being fond of him. The marriage of Henry and Katharine was ill-fated, for through Katharine, Henry VI., her son, derived from his maternal grandfather that mental and physical weakness which was the cause of so many disasters in the next half century ; and it was through Katharine's second marriage with Owen Tudor, to which I must refer in a later chapter, that we derive the Tudor Sovereigns, whom personally I consider to have been sent as a series of most sharply cutting scourges to the English nation. CHAPTER XIV. Henry VI. — Margaret of Anjou.— Richard Duke of York.— Edward IV.'s Sisters.— The de la Poles. (i ENRY VI. was nine months old when he became King I in 1422, and forty-nine when he was murdered in 1471. He IS one of the most piteous figures in histc^y. From his mother's father he inherited the taint of madness, during several periods of his reign he was actually mad, and when he was not distinctly mad he appears, at all events when regarded as a King, to have been almost imbecile. His physical health and strength were extremely feeble, and he appears to have had absolutely no judgment or discrimina- tion in any political matter. On the other hand, he was as gentle and amiable a creature as ever lived, and in his personal life he was profoundly pious, so much so that in his ov/n time he was, and he is even now, by some people, regarded as a saint. He had an intense horror of bloodsiied, and he seems to have had a power of attaching himself by pt rsonal affection to everyone he came across, which, consic.ering the characters of the men and women by whom he was surrounded, was truly remarkable. His uncle, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester — his great uncle. Cardinal Beaufort— the Duke of Suffolk— his two cousins, Edmund and Henry Beaufort, Dukes of Somerset— his rival, Richard Duke of York, and above all, his wife Margaret of Anjou, each when brought into contact with him seems to have had the power not only of influencing him completely, but of inspiring him for the time at any rate with implicit confidence and strong affection. Consequently, 230 Henry VI. 231 though I do not believe that Henry would have done any- thing that he himself thought wrong, more crimes were committed in his name, and with his nominal sanction, than have been committed by many of the greatest tyrants in the world. It is quite outside my purpose to give even the smallest outline of the events of his reign, or of the Civil Wars of the Roses, and it is sufficient to say here that in 1461 Henry was dethroned by Edward IV., who was crowned King — that after wandering about Scotland and the north of England in an aimless manner for some years, he was taken prisoner and shut up in the Tower in 1465. In 1470, during the temporary ascendancy of Warwick, the " Kinirmaker " (who had then joined the Lancastrians), Henry was liberated and again became nominally King, and it is during this period that he is described as having "sat on his throne limp and helpless as a sack of wool." In the following year he was again de- throned by Edward, and shortly afterwards he was murdered in the Tower, probably with Edward's connivance, and I think I may say certainly by or under the directicin of Edward's brother. Richard Duke of Gloucester, afterwards Richard HI. In 1344 Henry VI. married Margaret, daughter of Rene, titular King of the two Sicilies, and of Jerusalem, and titular Duke of Anjou and Maine. Rene was descended from Louis Duke of Anjou, and King of the two Sicilies, the second son of John King of France ; and his sister, Marie of Anjou (daughter of Louis H. Duke of Anjou by Yolande of Aragon), had married Charles VII. of Fiance, by whom she was tiie mother of Louis XL Consequently King Louis XI. and Margaret of Anjou were first cousins. Ren^ himself how- ever was a very foolish and insignificant person, who is well enough described in Sir W^alter Scott's novel " Anne of Geicrstein." His kingship was merely nominal — his duchies were, and had long been in the hands of the English, and he was for all practical purposes a political nonentity, and for his rank a very poor man, so that it is extremely difficult to understand why his daughter should have been selected as the 232 History of the Royal Family of England. wife of the English King. The marriage was negotiated by William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk. This person, after the retirement of Cardinal Beaufort, had acquired the greatest influence over Henry VI, and from the date of the marriage until he was put to death in 1450 he was the chief counsellor of the Queen, who very soon after her marriage became to all intents and purposes Queen Regnant of England. The marriage was extremely unpopular, as well it might be, for not only did the Queen bring no dowry, not even clothes adequate to her position ; but it was part of the marriage treaty that the provinces of Maine and Anjou should be ceded to her father. This measure, though, as tending to put an end to the French war, it probably worked well in the end, could not at the time have been otherwise than intensely mortifying to the English nation. There is a doubt as to the date of Margaret's birth, but Miss Strickland gives it, on apparently good authority, as 1429. and therefore at the date of the marriage she was sixteen, King Henry being twenty-three. It is very difficult to speak of Margaret's character, because, except on one or two points, no two writers agree. Everyone says that she was a woman of truly masculine vigour, courage and tenacity, and her warmest admirers admit that she wis vindictive and, upon occasions, cruel. It is .said that she was extreme'y beautiful, and it is said that she was plain, and if she was like the portrait of her which Miss Strickland gives, and others I have seen, she was certainly 7iot beautiful. It is' said that she was a model of conjugal affection and devotion, and It IS said that she was almost openly and avowedly an adulteress, and in short there is no virtue, except clemency, and no vice which has not been attributed to her. Shakespeare is the writer who has done most to blacken her character. He attributes to her crimes which, as I have already pointed out, it is impossible that she should have com- mitted. He represents her as carrying on an intrigue both before and after her marriage with the Duke of Suffolk, who was born in 1396, and was therefore thirty-three years her I Margaret of Anjou, 233 senior, and for the existence of which intrigue there does not appear to me to be any reliable evidence or any reasonable probability ; and lastly, which seems to me to be very unfair, Shakespeare represents her as continually going about cursing and insulting her enemies, and generally behaving like a mad woman. Making, however, an enormous discount for ex- aggeration, I myself believe that Shakespeare's view of Margaret's character is, in the main, correct. I think she was a violent termagant, with an inordinate love of personal power, to which she was prepared to sacrifice, and did sacri- fice, every other consideration. In my opinion, for what it is worth, the Civil War was to a great extent brought about by Margaret's arrogance and intense desire to concentrate in her own hands the supreme power. I do not think it can be denied that, for her own objects, she did in fact betray the country of her adoption to that country's enemies, and that, shockinj^r as were the cruelties perpetrated on both sides, those on the part of the Lancastrians were far worse than those on the part of the Yorkists ; and this there is good reason to suppose was to a large extent due to Margaret's personal influence. I believe that Margaret despised and neglected her husband, and without saying that it is proved that she broke her marriage vow,— I think her conduct, not with Suffolk, but with Butler Earl of Wiltshire (who for a short time succeeded him in power, and who as I have said was married to a lady of the Beaufort family, see Table V.), was such as to lay her open to reasonable suspicion in regard to her personal virtue, I am, however, aware that these remarks will give considerable offence to many persons, who are accustomed to regard Margaret of Anjou as a great heroine, and I am bound to confess that I am unable to justify them without entering into a somewhat minute history of her reign, which in this work is impossible. Margaret survived her husband ten years. After the Battle of Tewkesbury, 1471, at which her only son was killed, she was taken prisoner, and kept a prisoner in the Tower until H75j when she was ransomed by her father, who to raise the 'H ¥ % % 'ii* \m 234 History of the Royal Family of England. necessary money mortgaged his inheritance (such as remained to him) to Louis XI. of France. She thereupon retired to the town of Angers, where her father had a castle, and where she lived till her death, which happened a few months after that of her father in i^8i. She was fifty years old when she died. V It is needless to say that the scenes in "Richard III." (they are seldom acted) in which Queen Margaret is repre- sented as wandering about the streets of London curbing all and sundry, have no foundation in history. If she had gone about talking like that, Richard would have had <40od reason for shutting her up, and would assuredly have done so, but in fact she never returned to England after ii75, and died in 1 381, two years before Richard became King. Henry VI. and Margaret had one child Edward, who was born in 1^53, nine j^ears after their marriage, and who was killed at the Battle of Tewkesbury in ijf/i, aged eighteen. Whether he was killed in battle, or survived the fight and was basely murdered by Edward IV. and his brothers, as Shakespeare says, is a matter in dispute ; but I am inclined to accept the former view. The long delay between the marriage of Henry VI. and Margaret, and the birth of their only child, gave rise to rumours that he was not the King's son, and certainly greatly complicated the political situation. Edward had been shortly before his death married to Anne Neville, second daughter of the great Earl of Warwick ; his marriage being one of the terms of the alliance between Warwick and Margaret, which led to such fatal results. Prince Edward is said to have been a youth of great promise. He was eighteen when he was killed and left no issue= Anne Neville afterwards married Richard III., and to her I shall return later. It has been seen that of the six children of Henry IV., four, the Dukes of Clarence, Bedford, and Gloucester, and the Queen of Denmark, died childless. The only child of the Princess of Bavaria died as a youth, and Henry VI., the only child of Henry V., had an only child who died without issue Richard Duke of York. 235 in his life; and thus with Henry VI. the issue of his grand- father, Henry IV., became extinct. As Edward IV. was King, with a tolerably firm se.t, when Henry VI. died, one would have expected to hear no more of the Lanca.strian party, but it was not to be so. The Civil War was destined to be revived by the crimes of Richard III., a Prince who, claiming descent alike from Lancaster and York (he was the grandson of Joanna Beaufort, half sister of Henry IV., see Table XL), seems as the last of the Plantagenet Kings who have combined in his own person all the wickedness of both parties, and to have been the fitting product of one of the most horrid and unnatural wars that ever disgraced Christendom. I must now return to Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York. At the risk of wearying my readers, I must repeat that he was the only son and heir of Richard Earl of Cambridge (be- headed by Henry V), who was the second son of Edmund, first Duke of York, who was the fourth son of Edward III. Richard's mother was Anne Mortimer, who was the daughter, and, on the death of her brother Edmund, sole heiress of Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, who was declared heir pre- sumptive to the Throne by Richard II.; and this Roger Mortimer was the eldest son and heir of Philippa Plantagenet. who was the only child and heiress of Lionel Duke of Clarence, second son of Edward III. (see Table X.\ Richard's claim to the Throne in priority to Henry VI. was based on the f jct that he was heir of Lionel, second son, whereas Henry was descended from John, the third son of Edward HI. ; and his title to be Duke of York and his name of Plantagenet were derived from his father's father, p:dmund Plantagenet, Duke of York, fourth son of Edward HI. Richard was born in 14 12, and he was therefore an infant at the accession of Henry V., and only ten when Henry VI., who was nine years his junior, became King. His father was beheaded in 14 15, just before the commencement of the great French War, and a few months later his uncle was killed in battle, whereupon he, notwithstanding that his father had been •f attainted as a traitor, was allowed to inherit from his uncle the title of Duke of York, and the immense estates attached to the Duchy. In 1437, when he was twenty-three, two years after the death of the Duke of Bedford, he was appointed " Lieutenant and Governor-General of France and Normandy," an office in which he displayed great ability, and gave promise of achieving great success, had he not been constantly hindered by John Beaufort, first Duke of Somerset, who was profoundly jealous of him, and seems, as I have said before, to have been actuated by something like personal hatred. York was ultimately superseded in his command in favour of Somerset, and in 1447, when he vvas thirty-three, he was sent to Ireland as Lieutenant, which he seems to have regarded probably with justice as a kind of honourable banishment. In Ireland, however, he obtained great popularity, so much, indeed, that half a century later, when insurrections were raised on behalf of the impostors Lambert Simnel and Perkyn Warbeck, who respectively claimed to be his male descendants, it was thought advisable to begin those insurrections in Ireland, and appeals were made with success to the Irish by both impostors in memory of their supposed ancestor, Richard Duke of York. In 1453 King Henry became for a time admittedly mad. At that date the King had no child, and his uncles had all died without issue, so that Richard was then in right of descent from Edmund, fourth son of Edward III., and putting aside his descent Irom Lionel, second son of that King, first Prince of the Blood, and heir presumptive to the throne ; for though the Beaufort Princes were descended from John of Gaunt, third son of Edward III, and iiad been declared legitimate, their descent from John of Gaunt was known to have been in fact illegitimate, and I doubt if at that time they were seriously considered as being in the line of succession at all. Accordingly, Richard came to London, imprisoned his enemy Somerset, and assumed the management of affairs, which it would seem he conducted with wisdom and temper- ance until the King came to his senses in 1454. Then under Richard Duke of York. 237 his wife's influence, Henry liberated Somerset and dismissed York and his friends from their offices. Thereupon York took up arms, and in 1455 the first battle of St. Albans was fought, at which Somerset was killed, and the King placed entirely at the mercy of York, who accordingly again became what would now be called Prime Minister. He was, how- ever, constantly subjected to the intrigues of the Queen and of Edmund Beaufort, who, on the death of his brother, had become Duke of Somerset ; and ultimately, in 1459, York formally claimed the Throne and the Civil War broke out. Into the course of this war I do not propose to enter, but it is well known that at the Battle of Wakefield in 1460 Richard was killed, and his head placed on the Battlements of York crowned with paper in derision of his claims to the Throne. He was forty-eight at the date of his death. In estimating the character of this distinguished man the great question is, when did he first aspire to the Throne? I confess that if I thought that, whatever were his legal claims, he had deliberately and without necessity plunged England into civil war after the Lancastrian Princes had peacefully reigned for near upon half a century of years, I should regard him as an infamous person, but I think it was otherwise, and that if in the beginning, as he himself said, his position anri rights as Duke of York had been acknowledged and accepted, he would have been content. He was, however, in a manner forced into claiming the Throne by the knowledge that if he did not become King he would cease to be Duke of York and would probably lose his life. I think this view is borne out by the Duke's conduct in 1453, and again after the Battle of St. Albans in 1455, at either of which periods he might, as it seems to me, have seized the Crown, not only with comparative impunity, but with some measure of popular applause, for the Queen and her friends, and in particular the Beauforts, were extremely unpopular. The question, however, is one rather for regular historians than for myself In speaking of the Beauforts, I have already said that Richard Duke of York married Cicely Neville, daughter 238 History of the Royal Family of England. of Ralph, first Earl of Westmoreland, by Joanna Beaufort, half sister to Henry IV. By this marriap^e he was brother- in-law to Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury, and he was uncle by marriage to that Earl's son, the "Kingmaker" (see Table X.). I may mention, though perhaps it may seem a trivial matter, that Shakespeare, who is extremely confusing in his use of the words "brother," "uncle," and "cousin," makes the Duke of York speak in the third part of " Henry VI." of the Marquis of Montagu in several places as his " brother." The Montagu in question was brother to the Earl of Warwick and ntphew to the Duchess of York, and was therefore first cousin to York's sons, but was not related to the Duke himself. The Duchess of York was, by all accounts, a woman of exceptionally haughty temper. She survived her husband and died in 1495, ^e" years after the accession of Htnry VH., so that she lived to see her granddaughter Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV., Queen Consort of England. As she was married in 1438 she must have lived to what was in those days counted a very great age. She is one of the company of disconsolate females who, in the play of" Richard III.," go about "railing" and lament- ing and considering the fate which overtook nearly all her relatives and descendants. I think that, on the whole, the Duchess had as good reason to complain as any of them ; I doubt, however, if, at all events when her son Richard was King, she allowed herself to express her feelings as plainly as Shakespeare makes her do. The Duke and Duchess of York had twelve children, of whom five (four sons and daughter) died as infants. They were (i) Anne', afterwards Duchess of Exeter, born 1439 ; (2) Henry, died as an infant; (3) Edward, afterwards King Edward IV., born 1442 ; (4) Edmund, afterwards Karl of Rutland, born 1443; (5) Elizabeth, afterwards Duchess of Suffolk, born 1444: (6) Margaret, afterwards Duchess of Burgundy, born 1446 ; (7 and 8) William and John, who died as infants ; (9) George, afterwards Duke of Clarence, born Edward IV' s Sisters. 239 1449; (10) Thomas, died an infant ; (11) Richard, afterwards Duke of Gloucester, and then King Richard HI., born 1450 • (12) Ursula, who died an infant. ' I propose to deal first with the sisters of Edward IV. whose history is somewhat obscure, then with his brothers Ed'iiund and George and the descendants of the latter, then with King Edward IV. himself and his brother Richard III and lastly, with the descendants of Edward IV., which brings us to the Tudor period of history. It has already been said more than once that Anne the eldest sister of Edward IV., married ^ Holland, last Duke of Exeter of his name (see Table VII.), and in previous chapters I have spoken of the unhappy fate of this Prince, who, an ardent Lancastrian throughout his life, was found dead in the sea in the year 1473, after the final defeat of the Lancastrian arms. It seems strange that so strong a Lan- castrian as Henry Holland should have married a daughter of the Duke of York, but in fact the marriage took place in 1447 when Henry was seventeen, and Anne cannot have been more than eight, and it was celebrated twenty-four years before the death of Henry VI., and eight years before the first open breach between that King and the Duke of York was made. I have stated that there was one daughter of the marriage, Anne Holland, who is said to have been the first wife of Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset, the son of Sir John Grey by Elizabeth Woodville, afterwards the wife of Edward IV., and consequently the stepson of that King. This marriage has been already mentioned, and as I have already said it produced no issue. In 1472 the Duchess of Exeter succeeded in getting a divorce from her husband, on what grounds does not appear, and she subsequently, though not I think until after Exeter's death in 1473, married Sir Thomas St. Leger. By her second marriage she had one child, a daughter, Anne St. Leger, who was the first cousin of Queen Elizabeth, wife of Henry VII. and mother of Henry VIII., and who married Sir Georc^e 240 History of the Royal Family of E?igland. Manners, afterwards Lord Roos. The eldest son of this marriage was created by Henry VI 11., Earl of Kutland, and from him the present Duke of Rutland is directly descended. I do not know the date of the death of the Duchess of Exeter, but such notices as appear of her seem to suggest that she, like her youngest sister Margaret , was a strong, and not very scrupulous, partizan on her brother's side, and was much given to political intrigue. Elizabeth, second sister of Edward IV., was married to John de la Pole, second Duke of Suffolk of his family. I must ask my readers to distinguish between the two families of de la Pole and Pole, both of which became intimately connected with the Royal family of England but which are quite distinct. The de la Poles were of very ancient descent, and in the reign of Richard IL, Michael de la Pole was created Elarl of Suffolk, a title which had been previously held by only two persons, that is to say, by Robert de Ufford from 1337 till 1369, and by his son, William de Ufford, from 1369 till 1381. William de la Pole, grandson of Michael, succeeded his brother, also Michael, who was killed at the Battle of Agin- court in the year 141 5, and this William became the notorious minister of Henry VI. It was he who brought about the marriage between Henry and Margaret of Anjou, and it was under his administration that the French conquests of Henry V. were lost. The story of his tragic death, when he was beheaded at sea in the year 1450, is a matter of general history. This William de la Pole was created first Duke of Suffolk, and he married Alice Chaucer, a descendant of the great poet. It was not a little singular that John, the only son and heir of this detested adherent of Queen Margaret, should have married the sister of Edward IV., but so it was. John de la Pole was born in 1442, and was only eight years old when his father was executed, and barely eighteen when he married the Princess Elizabeth in 1460, very shortly before Edward IV. was proclaimed King. Almost immed- iately after that event he was " restored in blood," and The de la Poles. 241 confirmed in his father's title of Duke of Suffolk. His subsequent career was not very distinguished, but he seems to have retained the favour not only of his brothers-in-law, Edward IV. and Richard III., but of Henry VII., who married his wife's niece, Elizabeth of York. The Duke of Suffolk died in 1491, six years after the accession of Henry VII., having I believe survived his wife, though the date of her death is not certain. The Duke and Duchess of Suffolk had a large family, five sons and four daughters. Of the sons two became priests, and of the daughters one became a nun and one died unmarried. The other two daughters married into the noble families of Stourton and Lovel, and from them several well- known families now claim descent, but neither they nor their descendants played any prominent part in history. The remaining three sons, John, Edmund and Richard, require more detailed notice. John was born in 1464. and was therefore nineteen when his maternal uncle Richard III. came to the throne, and he seems to have been regarded by that King with much favour. In 1467 he had been created by his uncle, Edward IV., Earl of Lincoln, and after the death of King Richard's only child Edward, Lincoln was declared by that monarch to be heir to the throne, failing future issue of his own. It is needless to say that this declaration was quite illegal, seeing that there were then living the daughters of Edward IV., and the son and daughter of the Duke of Clarence ; but as Richard had postponed their claims to his own, he was no doubt logically justified in postponing their claims to those of his sister's son. Lincoln was twenty-one at the date of the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, and in the first instance he submitted to the new King Henry VII., but on the breaking out of the insurrection by Lambert Simnel (who pretended to be the young Earl of Warwick, son to the Duke of Clarence), Lincoln espoused his cause, though he must have known him to be an imposter Lord Lincoln was killed at the subsequent Battle of Stoke in Q Ml 242 History of the Royal Family of England. The de la Poles. 243 the year 1487, aged twenty-three. He was twice married, but left no issue. His rebellion does not appear to have affected the favour ot his father with King Henry, for whereas Lincoln was killed in the month of June, his father carried the sceptre at the Coronation of Henry's Queen in the following November; but it probably did affect the position of his younger brothers Edmund and Richard, who were always regarded with more or less suspicion by King Henry. Edmund, the elder of the two, was born in 1465, and was therefore twenty six when his father died in 1491, and for some unexplained reason he was not allowed to succeed to his father's full dignities, but is stated to have "surrendered," the Duchy of Suffolk to the King, and to have been confirmed only in the title of Earl of that county. He remained, how- ever, in England for some years as Earl of Suffolk, until having killed a man in a quarrel he was arraigned for murder before the Court of King's Bench. Thereupon he fled to the Court of his maternal Aunt Margaret, Duchess Dowager of Burgundy, where he remained (with one short interval of partial reconciliation with King Henry VII.) until the year 1 502, taking part in all the various conspiracies against that King. In 1502 Henry VII. committed an act of treachery which had fatal consequences to Edmund de la Pole. The great Ferdinand and Isabella, King of Aragon and Queen of Castile, had reigned over Spain for many years, but on the death of Isabella the kingdom of Castile passed to their eldest daughter, Juana, who was married to the Archduke Philip, son of the Emperor Maximilian, and who became the mother of a Prince, afterwards the celebrated Emperor Charles V. The Archduke and Archduchess being on their way to Spain landed under some stress of weather in England at a time of peace, and with every reason to suppose that they would be treated as honoured guests. They were indeed received with honour, but they speedily found themselves to be in fact captives ; and they were not allowed to depart until they had signed, and in part performed the terms of a treaty dictated by King Henry. Into the general terms of this treaty I am not concerned to enter, but one of its minor terms was that Edmund de la Pole should be delivered over to King Henry. The Archduke protested that he was bound in honour to Edmund to afford him safe asylum, but he ultimately agreed to give him up, on an understanding with the King that Edmund's life should be spared. Henry kept his word to the letter, and when Edmund was brought to England he was committed to the Tower, and there kept as a close prisoner till Henry's death in 1509. It is said, however, that the conscientious King enjoined his son and successor to put the captive Prince (who, be it observed, was through his mother first cousin to Elizabeth of York, the wife of Henry VII., and the mother of Henry VHL), to death at the earliest possible moment. At all events Henry VJII. caused his cousin to be beheaded in 15 13, four years after his accession to the Throne, without trial or, as far as appears, without further offence. Edmund de la Pole was forty-eight when he was executed, and though he had been married to Margaret, a daughter of Lord Scrope, he left no issue. On Edmund's death his next brother, Richard, who had accompanied him on his original flight to Flanders, assumed the title of Duke of Suffolk, and was regarded with great jealousy and uneasiness by Henry VIII., who is reported to have been much gratified on hearing of his death at the Battle of Pavia in 1525, where he was killed fighting on the French side. Richard de la Pole never married, and with him the male line of the de la Poles became extinct. (See Table XII.) Margaret, the youngest sister of Edward IV., was married in 1568 as second wife to the celebrated Charies the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, who was one of the most distinguished and formidable personages of his time, and who will be remembered by novel readers as a prominent character in two of Scott's novels, " Quentin Durward" and "Anne of Geierstein." This marriage was destined to have a great 2 44 History of the Royal Family of England. effect on political events in En^^land, inasmuch as it is generally supposed to have been the immediate cause of the final rupture between Edward IV. and his cousin the "Kingmaker," Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. The sympathies of Charles the Bold had been strongly on the Lancastrian side, and he was in fact related to the Lancastrian Kings in that his mother's mother, Philippa, Queen of Portugal, was, as has been already shewn, a daughter of John of Gaunt aud sister of Henry IV. King Edward thought to gain the alliance of this powerful Duke by givin^r him his sister in marriage, but Warwick was strongly in favour of a treaty between Edward and Charles' great enemy, Louis XI. of France ; and it is said that Warwick greatly resented the King's refusal to comply with his advice. The details of the quarrels between Edward and Warwick are matter of general history, but a good idea of the position of the times, and of the leading persons of Edward's reign, may be got from Lord Lytton's novel *' The Last of the Barons." Charles the Bold was killed at the siege of Nanci in 1477, and he was succeeded by Mary of Burgundy, his only child by his first wife, his second wife the Duchess Mar^raret having brought him no child. After the accession of Henry VII., the Court of Charles' widow, the Dowager Duchess, in Flanders became the centre of constant political conspiracy against and danger to that King. It was there that all rebels and malcontents found refuge, and it was from there that the two impostors Lambert Simnel and Perkyn Warbeck, who, absurd as their claims seem now, were at the time very formidable enemies to the King, derived their chief countenance and support. King Henry made repeated and for the most part fruitless efforts to induce his continental allies to put pressure on the Duchess, but during the greater part of his reign she remained a most active and effective enemy to the Tudor Dynasty. She survived the execution of Perkyn Warbeck in 1498, but after that event is not much heard of in history. She died in 1503, six years before King Henry VII. X UJ -J CD < Ui O Q -^3 < 2 ^ < Q < a: u »* H K U M . 'LANTAGENET , Duke of Suffolk. I. *J ^ to ^ P c W " ci ^ 1 ^t^ ShCJ Ph 68 5 DC 4)-0 w -^ < ^ = 11 2^ - 3'- < a 1-1 I y W^ W" S" (4) PL, 2|" , " w^::^ Q^'^ 2: c? >— < 1-^ - CHAR le, 1485 w Q.f ING ed in 2^ 1^ = 0-^ W- ^_^u o'^ ro . rz CO < ^ ^ u 2: i-i* 1) u Z J-r ^ ^ PS < < - >" a. go" 1 N^ DUKi to deat I U^ Oi 2 '^ "-1 n W a 05 CJ «G e^t: S ^ Iz < 5 e ^& S " ,,,^-i^ n H 1 •1 a Z A > "^ ^^ 1— « N>4 Q s -^^ > • »-4 oi z >• > < < -* 0^ ^-^ ^S 1 . •-* Z • < ? QOO S X w ^ . Sco- 3: ^ "^ mt aq .J ^4 £3 ^^ < 2 ^ J ^4 V_' w " — CHAPTER XV. EDMUND EARL OF RUTLAND.-GEORGE D">^E O^ CLARENCE-CLARENCE'S SON AND DAUGHTER, EDWARD EARL OF WARWICK AND MARGARET POLE COUNTESS OF SALISBURY.-THE PoLES.-EdWARD IV.— His Wife.— The Woodvilles and Greys.— Richard III.— His Wife. FOLLOWING the plan indicated in the last Chapter, I now return to Edmund and George, the intermediate brothers of the Kings Edward IV. and Richard III. Edmund was born in .443 and two years later was created Earl of Rutland, which had been the second t.tle of h s ancestors the Dukes of York, and he was killed at the Battle of Wakefield in the year 1460, aged seventeen, and without having been married. It would have been unnecessary to say anytWng further about this Prince if, in the third part of " Henry VI." Shakespeare, who in this particular is followed by other writers, had not seen proper to represent h.m as a young child at the date of his death, and thereby to bring an unjust charge of cruelty against the Lancastrians^ He ^ represented as accompanied by a "tutor" who ^peaks of him as an " Innocent Babe," and his brother Richard of Glou- cester who was seven years his junior, and was in fact only eTyears old at the date of the Battle of Wakefield, is made to s^ak of him. immediately after his death, as his tender '''°l''n point of fact, in the fifteenth century, lads of seventeen were regarded as quite grown up, and ^^^bitually took part m the mifitary expeditions of the day. Henry V. had dis- George Duke of Clarence. 247 I tinguished himself as a leader before he was sixteen, and by the time he was seventeen, Rutland's own brother Richard was recognised as one of the most able and daring captains in the Civil War, and there is reason to suppose that Rutland himself (who was described at the time as the " best disposed young gentlemen in England ") was a youth of considerable promise. As far as appears he was killed in the battle as a combatant, and there was no treachery or cruelty in the manner of his death. Georj^^e, Duke of Clarence, is the first Prince of the Royal Family who was named George, and the name does not occur again in the Royal nomenclature of England until the accession of the Elector of Hanover as George I. in 17 14. The name was, however, common in the Neville family, to which through his mother the Duke was nearly related ; and it was in particular the name of the "Kingmakers" well known brother, George Neville, Archbishop of York. Prince George was born in 1449, and was therefore eleven years old when his father was killed, and twelve when his brother, Edward ^became King in 146 1. He was created Duke of Clarence, a title which had been previously borne by two persons only, namely by Lionel, second son of Edward HI., and Thomas, second son of Henry IV., both of whom died without male issue. At the date of his murder in the year 1478, George was only twenty-nine years old. He is described by Shakespeare as the " false, fleeting, perjured Clarence," and it would be difficult to find words more suitable to describe his character and conduct. It would be outside my purpose to describe in detail his treacherous and frequent changes of side between his brother and Warwick ; and though, no doubt, he met his death by illegal violence, it is impossiDle to regard him with pity. In 1469, when he was twenty, Clarence married Isabel Neville, eldest daughter and co-heiress of the great Earl of Warwick, and this lady is said to have inherited much of her father's ability and ambition ; and Lore Lytton in his novel of " The Last of the Barons " has some historical grounds for attributing to her influence. i 248 History of the Royal Family of England. some, at any rate, of the tergiversations of her husband. She died, however, about the year 1476, and in the short residue of his h'fe, her husband was much occupied in ambitious projects for a second marriage. With the assistance of his sister, the Duchess Dowager of Burgundy, he was one of the candidates for the hand of the great heiress, Mary of Burgundy, who was that lady's step-daughter. This scheme was greatly objected to by King Edward, and it is said to have been the immediate cause of Clarence's imprisonment, which was so quickly followed by his murder. The details of that murder are quite uncertain, and it is doubtful how far it was committed with King Edward's sanction, though there is little doubt that Richard of Gloucester had a hand in it. The Duke and Duchess of Clarence had two children, Edward, known as the Earl of Warwick, and Margaret, Cfjuntess of Salisbury. The son Edward inherited the tide of Earl of Warwick from his grandmother, Anne Beauchamp, who was Countess of V\ arwick in her own right. Her husband, the " Kingmaker," was only Earl of Warwick jure uxoris, and though his own titles were forfeited at his death, his wife's Earldom passed through her daughter Isabella, Duchess of Clarence, to her grandson, Edward Plantagenet. Edward, Clarence's son, was born in 1474, and was there- fore four years old when his father died, nine at the death of his uncle Edward, and the accession of his uncle Richard, and eleven when Henry VH. came to the Throne, as from which date (1485) until his own execution in 1499 he was continually a prisoner in the Tower. He was never allowed to assume his father's title of Duke of Clarence, and ivas an object of constant terror and anxiety to the Kings, Richard in. and Henry VII. Richard had sought to degrade the children of his brother Edward by declaring then to be bastards, but it was difficult with any plausibility to make any such charge against the children of Clarence and Isabella Neville ; or to invent any pretext why the son of his own elder brother Clarence should not be King ; and therefore it is probable that if Richard had lived much longer, the young Edward Earl of Warwick. 249 Warwick would have followed his unhappy cousins, Edward V. and Richard of York, to the grave. Henry VII., though he had married the eldest daughter of Edward IV., who according to modern ideas was the lawful heiress to the Throne, was aware that, at that time, there were many who resented the idea of a female Sovereign (and in the opinion of many, Henry reigned in right only of his wife)> and who would have preferred the title of a Prince who bore the great name of Plantagenet; and was descended in the direct male line from the famous Kings, Edward I. and Edward III., to that of the comparatively low born husband of a Princess, even though that Princess was of an elder line. It is not a little remarkable that Lambert Simnel, the first of the two impostors whose pretentions embarrassed the reign of Henry VII., should have chosen to personate the Earl of Warwick, who was not only alive and produceable at any moment, but whose identity could have been proved by a great number of persons. It has, however, been said, that to the pretentions of Simnel, and to the necessity for being able to produce the real Warwick in any emergency, the Earl owed his life in the early part of Henry's reign. Afterwards, and after a captivity of at least fourteen years, Warwick was charged with conspiring against the King with Perkyn Warbeck, then like himself a prisoner in the Tower, and after, as far as Warwick was concerned, the merest pretence of a trial, they, Warwick and Warbeck, were condemned to death, and Warwick was executed in the year 1499 at the age of twenty-five. He was unmarried, and with him, as the last Prince of his house, came to an end the great line of the Plantagenet's, who had reigned from 11 54 till 1485, a period of over three centuries, during which, whatever may have been their faults, their country had risen to a great eminence of power and prosperity. In the long list of judicial murders committed by the later Plantagenets and the Tudor Sovereigns, there is hardly one which strikes one as so cold-blooded and inhuman as the 250 History of the Royal Family of England. murder of Warwick, which must always remain the blackest among the many black stains on the memory of Henry VII. Margaret, the only sister of the Earl of Warwick, was born before 1474, and she was therefore about eleven when Henry VII. became King in 1485, and thirty-five when that King was succeeded by his son Henry VIII. She was executed m i54i,aged about sixty-seven, though she may have been a year or two older, as the exact date of her birth is uncertain. She was not regarded with the same jealousy as her brother had been, for though it might have been said, and was in fact thought by many, that Warwick as a man was entitled to succeed in priority to the daughters of his father's elder brother, no such pretentions could possibly have been raised in regard of Margaret. Consequently Margaret, not being an object of suspicion, and being a woman, not only of very high birth, but of acknowledged virtue and prudence, was treated in the early years of Henry VIII. with much respect, and was appointed to the high office of governess to the Princess Mary, that King's eldest daughter; and in 15 13 she was created Countess of Salisbury in her own right. As will be remembered, her grandfather the "King Maker," Earl of Warwick, had derived the title of Earl of Salisbury from his mother, Alice Montacute. In 1494, five years before the exe- cution of her brother, she had married Sir Richard Pole, a gentleman of a good Buckinghamshire family, who had been largely employed by Henry VII. in his household, and who was nearly related to that King. King Henry's maternal grandmother, Margaret Beauchamp, daughter of Sir John Beauchamp of Bletso, a cadet of the [jjreat Beauchamp family, was three times married, first to Sir Geoffrey Pole, by whom she was the mother of Sir Richard Pole, then to John Beau- fort, Duke of Somerset, by whom she was the mother of Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII. (see Table XL), and thirdly, to Lord Welles, by whom she was the mother of the Viscount Welles, whose marriage to Cicely Plantagenet, daughter of King Edward IV., is hereafter referred to. Consequently, Sir Richard Pole was uncle of the half blood t\ Cardinal Pole 251 to King Henry VII. (whose mother was his half-sister), and his illustrious son. Cardinal Pole, was not only related to Henry VIII. and his children through his mother (see Table XII), but through his father also. Sir Richard Pole died in 1505, having had five children by Margaret, namely, Henry, Arthur, Reginald, Geoffrey, and Ursula. Margaret's subsequent history is so closely connected with that of her youngest son Reginald, afterwards the cele- brated Cardinal Pole, that I will say what I have to say of him before adverting to the circumstances of her death, but since the publication of " The Life of Cardinal Pole" by Martin Haile, in which every detail of the Cardinal's life is given, and which every student of the history of the sixteenth century should study, that need not be much. Cardinal Pole was a man of so much virtue and learning, and of such unimpeachable integrity and straightforwardness, that even the Reformers themselves were compelled to speak of him with some admiration ; and I believe that all modern writers of every denomination concur in treating him with at least respect. He was born in 1 500, and having early evinced a strong predilection for the Church, he had received several ecclesiastical preferments before he was nineteen, and at that age he went to Italy to pursue his studies and remained there for seven years. He then came to England and remained at Shene in Surrey, where he lived for two years in great retire- ment, and thence proceeded to Paris, being then about twenty-eight. At that time all England, and indeed all Europe, was in conflict on the great question as to the law- fulness of the proposed divorce between Henry VIII. and Katharine of Aragon, and Henry sent a message to Pole commanding him to use his influence with the French Universities to pronounce in the King's favour. This Pole refused to do, but he saw proper to return to England, where he was offered and refused large bribes — first the See of Winchester, and then the Archiepiscopal See of York, to espouse the King's side. Ultimately, having been summoned to an interview with the King, he spoke out with so much 252 History of the Royal Family of England. vigour and dignity as to the wickedness of the proposed divorce, that the Tyrant would appear for the moment to have been somewhat overawed, and, at all events, Pole was allowed or contrived to leave, not only the King's presence, but the kingdom, without molestation. After his interview with the King, Pole wrote to Henry a letter about which Cranmer, writing to the father of Anne Boleyn, says, " As concerning the Kyng, his cause, Mayster Raynold Pole, hathe wrytten a booke, moche contrary to the King, hys purpose ; wythe such wytte, that it apperith that he myght be, for hys wysedome, of the Counsell to the Kynge, his grace, and of such eloquence that if it were set forthe and knowne to the Comen people, I suppose yt were not possible to persuade them to the contrary." On leaving England Pole went to Avignon, and he subsequently wrote his great work " Pro Ecclesiasticae Unitatis Defensione," a copy of which he sent to King Henry, and the account of the strenuous efforts made by the King to prevent its publication, and its ultimate publication by the Pope Paul III. will be found in Mr Haile's book before referred to. On receipt of a copy of this book the King declared him a traitor, deprived him of his benefices, and proceeded to wreak his vengeance on the Cardinal's family who were in England, as will be shewn later on. Reginald Pole was created a Cardinal by Pope Paul HI., and during the remainder of the reign of Henry VIII. and the reign of Edward VI. he remained abroad, being employed by the Papal Court on various diplomatic and religious missions of the highest European importance, and, in particular, he was one of the three Cardinals appointed to represent the Pope on the opening of the Council of Trent. After the accession of Queen Mary, Pole was sent to England as Papal Legate, and in 1556 he was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury, of which See he was the last Catholic occupant. He survived the Queen only sixteen hours, happily for himself, as he was saved by death from certain indignity and probable ill-usage at the hands of her gentle successor. He died in 1558, aged fifty -seven. Margaret Countess of Salisbury. 253 In 1539, after the receipt of the Cardinal's great work, his brother Geoffrey was induced to trump up a charge of con- spiracy against his mother and elder brother Henry and other persons, a charge which is hard to suppose anyone seriously believed in. It was, however, found absolutely impossible to implicate the Countess of Salisbury in any act of treason, and thereupon Henry, determined to put to death the aged lady, who was his mother's first cousin, put to the judges the question whether Parliament could attaint a person accused of treason without previous trial or confession. They replied, deprecatin!^ such a course, but added that that the attainder would be good in law. This was enough for the King's purpose. The Countess was attainted, and after a captivity of two years, was beheaded in 1 541. On the scaffold she refused to lay her head on the block, on the ground that she was no traitor, and thereupon the executioner proceeded to hack at her neck while she was still standing, and a scene followed which revolted even the scanty sense of decency retained by Henry's Court. The Countess of Salis- bury has recently been beatified by the Catholic Church as a Martyr in the cause of religion. Margaret's eldest son, Henry Pole, was summoned to Parliament in the year 1533 as Baron Montagu. He was beheaded in 1539 on a charge of treason brought by his brother Geoffrey. He left a son and two daughters, Katharine and Winifred, by his wife, who was a lady of the great family of Neville. The son, though only a boy of about fifteen, was attainted as a traitor, and sent to the Tower, where it is supposed he died, for nothing further is known of him. Katharine Pole, the eldest daughter of Lord Montagu, married Francis Hastings, second Earl of Huntingdon of his family, and her sister Winifred married first a brother of Lord Huntingdon, and then Sir Thomas Harrington ; and through these ladies several distinguished families claim Royal descent, and, in particular, the present Lord Huntingdon is directly descended in the male line from Katharine Pole. The unhappy Geoffrey, fourth son of the Countess of / 254 History of the Royal Family of England. Salisbury, seems to have repented of his treachery. He escaped to the Continent, where for some time he was mam- tained by his brother the Cardinal, and he died a few days before his brother having, it is said, " made a very pious and Catholic end, assisted by Father Soto." He had married a daughter of Lord Packenham, and, according to a pedigree in Mr Haile's book, left a very large family, but what became of his children 1 don't know. Arthur Pole, the Countess of Salisbury's second son, was sentenced to death in the reign of Elizabeth, as being a party to one of the conspiracies for the release of the Queen of Scots but was not executed. He does not appear to have married and after his death the family of Pole became for practical purposes extinct, at least nothing further is known of it The Cardinal's sister, Ursula Pole, married some time before 1520 Henry Stafford, Lord Stafford. He was the son of the last Duke of Buckingham of the Stafford family, of whom some iccount has been given in a previous chapter, and who was beheaded by Henry VUI. As his father was attainted he did not succeed to his honours, but in 1 531. by a new creation, he was made Baron Stafford. (See Table IX.) In 1640 (temp. Charles I.) Mary Stafford, the descendant and heiress of this nobleman, and of Ursula Pole, married Sir William Howard (of the family of the Dukes of Norfolk), and he was created Viscount Stafford, and will be remembered as one of the most illustrious victims of Titus Gates' plot, having been beheaded at a ^reat age in 1640. From this peer and his wife Mary Stafford, the present Lord Stafford is descended, though, so to speak, very much in the female line. I now revert to King Edward IV., who was born in 144 1. He was therefore nineteen at the death of his father, Richard, Duke of York, at the Battle of Wakefield, and twenty when he became King. He died in 1483, aged forty-two. The events of this King's reign and the general outlines of his character are well known. It has long been conceded that he was not only a great military captain, but a man of great civil ability, but, unfortunately for himself and the' Kingdom, Edward IV. 255 though there were intervals in which he displayed wonderful power and activity of mind and body, there were also intervals, and longer intervals, during which he allowed himself to sink into almost complete inactivity, and during which he plunged into great excesses of debauchery and licence. Not very long after he was seated on the Throne, that is to say in the year 1464, he announced, to the consternation of his friends, that he had been for some months privately married to Elizabeth Grey, widow of Sir John Grey, whose maiden name had been Woodville. This lady was already the mother of two children by her first husband, and as she had been born in 143 1, she was ten years older than the King. Her mother, Jacquetta of Luxembourg, was a Princess of a very illustrious family on the Continent, and had married as her first husband the famous John Duke of Bedford, son of Henry IV. and brother of Henry V. After the Duke's death, however, the Duchess returning to England contracted a second marriage with Richard Woodville, who would appear to have been a person of no family or position. This marriage gave great offence, both to the Duchess's own relatives and to the relatives of her first husband, and Woodville was for a time thrown into prison. His wife, however, was a woman of great ability, and she succeeded not only in obtaining his release, but in getting him created first Baron and then Earl Rivers ; and, moreover, throughout her life and until she died in 1472, eleven years before Edward IV., she continued to exercise great influence over political events, and to maintain her position as the widow of a Prince of the Blood Royal notwithstanding her second marriage. It was no doubt through the diplomacy of this lady that her eldest daughter by Woodville succeeded in securing the hand of the young King, whose amorous proclivities were at all times extremely marked. Elizabeth was by all accounts very beautiful, and she possessed her full share of feminine wiles. She was a great contrast in character to her immediate predecessor, Margaret of Anjou, being as timid and essentially feminine in her character as Margaret was courageous and masculine. , , . i 56 History of the Royal Family of England. Elizabeth Woodville. 257 Nevertheless, Elizabeth was an able woman ; and, notwith- standing the notorious infidelities of her husband, she acquired and retained great influence over the King, and it may be doubted whether, in the long run, she was not almost as great a factor in public events as the previous Queen. Her influence, however, was greatly strengthened by her mother and her numerous relatives, all of whom obtained great promotion and played considerable parts in the history of King Edward s reic-n It has been said, and probably with reason, that in advancing his wife's relatives, Edward was actuated less by affection for her than by jealousy of the great Neville family coalition, and the desire to establish a counter-balancing power in the State. Be that as it may, it is certam that the promotion of the Woodville and Grey families was extra- ordinary, and it was regarded with great jealousy, not merely by the older noble families, but by the common people, among whom there was a general and widespread impression that the old Duchess of Bedford was a sorceress, who had used magic arts to get control over the King's affections. Consequentlv, the Duchess and her children were always extremely unpopular, and it is probable that this unpopularity was of enormous assistance to Richard III. in seizing the Throne after the death of his brother. As has been already said, Elizabeth Woodville was born in 1431 and in 1452 she married Sir John Grey, eldest son and heir of Lord Ferrers. Her husband and his father were strong Lancastrians, as indeed was Elizabeth herself m the first instance, she having spent much of her youth m the household and service of Queen Margaret. Lord Ferrers died in 1457, and his son was for some unexplained reason never summoned to the Hou^e of Lords, and never assumed • his father's title. Sir John Grey was killed at the second Battle of St. Albans in 1 46 1, leaving Elizabeth a widow of thirty, with two young children, Thomas and Richard. It is said that Elizabeth was advised, probably by her mother, to make a personal appeal to King Edward on behalf of her children, and that the King in the first instance vainly sought to make her his mistress, and was ultimately induced to make her his wife, as the only means of enjoying her society. Elizabeth was fifty-two when King Edward died, and thereupon her two young sons by him, Edward and Richard, were torn, the latter almost literally, from her arms by their uncle Richard, who, as is well known, caused them to be murdered in the Tower. During the two years of Richard Ill's reign Elizabeth must have been in constant terror of her own life and the fate of her daughters, for the tyrant allowed nothing and nobody to stand in the way of his ambition, and would probably have made a hetatomb of his female relatives if he had thought it all expedient to do so. What he did propose to do, however, was himself to marry his niece Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Edward IV. and Elizabeth Woodville, and he paved the way to this marriage by, so it is commonly believed, murdering his own wife. At all events his wife most opportunely died. Elizabeth Woodville undoubtedly gave her consent to this most revolting plan, but the consent was in fact a mere blind, for it is certain that Elizabeth was in constant communication with the young Earl of Richmond, afterwards Henry VII., the Lancastrian candidate for the Throne, who offered to marry her daughter if he became King, and who, as is well known, did, in fact, afterwards marry the young Elizabeth. Elizabeth Woodville survived the accession of Henry VI L for seven years, and except for one period during which she was, for some unexplained cause, in disgrace at Court, she was treated with all the respect due to her position as mother of the Queen Consort and herself Queen Dowager of England. Her last years must, however, have been somewhat un- settled by the matrimonial projects of King Henry, who, attaching enormous importance to foreign alliances, and having different views for his other female relatives, seriously contemplated cementing a treaty with King James III. of Scotland, then a widower, by bestowing in marriage upon that King his, Henry's, own mother-in-law. Considering that the R ;? 258 History of the Royal Family of England. The Woodvilles. 259 lady was sixty, was in very bad health, had been already twice married, had a large family of children and grand- children, and had undergone misfortunes sufficient to have broken down the strongest constitution, such a proposal shows to my mind extraordinary indelicacy on the part of the King. This interesting plan, however, was cut short by the death of Queen Elizabeth, who died in 1492, aged sixty-one. She and her husband, Edward IV., are buried in St. George's Chapel at Windsor. It will be convenient that I should say a few words here as to the Woodville family, and the two sons of Elizabeth Woodville by her first marriage. Richard Woodville, afterwards Earl Rivers, and Jacquetta of Luxembourg had five sons and seven daughters, of which daughters Elizabeth, afterwards Queen, was the eldest Lord Rivers himself and his secopd son. Sir John Woodville, were beheaded in the year 146^ by order of George, Duke of Clarence, and the great Earl of Warwick during the temporary success of the Lancastrian arms in that year. These judicial murders, for they can hardly be seen in any other light, are justly regarded as a great stain on Warwick's character. Anthony Woodville, the eldest son of Lord Rivers, married . the heiress of Lord Scales, in whose right he was summoned to Parliament as Baron Scales, and on the death of his father he became second Earl Rivers. He was a person of many accomplishments, both mental and physical, and he seems to have been a man of considerable ability and a brave soldier. , On the death of Edward IV. he, with his nephew, Sir >aiHi R-d- Grey, younger son of Elizabeth Woodville by her first husband, were sent to escort the young King Edward V. from Ludlow, in Shropshire, to London, but they were met on the way by Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who, having treacherously allayed their suspicions, caused Rivers and Grey to be beheaded before Pontefract Castle on the following day. These incidents are given in the play of " Richard III." Sir John Grey was unmarried, and the second Lord Rivers had no child. He was succeeded by his youngest brother, the fifth of his father's sons, as third Earl Rivers, but this noble- man, who was not a very notable person, died unmarried in 1491 (temp. Henry VII.), whereupon the title of Rivers became extinct. Edward and Lionel, the third and fourth sons of Earl Rivers, took more or less prominent parts in the reign of their brother-in-law, Edward IV., the latter having entered the Church and occupied the See of Salisbury from 1482 till 1484, when he died. Edward had no child, and died before his elder brother. The six sisters of Queen Elizabeth all made brilliant marriages, into the details of which it is hardly necessary that I should enter, but I may say that Katharine, the youngest but one, married first Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, the second Duke of his family (see Table IX.), who was the great supporter and assistant of Richard III. in seizing the Throne, and who was afterwards beheaded by that King. By him she was the mother of the Edward Stafford, third Duke of Buckingham, who was put to death by Henry VIII., and who was not only of Royal descent on his father's side as has been already shewn (see Table IX.), but was first cousin to the King's mother. The Duchess of Buckingham after- wards married Jasper Tudor, uncle to Henry VII., of whom it will be necessary to speak later. Thomas Grey, the eldest son of Elizabeth Woodville, was created Marquis of Dorset in 1475. He married, as has been already mentioned, Anne Holland, daughter of the last Duke of Exeter of that family by Anne, eldest sister of Edward IV., by whom he had no child (see Table VII.); and secondly, Cecily Bonville, who in her own right was Baroness Bonville, and by whom he had a large family. This Lord Dorset fought at the Battle of Bosworth on the side of Henry VII., who afterwards married his half-sister, Elizabeth of York, and though Dorset did not escape being sent to the Tower at one period of his career, he seems on the whole to have enjoyed King Henry's favour until his death in 1501. His eldest son X i 26o History of the Royal Family oj England, having died without issue he was succeeded by his second son Thomas, who was first cousin of the half blood to Henry VIII Having been born in I477> he was thirty-two when that King came to the Throne, and until he himself died m 1530 he was one of the most compliant of the creatures of his distinguished relative. He married a widow, Mrs Medley, who was a daughter of Sir Thomas Wotton, and his eldest son by this lady, Henry Grey, succeeded him as third Marquis of Dorset To this person I must return later as he married Frances Brandon, niece of Henry VIII., by whom he was the father of the famous Jane Grey (see subsequent Tables). Edward IV. and Elizabeth Woodville had eight children, namely (i) Elizabeth, afterwards Queen Consort of England, born in 1465 (Miss Strickland gives her birth as in 1466, but this seems to be an error). (2) Mary, born in 1466. (3) Cecily, afterwards Viscountess Welles, born in 1469- (4) Edward, afterwards King Edward V., born in 1470. (S) Richard, afterwards Duke of York, born in 1472. (6) Anne, afterwards Anne Howard, born in 1475- (7) Katharine, afterwards Countess of Devon, born in 1479. and (8) Bridget, born in 1480. . I think it would be convenient if I postponed the histories of the daughters of Edward IV. till I come to treat of the reign of Henry VII. Edward V. was thirteen and his brother Richard was eleven when their father died. The young King was at Ludlow at the time, and as has been said, his maternal uncle, Earl Rivers, and his half-brother, Sir John Grey, were sent to fetch him to London : but they were met at Northampton by his father's brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who took possession of the King, and, as has been said put Rivers and Grey to death. In the meantime, the Queen Dowager with her daughters and the young Richard, her second son, had taken sanctuary at Westminster, and as possession of the person of the King would have been of little avail to Gloucester if the King's brother had been allowed to escape, Gloucester employed the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Edward V. and Richard III. 261 Bourchier, to withdraw him from the sanctuary. It has been said that the Archbishop acted in good faith, and prevailed by persuasion only, but personally I am convinced that the Queen would not have yielded except under necessity, and a knowledge that if persuasion had failed, force would have been immediately employed. The two Princes were sent to the Tower, there to await the Coronation of the elder. Shortly afterwards their uncle, Richard, seized the Throne, and then almost immediately caused them to be murdered. The exact circumstances of the murder are not known ; but that it was a murder, and that it was perpetrated at the direct instance of Richard of Gloucester is, I think, beyond question. The younger of the two Princes had been created Duke of York when he was two years old, and when he was five had been married to the still younger Anne Mowbray, heiress of the last Duke of Norfolk of that family. The little Duchess died before her husband, and it has been already told how, on her death, her great property was divided, and the Duchy of Norfolk passed to the Howard family. It was afterwards pretended that the Duke of York had escaped, and in the reign of Henry VII. he was impersonated by the well known impostor, Perkyn Warbeck. Richard III. who, just before the death of his nephew, caused himself to be proclaimed King, is one of the most monstrous persons in English history, though of late years attempts have been made to whitewash his character. See, in particular, "Richard III." by Sir Clemency Markham, a work in which enormous pains have been taken to vindicate the King's character and to reverse the popular verdict upon it. He was born in 1450, and was therefore only eleven when his elder brother, Edward IV., became King, and he was thirty- three when he himself ascended the Throne, and thirty-five when he was killed at the Battle of Bosworth. Richard was undoubtedly deformed, but his deformity was no obstacle to great activity and energy, and notwith- standing the traditions that he was hideous in appearance, I '\ 262 History of the Royal Family of England. A^ine Neville. 263 believe there are good historical grounds for supposing, as Lord Lytton does in the " Last of the Barons," that his face was handsome and his manners pleasing and gentle. Though, of course, it is impossible that he should have been one of the leaders at the Battle of Wakefield when he was only ten years old, as Shakespeare represents him to have been, he had certainly distinguished himself as a soldier at an extra- ordinarily early age, and, like most of the Plantagenets, he was a man of great ability and considerable culture for his time. It is possible, and indeed probable, that if he had come to the Throne in a legitimate manner, he would have been a great King ; but he appears to have been the absolute slave to ambition, and placed as he was in a position subordinate to that of men whom he regarded as his inferiors, he seems to have made up his mind from the beginning to let no obstacles stand between him and the supreme authority. As the result, putting aside the public or judicial murders which disgraced his power, there can be little doubt that he was concerned either as perpetrator or direct instigator in the hidden murders of King Henry VI., of his own brother, the Duke of Clarence, of his nephews, Edward V., and his brother Richard, and though as to this there is more doubt, of his own wife, Anne of Warwick. Richard was married in 1473, ten years before the death of Edward IV., to Anne Neville, second daughter and co- heiress of the great Earl of Warwick, a lady whose elder si.ster Isabella had previously married Richard's brother Clarence. Anne was born in 1454, and was therefore four years junior to Richard. In 1470, when she was sixteen, her father having changed sides, and espoused the Lancastrian cause, she was married to Edward, Prince of Wales, only son of Henry VI. and Margaret of Anjou. A year later this Prince was killed at the Battle of Tewkesbury, and Anne, who was with her mother-in-law in the vicinity of the battlefield, was taken prisoner and attainted as a traitor. It has been said, and Shakespeare represents that the young Prince was stabbed by the Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester, but there is no historic proof of this, and the evidence, such as it is, seems to suggest that Gloucester at any rate took no part in the murder, if indeed the Prince was not killed in battle and not murdered at all. In 1473 Richard and Anne were married, and in 1485, shortly before the Battle of Bosworth, she died at the age of thirty-one. She is buried at Westminster. Richard and Anne had one child, a son named Edward, who was born in 1474, and died shortly before his mother in 1485, aged eleven. There is a famous scene in Shakespeare's " Richard III." in which Gloucester meets the " Lady Anne " acting as chief mourner at the funeral of her father-in-law, Henry VI. She reproaches him in language of sufficient force, and he answers her in terms of fulsome flattery, with the result that she leaves the funeral and speedily accepts him as her husband. This scene is sometimes cited as an instance of the knowledge possessed by the great dramatist of the female heart, and the power thereover of flattery, but I confess that it seems to me equally unhistorical and, having regard to the lady's general character as shewn in the play itself, unnatural. Anne's father, Warwick, was first cousin to Richard III., Warwick's father, Richard, Earl of Salisbury, and King Richard's mother. Cicely, Duchess of York, having been brother and sister (see Table XL), and there is abundant evidence to shew that as children, Richard and Anne, who were nearly of an age, had been much together. Moreover, it is probable that down to the date of her first marriage, Anne's sympathies had been with the Yorkists, with whose cause, her father had been, down to that time, identified ; and therefore, though there is no particular evidence either way, I think it by no means impossible that Anne contracted her first marriage reluctantly ; and if, as is certainly very possible, she did not believe the stories to Richard's discredit, I should not have thought it unnatural or shocking if she had welcomed a second marriage with Richard in the very unfortunate and unprotected position in which she found herself As a matter of fact, however, nothing can be clearer than that Anne was not a willing party to her second marriage, and that she took !:• 264 History of the Royal Family of E7igland. extraordinary means to avert it by hiding herself in the disguise of a servant She was found in that disguise, and being so found, was probably quite unable effectually to resist Richard, backed up as he was by the influence of his brother, King Edward. There is, however, some reason to suppose that even to the last, she did make some resistance, for in an Act of Parliament passed in 1474, shortly before the birth of her son, provisions are made for the case of her divorcing her husband, an event that was clearly regarded as possible. It has been suggested with some force that this Act was passed in consequence of threats by Anne to claim a divorce on the ground of coercion. The last few months of Anne's life must have been embittered by the knowledge which was forced upon her in a somewhat painful fashion, that Richard III. was anxious to get rid of her, and was already contemplating a second marriage with his own niece ; and by that time Anne had probably realized the fact that when Richard wished a person to die that person generally did die. The general belief at the time and since that she came to a violent end was, and always has been, strong, and is based on some circumstantial evidence. CHAPTER XVI. Katherine of France and the Tudors. — Margaret Countess of Richmond. — Henry VII.— Edward IV.'s Daughters.— The Courtenays. WITH the accession of Henry VII. we begin a new epoch in English History. The invention of the art of printing, and the consequent impetus given to literature and the diffusion of knowledge ; and the great religious revolution, and the changes thereby produced in men's ideas on many vital subjects, to a large extent account for this, but there were conducing political causes which are easily to be understood. Many of the great families had been altogether extinguished in the Civil Wars ; and those which remained had been so much crippled, as to be the mere shadows of themselves in point of power and influence. The Tudor Monarchs set themselves from the first still further to destroy or reduce such power as remained to the ruling families, and the places of the ancient nobility were gradually taken by men who would now be called " Self made ; " and who, often gifted with great abilities, were largely infected with the vices commonly attributed to " parvenus," as indeed was the Tudor family itself Theses vices involved an extraordinary degree of sub- serviency to superiors, and of arrogance to inferiors, and accordingly under the Tudors we find the greatest and best of the governing classes addressing the Sovereigns with a cringing sycophancy, which is at once appalling and disgusting. Under the later Plantagenets the clergy had become, partly from the Civil War and partly from the effects of the plague know as the " Black Death " which had fallen upon them with extraordinary severity, greatly demoralized ; and 265 JP 2 66 History of the Royal Family of England. they were soon to be deprived, for a time at any rate, of nearly all claim to respect or consideration. I say this with some hesitation, and there were, of course, some notable exceptions, but I do not think the most ardently religious person, whether Catholic or Protestant, can impartially read the lives of the Prelates who flourished under the Tudor Dynasty without seeing that they were, for the most part, time serving creatures, so largely actuated by mean and base motives as to be unworthy of any great feeling of respect. Lastly, the common people were so worn out and exhausted by the exactions of the Civil Wars as to have become, for the time, incapable of making their power felt. The result of these causes was to throw almost absolute power into the hands of the Monarchs. The Plantagenets had, indeed, been powerful— their power largely depending, however, on the personal characters of the Kings, but the greatest among them was among his nobles little more than " primus inter pares," and was largely controlled in his actions, not only by the nobility and Clergy, but also by the voice of the common people. It is impossible to read the histories of the great nobles in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries say— of the de Clares, Earls of Gloucester, in the reign of Edward I., of the King's cousin Henry, Duke of Lancaster, in the reign of Edward 1 1 1., and of the Beauchamps, Montagues, and, above all, the Nevilles in the reigns of the Lancastrian Henrys, without feeling that the greater Barons were to all intents and purposes Sovereign Princes, over whom the Kings reigned indeed, but reigned only as " over lords," and over whom they had little more practical authority than the Kings of France had over the great vassal Princes of that country. The Tudor Monarchs, however, were absolute Sovereigns, before whom their subjects from the highest to the lowest trembled ; and who could, and did, bring the greatest subject in the land to the block, and confiscate his property, with no more scruple or difficulty than does an Eastern Potentate at the present time. Not only the laity but the clergy for the The Tudor Sovereigns. 267 most part changed their religious views with apparently little difficulty, and at the mere bidding of the Sovereign for the time being ; and the Parliaments stood ready, with obsequious homage, to register the decrees of their masters, however monstrous and unjust those decrees might be. Indeed the early Tudor Parliaments seem hardly to have dared to admit, even to themselves, that they had any other function than to do so. No doubt as has been said of a modern country, it was a despotism tempered by assassination, and the Tudor Princes, with all their power, lived in constant dread, not perhaps of actual assassination, but of secret plots and con- spiracies, a dread which became fatal to such of their subjects as attained to the least real power or influence, and specially fatal to the relatives of the Sovereigns themselves. Henry VII. did not hestitate to send to the block his wife's young cousin Warwick, little more than a boy, for no crime but from mere jealousy ; and if Henry did not rise to the heights of cruelty attained to by his descendants, he, at all events, persecuted and imprisoned many of his relatives. Henry VIII. beheaded two young women, each of whom he had called his wife and acknowledged as his Queen, he butchered his cousin, the aged Countess of Salisbury, and shed the blood of almost uncountable persons of distinction, a great number of whom were related to or nearly connected with him. Edward VI. allowed his mother's brothers to go to the block apparently without a pang. Mary sacrificed her young cousin, Jane Grey, and Elizabeth beheaded her guest and relative, Mary Queen of Scots, and, as will be shewn later, kept half her female relatives, for the most part young and unoflending women, to wear out their lives in miserable and insulted captivity. Consequently tragic as is the history of the Royal P'amily under the Plantagenets, under the Tudors it becomes one long tale of crime and bloodshed. Before entering on the reign of Henry VII. I must, at the risk of some repetition, say something of the family of that King, and of the grounds on which he based his claim to the Throne. 268 History of the Royal Fafnily of England, It will be remembered that in 1420 King Henry V. of England married Katharine, the daughter of the insane King, Charles VI. of France, and of his extremely vicious wife, Isabeau of Bavaria. In 142 1 Katharine gave birth to a son, afterwards Henry VI., and in 1422 Henry V. died, leaving Katharine a widow of twenty-one. The Queen Mother, who was regarded with dislike and jealousy by the King's family, was allowed no share in the education of her son, and her later life was'passed in profound retirement. It subsequently transpired that shortly after the death of Henry V. Katharine had privately married a Welshman named Owen Tudor. As this Tudor was, so to speak, the founder of the Tudor race, various attempts have been made to prove that he was of noble family, but the fact seems to be now established that he was of humble origin and would, even in the present day, when distinctions of rank are little observed, have hardly been accounted a gentleman. He had certainly served as a common soldier in the French wars, and had then held a very subordinate position as, in point of fact, a servant in the household of King Henry and afterwards of his widow. The marriage was not actually discovered, though it was probably more^or less guessed at, before 1436, about six months before the Queen's death. In that year Tudor was thrown into prison, and Katharine sent, under some restraint, to a convent at Bermondsey, where she died in January 1437, aged about thirty-five. She was buried at Westminster, but her grandson, Henry VII., with a view, to providing a more splendid tomb, caused her body to be exhumed, and to the great discredit of all her descendants, the tomb never having been erected, the body was allowed to remain above ground and exhibited as a kind of mummy, for a small charge, to sightseers in London till the middle of the eighteenth ce'ntury. It was then privately buried in Westminster Abbey, but, where, precisely, is not known. Tudor appears to have passed through a somewhat stormy time for some years, in the course of which he behaved himself with considerable spirit and straightforwardness, and he was Owen Tudor and his Sons. 269 ultimately taken into some kind of favour by his stepson, the amiable Henry VI., who, though he never acknowledged him as a relative, or conferred upon him any title of nobility, made him an annual allowance, and otherwise treated him with consideration. During the Wars of the Roses Owen Tudor served with some distinction as a soldier on the Lancastrian side, and under the leadership of his own son, Jasper Tudor ; and he was ultimately taken prisoner at the Battle of Mortimer's Cross, and beheaded after that battle in the year 1461. It is said that there were four children of the marriage between Owen Tudor and- Queen Katharine ; Edmund, Jasper, Owen, and a daughter. The daughter, however, died almost immediately after birth, and Owen's existence is a little doubtful, at all events little or nothing is known about him. It is supposed that he was born in London during some period when the presence of the Queen Mother in the metropolis was necessary ; and that he was taken immediately after his birth to the Abbey of Westminster, where he was brought up under the supervision of the monks ; and that he ultimately became a monk itself Edmund and Jasper were placed under the charge of the nuns at Barking at their mother's death, but some years later, about the year 1440, they were brought to Court, where King Henry acknowledged them as his half-brothers, and treated them with much affection. In 1453 Jasper, the younger, who, it is supposed, was then about twenty-two, was summoned to Parliament as Earl of Pembroke, a title which had been previously borne by the historic families of Marshall, de Valence, and Hastings ; and thenceforth until the accession of his nephew, Henry VII., he was one of the most active and able generals on the Lancastrian side. Happily for him he was never taken prisoner, and he succeeded in making his escape to the Continent, both on the accession of Edward IV. in 1461, and again after the Battle of Tewkesbury, when the Lancastrian cause appeared to be finally extinguished. On the latter 2 70 History of the Royal Family of England. occasion he was accompanied in his flight by his nephew (his ro her" son), Henry. Earl of Richmond. He retu-d ^vjh that Prince to England in 1485. and was present at the Batt e of Bosworth ; and in the same year on the Coronation of h.s npnhew Henry VH., he was created Duke of Bedford. "'jaTperrs'subsequently employed by his nephew .n sup- pressing the insurrection of Lambert Simnel and m other milLry employments, and he died in 1495. bemg over s.xty vpars old and without issue. , - tit j 'some time in the year .485 he -f-^ Ka'^^-^.^^t^ ville sister of the Queen Dowager, widow of Edward IV and he sd widow of the second Duke of Buckn.gham of the Stafford family. (See Table IX.) Half a century before lurope had been scandalized by the marriages of two great lad e Katharine of France and Jacquetta of Luxembourg, he widows of the illustrious brothers. Henry V. and John Duke of Bedford, with two squires of very low degree and it was an odd turn of the wheel of fate that Jasper Tudo and Katharine Woodville, the offspring of these marr.ages at the toe considered so disgraceful, should have been un.ted >n marria-e when the former was the uncle of the re.gnmg Kmg rSand, and was himself a Duke, and when the latter was the aunt of the lady who was immediately about to become Queen Consort of England, and was herself the w.dow of a Duke nearly connected with the Royal family. The career of Jasper's elder brother Edmund was a short one He is supposed to have been born about 1430, and he was summonedTo Parliament at the same time as h.s brother Usper with the title of Earl of Richmond, a ftle which, a.s ias been shewn, had been borne or claimed by many iUustrious persons. In the following year .454. he mamed Margaret Beaufort, the great heiress of the Dukes of Somerset Tf that family, and in 1456 he died, leaving an only ch Id, Henry, who succeeded him as Earl of Richmond, and ulti- mately became King Henry VII. lUs obvious that though, through his father, Henry VII was nephew of the half blood to Henry VI., and was descended Henry VII.' s Title to the Crown, 271 from the reigning family of France, and was thus brought into intimate relations with many of the great families of Europe, he had not, and he did not in fact, pretend to have through his father any title to the English Throne. His title, such as it was, was based on his mother's descent from John of Gaunt. It will be remembered that John of Gaunt, third son of Edward III., was three times married. By his first wife he had a son, afterwards Henry IV., and two daughters ; by his second wife he had an only daughter, and by his third wife, a woman of inferior birth, named Katharine Swynford, he had three sons (of whom the eldest was John, afterwards Earl of Somerset) and a daughter. John of Gaunt's children by Katharine Swynford were admittedly and beyond question born before their parent's marriage, and were therefore illegitimate ; and they assumed the name of Beaufort, not being allowed to take the Royal name of Plantagenet. In the reign of Richard II., however, an Act of Parliament was passed by which the Beauforts were declared to be legitimate, and though, as I have said in a previous chapter, it was beyond the competence of Parliament to turn base born children into those lawfully begotten, it was con- tended that it was competent for Parliament to declare that base born children should have the same rights of succession or otherwise as if they had been lawfully begotten. Upon this contention John, Earl of Somerset, second son of John of Gaunt was, failing the issue of his brother Henry IV., the lawful heir of his father, John of Gaunt. Henry VI. at his death was the last surviving descendant of Henry IV., and Margaret Beaufort was the only child of John Beaufort, first Duke of Somerset, who was the second, and on the death without issue of his elder brother, became the eldest son and heir of John, Earl of Somerset. (See Table XI.) It was therefore contended that on the death of Henry VI., Margaret Beaufort, through her father and grandfather, became heiress of John of Gaunt, and consequently to the Throne of England, and that she, having waived her rights in favour of her only son Henry, Earl of Richmond, Henry was lawful King. 2/2 History of the Royal Family of England. To make good this contention it was necessary first to ignore the ris^hts of the Princes of the house of York, who vvere undoubtedly the heirs, though through two women, Phihppa Plantagenet and Anne Mortimer of Lionel, second son of Edward III. (see Table X.), and secondly to persuade the English people and Foreign Courts, even with the aid of the Ac? of Richard's reign, to regard the Beaufort family as a lawful branch of the Royal stem. Henry VII., though he constantly, and on every possible occasion, asserted his own right to be King on the grounds before stated, was too astute a person to trust exclusively or even mainly to such rights. Therefore, before he landed in England in .485, he had promised to marry and he did sub.se- nuently marry Elizabeth Plantagenet, who was the eldest daughter, and on the death without issue of her two brothers the heire;s of King Edward VI. From the Yorkist point of view this lady's title to the Throne, at all events after the death of her cousin, the Earl of Warwick, could hardly be disputed. Down to the time of the Tudors there were indeed persons who maintained that a King must be descended in the male line from the Royal stock, or at all events, that a Prince so descended had a better title than a Prince whose title was traced through a woman, even though that woman was of an elder branch of the Royal family ; but Warwick when he was executed was the only person who could c aim to be descended in the direct male line from Edward III and therefore, if there was to be a Sovereign at all of the Roval stock, it was clear that that Sovereign must be either a woman, or must trace his descent through a woman. This principle being admitted, there was clearly no person with a better title to be that Sovereign than Elizabeth Plantage"et^ In the next century after the death of Edward VI., the En-lish people were practically placed in the alternative of accepting a female Sovereign or none at all, that -s to say of the ancient Royal stock, but on the death of Richard III. he idea of a female Ruler was repugnant to the majority of the nation, and consequently the adherents of the house of York Margaret Countess of Richmond. 27 I were content to see the heiress of that line occupying the position of Queen Consort, with the assurance that her son would ultimately reign. Henry VIII., who was her son, did in fact unite in himself the title of the rival claimants of the great York and Lancastrian factions, and consequently his title to the Throne was accepted with practical unanimity, and. as I think with justice, as unimpeachable. Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry VII., was one of the most admirable and remarkable women of her time. She was the daughter of John Beaufort, first Duke of Somerset, by a lady of the Beauchamp family (who after the Duke's death married John, fifth Lord Welles, who will be afterwards referred to), and she was born in 1441. She was therefore only thirteen at the date of her first marriage with Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, in 1454, and fourteen when her son, after- wards King, was born. Her first husband died in 1456, and she was twice subsequently married, but she never had any other child. Her second husband was a junior member of the great Stafford family, who died not long after the marriage, and her third husband was Sir Thomas Stanley, afterwards first Earl of Derby of that family, and from whom by a previous marriage the present Earl of Derby is directly descended. This nobleman died in 1504, and his marriage with Margaret was purely formal and contracted only for the purpose of giving her that legal protection of which ladies, and particularly ladies with property, stood so much in need in the fifteenth century. Prior to the marriage she had, with her future husband's consent, taken a vow of perpetual continence. She was forty-four when her son became King, and had attained to what was in those days considered the great age of sixty-eight, when she died in 1509 after the accession of her grandson, Henry VIII.; and as he was not when he came to the Throne quite of age, his grandmother, Margaret, Countess of Richmond, was nominally Regent of the Kingdom' for some months. The greater part of Margaret's life was spent in retirement, 2 74 Histo>yqnhe^oyal^a>n^^ and in the exercise of wo.ks of charity ^^^^^^^J^^ her own times she was, and in later t""^^ ,5^ generally regarded by Catholics as a San.t. During her Mte unmolested during the Civil Wars and the ^.^'g^f Edward .. and even during ^^e greater par^o^e-^^^^^^^ but in the later months of that Kmg s rei^n sn and confined as a prisoner to her house -"^ 'f R^^^^'^'^^ ""^ had been prolonged, she might probably have lost hers. A He the accession of her son she was ""'f-^^'y^-^fj^^^^^^/^, " with the utmost affection and respect, and °" ^he rare occ, Ins when it was necessary for her to appear ^^^f^ Hid so with great stateliness and splendour. She Uvecl on ?e?ms of he greatest intimacy with the saintly John l-.sher, ITat herinLnce was made ^^^^^ ^^ f^f^^l^^^^^ and who, as is well known, was f ---^^^J^, ^fa ^y 'he Henry VIII. l^^^^! ^^':':':^l ■^:i':^t^.^s L^c., Cathohc Church as ^^fY^^ ^^^J ^^^^^^.j ,hose great and with his CO op— ^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^ ,^^^ services to tne caube ui i^^i^t, ^ „,^^,,fT flip^e bcrviu^ r . -rug most prominent among tliese name is chiefly identihed. i ne mo p College and Westminster Abbey, and her tomb m Kn g Henr> rhanelis extremely sumptuous and beautiful. Henrv VlT^vas born in .455, and the first fifteen years of h"fe wee spent in England. During the temporary ot nis iiie wci ^ Henrv was ntroduced by adversaries now contend for. After Henry V • ^ reputation for sanctity became very S-at and the rema ,u'oted was regarded as P-P^;;^,;t^^^ assistance to his nephew. After the Hattie oi Henry VII. 275 the young Henry escaped with his uncle Jasper to the Continent, where he remained under the protection of the Duke of Provence during the remainder of the reign of Edward IV., and where he was a source of constant uneasiness to that King. The circumstances which led to his claiming the Throne from Richard III., and which attended his brief and successful campaign, are matters of general history. Henry was thirty when he became King and fifty-four when he died. The character of Henry VII. is extremely complex. He was in belief and religious observance a most fervent Catholic, and the accounts of his devotional exercises, if one might judge him by those alone, would place him almost on a level with the most saintly Kings of the Middle Ages ; and in his private life all writers agree that he was temperate and moral. It is said indeed that he was not kind to his wife or her sisters, but for this statement there is little or no evidence, and there is much that points the other w^ay. No doubt he was a man extremely tenacious of power, and of his own supremacy, and if the Queen and her sisters had shewn any disposition to interfere in political affairs, or had attempted to assume any rank or position other than that which they had derived from him, as Queen Consort and sisters-in-law of the reigning Sovereign, Henry would have deeply resented, and would have put down with a high hand any such disposi- tion or attempt on their part. The daughters of Edward IV., however, were amiable and somewhat colourless women, who, after the stormy events of their youth, appear to have accepted with thankfulness the comparatively safe position they occupied at Henry's Court, and, as far as I can judge, the King treated them, on the whole, with kindness and good nature. Henry, though extremely cold and reserved in manner, was not altogether insensible to beauty for, after the death of his wife in 1502, he w^as largely occupied during the last seven years of his life in seeking another wife, and, though no doubt power and wealth were the great desiderata in the various alliances he f, 276 History of the Royal Family of England, proposed, his enquiries from his Ambassadors into the most minute personal qualifications of the ladies he proposed to honour, show that he had his full share of the native Tudor coarseness of mind and expression. (See Mr James Gairdner's "Life of Henry VIII." in the series "Twelve English Statesmen.") The vice with which he is chiefly charged— that of avarice, a vice which led him into so many crimes of injustice and oppression — probably took its origin in a laudable spirit of economy, which was, in a manner, forced upon him by the almost bankrupt state of his exchequer when he became King. This vice, however, was consistent in Henry with generous and even lavish expenditure upon suitable occasions. Thus his private charities and charitable endowments were numerous and well considered (the beautiful Chapel called after him at Westminster Abbey remains a monument of his munificence and taste) ; and there is ample evidence that when occasion required splendour and display, he could, and did, assume stateliness and magnificence in his Court which has seldom been rivalled. That he was an extremely able man, no one has ever denied, and indeed as time has gone on, succeeding historians have become more and more impressed with his great wisdom and diplomatic powers. Henry's wife, Elizabeth of York, was born in 1465, and was therefore twenty-one when she married in i486, and about thirty-seven when she died in 1 503. She was, as I have said, an amiable woman, whose time during her married life was chiefly occupied in bearing children, and who, probably with intention, effaced herself from public matters as far as was possible. Consequently there is nothing more about her which requires to be said. Of Elizabeth's five sisters, Mary, the eldest, was born in 1466, and died unmarried in 1482 at the age of sixteen, and Bridget, the youngest, was born in 1480, and died unmarried in 1 5 17, aged thirty-seven, having become a nun in the Priory at Dartford in i486 while she was still a child. Daughters of Edward IV. I 277 kJI T w*,*;^ °*"'' *■''=" ^'^'"^' Cecily, Anne, and Katharnie, Henry VII. seems to have been divided between a desire to extend his family connection by obtaining for them splendid marriages, and a fear that by doing so he might give them too much political importance, and in this conflict of feelmg, the fear prevailed. ' f. ?^''^v'- '''''°J" *"!■■ ^""''^ ''^"^ ''^^" ^"Saged to be married to the Prince Royal of Scotland, afterwards James IV., was m fact married .„ 1487 to Thomas, Viscount Welles. This nobleman who was greatly her senior in age, was of dis- tinguished descent, and through his mother a near relative of W^L 7k- ^^^'^^ ^ ^"°""S^'' '°" "f t^e fifth Baron Welles, and his father and his only elder brother (the latter of whom was without issue) were killed fighting on the Lancastrian side at the Battle of Towton, Thomas himself was afterwards attainted, but on the accession of Henry VII he was "restored in blood," and created in i486 Viscount Welles, possibly with a view to his subWquent marriage with the Princess Cecily. His mother, who was his father^ third wife was Margaret Beauchan.p who, as has been already said was three times married, first to Sir Geoffrey Pole, by whom' she was the mother of Sir Richard Pole (see ««/.), secondly to John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, by whom she was the VH A.u^^7 '^''^^■■'' ^"""^°^'' '""Aer of King Henry y/ r' ". P, ^ '° "^"'^ ''''''''■ Consequently the husband of Cecly llantagenet was a half brother of King Henry VII.s mo her and uncle of the half blood to that monarch himself Lord Welles died in 1499. having had two children WK?K^' "" ^^"ghters, and both of wh,,m died young What became of his widow is not very certainly known, but ^.s supposed that Cecily afterwards married a person named Kymbe, who was of very inferior birth, and she certainly fell mto complete neglect and obscurity, so that it is quite un- certain when she died or whether she had any children by her second husband, or, if so, what became of them Anne, third of the five sisters of Queen Elizabeth, was the wife of Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk of his family f 278 History of the Royal Family of Efigland. The Courtenays, 279 who was a very distinguished person in the reign of Henry VIII., and who was only saved from the block by the oppor- tune death of that Monarch. At the date of his marriage with Anne Plantagenet, however, and until some years after her death, which took place about the year 151 1, Howard's father was still living, and his own political career had hardly commenced. Consequently Anne's position was not one of great dignity, and she did not take any part in public events. She was born in 1475, and married at the age of twenty in 1495, and she was therefore about thirty-five when she died. She had several children, but they all died young. The career of Katharine, the fourth sister, was more chequered, and though she herself escaped with comparative impunity from the fate which hung over all members of the Royal family in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, it fell with double weight upon her descendants. She was born in 1479, and in 1495, when she was sixteen, she was married to Sir William Couitenay, eldest son and heir of the Earl of Devon. The Courtenays, of whom the Earl of Devon now living is the representative in the direct main line, are probably one of the most ancient families, if not the most ancient family in the kingdom. Early in the fourteenth century Hugh Courtenay, the second Earl of Devon of his family, married Margaret de Bohun, daughter of Elizabeth Countess of Hereford, fifth daughter of Edward I. Thomas Courtenay, the sixth Earl, was taken prisoner at the Battle of Towton and beheaded, leaving no issue, and there was an interval of some years during which the title was in dispute; but on the accession of Henry VII. he, by a new creation, made Edward Courtenay, a cousin and heir to the sixth Earl, Earl of Devon, and it was to the son of this Edward Courtenay that Katharine was married. On the occasion of this marriage, however, Henry indulged in one of those pieces of sharp practice for which he was distinguished, for he insisted that by the marriage settlements the Courtenay estates should, failing issue of the newly married pair, pass to his younger .son Henry, afterwards Henry VIII. All went well for some years, but in 1502 Sir William Courtenay became involved, or was suspected of being involved in the conspiracies or alleged conspiracies of Edmund de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, who, it will be remembered, was imprisoned by Henry VII. and beheaded by Henry VIII. Thereupon Sir William Courtenay, without trial of any kind, and notwithstanding that he was the King's brother-in-law, was thrown into the Tower and kept there for seven years till the King died in 1509 The continuer of Hardyng's Chronicle, as quoted by Mrs. Everett Green says, "For the King was so vigilant and circumspect in all his matters that he did know them, namely that either bare him evil will, or worked any in their mind whom he caused to be attached and cast in hold. And among them the Earl of Devonshire's son, which married Eady Catherine, daughter of King Edward, was taken, and another William, brother to Edmund, Earl of Suffolk, James T\Trel, and John Windham. But these two Williams were taken rather of suspection than for any offence of guiltiness." Sir William Courtenay was attainted, and the Courtenay property declared forfeit to the Crown, though Henry graciously allowed Sir William's father, the Earl of Devon, to retain his life-interest in a portion thereof As the result of these proceedings Katharine and her children, during her husband's imprisonment, were reduced to great straits of poverty. On the accession of Henry VIII., that King in the first flush of his new honours released his uncle, whose father had recently died, and, though not without a large pecuniary consideration, restored him to his rank and honours. The restored Earl of Devon, however, died in 151 1 of an illness, probably contracted in the Tower, and was succeeded by his only surviving son Henry. After the death of her husband, Katharine, now Countess of Devon, lived in some splendour,' and was well treated by her nephew, the King, till her death in 1527, aged forty-eight. Katharine had three children, two sons and a daughter, of 28o History of the Royal Family of England. whom one son and the daughter died young and unmarried. Her eldest son, Henry Courtenay, was born in 1498, and was therefore twenty-nine when his mother died. For many years he was one of the most favoured and intimate companions of his first cousin, King Henry VIII. ; and in 15 15 he was created Marquis of Exeter, but in 1539 he was not found to be sufficiently energetic on the King's side in the matter of the divorce. Accordingly he was accused by Geoffrey Pole of being in correspondence with Geoffrey's brother, the famous Reginald Cardinal Pole ; and on this charge, which was apparently quite unsupported by evidence, he was arrested, thrown into the Tower, attainted and beheaded with the smallest possible delay. He suffered in 1539. Henry Courtenay was twice married. His second wife, Gertrude Blount, a daughter of Lord Mountjoy, was also attainted and condemned to death, but she was not executed. He left an only child (who was by his second wife), Edward Courtenay, who was twelve years old at the date of his father's execution, and who notwithstanding his extreme youth, was committed to the Tower^ and there kept a prisoner from 1539 till the death of Edward VI. in 1553, a period of fourteen years. On the accession of Queen Mary she set Courtenay at liberty, and even, it is said, thought of raising him to the Crown Matrimonial, but the story goes that the younp Earl, then twenty-six, rejected the Queen's overtures (she was thirty-eight), and even shewed signs of preferring her younger sister, Elizabeth. At all events Courtenay was subsequently involved or supposed to be involved in plots against the Queen, and was re-arrested and sent to the Tower, and thence to Fotherin^hay Castle, but he was again set at liberty in the Spring of 1555; and considering that Queen Mary was a Tudor, and that Courtenay was not only of the Royal blood, but was reasonably suspected of conspiring against her, I think he may be regarded as being fortunate in having saved his life. Courtenay immediately went abroad and died at Padua in the following year, 1556 — some say by poison, and Edzvard Courtenay, Earl of Devon. 281 others, far more probably, as the result of dissipation indulged in after his release— and indeed, before, for nothwithstanding his captivity, he is said to have found means to live very freely in the Tower, and to have been already a " mauvais sujet " when he was released from captivity. All accounts and his portrait by Sir Antonio More, agree that Edward Courtenay was very handsome. He was the last descendant of his branch of the Courtenay family, the present Earl of Devon claiming descent through a collateral branch, and not through Katharine Plantagenet. (See Table XII.) il m CHAPTER XVII. 11 Henry VIII.— Katharine of Aragon. KNRY VII. and Elizabeth of York had seven children (i) Arthur, Prince of Wales, born September i486. ^(2) Margaret, afterwards Queen of Scotland, born 1489. V (3) Henry, afterwards Henry VIII., born 1491. (4) Elizabeth, born 1492. ^(5) Mary, afterwards sometime Queen of France and then Duchess of Suffolk, born 1496. (6) Edmund, born 1499, and (7) Katharine (at whose birth her mother died), born 1503. Of these children, three, Elizabeth, Edmund, and Katharine died as infants, and the career of Arthur was but short, so that practically I have to do with but three, Margaret, Henry, and Mary. I propose first to deal with Henry and his children, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth ; then with ,his younger sister Mary and her descendants, and then with his elder sister Margaret and her descendants, which will bring us to James I., with whose reign begins a new dynasty and a new epoch in English history. I have said that Henry VIII.'s title to the Throne was unimpeachable, and I have also said that the Tudor Monarchs possessed many of the qualities usually attributed to parvenus. The two statements appear at first sight somewhat incon- sistent, but they are nevertheless, I think, true. By a series of accidents Henry VIII., the great grandson of an obscure Welshman from whom he derived his surname, had become lawfully King of England, but nevertheless he and his children knew, and they knew that ever>^one else, whether on the Continent or in England, also knew that the Tudor 282 The Tudor Family. 283 Sovereigns were, in point of immediate family and connection, inferior not only to the great reigning families of Europe, but to a large number of the greater among the English nobility; and I believe that this knowledge largely contributed to that restless self-assertion so constantly displayed by Henry VIII. and his daughter Elizabeth. They were as it seems to me for ever posing and comparing themselves with other European Princes, and not wholly satisfied wdth the result, they were for ever endeavouring to extract from the Foreign Ambassadors and their own courtiers the assurauce that they compared favourably. It is true that Henry's grandfather, Edward IV., the father of his mother, had been King of Kngland, and that through two of his great grandmothers, Katharine ^{ France, the mother of his father's father, and Jacquetta of Luxem- bourg, the mother of his mother's mother, Henry claimed descent from two of the greatest of the European Princely houses; and it is also true that his father Henry VII. was recognized as, and claimed to be, the representative of the great Lancastrian line which had given three Kings to England. But Edward IV., though a King, bearing the Royal name of Plantagenet, was by no means born in the purple. His great grandfather, his grandfather, and his father had been great nobles indeed, more or less nearly related to the reigning Sovereigns, but they had been merely nobles, and had occupied no greater position than many others of the nobility; and it was not till within a few years before Edward's own accession that his father had been seriously thought of as a candidate for the Throne. Katharine and Jacquetta had been universally considered, on the Continent at any rate, to have irretrievably disgraced themselves by their second marriages, and it was impossible to claim descent from them without claiming descent also from the distinctly ignoble families of Tudor and Woodvllle ; and Henry VII.'s claim to be of English Royal descent was based on the fact that he was the great grandson of a man who, though he was legitimatized by Act of Pariiament, was the admittedly 284 History of the Royal Family of England, bastard son of John of Gaunt by a woman of low birth and infamous character. Moreover, down to the time of Edward IV. all the English Kings had married Princesses of illustrious lineage and dis- tinguished connections, and with few exceptions their daughters had been given in marriage to Kings and Princes ; and even those Princesses who had married English subjects had married nobles of the highest rank and importance. But Edward IV. had set the example of marrying a woman whose father was a man of obscure rank ; and for the credit of his wife it had become necessary to confer patents of nobility on her comparatively low born relatives ; and thus it came to pass that through his mother's mother, Henry VIII. was related in blood with many persons who were looked down upon, not only by the ancient families, but, which was of more importance, by the common people as mere upstarts. Henry VH., in his jealous fear lest his wife's female relatives should be brought too prominently before the public, had encouraged them to marry men beneath them in station,' and thus aggravated this state of things'; and Henry VIII.' himself brought things to a climax by connecting himself in marriage with four women wholly unsuited in point of rank or connection to be Queens of England. As a consequence Edward VI. and Elizabeth had but few relatives of Princely rank. They had many acknowledged relatives whose sole claim to position was based on their con- nection with the Sovereigns ; and it may well be suspected, indeed it is certain, that they had other relatives with no claim at all to position— and whose relationship, though studiously Ignored, was tolerably well known to many persons. Edward VI. was for most of his reign completely dominated by his mother's brothers, men whose father was no more than a country gentleman, and Elizabeth, though she did her best to Ignore her connection with the Boleyn family, was acutely sensitive to the fact of which she was often painfullv reminded that she was regarded in most of the European Courts, and in Hemy VIII. 28^ their hearts by a large proportion of her own subjects, as the bastard daughter of a woman of very inferior origin. I cannot help thinking that these circumstances greatly contributed to those displays, of what I can only call vulgarity, which are so often to be found in the Tudor reigns. As regards King Henry VIII. personally, and in the light of admitted facts, I should have thought it impossible to hold any opinion but one upon his character, namely, that he was the meanest, most hypocritical, vicious, bloodthirsty, licentious and, if my readers will excuse, a bathos, ungentlemanlike wretch that ever sat upon the Throne of any civilised country ; nor do I see that he had any redeeming virtue or charm, except that he is generally said to have been " bluff," which, I presume, means that he possessed a certain rough but extremely deceptive geniality of manner. As to his military and civil capacity I find much ability in his advisers, but I do not see much in the King himself, and this opinion is certainly that of many historians of weight. In my estimate of King Henry, however, I am perhaps mistaken, for some years ago there arose amongst us a historian whose profoundity of observation is only equalled by the accuracy with which he states his facts and authorities. This distinguished writer finds in King Henry the most noble and engaging qualities of heart and mind, and suggests that the trifling errors into which, even he admits, that the King fell, were the result of adverse circumstances, and in par- ticular, of the perverse and narrow-minded conduct of two ladies. One of these, having shared the King's Throne and bed for twenty years as his acknowledged Queen and wife, and having borne him several children, actually refused to allow herself to be branded as a woman who, during all those years, had never been married, in order that the King might marry another woman and beget a son ; while the other had the audacity to decline to acknowledge herself to be a bastard, even though the King, her father, wished, and it was considered desirable for reasons of State policy that she should do so. As the writer in question held one of the highest distinc- 286 History of the Royal Family of England. Katharine of Aragon. 287 tions to which any historian can aspire, I presume that he has many followers and admirers ; and that my own inability to accept his facts or to follow his reasoning may be due to some obliquity of mental vision on my part. Henry VIII is chiefly known to the world in general as havinj;^ been the husband of six wives, two of whom he divorced and two of whom he beheaded, and as having been the Sovereign in whose reign and under whose auspices that great political and religious event which is called the '* Reformation " commenced. As to the religious events of his reign, it is clearly not within the scope of this work to discuss them, though I must slightly refer to them ; but as to his matrimonial engagements, notwithstanding that they have been discussed in all their minutest details by scores of writers, it is my duty to say a few words in order to make my narrative intelligible. Arthur, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of Henry VII., was born in September i486, and before he was eleven years old, his father anxious to obtain for him the advantages of a great marriage, caused him to be betrothed to the Infanta Katharine, youngest of the four daughters of the two greatest Sovereigns in Europe, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille. Queen Isabella, it may be remembered, was the great grand- daughter of Katharine of Lancaster, daughter of John of Gaunt by his second wife, Constance of Castille. (See ante.) Katharine landed in England in the year 1 501, and was married to Prince Arthur with all imaginable splendour in November of that year. At the date of the marriage Prince Arthur was aged fifteen years and two months, and the Princess, who was born in December 1485, was within a month of completing her sixteenth year. On the 2nd day of April in the following year (1502), not five months after the marriage, Prince Arthur died. It is said that the marriajje was never completed ; and there is no doubt much to be said, both in support of and against that assertion. Katharine herself asserted that the marriage was not completed, and, as I see no ground for doubting her veracity, her testimony to my mind carries the greatest possible weight. As to the improbability of her assertion which is so much insisted on by some writers, I would remark that the bridegroom was a boy of fifteen, who had been born prematurely, and who was in admittedly bad health when he married. Five months later he died of a decline, the premonitory symptoms of which must have declared themselves to his physicians and those about him long before ; and under these circumstances, I cannot bring myself to think the Queen's statement so very absurd as it is sometimes represented. It is, however, im- possible to enter into the question further. On Prince Arthur's death, Henry VII. was placed in a dilemma. If he returned the widowed Princess to Spain, he must also restore that portion of her dowry which had been already paid, an idea which was extremely painful to him as, at that time, avarice was his leading characteristic. If he kept her in England he must provide for her by another suit- able marriage, which was difficult to do. He elected to take the latter course, and proposed that she should marry his own younger son Henry, now become Prince of Wales, and that she should wait in England till that Prince, who in April 1502 had not completed his eleventh year, was of an age to marry. This suggestion caused much commotion. It was said then as it is said now, that for a woman to marry her deceased husband's brother was contrary to the law of nature. I humbly confess that I cannot see why. No doubt texts of Scripture were quoted against the proposed marriage, but then texts of Scripture were quoted in support of it, and, in point of fact, with the utmost respect and reverence for the Holy Scriptures, it is impossible not to see that there is hardly any proposition in support of which some isolated text may not be quoted with apparent appositeness. Unquestionably such a marriage was contrary to Ecclesi- astical Law, but then so were marriages between first and, even at that time, fourth cousins ; and it is notorious that the Ecclesiastical authorities who, in the fifteenth and in the opening years of the sixteenth centuries were recognised by 2 88 History of the Royal Family of England, all Christendom, had always claimed, and had habitually exercised the right to dispense from those Ecclesiastical Laws which they had themselves imposed. If the Pope could grant a dispensation for a marriage between first cousins, or even between uncle and niece (and dispensations for such marriages had certainly been granted and are granted now), why should he not grant a dispensation for a marriage between a man and his brother's widow ? The question was argued backwards and forwards between the English and Spanish Sovereigns for years, and, mean- while, Katharine remained in England in a position which, to judge from her letters set out by Miss Strickland in her life, was in a high degree invidious and uncomfortable. At length, in April 1509, Henry VII. died, and his only surviving son, Henry, came to the Throne. At the date of his accession, Henry VIII. wanted a few months of the age of eighteen, at which age, by the law of England, he would attain his majority — Sovereigns being supposed to arrive at maturity three years earlier than their subjects. It is certain that Henry might have repudiated the sort of engagement which had subsisted between him and Katharine, had he been so minded, but he was not so minded, the fact being, as there is ample evidence to show, that at that time he had become extremely fond of the Spanish Princess. Accordingly, after the King had attained his majority, Henry and Katharine were married at Greenwich on the nth of June 1509, and crowned together, with much solemnity, on the 2 1st of the same month. There has been much discussion as to the authenticity and the extent of the dispensation granted or alleged to have been granted by the Pope for this marriage. I shall not enter into the details of this, and will merely refer my readers to well known books of history, and, in particular, to the " Life of Anne Boleyn " by Paul Friedmann, a Protestant Historian who, more particularly in a note (C) in the appendix, discusses the question exhaustively. Prima facie, however, and without going into details, it seems absurd Marriage with Katharine of A r agon. 289 to suppose that the King of England would have been allowed at all events without strong censure and reprobation, to marry his brother's widow with the full knowledge of her father Ferdmand of Aragon (one of the most astute and powerful of European Sovereigns), of the Pope, and of all the European Courts, unless everyone concerned, including the members of his own council and the Bishops of England, had been well satisfied that a proper dispensation had been obtained, and that the marriage from which it was hoped that the future Kings of England would descend was valid both legally and morally. It is clear that at a subsequent date when, I think, It may be taken as certain that the Roman authorities would have been glad if it had been possible to find any flaw in the marriage, they could not, or at all events did not, do so. At the date of their marriage Henry was just eighteen, and Katharine between twenty-three and twenty-four. It is the fashion at present, even among those writers who re- cognize the rectitude of her conduct, to represent Katharine as a gloomy and narrow-minded bigot, whose religion was a nuisance, and with whom no lively young man could have been expected to live happily ; and, further, to speak of her as a plain if not an ugly woman I am at a loss to conceive on what grounds these suggestions are made. No doubt she was gloomy enough in her later years, as indeed she had reason to be, and that her enemies regarded her as narrow-minded, IS of course. Everyone is narrow-minded who refuses on conscientious grounds to do what he or she is wished to do f That she was profoundly and fervently religious her admirers have never wished to deny, but I cannot see how any impartial person reading any contemporary account of her life of her person, or of her relations with the King in the earlier years of her married life, can fail to see that she was not only a good, but a pleasing and gracious woman, with great affection for her husband, and who, if she was not an acknowledged beauty, as were some of Henry's later wives, at least possessed the full average of personal advantages. It is said that she had no '' tact," and by way of contrast 4] *;t 290 History of the Royal Family of England. the last of King Henry's Queens, Katharine Parr, is specially commended for her possession of that quality. The instances given, however, of Katharine Parr's " tact " seem to me to show no more than that she habitually indulged the King with gross and fulsome flattery. If this was the kind of "tact" which was required in Henry VHI.'s wives, Katharine of Aragon had it not ; but of cheerful obedience in all things lawful, and of kindly sympathy in all innocent pleasures and in all troubles, I, for one, can see no lack in any account I have ever read of Katharine's conduct as a wife. From the date of Katharine's marriage to Henry VHI. (1509) until the year 1527, a period of eighteen years, not- withstanding some lapses on thq part of the King from conjugal fidelity, all seemed to go well between the Royal pair ; and during the earlier part of this time at any rate Katharine retained a large measure of her husband's regard ; and, strange to say, she appears always to have felt for him a sincere personal affection. The Queen presided over the Court with dignity, and a larger amount of decorum than was probably desired by the King or the courtiers, who were at that time sufficiently dissolute. Nevertheless, there is evi- dence to show that she could, and did, upon occasions take her part with spirit and good humour in the sports and " frolics " in which the King indulged, and which at the present time strike some of us, and which not impossibly €ven then, struck the Spanish Queen, as rather childish and a little vulgar. In 15 12 King Henry was on the Continent engaged in his not very brilliant or successful invasion of France ; and while he was away Katharine was Regent of the Kingdom, a position in which, I believe, by general consent, she is allowed to have behaved at least creditably. It was during this period that the Scotch took advantage of the unprotected condition of England to invade that country. This led to the great Battle of Flodden Field which was won by the English, and at which James IV. of Scotland, King Henry's brother- in-law, was killed. One of the instances of Katharine's want Katharine of Aragon. 291 of "tact," which is gravely alleged against her, is that King Henry, having won the Battle of the Spurs, an exploit of which, even supposing that his personal share in it was as great as he himself suggested (which was in fact not generally supposed), he boasted somewhat inordinately. After this Battle he sent the Duke of Longueville as a prisoner to England, and by way of answer Katharine sent back to him three of the Scotch prisoners, with a message "that it was no great thing for a man to take another man prisoner, but that here were three men taken prisoners by a woman." As Katharine was not present at the Battle of Flodden, and could not, and did not, pretend that she had any personal hand in taking the prisoners in question, I should have thought it obvious that this was a piece of sufficiently innocent conjugal " chaff;" which any man with an ounce of good humour in his composition would have laughed at. King Henry, however, did not like chaff. During the eighteen years in question, Katharine became the mother of, some say three and some say five children. In 1 5 1 1 she had a son named Henry, who lived for six weeks, and in 15 16 she gave birth to a daughter, Mary, who after- wards became Queen of England. The discrepancies of statement as to her other children arise from the fact that it is uncertain whether they, or at least two of them, were born ahve or died immediately after their birth. Such of them as were born alive certainly died immediately. King Henry had a passionate, and, it must be admitted, a not unreasonable desire to have a son; and in 1527, when Katharine was forty -two, all prospects of a son by her had become impossible. At this date King Henry suddenly became a victim to religious scruples as to the lawfulness of hvmg with a woman who had been his brother's wife ; and, by a strange coincidence about the same time, he became 'the victim of a tender passion for Anne Boleyn, a lady of his wife's Court. His scruples and his passion increased together, and he conceived the idea of divorce from Katharine, to which it was f 292 History of the Royal Family of England. supposed the Queen might probably consent. She was a very religious woman, and it was thought she might like to go into a convent, as had done Joanna of France, the first wife of Louis XII., King of France, not many years before under somewhat similar circumstances. Failing this. Professor Froude suggests that she might reasonably have found it an agreeable and pleasant change to return to Spain, her native country, carrying with her the blessings and gratitude of the English nation. I have already said that the Catholic Church has always denied the possibility of dissolving a marriage once legally contracted ; but I have also said that in the Middle Ages and down to the time of the Tudors it was remarkably easy, owing to the number and vagueness of the canonical bars to marriage, to get it declared that any marriage between two persons of sufficient rank and influence had not been validly contracted. This, however, pre-supposed that both parties to the marriage to be dissolved wished it to be dissolved ; or, at all events, that one of them so wished, and that the other was unwilling or unable to defend himself or herself in the Ecclesiastical Courts. Therefore, I have little doubt that if Katharine had consented to the divorce on the ground of some canonical obstacle admitted by the parties, and into the details of which no one would have looked too carefully, the divorce or, more strictly speaking, a declaration that the marriage had been invalid, might have been obtained. More- over, I am bound to add that, as far as I can see, all the Ecclesiastical Authorities from the Pope downwards would have been very glad if the Queen had consented, and had, so to speak, allowed the divorce to go sub silentio. They probably foresaw, with tolerable accuracy, the consequences of her refusal, and would gladly have winked at any evasion of the law which would have averted such consequences. I am not prepared to blame or defend their conduct in this particular ; and I can only point out that no Catholic has ever suggested that any Pope, still less any minor Ecclesiastic, is impeccable, and that in claiming infallibility for the Popes The Divorce, 293 such claim is confined to their public declarations of principle made Ex Cathedra and to the whole Church, and does not extend to the private and personal opinions and conduct of the Popes. Nor does it extend even to their conduct as Judges in the Catholic Church in particular cases, so long as their judgments turn upon the particular facts before them (as to which they are liable to be mistaken), and do not amount to such public declarations of principle as aforesaid. Katharine, however, was unreasonable enough to refuse her consent to any divorce, and powerful enough to make her voice heard throughout Europe. She said, in effect, and continued to say on every possible occasion, that she was the lawful wife of the King of England, and that her daughter was lawfully begotten ; and that she would do and submit to nothing which would affect her own or her daughter's position. She appealed to the Pope, and the Pope was forced to hear her appeal. There was not in fact, or at all events the Catholic Ecclesiastical lawyers could not find, any defect in the marriage, and, therefore, the question to be decided be- came one, not of fact but of principle — could or could not a lawful marriage be dissolved.? Placed in that position the Pope Clement XII. had no alternative but to declare that it could not. He did so declare. Henry at once denied the Supremacy of the Pope, and declared himself head of the Church in England, and thus began the Reformation destined so greatly to affect the fortunes of England and of all English- men through succeeding generations. To those who may object that Katharine's conduct was selfish, it may be answered that soon after this, and to some extent in consequence of this question, the whole of the marriage laws were revised and many of the Ecclesiastical bars to matrimony were abolished, and it was so provided that if in some cases it is more difficult to get married, it is, in Catholic countries, almost, if not quite, impossible once married to get unmarried. Henceforward in Catholic countries we hear no more of the " divorces " as sanctioned by the Catholic Church which had previously been so great a y 294 History of the Royal Family of England. scandal ; and thus Katharine was the instrument of establish- ing, or at all events of manifesting, a principle, namely that of the indissolubility of marriage which, whether my readers approve it or not, is a principle of great importance, and to that principle she may fairly be said to have been a martyr. In the contest Cardinal Wolsey, Henry's celebrated minister, fell from power under circumstances too well known to require repetition ; and in inaugurating the new departure in religion Henry acted mainly under the advice of those two great lights of the Reformation, Cranmer, afterwards Arch- bishop of Canterbury, and Cromwell, afterwards Earl of Essex. The one suggested that if the Pope would not dissolve the marriage with Katharine, which had now become hateful, the King might, if he rejected the Supremacy of the Pope, find Prelates more complaisant who would ; the other that if Henry became, so to speak, head of his own Church, he might plunder the monasteries to his heart's content. These promises were too alluring to be resisted, and Henry in yielding to temptation gained at any rate the promised rewards. Cranmer became Archbishop, and married and divorced the King just as he was bid, and Cromwell plundered the monasteries with an energy and zeal that could not be exceeded. The subsequent fate of these two persons is pretty generally known. Henry VHL, though he rejected the Supremacy of the Pope, by no means rejected the rest of the Catholic doctrines. On the contrary he was, or considered himself to be, some- thing of a Theologian. He had at an earlier period written, or probably had caused to be written for him, a book in defence of the Pope, which had gained him some credit, and for which the Pope had complimented him with the title of " Defender of the Faith "—a title in which he took no little pride, and which, somewhat absurdly, seeing how it was derived, his successors have ever since borne. After he had become " Head of the Church" he proceeded to 'defend the Faith" after his own peculiar fashion; and thus while, on the one hand, he was beheading those who affirmed the The Divorce. 295 Supremacy of the Pope, on the other he was burning those who denied the doctrine of Transubstantiation. The total number of persons of both sexes, of all ages, and of all ranks whom on one pretence or another he did put to death, probably no one knows, but it was certainly appalling. To trace the events between the first proposal for the divorce in 1527 and the death of Katharine on the 6th January 1536 would be very tedious. It is sufficient to say (i) that in December 1527 the Pope, at Henry's request, eranted a commission to the Cardinals Campeggio and Wolsey to try the case for divorce in England ; (2) that Campeggio arrived in England in October 1528, and that after many delays, in the course of which every possible pressure to submit was brought to bear upon the Queen, the Cardinals opened their Court in June 1529; (3) that Katharine appeared before them, denied their jurisdiction, and formally appealed to Rome; (4) that in July 1529 the Pope revoked the commission, and Campeggio broke up the Court ; (5) that in the October of that year, 1529, Campeggio left England and Wolsey was disgraced ; (6) that in March 15 30 the Pope formally forbade the King to marry again until the cause was tried in Rome ; (7) that in August 1531 the Queen was dis- missed from the Court; (8) that early in 1533, and probably on the 25th January in that year, Henry privately married Anne Boleyn ; (9) that in March 1533 Cranmer was conse- crated Archbishop of Canterbury under Bulls from the Pope ; (10) that in the following May (1533) Cranmer took upon himself to declare that the marriage with Katharine was null, and that the marriage with Anne had been valid; (11) that in July 1533 the Pope annulled the proceedings of Cranmer, and in August formally censured Henry, Anne, and Cranmer ; (12) that in November 1533 the Pope rejected an appeal by Henry in which he had asked that a general Council might be summoned to consider the question; (13) that in March 1534 the Acts of Parliament were passed declaring the marriage between Henry and Katharine invalid, and their daughter illegitimate ; (14) that in November of that year, 296 History of the Royal Fa7nily of England, 1534, Henry was declared in Parliament Head of the Church ; and (15) that in 1535 Henry was excommunicated bv Pone Paul HI. ^ ^ I have said that Katharine was not dismissed from the Court till August 1 53 1, but her position there as Queen, between the years 1527 and 1 531, was one of misery and constant indignity ; and it may be remarked that Professor Froude makes it a distinct grievance against her that she bore her husband's neglect and insults with apparent calmness and impassibility ! From August 1531 till the 7th January 1536 when she died, her life was one of practical imprisonment, she being deprived of the society of her daughter, and of, to a large extent, intercouse with her friends. She was surrounded by spies, and occasionally insulted by the visits of her enemies, and her places of residence were chosen for her, and chosen,' so it has been said, with an express view to their unhealthiness. After Cranmer's sentence of divorce Katherine was no longer styled Queen, but '' Princess Dowager of Wales," and an income was assigned to her in the latter capacitv, but this mcome was irregularly paid and, in part, withheld altogether, so that she and her household were often reduced to extreme strait's of poverty. Friedmann in his life of Anne Boleyn, before referred to, says that she was poisoned at the instigation of Anne Boleyn! and the same suggestion is made by other writers, but for the grounds for this assertion, which I must admit seems to me very probable, I must refer my readers to Friedmann's own book. Katharine died at Kimbolton Castle, and is buried in the Abbey Church in Peterborough. She was turned fifty when she died. It has been said that there was only one person whom Henry VHI. thoroughly respected, and of whom he was in a measure afraid, and that this person was his first wife Katharine of Aragon. I think this is probably true, and, at all events, it is clear that in her own times, in England and Katharine of Aragon, 297 on the Continent, by her enemies and even by the Reformers themselves, she was regarded and spoken of with uniform respect. Shakespeare who wrote in the reign of James I. with all the desire he shows to compliment that King's predecessor. Queen Elizabeth (as witness the fifth Act of " Henry VHI. "), in the same play represents Queen Katharine in such a manner that I doubt \i in all the range of his female characters there is to be found one more noble, more touching, or more beautiful. I am aware that some com- mentators deny that Shakespeare was the author of this play, but I think that in the character of Katharine it bears conclusive internal evidence that it was, in part at any rate, from the " Master's " hands. It has remained for modern writers, in their zeal for their hero, Henry VIII., to attack and revile an unhappy Queen, whose character had hitherto been respected even by those Protestant writers in the intervening centuries of keen religious controversy who most disliked the religion and principles which she so consistently professed. (See as to the proceedings relative to the Divorce " Trials of Five Queens " by B. Storey Deane.) . ii I il CHAPTER XVIII. Anne Boleyn.— Jane Seymour.— Anne of Cleves. HENRY VIII.'s second Queen was Anne Boleyn, a lady around whose name the keenest discussion has always raged. Her great-grandfather, Geoffrey Boleyn, was a merchant in the City of London, who had held the office of Lord Mayor in 1457, and had amassed considerable wealth. Her grandfather, Sir William Boleyn, had bought land, and become a country gentleman ; and her father. Sir Thomas Boleyn, afterwards Earl of Wiltshire (a younger son of Sir William), had come to Court, and had there, by the influence of his wife's relations, and by considerable adroitness and pliability on his own part, risen to a position of some influence, even before his daughter, Anne, had come to the front. Sir Thomas Boleyn married Lady Elizabeth Howard, second daughter of Thomas Howard, second Duke of Norfolk of his family. Therefore Anne was, though it must be admitted in a very remote degree, descended from Thomas, Earl of Norfolk, son of King Edward I, (see Tables III. and XIII.) Sir William and Lady Elizabeth Boleyn had three children, Anne, George, Viscount Rochford (his father's second title), and Mary, afterwards Lady Carey. The date of Anne's birth is disputed. Camden fixes it in 1507. Miss Strickland in 1501 or 1502, and Friedmann in 1503, and, having regard to the known events of her life, I do not see how it could possibly have been later than the last mentioned date. Assuming her to have been born in 1503, she must have been over twenty-nine at the date of her marriage with Henry (January 25th 1533), and thirty-three when she was executed, May 19th, 1536. 298 o >a Q o 1-4 CO Q < O K (X) H X LU -J < I- 00 ro m H M O H < o o- w ^ > •^ 3 It •^ IS 16 ^ '- * Pi .00 i 00 ^0 ro > -^ < >; w 2| rr 1/1 H w o W > ta & o z o a O g ti 0Q O u '(n II- > n I -a Pi5 < o < CO 3 ^ • o c ?>" o 3 — P3^ ^E > « «I u O 3-? - "CO rt w.S ■ . w w X o h S PS S > •52 < _ 03 2 lis: _^ m 00 U3 P.S 3 4) ^ I? 1/1 •"S M C "< P'S'B OS'S 6-^3 <^< teH -^ — ■^ V. < O O N EC *> - 3^^ 11 H rt - >- ■J S 3 ^ Sen = cj; < > lO-O'C ►"2,5 o « u •/I *" — ac c „ « ^ 13 * J. .- I-TJ -3 (< O _-P CHAPTER XIX. Katharine Howard.— Katharine Parr. T have said that during the short period durin- which Anne X of Cleves was acknowledged Queen of England, King Henry had seen another lady whom he liked. This was Katharine Howard, a daughter of Lord Edmund Howard who was a son of the second Duke of xNorfolk of that family' Katharine Ploward was first cousin to Ann Boleyn, Lord Edmund Howard and Lady Elizabeth Boleyn (Anne's mother) having been brother and sister. (See Table XHI.) The acquaintances between Henry and Katharine is said to have commenced at the house, and under the auspices of Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, and they were privately married, some say before and some immediately after the divorce from Anne of Cleves, in July 1540; and, at all events, Katharine was acknowledged as Queen in August of that vear The date of her birth is uncertain, but at the date of the marriage she cannot possibly have been more than nineteen and was probably less, and she is described as having been very pretty, though extremely small in person. For fourteen months, that is to say from August 1540 till October 1541 Katharine enjoyed the King's favour, but she had many enemies, political rather than personal, who were anxious for her downfall. The country at that time was divided into two great camps, Catholic and Protestant, between whom Henry appeared to waver (for, though he had rejected the Supremacy of he Pope, he still maintained, as has been mentioned, other Catholic doctrines), and each party hoped to influence him in Its favour. The Protestants had been greatly delighted with his 312 marriage with the Lutheran Princess Anne, and though no one dared to say much, they had been a good deal shocked at the King's high and mighty method of putting her aside. His new wife was a Catholic, and the Catholic party had some expectation of relief through the influence, which all parties seem to have thought, as I believe, erroneously, the young lady was acquiring. Consequently, there were many persons who conceived it to be to their interest to disgrace Katharine in her husband's eyes; and, unhappily there was ample material for so doing. Katharine's mother had died when she was a child, and her father had been much engaged in foreign employments, and had died before her acquaintance with King Henry.' Under these circumstances Katharine had been placed at a very early age in charge of Agnes Tylney, Duchess Dowager of Norfolk, who was her father's stepmother. This person appears to have been a somewhat truculent and selfish woman, who regarded her young relative as an unwelcome dependant,* and the giri's education was altogether neglected, so much so that it is said that she did not even know how to write. She was left almost entirely in the charge of the Duchess's servants, who would seem to have been as dissolute a lot as were ever the retainers in a great and ill-managed household. It is said by Miss Strickland and other writers that in her earliest youth Katharine was seduced by a servant named Manox, and that she subsequently became, though, of course, not openly, the mistress of a man in a somewhat better posi- tion, named Derham ; and with regard to this last connection there is strong evidence that there was between Derham and Katharine such a contract of marriage as was sufficient in those days to invalidate any subsequent marriage by either • party. The allegations as to Katharine's actual misconduct have been disputed, but it seems to me clear that, though no doubt she was excusable on account of her youth and evil surround- mgs, she was at least guilty of much levity and indecorum of conduct before her marriage. At all events her proceedings ! 'if '7 14 History of the Royal Family of England, Katharine Howard. 315 at the Duchess of Norfolk's house were known to certain persons who, when she was suddenly raised from the position of a dependent and very junior member of a noble family to that of Queen, laid their account to profit by her advancement, and thus she became the victim of something like a regular system of blackmail. Manox, Derham, and others of her former companions, both male and female, were received by her, probably under some sort of coercion, into her household, and she was forced to enter into communications, personally and otherwise, with people with whom, in her new position, she ought not to have maintained acquaintance. In these matters she required a confidant, and this she found in the infamous Lady Rochford, widow of Anne Boleyn's brother, who was one of her principal ladies. It was not long before whatever there was to be known, was known to the Queen's enemies, who lost no time in telling the story, probably much exaggerated to the King. Henry was, of course, greatly infuriated, and he at once caused Katharine to be imprisoned at Hampton Court, and there to be bullied and interrogated by his Council. He also caused some of her relatives, including the old Duchess of Norfolk, and many of her servants to be arrested, questioned, and threatened, and some of the latter at any rate to be severely tortured. Evidence so taken must be regarded with suspicion, but the result of the King's investigations as appearing in the State papers seems to be this. Much levity before and some imprudence after marriage was proved, and indeed admitted ; but there was no sort of evidence of actual misconduct after marriage, and not only the Queen but all the persons impli- cated (the latter under torture), positively and strenuously maintained her conjugal fidelity. King Henry and his Council were placed in a difficulty ; for even if Katharine had gone wrong in her youth, which, though probable, was not actually proved, it was no crime known to the law for a woman, even though she afterwards became Queen of England, to have been unchaste before marriage; and no irregularity after marriage could in any way be established. Derham and Culpepper (a cousin of the Queen's whom she appears to have treated with confidence, which, considering the youth and position of the persons, was certainly ill-advised) were the men fixed on as the most likely to have been her lovers, but they could by no means be induced to say anything against her conduct as a Queen, and she herself, though she was not only threatened with death if she did not confess, but led to believe that she would be pardoned if she did, constantly maintained her innocence. If under these circumstances Henry had had the smallest particle of mercy in his composition, he, who had been so sensitive to the mere suspicion of a pre- contract in the case of Anne of Cleves only a few months before, would have availed himself of what really does appear to have been a pre-contract in the case of Katharine Howard, to put the poor girl away without taking her life. For did not Cranmer stand ready to pronounce a divorce at any moment and on any possible ground? This, however, would not have suited Professor Froude's magnanimous hero. Katharine was to die, and accordingly by an order in Council dated the i ith of October 1 541, and addressed to Cranmer and others, they were directed "by no means to mention the pre-contract lest it should serve her for an excuse to save her life." Katharine was condemned to die. She was allowed no trial and no opportunity of defending herself, and she was executed on the 15th of February 1542 on Tower Hill, and is buried in the Tower. At first she was frightened and made passionate entreaties for pity, but at the last she behaved with much dignity, and died, as far as appears, sincerely penitent for any errors she had committed, and humbly forgiving her enemies. Derham and Culpepper had preceded her to the grave, having conducted themselves throughout their tortures like truthful and honourable gentlemen. With Katharine was beheaded Lady Rochford, and even she took the opportunity to retract the wicked accusations she had formerly made !< 3 1 6 History of the Royal Family of England. Katharine Parr, Z'^l against her husband and Anne Boleyn, and she fully exonerated Katharine herself. The old Duchess of Norfolk and others of Katherine's relations were condemned to death, but the King was forced to content himself with despoiling them of their goods, which he did with infinite gusto. There is reason to suppose that he was by no means satisfied with the small number of executions which followed Katherine's disgrace, and he appears to have been especially vindictive against the Duchess. Within a few months, however, the English people had seen the aged and universally respected Countess of Salisbury hacked to death, and the young girl, almost a child, upon whom Henry had lavished so many caresses in the presence of his admiring subjects, executed on the same scaffold ; and there were nol wanting signs that the people, accustomed as they were to the sight of blood, had had almost enough of it. Consequently, Henry was persuaded to deprive himself of the pleasure of sending another old woman to the block, all the more as he was already contemplating a sixth marriage, and there was no saying how soon the block would be wanted for another Queen. King Henry remained perforce a widower from the 15th of February 1541 until the 12th of July 1543, a period of something over two years. After the death of Katharine Howard and with a view to future contingencies, he had caused an Act of Parliament to be passed making it high treason for any woman about to marry the King who had been unchaste, or any other person knowing of such want of chastity not to disclose the fact ; and there was something so appalling in the possibilities opened up by this enactment that not only the ladies of Henry's Court, however complaisant they might be, but their relatives and friends became as much alarmed at the King's attentions as they had formerly been anxious to receive them. Consequently it was a very dif^cult matter to find any English woman willing, upon any terms, to allow herself to be called the King's wife ; and after the episode of Anne of Cleves a foreign lady was, of course, out of the question. In 1543, however, King Henry at length found an obliging widow who was willing to take her chance. This was Katharine, widow of John Neville, third Lord Latimer of his family, and who is better known by her maiden name of Katharine Parr. For some reason which [ cannot explain this person is uniformly treated with much indulgence by all writers, and with something like enthusiasm by many, and Miss Strickland in particular, not content with calling her "the nursing mother of the Reformation," can never mention her without calling her either the "learned," the "pious," the "amiable," the " devoted," or the " fair." Personally I must confess that she appears to me to have been one of the most odious and contemptible women of her time, though I must admit, that is saying a good deal. My readers will probably have their own ideas as to the lawfulness or expediency of divorces, but I cannot understand how anyone, be he Catholic or Protestant, Pagan or Infidel, who believes in marriage as a recognised institution either Divine or civil, can doubt that Henry VIII. was really married to Anne of Cleves, or that his divorce from that lady was other than a mere farce, unjustified by any possible law ; and to speak plainly I do not myself regard either Katharine Howard or Katharine Parr, though for convenience sake I have referred to them as Henry's "wives," as having been in fact his wives, or as having occupied any better moral position than did the Duchesses of Cleveland and Portsmouth in the reign of Charles II. Katharine Howard was a very young girl, ill-educated, ill- brought up, poor, dependent on ill-natured relatives, and surrounded by evil counsellors ; and she could hardly have refused the King without an effort, almost heroic, which under the circumstances, could not be expected. But Katharine Parr is by way of being a kind of heroine ; at least she is so regarded by her many admirers. She was a woman of thirty, who had already been left a widow twice, and who had had considerable experience in life. She was undoubtedly clever and highly educated, and she must have K 3 1 8 History of the Royal Fa77tily of England. fully understood her own and Henry's position. Moreover, she is supposed to have been eminently " pious " (which poor Katharine Howard did not profess to be), and she was the friend of the better among the Reformers, and they, it is tolerably plain, disapproved the divorce from Anne of Cleves, and would willingly have seen that lady reinstated in her position as Henry's wife. When, therefore, we see Katharine Parr consenting, as far as appears under no sort of coercion, and with very little pressure, to become the sixth wife of a man like Henry, who, whatever may have been his personal advantages in his youth, had, as it is admitted, by that time become gross, hideous, and diseased, and whose moral character was what it was known to be, is it reasonable to ask anyone to suppose that she acted from any decent motive, or to regard her religion or her virtue as being worthy of serious respect? Nor do I see anything in her subsequent career reasonably calculated to remove the impression of disgust created by her first appearance as Henry's wife. The date of Katharine's birth is uncertain, but it would appear to have been about 15 13, and, therefore, she was about thirty when she married Henry VHI., at which date the King was fifty-two. Katharine's father, Sir Thomas Parr, who died in 1 5 17, was a gentleman of an ancient and distinguished Cumberland family ; and all her relatives would appear to have been persons of some rank and position, so that in accepting Henry she had not the excuse of being like two of her predecessors, Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour, a mere hanger-on at the Court ; or like Katharine Howard, of being in a wholly dependent position. She had been twice married, first when she was very young to Edward, second Lord Borrough or de Burgh, who died in 1528, and secondly to the Lord Latimer above mentioned. Both her husbands were widowers and comparatively elderly men, and she had no child by either. She was, of course, educated as a Catholic, and her second husband. Lord Latimer, was a somewhat energetic Catholic, inasmuch as he was one of the leaders of the original "pilgrimage of grace" in 1536. He did not. Katharine Parr. 319 however, appear in the subsequent insurrection in the follow- ing year, which Miss Strickland attributes to his wife's influence, but nevertheless he was, until his death, an object of suspicion to the Government. The date of his death is not certain, but it was between September 1542 (the date of his will) and March 1543, when that will was proved, so that as Katharine was married to Henry VHI. in July 1543, the period of her second widowhood was not prolonged. It was, however, during this period that, according to the same writer, she changed her religious views, and from being a Catholic became an ardent Protestant. There is nothing to show how or when the King became acquainted with her, and there is no evidence of any prolonged or ardent courtship, still less of any opposition on her part. The marriage was solemnized publicly, though not with an^' parade or splendour. Katharine was the wife of Henry VHI. from July 1543 till he died in January 1547, a period of three years and six months, and it must certainly have been a period of martyr- dom. During a great part of that time Henry was a hopeless and helpless invalid, known to be dying. Though he was only fifty-six when he did die, he had grown so fat that he was unable to walk or stand, and had to be carried about in a chair, and his body and legs were covered with ulcers and other hideous sores. Under such circumstances any man would have been irritable. It is needless to say that King Henry was very irritable ; and, judging from his proceedings during the time in question, I should imagine that a sick tiger would have been, on the whole, safer and more agreeable company. Katharine, however, was a woman of patience and observation. She had presumably been accustomed to deal with elderly and sick men, and she was, as even her admirers admit, an adept in the art of administering adroit though very fulsome flattery, and thus, as a rule, she kept the King fairly well pleased with her. It must not, however, be supposed that she escaped scot free. In 1546 Henry ordered her to be charged with heresy 320 History of the Royal Family of England, (she was too Protestant to suit his views), and he signed an order for her arrest and removal to the Tower. Had she been so arrested and removed her execution would probably have followed as a matter of course ; but Katharine heard of the proceedings and began to scream, and she screamed so long and so loudly that the King heard her, and being, as Dr Lingard suggests, "incommoded by the noise," admitted her to an interview. The original cause of difference was that she had argued with him on religious subjects, but she is reported to have said that she " had always held it preposterous for a woman to instruct her lord, and that if she had ever presumed to differ with him on religion, it was partly to obtain information for her own comfort regarding certain nice points on which she stood in doubt, and partly because she perceived that in talking he was better able to pass away the pain and weariness of his present infirmity." King Henry was mollified and took her into favour, but it is supposed that when he died she was again in disgrace, for she was not present at his death, and she is not mentioned in his will. Katharine, however, was left a rich woman. The King seems to have thought, and no doubt with reason, that he was likely to survive any woman he might marry ; and by the Act of Parliament passed on his marriage with Katharine Parr he had been careful to provide for his future issue by any "other Queens." Consequently, he could afford to be liberal in the matter of settlements and he had certainly been so. Henry died in January 1547, and in the following May Katharine married Edward VI. 's uncle, Thomas Seymour, who at that King's Coronation had been created Lord Seymour of Sudeley. Miss Strickland suggests that Katharine was in love with Seymour before her marriage with Henry, and though I fail to see, as the writer seems to think, that this is a redeeming point in the Queen's character, it seems probable, for short as was the interval between the death of her third husband and her fourth marriage, she contrived to get her character somewhat compromised and herself a good deal Katha7'ine Parr. 321 talked about, by reason of nocturnal and other private inter- views with Lord Seymour. It is well known that after the accession of Edward VI. there was a period of acute struggle between his maternal uncles, Edward and Thomas Seymour. The former had possessed himself of the supreme authority, and had been created Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector of the Kingdom, but the latter, though in a comparatively unimportant position, was a man of great ability and address who had ingratiated himself into the favour of the young King, then in his ninth year, and was unsparing in his efforts to supersede Somerset in the position to which he had attained. The brothers were greatly assisted in their schemes by their respective wives, and, in particular, Queen Katharine, who, during the life of her late husband had seen much of her young step-son, was supposed to have greatly won upon his affections. The ladies, moreover, were incited to further bitterness by an animated struggle for precedence, the Duchess of Somerset claiming as wife of the Lord Protector to take rank before Katharine, who, as Queen Dowager, thought she was entitled to the higher position. So far as Katharine is concerned, these quarrels came to a speedy end, for she died in August 1548 in giving birth to her first and only child, a daughter. Her last matrimonial venture can hardly have been a happy one, for Seymour was a man of im.mense ambition, and it is tolerablv certain that he was by no means content with having secured the hand of the wealthy Queen Dowager, and was looking forward to a second and more illustrious match to be brought about by a divorce (divorces having become painfully familiar to the English mind), or as some say by murder. He had two strings to his bow, the first being Jane Grey who was regarded by the Protestant party as heiress to the Throne ; but, failing her, he looked to the Princess Elizabeth the Kmg's sister, who, then aged fourteen, had been placed under the char-e of her step mother. Queen Katharine. There are writers of weight who do not hesitate to assert that 32 2 Histo7'y of the Royal Family of England. Seymour, unable to marry Elizabeth, deliberately set himself to compromise her character in such a manner as that she should be forced to marry him at a later date if he wished. At all events, Seymour and Elizabeth indulged in an intimacy and familiarities of, to say the least, a very indecorous kind, the particulars of which, as given on the subsequent examina- tion of Seymour before the Privy Council in remarkably plain and coarse language, do not give an exalted idea of the decency of manners, 1 will not say of the virtue, of the young Princess who was ultimately to become the " Maiden Queen '' of England. (See " The Girlhood of Queen Elizabeth " by Frank Mum by.) Seymour's ambition, however, was soon cut short, for in January 1549 his brother committed him to the Tower, and two months later, without public trial, but after prolonged examination by the Privy Council, he was beheaded, having survived his wife nine months. It is to be presumed that Katharine Parr was a good- looking woman, or King Henry would not have married her ; but the portraits of her differ so radically that it is impossible to say what she was like. Like most of the ladies of her time she had received a learned education, and after she became Queen she wrote a book called " The Lamentations of a Sinner," which is chiefly taken up with the errors of Popery. Miss Strickland admits that the book contains passages of "gross flattery " to King Henry, and some of the passages which she quotes seem to me a little blasphemous ; but Miss Strickland says that these passages are redeemed by the ''pure morality and Christian holiness " of the whole work, and I can say nothing to the contrary, as I have not read it. I confess that I do not know, though I am perhaps no very good judge, what were the " ser- vices to the Reformation " which earned for Katharine Parr the title of its " nursing mother," but no doubt she was a decided Protestant. She is said to have been kind to her step-children, and probably was so; but in regard to Prince Edward, this was so obviously to her own interest that it can hardly be said Katharine Parr, Z^Z to be a merit. Even in regard to the Princesses, I take it that Henry was a man who, though he was ready enough to browbeat and bully his own daughters, would not have taken it kindly if his childless wife had attempted to follow suit ; and that Katharine was clever enough to know that her only chance lay in being as civil as possible to every one who had, or might have, the slightest influence. It is not known what became of Katharine Parr's only child, but she is supposed to have died young. The Howards. 325 CHAPTER XX. The Howards. — Edward VI. — Edward SeYxMour, Duke OF Somerset. — The Dudleys. — The Percys. KING HENRY VIII. had four acknowledged children who survived infancy, Mary, by Katharine of Aragon, Elizabeth, by Anne Boleyn, Edward, by Jane Seymour, and a natural son named Henry, who received the surname of Fitzroy. This Henry was the child of Elizabeth, widow of Gilbert, Lord Talboys of Kyne, and was born in the year 1 5 19, about ten years after the manage of King Henry and Katharine of Aragon, and many years before the question of the divorce was mooted. He was regarded with much affec- tion by his father who in 1525, when the boy was six years old, created him Duke of Richmond and Somerset, and a Knight of the Garter. The Duke of Richmond died in the year 1536, aged seventeen, having married Mary Howard, a daughter of the third Duke of Norfolk of that family, a marriage which was never completed owing to the youth of the parties. It would be convenient that I should here say a few words of the great Howard family, which by reason of its Royal descent, its intimate relations with the Royal family, and its great power and influence cannot be altogether passed over in this work. It will be remembered that in the reign of Richard II. Thomas Mowbray, 6th Baron Mowbray, was created Duke of Norfolk, and that he was the grandson of Margaret Plantagenet, Duchess of Norfolk, who was the daughter and heiress of Thomas de Brotherton, Earl of Norfolk, and eldest son of Edward I. by his second wife, Margaret of France (see Table VI.). The title of Duke of Norfolk remained in the Mowbray family till that family became extinct in the ^24 reign of Edward IV. as has been already told, and in 1483, on the accession of Richard III., Sir John Howard, whose mother Lady Margaret Mowbray, was a sister of the first Duke of Norfolk of the Mowbray family, was created Duke of Norfolk. At the same time. Sir John Howard's eldest son was created Earl of Surrey. The family of Howard was itself very ancient, their ancestor having been a distinguished judge in the reign of Edward I., but their special claim to distinction arose from the marriage of Sir Robert Howard (the father of Sir John) with Lady Margaret Mowbray before mentioned, a lady who, when her husband was created Duke of Norfolk, was recog- nised as the heiress of the Mowbray family. John Howard, first Duke of Norfolk of the Howards, was the eldest son of his parents, and it was through his mother that he claimed Royal descent. He was a supporter of Richard III., and was killed fighting on his side at the Battle of Bosworth. His son, the Earl of Surrey, was attainted as a traitor, but was afterwards received into favour by Henry VII., who re-created him Earl of Surrey in 1489, and he was subsequently advanced to his father's rank of Duke of Norfolk, by Henry VIII. in 1 5 14. He had a large family, and through his daughter. Lady Elizabeth Boleyn, and his son, Lord Edmund Howard, was the grandfather of the two Queens, Anne Boleyn and Katharine Howard, and consequently greatgrandfather to Anne Boleyn's daughter, Queen Elizabeth. He had two wives who were cousins, both named Tylney, and his second wife, Agnes Tylney, was the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk whose connection with Katharine Howard has been before referred to. This Duke died in 1524, and was succeeded as third Duke by his eldest son, Thomas Howard, a person who in the reign of Henry VHL, attained to great power and influence. In his father's lifetime, while he bore his father's second title of Earl of Surrey, he won the famous Battle of Flodden, and he was afterwards more or less concerned in all the subsequent transactions of that reign, and is the Duke of Norfolk in the play ''Henry VIII." In his youth he I I ■■*3fP 326 History of the Royal Family of England. The Howards. 2>^7 married Anne Planta^enet, daughter of Edward IV., and aunt of Henry VIII., but his children by this lady all died young, and on her death he married Lady Elizabeth Stafford, eldest daughter of Edward Stafford, last Duke of Buckingham of his family, and who, as has been already mentioned, was one of the earlier victims to King Henry's cruelty. From what has been said in previous chapters it will be seen that the third Duke of Norfolk of the Howard's and his second wife were alike of Royal descent (see Tables IX. and XIII.), and that the lady through her father's mother, Katharine Woodville, was also nearly related to the King through the King's grandmother, Elizabeth Woodville. The eldest son *of Thomas, third Duke of Norfolk, by Elizabeth Stafford, who bore the title of Earl of Surrey in his father's life, was one of the most brilliant and accomplished persons of his time, being equally distinguished as a man of letters and a soldier^ and he is known as the author of some of the earliest poetry in the English language. In his later days King Henry became profoundly jealous of the Duke of Norfolk and his son, who had hitherto been regarded as his most faithful and, on the whole, respectable adherents ; and in his last illness the King caused them both to be arrested and accused of high treason on grounds which are now, I believe, generally admitted to have been to the last degree frivolous and absurd. Six days later the Earl of Surrey was beheaded, but the execution of his father, who was then seventy-three, was postponed, and he ultimately escaped, for though on the day before his death Henry sent an urgent order for the immediate execution of his old friend and servant, the King himself had gone to his account before that order could be executed. The Duke remained as a State prisoner throughout the reign of Edward VI., and was one of the unhappy group of prisoners who were found kneeling at the gates of the Tower when Queen Mary made her State entrance prior to her Coronation. As is well known she immediately liberated them all, and the old Duke was instantly restored to his rank and position and a large portion of his prop rty ; and during the short remainder of his life he enjoyed the confidence and the friendship of the Queen. He died in 1554, and was succeeded by his grandson, Thomas Howard, eldest son of the distinguished Earl of Surrey before mentioned, by a lady of the great de Vere family. This, Thomas Howard, fourth Duke of his family, was born in 1536. and was therefore twenty-two when Elizabeth ascended the Throne. As he was that Queen's second cousin, his grandfather, the third Duke, and her grandmother. Lady Elizabeth Boleyn, having been brother and sister, he was by many degrees her most respectable connection on her mother's side ; and he was for a time treated with much distinction. It is, however, a matter of general history that he afterwards aspired to become the husband of the captive Queen of Scots, and having become, as was alleged, implicated in one of the conspiracies for the release of that lady, he was attainted as a traitor, and beheaded in the year 1572, and for a time his honours as Duke of Norfolk and Earl of Surrey became extinct. He had been married three times, and his first wife, Mary Fitz Alan, the heiress of that great family, brought the Earldom of Arundel into the Howard family. It will be remembered that the Earldom of Arundel was first conferred on William de Albini, second husband of Adelais of Louvaine, widow of Henry I., and it remained with the Albini's till they became extinct in 1289 (temp. Edward I.). It then passed to Richard Fitz Alan, who had married one of the Albini co- heiresses, and it remained with the Fitz Alan's till they became extinct in 1580 (temp. Elizabeth), when it passed to the Duke of Norfr>lk's son by this marriage. Philip Howard, th(f eldest son of the third Duke (who was called Philip after Philip 11. of Spain), succeeded only to the title of Earl of Arundel in right of his mother. He was born in 1557, and was only fifteen at the date of his father's execu- tion, notwithstanding which execution he enjoyed for a time some favour from the Queen ; but, being a Catholic, he was ultimately committed to the Tower, where he was kept a prisoner for the rest of his life, and where he died in 1595. 326 History of the Royal Family of England. The Howards. 327 •^ married Anne Plantagenet, daughter of Edward IV., and aunt of Henry VIII., but his children by this lady all died young, and on her death he married Lady Elizabeth Stafford, eldest daughter of Edward Stafford, last Duke of Buckingham of his family, and who, as has been already mentioned, was one of the earlier victims to King Henry's cruelty. From what has been said in previous chapters it will be seen that the third Duke of Norfolk of the Howard's and his second wife were alike of Royal descent (see Tables IX. and XIII.), and that the lady through her father's mother, Katharine Woodville, was also nearly related to the King through the King's grandmother, Elizabeth Woodville. The eldest son of Thomas, third Duke of Norfolk, by Elizabeth Stafford, who bore the title of Earl of Surrey in his father's life, was one of the most brilliant and accomplished persons of his time, being equally distinguished as a man of letters and a soldier, and he is known as the author of some of the earliest poetry in the English language. In his later days King Henry became profoundly jealous of the Duke of Norfolk and his son, who had hitherto been regarded as his most faithful and, on the whole, respectable adherents ; and in his last illness the King caused them both to be arrested and accused of high treason on grounds which are now, I believe, generally admitted to have been to the last degree frivolous and absurd. Six days later the Earl of Surrey was beheaded, but the execution of his father, who was then seventy-three, was postponed, and he ultimately escaped, for though on the day before his death Henry sent an urgent order for the immediate execution of his old friend and servant, the King himself had gone to his account before that order could be executed. The Duke remained as a State prisoner throughout the reign of Edward VI., and was one of the unhappy group of prisoners who were found kneeling at the gates of the Tower when Queen Mary made her State entrance prior to her Coronation. As is well known she immediately liberated them all, and the old Duke was instantly restored to his rank and position and a large portion of his prop rty ; and during the short remainder of his life he enjoyed the confidence and the friendship of the Queen. He died in 1554, and was succeeded by his grandson, Thomas Howard, eldest son of the distinguished Earl of Surrey before mentioned, by a lady of the great de Vere family. This, Thomas Howard, fourth Duke of his family, was born in 1536. and \\ as therefore twenty-two when Elizabeth ascended the Throne. As he was that Queen's second cousin, his grandfather, the third Duke, and her grandmother. Lady Elizabeth Boleyn, having been brother and sister, he was by many degrees her most respectable connection on her mother's side ; and he was for a time treated with much distinction. It is, however, a matter of general history that he afterwards aspired to become the husband of the captive Queen of Scots, and having become, as was alleged, implicated in one of the conspiracies for the release of that lady, he was attainted as a traitor, and beheaded in the year 1572, and for a time his honours as Duke of Norfolk and Earl of Surrey became extinct. He had been married three times, and his first wife, Mary Fitz Alan, the heiress of that great family, brought the Earldom of Arundel into the Howard family. It will be remembered that the Earldom of Arundel was first conferred on William de Albini, second husband of Adelais of Louvaine, widow of Henry I., and it remained with the Albini's till they became extinct in 1289 (temp. Edward I.). It then passed to Richard Fitz Alan, who had married one of the Albini co- heiresses, and it remained with the Fitz Alan's till they became extinct in 1580 (temp. Elizabeth), when it passed to the Duke of Norfolk's son by this marriage. Philip Howard, the eldest son of the third Duke (who was called Philip after Philip II. of Spain), succeeded only to the title of Earl of Arundel in right of his mother. He was born in 1557, and was only fifteen at the date of his father's execu- tion, notwithstanding which execution he enjoyed for a time some favour from the Queen ; but, being a Catholic, he was ultimately committed to the Tower, where he was kept a prisoner for the rest of his life, and where he died in 1595. 328 History of the Royal Family of E norland. He is regarded by Catholics as having been practically a martyr to his reh'gion. (See the " Lives of Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, and Anne Dacres, his wife." Edited by the Duke of Norfolk. Hurst and Blackett.) The Earl married Anne Dacres of the great family of the " Dacres of the North " a lady who seems to have been fully his equal in virtue, but it would be out of place to enter into the details of their verv saintly and edifying lives. In 1664 Thomas Howard, the great-grandson of this Thihp, was restored to his rank as Duke of Norfolk and Earl of Surrey— being already Earl of Arundel— and ever since then the Dukedom of Norfolk and the Earldoms of Arundel and Surrey have been handed down in the direct male line of the Howards; and from junior branches of that line many Peers and distinguished families, who at the present time bear the name of Howard, are also descended. Between the reigns of Edward HI. and Henry VH. the title of Duke was comparatively common, but the Tudor Monarchs, and in particular the sister Queens, Mary and Elizabeth, were exceedingly chary of bestowing it, and as a matter of fact after the execution of the Dukes of Northumber- land and Suffolk, on the accession of Mary, the old Duke of Norfolk was not only the Premier but the only Duke left in England. As neither Mary nor Elizabeth created any Duke, he and his grandson, who was beheaded in 1572, were the only persons who enjoyed that rank during those reigns, and m the last thirty years of Elizabeth's life the title of Duke seemed to have become extinct in England. Edward VI. was born on the 12th of October 1537, and was therefore aged nine years and three months when he ascended the Throne in January 1547, and he had not com- pleted his sixteenth year when he died on the 6th of July 1553. Oddly enough he is the only eldest son of any English Sovereign since Edward I. who was not created Prince of Wales. He reigned six years and six months. There is no English Prince upon whom more enthusiastic praises have been lavished than this King, and it is impcssible Edward VI. 29 to take up any work, either of history or fiction in which he is mentioned, in which his precocious learning and piety, and the amiability of his disposition are not extolled to the skies. I have no wish to detract from his virtues, but I hardly see how the various authors find the material for their extreme praise. He died at an age when a man's faculties for good or bad have scarcely been developed, and when it is impossible to foretell the future; and during the whole of his short life —during a great part of which he was very sickly — he was under the minute and careful guidance of ambitious and powerful men ; so that it is impossible to suppose that he ever had any real power, or even personal liberty, or that he was really responsible for either the good or the bad actions committed in his name. If he had been responsible I should have thought better of his amiability if, notwithstanding their crimes, he had interposed to save the lives of his maternal uncles, who, bad men as they were, were men with whom he had lived on term's of intimacy, and for whom he had certainly professed great affection all his life. He kept a diary which is often quoted, and which certainly appears to show that he had plenty of brains, but which, if it is the genuine and spontaneous expression of his own feelings (which is very doubtful), would also show that he was somewhat cold-hearted. He was highly and probably over-educated ; and he had imbibed, as far as one can see, in all sincerity, the religious views of the most extreme Reformers. His religion, however, seems to me to have been of that narrow-minded and rather uncharitable kind which is so often to be found in religious young persons who have had no practical experience of life, If he had turned out well it would have been the result rather of his own merits than of his bringing up, for, though he had little or no real power, he was treated with a slavish adulation, suitable rather to an Eastern Potentate than to an English King, and which would have greatly surprised even the greatest of his Plantagenet ancestors. His relatives and courtiers knelt when they spoke to him ; when he dined with his sisters he sat on a Throne under a canopy, and they on a I i ^lo OJ* History of the Royal Family of England. The Dudleys. narrow bench at a distance; and it is related that before she ventured to take her seat before dinner, his sister Eh^zabeth was on one occasion seen to go on her knees five separate times. In the ordinary course of things such a training must have turned his head, and led him to think that he was a demi-god ; and a youth who starts in life with absolute power and that belief in himself is, to say the least, apt to go wrong. Before his death Edward was induced to make a wiH bequeathing the Crown over the heads of his sisters to his cousin, Jane Grey, but apart from the fact that he was a minor, such will was clearly illegal, as, except possibly in the case of Henry VIII., whose will was made under powers expressly conferred upon him by Act of Parliament, no English Sovereign has the right to change the line of succession Ihe persons in authority during Edward's reign were successively Edward Seymour and John Dudley. Seymour was the eldest brother of the King's mother Jane Seymour, and in the reign of Henry VIII he had attained to considerable power and been created in 1537 Earl of Hertford He was one of the eighteen executors appointed by King Henry to govern the Kingdom during Edward's minority, but on Henry's death Seymour, in defiance of some and with the connivance of others of his co-executors seized the supreme authority and caused himself to be created Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector of the Realm. As has been already related, he was at once involved in disputes with his brother, Thomas Lord Seymour of Sudeley, whom he beheaded early in 1549, and in the course of a {^^^r months he was him- self deprived of power by Dudley. He was for a short time confined in the Tower, and was then pardoned ; but havin- again become an object of suspicion he was arrested in October 155 1, and beheaded in the following January Seymour was a strong Reformer, but he is admitted by all writers to have been a man of extraordinary rapacity and arrogance, and in the crisis of his fate he appears to have shevvn neither dignity, firmness, nor courage. I must return to nis descendants later on. 331 In writing of Henry VII. I omitted to mention two of his ministers with whom, nevertheless, his memory is intimately connected. These were Empson and Dudley, two Barons of the Exchequer, whom the King employed in those nefarious and illegal measures, he was accustomed to employ to grind money out of his subjects. These persons incurred the utmost obloquy and general hatred, and immediately after his accession Henry VIII. put them to death under sentences —the legality of which has been questioned, but the substantial justice of which is generally admitted. This Dudley was father of the John Dudley above mentioned, who, notwith- standing his parentage, found some favour with Henry VIII. and was raised to the Peerage as Viscount de L'Isle in 1542. He was a strong supporter of Somerset who advanced him to the great title of Earl of Warwick on Edward's accession in 1547, but from that time Dudley used every effort to supersede his patron, and ultimately did so in 1549. Then he himself became, in fact though not in name. Protector, and was created or practically created himself Duke of Northumberland. Both Seymour and Dudley had the idea of raisin<^ their own families to the Throne. Seymour wished to marry his daughter. Lady Jane Seymour, to the young King, and Dudley did succeed in marrying his fourth son, Guildford, to Lady Jane Grey, whom, under the wills of Henry VIII. and Edward VI he hoped to place on the Throne. Of Dudley's subsequent fate I must speak later on. He married a lady named Guild- ford by whom he had a large family. His two elder sons died without issue ; Ambrose, the third, was created Earl of Warwick and he also died without issue. Guildford, the fourth, had no child and was beheaded by Queen Mary, and Robert, the fifth, was afterwards the notorious Earl of Leicester, Queen Elizabeth's well known favourite. He also left no acknowledged legitimate issue, though he had a son who claimed to be, and probably was, his lawful heir ; and whose widow was afterwards created by Charles L, Duchess of Dudley, for her life. I i 332 History of the Royal Family of England, It may be here mentioned that the Earldom of Northumber- land was held with some intervals by the great house of Percy from 1377 (temp. Richard II.) till 1537, at which date, the lawful heir being under attainder from Henry VIII., the title became extinct. Dudley was interpolated in the reign of Edward VI., but the Percys were restored by Queen Mary and remained Earls of Northumberland till 17 16 (temp. George I.), when the male line of the family became extinct. In 1766 (temp. George III.) Sir Hugh Smithson, who had married the heiress of the Percys, was created Duke of Northumberland, and assumed the name of Percy instead of Smithson, and from him the present Duke is descended. CHAPTER XXI. The Claimants to the Throne on the Death of Edward VI. — Mary I. IN one of the early chapters of this work I said that on the death of Edward VI. no one knew who could, or would, or ought to succeed to the Throne, and in a later place I have said that the English people had at that time no practical alternative but to accept a female Sovereign, and I think both of these propositions are substantially true. Edward IV. was the legal representative of the great house of York, and Henry VII., who married Edward IV.'s daughter and heiress, may be taken as representing the rival house of Lancaster. Now there were at the death of Edward VI. eleven persons living, ten of whom were descended from Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York, while the eleventh was descended from Katharine Countess of Devon, youngest daughter of Edward IV. ; and nearly everyone of these eleven persons had some partizans who regarded her or him as a possible and eligible claimant to the Throne, and many enemies who believed or professed to believe that her or his title was distinctly bad. Failing these eleven persons it would have been necessary to go to the Pole family, who were the children of Margaret Countess of Salisbury, only daughter and heiress of Edward IV.'s next brother, George Duke of Clarence (see Table XIV.), but even then the Pole family offered no very eligible candidate. Of the four sons of the Countess Margaret, Henry, the eldest, had as I have said been beheaded by Henry VIII., and except a son who died before King Edward's death, he had left only daughters, of whom Katharine Pole, the eldest, 333 TABLE XIV. RICHARD PLANTAGENE "ke of York. Behcad( 1^- (i) King Edward IV. d. 1483. (2) George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, d. 1477. (3) King Richard III Killed in battle 1485 s.p. (i) Elizabeth Plantagenet d. 1503. = King Hhnry VII , 1509. (Katharine Plantagenet. (i)Edward Plantagenet, (2) Margaret Plantagenet, d. 1527. Earl of Warwick. Countess of Salisbury. = Edward Couktenay, Earl of Keheaded 1499 *./. Beheaded 3541 Devon, d. 1511. = sir Richard Pole. ' d. 1505. (i)KingHenryVIII. d. 1547. James IV. = (2) Margaret Tudor = Archibald Louis Xi|(3) Mary Tudor = Charles (i) Henry land. Killed '^^ »54i. DnTTr.T acq Kinz of FranI d. i^. in battle 1513- ill Douglass, Earl of Angus. d. 1556. King of P'ranj d. 1515 withd issue by MaJ (i) King Edward VI. Z7 the wife of Lord Guildford Dudley, and in her sixteenth year ; (8 and 9) Jane's younger sisters, Katharine and Mary; (10) their cousin Margaret Clifford (the daughter of their mother's sister, Eleanor Brandon, Countess of Westmoreland), then aged thirteen (these were descended from Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York); and (11) Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devon, then aged twenty-six. Of these eleven persons the first thing to be remarked is that nine of them were women, and one was a little boy, and the second that with two exceptions, Mary Queen of Scots and Edward Courtenay, the legitimacy of every one of them was in dispute. Each of the daughters of Henry VIII. had been declared by Parliament to be illegitimate. Henry VIII.'s sister Mar- garet had divorced her second husband, the father of Margaret Douglas, on the ground that when he married her he was already "pre-contracted"; and if her marriage with him was invalid, then Margaret Douglas was illegitimate, and her claims and tho^e of her young son were void ; and Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, when he married Henry's younger sister Mary, had, so it would appear, a wife living ; and it was said that Mary's daughters by him were illegitimate, and consequently that the claims of Frances Brandon and her daughters, and of Margaret Clifford, the daughter of PVances's sister Eleanor Brandon, were also void. A distinc- tion, however, was raised between the case of Margaret Clifford and that of her cousins the Greys, in that Charles Brandon's first wife had died between the births of his daughters Frances and Eleanor ; and it was suggested that a legal marriage between Brandon and Mary might be pre- sumed before the birth of their daughter Eleanor, who was Margaret Clifford's mother. The Princess Mary's claim was certainly the best. She had undoubtedly been declared by Act of Parliament to be illegitimate, and that statute had never been repealed, but then probably no human being believed that in reality she was illegitimate, and by a later statute, notwithstanding the Y 338 History of the Royal Family of England, Claimants to the Throne. 339 former, she had been formally restored to her place in the succession failing Edward VI. Her position as next heiress to Edward had been distinctly recognised by the will of Henry VHL, which, assuming it to have been duly executed (a fact which is disputed), was executed under powers given to him by Parliament to determine the succession. Moreover Mary was backed by the powerful influence of her cousin the Emperor Charles V. (who was the son of her mother's sister), and I think there can be little doubt that at this time she was very popular with the mass of the people. On the other hand the obstacles in her way were very grave. The country was rent with religious dissensions, and Mary was known to be a strong Catholic. As a Catholic, I may be permitted to believe that at this time, the bulk of the commonality, including most of the country gentlemen, would have viewed with satisfaction the restoration of the ancient religion, but certainly most of the nobility and nearly all the established Clergy regarded such possible restoration with the utmost consternation. Many of the nobles had been gratified with large grants of Church lands, which they feared, though, as it proved, erroneously, they would be made to disgorge ; and many of them, and most of the Clergy had so fully committed themselves to the Protestant cause as to be in mortal fear of reprisals affecting their position and wealth, if not their persons, from a Catholic Sovereign. On their behalf it was argued, plausibly enough, that Parliament had acted incon- sistently in restoring Mary to her place in the succession, while it continued to stigmatize her as a bastard ; and that to repeal the Act by which she had been so solemnly declared illegitimate would be undignified, and would involve great practical difficulties, as affecting many proceedings in the late reigns which were based upon it. The real difficulty in Mary's way, however, was that she was an unmarried woman turned thirty-eight, known to be m bad health, and extremely unlikely even if she married to bear children, and therefore it was universally felt that her elevation to the Throne, while likely to be a source of dis- turbance in the immediate present, offered no prospect of any permanent settlement. Elizabeth had youth on her side, but at that time no other special advantage. She also had been declared to be illegitimate, and she had also been restored to her position in the succession by Act of Parliament and by her father's will, but in her case there was the disadvantage that many persons both in England and abroad did really think she was illegiti- mate. Moreover there was no person of influence who had any special reason for desiring her advancement, and in religious matters she was, if I may be allowed the expression, a "dark horse," neither the Catholics nor the Protestants feeling any great assurance as to which side she would ulti- mately take. Mary Queen of Scots was out of the question as being then a child wholly in the hands of the French. Her aunt, Margaret Douglas, apart from the question affecting her birth, was as strong a Catholic as Mary herself, and was moreover a Scotch woman both by birth and marriage; and at the crucial time she was resident far from the scene of action, and an invalid. The Duchess of Suffolk had ceded her claims to her eldest daughter Jane Grey, and it was upon this lady that the Protestants for a time based their hopes. She was young, married, likely to have children, a strong Protestant, and with some Parliamentary title to the Throne, as by King Henry's will the Crown had been settled, failing issue of the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth, on her mother the Duchess of Suffolk and her heirs. Moreover Jane was backed by Dudley Duke of Northumberland, then the most powerful man in the kingdom, to whose son Guildford she was married. There was, however, as has been said, a doubt about the legitimacy of Jane's mother, the Duchess of Suffolk, some persons regarding the young Margaret Clifford as the only lawful descendant of Henry's sister Mary. Behind Jane Grey and Margaret Clifford stood Edward Courtenay, who possessed great advantages. He was a man ''i i^<|WueBj!frM«*i 340 History of the Royal Family of England. in the prime of youth and vigour, of the Royal blood, of ancient and unblemished family, and of undoubted legitimacy ; and it is certain that there were many persons who at all events, strongly desired that he should be married to one or other of the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth, and as her husband virtually reign as King. At Edward's death, how- ever, Courtenay was still a prisoner ; he was personally known to very few people, and he proved in fact to be a feeble and dissolute person, who speedily disappeared from practical politics. The actual course of events is tolerably well known. King Edward died on the 6th July 1553. The Council kept his death a secret for twenty-four hours, and sent Jane Grey to the Tower, where the Sovereigns were accustomed to await their Coronation. On the following day Jane was visited by her husband. Lord Guildford Dudley, his father and mother (the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland), her own parents (the Duke and Duchess of Suffolk), and many other influential persons, who, kneeling before her, offered her the Crown. It was accepted, though it would appear with the most genuine reluctance, and three days later Jane was hurriedly crowned at Westminster and proclaimed Queen. Of her subsequent fate I shall speak later. In the meantime, Mary having successfully evaded an attempt to decoy her to London, where she was to have been imprisoned, acted with the most astonishing energy, courage and firmness. She started on what may be called a march through England, attended in the first instance by little more than her ordinary personal retinue, but she was everywhere received with increasing enthusiasm, and at each place crowds flocked to join her standards ; so that what had begun as a small body of personal friends speedily became a large army. Northumberland, who was sent to oppose her progress, almost immediately threw up the sponge, and himself pro- claimed her Queen, and thenceforth her march to London was converted into a magnificent and triumphant progress. In London she was received with the same enthusiasm, being Queen Mary, 341 \ met in the outskirts by Elizabeth, who, while matters seemed doubtful, had been opportunely sick, and, accompanied by the Princess, Mary proceeded to the Tower to await her Corona- tion, which was performed with great magnificence on the ist of August. At the gates of the Tower she found kneeling the state prisoners of her father's and brother's reigns, the old Duke of Norfolk and the young Courtenay, the Duchess of Somerset, widow of the great Protector, Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, and many others ; and it is well known how, with- out a single exception, she at once restored them to liberty, rank and fortune — an instance of magnanimity of which it would be impossible to find a counterpart in the annals of any other of the Tudors. When I come to give an account of the Tudor Queens who were known in my youth as " Bloody Mary" and "Good Queen Bess," I confess that my heart fails me, so fierce has been the controversy that has raged round these two ladies. I shall, however, speak of them as briefly as I can, and I will endeavour to speak impartially ; though 1 must frankly con- fess that with all her faults I have a great respect for Queen Mary, and while fully admitting her great abilities I have a most cordial detestation for Queen Elizabeth. I am, however, relieved to know that within the last fifty years the verdict of succeeding historians has been slowly but steadily reversing that of Burnet, Hume and earlier writers; and that at the present day there are i^w persons who do not, though perhaps grudgingly, allow good intentions and some solid virtues to the elder Queen, or who would be prepared altogether to defend the personal character of her sister, Mary Tudor was born on the 8th of February 15 15. She was therefore turned twelve when the question of her parents' divorce was first mooted in 1527, and not quite twenty-one when her mother died in January 1536. She was not yet thirty-one, when her father died in January 1547, and was in her thirty-ninth year on her own accession, in July 1553, to the Throne. She died on the 17th of November 1558, having reigned five years and four months, and being in her forty- LLKIulMllw 342 History of the Royal Family of England. Queen Mary, 343 fourth year. She is generally spoken of as having been a plain, gloomy looking woman, and this is borne out by her portraits taken when she was Queen. Nevertheless there is abundant evidence to show that as a girl she was regarded as pleasing, and all agree that she had remarkably fine eyes, and that her manners were at all times dignified and com- manding. She had a strong taste for and proficiency in music, and if she was not as learned as some of the other ladies of her time, she was at all events highly educated, Henry VI 1 1, as a young man was very fond of children, and appears to have been proud of and attached to his eldest daughter, who was idolized by her mother, and who in all but name held in her childhood and early youth the position of heiress apparent to the Throne. Strange to say, this posi- tion was not materially affected in the earlier years of her parents' quarrels, and thus, until Mary was a full grown woman, she was treated with a deference and respect never before received by any daughter of any English King. This perhaps accounts for the fact that even in the lowest ebb of her fortunes her father's ministers seem never to have been able to treat her otherwise than as a lady of the highest rank and claim to consideration. When the divorce was pronounced Mary was called upon to admit its validity, and consequently her own illegitimacy, and to lay aside the title of Princess. To these demands she during her mother's life gave a firm denial, thereby incurring considerable persecution and some danger ; but after Queen Katherine's death Mary allowed herself, with in my opinion some weakness, to sign the required admissions, and after this she enjoyed on the whole, though with some intervals, con- siderable favour at Court. The King never seems to have entirely lost his affection for her. He invited her to become god-mother to the son of whom he was so proud, and he seems to have set some store by her recognition of the various ladies he was pleased to style his wives. As has been already said, though she remained a bastard by Act of Parliament, Mary was by a subsequent Act restored to her place of succession after Edward, and the fact that she was universally recognized as the lawful daughter of the King is proved by the splendid alliances proposed for her almost as frequently after, as before, her parents' divorce. Among her suitors may be included at different times the Emperor Charles V., whose son she eventually married, Francis I. of France, and his eldest son, afterwards Henry H. and James V. of Scotland. After the accession of Edward VI., Mary assumed great and increasing state, and though she was regarded with jeal- ousy by the King's ministers, who made many petty attempts to interfere with her in the exercise of her religion, they un- doubtedly regarded her as a formidable person, and she held her own with a spirit which in that age of subserviency it is delightful to read of Except in the one particular above mentioned, namely her admission made after her mother's death as to the validity of the divorce, her career as Princess appears to me to have been absolutely without reproach. As Queen she committed two capital errors, her marriage with Philip of Spain, and her persecution of the Protestants, to which may possibly be added a third, the execution of Jane Grey ; but for each of these errors there is much to be pleaded in excuse. Her mother's eldest sister, Juana, eldest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, and heiress to the united Thrones of Aragon and Castile, had married the Archduke Philip, eldest son of the Emperor Maximilian, and by the Archduke, Juana became the mother of Charles, afterwards the Emperor Charles V., who was, in his time, the most powerful of European Princes. This celebrated person had been the most steadfast friend both to his aunt Katharine of Aragon, and to his cousin Mary, who, during many vicissitudes in the reigns of her father and brother, had owed her liberty, and possibly her life, to his interference. It was therefore natural that she should turn to him for advice when she became Queen, and not unnatural that she should yield to his mmnmnm! '. \ 344 History of the Royal Family of England. urgent solicitations to marry his eldest son and heir Philip, afterwards Philip 11. of Spain. It is not, however, difficult to see why this marriage was intensely unpopular with all classes of her subjects. The English, always jealous of foreign interference, were peculiarly sensitive to such interference on the part of the husband of their first female sovereign. It was easy to foresee that, which actually happened, namely that Philip himself, a great continental power, would seek to use his position as husband to the Queen of England for his own purposes ; and would sooner or later involve England in a continental war, as he actually did, with notoriously disastrous results to the English arms. Moreover Spain was a most aggressively Catholic country ; and the Spaniards had the reputation, perhaps exaggerated, but certainly well founded, of persecuting their religious opponents with extreme cruelty. Therefore one can easily sympathise with the terror of the Protestants, at hear- ing that the future King of that country was about to become titular King of England, and indeed their terror was well founded, for I think it cannot be doubted that the subsequent persecutions were largely due to Philip's influence. These, however, are matters of general history into which I cannot go further, but I cannot acquit Mary of some perversity, in insisting on a marriai^e to which all her subjects, as far as appears, Catholic as well as Protestant, were strongly opposed. She was, however, abundantly punished, for all the mis- fortunes and errors of her reign, beginnin^^^ with the insur- rection of Sir Thomas Wyatt, may be directly traced to this marriage. Philip arrived on the 20th of July 1554, and was married to Mary five days later at Winchester. Their conjugal inter- course was not prcjlonged, for he left England on the 29th of August in the following year (1555), and only returned for a short interval between the 20th of March and the 4th of July 1557. Into the general character and future history of King Philip it is not my intention to enter. It has been the custom to represent the conjugal relations of Philip and Mary as Queen Mary. 345 having been extremely unhappy — the temptation to Mary's enemies to represent her in the ridiculous position of an elderly and jealous wife being irresistible. For this pretention, however, I can find no historical grounds. There were abundant reasons in the failing of his father's health, and the troubles in his future dominions, for Philip's not remaining longer in England than he did, — and indeed his remaining so long must have caused him considerable inconvenience ; and though it is of course probable that a young man of twenty- six felt no very lover like affection for a sickly and faded woman, thirteen years his senior, I can see no grounds for saying that Philip failed in kindness or courtesy to his wife while they were together, or that Mary behaved herself under the circumstances otherwise than with dignity and good humour. As to the Marian persecutions, in myopinion there are cases in which some degree of religious persecution can be justified, but such cases are very rare, and in the overwhelming majority of recorded persecutions, such persecutions have been unjustifiably cruel in practice, and extremely futile, it being the well known tendency of persecution, to defeat its own ends. Mary's persecutions were no exception to the rule, and I freely admit that they constitute a stain upon her character; but all the same I think that the blame rests more heavily upon the time in which she lived, and upon her advisers, than upon herself At that time everyone, every ruler, every nation, and every sect, persecuted with more or less ferocity religious opponents as and when he or they got the chance. Mary herself had been brought up in an atmosphere of persecution. She had seen a man, now admitted to have been one of the greatest and best Englishmen of any time — Sir Thomas More, put to death on account of his religious opinions, and she had seen any number of the most saintly and exemplary Priests of her own Church, many of them her personal friends, executed for the same cause. She had her- self suffered much annoyance and trouble on account of her religion, and she was well aware that she owed her com- ,S||^«»»«f«.. I'* 346 History of the Royal Family of England. parative immunity, not to any goodwill on the part of her enemies, but to the protection of her cousin, the Emperor Charles V. Moreover, if the Reformers were her religious opponents, they were also \i^x personal enemies ; and she had been assailed by many of them — by, for instance, Ridley, Bishop of London, with a virulence of abuse which in those days might well have justified their execution altogether apart from religious questions. Making full allowance for the shortness of her reign, I do not think that Mary's persecutions compare unfavourably, either as to the number of persons executed, or the cruelty of their sufferings, with the persecu- tions of the four succeeding reigns ; and I believe that Mary has been selected for special reprobation on account of her religious intolerance, solely because for several centuries after her death every writer whose voice could be heard in England professed the religion which she had persecuted, and detested the religion which she had professed. It is now generally admitted that Mary entered on her course of persecution, not from any natural cruelty, but with extreme reluctance, and under great pressure from her ad- visers ; and that the later years of her life were clouded and embittered by the horror she felt for the sufferings she had allowed to be inflicted. The third blot on Mary's character is the execution of her cousin Jane Grey, and one must admit that one hears with a thrill of horror of the execution of a girl not yet seventeen, who can be regarded as little more than a child. Here again, however, the fault was mainly the fault of the age. Mary had been brought up, so to speak, on the banks of a river of blood, and to say nothing of other persons she had been well accustomed to see her nearest relatives led to execution without distinction of age or sex. Two Queens, one a girl, almost as young as Jane Grey, the old Margaret of Salisbury, who had been Mary's governess and dearest friend in her childhood, and the representatives of the almost Princely houses of de la Pole, Stafford, Pole, Courtenay and Howard, all her own kinsmen had been put to death in her Quee7i Mary, 347 father's reign. The advisers of her brother had not hesitated to execute, almost without even the decent forms of justice, that King's uncles, men whom Mary had been accustomed to see admitted into the innermost circles of Royalty and for both of whom it would appear she had entertained some feelings of friendship ; and her own life had been frequently threatened, and she had every reason to suppose would have been sacrificed if the adherents of Jane Grey had attained to power. Therefore it is not to be wondered at that to Mary herself, and to those who surrounded her, the death of Jane Grey did not present itself in the horrible light in which it presents itself to us in the twentieth century, when a large portion of the community is accustomed to go into hysterics each time a murderer is hanged, and when deliberate cruelty even to the meanest animal would be sufficient to put a man out of the social pale. It may be remembered that when Mary ascended the Throne she was met with an open and armed resistance, but only four persons were executed, the Duke of Northumber- land and three of his immediate partizans : and for these persons no one then professed to feel, and it is impossible to feel even now, any particular pity. Jane Grey and her husband were indeed sentenced to death, but Jane Grey's father, the Duke of Suffolk, though taken in open rebellion, received a free pardon ; and nothing is more clearly proved than that the sentence of Jane Grey and her husband was in the first instance purely formal — that there was no intention of carry- ing it out — that though imprisoned they were treated with the utmost indulgence, and that had matters remained quiet they would have been set at liberty, probably in the course of a few weeks. This, however, was rendered impossible by Jane's own adherents. A new rebellion, which for a short time threatened Mary's Throne and even her life, broke out. Suffolk, who had been not merely pardoned, but received into distinguished favour, joined the rebels, and again proclaimed his daughter ; and it became obvious to everyone that if Mary was to reign in peace strong measures must be taken. Even fl 348 History of the Royal Family of England. then, however, the number of executions which followed was, as compared to the executions which followed every other rising in the century, extraordinarily small. For Suffolk himself no one could feel compassion, nor is it possible for anyone who reads the account of the proceedings of Guildford Dudley during the short period of his public life to feel much for him ; but that it should have been thought necessary to take the life of Jane herself is, and must always be, a source of deep regret. It was, however, strongly urged upon the Queen that the existence of a person who had allowed herself to be crowned was a constant menace to Mary, and Mary signed the warrant with, it is admitted, extreme reluctance, and, as is also admitted, she afterwards felt great regret, which continued throughout her life. It is common to compare the executions of Jane Grey and Mary Queen of Scots, but to my mind they will admit of no fair comparison. Jane was an English subject, and she had committed the greatest act of treason which could be com- mitted by any subject. She had claimed the Throne, and allowed herself to be crowned — she had been taken, if I may say so, in open rebellion, and there is no doubt that then, as it would be now, her offence was an offence which by the law of England was punishable with death. It is true that she was very young, and over persuaded by her relatives, but those writers who dwell so much upon her extraordinary intelligence and virtue, fail to see that the more intelligent she was, and the m.ore she was conscious of what was right and wrong, the greater her offence became, and the less was she entitled to claim indulgence on the score of youth and weakness. Mary Stuart was not an English subject, but the Queen of a foreign country. She was in no way amenable to English laws or under the jurisdiction of Elizabeth ; and so far from falling into Elizabeth's hands as a rebel or an enemy she came to England as an invited guest and with every assurance that her liberty and position as an independent Queen would be recognised and respected. Queen Mary. 349 I have dwelt at length on the personal charges that have been made against Queen Mary, and I will now say a few words in her praise. Apart from the three great errors, which it appears to rrie she committed, I think it is now generally admitted that her rule was in intention, at any rate, just and beneficent. No doubt she restored the Catholic religion, and the Supremacy of the Pope, but she could hardly have been expected to do otherwise, and what she did was sanctioned by law, apparently approved by the bulk of her subjects, and carried out with ex- treme caution and prudence. I can hardly call to mind any female Sovereign who has shown greater personal courage or more remarkable prompti- tude and energy in moments of emergency. Though she has been accused of bigotry no one has ever doubted the sincerity of her religion, and her personal char- acter as a woman was never questioned by the most bitter of her opponents, either in her own life or in subsequent ages. Lastly, in that which concerns us most in a history of the Royal Family, Mary's relations with her kindred, other than Jane Grey, were always of the most kindly description. If ever one woman had cause to hate another Mary had cause to hate Elizabeth, whose mother had supplanted, in- sulted, and as some said murdered her own. Nevertheless, after the fall of Anne Boleyn, when Elizabeth as a little child, singularly forlorn and neglected, was sent to be brought up in the house where the Princess Mary was living, there is evidence to show that Mary consistently treated the young girl whose life she might easily have embittered with kind- ness and even affection. In the crisis of Mary's life after Edward VI.'s death Elizabeth was conveniently ill and remained ill till Mary having surmounted her difficulties was entering London in triumph ; but when Elizabeth at length came out to meet the Queen, Mary received her with the utmost cordiality, and it is specially mentioned that through- out the State ceremonials that followed, she kept Elizabeth fr HUM 50 History of the Royal Family of England. Queen Mary. 351 constantly at her side, " leading her by the hand "and treating her in all respects as first Princess of the Blood. In Wyatt's subsequent rebellion, if there was not positive proof, as I think there was, of Elizabeth's implication (see "The Girlhood of Queen Elizabeth," by Frank Mumby), there were at least the strongest possible grounds for suspect- ing her loyalty, and there were not wanting those who urged the Queen to let Elizabeth share the fate of their cousin Jane Grey. As a matter of fact Elizabeth had to suffer a short period of imprisonment and was then released, and thence- forward, though she was known to be the person to whom, either voluntarily or involuntarily on her part, all the malcontents in the Kingdom looked for support, and around whom all the plots and conspiracies against the Queen were centred, she was uniformly treated with the utmost courtesy and respect, and her title as next heiress to the Throne was recognised in every possible way. No doubt there were political reasons for this. Philip of Spain greatly dreaded the accession of the Scottish Queen which would have brought about the preponderance of French influence in English affairs, and he therefore favoured and wished his wife to favour the cause of Elizabeth in opposition to that of Mary Stuart. I much doubt, however, whether Elizabeth herself under any circumstances or by any influence could have been induced to tolerate a younger sister, related to herself as she was to Mary. Edward Courtenay who was of the Blood Royal had been kept in prison for fourteen years by Mary's father and brother, Mary liberated him, and he at once joined, covertly, at any rate, her enemies, but after a short period of imprisonment Mary let him go to the Continent a free man in the full possession of his honours and with ample means. Would Elizabeth have let him go ? Mary had no cause to love the Greys, who were equally opposed to her claims as Queen and to her religious views. She did indeed execute Jane Grey under circumstances already mentioned, and she beheaded Jane's father with a justice which no one has denied, but to Jane's mother (whom as I shall show later she had ample cause to cast off with contempt), and to Jane's young sisters, she behaved with unbounded kindness, and the latter, at any rate, had bitter cause to lament her death on the accession of the Virgin Oueen. I CHAPTER XXII. Queen Elizabeth.— Mary Tudor, Queen of France AND Duchess of Suffolk.— Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk.— Henry and Frances Grey, Duke and Duchess of Suffolk. QUEEN Mary died on the 17th of November 1558, and Elizabeth thereupon came to the Throne without opposition and indeed with general acclamation. There was in fact no one to oppose her claims. Mary's persecutions had, as mii^ht have been expected, produced a reaction in favour of the Protestants, and Mary's marriage had produced universal disgust for continental alliances, .so that few would have cared at that date to advocate the claims of Mary Stuart, then the wife of the Dauphin of France. Of the other living descendants of Edward IV. there was no one in a position to oppose Elizabeth's claims. Elizabeth was born on the 7th of September 1533, and she was therefore turned thirteen when her father died in January 1547. Henry, who seems prior to her fall to have conceived a hatred of Anne Boleyn, which remained an abiding passion, never liked her child, who was formally declared to be a bastard before she was four years old, and was much neglected during the remainder of the reign. Nevertheless before Henry died Elizabeth was by Act of Parliament declared heiress to the Throne failing issue of her brother and sister, and her title under that Act remained good at Queen Mary's death. During Edward's reign Elizabeth appears to have been regarded with no great favour by any one, though it is said that her young brother was personally fond of her, and in 352 Queen Elizabeth. 353 consequence of her apparent simplicity of life called her his ''sweet sister Temperance." She was regarded by the Catholics as a bastard and a heretic, and the Protestant faction had determined to espouse the rival claims of her cousin Jane Grey. Consequently, as the King had little practical power, his favour probably did more to create jealousy against her on the part of the adherents both of Mary and Jane, than to advance her interests. When Mary came to the Throne Elizabeth was still under twenty, and she appears to have been a fair complexioned, well grown, and stately, but by no means beautiful, young woman. She displayed, however, considerable powers of diplomac)', and under Mar)-, Elizabeth's position and con- sequence, partly by favour of the Queen, partly by her own very skilful tactics, rapidly increased ; and as I have said, on Mary's death she was peacefully acknowledged as Queen! She reigned for forty-four years, and died in the year 1603 in her seventieth year. Elizabeth's reign is one of which as a whole, and from various causes, Englishmen have a right to feel, and most Englishmen do in fact, feel proud, and Elizabeth herself was, no one can deny, a woman of great and rare ability. How far she owed the great reputation which she enjoyed in her own times, and which has ever since been accorded to her, to her own qualities, and how far to adventitious circumstances! is one of the problems of history as to which no two writers agree. For myself I think she possessed in an eminent degree three qualities, each valuable in a ruler, though by no means amiable in a woman, and that she owed her success in life mainly to those three qualities. These three qualities were caution, hardness of heart, and an instinctive and rather cynical knowledge of char- acter. Her caution, amounting to duplicity, as a young woman saved her from many dangers and probably preserved her life, and as a Queen, if it sometimes led her to make grave z fi' il 354 History of the Royal Family of Englajid, Queen Elizabeth, 355 mistakes, it probably, indeed certainly, saved her from far greater ones. Her hardness of heart, which existed notwithstanding many love affairs, enabled her to pursue her political course with a certain ruthlessness and impassibility, which if they led her to commit great crimes, certainly contributed to her prosperity ; and her knowledge of character enabled her almost with unerring judgment to select those ministers upon whom she could and did rely, and who contributed enormously both to her personal reputation for political wisdom, and to the safety and power of her Throne and Kingdom. I know of few incidents more striking than the manner in which Elizabeth, then a young woman of uncertain prospects and most insecure position, and her most celebrated Minister Cecil, then a man of comparatively inferior rank, and whom no one could have expected to rise to any considerable power, so to speak, "took to" each other from the first. Each seemed to recognise at a glance the capacities of the other, and the way in which ever afterwards they worked together to their joint advantage, without break or jar of any kind, has few parallels in history. Elizabeth however, whatever may have been her abilities, certainly owed much to more or less accidental circum- stances. It was under Elizabeth that Philip II. of Spain projected that great invasion commonly spoken of as the "Spanish Armada," an invasion which aroused in Englishmen of all classes and all creeds such a burst of patriotic zeal as has probably never been equalled, and the memory of which has never died out, and even now thrills us. Elizabeth herself behaved with the utmost spirit and energy, but the feeling in the nation was spontaneous, and it can hardly be said that it was Elizabeth who aroused it. It was under Elizabeth that there arose that great revival, one may almost say be- ginning of English literature, which produced the greatest poet of any age or any country, and a host of other writers whose fame is only dwarfed by their great contemporary. Elizabeth no doubt encouraged the movement but she did not inspire or produce it, and yet it is to this more than to anything else that she owes her greatest celebrity. Lastly, it was under Elizabeth that the Church of England as now established became what it is. Henry VIII. intro- duced the Reformation, but Elizabeth practically established the Church of England on its present basis ; and consequently all admirers of that institution (and until lately they included the enormous majority of the nation) have ever felt bound to praise the Queen to whom it owed so much. Nevertheless it may well be doubted if Elizabeth's very fervent sympathies were ever given to her great creation. What may be called Queen Elizabeth's private character is well known. She was highly educated, and was a woman of great culture with a great appreciation of literature and music, though with a very singular taste in painting. In her portraits she refused to allow any shadows on the face to be introduced, and thus her pictures uniformly present a certain likeness to Chinese faces on a tea tray. Her personal vanity was abnormal, and the exhibitions she made of it caused her to be the laughing stock of all Europe, as may be seen by anyone who takes the pains to read the despatches of any of the foreign Ambassadors of her Court. She never married, but was for ever, and even after she had become an old woman, talking oi getting married, and the history of her various matrimonial treaties has in fact filled a very entertaining volume. (See " Courtships of Queen Elizabeth," by Martin Hume.) There is indeed nothing to be found in the annals of female Royalty more funny than the descriptions of her elaborate affectations of maidenly bashfulncss and her solemn diplomatic flirtations conducted with her Royal suitors through the medium of their Am- bassadors, who, it may be remarked, were usually themselves good looking and attractive men. Elizabeth's religion, if she had any, was an unknown quality. Under Edward VI. she posed as a puritan, and when Mary as Queen proposed that she should become a 35^ History of the Royal Family of England. Catholic she asked for books and instructions, and after taking the decent interval of a week to consider the question, she gracefully allowed herself to be converted to the ancient faith. As Queen she became a great Protestant heroine, and in the matter of religious persecution fairly rivalled her father let alone her sister Mary. Nevertheless she retained what would now be called High Church tendencies, and compen- sated herself for any violence she had done to her religious feelings in the past by vigorously snubbing her Bishops and insulting their wives, of whose existence indeed she strongly disapproved. In this particular however the Bishop's wives had little more to complain of than the other married ladies of the Court, for the Queen seems to have disliked women in general, and married ladies in particular, a dislike which in the case of any woman married to a man whom Elizabeth choose to consider might be a possible admirer of her own was apt to become virulent. As a consequence the younger, and the more prudent, courtiers ignored their wives whenever it was possible, and no good-looking lady could appear at Court without the risk at any rate of severe browbeatii g. ' Dudley Earl of Leicester, who was for many years so to speak her predominant favourite, had three wives successively, all of whom were studiously kept in the background. One of them, the first, he is supposed to have actually murdered, and he is at all events charged with attempting the murder of the second. I believe there are persons who believe in Elizabeth's " virtue," and if they have read with any attention the history of her relations with Leicester, to say nothing of other gentle- men too numerous to mention, and still retain that belief, I congratulate them sincerely on their guileless innocence and singular purity of imagination. Of Elizabeth's relations with her kindred on the Royal side I shall have to speak later. She died on the 24th of March 1603, and the accounts given of her deathbed are rather shocking. In accordance with the plan before mentioned, I must Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. 57 now revert to Mary Tudor, younger sister of Henry VIII., but I think it will be convenient if, before speaking of her personally, I say a few words of Charles Brandon, who was her second husband, and the father of her children. This person is said to have been of a good Suffolk family, and his father was killed fighting on the Lancastrian side, and so it is reported, by the hand of Richard III. himself at the Battle of Bosworth. Charles Brandon, who was born about 1484, was an infant at the time of his father's death, and Henry VII., in acknowledgment of his father's services, interested him- self in the child, and brought him up with his own sons, the Princes Arthur and Henry as a kind of companion, and over the latter Brandon, who was the elder by seven years, ob- tained and retained throughout his life great influence. Dugdale says, "which Charles being a person of comely stature, high of courage and conformity of disposition to King Henry VI II,, became so acceptable to him, especially in all his youthful exercises and pastimes, as that he soon attained great advancement both in titles of honour and otherwise." Brandon's matrimonial engagements were almost as com- plicated as those of his illustrious master himself, and a good deal more obscure. It would however appear that he married first Margaret Neville, daughter of the Marquis of Montague and widow of Sir John Mortimer, and that he was divorced from this lady on the ground of a pre-contract on his part with Anne Browne, daughter of Sir Anthony Browne. After the divorce he married this Anne Browne, and by her became the father of two daughters, both of whom subse- quently made good marriages, and whose legitimacy is not disputed, having been expressly acknowledged both by Brandon himself and by his third wife Mary Tudor. What became of this Anne Browne is not known, but both Mary Tudor's biographers, Miss Strickland (see her " Tudor Princesses "), and Mrs Everett Green, concur in thinking that she was not only alive at the date of the marriage between Brandon and Mary, but that she lived 358 History of the Royal Family of England. till some date between the dates of the births of their two daughters hVances and Eleanor ; and further, both these writers think that Anne Bnnvnc did not acquiesce in Brandon's subsequent marria^jje, and that she said or did something which caused considerable uneasiness in Mary and her friends as to the validity of her marriage and the legitimacy of her children. At all events it is certain that before her death Mary obtained from the Pope a Bull declaring her marriage with Brandon valid, and both her children legitimate. Mary would hardly have taken so unusual a step as to appeal to Rome without grave cause ; but the validity of the decree depends much on whether Anne Browne was heard before the Ecclesiastical Courts, which does not appear. I have said that T make no pretence to antiquarian research, and there- fore I leave this question as to the validity of Mary Tudor's marriage, which though it might have been of vital conse- quence, was not in fact, and as events turned out, of any great practical importance. Brandon is said to have been a remarkably handsome man, and apart from his marriai;es seems to have found great favour in the eyes of ladies. As early as 15 13 Brandon, who was then about twenty-nine, accompanied the King to the Continent, and was there presented to the celebrated Arch Duchess Margaret, Regent of the Netherlands, daughter to the Emperor Maximilian, widow of the Duke of Savoy, and aunt to Charles afterwards the Emperor Charles V. Either in reality, or in the imaginations of Brandon and King Henry, this crreat ladv fell much in love with Brandon, and at all events it is certain that Brandon wished, and to some extent expected, to marry her, and that Henry favoured his aspira- tions. It was with this view that in 15 14 the King raised Brandon to the great rank of Duke of Suffolk, and granted him the estates formerly held by the Dukes of Suffolk of the de la Pole family. Two years before Brandon had been created Viscount Lisle ; but nevertheless such great and rapid advancement in rank conferred upon a person not of the Royal or even noble blood or connection, was in those days Mary Tudor, Duchess of Suffolk. 359 unprecedented, and created some excitement and consterna- tion on the part of the older nobility. Returning to Mary Tudor, the date of her birth is some- what uncertain, and it is stated by Mrs. Green to have been in 1496, and by Miss Strickland to have been in 1498. I think the earlier date more probable, and assuming it to be correct she would have been thirteen when her brother became King. She was, of course, the subject of numerous matrimonial treaties, but was ultimately married as his third wife to Louis XH. of France. This Prince, who is the Duke of Orleans so grapliically described in Sir Walter Scott's novel of " Quentin Durward," married first Joanna, daughter of Louis XI., from whom he was divorced on the ground that the marriage had been entered into under moral, if not physical, coercion by Louis XL, a coercion which certainly seems to have been to some extent exercised. Joanna after- wards became a nun, and is reputed as a Saint. Louis married secondly the celebrated Anne, Duchess of Brittany, widow of Charles VIII. of France, by whom he had a daughter Claude, whom he gave in marriage to his cousin and heir presumptive who afterwards succeeded him as Francis I. He married thirdly Mary Tudor. Louis and Mary were married with extraordinary magnificence and splendour in France on the 9th of October 15 14, Louis being at the date of the marriage fifty-two and Mary eighteen. It may be noted, however, that the French King was known at the time to be in bad health and was not expected to live long, and that Mary, who appears to have been a young woman of spirit, in consenting to the marriage expressly stipulated with her brother that in the event of her being left a widow she should be at liberty to choose a second husband for herself This there is some reason to suppose she did, with a view to Brandon, whom she had very frequently met at her brother's Court. The marriage between Louis XII. and Mary did not last long, fc-r Louis died not quite three months after its celebration on the ist of January 1515, his death having been it is said accelerated by certain changes in his habits which he thought necessary to >i\ 358 History of the Royal Family of Eiigland. till some date between the dates of the births of their two daughters Frances and Eleanor; and further, both these writers think that Anne Browne did not acquiesce in Brandon's subsequent marriao^e, and that she said or did something which caused considerable uneasiness in Mary and her friends as to the validity of her marriage and the legitimacy of her children. At all events it is certain that before her death Mary obtained from the Pope a Bull declaring her marriage with Brandon valid, and both her children legitimate. Mary would hardly have taken so unusual a step as to appeal to Rome without grave cause ; but the validity of the decree depends much on whether Anne Browne was heard before the Ecclesiastical Courts, which does not appear. I have said that I make no pretence to antiquarian research, and there- fore I leave this question as to the validity of Mary Tudor's marriage, which though it might have been of vital conse- quence, was not in fact, and as events turned out, of any great practical importance. Brandon is said to have been a remarkably handsome man, and apart from his marriai^es seems to have found great favour in the eyes of ladies. As early as 15 13 Brandon, who was then about twenty-nine, accompanied the King to the Continent, and was there presented to the celebrated Arch Duchess Margaret, Regent of the Netherlands, daughter to the Emperor Maximilian, widow of the Duke of Savoy, and aunt to Charles afterwards the P^mperor Charles V. Either in reality, or in the imaginations of Brandon and King Henry, this great lady fell much in love with Brandon, and at all events it is certain that Brandon wished, and to some extent expected, to marry her, and that Henry favoured his aspira- tions. It was with this view that in 15 14 the King raised Brandon to the great rank of Duke of Suffolk, and granted him the estates formerly held by the Dukes of Suffolk of the de la Pole family. Two years before Brandon had been created Viscount Lisle ; but nevertheless such great and rapid advancement in rank conferred upon a person not of the Royal or even noble blood or connection, was in those days nl Mary Tudor ^ Duchess of Siiffcdk. 359 unprecedented, and created some excitement and consterna- tion on the part of the older nobility. Returning to Mary Tudor, the date of her birth is some- what uncertain, and it is stated by Mrs. Green to have been in 1496, and by Miss Strickland to have been in 1498. I think the earlier date more probable, and assuming it to be correct she would have been thirteen when her brother became King. She was, of course, the subject of numerous matrimonial treaties, but was ultimatelv married as his third wife to Louis XH. of France. This Prince, who is the Duke of Orleans so graphically described in Sir Walter Scott's novel of " Quentin Durward," married first Joanna, daughter of Louis XL, from whom he was divorced on the ground that the marriage had been entered into under moral, if not physical, coercion by Louis XI., a coercion which certainly seems to have been to some extent exercised. Joanna after- wards became a nun, and is reputed as a Saint. Louis married secondly the celebrated Anne, Duchess of Brittany, widow of Charles VI H. of France, by whom he had a daughter Claude, whom he gave in marriage to his cousin and heir presumptive who afterwards succeeded him as Francis L He married thirdly Mary Tudor. Louis and Mary were married with extraordinary magnificence and splendour in France on the 9th of October 15 14, Louis being at the date of the marriage fifty-two and Mary eighteen. It may be noted, however, that the French King was known at the time to be in bad health and was not expected to live long, and that Mary, who appears to have been a young woman of spirit, in consenting to the marriage expressly stipulated with her brother that in the event of her being left a widow she should be at liberty to choose a second husband for herself This there is some reason to suppose she did, with a view to Brandon, whom she had very frequently met at her brother's Court. The marriage between Louis XII. and Mary did not last long, f(-r Louis died not quite three months after its celebration on the ist of January 15 15, his death having been it is said accelerated by certain changes in his habits which he thought necessary to r 36o History of the Royal Family of England. make in honour of his new wife. For instance, he altered his dining hour from ten in the morning till some hours later, and ceased to observe his previous rule of going to bed at six p.m. sharp. Mary, according to the custom of French Queens Dowager, retired to the Hotel Cluny, there to keep her period of mourning in profound retirement ; and there on the 3rd of March 15 15 she was privately married in the presence of the French King, Francis I., to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. Brandon had been in Paris as a special Ambassador from Henry at the time of Mary's Coronation, and had distinguished himself greatly in certain tournaments held in honour of that event, but he had then returned to England. He was sent again by Henry to bring the young Queen Dowager back to England, which under the circumstances would seem to have been an imprudent arrangement. There was a considerable contest raging at the time between Francis and Henry as to which should have the right of disposing of the Queen Dowager Mary in second marriage ; for marriages still were a great feature in all European treaties, and consequently the possession of a young and marriageable Pnncess to bestow on a favoured ally was regarded as valu- able. Moreover, Mary, as Queen Dowager of Fiance, was very rich, and each Sovereign desired to have the handling of her money. It would, however, appear that Francis speedily came to the conclusion that Mary would neither remain in France nor allow him to interfere iti her future matrimonial plans ; and this being so, he probabl\- thought his best course was to sanction her marriage with Brandon and thereby prevent King Henry from using her as a means to alliance with any more powerful or distinguished person. I think myself, however, that Henry, who was as fond of both Mary and Brandon as he was of anyone, knew of their attach- ment and did not wholly disapprove it, and that they were secretly aware of this, as otherwise I can hardly suppose that they would have run the great risk they did. Anyway Henry, after some semblance of anger (an anger which was really Mary Tudor, Duchess of Stiffolk. 61 felt by many of his courtiers), allowed them to return to England, and received them with great distinction and affec- tion. He did not, however, allow them to escape scot free, for he not only retained the dowry he had paid for Mary, and which Francis had returned, but he insisted that Mary should pay him by annual instalments, out of her French revenues, what was, in those days, the enormous sum of ;^24,ooo ; and,' further, that she should give him "as a present" all the jewels ^\v&x\ her by King Louis. These jewels are said to have been exceptionally valuable, and included an almost historic gem, known as the " Miroir de Naples." Therefore, on the whole! King Henry did not make a bad thing out of his sister's second marriage, although it is fair to say that his benefac- tions to Suffolk and his wife, exclusively made out of other people's goods, were numerous and liberal. Mary's subsequent career was uneventful, and she died in the early years of Henry's reign, and before the greater atro- cities had commenced. Brandon, who throughout his life invariably allowed himself to be used as the instrument of the very dirtiest of King Henry's very dirty work, was always and continuously in high favour, and Mary, who would appear to have been not only a good looking and agreeable woman but really amiable and good natured, seems to have been regarded by her brother with genuine affection. She lived sometimes at Court, and sometimes in Suffolk, always with a good deal of splendour, and always in considerable embarrass- ment for money, and she died in Suffolk on the 25th of June 1533. aged about thirty-seven. She was buried in Bury Abbey. There is reason to suppose, however, that Mary's later years were clouded by ill health and anxiety, and that she was sincerely distressed at the proceedings Henry was taking for the divorce of Katharine of Aragon, a distress probably made the more acute by doubts concerning her own position as a wife. Her husband survived her for twelve years and died in 1545, about eighteen months before the King. It is perhaps needless to say that he is the Duke of Suffolk in Shakespeare's " Henry VI 1 1." After Mary's death, 2,62 History of the Royal Farnily of Euglafid. the Duke married a fourth wife, Katharine Lady Willoughby d'Eresby, who was a Peeress in her own riglit, and from whom, by a subsequent marriage on her part, the present Earl of Ancaster is descended. Charles Brandon had seven children, two daughters by Anne Brown, with whom I am not concerned, three children by Mary Tudor, Henry, Frances and Eleanor, and two sons by Lady Willoughby d'Eresby, Henry and Charles. Henry, his son by Mary Tudor, died at the age of nine, having been previously created Earl of Lincoln. Henry, his eldest son by Lady Willoughby, succeeded him as Duke of Suffolk, but he and his younger brother Charles both died of the sweating sickness on the same day in July 1 551, two years before the death of Edward VI., the elder being in his fourteenth year. On their death the great de la Pole estates which had been granted to Charles Brandon passed under a settlement made by him to his eldest daughter by Mary, Frances Brandon, whose husband, Henry Grey, third Marquis of Dorset of his family, was in the following October created Duke of Suffolk. Frances Brandon, the eldest daughter of Charles Brandon and Mary Tudor, was born in 15 17, and was married in 1533 at the age of sixteen. Her husband, though not of Royal birth was nearly related to the Royal family. His grandfather^ Thomas Grey first Marquis, was the son of Elizabeth Wood- ville by her first marriage, and therefore the stepson of King Edward IV., and the half-brother of that King's dau-hter Elizabeth, wife of Henry VII. Consequently his son, who died in 1530, and his grandson, the husband of Frances Brandon, who were the second and third Marquises, were of the half-blood first cousin and first cousin once removed to Henry VIII. and his sister Mary, Frances' mother (see Table XV.). At the date of the marriage Lord Dorset was about twenty-three, and his career and that of his wife present no details of interest till towards the close of the reign of Edward VI. They were, however, strong adherents to the extreme Protestant party. It is well known that King Henry VIII. had, under an Z s Brand of Suffolk. RANDON. 9- :y, Duke of ided 1554. ^3 CCl^'^v 1 ... "O-v ances d. Henry uffolk, b II II c^ Q • D a; g < <-^ ^< s • ^ zi > ^"^ td^ >-* ^^ W " Q > to Pi > 0* < m ^ <> ,^^ • P CO -.1- w CO w ^ K^i <— H > 2 > >• Pi Pi < • > il II 1 1 M 0"- II h4 AGENET > m if 2 " rt HH H fc-< •^-^ > < 1-^ > J ^■^ TH P d. 150 >i ^ < ■^ 11 UJ m . < N ►— • •« s Grey if Dorset. I. s Grey 3f Dorset. 0. M Cs- =: ■♦ z II- .— ' 'Zl »H P5 v...i tfl „ .^ '3 " '^' s. . 55 <= rt *" . =->3 2^-^ ^ « S^^j > > 53 js £1 >-r* 3 1; < X i-i ►" 'rT S ^ II LU Z -J CD X < Ui v- 'J: 364 History of the Royal Family of England. Act of Parliament, power to regulate by will, failing issue of his three children Edward, Mary and Elizabeth, the suc- cession to the Throne. He had made a will whereby, failing such issue, he settled the Crown upon his niece Frances Brandon, eldest daughter of his younger sister Mary, and whereby he passed over the claims of the descendants of his eldest sister Margaret. It has always been a question whether this will was duly executed, and at all events its provisions were ignored after the death of Elizabeth ; but for many years these provisions were regarded by many people as being in force, and consequently much and disastrous attention was given to the Grey family. Neither Henry Grey nor his wife were of any ability, nor were they regarded with much respect by their con- temporaries. Indeed the latter seems to have been treated with contempt, for though in the view of the Protestant party she and not her daughter was heiress to the Throne, no one, not even her husband seems to have regarded her as a possible Queen, and at Jane Grey's coronation Frances was content to carry her daughter's train. I collect that the Duchess Frances was an illtempered, silly woman, with no sort of influence and very little char- acter. Her husband, in the last few years of Edward VI., was very busy in all sorts of intrigues for the aggrandisement of his family, but he was in the hands of a far more able man than himself— Dudley Duke of Northumberland ; and there can be little doubt that if their plans had succeeded and Jane Grey had become Queen, her father would have been relegated to obscurity at the earliest possible moment. As I have already said prior to the death of Edward VI. Guildford Dudley, son of the Duke of Northumberland, and Jane Grey, the eldest daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Suffolk, had been married. After the King's death Jane was proclaimed Queen. Northumberland and Suffolk took up arms and Northumberland was taken prisoner and beheaded. Suffolk was pardoned at the instance of his wife, but sub- sequently he took up arms again, and he also was ultimately Henry & Frances Gre y, Duke & Duchess of Suffolk, 365 executed on the 23rd of February 1554. His daughter Jane preceded him to the block. One might have imagined that the Duchess of Suffolk under these circumstances would have been crushed to the earth by grief, but such was by no means the case. On the contrary she was very agreeably employed, for on the 9th of March 1554 she married a young man named Adrian Stokes, described as her " equerry," and who at any rate had something to do with her stables. He was at that time twenty-one, the Duchess being thirty-seven. On the 20th of November following, that is to say within nine months of the execution of her first husband, and within eight months and a half of her second marriage, Frances gave birth to a daughter, who happily died in infancy. It has been remarked that if Frances had visited her husband in prison (which she did not do) there might have been doubts as to the paternity of this child. I may also add (first) that if the child had been a boy and had lived, it would under King Henry's will have been at Queen Eliza- beth's death heir to the Throne, so that it was within the bounds of possibility that the Tudor dynasty might have been succeeded by that of Stokes, and (secondly) that if Jane Grey had really become Queen there would have been a grave com- plication, if, as events proved was possible, her mother had subsequently had a son. Notwithstanding the excuse offered by the Duchess' some- what discreditable second marriage. Queen Mary continued to treat her with kindness, and she survived till November 1559, when she died aged fifty-two. She is buried in West- minster Abbey. Mr Stokes became possessed of the bulk of her property, which was considerable, to the exclusion of her younger daughters Katharine and Mary, who were always deplorably poor, and he survived in great material comfort till 1581. It is, however, to his credit that he appears to have shown some kindness to his unfortunate step-daughter Mary Grey. (See Miss Strickland's " Tudor Princesses.") \ CHAPTER XXIII. Jane Grey. — Katharine Grey, Countess of Hert- ford. — The Seymours. JANE GREY, the eldest daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Suffolk, was born in 1537, in the same month (October) as her cousin Edward VI. She spent her childhood at the Court of her great uncle, Henry VIII., and some time after his death was sent to live with his widow Katharine Parr, and that lady's fourth husband Lord Seymour. This, however, was not till after the Princess Elizabeth had left them, and considering the scandals which had arisen about Seymour's relations with Elizabeth, it is remarkable that Jane's parents should have sent her to such a house, or indeed that Queen Katharine should have con- sented to receive another ward. Jane, however, not only went there, but remained there after Katharine's death (under the protection of Lord Seymour's mother), till Lord Seymour was taken to the Tower prior to his execution. She then went home, where she seems to have had a very bad time of it, judging from her often quoted speech to her tutor Roger Ascham, " When I am in the presence of either father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand or go, eat, drink, be merry or sad, be sewing, playing, dancing or doing anything else, I must do it as it were in such measure and number even as perfectly as God made the world, or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened ; yea presented sometimes with pinches, nips and bobs and other ways (which I will not name for the honour I bear them), so without measure disordered that I think myself 366 Lady Jane Grey. \6y m Hell till the time comes when I must go to Mr. Aylmer who teacheth me so gently, &c." There were numerous complicated plans for Jane's mar- riage, but ultimately on Whitsunday 1553 she was married to Lord ^uildford Dudley, fourth son of the Duke of Northum- berland. We have her own authority for saying that she was m a measure forced by her parents into this marriage, and it IS clear that she disliked her husband, and greatly disliked his parents, and that her short married life was extremely unhappy. She accepted the Crown with great and avowed reluctance, and indeed under threats of violence from Guild- ford and his mother ; and during the few days in which she was called Queen, her other troubles were added to by contests with her husband, who pleased to call himself " King Guildford," and otherwise to assume the manners of a King, which Jane very properly resented. Indeed, though probably Jane might have proved a good Queen, she would have been terribly handicapped by Guildford Dudley, who as far as one can judge from his proceedings during the short time he was before the public, appears to have been as silly and objectionable a young person as can easily be imagined. Jane wss executed on the 12th February 1554, under circumstances already mentioned, and in her seventeenth year. She shares in history with Edward VI. the adjective ''incomparable," and there is hardly a term of praise known in the English language which has not been applied to her. In her case as in Edward's the praises seem to me premature. How in the world can anyone tell what a girl of sixteen, who had passed her life under a system of " pinches, nips! and bobs," would have turned out when invested with almost absolute power over her fellow creatures.? Jane seems to have been very religious, and to have accepted with sincerity the opinions of the extreme Re- formers ; but I must confess there is a tartness and asperity about some of her recorded remarks upon religious contro- versies which appears to me unbecoming in so young a 368 History of the Royal Family of England, person. She was educated to the full pitch of learning any girl of her age could possibly acquire, and had certainly obtained a remarkable mastery over the Greek and Latin languages. Nevertheless I cannot divest myself of a suspicion that some of her more learned compositions were a little assisted and touched up by her numerous preceptors. I have, however, no wish to run her down, and I think no one can doubt that she was a girl of rare intelligence and promise, or that she carried herself both at the time of her execution and immediately before with singular dignity and sweetness. Her letters written at that time are really beautiful. If Jane Grey's fate was tragic, that of her sisters Katharine and Mary was not less so, though the tragedy of their lives is less striking to the imagination. They were born in 1539 and 1545, and when Jane was married tj Guildford Dudley, Katharine was married or betrothed to Lord Herbert, eldest son of the Earl of Pembroke, and Maiy was betrothed to Lord Grey of Wilton. After the accession of Queen Mary, and the consequent fall in fortune of the young ladies, Katharine's marriage, which had not been completed, and Mary's betrothal were broken off. Queen Mary accepted her young cousins as maids of honour, and they continued to act in that capacity after the accession of Elizabeth. Before that event, however, Katharine had formed an attachment to Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, of whose position I must speak later, and this was known to several persons, including Katharine's mother, Frances Duchess of Suffolk. In October 1560, when Elizabeth had been Queen for two years, Katharine was privately married to Lord Hertford, at his house in Canon Row. There was no possible reason why this marriage should not have been sanctioned. Hertford was a young man of great rank and considerable wealth, and nearly connected with the Royal family through his aunt, Queen Jane Seymour, and he was a perfectly suitable match for Katharine, eVen though under the will of Henry VIII. she stood, failing Elizabeth's own Katharine Grey, Countess of Hertford. 369 heirs, next m succession to Queen Elizabeth (who was then only twenty-seven). Nevertheless the marriage was kept a profound secret and was known to only four persons, the bride and bridegroom, the bridegroom's sister, Lady Jane Seymour who died almost immediately afterwards, and the clergyman who performed the ceremony, whose identity Hertford and Katharine professed to be unable to and certainly did not disclose. If found he would assuredly have been put to death ! Early in 1561 Elizabeth sent Hertford on a political mission to France, and shortly afterwards Katharine discovered her- self to be pregnant. Communication with her husband was impossible, and in her emergency Katharine took an extra- ordinary means of disclosing her situation. She went in the middle of the night to the bedroom of the Queen's Master of the Horse and prime favourite. Lord Robert Dudley, afterwards Earl of Leicester, and then a young man under twenty and kneeling by his bedside told him the whole story. It is possible that, as, according to the singular etiquette which prevailed at the Court of the virtuous Elizabeth, the Master of the Horse always occupied a bed-chamber immediately adjoining that of his Royal Mistress, Katharine thought that by this means her story might be overheard by the Queen without the necessity of her telling it face to face. The manceuvre brought no good results. Dudley told the Queen, and early next morning Katharine was taken to the Tower,' and Hertford was immediately sent for, and on his arrival in England he also was sent to the Tower. Thenceforward for some months the young couple, though it may be re- marked that Katharine was fuli twenty-one, were subjected to. a minute and insulting interrogation as to the circum- stances of their marriage, the validity of which both strongl}- affirmed. I cannot conceive that any one reading the accounts of the examinations in the State papers could possibly now, or that any one did then, feel the smallest doubt that it was a perfectl}' good marriage. A commission however was issued by the Queen to Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, and others 2 A 70 History of the Royal Family of England. to " examine, enquire and judge of the infamous conversation and pretended marriage betwixt the Lady Katharine Grey and the Earl of Hertford." So commissioned, it is needless to say that Queen Eh'zabeth's commissioners had no alternative but to find " that there had been no marriage," which they accordingly did on the I2th of May 1562. In the meantime, however, in the previous September, Katharine after great sufferings had given birth to a son. In those days prisoners in the Towerwere largelydependent for their practical comfort on the Lieutenant and other officials, and as these persons were well paid by Lord Hertford, and as, moreover, their sympathies, like those of the great bulk of the people, were much in favour of the young counle, Hertford and Katharine were allowed to see one another constantly, with the result that they had another son born in February 1 563. This brought forth a fresh explosion of wrath. Sir Edward Warren, the Lieutenant, was dismissed from his office, and escaped with tliat punishment only through the influence of Cecil, who was his personal friend. A fresh series of interrogations, &c. followed. Hertford was fined enormous sums, which were raised out of his estates, for his presumption in having ventured to have another child, and he and Katharine were finally separated and never met again. Shortly afterwards however the Plague broke out in the City with such violence that it was practically impossible, with any pretence to decency, to keep any one in the Tower, and strong representations being made to the Queen, Hertford and his eldest son were placed in the charge of his mother, the Duchess of Somerset, and Katharine commenced a series of very dismal peregrinations. It was one of the forms of aggravation which Elizabeth was accustomed to inflict upon her subjects to place her State prisoners in the custody of some unfortunate gentleman or lady selected for the purpose. The selected hosts were by no means consulted ; on the contrar}- they were often so selected by way of mild punishment, and it was carefully explained to them that they were answerable in life and property for the Katharine Grey, Countess of Hertford ^^i 0/ safe custody and good behaviour of ti.eir involuntary guests dou'S'the " ^""^'T' ""^ P'^'^ ^' ^"' -'-h II ve y- doubtful, they were paid on an extremely shabbv scale • and as -very person in those days of the smallest pretenti;n to rank had what would now be considered an extravagantlv large ret.nue of servants, the unwilling gaolers were ofte'n ^TTL -nconvenienced, both as to the accommodation vvh.ch they had to find, and the solid outlay of money they' had to make. Consequently the letters of the time contain any number of piteous appeals to persons in authority that such or such a person may be taken away, from such or such a place,_and there were any number of unseemly wrangles about small items of expenditure, made, or which ought to be made, on behalf of the unhappy prisoners. The ladies Katharine and Mary Grey were specially unacceptable guests, as they were regarded with peculiar jealousy by the Oueen, and unusual care had to be taken to prevent their esca~pe, or their bemg m,ide centres of political discontent. They were also extremely poor, having indeed nothing whatever of their own and though Lord Hertford was made to pay the Queen at a very exorbitant rate for everything supplied to Katharine it IS extremely doubtful whether the monies he did pay or any considerable portion thereof found their way into the supplier's pockets. Poor Marj- was wholly dependent on the Queen amongst whose many virtues an extreme, not to say parsi- monious, economy in all matters not relating to her personal comfort was conspicuous. Indeed I may say that her economy did extend to her personal comforts, for there was always a crowd of loyal and loving subjects only too eager to supply her little wants out of their own pockets ! As a conse- quence of this state of affairs I should imagine that there never were two ladies in the world the state of whose ward- robes and furniture was more minutely or exhaustively discussed than Katharine and Mary Grey ; and their needs for new bedding, chairs, hangings, caps, gowns, petticoats, and under linen, and the condition of their old articles of that description became the subject of as much correspondence as 372 History of the Royal Family of England. the equipment of a new regiment would require in the present day. It is needless to point out how bitter were the humiliations to which these unfortunate ladies were thus exposed, or which they suffered under the circumstances above stated ! In the interval between 1563 when she left the Tower till 1568 when she died, Katharine Grey was the unwilling and unwelcome guest of four persons, her paternal uncle, Thomas Grey, Lord Petre, John Wentworth, and Sir Owen Hopton. She died on the 20th of January i 568 of atrophy at Sir Owen Hopton's house, Cockfield Hall, in Suffolk, and she is buried at Yexford in the same county. The account of her death is extremely pathetic, and there is every reason to suppose that she was a very amiable, sincerely religious, and perfectly unoffending woman. To judge from her portraits she must have been very lovely. (See Miss Stricklands "Tudor Princesses.") She was aged about twenty-nine wKen she died, and of her short life, passed fully seven years in prison — an imprisonment aggravated by every form of insult, and which was justified by no law, human or divine. In the reign of Henry VHI. that King, in consequence of the proposed marriage of his niece Margaret Douglas, passed a statute making it high treason for any person " to marry any of the King's children (being lawfully born or otherwise, or commonly reputed to be his children) or any of the King's sisters or aunts, on the part of his father, or any of the lawful children of the King's brothers or sisters (not being married), without consent of the King under the Great Seal, or to seduce any not being married." It is commonly said that the imprisonment of Katharine and Mary Grey was justified under this statute, but they were ih^ granclchildreu, and not the children of the King's sister, and could have only been included in the statute by interpreting children to mean descendants, which even to King Henry must have appeared slightly absurd. It was however probably quite immaterial to Elizabeth whether the proceedings were legal or illegal. The practical founder of the Seymour family, of which The Seymours. 2>7Z Katharine's husband was the representative, was Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, and Lord Protector in the reign of Edward VI., who was the brother of Queen Jane Seymour, mother of that King. Somerset married twice ; first a lady named Fillol, by whom he had an only son named Edward, and secondly the well- known Anne Stanhope, who, as Duchess and Duchess Dowager of Somerset kept herself pretty prominently before the public throughout the reigns of Edward and Mary, and the greater part of the reign of Elizabeth. By this lady Somerset had a large family, of whom the Edward Seymour, Eari of Hertford, Katharine's husband, was the eldest son. Somerset through his second wife's influence caused his title and estates to be so settled as to postpone the claims of his son by his first marriage to those of his sons by his second wife, though the son of the first marriage was to come in, failing issue of his younger brothers. Somerset was attainted before he was executed, and consequently his honours did not pass at his death, but in 1559, when Edward Seymour, his eldest son by Anne Stanhope, was about twenty-one. Queen Elizabeth created this son Earl of Hertford, and restored to him the bulk of his father's property. As has been said he married Katharine Grey, and for that offence was kept a prisoner till 1571, when he was set at liberty, and he survived till 1621, nineteen years after the accession of James I. In his later life he enjoyed some share of favour both from Elizabeth and James. By Katharine lie had the two children above mentioned, Edward and Thomas, but though he was twice subsequent!}' married he left no other issue. In Burke's Peerage it is stated that by Katharine he had two children born after the two sons I have mentioned, but this seems to me to be clearly a mistake. After the death of Elizabeth, Lord Hertford, who had steadily maintained the validity of his first marriage, which indeed no one ever really doubted, took proceedings at common law to establish the validity of that marriage, and 374 History of the Royal Family of England. with success, for he obtained the verdict of a jury declaring it to have been le^al. Of his two sons by Katharine, Thomas the younger died younfj^ and without issue, and Edward also died in his father's lifetime leaving a son William, who in 1621 succeeded his grandfather as Earl of Hertford, and was ultimately promoted to the rank of Duke of Somerset. History repeats itself, and it was this gentleman who, under James I., got himself into serious trouble for an offence similar to that of his grandfather, namely, for marrying the King's cousin, Arabella Stuart, a marriage of which I shall have to speak later on. The title of Duke of Somerset continued in the descendants in the male line of Hertford and Katharine till 1750 (temp. George H.), when that branch of the Seymour family became extinct, and by a singular turn of fate the dukedom then passed to Sir Edward Seymour, who was descended from the eldest and disinherited son of the Protector Somerset by his first wife. From this Duke Edward of Somerset the present Duke of Somerset and also the present Marquis of Hertford are directly descended, but these Peers do not claim royal descent from Katharine Grey. Nevertheless there are many persons now living who do descend from Katharine Grey in the female line, including the present Duke of Northumberland. I may here say that after Katharine's death her descen- dants practically ceased to be regarded as in the Royal line, and that no claim was ever suggested on behalf of any of them to the Throne. (See Table XIV.) EM) OF VOLL'MK I. f COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY uiiiitiJiiiiiiiJiyiiiuiilii ^ 003221 6K. \% 4 o History of the Royal Fa^nily of England. though the officiating clergyman, happily for himself, escaped, no one could or did deny its validity. There was, of course, a storm of indignation, but also of ridicule, for Mary, whose sisters Jane and Katharine had been remarkably small women, was herself almost a dwarf, whereas Keyes' was a very big man. Cecil in a letter says, "The Serjeant Porter being the biggest gentleman in this Court hath married secretly the Lady Mary Grey, the least of all the Court." Keyes was immediately arrested and sent as a prisoner to the Fleet prison, where he remained a prisoner till 1571, a period of six years, his imprisonment being aggravated by what seems to have been exceptionally harsh treatment. In that year, being in a dying condition, he was set at liberty with permission to go to his native county, Kent, but he died on the way there at Lewisham. His widow seems to have grieved deeply for his loss, though their acquaintance, at all events, after marriage was extremely brief. Poor Mary was never sent to the Tower, but was harried about from house to house, or rather from gaol to gaol, for the most part of her remaining life. She was successively under the charge of Mr. William Hawtree, of the Duchess Dowager of Suffolk (the fourth wife and surviving widow of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, who appears to have treated her with extreme insolence and harshness), and of Sir Thomas Gresham, who speaks of Mary as Lady Gresham's " Bondiage and harte sorrow." After the death of Keyes, Mary was set at liberty, but was left in an almost penniless condition. She ultimately found a refuge as a dependent in the house of her step-father Adrian Stokes. She died on the 20th of April 1578, aged thirty-three, and it does not appear where she is buried. As far as can be collected, Mary Grey was a good-natured and rather silly little woman, but she seems to have had a taste for reading, for at her death she had collected a number of books, chiefly of a dismally religious character, unusually large for the period, and for a private person of very Margaret Clifford, Countess of Derby. 377 straitened means. I may note that in her later years, notwithstanding her great poverty, Mary Grey thought it necessary or expedient to propitiate her august relative the Queen with a variety of gifts of gloves, gold buttons, and the i think I have said enough to show that if Queen Mary cut off Jane Grey's head, Queen Elizabeth would on the whole have been more merciful if she had done the same by Jane's sisters Katharine and Mary, than she in fact was. King Henry VHI.'s sister Mary had by her second husband, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, two daughters, Frances (of whom and her children I have already spoken), and Eleanor Brandon, of whom and her daughter Margaret Clifford I must now say a few words. The exact date of Eleanor Brandon's birth is not known, but in 1537 she was married to Henry Clifford, eldest son of the first Earl of Cumberland of that family, who, on his father's death in 1542, became himself second Earl of Cum- berland. Eleanor's married life was short, for she died in 1545, shortly before the death of Henry VHL, leaving an only child Margaret, who, though she did not inherit her father's honours, did inherit the very doubtful distinction of being great niece to King Henry, and first cousin once removed to his daughter Elizabeth. Lord Cumberland married again, and through his second wife the earldom was continued in the Cliffords till 1641 (temp. Charles I.), when that branch of the family became extinct. Margaret Clifford was born in 1540, and in the reign of Queen Mary she was brought to Court, and in 1555 ^he married Henry Stanley, Lord Strange, who was the eldest son and heir of the Earl of Derby, and who in 1572 became himself fourth Earl of Derby of his family, it may be noted that Queen Mary did not share the prejudice of her sister against marriages by her relatives on the Royal side, and Margaret's marriage was solemnized at Court with much splendour in the presence of King Philip, Mary herself being ill at the time. 37^ History of the Royal Family of England. The marriage of Lord Derby and Margaret was a very unhappy one, the former appearing to have been a man of dissolute and extravagant habits ; and Margaret's complaints of his behaviour were vehement and insistent. It is however fair to say that for many years after her accession, that is to say till 1580, Elizabeth appears to have regarded Margaret with some favour, and to have at least on one occasion inter- posed on her side in the matrimonial disputes between Margaret and her husband. In 1 5 cSo, however, the Countess of Cumberland, as she then was, was charged in conjunction with certain of her servants with conspiring to conduce the Queen's death by means of magical practice. The charge was made by one Randall, a quack doctor, who had been in the Countess' employment, but as it was made under at all events threats of torture its original absurdity becomes glaring. Lady Cumberland was allowed no form of trial, and was kept imprisoned for at all events seven years, when she was released in or after the year 1587, at the instance of Sir Christopher Hatton. She was allowed to spend the last nine years of her life in some poverty and great retirement at Isleworth. She died in 1596, aged fifty-six, and is buried in Westminster Abbey. Her story is a little mysterious. It is difficult to suppose that her imprisonment had any reference to her position under Henry VIII.'s will, which failing the heirs of Frances Brandon had limited the Crown to her ; for at the date of her disgrace she had had six children, several of whom were living and at large, and to these children any rights she might have had would have passed. Her husband remained in considerable favour at Court all through her confinement and until his death in 1593, three years before her own, but there is not any reason to suppose that Elizabeth regarded him (in 1580 he was thirty-nine) with any such special favour as would have made it desirable to keep his wife out of the way. Therefore one can only suppose that the Queen, who was decidedly superstitious, really did believe in the " magical arts." 1 do not think it necessary to enter into any details as to Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scotland. 379 Lady Cumberland's family, for in fact the Stanleys, though no doubt great men, were never concerned in any question con- cerning the Royal succession or regarded as being in any way members of the Royal family. I will only say that two of her sons, Ferdinand and William, were successively Earls of Derby, and that the earldom was held by Margaret's descend- ants till the reign of George II., when the male line of that branch of the Stanley family became extinct and the earldom passed to a collateral branch from which the present Earl of Derby is descended, but which does not claim descent from Margaret Clifford. (See Table XIV.) Margaret Clifford is the last of the descendants of Henry VIII.'s younger sister Mary of whom I think it necessary to speak in any detail, and therefore I now return to that King's elder sister Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scotland. That lady had of immediate descendants who survived infancy two children, James Stuart, afterwards James V. of Scotland, and Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox ; three grandchildren, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, only child of James V., Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, eldest son of Margaret Douglas, who married his cousin Mary Queen of Scots, and his brother Charles Stuart ; and two great grand- children, James Stuart, only child of Mary Queen of Scots and of Darnley, who afterwards became James VI. of Scotland and James I. of Great Britain, and Arabella Stuart, only child of Charles Stuart, who died without issue. (See Table XIV.) All these personages played so great a part in the history of their times that their story is probably well known to the generality of readers. Margaret Tudor herself, from the date of her marriage in August 1503 until the date of her death in 1541, with the exception of one short interval of about two years (I5i5-I7)» when she was in England, lived in Scotland ; and from the death of her first husband in September 15 13 until her son assumed the reins of Government, about the year 1527, her history may be said to be the history of Scotland. Scotland during that period was rent by the disturbances occasioned by :#.!* 380 History of the Royal Family of England. a kind of triangular duel for power between three persons, Margaret herself, her second husband, Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, and John Stuart, Duke of Albany. This John Stuart was the eldest son of Alexander Stuart, Duke of Albany, who was the second son of King James II. of Scotland and brother of James III. Duke John was therefore first cousin to James IV., and he was heir presumptive to the Throne in the event of James IV.'s only surviving child, James V., dying without issue, an event which for many years was a not improbable contingeney. Margaret was an extremely able woman, or perhaps it would be more correct to say a woman of great cunning and duplicity. She possessed more than the ordinary share of personal courage and resource in moments of danger, and she might have attained to great power but for two defects in her character. She was absolutely untrustworthy and very licentious. In a general way it may be said that almost from the date of her first going into Scotland, and at all events from the death of James IV., she habitually and consistently betrayed the country of her adoption to that country's greatest enemy, Henry VIII. of England ; and she did this from no love of her native land, but simply from greed of money — her demands for pecuniary assistance from her brother as the reward of her services having been made with the persistence and unblushing effrontery of a professional spy. (See Mrs Everett Green's '* Princesses of England " and Miss Strickland's "Scottish Queens and English Princesses.") This was practically known to the Scotch, who, though she attained to some degree of popularity, always distrusted her, nor was she really trusted by Henry or his ministers, who had good reason to know that information obtained from her could only be relied on if and so long as it was to her personal interest to give such information correctly. Inasmuch, however, as the Scotch nobility were at this time for the most part as venal and treacherous a body as has ever existed, Margaret's double dealing was taken much as a Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scotla^id. 38 1 matter of course, and would not have stood very much in her way had she been of decent personal character, but she was not. Her marriages, divorces, and love affairs were felt to be a national scandal in the case of a woman who aspired to be, and was from time to time, Queen Regent of Scotland. Margaret was the second child and eldest daughter of Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York, and was born on the 29th of November 1489, and she married James IV. of Scotland on the 8th of August 1503. James IV. (who was Margaret's distant cousin, being descended from Joanna Beaufort, wife of James I., — see Table XI.) at the date of the marriage was just turned thirty, and Margaret had not completed her fourteenth year. As is well known James IV. was killed at the Battle of' Flodden ten years later in September 15 13, and there is little to be said of Margaret during his life. James was a notori- ously unfaithful husband, but he seems to have treated Mar- garet with much civility and good-humoured kindness, and she bore him seven children, who were born in rapid succession, the youngest not being born till the 13th of April 15 14, seven months after his death. Of these children all but one, James, who was born on the 15th of April 15 12, died as infants. On the 6th of August 1514, little over three months after the birth of her posthumous child, and within twelve months of her first husband's death, Margaret privately married Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, and with this marriage the misfortunes of her life commenced. This Douglas was the grandson of the celebrated " Bell-the-Cat," fifth Earl of Angus, who was killed at the Battle of Fiodden, and he had but recently succeeded to his grandfather's honours as sixth Earl. He was a young man of nineteen — it is said very hand- some, and certainly extremely fierce, savage, and treacherous. It is tolerably certain that he married the Queen mainly at her instance (she was for the time madly in love with him) and at the instance of his own relatives, who regarded a marriage with the Queen Regent, as she then was, as a de- sirable political move. It is certain that almost immediately after the marriage Angus and Margaret began to quarrel, / 380 History of the Royal Family of England. a kind of triangular duel for power between three persons, Margaret herself, her second husband, Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, and John Stuart, Duke of Albany. This John Stuart was the eldest son of Alexander Stuart, Duke of Albany, who was the second son of King James II. of Scotland and brother of James III. T^uke John was therefore first cousin to James IV., and he was heir presumptive to the Throne in the event of James IV.'s only surviving child, James V., dying without issue, an event which for many years was a not improbable contingeney. Margaret was an extremely able woman, or perhaps it would be more correct to say a woman of great cunning and duplicity. She possessed more than the ordinary share of personal courage and resource in moments of danger, and she might have attained to great power but for two defects in her character. She was absolutely untrustworthy and very licentious. In a general way it may be said that almost from the date of her first going into Scotland, and at all events from the death of James IV., she habitually and consistently betrayed the country of her adoption to that country's greatest enemy, Henry VIII. of England; and she did this from no love of her native land, but simply from greed of money — her demands for pecuniary assistance from her brother as the reward of her services having been made with the persistence and unblushing effrontery of a professional spy. (See Mrs Everett Green's " Princesses of England " and Miss Strickland's "Scottish Queens and English Princesses.") This was practically known to the Scotch, who, though she attained to some degree of popularity, always distrusted her, nor was she really trusted by Henry or his ministers, who had good reason to know that information obtained from her could only be relied on if and so long as it was to her personal interest to give such information correctly. Inasmuch, however, as the Scotch nobility were at this time for the most part as venal and treacherous a body as has ever existed, Margaret's double dealing was taken much as a Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scotla^id. 38 1 matter of course, and would not have stood very much in her way had she been of decent personal character, but she was not. Her marriages, divorces, and love affairs were felt to be a national scandal in the case of a woman who aspired to be, and was from time to time. Queen Regent of Scotland. Margaret was the second child and eldest daughter of Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York, and was born on the 29th of November 1489, and she married James IV. of Scotland on the 8th of August 1503. James IV. (who was Margaret's distant cousin, being descended from Joanna Beaufort, wife of James I., — see Table XI.) at the date of the marriage was just turned thirty, and Margaret had not completed her fourteenth year. As is well known James IV. was killed at the Battle of' Flodden ten years later, in September 15 13, and there is little to be said of Margaret during his life. James was a notori- ously unfaithful husband, but he seems to have treated Mar- garet with much civility and good-humoured kindness, and she bore him seven children, who were born in rapid succession, the youngest not being born till the 13th of April 15 14, seven months after his death. Of these children all but one, James, who was born on the 15th of April 15 12, died as infants. On the 6th of August 15 14, little over three months after the birth of her posthumous child, and within twelve months of her first husband's death, Margaret privately married Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, and with this marriage the misfortunes of her life commenced. This Douglas was the grandson of the celebrated " Bell-the-Cat," fifth Earl of Angus, who was killed at the Battle of Flodden, and he had but recently succeeded to his grandfather's honours as sixth Earl. He was a young man of nineteen — it is said very hand- some, and certainly extremely fierce, savage, and treacherous. It is tolerably certain that he married the Queen mainly at her instance (she was for the time madly in love with him) and at the instance of his own relatives, who regarded a marriage with the Queen Regent, as she then was, as a de- sirable political move. It is certain that almost immediately after the marriage Angus and Margaret began to quarrel. / h 382 History of the Royal Family of England, and that within a year or two their quarrels had ripened into an intense and bitter personal hatred which continued throughout their lives. Margaret may be said to have set the example to her brother in the matter of divorces, for at a very early stage of affairs she commenced proceedings at Rome to get rid of her second husband. These, however, were opposed by Angus himself, who had a strong eye to the Queen's dower lands, and of all persons in the world by Henry VIII., who, proficient as he afterwards became in the matter of divorces, regarded his sister's proceedings with great disfavour. He not only used his utmost efforts at Rome to thwart her plans, but wrote to her a series of letters as to the duties of married life of a highly instructive and edifying character. Margaret, however, persisted, and ulti- mately Angus having been induced to consent, the divorce was granted in Rome in 1527, and afterwards confirmed by the Ecclesiastical Courts in Edinburgh. The divorce was granted on the ground of a pre-contract of marriage by Angus, but in the judgment pronounced by the Scotch Courts, Margaret's daughter by xAngus was declared legiti- mate on the ground that the Queen had married in good faith. I may here remark that in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries a pre-contract of marriage (which was then a canonical bar to marriage with another person) had become a more fashionable plea for dissolution of marriage than consanguinity, and it is needless to say that such a plea admitted of fraud even more than that which had been previously more common. Personally I regard the whole proceedings as to Margaret's divorce as collusive, which opinion is confirmed by the fact that on her deathbed Margaret solemnly declared that notwithstanding the divorce she regarded herself as being still the lawful wife of Angus. During the thirteen years in which Queen Margaret was nominally the wife of Lord Angus, her conduct gave con- siderable scope for comment. She is said, either truly or falsely, to have been far too intimate with the Duke of Albany, whom notwithstanding Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scotland. 38 that he was a married man she seems to have had some fleeting ideas of some day marrying herself; and for some years before 1527 she had caused great scandal not only in Scotland, but also in England, by carrying about with her everywhere a very young man named Henry Stuart, who was a member of one of the junior branches of that great family. This person she married in 1528, almost immediately after the divorce from Angus was granted in December 1527, Margaret being at that time in her thirty-ninth year. King James V., who was then nearly sixteen, was very an^^^ry, and Stuart was for a short time imprisoned, but through Mar- garet's influence he was speedily released and created Lord Methven. The Queen, however, appears to have grown tired of him almost as soon as of Angus, and she made various attempts to get a fresh divorce. She was however growing old for those days, and her son had seized the reins of Government, and was tired of the continual squabblings about his mother's love affairs. Consequently he opposed his authority to her later schemes for divorce in such a manner as effectually to render them abortive. Margaret's later years were passed in comparative ob- scurity, and she died in October 1541 in her fifty-second year. She IS buried at Perth. Margaret left, so to speak, wd husbands surviving. Lord Angus, who married again, ..mi completed a very evil life in 1556 (temp. Mary), and Lurd Methven, who seems tu have enjoyed some favour from James V., and who also married again. The success] c 11 to the Earldom of Angus was in constant dispute throughout the life of Earl Archibald's daughter, Margaret Douglas, but it ultimately passed to a cousin of her father's. Queen Margaret had seven children by James IV f whom onl\' one, James V., survived infancy ; by Lord Angus she had a daughter Margaret Douglas, and it is said, though the fact has never been ascertained, that she had one or more children by Lord Methven, but if so, such child or children either died as infants or their fate is unknown. With Margaret's descendants I propose to deal in the ii- ^t»il^■W!»''«*Wf»W»•^ ^ 384 History of the Royal Family of England. following order, (i) Margaret Douglas, (2) her younger son Charles Stuart, (3) his daughter Arabella Stuart, (4) James V., (5) his daughter, Mary Queen of Scots, and her husband Lord Darnley, eldest son of Margaret Douglas, and (6) James VI. of Scotland, the son of Mary and Darnley, who afterwards became James I. of England. Among Royal biographies there is hardly one which presents greater vicissitudes or which is on the whole more melancholy than that of Margaret Douglas. Her mother after her marriage with Angus was involved in great difficulties and was anxious to retire to England, which her opponents for very good reasons of their own were anxious to prevent, and which indeed they were determined to prevent by force if necessary. In this emergency the Queen acted with charac- teristic cunning and energy. Her confinement was imminent, and she proceeded to Linlithgow Castle and there formally " took her chamber," after the manner of great ladies of the time, to await the event. There her masculine opponents probably thought they might leave her with some security, but the next night she escaped with some of her women, and having crossed the borders she arrived at Harbottle Castle, the garrison fortress of Lord Dacre, the Lord Warden of the English Marches. Lord Dacre was at the time in immediate expectation of a Scottish invasion, and Margaret's arrival was an extreme inconvenience, but he was obliged to receive her, as she was when she arrived almost in the pangs of childbirth. At Harbottle, on the 7th of October 151 5, without any of the decencies or comforts of life, such as were procurable even in those days, Margaret Douglas was born, and it may be that the absence of those very "comforts," as they were then considered, and which included an artificially darkened and extremely close room, conduced to the rapid recovery of the mother and the healthiness of the child. As soon as she recovered, and indeed about a fortnight after her delivery, the Queen proceeded to London, where she was well received, and she remained there for eighteen months. She then returned with her young daughter to Scotland, but almost Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox. 385 immediately after the Queen's return to Scotland Lord Angus, whose quarrels with his wife were at this time at their full height, kidnapped the child, and it does not appear that the mother and daughter ever met again. From this time till about 1530 Margaret Douglas was the constant companion of her father, and took part in as many adventures as could have been desired by the most ardent heroine of romance, but in 1530, she being then about fifteen, she was sent to England to her uncle Henry VI H., who placed her with his own daughter Mary, who was six months her senior. Margaret shared the fortunes of that Princess for several years, and during this time a very strong and constant friendship sprung up between the two young ladies which lasted throughout their lives, and which was cemented by the fact that they were both very zealous Catholics. During the ascendancy of Anne Boleyn, Margaret was sent for to Court to act as first lady in waiting, there being in fact no other lady connected with the King who was available for the purpose. His daughter the Princess Mary would not acknowledge Anne, and his sister Mary Duchess of Suffolk was dead, and her daughters were very young. In this posi- tion a strong attachment grew up between Margaret and Lord Thomas Howard, the son of the second Duke of Norfolk of the Howards by his second wife, Agnes Tylney, and consequently half brother to Queen Anne's mother, Lady Elizabeth Boleyn, who was that Duke's daughter by his first wife. There was no disparity in age between the parties— the attachment was very strong, and there can be no doubt that Anne, who wished to strengthen her family connections, promoted the attachment, and that Henry himself winked at it. Consequently it is said to have resulted in a private marriage, though this was afterwards denied by Margaret herself. After the fall of Anne, Henry proceeded to wreak his wrath on all her relatives, and Thomas Howard and Margaret were sent to the Tower, whence the latter was trans- ferred to the Convent of Sion Abbey at Isleworth, the nuns of which seem to have followed the King's religious opinions 2 B \i 1 \\ 386 History of the Royal Family of England. exactly, and to have made themselves very useful by acting as gaolers to such ladies as gave him trouble. There was no possible reason in law or otherwise why these two young persons, Howard and Margaret Douglas, should not have got married if they wished, and it may be remarked that Mar- garet Douglas was in no way Henry's subject. Nevertheless the King, having first sent them to the Tower, caused the Act of Parliament which has already been quoted to be passed, making it high treason to marry the King's niece, and which also it may be mentioned made it high treason for the King's niece to marry any one without the King's consent. Their imprisonment commenced in August 1536, and in October 1537 Lord Thomas Howard died in the Tower of intermittent fever, or according to his illustrious nephew, the poet Earl of Surrey, of love. Four days after his death Margaret was haled out of prison to act as one of the chief mourners at the funeral of Queen Jane Seymour, in the cere- monial for which she is described as the " Lady Margaret Howard the King's niece," which seems to prove the point which has been questioned, namely, that she had been actually married. Margaret Douglas acted as chief lady in waiting to Henry's three subsequent wives, and during the brief ascendancy of Katharine Howard, was again in trouble owing to a proposed marriage, or at all events to a flirtation between her and Edmund Howard, a brother of that Oueen. After Katharine Howard's fall Margaret was again sent to Sion Abbey, where she received a severe scolding' from Cranmer, but neither she nor Edmund Howard seem to have held very strongly to the proposed alliance, the idea of which was immediately abandoned. I must resume her history in the next chapter. CHAPTEK XXV. Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox {continued). Lord Charles Stuart.— The Stuarts, Earls and Dukes of Lennox.— Lady Arabella Stuart. AT length in 1 543 it suited the plans of King Henry that his niece Margaret Douglas should marry Matthew Stuart, Earl of Lennox, and the marriage was celebrated in June, she being then in her twenty-eighth year, and the bride- groom a few years younger. It is almost impossible to follow the ramifications of the great Stuart family, or to make clear the relations which the various branches of that family bore one to another, and in any case it would require a book in itself to do so. I will here only say that the surname of Stuart, ui Stewart, as it is sometimes spelt, is derived from the office of Lord High Steward of Scotland held by the ancestors of the family. The great Robert Bruce, afterwards Robert L of Scotland, had an only son, who succeeded him as David H., and who died without issue, and several daughters, the eldest of whom, Marjory, married Walter, sixth Lord High Steward of Scotland of his family, and had by him an only son, Robert Stuart, who on the death of David H. became King Robert H. of Scotland, and from Robert H. the Stuart Sovereigns Robert HI. and the six James were descended in the direct male line. The husband of Marjory Bruce had, however, many relations from, whom were descended many of the great branches of the Stuart family ; and among others that of the Stuarts, Earls of Lennox, who though related to the reigning family of " Royal Stuarts " were not themselves originally of Royal descent. The Stuarts, Earls of Lennox, w^re, however of Royal 387 I 388 History of the Royal Family of England. Matthew Stuart, Ea7^l of Lennox. 389 descent in this way. King James II. had four sons : (i) James, who became James III.; (2) Alexander Duke of Albany, father of the John Stuart, Duke of Albany, to whom I have referred in speaking of Margaret Tudor, who during the minority of his cousin James V. was sometimes Regent of Scotland, and who died without issue ; and (3 and 4) two other sons who died young and without issue. James II. had also two daughters, the younger of whom appears to have died un- married. The elder daughter, whose name is sometimes given as Mary and sometimes as Elizabeth, married as her second husband James Lord Hamilton, and had a daughter Elizabeth Hamilton, and this lady married Matthew Stuart, second Earl of Lennox, and was the grandmother of Matthew Stuart, fourth Earl of Lennox, the husband of Margaret Douglas. It was on his descent from his grandmother Elizabeth Hamilton that Margaret's husband based a somewhat remote title to the Crown of Scotland failing issue of James V. and that Prince's cousin the Duke of Albany ; but it would be quite impossible for me to enter into the various claims to succeed to the Scottish Throne in the event of both James V. and the Duke of Albany dying childless, an event which at one time seemed possible and even probable. Nevertheless these claims were the indirect cause of most of the internal dissensions and jealousies which convulsed Scotland in the sixteenth century. Matthew Stuart, fourth Earl of Lennox, was sent in his early youth to France, where many of his relatives, including his grandfather's brother, the famous Robert Stuart, Count d'Aubigny, had settled and had attained to great favour with the French Kings. He remained in France till after the death of James V. in 1542, when he returned to Scotland in the character of Ambassador from France, and apparently in the hope that he might effect a marriage between himself and the Queen Dowager Mary of Lorraine, and thus attain to the position of Regent of Scotland. Being disappointed in this expectation he entered into a kind of treaty with Henry VHI., which was about as discreditable to both parties as can easily m be imagined. Lennox was to marry the King's niece, whose legitimate position was to be acknowledged— he was to be appointed by Henry, by what authority goodness knows, Regent of Scotland, and he was to receive large grants of land in England. On the other hand, if he attained to the position of Regent he was to give over to the English King certain fortresses, to prevent the infant Queen of Scotland from being sent to France, and, if possible, to deliver her into the custody of King Henry, and finally he was to govern Scotland in accordance with the instructions of the English Privy Council. It was in fulfilment of this abominable treaty that Matthew and Margaret were married. Prior to the marriage Matthew Stuart became a naturalized English subject, and amongst other lands he received a grant of the great estates of Temple Newsome in Yorkshire, which had formerly belonged to the Templars. Either by accident or design the dower lands assigned to the bride were all in Scotland, a circumstance which in part caused the great poverty from which ^he after- wards suffered. The marriage was celebrated with unusual splendour, and the King took the opportunity to declare "that in case his own issue failed he should be right glad if her (Margaret's) issue succeeded to the Throne." It is well known, however, that within three years for some not very clear reason I Icnry by his will sought to exclude Margaret and her descendants from their place in the succession. Within a few days after the marriage Henry VI II. started on his last expedition against France, and Lennox was sent as the Commander of the English forces in that desultory war which was for some years maintained against Scotland, and it may here be said that throughout his life Lennox seems to have regarded Scotland with hostility, and to have treated the Scotch who fell into his hands with extreme harshness and cruelty. On the accession of Edward VI., Lennox was re-appointed by the Protector Somerset as one of the English leaders against Scotland, and he then committed an a^^t of cruelty I V 390 History of the Royal Family of England. for which I am glad to say he is said to have suffered great remorse during the remainder of his life. He had forced certain Scotch noblemen and gentlemen to join his arms by taking as hostages their young children. These men left him, and in spite of the remonstrances of Lord Wharton, who was associated with him in command, Lennox ordered twelve young boys to be hanged and eleven actually so suffered. The twelfth, afterwards Lord Herries, was saved, concealed, and ultimately escaped, through the compassion of a common soldier, who was ordered to take part in the execution. It was during this period that the old Earl of Angus, Margaret's father, with whom Lennox had an old standing quarrel, made overtures for a reconciliation with his son-in-law and daughter, but with little or no success, and though Margaret certainly had no great cause to love her parents, it would certainly appear that she uniformly treated her father with the utmost hostility, and this when he was an old man and apparently really anxious for a reconciliation. Lady Lennox spent the greater part of the reign of Edward VI. in the north of England, and she was there in childbed at the time of that King's death. After the accession of Mary, Margaret was sent for to Court, and she and her young son Darnley were for a time treated with the highest possible consideration and respect. When Elizabeth suc- ceeded the Queen, though for a time she kept up appearances in her relations with her cousin, from the first seems to have regarded her with suspicion, and from the time of Elizabeth's accession Margaret was surrounded by spies in and out of her own household, who, as the State papers show, reported to the Queen her doings and saying in the most minute detail, and as may well be believed with incriminitory exaggeration. It was suspected, and probably with reason, that Lady Lennox was in communication with her niece Mary Queen of Scots, then living in France as Queen Consort of that country, and it is said that the young Darnley paid a private visit to the Court of France, and was secretly received by Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox. 391 the King and Queen. At all events when after the death of Francis II. of France Mary returned to Scotland, and successfully evaded the English ships sent to intercept her, Margaret could not conceal her exultation, and sent a private messenger to congratulate her on her escape. This bemg discovered the Earl and Countess of Lennox with their two sons, Darnley, then aged sixteen, and Charles, then aged about six and their whole household were arrested at Settringham House in Yorkshire at the end of 1561, and carried as prisoners to London. Darnley by some means escaped on the journey, and for some time lay concealed, where does not appear, but Lennox was committed to the Tower, and Margaret and her younger child to the care of Sir Thomas and Lady Sackville, who were relatives of Queen Elizabeth. Lord Lennox and his wife both remained prisoners till February 1563, though after some time Margaret by urgent representations succeeded in inducing Elizabeth to allow her husband, who was ill, to share her own captivity. It is not very easy to understand Queen Elizabeth's very tortuous policy at this time with regard to Scotland and Scotch affairs, but certainly after the liberation of the Lennox family in 1563 Lord Lennox was allowed to go to Scotland, nominally to recover for his wife the great estates of her late father the Earl of Angus, and during his absence Margaret and her son Darnley, though reduced to great poverty, were received at Court with every appearance of cordiality, and Darnley was privileged to carry the Sword of State before the Queen on the great occasion when Robert Dudley was created Earl of Leicester. In February 1565 Darnley was allowed without the smallest objection on the Queen's part to follow his father to Scotland, Margaret and her younger son at the same time going back to Yorkshire. When some months later the news of Darnley's marriage to Mary Queen of Scots was received by Elizabeth, his mother was again arrested, and after a short interval committed to the Tower, and she there remained till after the murder of Darnley in 1567, her distress being increased by the fact that 'I 392 History of the Royal Family of England. she was not allowed the society of her younger son, who was still a young boy, and who was " boarded out " after the Queen's usual practice in regard to her relatives in disgrace. It is difficult to see upon what plea Elizabeth justified the arrest and imprisonment of the Countess of Lennox, because the Countess' son himself, a born Scotchman, thought proper to marry the Queen of Scotland — Scotland being at the time at peace with England. Margaret was duly told of her son's death and seems to have fully believed that he had been murdered by his wife ; and being sufficiently impressed by this belief, she was set at liberty, and having been joined by her husband, who had returned from Scotland, they from time to time appeared at Court, always in the character of accusers of their daughter- in-law. Nevertheless they were always kept in a state of the greatest poverty — Elizabeth having practically confis- cated their English estates, and they having failed to obtain possession of their Scotch property. Early in 1568 Lennox was allowed to return to Scotland, having given the singularly mean promise to deliver into the hands of the English Queen his young grandson, James VI., and as is well known he shortly afterwards became Regent of Scotland, and in the year 1571 he was assassinated at Stirling Castle. In the meantime his wife and younger son had re- mained in England virtually as hostages for his good be- haviour. It would seem that Margaret heard with extreme grief of the death of her husband, to whom she was un- doubtedly attached, and she has the credit of being one of the few distinguished widows of her time who did not, seek immediate consolation by marrying again. If however she did not indulge in matrimonial plans for herself, she did so for her only surviving son Charles, and in 1574 that young man, then about nineteen or twenty, was with his mother's connivance married to Elizabeth Cavendish. This young lady was the daughter of the celebrated " Bess of Hardwick," one of the greatest heiress of her time by her second husband, Sir William Cavendish ; and from Sir Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, 393 William and Lady Cavendish the present Duke of Devon- shire is directly descended. At the date of Elizabeth Cavendish's marriage to Charles Stuart, however, her father was dead, and her mother, " Bess of Hardwick," had already married two other husbands, and was the wife of the fourth, George Talbot, sixth Earl of Shrewsbury of his family. What imaginable offence there was in this marriage it is impossible to say, but the whole marriage party were arrested, and the two mothers, Lady Lennox and Lady Shrewsbury, were at once committed to the Tower, where they remained for some months. It may, however, well be believed that this measure was not solely caused by the marriage, for at this time Queen Elizabeth had begun to suspect that Margaret no longer believed in the guilt of Mary Stuart, in which it was of vital consequence to the Queen that everyone should believe. In the early years after Darnley's murder, Margaret's grief and passionate cries for vengeance against her son's supposed murderess had been of the greatest use to Elizabeth, but it was known that Margaret had entered into secret communication with the Queen of Scots, then a captive in England, and it was more than sup- posed that she no longer believed in her guilt. On this account Margaret became during her later years an object of extreme suspicion to the Queen, and to this cause many persons attribute her sudden death on the 9th of March 1577. On that day Lord Leicester visited her at Hackney, where she was living in great retirement and poverty, and having dined with her left her in the evening with many protestations of friendship. Immediately after his departure the Countess was taken violently ill, and she died after a ft: v hours of extreme suffering. Leicester's reputation as a poisoner was so great and wide- spread that he was almost universally believed to have murdered the Countess of Leuuox. It may, however, be pointed out that at that time she was in her sixt\ -third \ ear, and completely broken down in health, and t]>ar th< mJ^- 394 History of the Royal Family of England. The Stuarts, Earls and Dukes of Lennox. 395 i N % fortunes of her life had just culminated in the death of her only surviving child, Charles Stuart. Therefore under more ordinary circumstances her death would hardly have been a matter of surprise. In considering the question whether Mary Queen of Scots was or was not guilty of complicity in the murder of her husband Darnley, it is somewhat material to consider whether Darnley's mother, who lived at the time, and who in the first instance certainly believed in her guilt, did or did not retain that belief at her death. Upon this point I must refer my readers to the evidence collected by Miss Strickland in her life of Mary Stuart, and which seems to me to establish con- clusively one of two propositions. Either Margaret did believe in Mary's innocence, and if so she must have had strong grounds for so believing, or she was guilty of extra- ordinary hypocrisy in her letters to Mary, letters which if they were addressed by Margaret to a woman whom she believed to have been an adulteress and the murderess of her son, must be regarded as shocking by every honest person. There was every reason why, if Margaret continued to believe in Mary's guilt she should have continued to proclaim that belief; for Margaret herself, her son Charles till his death, and his infant daughter Arabella, were absolutely in the hands of Elizabeth, whose conduct in imprisoning Mary could hardly have been justified by anyone unless Mary's guilt was be- lieved in. On the other hand Margaret was a strong Catholic (the contemporary Protestant Bishop Jewel de- scribes her after her first imprisonment by Elizabeth as one " who is beyond measure hostile to religion, more violent than Queen Mary herself"), and the Catholics were suffering dire persecution and looked to the accession of Mary Queen of Scots to the English Throne as their only hope. It has therefore been suggested that Margaret overcame her own feelings as a woman in the interests of religion. This sug- gestion seems to me personally to be extremely far fetched. (See the Life of Margaret Douglas in Miss Strickland's " Scottish Queens and English Princesses.) Lennox and Margaret had several children, but except their second son Darnley (the eldest died as an infant) and the youngest son, Charles Stuart, these children all died as infants, and nothing certain is known of them beyond that fact — not even the dates of their births or their names. Margaret Douglas is buried in Westminster Abbey, and her tomb close to that of Mary Queen of Scots is one of the most beautiful in the Abbey. Charles Stuart was born about 1554 and died in 1576, aged about twenty-two, of a languishing sickness. The cir- cumstances of his marriage with Elizabeth Cavendish (who died about the same time as himself) have been already stated, and he left an only child, the unfortunate Arabella Stuart. On the death of his father, Charles Stuart became fifth Earl of Lennox, but after his own death the earldom passed to Robert Stuart (second son of the third Earl), who died in 1586 (temp. Elizabeth), and who was succeeded by his nephew Esme Stuart, Lord of Aubigny in France. This nobleman was invited to come to Scotland by James VI., who created him Duke of Lennox, and under James VI Esme Stuart played a great part in Scotch affairs. Ludovic Stuart, the son of this Esme, was created by James VI. (then King of England) Duke of Richmond, and he was succeeded in the Dukedoms of Lennox and Richmond by his brother Esm6, from whom was descended in the direct line tlic Charles Stuart, Duke of Lennox and Richmond, who lived in the reign of Charles II., and on whose death in 1672 this branch of the Stuarts became extinct. The last Duke, who left no issue, married the celebrated Frances Stuart (who like himself was descended from one of the junior collateral branches of the great Stuart family), with whose portraits we are all familiar, and who as " la Belle Stuart " is well known to readers of the more or less scandalous chroniclers, French and English, of the reign of King Charles. She was one of ihc ni ^t beautiful and one of the most, if not the only, respectable beaiitv " of King Charles* Court, and she was the original of t! le figure ot 396 History of the Royal Family of England. Lady Arabella Stuart. 397 III I >f Brittania which is to be found on the back of much of the current copper coinage. My readers may be reminded that the descent of the Stuarts, Earls and Dukes of Lennox, from the Royal family of Scotland was extremely remote (though they bore the same surname), and was through the female line, and that they were not descended from the Royal family of England at all except through Joanna Beaufort, the wife of James 1. of Scotland. These remarks, of course, do not apply to Charles Stuart, fifth Earl of Lennox, who was the son of Margaret Douglas and the grandson of Margaret Tudor, and who was certainly of the English Royal stock. Charles Stuart left an only child, the Lady Arabella Stuart, who has been the subject of so many romances, historical and otherwise. She was probably born in 1576, and was therefore about twenty-seven at the death of Elizabeth, and when her cousin King James (whose father was her father's elder brother) came to the Throne. She was thirty-two when she married in 1609, and thirty- eight when she died in 161 5, ten years before King James. Her position was peculiar and dangerous, inasmuch as failing King James and his heirs, she was the only living descendant of Margaret Tudor, elder sister of Henry VHL, and consequently heiress to the English Throne (see Table XIV.). Inasmuch as there was no serious opposition to the accession of James, and as he had several children of great promise, one would have supposed that Arabella's position in the Royal family might have been frankly conceded without any great effort of mag- nanimity. It would, however, appear that Elizabeth, whose jealousy of James of Scotland as her probable successor was very great, entertained some more or less shadowy ideas of superseding his claims in favour of his cousin Arabella, whom she put forward on several occasions in a manner that was calculated to cause alarm. When Elizabeth died, Arabella seems to have accepted James' claims frankly enough, and though a plot was discovered to make her queen, it was of no great consequence, and it seems quite clear that she personally was not cognizant of it. Indeed as far as one can judge, she would probably have been more than contented with her own position if she had been allowed to marry an Englishman of rank and settle down as a great lady, nearly related to the reigning Sovereign. King James' relations with her were, however, singularly treacherous and mean. In the first instance, she w^as well received at Court, and it seems clear that the King at one time ga\ e her leave to marry, provided she chose as her husband a British subject. In a letter written by Arabella herself to King James after her marriage she says, " I humbly beseech your Majesty to consider how impossible it was for me to imagine it (her marriage) could be offensive to your Majesty, your Majesty having a few days before given me }'our Royal consent to be.stow myself on any subject of your M >-, which likewise your Majesty had done long since." it would, however, appear that Arabella distrusted the King, for, not- withstanding his consent, her marriage though perfectly suitable was solemnized privately, and kept a secret for some time. Her husband was William Seymour, Earl of Hertfort. It will be remembered that the Earl of Hertfort, son to the Protector, Duke of Somerset, had married Lady Katharine Grey, and the Earl of Hertfort, who married Lady Arabella Stuart, was the grandson and heir of this Earl of Hertford by Katharine Grey. When the marriage between Seymour and Arabella was discovered, Seymour without the slightest pre- tence of legality was committed to the Tower, and Arabella was placed under the care, first of Sir Thomas Parry, and then of Sir James Crofts. Arabella and her husband appear to have allayed suspicion, and after a short interval, they separately con- trived to escape. Seymour did get off to Flanders, but tlie unfortunate Arabella was taken prisoner on board a pinnace, where she was waiting in the downs to be joined by Seymour. She was brought back to the Tower, and she was henceforth kept in a rigorous and close confinement for the remainder I1 fl r ill \\i I I 398 //z^/^'r)' 0/ the Ro yal Family oj England. of her life. In 16.2 she asked to see the Privy Council in orcl< . to make some i.nportant disclosures, but when she was in fact brought before the Council it became manifest that she had gone mad, and she seems afterwards to have lapsed into hopeless imbecility. She died in 16. 5. never having had a child, and she is buried in Westminster Abbey. Her husband, who married again, was afterwards restored to his rank as Earl of Hertford, and ultimately created Duke of Somerset, the title which had been borne by his ancestor the Protector. ,. t To judge by her letters, Arabella Stuart was a lively harmless young woman, but she was probably deficient m judgment and force of character. Her misfortunes have always made her an object of much interest, and she is said to have been very beautiful, but if so, her portraits strangely belie her. (See Miss Strickland's "Scottish Queens and English Princesses.") ^ CHAPTER XXVI. James V. King of Scotland.— His Wives. — Mary Queen of Scotland. I HAVE said that Margaret Tudor, the eldest sister of Henry VIII., had only two children who survived infancy, James V. of Scotland by her first husband James IV., and Margaret Douglas, of whom I have already spoken at some length. In accordance with the plan mentioned in a previous chapter, i now revert to James V. The history of Scotland, at all times melancholy and depressing reading, is at no time more so than during the reign of this unhappy King, and it is almost impossible, and it would not be particularly useful to fix in one's mind, tiie details of the domestic feuds which rent Scotland during his life, and of the contests for power which arose upon the death of James IV. between the Queen mother and the great Scotch nobles. All these nobles, as I have already said, were more or less connected with the Royal family, and many of them had more or less shadowy claims to the Throne in the event of the death without issue of the young Sovereign. In England the long Wars of the Roses had resulted in the humiliation and deprivation from power of the nobility and the great aggrandisement of the Sovereigns ; and in England the Reformation had brought about for a time the ahnost complete extinction of the power of the Clergy. Similar causes, had produced like results in most of the European States, but in Scotland during the reign oi James V. matters were very different. The nobles, at all times immensely powerful, had, owing to many causes which it is 399 It- iir jm i |hi| 400 History oj the Royal Family of England, King James V. of Scotland, 401 \ 11^ unnecessary to enter into here, attained to almost over- whelming authority, and it is admitted by all writers that they were at this time as wicked and treacherous a body of men as ever existed. On the other hand the Reformation, though favoured by most of the nobility, had not yet made great progress in Scotland ; and James V. opposed from conscientious motives to the new doctrines, and utterly unable alone to cope with the nobles, threw himself into the arms of the Clergy, who, under the leadership of Cardinal Beaton, still retained a large share of influence. Thus, during this reign the real contest was not so much between the King and the nobles, as it at first sight appears to be, as between the Catholic Church and the supporters of the Reformation, and into the details of this contest I am not called upon to enter. James V. himself is a most interesting personality. Singularly handsome and graceful, he possessed more than his full share of that charm of manner which distinguished nearly all his family, and he seems to have won the enthusi- astic affection of all who were brought into immediate contact with him, and upon whom he was able to exercise his personal influence. This was especially the case with the peasantry, with whom he mingled with an affability and familiarity which was very unusual on the part of persons of rank, and by whom he was so much beloved that he won for himself the title of " King of the Commons." His poetry, which is still extant and much quoted, though not so much read as it deserves to be, deals almost exclusively with incidents of humble life, and shows a kindly insight into and minute observation of the lives and manners of his humbler subjects which few Sovereigns in any age have possessed, or at all events displayed. His abilities were of a very high order, and his political wisdom far beyond his age, and it is probable that if he had ever attained, even for a moment, to anything like a free hand, he would have become one of the greatest Kings of his country. His diflficulties, however, were overwhelming, and he never did attain, I venture to think that no King under the like circumstances ever could have attained, to any real authority. When his father was killed at the Battle of Flodden in August 15 13, James, who was born in April 1 5 12, was not yet seventeen months old ; and during the early years of his reign he was virtually a prisoner in the hands of whichever of the rival competitors for the Regency happened for the time being to be in the ascendancy. Consequently he was bandied about from hand to hand, and hurried from castle to castle in a way that is bewildering to read of When in 1528 he, then a boy of sixteen, by the exercise of remarkable shrewdness, and firmness succeeded in throwing off the domination of the Earl of Angus (his mother's second husband, who was then in power), James found his country impoverished and wretched to the last degree, and rent in every direction by the action of civil feuds. Moreover he found hardly a man or woman in it of influence, at all events amongst the laity, upon whose patriot- ism he could for an instant rely ; and he found also that all the leading persons in the Kingdom, including his own mother, had virtually sold themselves to their country's greatest enemy, his mother's brother, Henry VHI. of England. James, aided by Cardinal Beaton, who, whatever may have been his defects, must I think be admitted to have been a sincerely patriotic statesman, made strenuous efforts to put down oppression and to re-establish something like justice and order in Scotland, and with at times some partial success ; but in every crisis he was met with sullen and persistent opposition from his nobles, and in every emergency he had to deal with the cruel hostility of the powerful English King. James' constitution, never a good one, and worn out with the hardships, and it may be with the licence of his early life, speedily showed signs of giving way, and at length in 1542, in his thirty-first year, crushed by the desertion of the nobles at Solway Moss, and the simultaneous death of his two infant sons, he died at Falkland, not as far as appears of any distinct illness or disease, but it may be said truly of a broken heart, He was buried at Holyhead. 2 C 'ii 402 History of the Royal Family of England. King James' First Marriage. 403 )l King James in his youth led an extremely loose life, and became the father of numerous bastard children, prominent amongst whom was the notorious James Stuart, Earl of Murray, sometime Regent of Scotland, whose mother Lady Douglas is the " I.ady of Loch Leven " well known to novel readers in the pages of Sir Walter Scott's " Abbot." The history of King James' matrimonial treaties would fill a book, for so great was the struggle between the great European powers that the competition for his alliance in marriage — not, one would have supposed, of very vital im- portance — was vehement and not a little ludicrous in its details. Charles V. of Germany and Spain, Francis I. of France, and Henry VIII. of England vied with one another in proffering for James' acceptance all the ladies of their respective families possible, or as one might have thought impossible, but he ultimately married as his first wife Magdalene, eldest surviv- ing daughter of Francis I. by that King's first wife Claude, daughter of Louis XII. of France. The story of this marriage is as pretty and idyllic as any to be found in the annals of Royal marriages. The Queen mother, Margaret, and those of the Scotch lords who were in English pay, strongly favoured an English alliance with the Princess Mary, afterwards Queen Mary of England, but the King himself, supported by the Clergy and the common people, preferred a French marriage. At an early stage of affairs King James proposed to marry Magdalene and the offer was accepted with enthusiasm, but as she approached her womanhood, the young lady developed such unmistakable signs of consumption that her life was despaired of, and it was judged unsuitable for her to marry at all. Thereupon the French King offered to substitute for his daughter his relative Marie de Vendome, daughter of the Duke and Duchess de Vendome, on whom Francis proposed to confer the rank and dowry of a " daughter of France." Accordingly a secret treaty for the marriage of James and Marie de Vendome was entered into, and a portion of the lady's dowry was paid in advance. King James, however, in whose temperament there was a large admixture of the romantic element, wished to see his future wife for himself, and he set out, not without considerable difficulties from the nobles, on a secret expedi- tion to France, and presented himself in the guise of a man- servant at the Chateau of Vendome, where his betrothed wife was living with her parents. His secret, however, was not well kept, and he was immediately recognised with effusion • and for some days he made himself so agreeable to his betrothed wife that the lady is said to have fallen desperatelv m love with him, and to have subsequently died of a broken heart consequent on his desertion. The broken heart is problematical, but her death soon after, and as an unmarried woman, is certain. From Vendome King lames proceeded to Lyons where the French King was living, and he there saw-it IS said in the first instance, he being in disguise-the Princess Magdalene, who, though generally regarded as bein^ and who was in fact, at death's door, was by universal testimony extremely lovely. The King and the Princess fell in love at hrst sight. The claims of Mademoiselle de Vendome were cast to the winds. The King declined to marry anyone but the Princess Magdalene, and under the influence of'iove the young lady so far recovered her health that her father and her physicians reluctantly consented to a marriage, which was celebrated with extraordinary splendour at Notre Dame in Pans on the ist of January 1537. Some months later the young King and Queen set sail for Scotland (Henry VIII with his usual discourtesy having refused them a safe conduct through England), and they landed at Leith on the 19th of May. Exactly forty days later Magdalene, who.se ap- parent recovery had begun to fail almost from the date of her marnage, died of consumption in her seventeenth year She was buried at Holyrood. It is said that Kini^ James' though he subsequently married again and became, as^ it would appear, sincerely attached to his second wife, never entirely hariT, ''' ^"^' "' ^'^'^ >^°""^ ^^^^' '-^ -hom he seems to to%V. • \ ^^'''''" """"'^ commonly credited to Southern than to Scottish natures ; and the young Magdalene by her beauty \ ! t-i M:) )l ^V 404 History of the Royal F amily of England. and the pathos of her circumstances during the brief period of her life in Scotland made an impression on the Scotch nation, which has never been entirely effaced. (See Miss Strickland's " Scottish Queens and English Pnncesses. ) King James at the date of his first wife's death was in his twenty-sixth year, and the necessity for providing a direct heir to the Throne was so great that he was immedi- ately and urgently pressed to marry again, and the lad)- selected for his second wife was Mary of Lorraine, the widowed Duchess of LongueviUe, a French lady whom, though she was of somewhat inferior rank either to the Princess of Vendome or to the Princess Magdalene, Francis I acrreed to adopt and portion as his daughter. Mary of Lorraine was the eldest daughter of Claud of Lorraine, first Duke of Guise, and her father claimed descent both from Charlemagne and from the Royal family of France. He had been a cadet of the family of the Duke of Lorraine, and had for his distinguished military services been created Duke of Guise, and he had married a daughter (Mary's mother) of the Duke of Gueldres, whose family had given a Queen to Scotland, Mary of Gueldres, wife of James II., so that James V and his second Consort were remotely related. Mary was the eldest of a very large family, and two of her brothers, Francis le Balafre, second Duke of Guise, and Charles of Lorraine, known as the Cardinal of Lorraine, were destined, as the leaders of the Catholic party in France, to obtain great influence in European politics, and in particular over the mind of their niece Mary Queen of Scots, whose strong attachment to France and French interests was largely attributed to them. . . Mary of Lorraine, who was born in 151 5, was married in 1534 to Louis Duke of LongueviUe, who was the descendant and representative of the celebrated Dunois, illegitimate nephew of Charles VI. of France. It is said that Mary and her first husband were present at the wedding of James V. and Magdalene of France, and it has been hinted that not- withstanding his affection for the French Princess, James King James V's Second Marriage. 405 was on that occasion somewhat impressed with the charms of the Duchess of LongueviUe, which would seem to have been considerable. The Duke of LongueviUe died on the 9th of June 1537 within a few weeks of the death of Magdalene of France, leaving his wife the mother of one child and pregnant with another. Such, however, was the urgency of Sovereigns in the sixteenth century to dispose in marriage of the ladies of their kindred, that Mary was not allowed to bring forth her posthumous child in peace before it was intimated to her that she must make her preparations for a speedy second marriage, the choice of suitors being Henry VIII. of England, who had then recently lost his third wife, Jane Seymour, and his nephew James V. of Scot- land. Mary does not appear to have been at all anxious for a second marriage, but under the circumstances she naturally evinced a strong preference for the Scottish King, a preference which King Henry greatly resented and endeavoured to punish in subsequent years by the exhibition of much petty spite against the Queen of Scotland personally as well as politi- cally. Accordingly, though he was nominally at peace with Scotland, he refused the lady a safe conduct through England, and Mary had therefore to undertake what in those days was a long and dangerous sea journey in order to reach Scotland, where she arrived in June 1538. She was immediately married to the King, a little more than twelve months after the death of her first husband, and a little less than twelve months after the death of Queen Magdalene. At the date of the marriage King James was in his twenty-seventh and Mary in her twenty-third year. The marriage appears to have been a happy one, and the Queen rapidly gave birth to two sons, whose sudden and almost simultaneous death in 1542 was the culminating point of her husband's misfortunes, and may be said to have been the immediate cause of his own death. On the 8th of December in that year, eight days before the death of King James, Queen Margaret gave birth to her third child, afterwards the ill-fated Mary Queen of Scots. Mary of Lorraine, thus left a widow, was immediately called upon to i 1 I n I I r, . 'i[ I \ ii I I 406 History of the Royal Family of England. assume the Regency of a country to which she was a foreigner, at a time when the fortunes of that country, alike from ex- ternal invasion and internal dissension, had reached their very lowest ebb. From that date, December 1542, until her own death in May 1560, a period of eighteen years, the history of Mary of Lorraine is the history of Scotland. Separated at an early age from her young daughter, she carried on the struggle on behalf of that daughter with a wisdom, prudence and courage which even in her own day commanded the admiration of her enemies, and in later years has been almost universally acknowledged. Herself singularly religious, she was remarkable amongst all the Sovereigns of the sixteenth century for the clemency and tolerance of her conduct towards her religious opponents ; and even the malice of Knox, the great apostle of the Reformation in the North, could not, though he exercised it to the full, invent a calumny which could or did obtain credence from any reasonable being. Shortly before her death Mary, then sinking under the fatal disease of which she died, was besieged by the Lords of the Congregation in the town of Leith, which she defended with the aid of a small body of half-starved French soldiers, and on that occasion she displayed wonderful courage and capacity. The besiegers were driven back with great loss and humiliation, and the Queen made a triumphant entry into Edinburgh. Throckmorton, the English Ambassador, writing at that time to Cecil, says, " For the love of God provide by some means or other that the Queen Dowager were rid from thence (Edinburgh), for she hath the heart of a man of war." V/hen this letter was being written, however, the Queen was actually dying of dropsy, and she expired at Edinburgh Castle in 1560. Queen Elizabeth, afterwards the betrayer of her daughter, was in the later years of Mary of Lorraine that Queen's most bitter enemy, opposing her sometimes by force of arms, but more often by treacherous intrigue ; and I, myself, believe that, bad as were the Scotch nobles, and unfortunate as were the internal dissensions of the country, I s Mary Queen of Scots. 407 Scotland, under the rule of its French Regent, would have had a fair prospect of ultimate peace and prosperity if it had not been for the insidious and ceaseless machinations of the English Rulers, firstly Henry VHI., then the Protector Somerset, and lastly Elizabeth. Englishmen have much to be proud of in their history, but they have also much to be ashamed of, and I cannot conceive how any Englishtnan can read the history of the dealings of his country with Scotland in the sixteenth century without a feeling of profound mortification and disgrace. The body of Mary of Lorraine was carried to France, and she was buried at Rheims. Her two sons by her first husband died, the youngest shortly after his birth, and before her second marriage ; and the other as a youth of sixteen during a short visit the Queen paid to France, so that she had the consolation of being with him at his death. / Mary Stuart, the only child who survived infancy of James V. of Scotland, was born on the 8th of December 1542, and was eight days old when her father died. She had just completed her fourth year at the death of Henry VI ii. in January 1547; she was in her eleventh year at the death of Edward VI. and the accession of Mary in 1553; in her sixteenth year at the accession of Elizabeth in 1558, and she had completed her forty-fifth year when she was beheaded m February 1587. Henry VHL was her great uncle, being the brother of her father's mother, and his three children, Edward VI., Mary and Elizabeth were her first cousins once removed. She was nine years younger than Elizabeth, and if, as was commonly thought by Catholics at the time, that Princess was illegitimate, Mary, as the only child of the only son of Henry VIII.'s eldest sister, was, notwithstanding the actual accession of Elizabeth, lawful heiress to the English Throne. This fact made Mary at all times the object of a peculiarly bitter and vindictive jealousy in the mind of her English cousin — a jealousy which was inflamed by personal considerations, for Elizabeth had the mortifying knowledge that the rival Queen with whom she was almost necessarily brought into frequent 4 ■% I •I 1 » I I I ill ih \\ l^. 4o8 History of the Royal Family of England. Mary Queen of Scots. 409 contrast, was not only a much younger, but a much more beautiful and attractive woman than herself. It is saying a good deal, but it is the fact, that in the whole range of history there is no person whose character has been the subject of so much bitter and acrimonious discussion as Mary Stuart. There is no virtue, however sublime, and there is no vice however atrocious, which is not attributed to her. There is no event in her life which has not been the subject of reams of controversy. In her own time she excited in her many friends a degree of intense and sustained devotion, and in her many enemies a degree of malignant and persistent hatred, such as it has been the lot of but few persons to excite in anyone, and the echo of these feelings, so vehement in her own time, is to be heard at the present day. Even now, in the twentieth century, one sometimes meets persons who appear to regard the fair name and fame of Mary Stuart as if it were a personal question, affecting the honour of them- selves and their families. Some of these persons seem to resent a word of blame uttered against her almost as a personal insult, while there are other persons so firmly con- vinced of Mary's infamy that they regard any man who attempts to defend her as little better than a fool whom it is impossible to treat seriously. One has not far to go to account for these strong feelings. It was from a variety of motives the settled policy of Elizabeth and her Ministers to vilify the Scottish Queen and to represent her in the most odious light, and they carried out this policy with the utter unscrupulosity and singular ability for which they were remarkable. On the other hand, it was to the interest of every enemy of Elizabeth's Government (and her enemies, personal and political, were many and formidable) to uphold the innocence of the Scottish Queen, and to represent her as the victim of injustice and oppression. Mary was the great — almost the only hope — of the sorely persecuted Catholics of Great Britain, and Catholics through- out the world were naturally inclined to attribute to her all I Y good qualities ; but Mary's possible accession to the English Throne was a constant terror to the Protestants, who spared no effort to prevent it. Consequently she, more than any other person ue know of, became, and she has remained, the subject of religious controversy-a controversy more bitter than any other, and as the result Mary became the object of perhaps undue praise from Catholic writers, while the Re- formers Knox, Buchanan and the rest, and their successors, have covered her with such foul and disgusting abuse as has rarely been applied to any other human being. Lastly, Mary possessed in a pre-eminent degree all those qualities which are proper to a subject of romance It IS admitted by all that she was extremely beautiful. It IS also admitted that she carried herself on all occasions when she appeared in public with a mixture of queenly dignity and womanly sweetness, or, as some say, womanly seduction, which compelled the admiration even of her most bitter foes. Her authentic letters, and the accounts we have of her conversations, show that she possessed a large measure of ability, and of what the French call esprit. In moments of danger she showed remarkable courage, and lastly she possessed in a peculiar degree that qualitv which is to be found in almost every member of her race, namely, the power of attracting and binding to herself with an almost passionate aHect.on all those persons, women as well as men, who were for any length of time subjected to her personal influence thus in every stage of her fortunes, on the Throne as well as m her most dismal prisons, there were invariably to be found men and women of all ages and all ranks who, starting some- times with a strong prejudice against her, were ultimately wilhng to sacrifice liberty and fortune-nay, life itself— in her •-ause. These are qualities which peculiarly appeal to romancers and poets, and there is no woman who ever lived who has been the subject of more poems and novels than Mary ; but it is the privilege of romancers and poets to exaggerate the qualities of those historic persons of whom uiey treat, and thus, while on the one hand Mary Stuart is Jl 410 Hislory of the Royal Family of England. Mary Queen of Scots. 411 sometimes represented as little short of an Angel of Light on the other she is represented as a beautiful demon concealing under the brilliancy of her wit and the grace of her manners monstrous passions of cruelty and lust. Mary's name is associated with three men, Chastelar, Rizzio and Bothwell, who are all said to have been her lovers. Chastelar was a crazy poet who fell in love with her, and made his passion conspicuous and ridiculous, and who, mstead of being sent to a lunatic asylum, was put to a somewhat cruel death while Mary was still reigning Queen of Scotland. Ri.zio was an elderly and unattractive Italian of consider- able ability, who became her secretary and enjoyed her con- fidence, and who was brutally murdered in her presence by her husband Darnley, with the assistance or -°""'7"^^ ° /l^; nobles, who afterwards were themselves parties to the murder of Darnley himself ^ , , j Bothwell became her husband after Darnley s murder It seems to me that many persons argue about these three men in a vicious circle. They say in effect, " Mary s conduct with Bothwell shows that she was an abandoned woman and an abandoned woman like that was sure to go wrong with any man she was thrown with. Therefore we may ^^fely;;^"/"^ that she did go wrong with Chastelar and Rizzio, but when her relations with Bothwell are in question they answer. How is it possible to suppose that they were innocent, having regard to her previous conduct with Chastelar and Rizzio ? For myself I freely admit that there is much to be sa.d in favour of the view of her guilty relations with Bothwell, but I confess I cannot see how any reasonable and unbiased mind can really study the evidence and fail to be satisfied that her intercourse with the other two men was perfectly '""Having said so much 1 may as well go on and say once for all what I believe as to the character of this very celebrated person. I believe her to have been a very clever and ve y charming woman, with many virtues and many faults, naturally gay and lighthearted, impulsive, eager, easily per- s suaded, and at times indiscreet- h.,f r ,1 c . . .. to have been in the ron,7^'f \ *'*° ^'"^^^ ^^^*^^ her " virtuous '-woman TbeH T. "T °^ '^'' ^" °' ^' " P-^^^y before DarnTey s murdertr' ' ''" '■"'"*'°"^ ""* bothwell and that she was Tn no wl' '""°''"'' '"^ ^'^""^^ -^r^^^^cr^^t, that her subsequent marZ ' P^f ^ *° Darnley's death ; and her under circum^an^rwhlh"' °'^"'" ""^ '""^^^^ "P^ have resisted. Searfhn "° "°"'"' "°' « heroine, could not to be heroic is to T; ''"'[' ^'^'^"'^^'''"ces in which allowing he'el nder anl ' '"' ' ''^'"'^ ^^'^^ ■" BothweirswifecommLr-^r'T"?''^"'^"' *° "" herself For this crimr;herffe ed a 7 ' "'"' "'^ '" '™"^ ^ "'■™- ment which she bo " >k °"^ Punishment-a punish- that I beiteiL^bTfrirdrth'sSai-'t T'""'°" the title of Saint. ^"^ '" ^"""^^ merited in a'S oTth^rs 't^s i;urth:r ^°""^ "^ '■'"'^-^'"^ the evidence upon which I base h..^? arguments and narrate to adopt my views JnH T T' ' ^° "°' ^'"^ "^^ ^«^ders more learned aTd aW. T "u'^'^' '^^^' '^^"^ '° 'hose far Of .this Qt::':^:,'zT:x:v::''^-T' '''"'^ Particul I ,,,,, , ,,^ late V^H^.T^toTMa;; c'usi ' a JirXTabl: if't':^'''' '" ^ ^ ^ -"" been in fact i^efuted "' '" ">' °P'"'°" ^^'^ n°t chipt^r Z^th/etl-;- fear '^^ -- - arose t::;ee7.he?a'r'%'" birth, vehement competition factions r Scotland a' .' r^''" P°"='''' ^"^ '^^ ■"'val Ultimately, t.t:urth:^rflu:nroftrrLTh?6 '"' immediatelv taken tn k . ^ °^ ^'^'^^^- She was miciy laKen to France under the p<:rr,rf „<■ i sixteenth vear sh^ r!rJl / n '" '558, in her m, year she was actually married to Prince Francis, §1 < ■:\ I !♦ »: n 412 History of the Royal Family of England. Mary Quee7i of Scots. who in the following year (July i559) became King of France as Francis II. ; and for a period of eighteen months Mary held the proud position of being Queen Consort of France and Queen Regnant of Scotland. In December 1560 Francis, who had always been sickly, died of a lingering illness, during which there is a concert of testimony that his wife nursed him with assiduous devotion and kindness. In August 1561, being in her nineteenth year, Mary returned to Scotland to assume personally the reins of Government. The difficulties of her position at this time were admittedly tremendous. The Scotch Lords had, almost without exception, thrown off almost the semblance of loyalty to her as their Queen, and were in open treaty with, and in the pay of her great enemy the English Queen. The Reforma- tion had been established and her religion had been proscribed, so that it was a capital offence to celebrate or hear Mass any- where but in the Queen's own private Chapel ; and she was quite unable to protect herself from personal insults on the part of the reforming Clergy. The period of her actual rule in Scotland, if rule it can be called, lasted from August 1561 till June 1567, a period during which I think it is admitted that she displayed considerable capacity, and gained greatly on the affections of her subjects. One of the great difficulties of her position was as to the choice of a second husband, the candidates for her hand being very numerous, and backed by strong and opposing influences. The policy of Elizabeth with regard to Mary's marriage is quite incomprehensible, and was certainly not understood even by her own Ministers, probably not by herself. Her avowed candidate for the Crown matrimonial of Scotland was her own favourite, Robert Dudley, afterwards Earl of Leicester. Dudley's father, though he had attained to the rank of Duke of Northumberland, had been of somewhat mean extraction, and Dudley himself was of no particular rank at the time and a very young man, and therefore he certainly was a very unsuitable candidate. Nevertheless Queen Mary pretended to entertain the proposal with satisfaction, but as the negotiations proceeded Elizabeth 413 gradually drew back; and under the circumstances and con sidenng the almost avowedly tender relations bet^^en the" S fT^t if ^^"'^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^-^ -^ the Scotch ElSth DudW M ^"'^"^ ^'^^ ^">^^"^ — -d> ^iizabeth Dudley or Mary, was in earnest. In July ic6c Mary on her own motion and in spite of considerab e li^osi of the half-blood, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley to whom indeed, it is said that she had been already priva^dy n^lSed ^r some weeks. The mother of this young man ^C^^^^^ Douglas Countess of Lennox, was half-sister^toTaVy s S James V., James and Margaret having been the children by different marriages of Henry VIII/s eldest sister Mar'aret"^ to t^eTn^i fsh tT^'^' T' P"^^^^^"^^ "^^^ - succeslronl' to the English Throne after Mary herself. (See Table XIV ) chaJteT "' "^'' ""''''' ^"'^^^"^^^^ ^^^^->^ - the nS I ill 1 ^ CHAPTER XXVII. Henry Stuart, Lord Darnlev.-^Mary Queen of Scots {continued). — JAMES I. I T ENRY STUART, LORD DARNLEY, was born on the 1 1 7th of September 1545, and was three years younger til IP. his wife, he being at the date of the marriage in his twentieth and Mary in her twenty-third year. He is admitted by all parties to have been a young man of weak and vicious character but singularly handsome in person ; and it would seem that Mary fell in love with him almost at first sight. She carried through the preliminaries to the marriage with promptitude and a high hand, granting to him when he became her husband the great title of King of Scotland. Queen Elizabeth was, or professed to be, extremely angry at the marriage, though on what grounds she had the right to interfere in the marriage of an independent Sovereign with any man, still less with a man of high rank and birth, it is difficult to conceive. As a matter of fact, however, there is reason to believe that, dreading a strong continental alliance, Elizabeth secretly favoured the marriage of Mary and Darnley. It is certain that she, usually so suspicious of the movements of her kindred, allowed the young man to go to Scotland without protest, and it has been shrewdly remarked that, while Ehzabeth, though professing to desire an alliance between the Scotch Queen and her own favourite Dudley, always contrived to throw difficulties in the way of any meeting between them, she allowed Darnley, one of the handsomest youths of his time, to proceed to the Scotch Court without the smallest let or hindrance. The marriage proved unhappy, Darnley was ambitious 414 Darnley. but h.-s ambition was wholly unsupported by any abilitv n H?hTd";r/i:::rrr:° 7"^" '': p-Aetrd: the principles L TlTJrj^^ZliltZ'lS:, TT res.st the temptations which beset a King even "hot h a K • only m name, in the midst of a turbulent Inrf-^ ^"^^ :=-w.^%tTw^rX^'-"^^'--'-- the result that he\eTaL°l tlTZ !:ZXJrf' :'' once plunged into everv form ^fT hands, and heat suffered at his hands the L 7 ' '''^^ ^"^^^ ^^"^ UL Ills nands the most grievous outrat^es both ac- o 8»«n and ., . ,.„„„,_ ^„ ,^, ofT^lylLt', ;.nH T. r ^ ! '^ i^ustrious cousins Edward VI take^u^P with regard to the future of those distinguiS^y^ng James" Vl' of't:;, ^T I'f "^^ '°'" J^^"' -ft™ds jdiiies VI. ot Scotland and Tames F nf Cr^^i- t> . - 'reland, only child of Darnley Tnd Mattul '^ 'f :Ttl^'t! '"^ ^^™'^^ -^ --d^S' ; he' .S 0' he 9th o February ,567. He had been seriously 111 a„d m his convalescence had been brought to a house at IJ known as the " Kirk of Field " near Idinburgh Treconc Ha' ^on. real or apparent, had been effected betfeen him a"d he" Queen who visited him on the evening before h" ^^t nd then returned to Holyrood the same evening to be present at the marriage of two of her servants In the n,Vh? fi, house was blown up with gunpowder, a^d DarnL; wlKilled I ^J J' i 4 1 6 History of the Royal Family of England, Maiy Qtieen of Scots. either by the effects of the explosion or, as seems more probable, by some person or persons as he was attempting to escape from the ruined house. He was buried on the 15th of February, and on the following day anonymous proclamations appeared in the streets of Edinburgh charging the Queen and James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, with the murder. That Bothwell was one of the murderers no one has ever doubted, nor is there any reasonable doubt that in committing this crime he was prompted either by personal love for the Queen or by ambition, or by both, or that his object was to obtain the reversion of Mary's hand and the Crown matrimonial of Scotland. He was the fourth Earl of Bothwell of his family, and having been born in 1536 was turned thirty at this time. Before that he had certainly enjoyed a large measure of the Queen's confidence, and was a man of great influence and power in the State ; but whether he had been Mary's lover is of course one of the questions most hotly in dispute. On the 1 5th of May 1 567, little more than a month after Darnley's death, Mary and Bothwell were married, the latter being created Duke of Orkney, but not assuming the title of King. The intervening events are in dispute, being differently repre- sented by different writers. If, as some say, Mary was a willing party to the marriage, there can I think be no doubt of he/complicity in Darnley's murder, but if, as others say, she was virtually forced into the marriage, it seems to me that th(High she was guilty of a great fault in marrying the murderer, her guilt in the murder is by no means proved. This much is at least certain, that whatever may have been her own inclinations, she was strongly urged and solicited to the marriage by most, if not all, the nobles, who afterwards rose up as her accusers, and many of whom were afterwards proved to have been actual participators with Bothwell in Darnley's murder. Apart from the broad fact that Mary married Bothwell with indecent haste, the evidence against her rests, first, upon the famous letters supposed to have passed between her and Bothwell and subsequently produced, or said to have been produced, at the conferences at York and 417 I ■ I Westminster; and secondly, upon certain rr. f • pretended confessions, made by perso^;^^^^ "^ for the most part of low charLLr On .^ T'^' '""^ ^"^ distinguished a writer as Tyt er the h^tn /c P"'"' ^" writer who avowedly take. fh.T'i ^ '''''' ^"^ of Scotland, a savs - If fK '''^^^^>^t^'se who uubcquentiy in power (who were ;5ll r^f m i Queen's deadly enemieO f^ u! - I ^ ^^'^"^ ^^^^ ^ ^ aiy enemies) to obtam his extradition. No f. 4 1 8 History of the Royal Family of England. Mary Queen of Scots. doubt however, this circumstance loses something of its significance from the fact that most, if not all, of those persons were themselves implicated in the murder, and dreaded Bothwell's testimony on their own account. Mary was taken to Edinburgh as a captive, and was there subjected to much indignity; but she was almost immediately transferred to Lochleven Castle, standing in the midst of a lake where she was placed in the custody of Lady Douglas who' had been her father's mistress, and was the mother of her bastard brother, the Earl of Murray. Here, on the 29th of July 1 567, she was virtually forced to sign a paper abdicating the Throne, and on the same day her infant son was pro- claimed King, and Murray thereupon assumed the Regency. On the 2nd of May 1568 Mary succeeded in making her escape under very romantic circumstances, which are detailed, if not with strict historical accuracy, with substantial truth in Scott's novel of " The Abbot." During her captivity of ten months there had been a great reaction in her favour, and she was joined by a large number of the Scotch Lords with their retainers. Shortly afterwards she gave battle to Murray, who had pursued her, but she sustained a decided defeat and made her escape with difficulty. Queen Elizabeth had never recognised the action ot the Lords in imprisoning Mary (the imprisonment of a Queen by her own subjects was a dangerous precedent), and, in answer to a message which Mary had sent announcing her escape, Elizabeth had despatched Dr. Leighton to Scotland, with her warm congratulations and an assurance that if the Scotch Queen would submit the decision of her aff^airs to Elizabeth alid abstain from calling in any foreign aid, Elizabeth would speedily either persuade or compel Mary's subjects to acknow- ledge her authority. The draft of Leighton's instructions whfch are entirely in Cecil's own handwriting, is still preserved among the English State papers. Mary, relying on Elizabeth s assurances, determined, contrary to the advice of her friends, to take refuge in England, and on the i6th of May 1568 she crossed the Solway in an open boat. She was at first received 419 :ovtedX?st r r fact" ""^^^^^^^^ until her death onTh H:?FebX^r./"" r/'^^ nineteen ,7^0 t-o u ^eoruary 1587, a period of over Eltbeth'""' ^'^ """"^' ^ -P''- '" 'he hands of ^olVncJTylT T' '^^'" *^ ^^'"""^ conferences, the question of'her gi"rD;Xrrar'i;° "'"^Tf'^ conferences that the letters so oft^e^ ^d ^.^^^^ or at ail events if wac c^iA t-u^*. ^u h'^'-'^-iu^.cu, ri\ :*. c r vviiLLcn , out this much is cert^iin u e^that ir ir° -^""^ '° ^" ""-y^ — '- aTd' as such principles are recognised in every cwS^lrand tne one nand Elizabeth was of ooinion '' fhaf r.^fk- u ^ yet been brought forward against Murrav , ' "' "°'^'"& ^ad as whon, Mary had charged v^ h be^g pltie^s tote" ^TT Lt'trced'-^'^^'h ''-'' '-- - '-'S"- ->^i"2 opinion of her good sister" mL conceive an ill "History of Scofland " ConsTn "^^""^ ^''' ■^>"'^^'^ have been to Fli.ih..h. ' ^""''^'^""S how greatly it would ^Z A J ,, 'zabeth s advantage to have had the guilt of Maiy distinctly proved, and how distinctlv th. 7 u proved bv the lettPr^ if Ik^ aiscinctlj. the guilt was to amount if nnf . ^ "'^"'^ ^^""'"^' ^^'' '^^"'^ to me find I'ng that he In " ""''"' °' '"^"'"''' '' ''''' '° ' 'inaing that the letters were not authentic. •:i 420 History of the Royal Family of England. I do not think at the present day anyone denies that whether Mary was or was not a party to her husband's murder that murder was the result of a vast conspiracy which included the great body of the Scotch nobles, and most, if not all, ot those who were prominent in accusing the Queen. The complicity of Morton, who was a Scotch commissioner at York and of Lethington, who was assistant commissioner, must'be taken as proved ; and if it is not certain that Murray himself was a party to the conspiracy, I do not think it can be reasonably doubted, or is in fact denied, that when he appointed Morton and Lethington to fill these judicial offices at the conference, he was well aware that they themselves were parties to the crime into the circumstances of which they were appointed to enquire. Under the circumstances it is not wonderful that Mary and her friends should, at the time, have protested against the whole proceedings as a mere mockery of justice, or that in later years Mary's defenders should have regarded them in the same light. Mary, though not found guilty, nevertheless remained a prisoner, but she had by no means lost her power. She had adherents all over the world, and was, in fact, the rallying point of the Catholics, not only in Scotland, but in England, and she became the subject of any number of conspiracies. Consequently Elizabeth and her Government regarded Mary with increasing fear, and as the years went on the circum- stances of her captivity became harsher and more stringent. As early as the sittings at York, a plan had been set on foot for a marriage between Mary and the Duke of Norfolk. This Duke, Thomas Howard, was the fourth Duke of his family. (See Table XIII.) He was the grandson of the Duke of Norfolk who played so prominent a part in the reign of Henry VIII and he was consequently a relative of Queen Elizabeth. Elizabeth's grandmother. Lady Elizabeth Boleyn, and his grandfather having been sister and brother. Being the onl> Duke in England, and a man of great wealth, and one of the most influential of Elizabeth's subjects, he had been appointed to preside at the conferences of York, and he had therefore Babbington s Plot. 421 the best means of knowing the real facts as to the murder of Darnley. It is not a little remarkable under these circum stances that he should have taken that time to have ntered into secret negotiations for marrying Darnley's accused widow Norfolk was at that time a widower for the third time, though he cannot in ,568 have been more than thirty-two. ThZh cItWic'd f .' '^^'''°"^' "^^ '^^^ strong leanings to the retard d h t'h' r ■! T"'""^^ "'*'' ^^'^ """'^ have been regarded by the Catholic party with favour. Marv and her bllfTl ^ ■""'"'• ^'''^y °" '^^ ^^°""^ that it had been because t ' "'i T ""'^''^' ""^^^ P--"^"^^ • -d --"^^'X. mTrZ T '^^' ^^"^^■"" ^"^ ^' *^ t-"'^ himself a married man. It is certain that Bothwell had been previously married, and that he had only succeeded in divorciifg his firs^ wife a very short time before his marriage to Mary but the circumstances of Bothwell's divorce, like nearly ev^ry other point in the case, are in dispute. It is strange, but nevertheless true, that both the Earl of ftoZ; - ' ''■°'''^' '"'^ "'^ ^'''' °f ^--'-^ter, Elizabeth's favourite were parties to the plot for bringing about ttoT'T u ""^ '"' ''°^'°"^- Tl'^y probaWy^ntered mto It either because they saw some means of turning the marriage to their own advantage, or more probabiy Jth a view to Its betrayal, and in fact they ^V ultimately betray it. with the result that the Duke was beheaded in 1 572 fh. '"i l^f ^"''^" ^^"y ^^' "^^'^"'^'^ of being a party to the plot known as Babbington's Plot, which had for its object not merely the dethronement, but the assassination of Elizabeth. She was so accused on the testimony of certain letters supposed to have been written by her, and from confessions extorted, under torture, from Babbington, and two of her own secretaries. Curie and Nau. Her answer to he charge as given by Tytler seems to me remarkable for >ts dignity and straightforwardness : « I do not deny that I have longed for liberty, and earnestly laboured to procure it. Nature impelled me to do so, but 1 call God to witness that / \ I ' II fiP I 422 History of the Royal Family of England, The Death of Mary Queen of Scots, % 425 I have never conspired the death of the Queen of England, or consented to it. I confess that I have written to my friends and solicited their assistance in my escape from my miserable imprisonment, in which she has now kept me a captive Queen for nineteen years, but I never wrote the letters now produced against me. I confess, too, that I have written often in favour of the persecuted Catholics, and had I been able, or even now at this moment were I able, to save them from their miseries by shedding my own blood I would have done it and would now do it ; but what connection has this with any plot against the life of the Queen ? and how can I answer for the dangerous desi;4ns of others which are carried on without my knowledge?" "It was but lately," she added, "that I received a letter from some unknown person entreating my pardon if they attempted anythmg without my knowledge." As to the confessions, she urged with great force that she had never seen them, and had no means of testing their authenticity, that Babbington had been put to death before the charge against her was made, and that she had never been confronted with either Curie or Nau, or allowed to examine them, and she pointed out how entirely she was in the power of her secretaries, who possessed her cypher, if they were minded to betray her. If Mary was really a party to a plot for the actual assassination of Elizabeth, it may be that she was worthy of death ; but with regard to her guilt in this matter, as with regard to the alleged letters to Bothwell, I can only say that if she was really guilty it was in the power of Elizabeth to have made her guilt manifest to the whole world ; whereas in fact the proceedings against the captive Queen were a mere travesty of the forms of justice, and the evidence against her, so far as appears, such as would not at the present day be accepted in any Court of Justice in any civilized country. Imagine a Judge in this century being asked to convict on the evidence of a confession extorted under torture from a witness who was not produced in ct I' t I il; VA eneSiestdln °> ^""'^' ''' ^'"^ ''^^ '^"'"^ ^^en Mary's enemies judged .t necessary for her to die. She was con demned and she was beheaded on the 8th of February 1587 to the horror and amidst the protests of the whole cfvilLd atteIo'ts''t7,H'*''lr"'"'°"^ °' ^''--^^^^- of her shuffling attemp s to throw the responsibihty on her ministers =nH o speak plainly, of the lies she told'^to all Ind sundrv is to Le found in all histories; as is also the story of tlf^ LS TawTt f v'' ^"^"°' Scotland, which, as rda Ld by h srt itrs-'' '^ '"'^"^^'^'^ ^° -^'' -" -. of Htr';'vn ''r';^ "^'■*. "°- '■•« buried in the Chapel o: Henry VII. at Westminister Abbev under p tr.,^K afterwards erected by her son James I ^^ epocTt, *En'rh t" f "" ^'"^^' "^""^'y ^^ ^egin a new epoch ,, English History; and naturally with the Deriod nto wh.ch we are now enterinjr most of my reader! wfl be far more familiar than with that which closed with the death of Queen Elizabeth. The Tudor dynasty was notable for the (rradnal uppre.ss,on of the power of the nobles and of the Church and for the consolidation in the hands of the sovere fns of absolute authority. The Stuart dynasty was marked bv the °688 which T^' ""' '''"''"' ■"" *he Revolution of Serent h "^ •'" xf ^ established the British constitution on Its present basis. The events which led to this great chancre f Thfl S ^'r'7 °" ''"' '''-'"' constitutiLarpositif: .nterestid : ,h: " '' " u ""P°^^''''^ """^ anyone who is h" to!,! ^T°"' ^°^^^" ""'^ •'« "^ay care for thos7 f "'m' '° ^^ "'■"'"■■ '^"°'-^"' °f °^ indifferent to earl !r TT IT''''' '"' °"<^ ''■"'" ^^o treats of the n"de it th"\°'''"^"'"'' '''^'■^ ^^« '' '-^' ten who have made it their business to deal with England's histoo' under 424 History of the Royal Family of England, the Stuarts, and it is difficult to find a single person of note in that period whose biography has not been written, often with extreme minuteness, at least once. This must be my excuse, if any is needed, for seeming to slur over the great events of the seventeenth century. Queen Elizabeth died on the 24th of March 1603 in her seventieth year, and at her death there was practically only one competitor for the English Throne, namely, James VI., King of Scotland, who was the grandson of her first cousin, Tames V^. As has been so often said, the children of Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York combined the rival claims of the great houses of York and Lancaster. These children were four in number, Arthur, who died without issue in his father's life, Henry VIII., Margaret Queen of Scotland, and Mary Duchess of Suffolk. On the death of Elizabeth, the issue of Henry VIII. became extinct, and by the law of England the Crown passed to the heir of his sister Margaret. It is true that there were those who alleged that Henry VIII. had had statutory power to change the succession, and that by his will he had exercised that power, and in fact settled the succession, passing over the descendants of his eldest sister in favour of the gmndchildren of his sister Mary. At the death of Elizabeth there were living children of two of those grand- children, namelv, of Katharine Grey, Countess of Hertford, and of Margaret Clifford, Countess of Derby ; but both the vaiidity of the powers supposed to have been given to Henry VIII., and of the execution of the will by which he was supposed to have exercised those powers, were in dispute, and the jealous policy of Elizabeth had reduced the descen- dants of her cousins Katharine and Margaret to such political insignificance that they do not appear to have been seriously thought of as candidates for the Throne either by themselves or anyone else on the death of the Queen, or at any sub- sequent period. Margaret, Henry's eldest sister, had only three grand- children, Mary Queen of Scots (the only child of her son Accession of James I. Arabella Stuart. Thl io,n."Tad f '" °"'>' '^^"^'^'-• already been related, h d'^^t one tt'et°" "' ^*°^^ "'- put forward by Elizabeth ! u '^^" *° ^""^^ extent circumstance gave se to i-I ''°''-"' '"""^^'"■' "'"''^h and eventualfy cau ed'°r'ru^i°" 7"^ "'"'^"'^^ ^^•• Arabella, however, was a woman of Htt.eK",f ^'''^'^^^^■ and there was no person oT^fl [ ^'"''^^ °^ ambition, was to press her Es such irt^'"" ^P^"'^' '"^^^^ >* 'hough a somewhat vlue ott 7 '""''' ""^ '^'''''^°'^- after James' access on Ihth discovered immediately the subsftution ofAr^b: iffor/amr::!'" '"'^ '^^" ''' tz z^^^' --^ -^ -hinrto"d-s^;;: — for he was as zealous a ProteLntr.i? ' ^^'^ '^"^oy^d, could desire: and though there ^^^rflT^' '^'^^ viewed with susDicion ih^T ^antrng those who to the English Th one th." "' '''' K'"" ^^ Scotland hailed it with saSac on aTbZ hie "t'""^^ """''''' ^'^^ cruel wars which for cenZlvll, } ^ ^° P"* ^" ^"^ to the i-poverished both Kingdoms """ ^'°"^"'' '"' of a'p'Sltho Z'':!:T:'1 r^^^*'-^'--'- the accession "Pon as a Mart; o tLrfath ^TX "'°" ''^^^ '"^"^^^ having reeard fo f h» • ' ^""^ "^^^ anticipated ("and hy JaL S at the'Zr T"" '^' '^'^" ^'■-" '° *hem in their hard fale TheProt'/t . ""'°"i '""^ ^melioration a Prince who thoroughfy shfrTtr" f ^''^ '° ^^'=°'- and all parties lon^eH fl "■ '■^hgious sentiments, .i fi' Mt 42 6 History of the Royal Family of England. Jarnes /. 427 J h. Thus it is probable that, in any event, James would have succeeded without difficulty ; but the entirely peaceful circum- stances of his accession were due to the foresight and w.sdom of Sir Robert Cecil. , ^ . The great Cecil, afterwards Lord Burghley, the most cele- brated of Elizabeth's Ministers, had died in .598. five years before his mistress, but he had left two sons Thomas and Robert, who inherited a large measure of h's influence, and the younger, at any rate, a large measure of his ab.hty. The elder who inherited his father's title, was subsequently created Earl of Exeter, and from him the present Marquis of E^^^^ '^de. scended. The younger Robert, who, though at Ehzabethsdeah hehad not been advanced to the Peerage,was atthe t,me virtually Prime Minister, and he had, in view of the approaching dem.se of the Crown, entered into secret negotiations with the Scotch King So carefully had he laid his plans that all preparations for the King's progress to England had been made before- hand James was informed of Elizabeth's death, and set out for England with such extraordinary rapidity that the English people had hardly had time to realise that Elizabeth was dead, before they were called upon to accept James as her successor in possession. , , , .„j 17^,1 Robert Cecil received his reward, for he was created Earl of Salisbury, and, until his death in 1612, he remained pre- eminent in the new King's Councils. From him the present Marquis of Salisbury is directly descended. , ^ ^ . lames VI. of Scotland, who became James I. of Great Britain, was born on the 19th of June 1 566. On the 29th o luly 1567 his mother, in her prison at Lochleven Castle, was forced or induced to sign an abdication of the Scottish Throne, and four days later James was crowned King of Scotlana. Thus he, like his mother and his grandfather, became Sovereign of the most turbulent nation in Europe while he was still a baby. His reign in Scotland is marked by a series of feuds and dissensions between the greater nobles, which can hardly be distinguished from civil war, and which were almost con- tinuous. When in later years, on the occasion of his marriage, he was absent from his Kingdom for a few months he, on his return expressed great satisfaction :.that all had gone well remark^' T' """"^Y' '"^'^^ having been, as Miss Strickland remarks ,n a period of seven months, " only two insurrec- Highirnds ■' "°'' '" '^''"'"''^'^' ^"^ ^°™« ^'^'-'■^hes in the On the enforced abdication of Mary the reins of Govern- ment were seized by her bastard brother, James Stuart, Harl of Murray who was proclaimed Regent, and was assassinated about eighteen months later in January 1570 He was succeeded as Regent by the King's paLnaf grand ather 1T.T., T'^''i'.°'''^""°^'"''° was assalinated In m! \^ a- ?^' '" '^ '"■■"' ^^"^ S"<:ceeded by the Earl of Mar. who died a natural death in October 1572, and then came the infamous James Douglas, Earl of Morto^, who was he nephew of Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, the second husband of Margaret Tudor and the grandfather through lis Darir c"'"'' ^°r^^^ °^ ^•^^ K'"^'^ father, tod tt K;L« ^°"^^,<'"'="''>'' Lord Morton was the first cousin of the Kings grandmother. This person who possessed, in an eminen degree, the savage vices of so many of his famil^ was Ruler of Scotland till ,577, when the young King, at the mature age of eleven, was declared competent to reign by hi! own authority. As a matter of fact, however, Morton, though no longer Regent in name, remained practically in power for some years ater, but ultimately, in 1581, he was charged with that cha" '^^^.'T.-d--^ °f Lord Darnley, and executed on that charge. Of his actual guilt there can be no question nfR .k'^ .. ^°T^ ^''"^' ^' ^"^^^ "'^ known as the "Raid of Ruthven was taken prisoner by Lord Gourie, and remained a prisoner for about ten months, after which his actual reign may be said to have commenced. He was in his twenty-fifst exe< „r "".' f "n>narried at the date of his mother's execution^ and he had completed his thirty-seventh year M rch r« T- ^l"^ °'" ^"^'^"'^^ "^ di^d on the 27th of March 1625 m his fifty-ninth year. James I, 429 \ CHAPTER XXVIII. Tames I. {continued).-^o^^^i: Carr, Earl of Somerset.- George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.— Anne of Denmark. JAMES I. may in some respects be regarded as a Musus naturae" The Stuarts, from whose house James was descended, had all been remarkable for their personal beauty, for their great courage, and for the distinction and grace of their manners. Vicious as he was, Darnley's good looks and personal accomplishments are acknowledged by all writers. Darnley s father, Lennox, on his first arrival in Scotland from trance, is said to have excited the admiration of all the Scotch ladies, and his wife, Margaret Douglas, if not a great beauty, certainly won her full share of admiration at the Court of Henry VHl. Mary Queen of Scots is admitted to have been one of the most beautiful and graceful women of any time, and she was the daughter of parents both remarkably handsome. Never- theless, the ugliness and clumsiness of King James VI. a U writers agree to have been remarkable. His features were in- formed, he had a habit of rolling his eyes, which was extremely grotesque ; his tongue was too large for his mouth, and he habitually slobbered, his body was ill-shaped, his legs were bandy, and, in his later years, were so weak that he cou.d hardly walk without support, his utterance was thick, and his manners were so uncouth and coarse as to be at times both vulgar and repulsive. As to his courage there are two opinions, but if, as is probable, in the graver emergencies his life he displayed coolness and resolution, it is certain that in small matters, and this more particularly in his closing 428 to be't'h! ™^de exhibitions of cowardliness which caused him to be the I mghing stock of his Court. Under these cirrM^ stances one might almost be inclined to attaS s^e cr dence" to the rumours from time to time put about that James was not, m reahty the child of Mary Queen of Scot butTad been substituted for a child who died in infancy, had t not been for the fact that his descendants were, all of them as d.srmctly Stuart in their personal characterist cs as any o7'hl ancestors. We must, therefore, suppose that James' physic^ d sadvantages were the result of the tragic scenes that tTok pacedunng his own mother's pregnancy' It is weirLown that some months before his birth, while Mary was a supnlr Darnley and his companions rushed into the Lm and tWe murdered her secretary, Rizzio, while the unfortunlte w etch was actually chnging to the skirt of her dress. For somedme afterwards Mary was extremely ill from the effects of Ws awful scene, and it has been conjectured that the shock thus g.ven o the mother's nerves, gravely affected the physTcal and mental qualities of the child within her. P"ys"«' and f„nK '"# ^^"^^ "^^^ described in his own time as " the wisest 001 m Europe," and he was, in fact, an extraordinary combfna t.on of w.sdom and folly. It can hardly be said Tat he e n""' rob'"'''" °'"'^ '^'■"'' "^"^ ""^ shrewdnes! and en^M Tu- °''"^''^^"'^" ^e'-e at fmes extraordinary, and nabled h,m to surmount difficulties which might easily have rushed an abler man. He had received a leafned educatl and possessed a large fund of information, and, though certan,ly not much under the influence of religio^ in ht forThicfheri ^T™^'^ '-'" of polemical 'drscuL'n real learning, however, is so overlaid with thick layers of conceit and pedantry as to become almost invisible through character he appears to have been externally good natured nd jovial ; but I think it is impossible to read tL record of s domestic relations and public actions without sedn^ hat he was, ,n reality, extremely cold-hearted. Though not .! I lie t *Wi|MWWft'L 430 History of the Royal Family of England. % I"* naturally cruel, under the influence of terror, and for h.s own interests he perpetrated deeds of cruelty of the most hornd description, and in his reign the practice of torturing prisoners and suspected persons to extort confessions was earned to a point which was hardly reached even under the Tudors. He firmly believed in witches and witchcraft, on which subject he wrote a book ; and, under him, the laws against witches were so stringent, and they were carried out with such diabolical cruelty, that it is almost sickening to read the accounts wh ch continually crop up in every record of James reign of the atrocities committed in the name of justice and religion. Every person who sustained any injury from the action of the weather by sea or land, every person who suffered from a malady which the imperfect science of the day was unable to trace, and every person who sustained misfortune which he or she considered un.nerited, was allowed and encouraged to fix the blame on any wretched woman in the neighbourhood who happened to be sufficiently old and ugly. The forms of procedure against the alleged witches were so extravagantly absurd that, in nine cases out of ten, the accused person was tortured to death in the course of the examination into their guilt. Thus, an alleged witch was thrown into vvater to see it she would float. If she did, she was a witch to be burnt but, if as was naturally the case, she went to the bottom and was drowned, it was presumed that a little error had been mad and that she was not a witch after all ! The discovery of th mistake did not, however, bring the victim to life ! It is needless to say that when the King on his Throne and many of the Clergy from their pulpits, were continually denouncing witches and witchcraft, the terrors of the ignorant people always prone to this kind of superstition, were raised almost to a point of insanity. Many old women went mad from terror and accused themselves and, unfortunately, many others as their accomplices ; and, of course, as always happens in these cases, many scliemes of private and political enmity were masked under a pretended belief in witchcraft. The total number of unfortunate persons who were done to deatn as witches in England and Scotland under the rule nf T I. .s something appalling ; and for these crime h.K"'' largely answerable, for his int^r^,/ T """^^'^e King ,s credulity as to all stories owi.hr ^""^ ^'^ ^""^'^^^ classes of his subjects ^""'^' ^^"' "^" 1^"°-" ^ all tennLSdtefore^lame'std'S '^'h '^^^" '-^'^ -" - .•n England ^^^It^so^:' S^Tl::^^ [^ T^'' '"' new King they would obtain IZlMvT A^" "'T' °'" proceedings, however, showed them thi fh" '' ^" ^"' and the indignation and despaio"aJit!h%rr' '° '^' gave rise to the wicked conspiracv kno " V '^"^^^'^^ge, Fawkes' Plot " The artn,! u "^" '" '"'"'"'>' as " Guy this plot was smI5 and tie""" °'P"^°"^ ™P''«'«d in little weight or cons de at.- nC^^^^^^^^^^ '"^^ °'" Plot?" b)-John Gerard S n h. . ^^^^^ '''^' the Gunpowder discovery o/the pl^t:^!;!'^^^]/::^''' '^ ''^ extreme ; and not onlv was p „,„ ^ 5 people, was of persons put to death undT .^'^P''°P°'-''°"="e number cruelty, but fresh penauL ^'^'^"'"'^tances of fiendish whichf in their aLoci':L7;jP^^-^ ^f -' all Catholics, Elizabeth. ^' ^^-^^^^^d even those enforced by King James has the credit r.f K, • husband, though the de^reT^f J "" ^^^" ^ ^aithfol him and his wife does Sseem t'f '"T ^"''"'^""^ ''«'^«^" disliked his eldest son whom Tt T T" ""''" " ""'^^ °"^- «« believe without a^ytruThth^t he" ." 'T''''^'' ''''"^^ ' of his daughter he does not f ^"'^. *° ^^ P°'^°"^^ ' ^nd fond; but in his lir ""'^PP'^^'- '"have been particularly influenced C htyounJrT clT '°"^ ^"^'^'^^d '° -d On th .u ^°""Ser son Charles, afterwards Charles I On the other hand, throughout his lifc t ^"^."^'^^ ^• exuberant affection on a series of ,n'l f ' ^''"'^' '""'^'^^'^ whom were raised froL ^ favourites, many of hfe, and wer^d stin^u'h:;^^^^^ ''''""' P^^'''™ '" powers of flattery than h! ^ ^^^" ^°°'' '°°ks and qualifications Upon these"^ '' '"^:"°' '"^"'^' °^ "^or.l places of honou^'and w Ilth^L"! ^'"^/-'^'^^d titles, ana wealth, m a manner for which it is 'I 'I 432 History of the Royal Family of England^ George Villiers, Duke of Buckingh am. 433 difficult to find a parallel in any reign ; and he ahowed them to treat him in public with a familiarity wh.ch would appear to have been almost contemptuous in its expression, and which was a source of constant annoyance and mortification to the more decorous of his subjects. After James' coming to England, the two most noteworthy and prominent of his favourites were the infamous Robert Carr or Kerr, afterwards Earl of Somerset, and the hardly less infamous George Villiers, afterwards Duke of Buckingham, Carr as his name is commonly called, was a younger son of Sir Thomas Kerr of Fernierst in Scotland, and was born about 1587. In 1603, when he was about sixteen, he was brought to England in the train of the King as a Page of Honour In 161 1, when he was twenty, he was advanced to the position of Gentleman of the Bedchamber then a very lucrative office, and he received the honour of Knighthood Four years later he was created Viscount Rochester, elected a Knight of the Garter and a member of the Privy Council, and appointed Keeper of the Palace of Westminster. In ,6n when he was twenty-six, he was advanced to the rank of Earl of Somerset, having in the meantime been appointed Secretary of State and Treasurer of Scotland, and, in addition, he received many minor but highly valuable appointments and many grants of land and money. Carr was a person of no sort of ability and of an extremely dissolute life. In 1622, at the a -e of thirty-five, having contracted, under very dis- creditabfe circumstances, a marriage with Frances Howard, a daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, and the divorced wife of the Earl of Essex, he and his wife were accused of murdermg by poison Sir Thomas Overbury, who had opposed their marriage. They were tried and found guilty, and their accomplices were executed, but, though Carr had been long declining in influence the King interposed his Royal Authority to save his life and that of his wife, and they dragged on the short remainder ot their existence in obscurity. (See " A King's Favourite by P Gibbs ) It should be said that Carr was interpolated as Earl of Somerset, a title hitherto intimately connected with the Royal family between the Protector Somerset in the Henfo^rd r' ^'■- T'r '"^^ P^^^"'^ ^""d-"' ^h^Earl of Hertford who married Lady Arabella Stuart, and who was restored to his grandfather's rank in 1660 ficen?'T°h?"'' °'^'""" "'■'^ ''■'" '"°- ^^P'd and magni- gentleman fn7""'': 'Z °'^" ^^"^^^ V""^--^- «" °bscure Court TtTh ^^"f^''^^'^^- he was born in 1592 and sent to found f '^' "f tvventy-one in 16,3. and he immediately found favour with the King. In the course of four years raTofTd '" 1 "''""'■ "'"^^^ '"' ' "-''- °f ^fr-^t succession t" « P.':^"°"'' ^' ^^^ P^'"""'^^ ■■" ^apid of the Bern 1 L°^^"P ^'"^"^ *° '^' King, Gentleman of the Bedchamber, Master of the Horse (an office borne hitherto only by men of the highest rank). High Steward of Westminster, Master of the King's Bench, and Lord Lieutenant of the County of Buckingham ; and within the same period he was appointed a Member of the PnVy Council, and c eated Baron V.lhers and Earl of Buckingham. All this before he was twenty-five ! Two vears later in ,«,^ u ""^ "^'ore he to the r;.,X ^f M ^ r ^ ' ^'9, he was advanced maS a dL f '■■''"'\°^ ^"'■^'■"S^^'"' ^"'^ ''" '623 he was Admiral o f P ' ^T^ ^T '"^""'^^ ^PP^'"*^^ Lord High Admiral of England ; and having, in the meantime, received other honours quite too numerous to mention. Hi mother tinithi:[° «f " ''"' f '^" '''''' ^""°^'^d -d received dT: tinguished offices ; and all his relations, to the most remote degree, profited largely by his advancement. Amongst oThe^s may be mentioned his brother-in-law. Sir William Feilding Ea°i of DeTs ""T °''';"''^'' ^"'^ ^^""^ ^^•^°- the present the '. R n^ ^^ - descended. (See Lodge's " Portraits " and It is It r ^ ^?' ^"'" of Buckingham," by P. Gibbs.) 12^Tk"'' T '° Y'""" '° ^">' '■'*' '^ he enjo>-ed the thatlf I ? ^^"'? ^^ ""J°>'^'^' '■" ^" ^''"°^' equal degree, ha Kii:r T '''"'" • ^"' "^^'' '■" '"^^ ^-'y >'-- of inafeH ^' ^'''f"^"'^ remained unabated. He was assas- cond T^V ',( °r f"^'"^""' ^"^ ■^'■t ^ -"' -ho was the was nl '' ^"^' °^ Buckingham of his family, and who was notorious even at the Court of Charles II. for Ws extreme I 434 History of the Royal Family of England. Kings of Denmark. 435 debauchery. I must, however, again refer to the first Duke of Buckingham in speaking of Charles I. Though King James had, as I have said, the reputation of being a faithful husband, the glaring immorality and wickecl- ness of his courtiers was notorious throuohout the world. He himself was extremely intemperate in his habits, not infre- quently appearing before his people in a drunken condition, his Ian ^uage was often coarse beyond the bounds of decency and, to^say tlie least, he did not discourage the licence and extravagance prevalent among his courtiers. In speaking of the wickedness of King James' Court I must refer, in justifica- tion of the remark, to the practice of secret poisoning which in this reign, is said to have attained to its highest point. There is, of course great exaggeration in the contemporary writin-^s, inasmuch as if they are to be believed, no person of condition ever died otherwise than by poison ; but the tacts elicited at the trial of Carr and his associates for the murder of Overbury show that secret poisoning did obtain to an alarming extent. r t -n f In concluding what I have to say of James L, I will reter my readers to Scott's novel '^ The Fortunes of Ni<.el, m which, though the minor characters and the incidents are imaginary, the character of James I. is sketched with a master's hand, and though it appears to me too flattering, is the more clearly recognised the more closely one examines the authentic records and contemporary accounts of this King. I do not know how far my readers will sympathise with a remark 1 have heard made, that all things are to be excused to James I. in that, in his reign, tobacco was first introduced into England. . King James died on the 27th of March 1625, and he is buried in Westminster Abbey, but no momument was ever erected to his memory. In I 589 James married Anne, daughter of Frederick 11.. King of Denmark. The history of Denmark is so little known that a few words as to the previous Kings may not be un- acceptable. In 1374 (temp. Richard II.) died Valdemar, the 4'' FstriH^n""' ;f '"P. °^ Denmark, of the ancient family of Estndson. He left three daughters, of whom the second Margaret Queen of Norway, had a son, Olaf, and the Danes a pos,t,on of power and influence which it has seldom or ever attained to since. When her son Olaf died as T h. I 7ii:z 'T-f " ^"""^^ '-'- --s:or,':ndrchoTe'h:: great "ephew, Knk, a son of the Duke of Pomerania by Martha only child of Margarets eldest sister, Ingebiorg. TOs Pr Jce Jill Z '' ^"' ""'•• M-g-et succefded. partly by diplomacy and partly by force of arms, in plac ng on the Thrones of the Three Kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden and Phi'lZ' ''; T"'''' '^™' ^^ '^^^ "-" -'-dy stated to Ph.l.ppa, second daughter of King Henry IV. of Eneland Margaret, who is commonly spoken of as fhe "Qu en f the dt; g hir iirbfv'\"'^!; °' "^^ ^^°p^^^ -"'^ '^-'"i- during her life, but after her death in 14,2 (temp Henrv V 1 he great power she had placed in the hand of Er" "a^id,; went to pieces. He, as has been already remarked was a person of very inferior ability and character, and in iJg he 'tsLwoft ' '"^"'," ''"' °'P'"'''- I" his place ^hristopher of Bavana was elected King of Denmark but h^ was succeeded by Christian of Oldenburg, who was remotelv connected with the Danish Royal Family, and whrestabThed ?thrKt '"°^" ^j T '''''"'-^'- ^-g-eradt ht L ^ Ju^' ?f '■'^'' J^""^* '"• °f Scotland, and was the g andmother of James V., who was the grandfather of Tames I of England, and to this marriage I muft refer ag^in, is Uwat !» '< !■ • I J K 4.36 History of the Royal Family of England. practically the cause of this marriage between James I. and Anne of'oenmark. Christian I. was succeeded by h.s son Hans, who was suceeeded by his son Chnst.an II and Christian II. was succeeded by h.s uncle Frederick I., the brother of Hans, who began to reign in .523. and was con- temporary with Henry VIII. Frederick I. was succeeded by his son Christian III., who established the Reformat.on in Denmark. He died on the ist of January '559, and was succeeded by his son Frederick II., who was he father of Anne of Denmark. Thus it will be seen that James I. and his wife were both descended in the fifth degree from a common ancestor. Christian I. of Denmark. When Margaret of Denmark married James H I.ofScotland, her father was unabe to pay her dowry, which was fixed at 50,000 florms ; and to secure the payment of that amount he mortgaged to the Scotch King the Islands of Orkney and Shetland, wh.ch thus passed under Scottish Rule. None of the succeedtng Danish Monarchs were able to redeem the Islands unt.l the ttme of Frederick II., but that King, greatly enriched by the spoil ot the monasteries which had fallen into his hands, announced his intention of paying off the mortgage to the great con- sternation of the Scotch, who were neither prepared to see the Danes established in force upon their coast, nor to protest the question by force of arms. It was to settle this burning question that King James VI. proposed to marry the King ot Denmark's daughter ; and ultimately, after a great deal of discussion, the marriage was agreed to, and it was agreed that the disputed Islands should be the dowry of the Danish Princess During the discussions, however. King Frederick 11. died in 1588, and the Crown passed to his young son Christian IV., under the Regency of his mother, Sophia 01 Mecklenburgh. In August 1589 James and Anne were married by proxy, and shortly afterwards the newly married Oueen set sail for Scotland. She encountered dreadful weather, and was driven back on the Coast of Norway, and had to land at the village of Upsloe, where it seemed probable she would have to pass the approaching winter. I I I I f: % f i Anne of Denmark. 437 may here remark that in consequence of this unnatural and disloyal conduct on the part of the winds and waves, King James gave the witches of Scotland a remarkably hot time for several months. On hearing of the unfortunate position of his bride. Kin? James, acting it must be admitted, by no means in accordance with his usual characteristics, set off in person to rescue her • and having encountered considerable perils by sea, he arrived at Lpsloe on the 19th of November 1589, and he was married a day or two later. At the date of his marriage he was in his twenty-fourth year, and the Princess, who was born in December 1575, was within two months of completing her fourteenth year. Once married, the King and Queen of Scotland proceeded to Denmark, their journey across the mountains of Sweden and Norway in mid-winter being regarded in the sixteenth century as a feat of no small daring Arrived at Copenhagen, King James seems to have indulged himselfm a course of very uproarious festivities, in the intervals of which he devoted considerable time and attention to the Danish witches, to their great discomfort. He and Queen Anne did not arrive in Scotland till May 1590, and there they became involved in a series of lively disputes with the reform- ing Clergy as to the ceremonial to be observed at the Queen's Coronation. This ultimately took place on the 17th of May 1590, and was attended with a good deal of splendour, to attain to which, how,ever, the poor King had to make unparalleled exertions. Miss Strickland gives a series of verv diverting letters written in the Scotch vernacular by James' to various ot his nobles, soliciting gifts and loans for the occasion In one he asks for the loan of some silver spoons, and in another he begs Lord Mar to lend him, for his own use, a pair of silk rtockings, adding "Ye wad na that your King suld appear ■ine scrub on sic an occasion ! " The domestic life of James and Anne does not appear to lave been particularly peaceful. I have already said that in 11.S youth King James had been for a time a captive in the 'ands of Lord Gowrie, the head of the Ruthven family. After !» I i 438 History of the Royal Family of England. \\ Anne of Denmark. 439 he recovered his liberty James put Lord Gowne to death, and treated his family with considerable harshness, and ever after he regarded them with great suspicion. In August 1600 was discovered the great " Gowrie Plot," or alleged plot, which for a time created an immense commotion. James himself alleged that he had been beguiled by the Kuthven family into their house at Perth, and that they had there attempted to murder him. and had very nearly succeeded in doing so. The real circumstances are in dispute, it having been more than hinted bv some writers that the King invented the whole story, with the view of further punishing the Ruthvens, and, as some say, out of jealousy of one of their young men whom the Queen was supposed to regard with favour. At all events James proceeded to pretty well exterminate the family. The name of the Queen is generally connected in a somewhat mysterious manner with the Gowrie plot. All that actually appears, however, is that Anne was very fond of Beatrice Ruthven, who was one of her maids of honour, and that Janies, having di.s- missed the young lady from the household, the Queen knowing her to be in great distress and destitution, sought privately to assist her. This being discovered by the King, he greatly resented his wife's supposed sympathy with his enemies. , xr* ^a Another fruitful source of dispute between the King and Queen was as to the custody of their eldest son, P^nce Henry whom the Queen wished to keep in her own palace while the K^ng wished him to be left in charge of the Earl of Mar, who had an hereditary right to the custody of the heir apparent. This dispute gave rise to some rather undignified scenes, several of which, as they are described, must have been not a little comic in their details. , ^ ^ \ a Oueen Anne did not accompany her husband to England, but followed him within a few weeks. Her progress south seems to have been animated by a somewhat lively wrangle between her and her husband, with reference to the officers and ladies who were to constitute the Queen's household m which dispute it would appear that the Queen substantially carried the day. Anne was met by her husband at Westminster, and c^ave further offence by refusing to take the Sacrament accord- mg to the rites of the Church of England, a circumstance which might have given rise to no little difficulty had it not been for the tact of the English Bishops, who appear to have been as complaisant on this occasion as the Scotch Ministers had been the reverse on the occasion of Anne's Coronation as Queen of Scotland. It would appear that after Queen Anne's arrival in England she fell very much into the background, and it is probable that she was always in rather bad health. To judge by her portraits she was not a particularly good- looking woman, but she seems to have been, on the whole, good-humoured and kind-hearted, though in her earlier years she was at times extremely excitable, and in her disputes with the King she, to say the least, held her own. She was very fond of dress (in which her taste, judging from her pictures, must have been execrable), and she was fond of fetes and pageantry of all kinds, and the " masques " which were performed at her Court have been rendered famous by the genius of Ben Jonson, who for the most part wrote them. Her religious opinions seem to have been extremely unsettled, and in her later life she was suspected of Popish 'tendencies,' and indeed certain Catholic writers maintain that on her death-bed she was received into the Catholic Communion. If this is true, the wives of all the Stuart Kings were either born and remained, or became Catholics, which seems a somewhat remarkable coincidence, considering the position held by Catholics under those Monarchs. Anne of Denmark died in March 1618 after a long illness, and about seven years before King James. She is buried in Westminster Abbey. 1 r f^enry Stuart^ Prince of Wales. 441 CHAPTER XXIX. Henry Prince of Wales. — Charles I.— Henrietta Maria of France. KING James and his wife had seven children, of whom four died as infants. They were (i) Henry, Prince of Wales- born February 19th, 1594. (2) Elizabeth, afterwards Electress Palatine and Titular Queen of Bohemia, born August 15th, 1 596. (3) Margaret, who died an infant, born December 24th, 1598. (4) Charles, afterwards Charles I., born November 19th, 1600. (He is said to have been called Charles, after the King's uncle, Lord Charles Stuart.) (5) Robert (said to have been so called after Robert Bruce), who died an infant, (6) Mary, born April 1605, and (7) Sophia (called after the Queen's mother), born 1606. The Princesses Mary and Sophia were born in England, and both died as infants, and their tomb in Westminster Abbey is one of the most quaint of Royal monuments to be found there, or I should think anywhere else. Prince Henry's life was short. At his birth he was created Duke of Rothesay, a title which was usually borne by the heirs-apparent to the Scottish Throne. He was in his eighth year when his father became King of England, but he was not created Prince of Wales till 1608. He died unmarried in 1612 in his nineteenth year. Every account of this Prince represents him as a youth of singular promise. He gave every sign of possessing abilities of a high order, was hand- some in person, gracious in manners, and skilled in all athletic exercises ; and his private life shewed a rectitude, not to say an austerity, of morals which was remarkable in a young man who, notwithstanding his early death, lived long enough to be exposed to the temptations of a most dissolute 440 Court. His father disliked him, fearing it \^ said th. the Pn„c. of VviT'h J.':;3r b'"' °" "" ■"'"■ <" made There ,'<. h^ murder by poison were freely fro. natural au^efanJ'Luir"" '° '°"''' '''^^ ''^ ^"^^ if his end was hastened hf f T.^ "° '''^'°" '° ^"PP°«^ 'hat the crime. Prince Henrv/hn""' -'"' "'^ ' P"^'^' *° k. 4. ^iince nenry is buried m Westmin^f-f^r akk but no monument was erected over his grave ' '^' ^ <^^ the two other children of James T wh^ mfancy, I nrono<;p ^r^ a \ a J^mes 1. who survived descendants and Ls^hef'' r'*' ^'^"■''^^ '• ^"^ his I have to si of hrs ster pf °"'t' ?k T''""'^^ P°^'P°"« "'h=^t over three cent-nnV.: tK= r^e J. in i;i4, a period of Edward Tv of he Plant? '" ""Jf """^^ ^nghsh Kings- and James If LS:7ro."\"^^ ^'l' "' '""^ ^"^°-- Family is descended " """ '"^^ P"""^^"' ^'^y^^ King Charles I. was born on the loth r.f v^ u and was immediately created Duke of A Ih! ^°''^^^^' '^°°' three years old when Oueen FH, K .k /. ^^ "^ ^^' "°* extremely deliclteas "„?"*■- > ' '"'^ ^""^'"^ ''"'" some years h1 .' ^^ ^'^' '^^' '" Scotland for PrinLTwale" „T6.6T' """'^ °' ''°^^ '" '^5 and elder brother and hi ^°"'' J^^-"^ ^^e^ the death of his became KLgln^M'archTa:;" '" '"'"''-''' ^^^ -■''- ^^ :~-^^^^^ r 442 History of the Royal Family of England, Charles I. KincT Charles was called upon to assume the rems of Government at a time of great public difficulty^ Parliament, which had begun to assert itself even under Elizabeth, had made rapid strides in power under James I. ; and on the accession of Charles it was obvious to everyone that a great strug-le for supremacy was impending between the Crown and the people as represented in Parliament. It would probably have been impossible for any King, however wise and prudent, to have averted this struggle, or to have avoided considerable diminution of the Royal authority, but a man of judgment and tact, who had known how to read the signs of the times, might, I think, have so guided the contest as to have retained in his own hands such a degree of influence and power as would have made the position of the KngUsh Soverei-ns, for some centuries at any rate, very different to what it^ctually became. Whether this would have been an advantage to the people may, however, well be doubted. I do not think it is claimed for King Charles that he was a man of any special ability, and I think it is admitted that in those qualities which were specially called for at the moment- judgment, knowledge of character, and the power of accom- modating himself to circumstances, he was singularly deficient. He was a man by nature conscientious, domestic, and affec- tionate, and no one has called in question either the purity of his morals or the sincerity of his religion ; but he was at once obstinate and weak, tenacious in small matters, and never knowing when to give way, or when to hold fast, and he was utterly untrustworthy. In saying this I do not mean that l^e was, at all events in the early years of his reign, deliberately insincere, for though he often said that which was not in fact true and promised that which he ought to have known he could not perform, I believe that for the moment he believed what he said and meant to do what he promised. The result, however, on the mind of the nation was much the same as if he had been the most deliberate dissembler. The most solemn promises were broken almost as soon as they were made, friends whom he had undertaken to support were 443 sTantCi'''''" ^•''''' ""^ ^^P^^ "^^'^h ^^ had raised were con stantly disappomted, and the result was that no T f those who loved hi'm r^ . 4- . j "° °"^' "^t even Charles at h-sacSr ''"'"^f *° ^'^^^ "P°" '^-■ He retained in po^ ^3^,3^^ *"° T^^ "'■^'^'^- Buke or Buckinrha.. and ^Z^HTi^^''-^^' Henrietta Maria of France. ViUiers ^^T^J^. t '^''' under a most fascinating manne and som A ~"''"''^'' ments an utter want of^rincip e "nd o7 al Kt'TP'''^''- to his position. His ambition ts£unds1nfhis'"f dunng which he survived the Kin^'c ^^^ ^^^"^ "hich he was virtuali; PhL E3^:;7°"'-dd""ng embroihng the King wi[h nea'v everfs It. T"''" '"" with every class of his subiec s Refo k . T^^' '"^ had raised up against ^S\ bod^o^ te.Tef blth'"^ England and abroad which wa. =.f „ enemies, both m determined to destrov him J ^ v ^^ '° P''^"^''^"' ^"'^ '° In justice to Charles, however, it must be said th,, u was brought under the influence of Villus at a t'^ I' k' was himself a mere bov and wh Z-u ^ "^^^^ ^e years his senior, was inThety zenith o'^ "'° "" "'^'^ pair afTe- - -r^^^^^^^^ almost every one whom he wished to please " '^ L^iiarles second error was hi« marrfpcr^ T7^ i 444 History of the Royal Family of England. King Charles i:s Marriage. sister of King Philip IV. of Spain. For the reasons which induced King James to desire this marriage I must refer my readers to the general History of England, and more par- ticularly to the late Mr Martin Humes' book, "The Court of Philip IV. ;" but it is certain that he did desire it, and that in 1623 Lord ' Bristol, his ambassador at the Spanish Court, had, by the exercise of great diplomatic ability, brought negotiations to a point which seemed to be satisfactory. At this juncture, however, Prince Charles committed an escapade which was destined to have serious results. He had, no doubt, heard of the romantic adventures which had attended the marriages of his grandfather, James V. and Magdalene of France, and of his own father and mother, and he determined to imitate the example of his progenitors, and win his bride for himself Accordingly, he and the Duke of Buckingham set out for Spain, and arrived there in the disguise of servants. They were, of course, immediately recognised, and the greatest con- fusion ensued. Buckingham, who was always insanely jealous of every one who had obtained any reputation for success in any department of life, was extremely jealous of the credit which Bristol had obtained for his management of the marriage treaty ; and apparently in order to thwart Bristol, and for no other particular reason, he set himself with vehemence to break off the marriage. Accordingly, he brought all his influence to bear against it on King James and the Prince- he quarrelled with the Spanish Ministers— he affronted the prejudices of the Spanish Court, and generally he behaved like a mischievous school boy, with the result that almost at the last moment Charles suddenly broke off the marriage and departed for England. The Spaniards were deeply incensed, and a long and disastrous alienation between the two countries ensued, while Charles, instead of returning to England the admired hero of a romantic adventure, was generally held to have made himself not a little ridiculous. If he had only known it, however, he had escaped a great danger, for his marriage with the Catholic Princess was profoundly unpopular ; and if he had understood the attitude of his future subjects, ^ The lesson, how'er ' w ^'^rrrm r'f?^ T"'°"^' choose to accept a wife of I? , ! Charles did not who™ he had %Z! and h77 '' ""' "'^" ''^^ ^^^-^ for a n,arriage Jhh HendetJa M °"" '"*'"' '"'° ^ ^^^^'^ Henry IV Kine of Fr^n . '^' ^"""gest daughter of Louis XIlL^ '"'"' ""'^ ^'='^'- °f 'he reigning King At this time all the Cpfhr^itV 17 greatly exercised in m nd as to h. ^ ''" ''°^"' ""'" and Irish Catholics Jh'h was in r.T. ° ^''^ ^"^''^^ Spanish King, as pan of the Treat for thJ ' """ ""'' .>;;.s daughter and c'harles. had^'^td orTXad"'" f uie persecutions against the r:,Xr.v I I relaxation of son had agreed, at a "events ^n ' '""^ ''"'""^ ^- ^"'^ ^is his demands. '° ^ ^reat extent, to accede to The Ministers of Louis XIIT fnr ti,„ u well as of religion, could do no 'le" ttan i" d" h ^T"' ^^ the Spaniards, and the result 1 ^^" """"^ ^y English King ;nd Prince oWleraheVdid"' IT' ""' ''' ■t public) which virtually provided for fh " ^"'^ '"""^^^ penal la.s. Catholics ^iZlTJZ:^^ ^ZTP f '""'r religion than they could have rlain,^^ ■ ^'^^'''«'^ freedom of -atch without llestation toTe, 'erlo^r:'''^"'^^""^'^ ''"'ui:^:,^i:y"'-'' "^--y of ^n^^dr '"'^"'^ °^ nnable to do so In Z\l T u ' '" ^^^'' ^^ ^^^ ""erly Of the Catholics ^'^" Commons, that which had h. '""^"^„^°'"P-"-d to meet the veloped into active rebellion a H T"'" '''''''"'''^ ^ad de- menced. On the Lth oJ A.' . ^ ^''^' ^''^" ^'^ «m- Standard at Nottinlm tfl ^'f '^ ^'"^ ™"-d his battle, that of Ed.eH,lT'w..f u^ afterwards the first easily have been the cas'rlsuitl^' / ^""'^ '''''' ^ -'^^bt King, probably the whole ecu ! 'f ' ""'' ''"'"'y '°' ^he changed; but the advantage \r'"'' "'°"'^ ^ave been obtained by the Roval fn^ ' f ^' °"" ""^^ bad been imprudence^ Chal . Z^'Tp "' ^I ''"' ^^^'^"^ -^ fnate (the son of his s ster Fm'k ?."^'' ^"P"""' °^ ^^e Pala- the least, a drawn one ^''^^^'^^'h), and the battle was, at To trace the progress of the Civil War i<= n^f but ,n August ,646, the King's cause in P , ?'' P"''P°''=- to be desperate, he delivered h;^r "^'^"^ appearing which had marched Into Fn^rf "'", *° " ^^'^^ «™v Scotch leaders, very :nS%o^Sl.:^,^,-,^-'5-"f the h.m to the English Parliament for a X in p r"'"'^ ^°'^ he was brought as a prisoner to Hoi K l ^^'^''^ary 1647 was transferred to ChildesK n n > "°"'"' ^''^"ce he to Hampton Court Fro nHrm P^'"^"^?^' ^'"d from there November 1647 he escaTd h T " ^°"'''' °" '^^ '"h of and conducte^^'to'^CaX;': Ca^r- "rtr'^^"^'^-'' where he remained for a little ove a r''^ °^ ^'S^'- '648 and the beginning of Lo Th L^^"' '" December passed a series ofLoluLns ote eL^rt ti 'r-'^"-^ levying war against the nation h J K '^ ^'"?' ^-^ t;^.ason, and it'was resolved To' brng him t^l''^ °' '^'^^ charge. The trial commenced in wT. "''^' °" '^''' 20th of January .640 ^nd ^ ^estmrnster Hall on the ;he King' was co:dSn d^'to'derh ^£^^^°-,--'"^'°"' Whitehall on the ^oth of u. . "^^^ beheaded at year. He is buriedTt wlso"""'' ''' '" ''"^ '"^'^-"'"""^ T i 448 Hisiory of the Royal Family of England. King Charles I. 449 From the moment, however, of his captivity a strong rea'ton in his favour set in, a reaction which, though for deven years it was kept in check by the stern ru e of Ohver Cromwell made steady if slow progress, and resulted .n .660 in the restoration of Charles' eldest son as Charles II t the seventeenth century few, even of those who were most inclined to resist the encroachments °f .'>;« R^y^' authority, could endure the spectacle of an anointed King languisW^g in captivity, still less his public execution under he forms'of law; and the feelings of the community were immensely touched by the personal demeanour of the Kmg during his trial, and at the last moments of his life, than which it would be impossible to imagine anything more impressive, either in its Kingly dignity or its noble resignation. King Charles, who had inherited all the personal beauty and grace of his ancestors, had also inherited that power which enabled nearly all the Stuart Princes to win over so many of their enemL and to enlist the almost passionate devotion of their riend: 'and by those who saw him at the last, his fau Us we forgotten, and he was exalted to the rank of a Saint and Martyr This feeling has continued even to the present day, and here are still some who regard Charies I almost as the incarnation of romantic dignity, and as the victim of cruel and unjust rebellion. Kins Charles enjoys the unique advantage of quasi- canonization in the Church of England an annual service having been instituted in his memory, and several Churches being dedicated to the Almighty, if not under the patronage, at least in the honour, of '' King Charles the Martyr. For myself, I do not know to what principle he fell a martyr, unless it be that of the " Divine right of Kings, which seems to me, if it means anything at all, to mean the Divine right of Kings to do as they like. I do not know if at the oresent day there are to be found any who seriously defend this principle, but to me, I must frankly admit, it is at once absurd and abhorrent. I think that a King is as much bound to obey the laws of his country as the meanest of his subjects , and that, when, as sometimes happens, there are no defined laws except the will of the Sovereign, the Sovereign is and ought to be made amendable to the laws of natural justice. In King Charles' case, however, the laws of the country were well known and well defined, and that he broke them and openly rebelled against them can, I think, hardly be denied. Therefore, I do not think his death substantially unjust. In the case, however, of the head of any State it is always diflFicult to say how or by what procedure he can or ought to be brought to justice ; and, while I think that the sentence upon Charles I. is in the main just, I am by no means prepared to defend the particular course which was adopted in his prosecu- tion, and still less to defend the characters (which, indeed, for the most part seem to me to have been abominable) of the men, at once his enemies and his judges, by whom he was brought to justice. King Charles I.'s wife, Henrietta Maria of France, was the youngest daughter of Henry IV. (sometimes called the Great), and his wife, Marie de Medicis, a Queen whose career is tolerably well known to most readers. Henrietta was born on the 25th of November 1609, and five months later her father was assassinated in the streets of Paris. Her father, whatever may be thought of his moral qualities, was certainly a man of great ability, but he had his weaknesses, one of which was belief in the predictions of fortune tellers. He had been told that if his wife was crowned he would not survive the event for twenty-four hours ; and, therefore, it was not till after the birth of his youngest child that he could be induced to give his consent to the Queen's Coronation, though, as he must have been well aware, common prudence required that sh^ should be crowned. In those days the Coronation of a Sovereign was regarded as a religious rite which perfected his or her title to the Throne. A King was hardly regarded as being really a King until after his Coronation, and his wife was hardly regarded as being truly his wife until she had been solemnly seated on his Throne as his Queen. As an illustration of this I may iiieniion tliat Henrietta, wife of Charles I. having 2 ¥ \\ 1 I f !i \ > I ,t i {■' JH' I 450 History of the Royal Famil y of England. refused on conscientious grounds to share in her husband s Coronation, which was performed with Anglican r.tes. was afterwards made to suffer bitterly from the consequences of her refusal ; for when in after years, and as an ex.le, she demanded payment of the dower to which as Queen of England she was entitled, Cromwell answered that as she had not been crowned she had not been recognised as Queen, and on that ground, nominally at any rate, he refused payment Marie de Medicis, however, carried her point, and was duly crowned on the 13th of May 1610, and on the 14th of May, the dav following, in fulfilment it was said of the prophecy, Henry IV. was murdered by a crazy fanatic name Ravaillac. The true explanation of the matter probably is that the rumour of the prophecy having been spread abroad, behef m its fulfihnent first suggested to Ravaillac the .dea of murder- ing the King, and then nerved him to carry out the idea. The death of Henry IV. was followed by stormy times in France, and the young Henrietta as a child served her full aporenticeship in the troubles and turmoils of which, as a woman, she experienced so many. She was married by proxy to Kin- Charles on the 8th of May 1625, and then proceeded to England, and she was married to the King in person at Canterbury, according to the rites of the Church of England on the 23rd day of June in the same year. At the date of the marriage she was in her sixteenth year. The early years of their married life were rendered stormy bv religious differences between the King and Queen, but as the years went on and their troubles began to accumulate, though each retained with unabated zeal his or her religious convictions, an affection sprang up between Charles and Henrietta, which ripened into a love, the depth and sincerity of which it is impossible to doubt. The Queen espoused her husband's cause against his political opponents with zeal, but also with imprudence ; for, being an outspoken and unreserved person, she not only gave great offence by the plainness, and even harshness, with which she expressed her views, but she occasionally let out secrets Queen Henrietta Maria. 45' with which she had been entrusted in the presence of her house- hold, too many of whom were spies employed by her enemies In February 1641, on the occasion of the marriage of her eldest daughter with the Prince of Orange, Henrietta escorted the young Princess to Holland, and there succeeded in raising a large loan for the use of her husband. On her return a year later, when the war had broken out, an attempt was made to intercept her by Parliament, from which she escaped with great difficulty and no little peril of her life. On this occasion having escaped from a house which was being cannonaded' she remembered that she had left behind her a pet dog of which she was extremely fond, and with equal courage and imprudence she went back to the house alone, and at the imminent risk of her own life succeeded in carrying off her little favourite. The anecdote is fairly characteristic of Queen Henrietta, who was at all times warm hearted and impulsive and never very wise or prudent. For the next two years the Queen was in the thick of the contest and played her part with all her courage, if not with the ability of her distinguished father, but in June 1644 after her confinement at the birth of her youngest child, the Princess Henrietta, it became impossible for the Queen to remain longer in England, and she escaped, not without difficulty to France. There she was received with much kindness by the Queen Regent, Anne of Austria, the widow of her brother LOUIS XI II, who granted her an adequate income, and assigned to her as residences the Palace of the Louvre and the ancient Chateau of St. Germain. Henrietta's whole soul, however was bound up in the affairs of her husband, and as she deprived herself of all the luxuries and most of the comforts of life in order to send money to her husband and sons, her life in l-rance was for many years one of great retirement and obscurity. She had, however, after the year 1646, t!ie comfort of having with her her youngest child the Princess Henrietta to whom she became attached with an almo.st idolatrous affection. This little girl she had been obliged to leave in England with her other children, but in 1646 the child's gover- '\ ! ' F ( 1* I i; fi I/' r wie^ip—w 452 History of the Royal Family of England. Queen Henriet/a Maria. ness, Lady Morton, disguising herself as a servant, and her charge as a little boy, succeeded in mak.ng her escape and brin Jng the young Princess to her mother. Queen Henrietta was also visited from time to time by her aides son. he Prince of Wales, who, happily for himself, never fell mto the clutches of his father's enemies ; and tlie Queen occupied her- self in making strenuous efforts to bring about a -^t* between the Prince and her own niece, the celebrated MdUe. de Montpensier, whose own account of the courtship of the Royal mother and son is extremely amusing. I do not understand and never shall understand the principle of the titles of honour borne by the French nobility and more P^rt'cularly by the French Royal Family; but this Mdlle. de Montpensier was the only child of the first marriage of Gaston. Duke of Orieans, brother of Louis XIII.. and of Queen Henrietta, and she was therefore a Princess, and at this tirne the first unmarried Princess of tlie French Royal Family. She was not only a handsome, clever woman, but, in right of her mother, one of the greatest heiresses in Europe, and, therefore, this marriage would have been an extremely good one for the impoverished Prince of Wales. The lady however, was extremely ambitious, and much inclined to look down.upon her English relatives, and. though she was amused and somewhat flattered at the courtship, she was by no means disposed to throw herself away, as she thought she would be doing, by accepting the young Charies. ... . After reading in her memoirs her extremely vivacious and somewhat ill-natured remarks about the tactics of her aunt Henrietta, one cannot help feeling some satisfaction in know- ing that after going through the wood she eventually picked up the broken stick, and, having declined a series of great alliances, she eventually compromised her own position and happiness by trying to marry the somewhat disreputable Due de Lauzan. who was neither in point of birth, fortune, or c^arac te a suitable match. It is sometimes said she did actually marry him, but this seems very doubtful. (See "Lauzan Courtier and Adventurer," by Mary F. Saunders.) 453 bet^^eSe '5:eS1e::„?rd^L^ P^^^ France, and Queen Henne ta th u f'TT ^'°^^ °"' '" sides, was at times in da ""^ of J ,f^'' '"'"'^ °" "^'"^ Paris. Moreover bv th. . '" """""^ '''^ Siege of reduced to such extrem fi 7^^^"" °^ '^"^ '"<^°'"'= ^^e was the Cardina de Re r" f P^J^'-'y that she was found by who wa, unable T.eT I ""^ ''^ ""^^''^^ °^ ^er little gir^ Queen was u„ ll T ^^ ^frt'^^^^ "'^ ^^^P'^^f winter,'the her. It was ,n the midst of Z \ "' m''^""^ ^'^' *° ^^™ received the news of th^^^Lcu ion o h° .'"k'^' ''^ Q"^^" was profound, and from that tTmeh/imst^^^^^ f"" f "^^ fne lost her spirit, and the ensu ng yea" present so fa °"' she IS concerned, no point of public'.uerest ' " were :o^Se:'anVt ",;'\^^^^°^^^'°" °^ Charies II. cognizant of th; ^l c ''''° ^^'^ "°t immediately un!x;rt:dih:tucr:wihrs;':ck':;7 '- ^-^^'r^' - majority of persons • anH . surprise to the great moiher.'who'be ore ^h s 3eemra,rstTT ''^" '° ^'^ ^■"^'^ The Restoration w^TstabTi ° 7^:7".^ Tt £rd^i^eri^rar^;n:t'^ daughter, trPrtcerL'STa 'o"f t^^ ^le \T ^•nf SarieTr 'rr;r^ - ^-Stre'^rceL^d 'by^ state, L^tt: ;• itt:^;ixt?^ ~^' "'^ ™-^ ..^:?red-„itteXt:^:S^^^^^^^^^^^ -^ .ntimately connected with him and his defth " -^ parted in f^nmif,, • ^ , yioucester (trom whom she had parted ,n enmity in ,654;, had died suddenly of the small-pox 1 \ \ 1 I I 1 1 ; 1 ! i ^ 454 History of the Royal Family of England, Queen Henrietta Maria. 455 in London not six weeks before her coming, and her eldest dau^rhter, the Princess of Orange, died in London of the same disease within two months after her arrival. Though the Queen had seen little or nothing of these children, it was impossible that their deaths should not have added greatly to her afflictions. Moreover, the Court of Charles II. was very uncongenial to his mother, the propriety of whose personal conduct has never been called in question. The King had celebrated his Restoration by plunging into a course of open and undisguised debauchery, which his mother could not have witnessed without sorrow and shame. Moreover, her second son, the Duke of York, had recently married a lady, Anne Hyde, of very inferior rank and position, and though Henrietta was ultimately induced to acknowledge the marriage, it was a severe blow to her family pride, which was very great. Lastly, under the thin veil of the rejoicings of the Restoration, it was impossible for anyone of any penetra- tion not to see that the old troubles still existed— that further contests between the King and Parliament might break forth at any moment, and that the popular hatred against the Catholic religion v/as as strong as ever. Under these circum- stances Queen Henrietta would willingly have returned to settle permanently in her native land, where her youngest daughter (whom she seems to have loved passionately and almost to the exclusion of her other children) was to marry and to live, where her religion was respected, and where she was surrounded by her relatives and the friends of her youth. This, however, was made impossible by the conditions of her jointure, which, though it had been restored by King Charles, Parliament, was made practically conditional on her spendmg it in England. Accordingly, though she returned to France in January 1661 to be present at the marriage of Princess Henrietta, and remained there for eighteen months. Queen Henrietta came back to England in July 1662 and took up her residence at Somerset House, where she lived in great retirement for several years. In June 1665, however, it having become evident that her health was breaking up, she obtained leave to return to France, and she lived there till her death in August 1669, having then entered upon her sixty-first year. She was buried at the Abbey of St Denis, the place of burial of the French Kings, but when at the French Revolution the Abbey was desecrated, and the bones of the Royal dead cast out from their tombs, the first coffin that was opened and despoiled was that of Queen Henrietta of England. Henrietta Maria is said to have been very pretty in her youth, but her beauty probably depended on her vivacity and expression, and in her middle life she is described as having become very wizen and unpleasing in appearance. She was not a woman of any ability or judgment, and, though she was undoubtedly deeply and sincerely religious, the exhibitions she made of her religious zeal were frequently uncalled for by any true principle, and it is difficult not to suspect that in her earlier years they were induced as much by the desire to snub the English courtiers, and it may be, her husband, as by sincere piety, and her .strenuous attempts to forcibly convert her son, the Duke of Gloucester, to the Catholic religion, to which I must refer later on, appear to me to be unjustifiable. In her later years, however, the defects of her youth had to a great extent worn off, and when she died she had few enemies, and many tender and loving friends. (See "The Life of Queen Henrietta Maria," by Ida A. Taylor.) J ( t "S. Princess Elizabeth. 457 CHAPTER XXX. Princess Elizabeth.— Henry, Duke of Gloucester.— Mary, Princess of Orange.— Charles II. CHARLES Land Henrietta Maria had nine children, of whom three died as infants, and two in their youth. The children were (i) Charles, who was born and died on the 13th of May 1628. (2) Charles, afterwards Charles II., born May 29th, 1630. (3) Mary, afterwards Princess of Orange, born on the .4th of November 163 1. (4) James, afterwards James II., born October 14th, 1633. (5) Elizabeth, born January 28th, 1635. (6) Anne, who was born on the 17th of March 1637 and died in 1640. (7) Katharine, born the 29th of January 1639 and who died the same day. (8) Henry, afterwards Duke of Gloucester, born 8th of July 164O, and (9) Henrietta, afterwards Duchess of Orleans, born June i6th, 1644. I propose to deal first with Elizabeth and Henry, who died unmarried, then with the Princess of Orange, then with Charles II., who left no lawful children, then with James II. and his descendants, amongst whom I shall include his nephew and son-in-law. King William III. of England, the only child of his sister Mary, and lastly, the Duchess of Orleans and her descendants, many of whom, though ex- cluded from the English Throne by the Act of Settlement passed in the reign of William III., still live and flourish. Princess Elizabeth was born on the 28th of January 1635, and she was not yet seven when the Civil War was actually declared. Her two elder brothers, Charles and James, were with the King, and her elder sister Mary was in Holland, but the King's three younger children, Elizabeth, Henry, and Henrietta fell into the hands of the Parliamentary Party in 456 1644. The Princess Henrietta, as has been said, was speedily carried to France, but Elizabeth and Henry remained as State prisoners, living chiefly in St James' Palace in London, until the execution of their father in 1649. It is, however, fair to say that they seem in the first instance to have been treated with the respect due to their rank, and with as much kindness as was compatible with their safe keeping. In 1645, when Elizabeth was ten years old, her elder brother James, Duke of York, was taken prisoner at Oxford, and sent to join Elizabeth and Henry at St. James' Palace, and he remained there as a captive until the 21st of April 1648, when he succeeded in making his escape to Holland. The plans for this evasion seem to have been concocted by the young prisoners, James and Elizabeth, with little assist- ance from outside, and great skill and courage. For a long time before the date fixed they pretended every evening to play elaborate games of hide and seek for the amusement of their little brother ; and they took immense pains to suggest, and get suggested to them, out of the way hiding places. On the evening of the 21st of April, James induced one of the gardeners to lend him the key of a gardener's lodge, from which he was aware that he could escape from the Palace, on the ground that the lodge would be an excellent place of concealment. Having got out of the Palace in this way he made his way in the dress of a girl, furnished for him by his sister, to the river side, where he was taken on board a Dutch skiff; which for some time past had been waiting for him. Meantime the Princess pretended to be busy looking for James, with the unfeigned assistance of Prince Henry, and thus no suspicion of James' flight was aroused till he had been gone for fully an hour. Before King Charles' death he solicited and obtained an interview with his two young children, Elizabeth and Henry, of whom the elder was barely thirteen. The account of the meeting is extremely touching, and the young Princess, who was sensitive beyond her years, seems to have pined away from that time. \ i I i I 458 History of the Royal Family of England, Henry Stuart^ Duke of Gloucester. 459 After the execution of the Kin^^^ the Monarchy was aboHshed, and EHzabeth and her younger brother were sent to Carisbrooke Castle, with instructions that they were to be treated as if they were the children of a private gentleman, and there, on the ist of September 1650, Klizabeth died in her fifteenth year. She is buried, at Carisbrooke. All accounts of her agree that she was a child of precocious piety and intelligence, and with great promise of beauty. Sufficient indications of sympathy with the Royal family were given by the public after the death of the Princess, to make Cromwell uneasy as to the consequences if any mishap should befall the young Prince Henry ; and as the boy's two elder brothers, were at large, his custody was of no great con- sequence. It was, therefore, determined to send the young Prince to his sister the Princess of Orange, and accordingly, early in the year 1653, he arrived at the Hague. He was born on the 8th of July 1640, and, though he is usually spoken of from his birth as " the Duke of Gloucester," the actual patent creating him Earl of Cambridge and Duke of Gloucester was not signed by Charles H. till May 1659, a year before the Restoration. After a short stay at the Hague, Henry was sent for to join his mother. Queen Henrietta, in Paris ; and thereupon a sharp contest arose in the Royal family as to the religion in which he was to be educated. The Queen had been allowed, without opposition from anyone, to bring up her youngest daughter, who was only two when she went to France, in her own faith ; and, indeed, it is difficult to see how Henrietta as a Catholic, and living in a Catholic country, in which the Protestant religion was, in Court circles at any rate, almost unknown, could possibly have done otherwise. The case, however, was different when the Queen proposed, by somewhat high-handed measures, to convert a boy already turned thirteen and who had, from his earliest infancy, been educated in the strictest tenets of the most extreme Protectant party. With<:)ut entering into any general question as to what influence the Queen was entitled to bring to bear on her young son, I think it is clear that what she did do, was wrong. She subjected her son first to the undue influence of bribes, for he was told repeatedly how much it would be to his future temporal advantage and personal gratification if he, an almost penniless exile in France, would conform to the religion of the country ; and when he refused to succumb to these inducements, he was subjected to something not far short of personal ill-treatment. Like all his family the Prince was high-spirited and sufficiently obstinate ; and encouraged by the messages of his brother, King Charles H., of his sister, the Princess of Orange, and of his aunt, the Queen of Bohemia ; and by the personal assistance and sympathy of his brother James, who was then in Paris and a decided Protestant, he opposed an unexpected resistance to his mother, notwith- standing that she was backed up by the whole weight of the French Court. The affair made some little stir, but ultimately Henry was ordered to leave Paris and join his brother Charles, who was then at Cologne, and he did so in December 1654. Before he left he sought to obtain an interview with the Queen, which was harshly refused, and he never saw her again. In the interval between the beginning of 1655 and the Restoration, Prince Henry was the constant companion of his elder brothers, and they were, all three, more or less hangers- on at the Court of their sister Mary, thereby involving her in a good many disputes with the States General of Holland. Gloucester accompanied his brother to England at the Restoration in May 1660, and, as has been already said, he died of small-pox in the following September, having com- pleted his twentieth year. He is buried at Westminster Abbey. It may be here mentioned that the title of Gloucester had been vacant from the accession of Richard HI., until it was revived in this Prince. Mary, eldest daughter of Charles I., was born on the 29th of November 1631, and on the 2nd of May 1641 she was solemnly betrothed to William, only son of Frederick Henry Prince of Orange and Stadtholder of the United States of 460 History of the Royal Family of Eyigland, Mary Princess of Orange. 461 Holland. There is no country in Europe, the history of which repays attention more than the Kingdom of the Netherlands ; but it is sufficient for my purpose to say here that it originally consisted of seven Provinces, each governed by a separate Prince, and of which Holland (which now gives its name to the whole country known as the Kingdom of the Netherlands) was the chief. The Emperor, Charles V., and his son, Philip II. of Spain, were the lineal descendants of the old Counts of Holland (one of whom, it may remembered, married a daughter of Edward I. of England), and as such became in their time the Rulers of the Netherlands ; but in the reign of Philip II. (temp. Elizabeth) the Provinces rebelled and established themselves as a Republic, under the name of the United States of Holland. This Republic .so rapidly increased in power that in the reigns of Charles I. and Charles II. it is not too much to say that it was probably the most powerful naval state in Europe. The United States of Holland were, to a large extent, under the Government of the Princes of Orange, this arrangement having been brought about by the signal ability of William, Prince of Orange, who was born in 1533 (temp. Henry VIII.), and is known in history as William the Silent. The Princes of Orange derived their title from a tiny Principality in the south of France, which, in the reign of Louis XIV., was absorbed into that Kingdom ; and William the Silent had no hereditary or other right to the Government of Holland, and was elected to the office of Stadtholder merely on account of his military genius. This office was originally held for life only, and gave to its holder supreme authority in military and naval matters, but little or no direct civil power. Nevertheless, from the time of William the Silent there was almost, continuously, a more or less acute struggle between the Princes of Orange, each of whom was elected for life and the States ; the Princes endeavounng to get the office of Stadtholder recognized as an hereditary and quasi Royal dignity, whereas a large party in the States earnestly desired to retain their Republican Institution-. In this struggle, though not until nearly two centuries after the death of Princess Mary, the Princes were ultimately successful ; and in 181 3 William Frederick, Prince of Orange, became King William I. of the Netherlands. Frederick Henry, the father of Mary's husband, was the son of William the Silent ; and it may here be mentioned that the descendants in the male line of William the Silent, became extinct on the death of Frederick Henry's grandson, William III. of England, and that William I., King of the Netherlands, who was the great grandfather of the present Queen Wilhelmina of Holland, was descended in the male line, not from the first Stadtholder, William the Silent, but from his brother. When a marriage was first proposed between the son of the Stadtholder and the daughter of the King of England, such a marriage was regarded by many persons, both in England and on the Continent, as highly derogatory to the King's dignity, inasmuch as the rank of the Princes of Orange as such was very inferior, and the position which Prince Frederick Henry held as Stadtholder was not assured to his son. Nevertheless, an alliance between the two countries seemed likely to be, as whenever it has existed it has always proved to be, in fact, so beneficial to both countries that King Charles put his pride in his pocket, and with unusual wisdom, not only entertained the proposal, but when the young Prince William arrived in England, received him as if he had been the son of a reigning Monarch. At the date of the betrothal the Prince was fifteen and the Princess Mary in her tenth year, and it was originally intended that she should remain under her parents' care until she was of a marriageable age. Events, however, soon proved that she would be safer in Holland ; and in February 1642 she was taken thither by her mother who, as has been said, seized that opportunity to raise a Dutch loan for her distressed husband. In November 1643 the Princess, having completed her twelfth year, and the Prince being seventeen, William and Mary were married, and there is every reason to believe that during the short period of their married life they were ex- 462 History of the Royal Family of En^lajid. Mary Princess of Orange. 46 *> :> tremely attached to one another. In March 1647 Prince Frederick Henry died, and was succeeded in the office of Stadtholder by his son, Prince William II. of Orange. He was a young man of great ability, courage, and ambition, and it is not improbable that if he had lived he would have done that which he and his wife greatly desired, and converted tl;e States into a Kingdom of which he would have been first King. He died, however, suddenly in November 1650, nearly two years after the execution of Charles I., and in his twenty- fifth year. Eight days later the widowed Princess Mary gave birth to her only child, afterwards William III. of England. Grave questions immediately arose, first, whether the infant Prince should be recognized as Stadtholder, and secondly, who should be trusted with his personal guardian- ship. On the first point all the members of the Orange family were united, and made strenuous efforts to get the child at once elected to his father's office, but it was argued with force that the office being in its nature military, it was absurd to elect to it an infant in arms, and, in fact, William III. did not become Stadtholder till long after his mother's death. On the other point, however, a serious contest arose between the child's mother, who was barely twenty, and her husband's mother, Amelia of Solms, the widow of Prince Frederick Henry ; and this was ultimately settled by the establishment of a council of three, to be composed of the two ladies and the Elector of Brandenburg, who had married one of William II.'s sisters. There was, however, a provision that Mary's single vote should carry as much weight as the two votes of the Princess Amelia and the Elector, Inasmuch as the young Prince William held no direct office in the State, his mother, as his guardian, or rather one of his guardians, had no recognized authority in political matters ; but she was a pretty pleasing young woman, with some ability and considerable ambition, and as she seems to have been fairly popular with the Dutch people, and especially with the lower orders, she did, in fact, exercise not a little influence in the various intrigues which at that time agitated the nation. In particular, there was one burning question in which she was much interested, and this was the attitude to be taken by the Dutch in English politics. Their alliance was of immense importance, and was eagerly courted both by the exiled Charles II. and by the Lord Protector Cromwell, and party spirit in Holland ran high upon the point. Mary thought that if her brother was established on the Throne of England, the chances of her son being elected Stadtholder and recognized as hereditary Ruler of Holland would be enormously increased ; and, moreover, though she had left England as a child, her family affections or, at all events, her affection for her brothers seems to have been remarkably strong. Consequently she threw herself into the struggle, the details of which I shall pass over, with intense eagerness, and her little Court became the centre of all the Royalist intrigues and conspiracies. Her brothers, though they were repeatedly ordered to leave Holland by the State authorities, who had made an alliance with Cromwell, were constantly hanging about, living sometimes just over the borders of the country, sometimes at Breda, a town in Holland, which was the private property of the Princes of Orange, and sometimes in defiance of the States, as more or less secret visitors at Mary's Court at the Hague ; and they were to a large extent supported out of the private income of their sister. It may well be doubted how far this line of conduct on the part of the Princess was justifiable, for there can be no doubt that her behaviour was a constant source of anxiety and embarrassment to the States, of which on her marriage she had become a subject. In her defence, however, it may be said that she was supported by a large body of the people, many of whom seem to have regarded the English Princes with considerable favour. Charles II. and his brothers were in Holland when in the beginning of 1660 he was invited by the Parliament to return to England ; and the event seems to have been hailed by all parties in Holland as a subject for national rejoicing, and the King departed from Schrevening amidst popular acclamation and loaded with gifts. % !t 464 History of the Royal Family of England. It would, however, appear that the memory of offences committed in the earher years of his exile outweighed his gratitude for the substantial favours received at the last, for it is certain that Charles II. always retained a lively dislike for the Dutch nation, which, as time went on, they probably reciprocated, and certainly during the scene of enthusiasm which attended King Charles' embarkation, no one could have foreseen that within a few years the English and the Dutch would be engaged in a fearful struggle, disastrous to both nations, and humiliating in the extreme to the English. On the 30th of September 1660, Mary having established her son, then in his eleventh year, at the University at Leydon, set out on a visit to the English Court. She was met on her arrival by news of the death by small pox of her youngest brother, the Duke of Gloucester ; and within three months, on the 25th of December in the same year, she herself died of the same disease, having just entered upon her thirtieth year. She is buried at Westminster Abbey. Mary's last moments were embittered by the marriage, or rather the public declaration of the marriage, of her favourite brother, James, Duke of York, with Anne Hyde, who was the daughter of the Lord Chancellor Clarendon, and who had been one of her own Maids of Honour. To this marriage I must refer later, and I will only say here that it was bitterly resented both by the Queen Mother and by the Princess of Oran<,^e, both of whom have been accused of having played a very discreditable part with reference to it. As regards the Queen Henrietta, the charge seems to me to be disproved ; and as regards the Princess, it rests on very shadowy and unreliable evidence (see Mrs. Everett Greene's " Lives of the Princesses of England"). I must now turn to King Charles II. The events which followed the execution of Charles I. are tolerably familiar to everyone. The English Parliament proclaimed the dissolution of the Monarchy, but the Scotch sent messages to the young Charles II. offering him the Scotch Crown conditionally on his signing the Covenant— Charles II. 465 that solemn Covenant with the Almighty into which they had entered, and in the name of which so many crimes were to be committed. Charles was naturally reluctant to put his name to an instrument originally directed against his father, and the signing of which would be almost equally offensive to the Irish Catholics and the English High Churchmen : but after the defeat and execution of the celebrated Marquis of Mon- trose, upon whom he had relied in opposition to the Covenanters, he yielded. He went to Scotland, was there crowned, and there signed the Covenant, an act of hypocrisy which it is difficult to excuse or forgive. After this Charles marched into England at the head of a Scotch army, and, was completely and, as it seemed, hopelessly defeated at the Battle of Worcester in 165 1. Two years later Cromwell was proclaimed Protector of the Kingdom ; and it was not until his death in September T658 that there appeared to be the smallest hope of the Restoration of the Stuarts. After that event, however, the reaction which had been held in check by Cromwell's iron hand made rapid progress, and within twenty months Charles was invited to return to England, and was there received by the nation and crowned King, amidst what seemed to be a perfect delirium of joy. The new King had passed his boyhood and early youth in the midst of battle, sieges, and military operations of all kinds ; and then and on the expedition into England above-mentioned, he displayed his full share of personal bravery. After the battle of Worcester he spent some weeks as a fugitive in the land, hiding in all sorts of places and under all sorts of disguises, and incurring adventures and hairbreadth escapes which have been the subject of innumerable ballads and stories, and which in- vested him with a halo of romance, which was of great service to him both in his own time and in the memory of posterity. It was at this time that he lay concealed for a day amongst the branches of an oak tree under which the Parliamentary soldiers were continually passing, and from this circumstance the Royalist party adopted oak leaves as a kind of badge, and were for many years accustomed to wear them on the 2 G \y ill . i , 466 History of the Royal Family of England. Char-les II, 467 anniversary of the King's escape. Scott, in his dehghtful novel of *' Woodstock," describes the King at this period, and in another very inferior story, '' Peveril of the Peak," he describes him in his middle age, and both portraits are historically accurate and life like. On the i6th of October 165 1 Charles made his escape to France, and his life during the next nine years was enervating in the extreme, and consequently his character rapidly deteriorated. Cromwell made peace successively with Holland and with France, and the King, expelled from both countries had to live where best he could. He was sometimes treated with respect and sometimes with contempt, he was constantly chan^ring his abode, always desperately pressed for money and always surrounded by a small group of dissolute followers who, dependent on him for the necessaries of life, flattered his vanity and pandered to his vices. Of the events of his actual reign, which lasted from the Restoration in May 1660 till his death on the 6th of Februao^ 1685— a period of nearly twenty-five years— neither the space at my disposal nor the subject of this book make it possible for me to speak. They were, however, of the greatest interest, and I am bound to say that they reflect little credit on the Kincr or his advisers. Charles was, at different times, at war with'' France, Holland, and Spain. In his later years he was at constant issue with the Parliaments, and great strides were made towards the establishment of the British Constitution as it now exists ; and it would be almost impossible to count the number of small rebellions, plots, conspiracies, and intrigues of all kinds, the stories of which are told by the historians of his reign. It was he who sold Dunkirk to the French, it was under him that the Dutch sailed up the Thames as far as Gravesend and carried off, under the eyes of the nation, the - Royal Charles," one of the finest ships in the English navy, and it was under him that the last but by no means the least dreadful of these periodical outbursts of religious persecution which disgraced the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries took place. The persecution I refer to was that which followed the il \\ "plot" which the wretched Titus Oates pretended to discover, and under which every Catholic in the land, from the Queen on the Throne to the humblest artizan, more or less suffered, many being ruined and not a few being put to death under circumstances of extreme cruelty and ignominy. Lastly, it was under Charles II. that there happened two great public calamities which are still spoken of with horror and dismay — the great plague which desolated London and the infected districts, and the great Fire of London, which in a few hours destroyed the greater part of the City. Probably, however, that which makes the reign of Charles II. most notable was the extraordinary and almost universal deterioration of public morals. The English Court under Edward IV., under Henry VIII., and under James I. had been dissolute enough, but under Charles II. it appears to have cast off every restraint of decency and decorum. The King went about constantly surrounded by the loose women and common harlots who constituted his harem, forcing them upon his unhappy wife, and flaunting them under the eyes of respectable citizens, until it had become almost impossible for any decent woman to frequent his Court, or to be seen in his company. King and courtiers alike plunged into every form of dissipation, extravagance, and riotous living, until half the great families in the Kingdom were more or less im- poverished, and the courtiers were reduced to the most shame- ful expedients to raise the funds necessary for their debauchery. The King himself took bribes from Louis XIV. to serve the interests of France, and his ministers, his courtiers, and his mistresses were all, almost openly, in the pay of some Foreign State, sometimes it may be suspected of more than one. Every department of the public service was a mass of corruption, religion and the very idea of woman's virtue or man's integrity was openly derided, and literature, the theatre, and the decorative arts had become so grossly indecent that, despite the wit of much that was written and the beauty of much that was drawn, it is impossible to think of that period without some feeling of national shame. fi CHAPTER XXXI. Charles II {continued). — Katharine of Portugal.— James Scott, Duke of Monmouth.— Charles' NATURAL Children.— Frances Stuart, Duchess OF Richmond. 1^1 IE state of things described in the last chapter was in part the reaction from the unnatural austerity of the Puritan Rule under Cromwell ; but for much the King was persotially responsible. The character and personal qualities of King Charles hav^e been much discussed and frequently described. His features were irregular and harsh, but he was a tall man with an upright carriage and very active in his movements. His abilities were considerable, and he was well informed on most subjects, and, in particular, he had a great taste for and knowledge of scientific matters. His conversation was remarkably brilliant and witty ; his manners easy and pleasing, and, upon occasions, very stately ; and he was by nature both affectionate and good humoured. All these good qualities were, however, vitiated by two pervading faults. He was morally intensely indolent ; and, with a strong love of pleasure, intensely self indulgent. Thus, to save himself any sustained mental effort, he would sacrifice any principle how- ever sacred ; any pledge however solemn ; or any advantage to himself or his Kingdom however great and obvious ; and he could at all times be diverted from the most serious business by the tears and cajolories of his mistresses, or by the chance of adding a new member to his harem. Instances of these, to speak mildly, — weaknesses are to be found in every page of his history. It is now generally admitted that he was, by conviction, a Catholic — that throughout his life he entertained 468 Charles II. 460 more or less shadowy views of adopting the Catholic religion, and that he was actually received into the Catholic Communion on his death-bed. Nevertheless, though he never for a moment pretended to believe in the stories told by Oates and his fellows, and he himself, by his own testimony could and did convict those persons of deliberate lies, he allowed his Catholic subjects, some of them his own personal friends, to be persecuted, ill-used, and in some cases put to a cruel death, on the evidence of these men, whom he knew, and admitted that he knew, to be liars. Charles had a remarkable knowledge of character, and he knew well, better perhaps than any other man living, the characters of the men and women by whom he was surrounded ; he knew that many of them were utterly corrupt— that they were using their high offices to betray him and their country, and yet, though he was by no means with- out a latent sense of the virtues and duties of patriotism and justice, for the love of ease and to save himself trouble, he stood by, a passive, though sarcastic witness of crimes committed against himself and against all those whom he held dear, and all those principles which, in his heart he respected. He was a King of whom one of his courtiers said that, " He never said a foolish thing, and never did a wise thing," and it may be added that he habitually " saw the better part and chose the worse." Every rule, however, has its exception, and the consistency of Charles' weakness is marked by one exception He never could be induced to sacrifice his brother James, or his brother's interests. Charles was married to a woman whom he did not love or profess to love, and who had brought him no child ; and failing his own issue the heir to the Throne was his brother James, Duke of York. The Queen and James were both Catholics. They were both, and James in particular, hated by the courtiers and by a large body of the people, and most if not all the diff"iculties of Charles' reign were connected with their position. At all events, if that is going too far, most if ( < 1 1 '1 < ! 1 ( I' .' i 'I 470 History of the Royal Family of England. not all the conspiracies and plots which distracted the King- dom were directed ostensibly against the Queen or the Duke of York. If Charles could have put away the Queen and dislodged the Duke from his position as heir presumptive, his position would have been comparatively safe, and the means of doing these things were not wanting. In his youth Charles had had a mistress named Lucy Walters, by marriage Barlow, who had survived his marriage with the Queen, and who had brou'^ht him a son named James, born in 1649, and who at the date of the Restoration was in his twelfth year, and a boy of remarkable beauty and apparent promise. Of this son the King was exceedingly fond and proud. In 1663 he created him Duke of Monmouth, and he omitted no opportunity of distinguishing the youth and lavishing upon him emoluments and honours. It was said that the King had been privately married to Mrs Barlow, and that Monmouth was his lawfully begotten son. Whether this was true or not I cannot say, but certainly there were many persons who believed it, and still more who professed and wished to believe it. There is at least one remarkable piece of evidence which is highly suggestive of a secret marriage. In 1655 Charles' sister Mary, Princess of Orange, writinq^ to King Charles of Mrs Barlow says, " Your wife is resolving whether she will write or no. There- fore, I am to say nothing to you from her, but will keep open my letter as long as the post will permit to expect what good nature will work ; which, I find now, does not at all, for it is now eleven of the clock, and no letter comes." (See Mrs Green's *' Life of the Princess of Orange.") The Princess must have been indeed complaisant to her brother's weaknesses if she wrote to him thus of a woman whom she believed to be merely his mistress ! Whatever may have been the true state of the case, however, it is certain that Charles was strongly urged in many quarters and on many occasions to acknow- ledge a private marriage with Barlow, to put aside the Queen, and to proclaim the Duke of Monmouth as his lawful heir; and though, no doubt, such a course would have produced immediate difficulties from the partizans of the Duke of York Charles II. 47^ (which perhaps operated on Charles' mind), I think it very probable that if the King had insisted he would have carried his point. It is well known that after the accession of James II., Monmouth ^/^ rebel and proclaim himself lawful heir to the late King ; and though the insurrection was suppressed, it was sufficiently formidable to make one think that if Monmouth had been acknowledged by his father he would have won the day. Charles, however, though he appears at times to have dallied with the suggestion, when it came to the point would never consent to take any step either to invalidate his marriage with Queen Katharine or to prejudice his brother's rights ; and, as a matter of fact, Monmouth was at the Hague in disgrace at the date of his father's death. It has been said that in this Charles was actuated by regard for the Queen, and it may be that he was influenced by .some gentlemanlike feeling for the forlorn and neglected woman, whom he had acknowledged and accepted as his wife. His conduct to Katharine, however, was so consistently neglectful and unkind that I cannot believe that he would have been seriously influenced in his conduct by any regard for her ; but the sincerity of his love for his brother is indisputable. As boys they had shared together the hardships of their father's camp, and as young men they had shared the perils and mortifications of their exile, and the affection which commenced in their earlyyouth was maintained without a substantial break, until in their middle life James stood by the bedside of his dying brother, and at the risk of his Throne, and even of his. life, brought to him the consolations of that religion in which they both believed, and which Charles so tardily professed. To my mind this love was the redeeming point in the character of Charles II., and I think it brought with it its own reward. Charles was born on the 29th of May 1630, and was twelve when the Civil War broke out. He was in his nineteenth year at the date of his father's death, and exactly thirty at the date of the Restoration ; and he was in his fifty-fifth year when he I " i 472 History of the Royal Family of Efigland. Katharine of Portugal. 473 died on the 6th of February 1685. He is buried in West- minster Abbey ; but it may be noted that the custom of erecting monuments to the memory of the Royal dead seems to have gone out in England after the reign of James I. That King erected beautiful tombs over the bodies of his mother, Mary Queen of Scots, and of his grandmother, Margaret, Countess of Lennox, and a tomb, more quaint than beautiful, over the bodies of his infant daughters, who died in England ; but the resting places of James himself and his wife, and of his other descendants, remain to this day unmarked, save by the barest inscriptions on the flat stones which lie over them. Charles II. was married on the 21st of May 1662 to Katharine, daughter of John IV., King of Portugal, by Luiza, dauc^hter of Duke of Medina Sidonia. It will be remembered that in the fourteenth century John I. of Portugal married Philippa Plantagenet, daugher of John of Gaunt, and sister of Henry IV. of England. From this marriage all the Sovereigns of Portugal, including John IV., have, down to the present day, been descended. Between John I. and John IV. there were seven Kings of Portugal — Edward, Alphonzo V., John II., Emanuel, John III., Sebastian, and Henry. Henry was the uncle of Sebastian, and was a Cardinal of the Catholic Church, and he ascended the Throne on the death without issue of his nephew. In his reign Philip II. of Spain invaded and subdued Portugal, which, for a period of sixty years, was a Province of Spain ; but in 1638 the Portugese successfully cast off the yoke under the leadership of the Duke of Braganza, who became John IV., and was the father of Queen Katharine. This Duke was of ancient and Royal lineage on his father's side, and was a man of immense wealth ; and he claimed to be lawful heir to the Crown of Portugal through his father's mother, Katharine, who was a daughter of Prince Edward, one of the sons of King Emanuel. The reign of John IV. was a stormy one, and he died in 1646, leaving two sons who successively became Kings under the titles of Alphonzo VI. and Pedro II. Katharine was the sister of these Kings, but at the date of her marriage her mother, who was a woman of great energy, was Regent of Portugal ; and was still carrying on the struggle w^ith Spain, which had commenced with the accession of her husband' John IV. To the Portuguese the English alliance was a matter of great importance, and to tempt Charles II. to marry their Princess a magnificent dowry was offered. She was to have a large fortune in money, and to the English w^as to be granted in perpetuity the possession of Tan<,ders, the right of free trade with Brazil, and the West Indies; and, lastly, that which at the time was regarded as of the least importance, the possession of the East Indian Province of Bombay. With reference to this dowry it may be here said that, though the territorial advantages were duly granted, the Queen Regent was never able to pay more than half the money promised, and this failure on her part was deeply resented, both by King Charles and his subjects, and was the cause of much mortifi- cation to her unfortunate daughter. Nevertheless, the English did not make a bad bargain as the grant of Bombay, made on the occasion of Katharine's marriage, was the original founda- tion of their great Indian Empire. Katharine landed in England on the 14th of May 1662, and five days later, on the 19th, she was privately married to the King at Portsmouth, according to the rites of the Church of Rome. She was never married to him according to the Anglican rites, and never crowned ; and afterwards those who urged the invalidity of her marriage, relied upon these circumstances. Queen Katharine has usually been represented as a weak and silly woman, with little ability and no dignity of character ; and it has further been stated that she was unattractive in person. On the latter point, not only her portraits but the great weight of contemporary testimony, including that of that delightful Diarist, Samuel Pepys, prove conclusively that she was a very pretty woman, with much vivacity of manner. It is, however, probable that she was lacking in that stately, though somewhat voluptuous grace which distinguished several of her rivals. She was born on the 25th of November w 474 History 0/ Ike Royal Family of England. 1638, and, therefore, at the date of her marriage she was in her twenty-fourth year, and considerably older than the majority of Royal brides. As to her character it is difficult to form a just estimate, but it must be remembered that most of those who wrote of her in her own time were, to say the least, strongly prejudiced against her, and there is at least this much to be said, that though she lived in a dissolute time, and in almost the most dissolute Court that has ever existed, no scandal against her good name has ever obtained the least credence from any one. She had been brought up till an unusually advanced age in a Convent, and her knowledge of Court life, such as it was, was based on the precise and decorous Court of her mother. She came as a foreigner, ignorant of the language and customs of her adopted country, to a nation not at that time distinguished for its courtesy to strangers, and as a devout Catholic, to a country in which the very name of Papist was regarded as synonymous with miscreant. She had no friends and no advisers, and she was never allowed the smallest fair play in the attempt to win her husband's affections, for Charles was, at that time, completely under the domination of the notorious Lady Castlemaine, afterwards Duchess of Cleveland. With this woman he took supper on the evening before he went to meet his bride, and he had solemnly promised her a high office in the household of the new Queen. Katharine has been greatly, and I think justly, blamed for her complaisance to the King's mistresses ; but it is certainly not the case that she succumbed to the difficulties of her position without a struggle. She had been warned against Lady Castlemaine, and when that woman's name was first presented to her by the King in the list of her ladies, she erased it with anger. Afterwards, when the King, taking advantage of her ignorance of the language, presented his mistress to her in the full Court, she received her graciously, not knowing who it was ; but when the name of the woman she had just received was whispered to her, her emotion was so great that she was taken with a violent bleeding at the nose, Katharine of Portugal. 475 and had to be carried from the room. After this there was a period of many weeks during which Charles and his wife lived on terms of complete estrangement, meeting only occasionally, and then with bitter reproaches; and it is possible that if Katharine had held to this position, she might have so gained on the King's natural sense of justice, and indolent tempera- ment, as to have forced him to treat her with at least respect in public. She gave up the struggle too soon. Her friends in Portugal were powerless to help her, she had no disinterested adviser, she was taunted with her mother's failure to keep the marriage treaty ; forced to part with almost all her Portuguese servants, and kept at first at any rate in continual and distress- ing want of money, for King Charles was not above claiming the income settled upon his wife by Parliament on her behalf, and then applying it to his own uses! Under these circum- stances Katharine yielded in a manner equally sudden and unexpected, and thenceforth she seems to have received the King's mistresses with a fine impartialit}-, and with apparent indifference. Most errors bring their own punishment, and whereas it would seem that during the struggle their was growing up among the people, and the more decorous of the courtiers, a strong feeling of sympathy for the Queen, after she had once yielded the point, she was treated by everyone with neglect and contempt. In political matters Queen Katharine seems to have been entirely passive, and in the practice of her religion she was a great contrast to her predecessor, for though she was as punctual and exact in the performance of all essential duties as any Catholic could desire, she was extremely careful to avoid giving offence or parading ceremonial that was un- necessary. Nevertheless, she was an object of the most intense hatred to the Anti-Catholic party. She herself, and nearly every Catholic in her household, was accused by Titus Oates of being concerned in the " plot," several of her servants were actually put to death on this charge, and it is admitted that the Queen was for a time in imminent peril. In this emergency, however, Katharine behaved with that calmness and dignity 4/6 History of the Royal Family of England. Immorality of the Court, 477 which, to do them justice, have rarely been found wanting in members of the Royal c^ste in moments of personal danger. Extremely straitened in means at the first, she is said to have been one of the most economical Princesses that ever sat on the English Throne ; and lastly, she deserves the gratitude of the whole nation in that it was she who first introduced tea as a common beverage. Strange as it may appear, there can be no doubt that Katharine entertained a strong personal affection for her husband. Though they had been completely estranged for five years before his death, and though she was herself ill at the time, she went to see him on his deathbed, and, falling on her knees, begged that he would " forgive her all her offences." Charles answered, as was indeed the case, " she had offended in nothing, but that he had been guilty of many offences against her\'' and he asked /^^r pardon, which was freely given. She was not able to be with him when he died, but at the very last again sent him a message asking forgiveness, and amongst his last words recorded is his answer " Alas ! poor woman, she begs my pardon 1 1 beg hers with all my heart. Take back to her that answer." During the short reign of James II. Katharine lived partly at Somerset House and partly at Hammersmith, where, in the strictest privacy, she established a small community of religious women, the successors of whom, I believe, still flourish. She was treated with much consideration by the new King and Queen, and was one of the witnesses of the birth of the Prince of Wales ; and her testimony as to that event, w^hich has been preserved, was afterwards specially relied on by King James, against those who attempted to gain credence for the now admitted lie that no child was really born. After the accession of William and Mary, the position of the Dowager Queen Katharine seems to have become ex- tremely and increasingly uncomfortable, and .she ultimately, after many delays, obtained leave to retire to Portugal, which she did in 1692. She was received in her native land with much respect, and on two occasions, during illnesses of her brother. King Pedro II., she was called upon to assume the Regency of that country, and as Regent she is said to have acquitted herself very well. She died suddenly on the 31st of December 1705 (temp. Anne) in her sixty-eighth year, and she is buried in Portugal. (See " Katharine of Braganza," by L. Davidson.) King Charles II. left no lawful issue, but it would be impossible to conclude any account of him without some reference to the women who, as his mistresses, played so large a part in the history of his life, and of his bastard children, from whom the ranks of the British Peerage was so largely recruited, and to provide for whom and whose descendants many generations of Englishmen have been forced to contribute. It has been said that a tolerably full and comprehensive history of France, between the accession of Francis I. and the death of Louis XV., would be found in the biographies, if they were written, of the various women who successively occupied the position of " Maitresse en titre " to the French Sovereigns ; and, indeed, in reading French history of this period one is inclined to think that the French Kings and their courtiers had altogether ceased to regard the law of monogamy as binding on the Sovereigns. It had, however, been different in England. It is no doubt true, that the six kings who reigned in the twelfth century, or to be more accurate, from 1087 till 12 16, had been men who lived openly immoral lives, and that we frequently hear of their bastard children as holding high rank, both in the Church and in the State; but from the accession of Henry 111. in the beginning of the thirteenth until the accession of Charies II. at the end of the seventeenth century, some show of decency and morality was always attempted, and the reality of those virtues was not infrequently obtained in the Courts of the English Sovereigns. In the later days of Edward HI., Alice Ferrers, and in the reign of Edward IV., Jane Shore, attained to some degree of notoriet}', but both these women / 478 History of the Royal Family of England^ James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, 479 were the objects of popular execration, the power of both was extremely short-lived, and both ended their lives in obloquy and shame. In the reign of Henry VIII. that Monarch succeeded in keeping up appearances and, at the same tuTie gratifyincr his love of change by the simple expedient of either divorcing or beheading his wives as he grew tired of them and substituting as his nominal wife the object for the time being of his passing fancy. In the reign of Richard II. that King sent an evil precedent by allowing his Parliament to declare legitimate the bastard children of his uncle, John of Gaunt, and by conferring on those children high rank ; and again Henry VIII. raised his acknowledged illegitimate son to the rank of Duke of Richmond. With these exceptions, however, it is not too much to say that from the end of the twelfth centurv until the date of the Restoration no woman is heard of in English history as having been the mistress of an English King, and no bastard child of any King or son of a King was ever acknowledged or admitted to the smallest degree of rank or influence ; while, on the other hand, it may be truly said that many of the Kings— Henry III., Edward I. Henry IV., Henry V., Henry VI., Henry VII., and Charles I., —whatever may have been their public crimes, were, as far as appears, free from blame as to their private morals. Under these circumstances the glaring indecencies of the reign of Charles II. come upon us with something of a shock and it is not to be wondered at that they have been com- mented on with severity, if in some cases with a considerable amount of gusto, by the writers of his own and succeeding times. I have already spoken of Charles' son James, Duke ot Monmouth, whose mother was Mrs Lucy Barlow, formerly Walters. Monmouth was born in 1649, and was educated in Paris as a Catholic by the Oratorian Fathers. At the Restoration he was brought to Court, and though he was at first styled " Mr Crofts," he was speedily recognized by the King as his son. He was raised to the Peerage as Duke of Monmouth in February 1663, and in April of the same year —being then a boy of about fifteen— he was married with extraordinary pomp to the daughter and heiress of the Earl of Buccleugh, and he then assumed his wife's family name of Scott. It may be here mentioned that Monmouth afterwards grossly neglected and illtreated his wife, notwithstanding that she was a woman of distinguished family and connections, and brought him a large fortune. As I have already said, it was believed by many that the King had been married to Monmouth's mother, and that Monmouth was his legitimate son ; and Monmouth himself very probably entertained this belief At all events the Duke was encouraged from his earliest youth, both by the extrava^^^ant demonstrations of affection in which the King indulged, and by the flatteries of the opponents of the Duke of York, to aspire to the Throne. King Charles however, though he sometimes seemed to waver, never could be got to countenance these aspirations in any overt manner, and at the last, indignant at the presumption and arrogance of Monmouth's behaviour and manners, he compelled him to leave the Kingdom. Monmouth took refuge at the Court of the Prince and Princess of Orange, by whom he was treated almost as if he had been, in fact, heir-apparent to the English Throne. On the death of King Charles he with, it cannot be doubted, the secret countenance of the Prince and Princess, left Holland with the avowed intention of seizing the English Crown. He landed at Lyme in Dorsetshire on the nth of June 1685, and at once proclaimed himself King, and offered a price on the head of " James, Duke of York." Though he was not countenanced by the nobility or gentry, great crowds of the common people flocked to his standard ; and for a few days the rebellion seems to have assumed formidable dimen- sions, but Monmouth was completely defeated by Lord Feversham at Sedgmoor and taken prisoner, and he was afterwards executed on the 15th of July 1685. All writers agree as to the personal beauty and the agreeable manners of the Duke of Monmouth, but he proved to be a man of little capacity and of more than doubtful personal courage. His behaviour, prior to the Battle of Sedgmoor, was extremely i i 48o History of the Royal Family of England. Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland, 48 1 pusillanimous ; from the battle itself he was the first to run away and at his subsequent interview with Kmg James, his entreaties for a pardon were abject in the extreme. Kin- James II. has been greatly blamed for sendmg his nephew^o the block, and it is certainly to be wished that he could have seen his way to pardon so wretched a creature. It must, however, be remembered that James had been for years subjected to the greatest insolence on the part of Monmouth Lthat Monmouth had been backed by the enemies, James had most cause to fear, William and Mary of Orange, and that Monmouth was taken prisoner (I cannot say in arms, for he was found lying in a ditch), but in open rebellion against the Kincr's authority. Moreover, it has been said that though many believed that Monmouth was the son lawfully begotten of Kino- Charles, many others, including James II. himself, doubted whether he was the son of Charles at all; for Mrs. Barlow like many of her successors in that King's favour, was notoriously unfaithful to her Royal paramour. Monmouth was in his thirty-sixth year when he was executed, and he had not therefore the excuse of youth, which is very often ur-ed on his behalf. He left two sons and a daughter. From' his elder son the present Duke of Buccleuch is descended. , , u u Charles II had another acknowledged natural child, born before the Restoration. This was Charlotte, afterwards wife of William Paston, Earl of Yarmouth. Her mother was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Robert Killigrew and wife of the Honourable Francis Boyle, who was a son of the Earl ol Cork, and who was, for services in Ireland, created Viscount Shannon at the date of the Restoration. The Countess of Yarmouth had two sons, both of whom died unmarried. Shortly after the Restoration Charles fell wholly under the influence of the woman who afterwards became Duchess of Cleveland, and who may be said for a time to have ruled him with a rod of iron. Her maiden name was Barbara Villiers, and she was a great-niece of George Vilhers, first Duke of Buckingham, the well-known favourite of James I. and Charles I. She had married Mr. Roger Palmer, who appears to have been a gentleman of integrity and 'some distinction, and who was by no means a consenting party to his wife's relations with the King. In 1661 King Charles in order to give Mrs. Palmer some position at Court, created her husband without his previous knowledge or consent, Earl of Castlemaine in Ireland; but in 1679 the ambitious favourite no longer satisfied with the rank of Countess, was created Duchess of Cleveland in her own right, with special remainder to Charles Fitzroy, the eldest of her sons by the King The Duchess' influence greatly waned after this event, and before the Kingr's death she had fallen into comparative obscurity but she survived until 1703 (temp. Anne). She had fivJ children by the King-Charles, Henry, George, Charlotte, and Anne, though in fact the parentage of these children, and especially of Anne, was a little doubtful, inasmuch as the Duchess had as many lovers as the King had mistresses. The eldest of her sons, Charles Fitzroy, was created Duke of Southampton in his mother's lifetime, and on her death he became also Duke of Cleveland. He died in 1730 and was succeeded by his son, on whose death without issue in 1774 he Duchies of Cleveland and Southampton became extinct All 1833, however, William Henry Vane, third Earl of JJarlington, who was descended from Grace Fitzroy a daughter of King Charles' natural son, Charles Fitzmy before mentioned, was created Duke of Cleveland, and from him was descended the late Duke of Cleveland, who changed his name to Powlett, and upon whose death the Dukedom again became extinct. nnr'.!''"''^ T'nr^\ ^^'^ '^^°"^ '°" °f Charles II., and the from h? °1^'"^^'*"'^' ^-^s ""^ated Duke of Grafton, and !^ the rielL'"""' """'' °' ^""°" '^ '^'^^^''^ '^--"^^^ Nor?h^nmh' i""!. 'u''"'' '°"' ^^' '■" '^74 created Duke of Northumberland, but he died in 1716 without issue He was oSi ?' " *'^ T °' ^-'hu-berlaad betwe" :h onginal^ Percys and their descendant, Sir Hugh Smithson, ^82 History of the Royal Family of England. who afterwards assumed the name of Percy, and from whom the present Duke derives. Charlotte, the daughter of the Duchess of Cleveland by Charles, married Sir Edward Lee, who in 1674, on the occasion of the marriage was created Earl of Lichfield, but her descendants in the male line became extinct in 1776. Anne, the other daughter, whose parentage was much disputed, married Thomas Lennard, fifteenth Baron Dacre, who was created Earl of Sussex in 1674. This lady had no sons, and on the death of her husband the Earldom became extinct and the Barony of Dacre passed to collateral heirs. The influeuce of the Duchess of Cleveland was to a great extent extinguished by Louise de Querouaille, who came to England in the train of Charles' sister Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, in 1670, and on that occasion made so much impres- sion on the King that she was invited to return. In 1673 she was created Duchess of Portsmouth, and she maintained her influence till the King's death. She afterwards returned to France, and died there in 1734 at a very advanced age. By the Duchess of Portsmouth Charles had a son Charles, who assumed the name of Lennox, and in 1675 was created Duke of Richmond, and is the direct ancestor of the present Duke of Richmond and Gordon. In addition to the Duchesses of Cleveland and Portsmouth, various other ladies obtained more or less influence over Charles' affections. One was the Duchess of Mazarin, a niece of the well-known Cardinal Mazarin, who is said to have been sent over by Louis XIV. with a view to counterbalancing the influence of the Duchess of Portsmouth. Another was the celebrated actress, Nell Gwynne, the " poor Nelly " for whom Charles on his deathbed asked " that she should not be left to starve," and whose immorality posterity has agreed to condone in consideration of her great beauty and good nature. Another was a certain Moll Davis, who, though she is by courtesy styled an actress, seems to have in fact belonged to a lower status in society. The Duchesses of Cleveland and Portsmouth were ladies Frances Stuart, Duchess of Richmond. 483 by birth, but Nell Gwynne and Moll Davis most certainly were not. Nevertheless, they went to Court freely, and mmgled with the Court ladies with unblushing effrontery. By Nell Gwynne the King had an acknowledged son Charles, who assumed the surname of Beauclerk, and who in 1684 was created Duke of St. Albans, and from him the present Duke of St. Albans is descended in the direct male line ; and by Moll Davis he had an acknowledged daughter, Mary who called herself Mary Tudor, and married Francis, second Earl of Derwentwater, and whose son, the last Earl, was beheaded as one of the leaders in the Stuart Insurrection in 171 5 It will be observed that King Charles II. provided with a liberal hand for his numerous bastard children, and certainly if succeeding Kings had been as prolific as King Charles, and as prodigal in conferring Dukedoms on their sons, the ducal Bench in the House of Lords would have had to have been considerably enlarged. I ought perhaps before closing this chapter to refer to the celebrated Frances Stuart, known as " La Belle Stuart," for whom Charles appears to have entertained the strongest passion of his life. It is a disputed point whether she ever became in fact his mistress, but from the probabilities of the case I think that she did not, though she undoubtedly "carried on in a manner that was, to say the least, indecorous. It is well known that one of the inducements offered to the King to divorce the Queen was that he would then be free to marry i^ ranees Stuart, and this inducement is said to have carried more weight with the King than any other. It is also certain that one of the causes which led to the disgrace of Charles' most respectable Minister, the Earl of Clarendon, was that ^.larendon was supposed to have brought about the marriage ot this lady with the last of the Stuart Dukes of Richmond f^.v. J'"°''' ^ ^"^ ""^^ ^^^"^ ^^ ^^^"^^ have been suggested who Lh'T ""V^^' ^" ^°"^^ ^^^^ ^^'^'^^ t^ ^^'^y ^ woman DnL f P 'u^ ^"'^"^^ ^^'^ "^^^^^^^^' ^"^ I ^° "^t think the who wf ^'^"^^"^ ^°^^d have consented to marry a woman who was known to have filled that position. ( 'I » I * 1 \ 484 History of the Royal Family of England. Frances Stuart was descended from a junior branch of the great Stuart family, and her husband, Charles Stuart, was the last of the line of Stuarts, Dukes of Lennox and Richmond, of whom some account has been given already. They were descended from a collateral branch of the family of Matthew Stuart, Earl of Lennox, the father of Lord Darnley, and the grandfather of James I., and though not of the blood-royal of England or of Scotland were connected in blood with James I., Charles I., and Charles II., by all of whom they were treated with great distinction. The last Duke of this family died in 1672 without issue, when his honours became extinct, but his widow " La Belle Stuart" survived until 1702. \ CHAPTER XXXII. James II.— Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon. — Anne Hyde, Duchess of York. TN every story there must be a villain, and in every * period of history there is usually some person whom all writers agree to offer up to general execration, and upon whose shoulders all unclaimed disasters may safely be placed. For the end of the seventeenth century King James II. has been universally accepted as a person of this kind, and since the publication of the late Lord Macaulay's History of England it has hardly been safe to say a word in James' favour. Historians and novelists, critics and newspaper writers, have vied with one another in holding him up as an object of ridicule and scorn. Catholic writers are afraid to defend him for fear they should be accused of bigotry and narrow- mindedness, and Protestant writers delight in treating him as an admittedly good subject for vituperative eloquence and wit. For myself, however, I venture to say that I think that, both as a man and a King, James compares not unfavourably with his father, Charles I. ; and that both as a man and a King he was the superior both of his grandfather, James I., and of his brother, Charles II. I freely admit that his abilities were narrow and limited, and that he had many faults and committed many and grievous errors. He probably never understood, and, if he did theoretically understand, he certainly never realized, the duties of a constitutional Monarch ; and if he had had his way it is probable, nay, I think certain, that the liberties and happiness of his subjects would in the long run have suffered greatly. Therefore, though frankly speaking I detest the authors' of the Revolution of 1688, I 485 : I i ' n » V 486 History of the Royal Family of England. think that Revolution was an event upon which the English people have, on the whole, good reason to congratulate them- selves ; but at the same time I believe that James for the most part acted honestly, and with a sincere belief that what he did would be for the benefit of his people. He was a man painfully obstinate and determined to have his own way, and with little regard for the legitimate wishes and opinions of his fellow men ; but it may be doubted whether his excessive obstinacy was not, however disastrous in the long run, a better fault than the excessive pliability of his immediate predecessors. If it was difficult to induce Charles II. to take anything seriously, his brother took all things too seriously, and was as earnest and intent on carrying out his ideas as to some matter of petty ceremonial as for instance the cere- monial with which he was to be conducted to Church, as with regard to questions vitally affecting himself and the nation. James was, I think it is admitted, very industrious and pains- taking and extremely economical in his private expenditure ; and if he had not the superficial good nature of his brother, he was in all essential matters, or, at all events intended to be, a far kinder man. He has been accused of being cruel and vindictive, but I think it would be more fair to say that he was unrelenting. No doubt the cruelties perpetrated after the suppression of Monmouth's rebellion were horrible, but it was a cruel age, and very few men in power at that time can be acquitted of cruelty ; and even assuming that James fully realized the enormities committed in his name, which has been denied, it must be remembered that he believed his life and Crown to be in danger, and that the persons executed were open rebels, who by law had incurred the penalty of death. Of all men James, whose co-religionists had suffered death in hundreds and imprisonment in thousands, and who had himself suffered so much, both personally and through his friends, at the hands of his political opponents, was as it seems to me, almost the last who could fairly be expected to set an example of clemency. James II, 487 The reasons for his unpopularity are not far to seek. Like Charles II. he was an ugly man, but unlike Charles his manners were hard and ungracious, and he was absolutely devoid of tact. He seems, if I may say so, to have gone about through life treading on people's toes, offending their prejudices and affronting their sensibilities. Moreover, he was in the very front of the Catholic party, and it was a period in which religious animosities had reached a point hardly equalled even at the time of the Reformation. Thus he made and had many enemies among the writers of his time, some of whom have relieved their feelings by covering him with ridicule, and representing him as a cross between a cruel fanatic and a pompous fool : but the writing of personal enemies and religious opponents should, I think, be largely discounted. It should also be remembered that for at least a century after his death to praise James II. was, by implication, to blame the reigning Sovereigns. That James was by con- viction sincere in his religious belief no one has I think doubted, notwithstanding that he acted not infrequently in direct violation of the moral precepts of his Church, but that he acted wisely in the measures which he took on behalf of his religion, I think very few Catholics would be prepared to say. If he had contented himself with trying to get liberty of conscience and political equality for Catholics, no one at the present day could have blamed him ; but though this was all he professed to desire I think it can hardly be doubted that he did, or at all events wished to do more, and that if he could he would have forcibly abolished the religion which had become the established religion of the country, and which at that time certainly the great bulk of his people wished to maintain. Moreover, he who had suffered so much religious persecution on his own account was but too well inclined to persecute his religious opponents as and when he got the chance, and in his zeal to obtain converts to his own religion, he sometimes used more than the influence of fair argument, and took undue advantage of his position as a King. In saying this, however, I must again remind my readers that if 488 History of the Royal Family of England. James II. 489 that was an age of cruelty, it was pre-eminently an age of intolerance, and that James cannot fairly be blamed for acting in accordance with, and not in advance of, the principles and practice almost universally adopted in the time in which he lived. It has been said by some persons that James was personally a coward, but no charge can to my mind be more unjust. There is abundant proof that as a young lad and during the period of Civil War he had shown great spirit and pluck. Before he had attained his twenty-second year in 1655, he had served in four campaigns with the French army under Marshal Turenne, and in these campaigns he had gained great personal distinction and the high commendations of his great leader himself, who is reported to have said of him that "if any man in the world was born without fear it was the Duke of York." In 1655 James, then twenty-two, was offered the post of Captain-General of the army in Piedmont ; and though in obedience to his brother, King Charles, he declined this post, it is hardly to be supposed it would have been offered to so young a man if he had not already distinguished himself both in military capacity and personal courage. After the Restoration he was the English Commander in two great battles with the Dutch, in both of which he was thought by his contemporaries to have distin- guished himself greatly. On his return from the Dutch campaign he received the thanks of Parliament and a large grant of money, and he was welcomed by the nation at large with a burst of almost universal enthusiasm, and I think that in his own day, at all events before the Revolution, even the writers who were most opposed to him politically admitted his military capacity and personal bravery. These incidents, however, are overlooked by Lord Macaulay and other modem writers, because James abdicated his Kingdom without a blow, and because afterwards in 1690, at the Battle of the Boyne, he behaved with what they consider pusillanimity. I cannot deny that he did show weakness and indecision on these occasions, but by that time he had become virtually an old man. His health had already given signs of breaking down, and he was suffering under such intense mental afflic- tion that many of those about him believed that his mind also had given or was giving way. The leader he was fighting against was the son of his sister whom he had greatly loved, and the husband of his own daughter Mary, and it is well known that the conduct of his daughters, and in par- ticular of his daughter Anne, had come upon him as an almost fatal shock. Whatever qualities James had or had not, no one has ever doubted his love for his children or the intense grief occasioned to him by the behaviour of his daughters. Under these circumstances it seems to me ungenerous to dwell on the vacillations and weakness of an old and failing man, at a time of great sorrow, without at least dwelling equally on the strength and firmness displayed by the same man in his early life. In justification of the above remarks I may perhaps be allowed to quote from a very recent work, " The story of the Household Cavalry," by Sir George Arthur. The writer, after relating the great part taken by James II. in establishing the Royal Body Guard, and referring to his naval exploits says, " As a seaman his claims to distinction in the annals of the British Navy are undeniable. In our own day the important services rendered by him to the Pleet have received to-day ofiicial recognition by the re-erection of Grinling Gibbons' fine statue of him in front of the Admiralty. It is impossible to study the earlier part of his career without being struck by the force of character which at that period belonged to him. This is pre-eminently true in the military sphere. The great Duke of Wellington declared that certain regulations with respect to Ordnance which James originated had never been improved upon since, and they were still in force a century and a half later. The same unsurpassed authority told Sir Walter Scott that the most distinct writer on military affairs he had ever read was James II. (See Sir Walter Scott's Letters, vol. II., p. 77.) At a time when less sagacious counsellors of the Crown had left it all but denuded of IM^^ 490 History of the Royal Family of Enola7id. military protection, James' foresight and promptitude saved both the King and the Kingdom from a threatened catastrophe by insisting on the maintenance of the Life Guards as an effective permanent force." James II. was born on the 12th of October 1633, and was not ten years old when he was present with his father at the Battle of Edge Hill. He was not yet sixteen at the date of his father's execution, and he was in his twenty-seventh year at the date of the Restoration in 1660. He was in his fifty- third year when he became King in 1685, in his fifty-seventh year when he was driven into exile in 1688, and he had nearly completed his sixty-eighth year when he died in September 1701. James was created Duke of York and Albany almost at his birth. He shared his brother's exile, and returned with him at the Restoration when he had his full share in the popularity which all the Royal family for a short time enjoyed. Indeed he seems to have retained the favour of the nation until it began to be generally suspected that he had become a Catholic. When he did this is not precisely known, but as early as 1668 he had declared privately to the King that he was by conviction a Catholic, and that he either had berome or intended to become a member of the Catholic Church. Thenceforth, though he did not in Charles' life expressly declare that hewas a Catholic,and the fact was chiefly evidenced by his abstention from the services of the Established Church, and his refusal to take oaths contrary to the Catholic religion, it was in fact universally known and accepted by everyone that he was a Catholic, and he in consequence became the subject of the most intense and bitter religious animadversion. After his accession he announced the fact that he was a Catholic by going publicly to Mass with the Queen, and thenceforth no attempt at secrecy was made. The attempts made to exclude James from the Throne during Charles' life, and the general events of his short reign, are matters of general history. Though after he became King his unpopularity still increased, it is not impossible that he James II. 491 might have been allowed to finish his life upon the Throne if, on the loth of June 1688 Queen Mary, James' second wife, had not given birth to a son who was likely to live. Up to that time his eldest daughter Mary, Princess of Orange, had been recognised as heiress presumptive to the Throne, but the birth of the Prince of Wales, which promised to continue the succession in the King's male line, at once threatened the ambitious projects of the Prince and Princess of Orange, and exasperated the Protestant, which was also the constitutional party, in a high degree. A story was got up that the child was supposititious, and had been introduced into the Queen's room in a warming pan ; and though it is now admitted by writers of every denomina- tion that this story was a simple lie without even a shadow of justification ; and though it is difficult to suppose that even at the time any person of intelligence was deceived by it, no doubt the story had for a time its effect on ignorant people. William of Orange shortly afterwards published a Declaration setting forth the grievances of the people, some of which at any rate were genuine enough, and made preparations for a military expedition to England, which he justified on the grounds that it was necessary to enquire into the circum- stances of the " nominal " Prince of Wales, and to procure the calling of a free Parliament, so that an end might be put to the dissensions between the King and people. William landed in England at Torbay on the 5th of November 1688, and commenced his march to the Capital. The King, whose mind appears for the time to have been unhmged, acted with extraordinary irresolution and weakness. He had been extremely distressed by the scandalous stories told about the birth of his son, stories which he knew to have been at least countenanced by his eldest daughter and her husband ; and he was probably aware that, as events proved to be the case, there was hardly a man amongst his Ministers or soldiers upon whose fidelity he could rely. Practically he did nothing to impede William's progress, and the result of his discouragement was a kind of exodus from the Court to ^\\ % ^. l,t •i'. 492 History of the Royal Family of England, : I William's standard. The first to desert was Lord Cornbury, an officer in the army, whose father, the Earl of Clarendon, was the brother of James' first wife, Anne Hyde, and Cornbury was speedily followed by the Princess Anne and her husband, and by many others ; and last but not least by Lord Churchill, afterwards first Duke of Marlborough, to whom James had committed the command of such forces as he still retained. This eminent person, whose military genius was only equalled by his utter want of principle and good faith, had owed his original start in life and earlier promotion entirely to the patronage of the King, mainly granted because Churchill's sister, Arabella, had been for a time James' mistress. Churchill had advised an advance against William, which James refused to sanction, and for which refusal he has been greatly blamed. Mr Traill in his life of William III. says, "it is uncertain whether if Churchill's counsels had prevailed he would have taken over the troops under his command to William, or whether he would have awaited the issue of battle in order to obtain still clearer light on the only question which interested him, namely, his personal interests." It is probable that James guessed this, and had better reasons for his hesitation than are generally allowed. The defection of Churchill was the death blow to the King's hopes. On the 2nd of December 1688 James secretly sent the Queen and the young Prince of Wales to France, where, after a perilous journey they arrived on the nth of December, and on the day of their arrival James himself attempted to follow them. He was recognised at Sheerness, and stopped by a mob who hoped to curry favour with William by delivering the King into his hands. It was, however, no part of William's policy to detain his father-in-law, whose presence in England, either as a captive or at large, would have been equally inconvenient, and James was allowed to escape a second time, and landed safely in France on the 25th December 1688. On the 12th of P'ebruary 1689 William and Mary were proclaimed King and Queen of England, and thus was peacefully accomplished the great Revolution of 1688 King James in France. 49 which, whatever may be thought of the conduct of individuals, was certainly one of the most important and, on the whole, beneficial events in English History. King James and his wife were received by Louis XIV. with genuine kindness and sympathy, and profuse hospitality. One is glad to remember that this kindness and hospitality were afterwards repaid by the English nation at the time of the French Revolution to King Louis' own descendants. Louis and James were first cousins, Louis' father, Louis XIII., and James' mother. Queen Henrietta, having been brother and sister ; and as young men (James was five years the senior) they had during the residence of Henrietta in Paris seen much of one another ; and apart from political considerations it is clear that Louis entertained a strong personal regard for his unfortunate cousin. At all events he omitted no opportunity of showing and even parading his respect for his illustrious guests, who were installed in the Chateau of St Germains with a large income, and treated with all the deference and ceremony due to the King and Queen of England. This, however, involved them, in the midst of their greater difficulties, in a number of smaller ones, which must have been sufficiently annoying. Probably since the time of the Roman Empire no Sovereign in Europe had ruled with a more absolute authority over a larger number of subjects than Louis XIV. ; and the ceremonial observed in his Court makes one think that the object which the King wished to obtain was to make his family and countries forget that he was a man mortal and fallible like themselves. There is, however, only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous, and the result actually attained struck the more acute observers in his own time, and has struck all succeeding generations as on the whole more absurd than impressive. Indeed I can conceive nothing more ludicrous than the mania for etiquette which, under Louis XIV., possessed the whole French Court. Louis' wife, Maria Teresa of Spain, had died in 1683, and the etiquette to be observed in regard to a Queen, and more particularly to a foreign Queen, was a little forgotten. ■»■■ 1 f f I i' l\ I. 494 History of the Royal Family of England. Accordingly the Dauphiness, the wife of the King's only son, took to her bed and shammed sickness for fear that on the occasion of her first visit to the Queen of England she should not be allowed the full privileges which she considered due to her as the first lady in France ; and " Monsieur," the King's brother, would not go to St Germains till it had been solemnly guaranteed to him that the Queen of England would kiss him. This sounds a little alarming, but ''Monsieur's" intentions were strictly proper. He did not desire an embrace from one of the most beautiful women in Europe, but a privilege which was to be conceded to him and not to Princes of inferior rank. Lastly, the French Princesses and Duchesses wrangled with an acrimony and, low be it spoken, a vulgarity appropriate rather to a kitchen dispute than to a difference between Court ladies, as to which should sit and which should stand, and which should sit upon " fauteuils " and which upon *' tabourets " in the Queen's presence. Mary of Modena on this as on every other occasion behaved with infinite tact. She con- sulted the French King on the grave questions at issue — cut short the difficulties of the Dauphiness by herself paying the first visit, agreed to kiss Monsieur, distributed her fauteuils and tabourets with a liberal and discreet hand, and generally won the admiration of everyone. So much was this the case that King Louis, who was no bad judge in such matters, in speaking of her to his daughter-in-law, the Dauphiness, said " See what a Queen ought to be ! " It was, however, necessary, before the various questions of precedence could be settled satisfactorily, for James to grant sundry, and as it proved, ephemeral and inconvenient titles of honour to his followers, in order that their wives might be able to sit down during the long Court ceremonies. On the 7th of March 1689, James, aided by Louis, set out on his ill-fated expedition to Ireland, which ended in his com- plete defeat at the Battle of the Boyne, and he returned to France in July 1690 after an absence of fifteen months. Thenceforth, during the remaining years of his life, James and his Queen lived a life of much retirement, which was Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon. 495 chiefly employed in the exercises of religion. James was a constant visitor at the Monastery of La Trappe and Mary at the Convent of Chaillot founded by Queen Henrietta ; and though, of course, the austerity of the King's later years has been a fruitful subject of ridicule, I do not see how anyone readmg the accounts of his life in France, can doubt that whatever may have been the sins and failings of James' youth and manhood, he, in his old age, repented them sincerely and earnestly. The narrative of his death, as given by Miss Strickland, reads like the death of a Saint ; and I can well understand the feeling of veneration for his memory which is still entertained by French Catholics. King James died at St. Germains on the i6th of September 1701, and he was buried in the Church of the English Bene- dictines in Paris. He survived his daughter Mary, and he was followed to the grave within six months by his son-in-law William III. ■' James II. was twice married, first to Anne Hyde and then to Mary of Modena. He himself, in certain memoirs of his hfe which he dictated and which still exist, fixes the date of his secret marriage with Anne Hyde as the winter prior to the Restoration in May 1660. This lady was the daughter of Sir Edward Hyde, one of the most distinguished and respect- able men of his time, and who as an Englishman and the grandfather of two Queens of England, deserves some mention in any history of the English Royal Family Edward Hyde was born in 1609 of a good county family several members of which had been distinguished lawyers and he was himself called to the Bar, but speedily abandoned the legal profession for politics. As a member of Parliament he attracted the attention of King Charles I., and enjoyed a large measure of that King's confidence, so that in 164^ he was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer and received the honour of knighthood. In 1644 the condition of the King's attairs made it expedient that he should part with his eldest son, the Prince of Wales, and Hyde, having been appointed - one 01 the Prince's councillors, accompanied him first to 496 History of the Royal Family of England, Anne Hyde, Duchess of York, 497 i h Bristol, thence into Cornwall, and ultimately to the Island of Jersey. From Jersey the young Charles was ordered to go to Paris and join his mother, but Hyde disapproving of that step declined to accompany him, and remained for some years in Jersey, where he commenced his " History of the Great Rebellion," which, though differently estimated by different writers, is admitted by everyone to be one of the most valuable and remarkable historical records that we have. In 1648 Hyde was summoned to join the Prince of Wales, who was then at the Hague, and from that time till the Restoration he was one of the most trusted of Charles II.'s councillors, having been appointed Lord Chancellor in 1657. It is, however, the misfortune of exiled Princes that though prudence and common sense imperatively demand some degree of unanimity amongst their followers, their councils have invariably been disturbed by a series of petty bickerings and jealousies to an extent scarcely paralleled in the most divided councils of Monarchs actually reigning. Thus Hyde appears to have become the object of a peculiarly bitter animosity on the part of his fellow exiles, and this after the Restoration was increased by his daughter's marriage to the Duke of York, and by the fact that Charles II. left with Hyde a large share in the distribution of the rewards and honours which followed the Restoration. Hyde himself was created Earl of Clarendon, and with some faults seems on the whole to have behaved as an upright and honest man, and he held his ground for about seven years. In 1667, however, Charles, worn out by the continual urgings of the Earl's enemies, at the head of whom was the Duchess of Cleveland, deprived him of his offices and ordered him to leave the Kingdom. This he did, and he spent the remainder of his life, till he died in 1674, living in profound retirement in France, and completing his history. Lord Clarendon had two sons, Henry, who succeeded him as second Earl of Clarendon, and Laurence, who in 168 1 was created Earl of Rochester. Both brothers, after the retire- ment of their father, were restored to King Charles' favour, both enjoyed in a marked degree the favour of his successor. James II., and the elder at any rate seems always to have remained faithful to the cause of King James, though as the uncle of the reigning Queen Mary II. he was allowed to remain peacefully in England. Rochester's conduct is more doubtful, and he certainly became, after the accession of William and Mary, one of their ministers, and one of the most prominent Statesmen of their reign. The male issue of the elder brother became extinct in 1728, when the title of Clarendon passed to Henry Hyde, son of Laurence, second Earl of Rochester, whose male issue also became extinct in 1753. Anne Hyde appears to have been born in 1637, and she was therefore about twenty-three when she married the Duke of York ; and, as I have already said, she had held an appoint- ment as Maid of Honour to James' sister, the Princess of Orange, in which capacity she first attracted the Duke's attention. Immediately after the Restoration, Anne having become pregnant, James announced the marriage. King Charles received the announcement with his accustomed good humour, but the marriage was not popular in the country, and raised a storm of opposition on the part of the Royal family and connection, and in the Court generally. Strange to say the lady's father was, or professed to be, extremely angry at her presumption in having married the heir presumptive to the Crown, hut as Dr Lingard points out. Clarendon's protestations were too vehement to be natural, and they were probably not quite sincere. Strenuous etforts were made to try and induce James to repudiate the marriage, in which there were said to be certain legal defects, and as he did not appear inclined to adopt this course he was told that Anne had led a very loose life, both before and after marriage, and that he himself was not the father of the child to which she was about to give birth. In support of ttiis assertion, two, or I think three men of some- what inferior position came forward and asserted with much detail that they had been Anne's lovers. James was greatly distressed and for some weeks refused to see his wife, and it 2 I 49<^ History of the Royal Family of England. was at this juncture that Anne was delivered of her first child. She was desperately ill and believed to be dying, and in her emergency she sent for the Duke and made such earnest protestations of her innocence that he was deeply impressed. He proceeded to make further enquiries into the charges against the Duchess with the result that he seems to have satisfied himself that the whole thing was a somewhat clumsy conspiracy on the part of Lord Clarendon's enemies. At all events he refused to allow the matter to be gone into further, and insisted that Anne's position as his Duchess should be forthwith acknowledged. As far as one can judge from the scanty materials afforded his judgment was correct, and it was certainly very generally endorsed at the time. King Charles always treated his sister- in-law with kindness and consideration, and Queen Henrietta was ultimately, though with difficulty, induced to receive her and though the writers of the time tell the stories against Anne with gusto, it is pretty apparent that they do not themselves believe them. Moreover, the Duchess' subsequent conduct was so entirely free from scandal or reproach that it is difficult to believe that in her youth she had been not only so abandoned but so very indiscreet a person, as she must have been, if the stories told against her are to be credited. It has been said that though the charges against Anne Hyde were known to be untrue, the Queen mother and the Princess of Orange were parties to them, or in other words that they suborned false evidence against the Duchess. For this very* odious suggestion there appears to me to be no reliable evidence, and the known conduct of Queen Henrietta in the matter, though perhaps not very amiable, appears to me to have been so straightforward and above-board as to negative the suggestion of her having lent herself to a criminal conspiracy, Mrs. Everett Green in her life of the Princess of Orange seems inclined to take a less favourable view of the Princess' behaviour. Anne Hyde was a handsome, good-humoured, and sensible woman, v/ithout much dignity of manner or refinement either Anne Hyde, Duchess of York, 499 i in appearance or character, but she played her part well in a difficult position, for, as I have said, after her marriage she escaped without any scandal, and made few if any enemies Shortly before her death she became a Catholic, and has left a document giving her reasons for this step. It has been asserted that she did this under undue pressure from her husband, but for this statement there is not a tittle of evidence and, on the contrary, I should think it probable that it was she who originally suggested to James his own change of religion. Anne died in 1 671, aged thirty-seven, and she is buried in Westminster Abbey. (See Lodge's " Portraits Life of Anne Hyde, Duchess of York ".) p .- f r' 1 / rj of Modena. 50 f ■I > Mary CHAPTER XXXIII. OF Modena. — James Fitz - James, Duke of Berwick.— William III.— Mary II. AFTER the death of his first Duchess various intrigues commenced, some to promote, and some to prevent the Duke of York's second marriage ; and I cannot help thinking it would have been a good thing if he could have seen his way to accept the situation and remain a widower. He himself objected to marry a Protestant, and it must have been obvious that the introduction into England at that time of another Catholic Princess would be attended with great danger to the whole Catholic community. James, how- ever, was bent on marrying, and on the i6th of September 1673 he was married by proxy to the Princess Mary Beatrice d'Este, sister of the then reigning Duke of Modena. The negotiations for this marriage were conducted with so much secrecy that it had actually taken place by proxy, and the Duchess was on her way to England, before the English public got wit of the affair. The House of Commons immediately presented a petition to the King praying him " To send and stop the Princess at Paris in order to prevent the consummation of her marriage with the Duke of York." Charles refused, on the ground " that he could not in honour dissolve a marriage that had been solemnly executed " ; whereupon the angry Commons pra\ed that he would " appoint a day of general fasting that God might avert the dangers with which the nation was threatened " : in answer to which prayer, Charles graciously conceded permission to them to fast if they pleased. Under the-e inauspicious circumstances the new Duchess landed in England on the 500 2ist of November 1673, and James, mindful of the questions which had been raised as to the King's own marriage with Katharine of Portugal, insisted on being personally married to his new wife according to the rites of the Church of England. It may here be said that Mary was afterwards associated with King James in his Coronation; the Communion Service being omitted, and some other parts of the ritual being changed to suit the consciences of the new Sovereigns. Mary of Modena came of one of the most ancient and illustrious houses in the world, the origin of the line of d'Este being lost in antiquity ; but her mother, whose name was Martinozzi, was a lady of no particular rank or family, having owed her marriage with the Duke of Modena to the fact that her mother was the sister of the famous and all powerful Cardmal Mazarin, for many years Prime Minister of France. Mary was born on the 5th of October 1658, and at the date of her marriage with James, he was in his forty-first and she in her sixteenth year. There is, I think, in English History to be found no Queen of more amiable character, or more absolutely blame- less life than Mary of Modena, and indeed, though as the devoted wife of the detested King James no opportunity has been missed for censure, and she has been the subject of any number of sneers and jeers, apart from the absurd and ex- ploded hction of the warming pan, no more definite charge can be brought against her than that she was at once a Catholic and an Italian. This, however, was a combination which in the seventeenth and eighteeeth century struck termr into many a stalwart English breast. It is admitted by all writers that Mary was a remarkably beautiful woman, with exceedingly pleasing and gracious manners. Taken straight from a convent, and married to a man whom she had never seen, who was twenty-five years her senior, and who proved for some years at anv rate a notoriously unfaithful husband, she uas called upc;. wlicn litth m re than a child, to fill the position of second lau> m T - laaffiass^ 502 History of the Royal Family of England. a Court of which the presiding Queen was practically a nonentity, and which had already obtained the most evil notoriety for indecency and indecorum. She was surrounded by women whom the King and courtiers delighted to honour, hardly one of whom was of decent character, and many of whom were known to be little better than common prostitutes; and by men to whom the seduction of women had become a science, and to whom the character of every woman was fair game for slander. Her religion and nationality were detested, and her husband's enemies were constantly on the look out for occasions to lower her in the estimation of the people. Nevertheless no writer has ventured to assail the fair name of Mary of Modena, and no charge of, I will not say impropriety, but of levity or of the slightest indecorum has ever been made against her. Moreover it is, I think, evident from the tone of the contemporary writers that, notwithstanding the circumstances under which she came to England, Mary speedily won, not merely the respect of all classes, but a considerable amount of personal affection and popularity. Though she was extremely religious, she seems to have practised her religion in such a manner as to give the smallest possible offence to those around her, and though by nature retiring and fond of quiet, she recognised the duties of her position so as to bear her part in the Court ceremonies, not merely with becoming dignity and propriety, but with much innocent gaiety and lightheartedness. Mary, like her husband, dictated her own memoirs, which were preserved by the nuns of Chaillot, and from these Miss Strickland has collected many details of her private life. (See also "The Life of Mary of Modena," by Martin Haile.) As a child she greatly wished to become a nun, and she opposed the project for her marriage with an energy and determination very unusual in a young girl, and only sub- mitted in the end in deference to the expressed wishes of the Pope. She further tells us that after she was married by proxy, she fretted herself ill, and could not be consoled till her mother had promised to accompany her to England. Mary of Modena. 50 For this not very unpardonable offence, the Queen after- wards blamed herself severely, and in fact the result was somewhat unfortunate to the Duchess of Modena, who left Modena as Regent of her son's dominions, and returned, after escorting her daughter to England, to find herself ousted from that position. Mary also says that at first she did not like her husband, but that afterwards her affection for him grew with every year; and certainly in their later married life, no married couple ever lived on terms of more tender or intimate affection than James and Mary. Her grief for her husband's loss was almost excessive, and from that time till her own death on the 8th of May 17 18, she lived, so far as was consistent with her duty to her children, the life almost of a nun, passing most of her time in the Convent of Chaillot, where she was buried. She died in her fiftieth year, and in the reis^n of George I. Though King James afterwards became deeply attached to Mary, and was, at all times, fairly kind to both his wives, he was not, at all events till after he had been for some time on the Throne, by any means a faithful husband. It is some- what irritating to find a man who, while he was, not to speak disrespectfully, continually worrying the world at large about his religious views and scruples, was at the same time so little under the practical influence of his religion that he could not restrain himself, even while he was the husband of a beautiful woman whom he professed to love, from constantly and openl)- outraging the common rules of morality and decency. James had many mistresses, all of whom, by a coincidence, appear to have been rather ugly women, a circumstance which some writers appear to think greatly aggravated his moral offences, but of these women I need only mention two as having in any way affected his public life. About the year 1670, during the life of Anne Hyde, James formed a con- nection with Arabella Churchill, whose brother subsequently became the celebrated Duke of Marlborough. By this woman James had a daughter Henrietta, who married the first Karl Waldegrave and is the ancestress of the present Peer; and ■1 I h I h I! i 504 History of the Royal Family of England. also a son James, who assumed the name of Fitz James and afterwards attained to the highest distinction. This son was born in 1 671, and was therefore about fourteen when his father became King, and two years later he was created Duke of Berwick, but as he was afterwards attainted, his honours became extinct. Berwick joined his father in exile, and accompanied him in his disastrous expedition to Ireland, aixl after the King's return to France Berwick joined the French army and served with distinction in almost all the Continental campaigns of his time. At the battle of Almanza, being already Marshal of France and a Grandee of Spain, Berwick defeated the combined forces of England and Portugal, and thereupon Philip V. of Spain created him Duke of Liria and Xereca. He was afterwards nominated Com- mander in Chief of the French army on the Rhine which was opposed to Prince Eugene, and he was ultimately killed at the siege of Philipsburg in 1734 (temp. George II.). In France and Spain Berwick is reputed as one of the greatest of the French captains, but he identified himself so entirely with the enemies of his native country that there is a natural tendency on the part of English writers to belittle him. He was twice married and had many children, and his descendants still flourish on the Continent. James II.'s connection with Arabella Churchill had ended before his marriage with Mary of Modena, but after that marriage he conceived a violent passion for Katharine Sedley, a daughter of the Sir Charles Sedley who, even amongst the poets of the Restoration, obtained an evil reputation for in- decency. James when he was King, followin^^^ the precedent set by his brother, raised this woman to the peerage as Countess of Dorchester. He had, however, to do with a wife of different calibre from King Charles' Queen, and Mary of Modena resented his conduct with spirit and determination. On one occasion when he visited the Queen on his return from Lady Dorchester's rooms, James found the Queen surrounded by several of his leading Ministers, and the whole ecclesiastical force of their united households ; and Mary, Mary of Modena, 505 backed up by Church and State, delivered so energetic a remonstrance that James was brought, metaphorically, to his knees, and then and there consented to dismiss his mistress, which he did. Thenceforth he seems to have considerably reformed his private life, and, notwithstanding some occasional and brief lapses from conjugal fidelity, to have lived on terms of affection with Queen Mary, and after his exile he turned over an entirely new leaf and lived, as I have said before, a life of great austerity and penance. "^y Katharine Sedley, King James had a daughter Katharine. This lady was twice married, first to Lord Anglesey and secondly to John Sheffield, Duke of Bucking- ham, and as widow of that distinguished person many stories are told of her extraordinary eccentricities and of the pride she took in her "royal" birth. Her only son by her first marriage died in his non-age without issue, but from her daughter by her first marriage many noble families, including that of the present Marquis of Normanby, claim descent. James II. had fourteen legitimate children, of whom, however, ten died as infants. Of these the first eight were by Anne Hyde, and the remaining six by Mary of Modena. They were— (i) Charles, born 1660. He died in 1661 ; (2) Mary, afterwards Queen Mary II., born April 2nd, 1662; (3) James, created Duke of Cambridge, born 1663. He died in 1666; (4) Anne, afterwards Queen Anne, born February 6th, 1665 ; (5) Charles, created Duke of Kendall, born 1666. He died in 1667 ; (6) Edgar (the only Prince of that name since the Norman Conquest), who was created Duke of Cambridge, born 1667. He died in 1671 ; (7) Henrietta, born 1668. She died in 1669; (8) Katharine, born 1670. She died in 1671 ; (9) Katharine, born 1675. She died in the same year. (10) Isabella, born 1676. She died in 1681 : iii^ Charles, born 1677 and created Duke of Cambridge. He died within a month; (12) Charlotte, born and died in 1682 ; (13) James, variously known as James III. of England, the Chevalier de' St. George and the "first Pretender," born June loth, 1688 ;■ and (14) Louisa, born June 1692. ill li ' 1; f 506 History of the Royal Family of England, I propose to deal first with Mary II. and her husband, William III. of England, then with Queen Anne, then with the Princess Louisa, and lastly with Prince James and his two sons. If it is dangerous at the present day to say anything m favour of James II., it is almost equally dangerous to say anything in disparagement of his son-in-law, William III., who has been placed by Lord Macaulay and other writers on a pinnacle as a kind of idol for popular worship. Fortunately, however, I do not materially differ in my estimate of this King from his more reasonable admirers. There are in history men and women whose individual characteristics, whose vices and virtues, whose motives and the influences under which they acted, appear so plainly in all their public actions that it is impossible to consider their public lives without constant reference to their individual characters. Of such men were the four Stuart Kings. There are, however, other men and women wh<>se public actions stand out clearly defined for good or bad, but whose private characters are covered with a more or less impenetrable veil. One knows that they did such and such things, but one does not know precisely why they did them, or whether their action was voluntary and deliberate, or was induced by circumstances and by motives more or less concealed. Of such people there are always many views to be taken, and of such were, to some extent, William III. and his wife; as to both of whom all writers agree that they were extraordinarily re- served, and of apparently, at any rate, unusually cold tem- perament. No one can doubt that William was a man of great ability, both regal and military, or that he possessed in an eminent degree those mental or moral qualities which enable a man to rule others ; and I think it must be admitted that being once King, he was a far better King than any of the Stuarts, and that under his rule England not only gained in European importance, but made rapid strides towards that civil and religious liberty which she has since attained to. li William III. 507 No doubt great cruelties were committed by him or in his name in Ireland, and the massacre at Glencoe, in Scotland, stands out in history as one of the most cruel and barbarous deeds ever recorded. With reference to this massacre, it is disputed whether William knew beforehand what was to be done, but no doubt it remains as a great stain upon his reign. I myself, however, am inclined to believe, that though William was callous and cold-hearted, he was not bv nature cruel or vindictive. He has been accused of ingratitude and treachery to James II., but I confess I do not see that he had any particular cause for gratitude, or that he was more treacherous than his neighbours ; and, indeed, I am inclined to think that he was less so. When James ascended the Throne there were only two living persons, W^illiam's own wife Mary, and her sister Anne, who stood before William in the succession ; for failing the descendants of James II., William, as the only son of James' eldest sister, was the next heir. James himself had no son, and had had no child born to him for nearly three years, and Anne, though she was a young married woman and had given birth to three children in rapid succession, had lost them even as they were born. Under these circumstances VVilham had a right to keep a close eye upon events in England, and there was much in those events to cause alarm to James' possible successor. It cannot be denied that the bulk of the English people were deeply dissatisfied, nor, I think, that they had good reasons for dissatisfaction ; and I do not think it reasonable to blame the people for looking for assistance from William as the only Prince of the Blood who was in a position to help them, or to blame him for responding to the appeal, which indirectly, \{ not directly, was made to him. Putting aside the doctrine of the Divine right of Kings, which I think now is exploded, and admitting the difficulty of defining what is meant by "the people," I think that every nation has an inherent right to choose \t?, own rulers; and it is quite obvious that when James virtually abdicated the Throne the people, with unanimity sufficient i K » V 508 History of the Royal Family of Engla^id, for all practical purposes, chose William and Mary to reign over them. Therefore, without commending their conduct in detail, I think that in the main they were justified in accepting the Throne offered to them. Of William's private character, the last, but by no means the least enthusiastic of his biographers, Mr. Trail (see " William the Third," by H. D. Trail, series "Twelve English Statesmen "), says, "His character was stern, forbidding, unamiablc, contemptuously generous, as little fitted to attract love as it was assured of commanding respect, and it bears in every lineament the unmistakable stamp of greatness." I do not think that I should have described William as exactly generous, contemptuously or otherwise, and in the passage quoted I should have substituted " fear " for " respect," and " power " or " stren^^th " for " great- ness"; but otherwise Mr. Trail's estimate in the passage quoted seems to me a just one. The historians of William III. have made strenuous efforts to exalt his wife, Mary, into a heroine worthy of the hero they so much admire; but I think that their efforts are for the most part half-hearted, and that few people really entertain any cordial admiration for this Queen. On the other hand, the Jacobite writers represent her as a veritable " Goneril" come to life, and credit her with the most vile and malignant passions ; I myself believe that she was a phlegmatic woman with no depth or refinement of feeling of any kind, and that she was wholly deficient in moral courage. That she had considerable abilities of a certain kind it is impossible to deny, but I believe that they were strictly administrative, and, so to speak, ministerial, and that she had no power of initiation or real force of character. She was married as a very young girl to a man, twelve years her senior, who was infinitely her superior in mental power, who could, and did, up m occasion, make himself very nasty, and of whom it is admitted that, whether she liked him or not, she was extremely afraid, and my belief is that at an early stage of her career she became so entirely dominated by her husband as to have become, at the date of the Revolution, practically # •/•t Mary II. 509 ncapab e of .ndependent thought or action. I also believe that , her s.ster Anne had married a man of any ability she also would have become a mere cypher. Everyone agrees that W.lliam was throughout his life an unfaifhf" husband though he never permitted his mistresses to acquire the smallest power or political influence, and I think it cannot be demed that in the early years of their married life Marv was much neglected and not a little snubbed. Nevertheless the conjugal affection between William and Mary has been much extolled and I belfeve that .some such affection did exist. William s contempt for women of all kinds is well known but his wife was able to be of substantial service to him and I think that in process of time he recognised the Jact that Mary was his most obedient and efficient servant and in that capacity he came to feel for her a somewhat contemptuous regard. On the other hand, I think that William gratified his wife's somewhat sluggish ambition, and that, as ,s the case with some natures, her fear of and dependence on him gradually produced a certain amount of attection for him. Of course Mary's conduct to her father is the ground upon which most of the charges against her are made, and it IS conceded even by her panegyrists that her behaviour on her arrival in England after the Revolution was in such exces- sively bad taste as to be positively indecent. As I have said she was not a woman of fine feeling, and r suspect that she was, as certainly her sister was, a woman by nature coarse ■ but when the charges of ingratitude are looked into I think that they admit of considerable modification. In consequence should he i f '«""'"-'i°n that his brother's daughters from ?h. ^T^ "P "' Protestants, they were separated from their father at a very early age, and I doubt whether at hef faZ fo '" "I^' ""r "^^'^ ""'^'^^ '^^ --- -of with thTnl h "°''^ '''''" ^ ^""^ "^^"^^ ^^ ^ "■'"e, and I do not think he was a man likely to have won the affections of a very marldTt fi?'"" "^ T '"' ^^"^°-- "'^ ^-^hter wl^ married at fifteen, and after that, except for a few months in ;/-r I h I ,1 510 History of the Royal Family of England. the year 1679, during which James was forced to leave England and was living at Brussels, father and daughter never met again. It must be remembered that all the persons about Mary in her youth— chaplains, governesses and com- panions—were instructed to tell her, and did tell her, that the religion of which her father was an ardent, if somewhat incon- sistent, professor was all that was bad, and opposed to Christianity; and without crediting Mary with any strong religious feelings, I see no reason to doubt that she, as well as her sister, as they grew up were thoroughly imbued with the popular horror of the Pope and all his adherents. She could not, therefore, have felt any great respect for her father's judgment, and once removed to Holland she was thenceforth surrounded by men, including her husband, who disliked and distrusted him, and to whose interest it certainly was to alienate her affections from him. Under these circumstances I do not see that beyond the bare fact that he was her father, James had done anything entitling him to his elder daughter's gratitude, and I doubt if he had ever inspired her with much affection. I doubt also whether, even if she had desired it, Mary could, by any possibility, have stayed the course of the Revolution, and I am sure that if she had desired to do so, she had long before lost the moral force which would have been required to oppose actively such a man as was her husband. The Revolution once accomplished, Mary's personal interests of ev^yy kind were entirely bound up with the cause of her husband, and I do not think it unnatural that she should have espoused as she did the interests of William in opposition to those of her father. That which appears to me to be most reprehensible in the conduct of both William and Mary in their relations to James II., is their having lent themselves to countenance and promote the lying stories which were spread about as to the birth of James' son— stories in which, I cannot bring myself to think, that they either of them for a moment believed. They probably thought, however, that the succession of a Prince who, it could not be expected, would attain to any- f Mary II. 51' thing like maturity before his fathers death, and who would certainly be educated as a Catholic, would be a national misfortune; and they availed themselves, I do not sav excusably, but with much astuteness, of stories which at the tinie to some extent were believed in by the common people and which might effectively be used against that large section of the community who still believed in the inalienable rights of primogeniture. ^^s&^mmmi^^siiMismimmmm William and Mary. CHAPTER XXXIV. William and Mary {continued). — Queen Anne. — Prince George of Denmark. — Sarah Jennings Duchess ok Marlborough.— Abigail Hill, Lady Masham.— Prince William (Duke of Gloucester). —Princess Louisa. WILLIAM III. was the only son of W^ilHam II., Pnnce of Orange, by Mary Stuart, eldest daughter of Charles I. of England, and sister of the Kings Charles II. and James II He was born somewhat prematurely on the 14th of November 1650, eight days after the death of his father, and was throughout his life, of a somewhat feeble constitution, suffering from asthma and other maladies. He had just completed his tenth year when his mother died in England in December 1660, and his prospects at that time were far from brilliant, for the States General of Holland had refused to reco-nise him as Stadtholder. ' In 1672, however, William, being then twenty-one, the States, who were at war both with France and England, turned in their emergency to the heir of the Princes who had done so much for their country. William was elected Stadtholder, and in an incredibly short time he had established for himself the reputation, which he afterwards maintained, of bein- one of the greatest Captains of his age. In 1677 he, having become a person of first-rate political importance, proposed to marry his cousin Mary daughter of James, Duke of York, and at that time heiress-presumptive to the English Throne. The marriage was solemnised in England on the 4th of November 1677, the Prince being then within a few days of completing his twenty-seventh year, and the Princess, who was born on the 512 513 30th of April 1652, bein- in her sixteenth vp;,r T a later James' second wife Marv of MoH ' Z^^"" ^^^^ son, who, during his Thort Hr7 f f^ '"^' ^^"'^ ^''"^ ^^ ^ newly-made PrLe s of O r ^ ^^^ ^'"^'' ^''^^^^^^ ^^e presumptTve a dthr. ''"^' ^'""^ ^'^ position of heiress- temporary records of the marriage, of whLh w "Lve t^^^^^^^ It was a somewhat gloomy ceremonial. The PrLcelft specially records the " sullenness .nH .1 u '^^P^^'"' Prince ^nH \.\. . c ''"^^^""^^s and clownishness of the rrince, and his want of attention to his w\{^ " Tf :. like. These amen.fes, which were no doubt reported to Thl Pnnce, perhaps contributed to the marked disl ke iSunt n^ to aversion, with which he always seems to h., » ^"""""""^ wife's sister. ^^* regarded his Whatever may have been the case in later years it is envS ^H. h ^' P;""°" ^^' °"^ ^y "° '"eans to be envied Her husband's softer afifections, such as they were e"of r ?-^ ^°"r ""'r' ^"^^''^''^ viniers, x :;; nection w!th wT '1'''°''^' ^"^ "'^° ^^'-'-^ ^-^ con- nection with William ali-ost to the last To sav tmth howe William does not appear to have been at aV me under female mlluence, and his mistresses never atta"ned^o any prominent position. On the other hand hi ='"^'"«'l ° of strnno- o„^ 1 .• ,- ■ , "^"" he Was capable P intTv ' I "'"P' ""' '"° g'-'^^' P-« -' the conf! A^ *^^" P°"*'°" t° 'he benefits which he W l£m BeT" J"°. °' ''^ ""^'^'^ ^"-^^- These tere WUhara Bentinck, who was two years older than the King fummm^->iiiM.'ii^i>tiiim»^mmiiims^m 5 1 4 History of the Royal Family of England. and came with him to England, and in 1689 was created Earl of Portland, and Arnold van Keppel, who was a mere child at the date of the Revolution, and came over as one of the King's pages, and was created Earl of Albemarle in 1696. Both these gentlemen enjoyed the King's friendship and confidence throughout his life, to the almost complete exclusion of the English nobility, and both received from him honours and rewards somewhat disproportionate to their actual services, and they were both with him when he died. Bentinck and Keppel are the ancestors of the present Duke of Portland and of the present Lord Albemarle respectively. William, as King, was comparatively seldom in England, being much occupied with his continental campaigns, and preferring, it is said, his native land ; and in his absence his wife acted as Regent, or more strictly speaking as reigning Queen. At the date of the Revolution an attempt was made to make Mary Queen to William's exclusion, but he, characteristically refused to be held "by apron strings," and Mary herself strongly discountenanced her supporters. The result was that the Crown was settled upon them jointly during their joint lives, with remainder to the survivor for his or her life, with remainder failing their joint issue to the Princess Anne and her descendants, and failing her descendants, to the descendants of William by any subsequent marriage. Mary has been greatly praised for her conduct of affairs curing her husband's absence, but it is clear that she acted under his constant and minute directions, and with almost servile deference to his wishes. Mary died on the 28th of December 1694 of smallpox in her thirty-second year, and having been Queen of Eng- land for over six years. William survived her for over seven years, and died from the effects of a fall from his horse on the 8th of March 1702, but he had for a long time before been in a very critical state of health. He was in his fifty- second year. Queen Anne. - ^ small man, very short anH th;^ I , ""*' ^ ^^'y figure whicL narUr; esLped " 5 f P'"" ''''' ""^ ^ youth was a handsome tor^an with! ,^ °™"^- ^'^ '" '"'' blance to the Stuart. qT °"^ P^'"""^' ''«<^m- her husband and e Hv L 71 TV'"' ""^^ *^"^^ *'^- They are hothhurJt^^^:J:itX ^^^^^'^ ^" son, hut o7rdi tirttTri^ctsTntr ■'r^ "'^ elusion there was \v. f^n, ^""^^^s Anne, for whose ex- poH.i»,. wi,r„ ;si ;":' ,rr "'" '""""■:' 1677, and exactly ,„M, a, ,he dale 7 .SZLTrT ,'" f(^8s ^ J • 1 "^ proclaimed Kine^ and Oiippn in VVniiamdiedtVa"ch"7orand h"f ''.ff"" "'^^" ^'"g This Queen is very commonly spoken r^ - « her own Her sLt^ i! ^!, '. u" *° ^"^ P°''''^^ ^ '-'"^^ of but Anne ^rea f re ' m . u ''""" "^'^'"'^'^^ ''^= Stuarts, ■ family, Chich t£r 1 m"" '"°"'"'' ^"'f ""'^ "^^ther's y, Which, though respectable, can hardly be said to have 5 1 6 History of the Royal Family of England. been distinguished. It was said indeed that Queen Anne s maternal grandmother (the wife of Lord Clarendon) was the daucjhter of a washerwoman ; but this is a calumny, for Lady Clarendon's father was Sir Thomas Aylesbury, a person of some reputation in the reign of Charles L ; and there is no ground for supposing that his wife was materially beneath him in rank. Nevertheless there is some reason to suppose that Queen Anne, like Queen Elizabeth, had on her mother s side a good many relatives of very inferior rank and ^°' Anne does not appear, even in her youth, to have had any pretentions to beauty, and being very much given to good living of all kinds, she became at an early age very fat and gross in appearance. She suffered excessively from gout and other maladies, so much so that at her Coronation, when she was still under forty, she was unable to walk more than a few steps, and had to be carried about in a sedan chair. She was a woman of no sort of ability, very illiterate and ignorant, and it would appear altogether deficient in what would now be called " culture " ; moreover she was essentially of a very weak character, and was throughout her life com- pletely dominated by the persons about her, so that she would hardly appear to have been at any time an altogether free agent. Many comparisons have been instituted between Anne and her sister Mary, different writers taking different views, but with regard to the main charge brought against them both that of ingratitude to their father, there can, to my mind be no doubt that the case against Anne is far stronger than that against Mary. As has already been said, Mary left England on her marriage when she was a young girl of fifteen and saw verv little of James after that date, but Anne, from the date of her sister's marriage in 1677 "i^til the Revolution in 1688, lived in constant and intimate inter- course with her father and his second wife ; and whatever charges have been brought against James, no one has attempted to deny that he treated his second daughter with Queen Anne. 517 uniform liberality and affection, or that, down to the last moment before she deserted him, he placed absolute con- fidence in her affection. There is not a particle of evidence that he interfered, or attempted to interfere, with the exercise of her religion, or that he ever failed to recognise in every possible way her place in the succession. From her position at Court which gave her every opportunity of know^ing the truth, and her whole conduct, both at and after the birth of the Prince of Wales, I think it clear that she in her heart believed from the first that which everyone has since admitted, namely, that the boy was her father's lawful son Nevertheless her correspondence with the Court of Orange at this time shows plainly that, while she was keeping up appearances w^ith the King and Queen, she was secretly inviting and urging on the intervention of the Prince of Orange, and doing her best to propagate the stones which were in circulation about her brother's birth. The circum- r^.'f ' ""o^"' ^'^^'^ ^'^"^ ^^"'^ ^° i^^" t^e invaders, as told by Miss Strickland, on good authority, are as odious and prove as great a want of good, or even decent feelin- as those which have been so often related with reference to'the arrival of Queen Mary in England ; and though, no doubt in ner later years, when she was a woman broken down by disease, and without husband or children or real friends of any kind, Anne evinced some symptoms of remorse and some natural feeling for her young brother and sister (whose exile she had so largely assisted to bring about), I cannot condone on that account the bad feeling which, at any rate until after her father's death, she appears to have shown towards him on every occasion. In the year 1683 Anne's position in the succession w^as very important. Her father had no son, and her elder sister who had been married for six years, gave no sign of becoming a mother. It was therefore very important that Anne should marry, and it was not thought expedient that she should leave the country over which it was probable that she would at some time reign. Under these circumstances Prince >^*SfiBimmm(Sl'ii':i^m 5 1 8 History of the Royal Fatmly of Bfiglafid. Prmce George of Derifnark. 519 George, the brother of Christian V., King of Denmark, was selected as a Prince willing to live in England, and who would be a suitable husband for the Princess Anne. It will be remembered that Anne of Denmark, wife of James I. and grandmother of the Kings Charles II. and James II., was the daughter of Frederick II. of Denmark. Frederick II. was succeeded by his son Christian IV., who was succeeded by his son Frederick III., who was the father of Christian V. and of Prince George of Denmark. Christian IV. and Anne of Denmark were brother and sister. Frederick III. and Charles I. were first cousins, and consequently Christian V. and his brother George of Denmark were second cousins to King James II., and second cousins once removed to James* daughter Anne. Prince George arrived in England on the 19th of July 1683, and was married to Anne on the 28th of July, nine days later. George, who was born on the 21st of April I653, being at that time in his thirty-first, and Anne in her nineteenth year. In the following September Prince George was naturalised as a British subject. Of all the persons in English history who have been called upon to fill a great position in England, George of Denmark is probably the most utterly insignificant. It is said that before he came to England he had proved himself to be a brave soldier, but in England, though he occupied a prominent position during one of the most stormy and in- teresting periods of history, and was for over six ye^rs the husband of the reigning Queen, the only event in his life which has been recorded is that he deserted his father-in-law to join the Prince of Orange at the time of the Revolution in a particularly mean and shabby way. The witty Charles II. is reported to have said, " I have tried George drunk, and I have tried him sober, and I can make nothing of him either way." And the same King nicknamed him " Est il possible ? " from a habit the Prince had of making that ejaculation whenever he heard any news, good, bad or indifferent. When James II. heard that his son-in-law, who had been taking supper with him in a friendly way on the previous evemng, had levanted ,n the night, he merely remarked, '' Is Est ,1 possible gone too?" though the departure of the Prince was no doubt a great blow to the King's cause After the accession of William and Mary, Georee was created Duke of Cumberland, though King\S who entertained a cordial dislike to his sister-in-law and her them^bo^h''""' ^'^ ^^^^ ''"'^'"''^ "^ opportunity of snubbing When Anne became Queen, it seems hardly to have occurred to anyone to advance the position of her husband, who remamed Duke of Cumberland ; and as far as appears never exercised the smallest influence over his wife or her subjects m any matter, either political or social. He died on the 28th of October 1708, in his fifty-sixth year, and is buried in Westminster Abbey. y , ana is Though in politcal and social matters Prince George may be said to have been a nonentity, he and the Queen seem to have lived on perfectly friendly terms, and they were the parents of many children. The Queen's strongest affections, however, were given to two women, both of comparatively low birth and breedin<. who were successively raised by her to a position of th'e' highest importance, and who so largely influenced public events that their names are familiar to the most cursory reader of history. These were Sarah Jennings, afterwards Duchess of Marlborough, and Abigail Hill, afterwards Lady Masham. Jennings who developed into as vulgar and violent a termagant as could easily be found in any back street in London, obtained a subordinate situation in the Princess household, when the latter was little more than a child, and immediately gained an ascendancy over the mind of her mistress, which she maintained for more than thirty years. In 1678 Sarah married John Churchill, already a distinguished soldier, and at that time attached to the house- hold of James, Duke of York, by whose influence he was created in 1682 Baron Churchill. Churchill repaid this kind- ness of his benefactor by betraying him, and deserting to the A ^ 520 History of the Royal Family of England. Queen Anne. 521 Prince of Orange on the latter's landing in 1688 ; and though he was regarded with some jealousy by the new King, he was too distinguished a soldier to be kept in the background. In 1689 he was rewarded for his services with the title of Earl of Marlborough. On Queen Anne's accession he was advanced to the rank of Marquis of Blandford and Duke of Marlborough, and appointed General of the Queen's forces during the war of the Spanish Succession, in which it is needless to say that he proved himself to be one of the greatest Generals England has ever produced. Nevertheless Marlborough was a man who appears to have been absolutely without principle or honesty, and he used his immense power to amass wealth for himself and his relations, with, as it seems to me, an almost cynical disregard for even the semblance of all less selfish considerations. He and his wife were the leaders of the great Whig party which dominated English politics from the accession of Queen Anne until 17 10, and of which the prominent members were all connected by blood or marriage with the Marlboroughs. In this formidable com- bination the Duchess Sarah may almost be said to have been the leading spirit, for though she does not appear to have been a woman of any particular ability, the violence of her temper and her extraordinary disregard for the ordinary rules of decorum and good breeding, joined to the position of her husband, enabled her to maintain her influence over the Queen long after Anne had ceased to regard her with any kind of affection. In the days of their youth the two women had established a practice of corresponding under the names of Morley and Freeman, and when one reads this correspondence it is difficult to restrain one's astonishment at the abject servility of tone adopted by the Royal *' Mrs. Morley," and the extraordinary insolence of" Mrs. Freeman." Sarah regarded herself and was regarded by the world as invincible so long as the Queen lived, but she found her match in the person of Abigail Hill, an obscure relative of her own, whom she had appointed as one of the Queen's bed- N chamber women. This person, who is said to have been very plam, with a large red nose, and to have been very sickly seems to have presented a great contrast to the Duchess by the meekness and humility of her manners. She gradually whlch'ef t fi"f 'T *' ^"^^"'^ ^"fi'^^"^^' -i* results which electrified the world. She was distantly connected with the celebrated Robert Harley, whom she in'^roduced to the Queen, and with Harley's aid she gradually succeeded in " !"■ Tk"" ^^: '"^"'"'^ "^ "^^ D"=h^^^ ^"d upsetting the great Whig administration. Harley was created Earl of Oxford and became Prime Minister, and Abigail's husband (who had been a " page of the back stairs," and was himself a person of no importance) was raised to the Peerage with he title of Lord Masham. The intrigues, however, of the two women who competed for Queen Anne's favour are so well-known, and have been so often related, that it would be out ol place to enlarge upon them further I have said that the Queen owed her popularity to her negative as opposed to her positive qualities and to ex- traneous circumstances. In temper Anne appears to have been easy going and good humoured. When she was left to herself she was fairly liberal in money matters ; she was neither cruel nor vindictive, her morality was unimpeachable and her appearance comfortable and homely. I think that these qualities probably conduced as largely to her popularity as did her want of personal ability to establish the system of constitutional Government which has obtained ever since her time. She had neither the intellect nor the courage to originate measures for herself, and she had no strong passions to gratify, and thus she easily allowed the regal power to fall into the hands of her Ministers, who gradually began to look for support rather from the people than to the Crown In Annes time, though the contests of parties would now be regarded as sufficiently violent, they were conducted on a niore or less constitutional basis, and presented an agreeable change after the civil wars, plots, persecutions, imprisonments and executions which had been the familiar incidents of the \ l\ \ \ 111 \i Hi''* ^ ■■if I I fi / "1' 52 2 History of the Royal Family of England, William Difke of Gloucest, er. 523 preceding reigns. The nation enjoyed a far larger measure of civil and religious liberty than it had ever experienced before, and accordingly material prosperity increased, and without any direct patronage from the Queen literature and the arts greatly flourished. Under Queen Anne was effected the legislative union between England and Scotland, a measure which has been, at any rate for the last century and a half, re^^arded as an immense benefit to both countries ; and under Queen Anne, though the nation was at peace at home, the English arms under Marlborough achieved in the war of the Spanish Succession a serious of brilliant victories profoundly gratifying to the national pride, and which added immensely to the reputation and consequence of the English throughout the Continent of Europe. Thus it came to pass that the reign of one of the dullest and most uninteresting of women has come to be regarded as a very bright page in the English annals, and as a consequence Anne herself has enjoyed a popularity both in her own times and in succeeding genera- tions which it seems to me that she did little or nothing to deserve. She died on the ist of August 17 14, and is buried in Westminster Abbey. Queen Anne and her husband had, I have said, many children, as to the number of whom accounts differ. This is accounted for by the fact that some of the children were stillborn, and others died at their birth. She had five who lived long enough to be named ; Mary born in 1685, Anne born in 1686, William born in 1689, Mary born 1690, and George born 1692 ; but of these all but William died in the earliest stage of infancy. Prince William, who was born on the 24th of July 1689, shortly after the accession of William and Mary, and died on the 17th of July 1700, having just completed his eleventh year, and nearly two years before his mother became Queen. He seems to have been a shrewd and intelligent child, but he was diseased and sickly from his birth, his head having been much too large for his body. He suffered in consequence from faintness and giddiness when he walked or exerted himself It is not likely that, under any Circumstance?, he would have lived to man's estate ; but the tha Tf '"h^^ ''''^t" ^"'^ '''°"S'^' "P '" those days was that of hardening" them, and to this system such small chances as the boy had were sacrificed. To encourage military tastes, Prince William was put at the head of a regnnent of httle boys, whom he was continually made to dnll, and when he complained of sickness and fatigue, his parents with no doubt the best intentions in the w^rld whipped him severely ; and the accounts given of the child-' hood of a boy ,n whose health the whole nation was deeply niterested, are rather piteous reading. His life must have been one of constant suffering, over-exertion, and something no very unhke ill usage. His death was a great blow, not only to his mother, but to King William, who, notwithstanding his dishke for the boy's parents, seems to have had a genuine affection for the child, whom he regarded as the heir to his kingdom. It was commonly said that the childlessness of Mary,_ and the repeated maternal disappointments of Anne were judgments upon them for their conduct to their own ather ; and there is some evidence that Anne herself in her later years was inclined to take this view of her misfortunes. The young Prince William is commonly spoken of as the Duke of Gloucester, but in fact the patent creating him a Duke had not passed the Great Seal when he died. He is buried in Westminster Abbey. On the death of Queen Anne the Crown, under the Act of Succession passed in the reign of William HI., went to the tiector of Hanover, who became King George I To this Prince and his family I must return later when I come to deal with the descendants of Elizabeth Stuart, eldest daughter of James I. King James H. had three daughters who survived infancy-the Queens Mary H. and Anne by his first wife and the Princess Louisa, who was his youngest child by Mary of Modena. This Princess was born at St. Germains on the 28th of June 1692, more than four years after the accession of William and Mary, and as she was born in the presence of all the French Princesses and great ladies, her i ^1 i ~?^ 524 History of the Royal Family of England. birth was universally recognised as putting an end to the absurd stories about the birth of her brother. She died of small pox at St. Germains on the l8th of April 1712, in her twentieth year, and about two years before the death of her sister Queen Anne, and she is buried, with her father, in the Church of the English Benedictines in Paris. All accounts agree that she was very pretty, and a girl of extraordinary piety and sweetness, and even the usually somewhat un- enthusiastic Madame de Maintenon, in a letter written after Louisa's death, to her constant correspondent the Princesse des Ursins, waxes eloquent in Louisa's praises. CHAPTER XXXV. Prince James Stuart.-Princess Clementina Sobie rou7s!T .r";"^'"' /'^''^"'^ Stuart.-Princess HENRv s^oarT'"'' Geoern.-Cak.xnal prince H ^^12^^ ^?'^f I "° '"""'^ depressing reading than Tame, ^r r "'°"", °^u^V''° ^""'"^ ^^^° ^^^'^^^ themselves stvled bv th • ^"i"' "'•" °^ ^"^'^"^' ^>"' --e styled by the.r enem.es the " Pretenders," but though their hves and fortunes were in many respects alike, the two that until the publication of a very interesting book " The Kmg over the Water," by A. Shield and Andrefv Lang I had regarded the elder "Pretender" as hopelessly unintfesting and despicable, but that book places him in a very different hght from that ,n which he is represented in most of The books which treat of him, and in particular from that in which he IS represented in the late Mr. Thackeray's " Esmond "_a book everyone has read, and which is supposed to give a life- ike picture of the times of which it treats. Judging from the Kmgover the Water," which seems to be a moft mi rand authentic life of this Prince, James would appear to have been a man of somewhat narrow intelligence-extremely obstinate and naturally of a rather morose and gloomy temper, which was as he grew older greatly aggravated by his misfortunes but who was nevertheless almost intensely conscientious, and singularly exact in the performance of what he conceived to be his duty, both in great things and small. No one has doubted the sincerity of his religious belief He made too many sacrifices for his religion to make that possible, for it is 525 A 526 History of the Royal Family of En o land. Prince Jaines Stuart the first ''Pretender. »> 527 almost certain he might, more than once, have recovered his father's Kingdom if he would have become a member of the Church of England. This he steadily refused to do, but it was generally thought that, though in belief and name a Catholic, his life was so grossly immoral as to make his religious professions almost a mockery. The book referred to, which goes into the question of- his morals with extreme minuteness shows, however, that his life, both before and after his marriage, was in fact extraordinarily chaste, and that the stories told about him, and particularly those implied by Mr. Thackeray, are entirely without foundation. Matters are very different with regard to his son, Prince Charles Edward. No one can possibly say he is uninterest- ing, but alas ! brilliant as were his early years, his later life was one of almost complete and unrelieved degradation, and is as sad a page as any in history. Prince James Stuart, the only son of James II., who sur- vived infancy, was born at St. James' Palace on the loth of June 1688. His father was at the time of the Princes' birth comparatively an old man (in his fifty-fifth year), and was much broken in health ; and there had been a sufficiently long interval since the birth of their last child to give rise to the belief that the King and Queen would have no more children. Therefore the birth of their son came as a some- what painful shock both to the nation and to the King's married daughters, who were eagerly expecting th,e speedy demise of the King without male issue, and the consequent accession of his eldest daughter, and ultimately, as she had no child, of her sister Anne, who was then certainly regarded by the people with much interest and affection. As I have already said, if James had had no son, he would probably have been allowed to finish his life upon the Throne ; but the birth of the infant Prince was the signal for the Revolution, which drove him and his parents into a life-long exile. On the loth of December 1688, King James determined to send his wife and child to P>ance, and in the midst of a pouring rain the Queen of England, carrying her own child, and with one or two friends, left her husband's palace, on foot to speedtv joined T"^' 7''^'' '''''''' '" '''^^'='' ^^ was speedily jo.ned by King James, and as I have alreadv said they were received with great honour by Louis XIV and installed ,„ the historic Chateau of St. GeLains, whe^they hve^d for the remainder of their lives and where th^y both his ''{'iZVtr^ T K '" '"'"^''"'^ y^" «' *h^ death of h.s father in September 1701, an event which within six months was followed by the death of William III. and the accession to the English Throne of James' sister, Queen Anne ifTnne and^'tr"'"''^' "'^ '"-'^--^h >-r at the death of Anne and the accession of George I. in Aueust 17.^ death of George 1. and the accession of George II. and he had survived the succession of George III. for over fi;e yea's when he h.mself died at Rome, on the ,st of January "yH n the seventy-ninth year of his age. His father on his death-bed obtained from Louis XIV the promise to acknowledge the claims to the English Throne of h,s young son; and accordingly the French King caused the young Prince to be immediately proclaimed King of i-ope, the King of bpam, and the Duke of Savoy. As a Z7TJ-T''''r '^■""" '"■ ""-d - A<^tto be "Pretender" rn T TJ ''"""' "'^° ^^ ^^^'^^ 'he the Proi . \l *''" '^''"°"' ^'' ^°^ '^' settlement of the Protestant Succession, whereby the Crown of England failing heirs of William III. or the Princess Anne, was s'et led on the Electress Sophia of Hanover as the firs Protestant Prmcess of the Blood Royal. This Act passed over the claims, not only of the young James Stuart and his sister Louisa but as will be shown hereafter, the claims of many ioined ;" P ""' ^;'"'""^= "''° ^^d b«- born into or Sy V T" ^^'^°"' Communion. The action of LOUIS AlV. in thus espousing the cause of Prince James was '! i I .1 f 528 History of the Royal Family of England. attended with disastrous results to himself and his allies, for William made it the excuse for breaking the short lived peace which had been concluded between him and Louis at the treaty of Ryswyk. This was followed by the disastrous war of the Spanish Succession, which brought so much glory to the English arms, and reduced France for a time to a condition of the utmost distress and humiliation, and which cost to nearly every European nation countless lives and treasure. In 1707 Louis proposed to invade England on behalf of Prince James, and assembled a large fleet at Dunkirk ; but as is well known, the French fleet was encountered by a still larger English fleet and driven back to France. The Prince, who was with the French fleet, proposed to be put on board a small vessel with his own personal attendants, with the intent to effect a landing in Scotland, where he expected that his Scotch adherents would rally round him. The circumstances of the English government at that time were such that it is possible that if this spirited project had been carried out, James might have made good his claims to the Throne. The French commander, the Comte de Forbin, however, consider^ ing himself responsible for the safety of the Prince, refused to let him leave the fleet, and carried him back to France ; and thus was lost what was probably the best chance for the restoration of the Stuarts that had ever occurred. On his return to France, Prince James joined the French armies in Flanders, and is said to have distinguished himself at the battles of Oudenarde and Malplaquet ; but in 171 3 Louis was forced to sign the treaty of Utrecht, by which he acknow- ledged the title of Queen Anne, and by the terms of which James was compelled to leave France, which he did, taking refuge in the dominions of the Duke of Lorraine. In 171 5, a year after the accession of George I., broke out the Scotch Insurrection, which commenced in what is known as the " Hunting match of Braemar." A number of Scotch noblemen and their followers met under the pretence of hunting, and on the 6th of September 1715, under the leader- ship of the Earl of Mar, they proclaimed James King. They _____^!!!!!>!f^^:^^ 529 with the .suit that^tTuf rArgrxTn^Ge^'^f general, was enabled to take ud an alnTn^f '• uf ^"^"""g^s which made it impossible for the h; M V""""'''^ P°='"°"' In the meantime amef l5 d^ t th IraH 11^' ^°"'^- Peterhead on the 22nd of Decembe^but he ""^ ^' sides with such discouraging ntdli;nce IZ'l "'' °" '" have lost heart, and on the Jh of pfbruarv i. fi h ''""' '° to France, having behaved! no doutt Jth 'dfsc.:t::rb1 without as it would appear much soirit H ^^'^^^^tion, but .»e„^-.,» ,..,, z ,, .r ,r '..^t r. SiS whatever Court Grz-af vt.;*-^- u , ^^uii. says, With show his miseries and to oarade h;l T ""^ *° matter of fact the Prince'r.h^fv f ""^fortunes." As a equal to the difficuft^sof ht 'Sn fnd Z' 'l "° "^^^"^ worse he was constantly surr'ou'd d by a'maH "Tf followers to whom he entrusted all his plaTs Ind h discretion and fidelity was to sav the it If' Tr '''^°'^ ShtS"^'" fr'"^ °" P-SonTalteH m'°b;',^;;;-p": tot^; ^;Te tritfestf !^-^^:t^i^rrr woHd I T '""^' T'' '^''^y ^.-sgSS'coltpTb'y^t world at large, even by his own followers. He died on the 1st of January 1766, and was buried at St Peter^, w.th .II lu honours due to a Kin 4 536 History of the Royal Fa7nily of England, Louisa of Stolberg. 537 rapidity, and that during the later half of his life he was an habitual and confirmed drunkard. Sir Nathaniel Wraxall in his Memoirs says that in 1770, being summoned to Paris to meet the Due de Choiseul, who was then meditating an invasion of England, Charles so far lost his self-respect as to present himself at the Hotel Choiseul in an advanced stage of intoxication. The Prince lived sometimes at Liege, some- times at Avignon, and after his father's death in 1766 at Florence. He paid several secret visits to London, and is even said to have been present at the Coronation of George HI. These visits were known to the English authorities, but so completely had the Prince's influence failed, that it was not thought worth while to interfere with them. In April 1772 Charles, who was then in his fifty-second year, married the Princess Louisa of Stolberg Gedern. This lady's father, who was of a very ancient race, had been a Colonel in the Austrian Army, but had been dead for some time at the date of the marriage. Her mother belonged to the distinguished Flemish family of the Counts Horn, and was allied to many illustrious families on the Continent ; and she was (through one of her grandmothers) descended from the Bruces, Earls of Elgin in Scotland. The Princess Louisa herself had, through the influence of the Empress Maria Theresa, been appointed a lay canoness of the Cathedral at Mons ; but she had a sister married to the Duke de Fitz James (a grandson of the Duke of Berwick and second cousin to Prince Charles Edward), and it was by the Duke de Fitz James that the marriage between Charles Edward and Louisa was arranged. (See " Countess of Albany," by Vernon Lee.) The Princess Louisa of Stolberg Gedern was born in 1752, and was thirty-two years younger than her husband, who at the date of the marriage had lost all personal advantages, and was already practically an old man. The marriage was an unhappy one. Charles was at once an unfaithful, an unkind and a jealous husband ; and Louisa unhappily gave ln"m too much cause for jealousy. On the fo someTre "'° ''' '^'"' '''■"• "^^ havin,. taken refuse of Se -7fe".r T"""]' '"'' '°' "^°^^ °f 'he remainder Princ'rienry Stuan '^'"^ °' "^^ ''"'''''' *^ ^-<^'- leasf onTcWMb" ''' "° ''"' '>' ""'' "'■^^' ^^^ ^e had at companion of ht ' T""'" "T""" Walkenshau- who was the a3reH°. . !"■ ^^"d^""g^. ^nd who is said to have acquired a great and most injurious influence over him His daughter by this woman he some years before hiT' death area's ;ra'"''H°"'^'"^ "' ^"'^"^ = ^"^ this lady '.t he dTed ^heT ""'ZT r ''''''' P"''""' -^^ «-'th him when ne died. She herself died unmarried in 1789 ofCharles m'd'r h"T" ''" ^'''"'''' "^^'"^ ^^^"'"^d the title ot Cfiarles III.,died in Romeon the 30th of January 1788 and is buried .nSt Peter'swith his fatherand brother. Astately monu Prince Chn, "^ ^'°'^^ ^^- '^ ^^'"^ '° ^^-^ contributed, of ' Waverlet • tT V "TT"' "''''''"'' '" Scott's novel o ZTIT/L fu'^ "'^'"'^ " '"■'^ during the campaign Of 1/45, and he and h.s mistress Walkenshaw are also ntro- dnced into the novel of " Red Gauntlet " the it'o?'?''' "r"" V''/""''^^^ L°"'^^' '^■■^ -•<"-. -«^""^^d pThI V u^^^"' °^ ^'^^"y>" ^"d =he went to live in Fren;h"Rr IK ^"^'r' '"''^^'>'' ''"* ^' '^e date of the French Revolution she fled to England, and bein.. reduced pension. She died in Florence in the year 1824 become If '""' ''" '^' ''■'""'™" °f ^'' h»«band Louisa had never marie^r: ^^'" .^'' '^"^''^"^'^ <^--th, though they lifieri shT \,V%^ '^^' afterwards, on the death of Hlfieri, she married the French historical painter Fabre ClemenriL rK-'' l^' "'"°"u '°" °^ ^"""'^ J^"^"^^ Stuart and Uement na Sobieski, was born on the 26th of March ,72; ban his :n' ■f.^^'l'^'^-^ been of even greater prom se iis twentv th- A 'u"\ '" *'" ^'^ '^47, when he was in twenty-third year, he determined, somewhat suddenly, to lit I J :.l . 538 History of the Royal Family of E^igland. enter the Church. He was ordained priest in that year, and very shortly afterwards he was consecrated Bishop of Frascati and raised to the rank of a Cardinal. He appears to have been a very respectable and amiable man, and he enjoyed a large income from numerous benefices which he held in France and Italy, out of which he largely contributed to the support of his elder brother Charles during the later years of that Prince's life. During the French Revolution, however, the Cardinal lost the revenues he had derived from France, and also a pension he had received from the Court of Spain ; and in 1796 he sold most of his family jewels in order to assist the Pope, Pius VI., to make up the sum of money exacted from him by Napoleon. Two years later, in 1798, when the French Revolutionary troops entered Rome, the Cardinal's palace was sacked, and he was compelled to fly to Venice, where he found himself reduced almost to destitution. In this emergency Sir John Hippesly, the English Minister at Venice, represented the Cardinal's condition to King George III., who, with equal generosity and delicacy, granted him an unconditional pension ot ^2000 a year, notwith- standing that on the death of Prince Charles, the Cardinal had assumed the empty title of King " Henry IX.," which he never formally abandoned. The pension was gratefully accepted, and Henry showed his sense of the kindness of the English reign- ing family by bequeathing to the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV., such as remained to him of the family jewels which had been carried out of England by his grandfather James II. Prince Henry Stuart died in June 1807 in his eighty-third year, and as I have said, he is buried in St Peter's. In his youth his father created him (nominally) Duke of York, and he is commonly called the "Cardinal York," which seems to me to be a slight confusion of titles. He was in fact Cardinal Bishop of Frascati and titular Duke of York. On the death of this Prince became extinct the male line of the Royal and illustrious house of Stuart, and he was the last living descendant of King James II. (See the '' Last of the Royal Stuarts," by H. M. Vaughan.) CHAPTER XXXVI. '^''''^^r.L^''''c^^'"^ ^^"""'^^ ^^ ORLEANS.-ANNE DE BOURBON Queen of Sardinia.-The Queen of Sardinia's Descendants. T N a previous chapter I said that I would deal with the six X children of Charles I. and their descendants in the SS m ' ^ l""^"' ^^' ""^ ^'' descendants, including Wiliiam III and lastly, Henrietta Duchess of OHeans Having concluded all I have to say of the descendants of James II I now revert to his youngest sister Henrietta. Ihe Princess Henrietta was born on the i6th of June 1644 at Exeter during the siege of that city by the Pariia- mentary forces, and the greatest apprehensions were enter- tained by the Royalists lest the Queen, her mother, should fall a captive to the Pariiament, an event which would have greatly crippled the King's hands. Therefore, when within fifteen days after her delivery, an opportunity offered for the Queen s escape to France, she was forced to take it ; and as the dangers of the journey would have been greatly added to f the new born infant had been one of the fugitives, the she f'n • f TT' "r ^'^' ^"'^"^- ^^"^^ ''^^^ afterwards she fell into the hands of her father's enemies. T ^^^ !"/" ^^'^^^y ^^^" ^""^"^ ^'^^ ^'" ^^46 the child's governess Lady Morton (afterwards Lady Dalkeith), succeeded in carry-' InH K u^"" ''"'^' ''^''^ '^^ ^^^^^ '^^^'^^^'^ by the Queen that ^r^ "^ '' ' ^''^^^^■'- ^^^'^ ^' '^^'^^ t° ^^^^^-^ that the Queen Henrietta had some hopes of arranging a marriage between the young King of France Louis XIV. and ^er own daughter ; but Louis, who was at that time pas- . 539 540 History of the Royal Family of England, sionately in love with Mademoiselle de Mancini, would not accept the suggestion, and he is said to have ridiculed his cousin, whom he referred to as the " Bones of the Holy Innocents," in reference to her extreme thinness, and what he considered as her youthful insipidity. But if Henrietta did not find favour with King Louis she did with his brother Philip Duke of Anjou, who was for a time extremely attached to her, and as on the accession of Charles \\. in 1660 the position of his sister was greatly improved, a marriage was arranged between Philip and Henrietta. Louis created his brother Duke of Orleans, a title which had become vacant by the death of his uncle Gaston, and the English Parliament settled a suitable dowry on the Princess, and on the 30th of March 166 1 the young couple were married in Paris. At the date of the marriage Philip, who was born in September 1640, was in his twenty-first and Henrietta in her sixteenth year. The marriage was i^ot a happy one. Philip was an effeminate and rather vicious person, whereas Henrietta, not- withstanding the unfavourable view taken of her by Louis XIV., not only developed into considerable beauty, but speedily proved that she possessed much intelligence and great powers of captivation. The Queen of France (Maria Teresa of Spain) was a kind-hearted but rather dull womar, and was very ill -fitted by nature for the position she was called upon to fill, and the Queen mother, Anne of Austria, was slowly dying of cancer, and thus for all practical purposes the Duchess of Orleans became the first lady at the French Court, then the most brilliant in Europe. She speedily acquired great influence over the King, and threw herself into the world of politics and pleasure with the avidity of a young girl newly emancipated from the almost conventual seclusion in which she had been brought up by her mother Her levity and indiscretion gave rise to much scandal, and not only brought upon her the severe remonstrances of her mother and her mother-in-law, the Dowager Queens Henrietta and Anne, but led to many quarrels between herself and her husband. It is said that her relations with Louis XIV. Henrietta Duchess of Orleans. 541 tr K r' ''''' :"''"""'"' '"^ '^^>^ ^'^^^ '^^'^^^^y resented bo h by her own husband and by Louis' wife, but there does not appear to be any good ground for supposing them to have been cnmmal, though I can hardly say as much as to Henrietta s relations with the Comte de Guiche, who was said to have been her lover, and which, if not criminal, were certamly imprudent to the last degree. In 1670 a treaty was on foot between the French and English Courts, the terms of wh.ch are matter of general history. It was, however, a r h T t \ ""^'^ "'-^^"^ importance to both Louis and Charles that they should have an agent upon whose secrecy they could both rely, and the Duchess of Orleans, the sister- in-law of Louis and the sister of Charles, was chosen as this agent. She accordingly set out for England on the 24th of May in that year with a magnificent retinue and remained there till the 12th of June, when she returned to France haymg accomplished her mission with, as it was thought' brilliant success. On her return she was received by Kine Louis with the utmost distinction and appeared to be in excellent health, but on the morning of the 29th of Tune 1670 Henrietta was taken suddenly ill, and she died shortly after midnight the following day, having been in terrible agony during the whole of her illness. The accounts of her deathbed and of her sufferings are extremely touching, and at the same time terrible, and the funeral sermon, on the text Vanity of Vanities," preached by the great Bossuet at her obsequies, is justly quoted as one of the finest efforts of pulpit oratory that has ever been made. ^ ^ It would seem that Henrietta for some time before her death had been anxious to repair the errors of her youth and certainly she died deeply penitent and with every appear- ance of true Christian feeling. Her death created a profound sensation, for it was universally believed that she was poisoned, and very generally believed that her husband was tne poisoner. She had many enemies who envied the position ot consequence she held at the French Court, for it was i^nown that Louis entrusted to her political secrets, which he it f * I'! ' I 542 History of the Royal Family of England. ^^arie Louise of Orleans, withheld from his family and his Ministers, and for a time her influence in matters of State was very great. This was greatly and perhaps justly resented by the Statesmen, who saw themselves superseded in favour of a young woman barely twenty-five, but it was by no one resented more bitterly than by her husband, whom Louis was accustomed to treat with the utmost contempt, and who saw himself ex- cluded alike from the confidence of his wife and of his brother. Philip, however, had another grievance which he resented even more bitterly. Throughout his life he was completely under the dominion of a series of favourites with whom he spent most of his time in the most frivolous pur- suits, upon whom he lavished his great fortune, and whose position was regarded with much indignation by the whole Court. Shortly before Henrietta's expedition to England the King had insisted on banishing one of these persons, known as the " Chevalier de Lorraine," and Philip, who in- dulged himself on the occasion in the most profuse lamenta- tions believed, perhaps with reason, that this had been done at the instance of the Duchess. At all events it was the general opinion— an opinion, as far as can be judged, which Henrietta herself entertained, and which certainly was at first shared by the Kings Louis XIV. and Charles H.— that Philip poisoned his wife in revenge for the loss of his com- panion. That Henrietta did in fact die by poison is I think almost certain, though by whom it was administered it will probably never be known with certainty. Afterwards Louis XIV. is said to have satisfied himself of his brother's in- nocence, and according to St. Simon, on the occasion of the Duke's second marriage with Elizabeth of the Palatinate, Louis gave his personal assurance to the new Duchess that the Duke was innocent of the death of his first wife. At all events that astute person Elizabeth herself, though by no means inclined to regard her husband with too great leniency, in one of her letters, expressly says that she believes him to be innocent of this crime. I think he was innocent, for though he was a wretched creature, I should doubt if he had sufficient force of chararf^r f^ k fri-e; baton the othe/haVd a rrhe^'T'""'' ^° '^^'"^ ^ implication of Lorraine Th" ^""'^"'^^ P°'"'^ ^ the to return to France and rl'^Uted "'^^^/'^^-^^ -"-ed Duke's household where he 3^.!^ '" ''°""°" '" "-^^ remarkable that notw thstLn u ^'''^' ""*'"^' «"d it is he was always treat^wfh''"^ *u' ""'■^""^^ ^^^'^t hi™, .-rely by the'.e^b s o7 he DuT;';"' ft 'f ^^"^^' "°' himself. In explanation Jfh u ""'^ ''"' ^y the King in the possession of St. eecr^t "/"5"*^' '''^' "^^ «- set him at defiance vWthn ' ^""^ "^^^ '' '"''' difficult to Wends in other colTrfes '""'""^ *'"'^ '''''^'"°" ^y his St. Itt""''' °' ^--'^^"^ -^ •^-ied in the Church of '^^^"^^^^i:^^:::':.^:^'-:'^^-' ^ - who Marie Louise of Orleans wa^ h' nr ^°""" ^"^ ^""e. Court in which there were J" ^^"'^ '^^^' ^"^ *" ^ have been remartlTe IT hrbLuu"'' He 77" "^"^^ *° anxious that she shonlH r„ beauty. Her father was very only son of Louis X V ™ Zttr ""'"■!'' ^^-Phin^the among French romfncer; that the" " ' ^'"^ °' '''''''''°" between the cousins MarvT 1 ' '"^t ^ '"'°"S ^«"^^t'°" the ,st of Au<.ust ,67o h ' ^^'' ''°^^^"^' ""'^"'^'^ »" Spain, and wheth she 'had' o'Tad *° t^^'"'^^ "' ^'"^ °' for her cousin she certLh !■ ^'' ^ P""^^'""* ^^e^^tion marriage ; and ndeedT" tr""'' ' '''°"^ "''J^"'"" to this Spain !h; crett^d'::! ^hi g hkTrrnlf h'^r-" '"' lamentations. For these, however she had ^"^ '""" ""^ reason. The Spanish kings h;d for J" '"^ "■'' ^°°^ married lad.es nearly related t^VL . "^ generations last descendant in the ma lei <•'": ^""^ ^^^'^'' "• (the and Philip in '^ ' 1^ ''"^ ^'°"' '^^ Emperor Charle V. Mariann7of ius riarn "" °' ^"^"'^ ^^'^''■P I^- and uncle and n efe was hi: ,rT ""'.^'^ "''' ~"-'-. hut and degenerate 1 tt? TI Phy^'cally and mentally feeble resrarderl h * '^^«''^^' ^"^ ^""'^ hardly have been regarded by any young woman as a husband without dfsgus i ), i 1.' t .' i ^^ I > 1 *l ^i M I. H f ^ 544 History of the Royal Family of England, Anne Queen of Sardinia. 545 The life of Marie Louise in Spain was very unhappy, but to enter into details with regard to a Princess, who though granddaughter of an English King had so little practically to do with England or the English Royal Family, would be out of place in this work. She died in 1689 without issue and as it is believed by poison administered by the Anti-French party in her husband's Court. As is well known Charles II. of Spain, who subsequently married again, died in 1700 childless, and thereupon Louis XIV. claimed the Spanish Crown in right of his own wife, Maria Teresa of Spain, and bestowed it on his grandson, who became Philip V. of Spain. Philip, however, was not established as King of Spain until all Europe had been deluged with blood, and the kingdoms of France and Spain had been nearly ruined by the most disastrous war of the Spanish Succession. Anne of Orleans, the younger daughter of the Duchess Henrietta, was born on the 31st of August 1669, and was married on the lOth of April 1684 to Victor Amadeus II., Duke of Savoy, and afterwards first King of Sardinia, a Prince who played a most important part in the history of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the great war which broke out in 1690, notwithstanding his marriage with a French Princess, Victor in the first instance sided against France, and then, with much duplicity, changed sides. In the subsequent war which commenced in 1701 Victor Amadeus, though he began it as an ally of France, again suddenly went over to the enemy and took part against France with most disastrous results to the French arms. His conduct has been the subject of much animadversion by French writers, but for this second change of sides he received a reward by being declared at the peace of Utrecht, King of Sicily. He did not, however, long retain this kingdom, for in 17 1 8 he was ousted by the combined efforts of the German Emperor (Francis I.) and Philip V. of Spain, receiving in exchange the Island of Sardinia with the title of King of Sardinia. His wife died in 1728 (see "The Romance of Savoy— Victor Amadeus II. and his Stuart Bride," by the of Bro™,„.-, p,a,. -King vic,„, ,„d Kl„g Charles '' E..t.ess or Hanover, younj^dt htefoTtheT^L Q^n eluded fZ' r ^■■-^^-^-»''- °f J-es I. This ^^ Cathotv, 7 ="=«ss.on, on the ground that thev were fames I i"'""^^"'^ V""^' '''' ^"^-'-"S -^^^^-- of James I., Anne Queen of Sardinia, onlv survivin- daurtt^r Ch fes ,"tT "'"r"; °' °^'^-^' -d grandd'-aughtL : c u- Z P^rcnts had been older than the E\ecfrf^<^ Soph,. The Aet did not immediaiely affee, he ollITf beg.nn,ng of the war of the Spanish Succession ' tl n .V^-^"' ""^^ P^^'^^ 'h^'-e ^^s a very large party in tl>e United K.ngdom, known as the Jacobites, who denfed the competence of Parliament to change the succession and wh^ seem to have regarded the hereditary rights of the Stlr^ Pnnces to succeed to the English Thfone almost as a e coTnl r"1^' '"' "''^ consequently contmued t^ S i h '' k"'"' '' '''''' '""'"' Kings. After ,745. "hen .t became obv.ous that the restoration of the Stuarts dedin'eTh ?h"^ '"T'"^' '''' P"'>- -P'^^'^ ^"' ^ dechned both m numbers and influence, and at the beginning msed all over the world with substantial unanimity, Never- theless there remained a small body of fanatics who, in theory M If: i: i ii li 546 History of the Royal Family of England. rather than practice, continued to regard the Cardnial Prince Henry Stuart as the lawful King ; and when he died in 1807 a certain number of this body transferred their attention to the descendants of the Queen of Sardinia, who as they considered had a better title than the reigning family. Of late years, that is to say in the later years of Queen Victoria, there arose a sort of recrudescence of this feeling of misplaced loyalty to the more ancient line. A society was established which called itself the "White Rose League which occasionally held meetings, which at intervals published a newspaper, and which professed to regard the Princess Mary of Modena, wife of Prince Louis, eldest son of the present Prince Regent of Bavaria, as the lawful Queen of Fngland The members of this League were accustomed on festive occasions to drink the health of that Princess as - Queen Mary IV." and to indulge in other harmless eccen- tricities. Whether the Society still exists I am not quite sure, but without attaching the smallest importance to its vagaries, I think it maybe interesting to my readers if I gave some account of the descendants of Queen Anne of Sardinia. To do this in detail would be impossible, for at the present time her descendants number. I believe several hundreds, and are to be found in the reigning families of nearly every European country. I shall therefore content myself with dealing with three of the more illustrious lines which claim descent from this Princess. First amongst these is the line from which is sprung " Queen Mary IV.," who, but for the Act of Succession passed in the reign of William III., now 200 years ago, would, according to the old law, have been the lawful Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. Queen Anne of Sardinia had two sons, the elder of whom I i ! i ■ I I 552 History of the Royal Family of England. married Philip Duke of Parma, and her eldest daughter, Louisa of Parma, married Charles IV. of Spain, who was the grandson of Philip V. by his second wife, Elizabeth Farnese. Charles IV. abdicated in 1808, and was succeeded by his son Ferdinand VII., who was the father of Isabella, the ex-Queen of Spain, grandfather of Alphonso XIL, and great-grandfather of Alphonso XIII. (see Table XVIII.). In addition to the Royal lines already mentioned, the Royal families of Saxony and Portugal, and the families of the late Emperor of Brazil, the late King of Naples and the late Duke of Parma, are descended from Anne Queen of Sardinia, and through the alliances of these illustrious families it is probable that most of the other Royal or semi-Royal persons in Europe claim descent from Charles I. I have not, however, thought it worth while to go into these ques- tions of genealogy further than I have done. When the Act of Succession was passed it was necessary to look rather far afield to find the required Protestant heir to the Throne. Not counting William III. himself aqd the Princess Anne, there were living only three grandchildren of Charles I., James and Louisa, children of James 11., and Anne Queen of Sardinia, daughter of Henrietta Duchess of Orleans ; but as they were all three Catholics the required heir had to be found among the descendants of Charles I.'s sister, Elizabeth Queen of Bohemia. That Princess had had thirteen children, but of these only three, her sons Charles and Edward and her daughter Sophia, had had children. The descendants of Charles and Edward (both of whom were dead) were Catholics, and therefore the choice fell on Sophia Electress of Hanover, a lady who was then in her seventy-first year, and therefore not likely to survive William and Anne, but Sophia had already a son and a grandson to carry on the succession. I must in the next chapter revert to the history of Elizabeth Queen of Bohemia, daughter of James I. and .sister of Charles I., who is the connecting link between His present Majesty and the illustrious houses of Plantagenet and Stuart. TABLE XVIil. KING JAMES I. d. 1625. King Charles I. Beheaded 1649. Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, rf 1670. Anne, Queen of Sardinia, d. 1728. Adelaide, Duchess of Burgundy. gn.ty, made h,m a subject ^^^ amongst the wits -d lampooned of he day ^ already b-on^e a power m E^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^, .^ his prospects seemed brighter tor but that King the great Gustavus A^olphusKng^o Sweden- ^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^ .,, ,iUed on the 6 hf November ^^3^^^ ^^^^^,^,^^ Lutzen, and on the iQtn oi n seventh year. For of the plague at Dar-stadt^n h. tin ty-s^^^^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ the next twenty^n.ne X-s El-abet^ - ^^^ ^^^ Hague. Her gnef ^^ ^^ ^ notwithstanding her gradually ^^'?'"''^\''''^l^;,^,^ she seems on the whole poverty, -^'fj^/jfrit fir tsh^ received a pension from to have enj°y«dj^«; but when the Civil War broke out m her brother Charles 1., Dut w , ^ ^ ^^^ny years to England ^'--^ ^-'^^f-^^'lXZot^^^--^^ and of private live on the ^^anty of the States o ^^^^^^^^^^ „f ^^e individuals ; and a . ^hf^^f ^^ ^^^ heavy debts on her Tb^nds^beha^Ssh suffered much from the importun.t.es husband s behall sn ti„„ ;„ ,66o she received of her creditors. Af^e^^^theK ^^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ts, and a a grant from ^"''^'"r J „ ^„d in May i66. she pro- pension from K'"g/Yt ; J been said that she was not ceeded to England. It has been welcome, but ^"^'^^'^i ^irh:r'::rr^rwrtr:atef with Umdness and certainly after her arriv^i ^ j^ ^^ January 16O2 in a 1 c^iare and she s buried in T • 4.^^ Fif-M<; now Leicester bquare, dina ^n i^rstrn'st'e^ Abb:; She was in her sixty-sixth year when '^%ft^' heen said that Elizabeth was privately married V a Craven He was certainly one of her most to Lord Craven. ri distinguished position in ^^t^' tirar.h; Hague'afd big comparatively a rich her household at the nag . ^ ^^^^^^f but for believe it to be untrue. Elizabeth, who throughout her life clung to the title of Queen of Bohemia, had thirteen children • (l) Frederic, born .614; (2) Charles, born 161 5; (,^' Elizabeth born 16.8 ; (4) Rupert, born in Prague, ^6\;■ 5 S"/'T8^ FH "h' 'J'^ Louise, born ,622: (7) Louis'born ).J 'ill- r ' ''°''" '^'4 ' (9) Henrietta, born 1625 ; (10) Phihp, born 1627; (II) Charlotte, born 1629: (12) Sophia, born 1630 (some months after her cousin Charles 11 ) • and (13) Gustavus, born 1632. I propose to deal with these children according to their seniority. ^ Frederic, the eldest, was accidentally drowned at sea in January 1629 in his fifteenth year. About this time Royal persons began to adopt the very inconvenient practice of calling themselves by two christian names, and Charles, Elizabeth's second son, is usually called in history Charles Louis. He was one of the most unworthy Princes to be found in history. Born in 16.5, he was at an early age sent to England, where he was received with the greatest distinction by his uncle Charies I., but on the break- ing out of the Civil war, notwithstanding the kindness he had received, and the fact that his younger brothers, Rupert and Maurice, were active in the King's service, he attached himself to the Parliamentary party, whom he toadied with great sycophancy, and from whom he continued to receive a pension originally granted him by his uncle. Before Charles I 's execution his nephew proposed to visit him, but the King though he sent him his forgiveness, refused to allow his last hours to be disturbed by the visit of a person by whom he Had been treated with so much ingratitude. Afterwards Prince Charies returned to Holland, where he was received with much disfavour by his mother and his other relatives, who were strong Royalists, and he appears to have been generally regarded with a good deal of contempt by most of the European Princes. Nevertheless in 1648 at ' the treaty of Westphalia, he recovered possession of 'his lathers original dominions, and he assumed the title of / I I' I fi 56o History of the Royal Family of England. Elizabeth Duchess of Orleans. Elector Palatine. His family did not much profit by his advancement, for, on the ground of poverty, he refused to pay his mother's jointure, and made her only a very small allow- ance, which, irregularly paid at the best, was frequently and on the smallest pretences stopped altogether. In 1649 the Elector Charles married the Princess Charlotte of Hesse-Cassel, a lady whom he persistently ill-treated in every possible way. Not content with living openly with a mistress, Louisa de Degenfeldt, under the roof which sheltered his wife, he committed the indecency of going through a form of marriage with this woman, notwithstanding that the Electress was alive— that there had been no divorce, and that there was no pretence for obtaining one. Charlotte, who was of a violent temper, hearing of this indignity, attempted to shoot her husband, whereupon she was placed in confinement and serious fears were entertained for her fate, but ultimately, with the aid of her husband's sister Elizabeth, she escaped, and with her sister-in-law took refuge at the Court of her own brother. Afterwards, when Charles' only son by Charlotte had been married for several years and had had no child, and when grave difficulties were apprehended as to the succession to the Electorate, the Elector Charles approached his injured wife with some servility, entreating her to consent to a divorce. This she refused, and he died in 1682 aged sixty-five, the divorce never having been effected. His death involved the Electorate in another and a most disastrous war. By the Electress Charlotte, Charles had had two children, a son Charles, who married a Danish Princess, and died without issue in 1685, and a daughter Elizabeth, commonly called Elizabeth Charlotte, who became the second wife of Philip Duke of Orleans, younger brother of Louis XIV. By the laws of the Palatinate, the succession passed only in the male line and on the death in 1685 without issue of the younger Elector Charles, who succeeded his father and was elector for three years, his father's brothers being all dead without male issue, the Electorate was claimed, and justly claimed, by a Prince of a collateral branch of the Palatine family. Never- 501 theless, Louis XIV. saw prooer to <^e^y nr. . 1 • his sister-.-„-,aw El.-zabeth' Duchess of SHetraTd^ %TXI:XT: °'*'^ "^'^^'"^*^' -hfchr/nX Thirty the peace of uJch the clafrnT f T'^l' "'^^^'^'y- ^^ -e w,th..aw„. ^s:^t^s:tzsisr was re-estabhshed. >-ounts I'alatine On the death of his elder brother Frederic the Fle.f. Charies Louis, second son of Elizabeth Oueen offilh u her father had haj ^:tr:12^:'^:^t^ S? ^ Ehzabeth Duchess of Orleans was born in the vear^fiTJ ^^• when the Act of Succession was passed Thl ^ ' ^"'^ forty-nine with children and Jrl.lchTdren Ih ' "T"" °' thereby superseded, and it^■s t£ltre : c^s^rf '^h^r should say a few words of her and her descendants Elizabeth of the Palatinpf-f^ fc ^^ .i.- , n,.inrt u„d., he, charge fo' ."vt.f Je". ThT ":' "' c two very remarkable women. In i67i when Fi;,.k .u rorTar^hordT"^^' *'^^' ^''^ sho?id';:Xf itut ecus? H:'nrietta si ?H ^'T""'"' "'''"'^ *° '-^ ^^'■'-s required as f r ' ^"^'''" °^ ^'"^ Charles I. It was required as a preliminary that she should embrace the ^t:^7\^^T '-' '-''''' ''^ E'-- Charlt cause not ^he smX. lT^, '"^''°'''' °^ '^^ ^^^estant either hi- '/"*"«■'' difficulty was raised on this point t?at W aun" So I'-'^'r^*': ""''''"■ '"'^^'^ '^ --'^ se m • course ^hTch she '^rr .''^'" '" ''^^"'^ '° ^^^^ "'-« 'he own dauX and h^^T ' [-"J^'y ^ook with regard to her aughter, and had brought her up without religious pre- f 562 Historyof^heRoyalJFam^^ • c of nnv kind in order that she might the more possessions of any Kma, »» "^ . . - r i^ •1 A ^*- Uf^r^f^H to the re gious opmions, it any, oi ncr r„lLr W«y. on o. An. ,He^.»» d^, H,..^; ':r™t.*s >rr ?:5,*=s^cr.n'rr-« ^x communicated in me afterwards con- At the Court of France the Duchess of Orleans who ,s alwfvs called Madan^e," was, if I may be permitted to use til expres ion, somewhat of an " outsider." Nevertheless .t .s ttie exprebsiuii, epcret history of what went "'"sie^rorhlrT^nl moiTs a"a she^ent a large ro'rtio'n of hr^ime in writing enormously long letters to her Lale relatives and friends d-tmyach J^^^^^ th week *r. a <5pnarate correspondent, in these leuerb bn^ the court a?airs with the utmost freedom, although she was perfectly well aware that they were always opened and read bv the agents of the King, if not by the Kmg himself Thus •n'oneoTher letters she says, " It is f^^^^^^^^^Z^l^ thev keep our letters. In the time of Monsieur Louvo.s we know thTy always read them, as well as now. but they never- theless ddivereJ them in decent time. Torcy keeps hem an uncommonlv long time, and ! feel it severely now I am so ^nTuTabout my aunt." Her language and descnpt.ons Jircoarse to the verge, and sometimes beyond the verge, of rdecency but there is a straightforward shrewdness and ImoT^ense about all she says which -ake her wr.tmgs very interesting. Speaking of herself she ^^V'^J^ "" *• oKK, vprv ufflv I have no features, my eyes are S;;; nose sVof and thick, my lips long and flat ; the. do 1 constitute much of a physiognomy. I. have great hanging cheeks and a large face ; my stature .s short and stout my body and my thighs, too, are short and upon the whoi;,7am truly a very ugly little object. If I had not a Elizabeth Duchess of Orleans. 563 good heart, no one could endure me. To know whether my eyes give token of my possessing wit, they must be examined with a microscope, or it would be difficult to judge. Hands more ugly than mine are perhaps not to be found in the whole globe. The King has often told me so, and made me laugh at it heartily ; for not being able to flatter myself that I possess any one thing which could be called pretty, I resolve to be the first to laugh at my own ugliness. This has suc- ceeded as well as could be wished, and I must confess that I am seldom at a loss for something to laugh at." This description was fairly accurate, and as the Duchess indulged in most eccentric toilettes, her charms were not added to by any advantages of dress. Nevertheless, though she never pretended to or obtained any political influence she won the respect of the whole Court. The King Louis XIV., to whom she was nearly the only person who spoke the truth, was fond of and kind to her, and often sought her society, and she sincerely returned his affection. Her husband, of whose vices and follies she speaks with brutal plainness, nevertheless dwelt with her on very friendly terms. For her stepdaughters, the Queens of Spain and Sardinia, the daughters of Henrietta of England, and her own daughter, the Duchess of Lorraine, she had a great affection. She was very amiable to her son, both during the lifetime of his uncle, Louis XIV., and after he had himself become Regent of France, though she never entirely forgave him what she considered his derogatory marriage, and with all her own relations, and in particular with her aunts Louisa and Sophia, she was always on terms of the closest and most intimate afl'ection. The two strongest sentiments of Elizabeth's life, however, — sentiments which were somewhat connected, were her hatred for Madame de Maintenon, and her passion for what she considered pure and untainted family descent. She was unable to forgive the obscure widow of the poet Scarron for having induced the greatest King in Europe to marry her, though she was perfectly gracious to the King's mistresses ; and she could and did tolerate the most flagrant immorality ( i. ! i 564 History of the Royal Family of England. on the part of her relatives, so long as they did not con- taminate her by interniarrying with persons of less exalted descent. Thus when the King forced her son, afterwards Regent and then a mere boy, into marrying the King's own natural daughter, Mademoiselle de Blois, notwithstanding the- advantages of the marriage, " Madame " did not conceal her rage, and when she met the youth for the first time after he had given his reluctant assent to the marriage, she slapped him in the face before the whole Court. Nevertheless, in later years when the Regent in the height of his power made himself notorious and infamous throughout Europe by his foul debauchery, his mother appears to have accepted his behaviour as an eccentricity of rank. Again when her grand- daughter, the Duchess de Berri, daughter of the Regent, and widow of Louis XIV.'s youngest grandson, outraged such small sense of decency as remained in Paris by the open depravity of her conduct, " Madame " looked on with stolid philosophy ; but when before her death Madame de Berri, in an access of remorse, actually 7narried Riom, her latest lover, her grandmother's indignation knew no bounds. The Duke of Orleans, Elizabeth's husband, died of apoplexy on the 8th of June 1 701, in his sixty-first year, and his wife, who survived him for twenty-one years, died on the 28th of December 1722, in her seventy-first year. They had three children, a son who died as an infant, Philip, afterwards the Regent, Duke of Orleans, born 1664, and Elizabeth, who married Leopold Duke of Lorraine. Inasmuch as the descendants of Elizabeth Duchess of Orleans are even more numerous than those of Anne Queen of Sardinia, and may at the present day be counted by hundreds, it would be impossible to trace them all, and there- fore, as in the case of Anne Queen of Sardinia I shall content myself with three of the more prominent lines. The Regent Orleans after a disgraceful life died a miser- able death a year after his mother in 1723. He was succeeded as Duke of Orleans by his eldest son Louis, who, by one of those startling contrasts to be found in the French Royal TABLE XIX. KING JAMES I. d. 1625. Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, d. 1662. Charles Louis, Elector Palatine, d. 1682, Elizabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Or! eans. d. 1722. Philippe, Duke of Orleans (Regent of France), d. 1723. Louis, Duke of Orleans, d. 1752. Sophia, Electress of Hanover. ^.1714 King George L d. 1727 King George IL d 1760. Frederic, Prince of Wales, d. 1751. Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, d, 1785. I I Louis Philippe (Egalite), Duke of Orleans. Beheaded 1793. Louis Philippe, King of the French, d. 1B50. (r) Ferdinand, Duke of Orleans. * 566 History of the Royal Family of England. family, was a man of singular learning and piety, who, having for at any rate many years, led an exemplary life in the world, passed his closing years in a Monastery, where he led a life of extreme austerity. He died in 1752 and was succeeded by his son Louis, who was a soldier of some distinction, and also a very respectable man. He died in 1785. The son of this Prince, Louis Philippe, after leading a life of great dissipation in his youth, joined the popular party prior to the French Revolution, and was banished. When the Revolution actually broke out he came back to Paris, joined the national assembly, assumed the name of "Citizen Egalit^," and voted for the execution of the King Louis XVI. I am happy to say that he was himself beheaded in 1793, and he probably was the most unpitied victim of the Revolution. His son Louis Philippe, after the deposition of Charles X. in 1830, became " King of the French," and reigned in France from that date till the third Revolution of 1848, when he was banished, and he died in England in 1850. Ferdinand, the eldest son of King Louis Philippe, was accidentally killed in his father's lifetime in 1842, and was the father of the Comte de Paris, who died in 1894, ^^^^ whose son, styled Duke of Orleans, is now living, and is the representative of Elizabeth Duchess of Orleans. (See Table XIX.) I should mention that Louise, eldest daughter of King Louis Philippe, married Leopold I. King of the Belgians, and was the mother of the late King Leopold H., and his brother Philip Count of Flanders, who died in 1905, leaving a son, who on the death of King Leopold H. without a son, succeeded to the Belgian Throne as Albert I., and through his grand- mother claims descent from Elizabeth Duchess of Orleans. .Elizabeth Duchess of Lorraine, daughter of Elizabeth Duchess of Orleans, was the mother of the German Emperor Francis I., who died in 1765. Francis had two sons by his wife the Empress Maria Teresa, Queen of Hungary, viz : Joseph H., who died without male issue in 1790, and Leopold n., who died in 1792. Leopold H. was the father of Francis n., last of the ancient German Emperors and first Emperor TABLE XX. KING JAMES L d. 1625. Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, d. 1662. Charles Louis, Elector Palatine, d. 1682. Elizabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Orleans. King George I. d. \T3LT. King George II. d. 1760. Francis I. German Emperor, d. 1765. Leopold II. German Emperor, d. 1792. (1) Francis II. (ist) Emperor of Austria. d. 1835. (2) Leopold, Duke of Tuscany 1 I ■■ 570 History of the Royal Family of England. advantageous marriage entirely on -"--"f^^^/i^nt After the restoration of her brother Charles to the Palatine Eec orate she went to live with him at Heidelberg, where 2 quarrelled with him not a little. The Princess, however showed the real strength of her principles, by taking the par^ of the much ill used Electress Charlotte, whom she assisted to escape ; whereas her more i^^-^^^ V^^f-^J^^h Tn rather to have taken the part of her brother. Elizabeth went with the Electress to Hesse Cassel, where ^^e^^^^^f ^^ some years. She afterwards, about 1 66 1, entered a Protestant Convent at Hervoeden, or Hervoed, of which she was afte- wards elected Abbess. There she spent the lastfourtcen years of her life, and there she died. As Abbess oHeivo^^^^^ Le was styled Princess and Prelatess of the Holy Roman Empire, and she exercised Sovereign rights over a smal territory with a population of about 7000 persons. In 1 803 the Abbey was secularised, and in 181 5 it was absorbed into the Kingdom of Prussia (see " A Sister of Prince Rupert, by ^' ?rfn'c7Rupert, the fourth child of the Queen of Bohemia has made himself a great name in English History, and hi history is probably familiar to most of my readers. He was bornTt Prague on the 26th of November 1619, and on the 6th of June^ 162 1 was born his brother Maurice, whose fate is so intimately connected with that of Rupert that I may deal with them both at the same time. ^ , , .^ ^^^^^ At a verv early age Prince Rupert developed a very unruly and headstrong disposition, and he was only thirteen hen he was allowed to take an active part at the Siege of Rhynberg in 1632. Some years later he was taken Prisoner and he was for three years a captive in the hands o the imperialists. On the breaking out of the Civil War in England, in 1642 Rupert and his brother Maurice, then young men of twenty-three and twenty-one. hastened to Fn-land, where they were received with effusion by thei mother's brother King Charles L, who gave them important commands and treated them with a favour which caused Prince Rupert. 571 some discontent on the part of the King's English followers. They both, but Rupert in particular, displayed an extra- ordinary personal bravery, and Rupert is commonly spoken of as a great general. I think, however, that, with all his gallantry, he had little military perception, and in the long run his rashness and want of discipline did more harm than good to his uncle's cause, for it is generally admitted that it was mainly owing to his impetuosity that the battles of Edge Hill and Marston Moor were lost. The disastrous surrender of Bristol by Rupert in 1645 has never been satisfactorily explained. It gave rise to some suspicion of his loyalty, and though the King expressly ex(jnerated him from this charge, Rupert, unable to bear any blame of any sort, obtained leave to quit the Royal service, and accompanied by his brother Maurice he left England in 1645. In 1648 Rupert was put in command of that part of the English fleet which had declared for the King, and for some years he distinguished himself as a brave naval commander, taking part in several brilliant, though not very productive, engagements. He was always accompanied by Prince Maurice, and in 1651, on an expedition to Madeira undertaken in the hope of intercepting the Spanish fleet, the ship of which Maurice was the com- mander was wrecked, and that Prince was drowned in his thirtieth year. Prince Maurice never married. Rupert returned to Europe in 1653, and on his return' he immediately quarrelled with King Charles H., and from that date till after the Restoration he took no part in public affairs. In 1662, however, he was invited to go to England, and two years later he was created Duke of Cumberland. On t^; breaking out of the Dutch War, in the following year, he distinguished himself as a naval commander very greatly, and indeed he seems to have shown greater ability in naval than in military matters. When his cousin the Duke of York, afterwards James H., was disqualified by the Test Act from holding the office of Lord High Admiral, Rupert in 1673 succeeded him in that office, and in that year he gained a most brilliant victory over the Dutch fleet. This, however. 572 History of the Royal Family of England. Louise Princess Palatine. 573 concluded his public services. In 1668 he had been appointed Governor of Windsor Castle, to which he retired, and he devoted the rest of his life to scientific and mechanical pursuits, for which he had a considerable aptitude, and he is said to have discovered the art of printing in mezzotint. He was also much interested in the extension of the British Colonies ; and the latter part of his life was as useful and well regulated in peaceful pursuits as the early part had been brilliant and ill-disciplined in war. Prince Rupert, after the Restoration, practically identified himself with the English nation, and he was in fact naturalized in England in 1644. Therefore we have a right to claim him as an Englishman, and, as an Englishman, we have every reason to be very proud of him, notwithstanding some indiscretions of his early youth. About two years before his death, his elder brother, the Elector Charles, despairing of an heir to his only son, who was childless, invited his brother Rupert to return to the Palatinate and settle there as presumptive heir, but this pro- posal Rupert, who frankly detested his brother, declined with abruptness and not much courtesy. Prince Rupert died in London in 1682, two years before his brother Charles, and between two or three years before King Charles II., and he is buried in Westminster Abbey. Prince Rupert never took any part in political, as dis- tinguished from military and naval, affairs ; he never married, and like most of the Princes of his time, he was very irregular in his private life. He had just completed his sixty-third year when he died on the 9th of November 1682. Louise, sixth child and second daughter of the Queen of Bohemia, was born on the 17th of April 1622, and died un- married on the nth of February 1709 in her eighty-seventh year. In her youth she was the constant companion of her mother, but in the year 1657, when she was thirty-five, she caused great distress to that Princess by suddenly declaring herself a Catholic. Knowing beforehand the opposition she would meet, she left her mother's Court privately, and went first to Antwerp and then to France where she was received with open arms by the French Court. In 1660 she became a nun in the Abbey of Maubisson, and four years later she was elected Abbess, an oflfice which she held till her death. A great many sneers have been indulged in by a great many writers at the expense of this Princess, who has been repre- sented as having been a very abandoned woman. She was in any case a somewhat remarkable one. She kept up till her death a strong interest in literary matters— obtained considerable distinction as a painter, and maintained through- out her life the closest intimacy and friendship both with her sister Sophia and her niece, the Duchess of Orleans. The latter suggests in a passage in one of her letters (which is often quoted) that the Abbess Louise was a woman of very immoral life, and had been the mother of many children. It is, however, certain that whatever may have been the Abbess' faults, they did not lessen the regard felt for her by her niece, and as against the passage above referred to, I will set off another passage written by the Duchess shortly before her aunt's death. She says : " I visited my aunt, the Abbess of Maubisson. She is well ; better humoured, more lively, sees, hears, and walks better than I do. She is now painting a beautiful piece for our dear Electress of Hanover. It is a copy of the ' Golden Calf by Poussin. She is adored by her Cloister ; she leads a very strict, as well as a very quiet life. She never tastes meat, except in illness, sleeps upon mattresses as hard as a stone, and rises at midnight for the Convent Prayers. She has no chairs but straw ones in her room. I hope my aunt the Electress will be like her sister who, this April, is turned of eighty, and still is able to read the smallest print without spectacles ; has all her teeth complete, walks better than myself, is always cheerful, and quite full of fun like my father, the Elector Palatine, when he was in a good humour." The funeral sermon of the Abbess Louise was preached by the great Bossuet, in terms of the most enthusiastic eulogy, and though no doubt French preachers were accustomed to gloss over the frailties of Royal persons, 1 do not think 1^ ' I 574 History of the Royal Family of England. Bossuet could possibly, preaching in the later years of Louis XIV., have spoken as he did, if the life of the Abbess had at any time after she became a nun been known to have been scandalous. It is impossible to suppose, having regard to the undoubted virtue of the Queen of Bohemia, that her daughter Louise, who was her constant companion, led an immoral life before she left the Hague in 1657, nor indeed is there the faintest hint of anything of the kind. There remains, therefore, only the interval between the autumn of 1657, when Louise quitted her mother's Court, and March 1660, when she was professed a nun, and during the greater part of that time she was living in the admittedly strict Convent of Chaillot. Moreover, her mother, in her letters, while deploring her daughter's change of faith, expresses the greatest indignation at certain calumnies which had been spread about affecting the Princess' personal character. Under these circumstances I am inclined to treat the aspersions on the Abbess' character as untrue. Louise was living when the Act of Succession was passed, by which as a Catholic she was excluded from the English Throne. Louis, the seventh child of the Queen of Bohemia, died as an infant. Edward, the eighth, was born in October 1624, and was educated in Paris, where, in 1645, he settled, and declared himself a Catholic. He was actuated in this it is said by his wish to marry the beautiful Anne de Gonzague, whom he did marry in that year, he being then twenty-one and the lady eight years older. Anne de Gonzague was the second of the three daughters of the Duke of Mantua and Nevers by the Princess Catherine of Lorraine, and was of very illustrious family. Their parents having died when they were young they were sent to France, where the two elder were somewhat notable persons. The youngest, Benedicta, became a nun and died young. Marie de Gonzague, the eldest sister, was the object of attachment to two very different persons, Gaston Duke of Orleans, brother of Louis XIII., and the Marquis de Cinq Mars, that King's well known favourite, and both love affairs Anne de Gonzague Princess Palal: ne. 575 involved her .n some trouble. She was afterwards married hrst to Ladislas and after his death to his brother John Cas.mir, Kmgs of Poland, and her life was sufficiently stormv and eventful Her sister Anne, who is reported to have been very beautiful, ,s sa,d to have led in her youth a somewhat dis- solute hfe, but after her marriage to Prince Edward in ,64? she reformed, and would seem to have been quite respectable in her later years. She is known in French History as the Princess Palatine," and as the intimate friend of \nne of Austria she played a not inconsiderable part in the politics r *'">!: ^"'^^J'^'- personality is probably well known to readers of French History. Prince Edward, who, apart from tu"' f',T^' '" "° ^^y distinguished, died in Paris on the 13th of March 1663, in his thirty-ninth year, having had three daughters by Anne de Gonzague,-Louise, Anne and Benedicta. Lomse married Louis Otto. Prince of Salms Anne, who was a conspicuous person at the Court of Louis XIV married tlie Due d'Enghien, eldest son of the "great r aI ^". i" P™''^'' °'" '™^ '^^"'"^ herself Princess de Cond6 ; and Benedicta married John Duke of Hanover who will be afterwards mentioned. The three daughters of Prince Edward were Catholics, and consequently they and their descendants were all excluded from the English Throne by the Act of Succession. They all had children, and at the present day their descendants are very numerous, and many of the Sovereigns in Europe and a great many noble families Claim descent from one or other of them, but it would be extremely tedious and not very interesting to trace the pedigrees of these families in detail. Henrietta, ninth child of the Queen of Bohemia, was born m 1625, and was married in 1650 to George Ragotsky, Prince 01 Siepenburg in Transylvania, but she died within three months of her marriage. The husband was rich, but the marriage was regarded as something of a mesalliance by the lady s friends. Nevertheless, the account of the straits to which they were put to raise the necessary trousseau is rather diverting (see " A Sister of Prince Rupert," by E Godfrey) I' 576 History of the Royal Family of England. Prince Philip, the tenth child, involved his mother in considerable trouble by stabbing a French Officer in a brawl in the streets of the Hague, for which offence he had to fly from Holland. He afterwards entered the French army, and was killed at the battle of Rhethol in 1655. He never married, and was twenty-eight when he died. Charlotte, the eleventh child, died as an infant, and Gustavus, the thirteenth, died as a little boy. Sophia, fifth daughter, and twelfth child of the Queen of Bohemia, was born at the Hague on the i6th of October 1630, four months and a half after the birth of her cousm, afterwards King Charles H. of England. She subsequently told Lord Dartmouth, Ambassador to her Court from Queen Anne, that she had greatly wished to marry this Prmce, observing that if she had done so " all the miseries arismg from another Roman Catholic marriage would have been avoided, and the fine family of which I have been the mother would have been his heirs." By the time, however, that Sophia was of marriageable age, she was not only absolutely without fortune, which would not have suited the impecunious and exiled King of England, but her mother was so poor that Sophia had, in the parlance of a lower rank in life, to " take a situation." She accordingly accepted the appoint- ment of "State Governess" to her niece Elizabeth, afterwards Duchess of Orleans, only daughter of her eldest brother, the Elector Palatine, Charles Louis. She proceeded to Heidel- berg where she lived for several years, until she married in the year 1658. Sophia, in her "Memoirs from 1630 till 1680," translated by Mr Forester, frankly says "she cannot remember the date of her marriage." She married Duke Ernest of Brunswick. I suppose there are persons in England who really under- stand and carry in their minds the histories of the minor German Principalities, but I must honestly say I am not one of them and that I never met anyone who was. I will, however, endeavour as far as I can to explain Duke Ernest's position. The Electress Sophia, 577 The family name of the Princes of Bruii.wick was Guelph, and it is needless to say that the origin of this great family is almost lost in the mists of antiquity, but at all events the family was directly descended in the male line from Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, and Matilda Plan- tagenet, eldest daughter of Henry H. of England. It was the practice of the Guelph Princes to subdivide their dominions amongst their numerous sons, and as the result of this process, and from other causes, the territories of the Princes of the surviving Guelph family had by the fifteenth century become reduced to two very small and quite distinct Duchies, the Duchy of Brunswick Wolfenbuttel (which repre- sented the elder line of the Guelphs, and with which at present we have nothing to do) and the Duchy of Brunswick Lune- burg. In the sixteenth century William Duke of Brunswick Luneburg had six sons ; and as it was apparent to the meanest comprehension that if his dominions were divided between these sons the territories of each would be reduced almost to vanishing point, they determined to draw lots which should marry and succeed his father, the others agreeing to remain unmarried and go into the world as, so to speak, Princes Errant. The lot fell upon a younger son George, who, as his brothers loyally kept the agreement, duly became Duke of Brunswick Luneburg. Duke George, who died in 1641, left four sons,— Christian, George, John and the Ernest who afterwards became the husband of Sophia. On the death of Duke George a somewhat complicated family arrangement was entered into, which does not appear even at the time to have been very well understood, by virtue of which the Duchy of Brunswick Luneburg was subdivided into two still smaller Duchies, the Duchy of Zelle, of which Christian, the eldest son of Duke George, became Duke, and the Duchy of Hanover, which though it was the smaller contained the important town of Hanover. This town afterwards gave its name first to the Electorate and then to the Kingdom, into ' which the whole Duchy of Brunswick Luneburg was ultimately erected. 2 O 57S History of the Royal Family of England. The Electress Sophia, 579 George, the second son of Duke George, became Duke of Hanover, and the two younger brothers (who were styled the Dukes John and Ernest of Brunswick) were left unprovided for, and dependent on the generosity of their elder brothers, though Ernest had a kind of reversionary provision made for him. By the treaty of Westphalia, the Bishopric of Osnaburg was, on the death of the then Bishop (who was a Catholic), to pass to a Protestant, who. though he was to be styled *' Bishop " and to receive the revenues of the See, was not, it would appear, under any obligation to take orders ; and at the date of his marriage with Sophia, Duke Ernest had already been appointed "Coadjutor" of Osnaburg with a right of succession to the Bishopric, whenever the existing Bishop should die. Prior to Sophia's marriage the people of Brunswick Lune- burg had become very uneasy lest their own line of Princes should become extinct, and their Duchy should pass to the elder line of Brunswick Wolfenbuttel. The Duke Christian of Zelle had been married for a long time, and had had no child, and his three brothers were unmarried. They accord- ingly importuned the second brother George Duke of Hanover to marry ; and that Prince somewhat reluctantly proceeded to Heidelberg, where he saw and proposed to and was immediately accepted by the Princess Sophia. He then went to Venice, and to quote Sophia herself, "plunged into the dissipations of Venice, he ceased to think of her and began to repent the promise which bound him by word and deed to her." In this difficulty a brilliant idea occurred to Duke George, namely, that he should give a solemn under- taking not to marry at all, and that his youngest and favourite brother Ernest should be substituted for himself as Sophia's husband. This project being submitted to Sophia, she, to quote her own words, replied, " That a good establishment was all she cared for, and that if this was secured to her by the younger brother, the exchange would be to her a matter of indifference." The only person who did object was Duke John, the third brother, who suggested that he, and not Ernest, should be substituted for Duke George, a suggestion which so enraged Duke George "that he drove John with consider- able rudeness " out of the Palace where he was staying. In point of fact the proposed arrangement did not seem to be a bad one for Sophia, for Duke Christian having and being likely to have no family, Duke George promising not to marry and Duke John being in the opinion of his family (an opinion which events proved was erroneous) " too stout ever to have any family " (see " Sophia's Memoirs "), Ernest seemed likely to become, as after some vicissitudes he did actually become, the ultimate heir of the whole family. Moreover there was always the unfortunate Bishopric of Osnaburg to fall back upon in case of the worst. It does not appear what was the precise age of Duke Ernest when he married, but he was certainly a young man, and a brave and distinguished soldier. Ernest and Sophia were married in the autumn of 1658, Sophia being at the time in her twenty-eighth year, and notwithstanding the somewhat unromantic circumstances of their wooing, and the somewhat pronounced infidelities in which Duke Ernest subsequently indulged, we have Sophia's own assurances that they became and remained very fond of one another for many years. In 1662 the old Bishop of Osnaburg died and Duke Ernest was solemnly inducted into his new office, but Sophia, not having been as she says " a necessary appendage in ' this Ecclesiastical ceremony," was not present on the occasion. In 1665 the eldest brother, Duke Christian of Zelle, died without issue, and thereupon Duke John, the third brother, in breach, as it was thought by Duke George, of the family compact, seized upon the Duchy of Zelle, and a civil war seemed to be impending. A compromise was however ultimately effected by which Duke George, now the eldest brother and formerly Duke of Hanover, became Duke of Zelle, and Duke John became Duke of Hanover— Ernest remaining Bishop of Osnaburg. I may here mention that Duke John, who became a Catholic in 1657, married in 1668 n i 58o History oj the Royal Family of England. The Eledress Sophia. 581 Sophia's niece Benedicta, who was the daughter of her brother Edward already spoken of. The Duke and Duchess John and Benedicta of Hanover had no son but they had several daughters, one of whom married the German Emperor Joseph r., and from these ladies a great number of Royal and noble families are descended. Their history however does not affect Sophia or her descendants. In 1680 Duke John of Hanover died without male issue, and Sophia's husband became Duke of Hanover, his brother Duke George remain- ing Duke of Zelle; and in 1692 Ernest succeeded in getting the Duchy of Hanover converted into an Electorate. There had been since 1208 seven "Electors" (that is Princes who had the right to elect the German Emperor), to whom an eighth had been lately added. The Elector of Hanover was the ninth, but Duke Ernest's Electorate was in fact merely nominal, for his brother Electors denied the Emperor's right to increase the Electorate without their consent ; and it was not until 1708, long after the death of the Elector Ernest, that the Elector of Hanover was allowed to vote or take any i>rictical part in the proceedings of the Electoral College. Duke George, who was first Duke of Hanover and then Duke of Zelle, had, as we have seen, solemnly promised not to marry. He did. however, in fact marry in 1665 a be iiiiiful French woman, Eleanor d'Olbreuse, but the marriage was morganatic, that is to say, though it was a legal marriage the lady, as being of inferior rank, was not allowed to assume her husband's title, and the children could not take Princely rank, and were ineligible to succeed to such Sovereign rights as their father possessed. Of this marriage there were four children, of whom three died as infants, and the fourth Sophia, was afterwards the wife of George I. of England.' From the moment of his marriage Duke George of Zelle and his wife (who was styled the Baroness von Harburg) strained every nerve to get the marriage recognised by the Emperor as a regular and not as a morganatic marriage, and in this thev xvere ultimately successful, though with much difficulty and with the important limitation below mentioned. The Baroness von Harburg became Duchess of Zelle, and her daughter was allowed to assume the rank of a Princess on the condition, but only on the condition, that she should marry a Prince of the house of Brunswick. In point of fact, the brothers Duke Ernest of Hanover and Duke George of Zelle, who, notwithstanding some lively quarrels were much attached to one another, were earnestly desirous of effecting a marriage between Prince George, the eldest son of Ernest, and the young Sophia ; and it was with a view to this alliance that Duke Ernest was induced to assent to the recognition of his brother's marriage. This marriage between George and Sophia was at first strongly opposed by the Duchesses of Hanover and Zelle. The Duchess Sophia looked down on the Duchess of Zelle as a woman of inferior rank who had been at first only a morganatic wife, and the Duchess Eleanor had received too many slights from her husband's family to be willing to throw her daughter into t'ne midst of them, and she would greatly have preferred to marr;- her daughter to a Prince of Brunswick, Wolfenbuttel, who it is said was an eager suitor. The proposed marriage between George and Sophia however offered so many obvious advantages to both sides as to make prolonged opposition impossible, and ultimately the Duchesses, not very graciously, gave their reluctant consent. By marrying Prince George! Sophia of Zeile would not only secure her Princely rank,' which was urgently desired by her parents, but she wduld become the wife of a Prince destined to become the lie.ul of her father's illustrious family (which was already rapicllv advancing in political power and influence), and to unite in himself the Duchies of Zelle and Hanover. Or. the , ther hand the Duke of Zelle was a very rich man, and his daughter as the heiress of his private fortune would bring to her husband not only a large fortune in money, but certain private estates which he had acquired, and tlie permanent addition of which to the territories of Brunswick Luneburg was regarded by Duke Ernest and his wife as a matter of some moment The marriage between George and Sophia 532 History of the Royal Family of England. of Zelle-one of the most unfortunate on record-was o^mn,sed on the 26th of November 1682, and to thi Sr ^T^^ '• ^"^^^^d^^ to his dominions. His wife the Duchess Eleanor survived until 1721. CHAPTER XXXIX. The Electress Sophia {continued). — Her Younger Sons.— Her Daughter Sophia Charlotte, Queen OF Prussia. THE Elector Ernest of Hanover died on the 20th of January 1698, and was succeeded in the Electorate, and also in his Duchy of Hanover, by his eldest son George, who on the death of his uncle George had already become DukeofZelle; nuA thus George, afterwards King George I. of England, united in himself the whole Duchy of Brunswick Luneburg. George I. and George H. remained Electors of Hanover after they had become British Sovereigns, but, as is well known, in 18 14 the Electorate was erected into a Kin^rdom (of which George Hi. became first King), as part of the treaty signed by the allied Sovereigns after their entry into Paris. The new Kingdom however was, it was specially provided, to descend only in the male line. George TIT was succeeded as King of Hanover by his sons George IV. and Wfllfani IV., but on the death of William P/ . uhen the Crown ot England passed to his niece, Jier late Majesty Queen Victoria, the Crown of Hanover passed to Prince Ernest Duke of Cumberland, fifth son of George HI., who became Ernest I., King of Hanover. To him I must return later. The Electress Sophia survived her husband lor more than sixteen years. By the Act of Succession passed in 1701, she was declared heiress to the Throne of Great Britain, and her position became at once one of the greatest political import- ance. She died suddenly on the 8th of June 1714 in her eighty-fourth year, and if she had lived thirty-eight days longer she would have become Queen of England on the 583 i'j ■ I ' 584 History of the Royal Family of England. The Electress Sophia, 5«5 death of Queen Anne, on the ist of August in the same year. The Electress Sophia is buried at Hanover. Beyond all doubt, Sophia was a very remarkable woman, both physically and mentally, and she possessed many fine qualities, but she was not, to my thinkinl,^ a very sympathetic or altogether a very estimable woman. In person she was tall and stately, with handsome, but rather pronounced features, and her physical strength and perfect health were remarkable. The Duchess of Orleans, writing of Sophia's sister, the Abbess Louise, expresses in a passage already quoted the hope that the " dear Electress" may be like the description she gives of the Abbess in her old age ; and physically, at all events, the hope was gratified, for down to the last moment of her life the Electress gave not the smallest sign of failure. A year before her death she had received the Czar of Russia, and danced with him the Polonaise ; and the whole world was genuinely amazed at the accounts given of her uprightness of carriage and the dignity and grace of her movements. She died quite suddenly as she was walking in her garden. Her mental powers were singularly keen and clear ; she was well read, and She took the greatest pleasure in discussing with her friend and constant correspondent, the distinguished Leibnitz, the philosophical and political questions which agitated Europe in her time. Sophia was an artist of no mean capacity, passionately fond of music, and a liberal patroness of literature and art of every descrip- tion. Her passion to see everybody and everything of the smallest interest or distinction was insatiable, and was maintained till the very last. Her sense of humour was strong, her wit brilliant, and her descriptions of the men and women whom she met are exceedingly amusing, and fully justify her reputation of having been one of the most brilliant conversationalists of hei t ! %-•■ Lastly, her temper was uni- formly easy and good natured. On the other hand Sophia was what would now be called an absolute agnostic. She believed in nothing and no one ; and this state of mind, coupled with her strong sense of the ludicrous, seems to have produced a sort of cynical hardness which is not attractive, and notwithstanding her uniform good nature, and the fact that she had many and constant friends, I think it is impossible to resist the belief that she was naturally cold-hearted. She was at first very fond of her husband, though her affection by no means prevented her from being fully alive to his faults, or to the absurd aspects under which he and his brothers occasionally presented themselves. Never a very faithful husband, Duke Ernest, some years after his marriage, fell completely under the influence of a mistress, Baroness von Platen, who in the long list of the mistresses of Royal and semi-Royal persons stands out conspicuous for her unrelieved wickedness, and who exercised a baneful influence over every member of the Electoral family. I cannot help thinking that if Sophia had chosen, she might have held her own against this woman, and saved her husband from much dei^^radation and the commission of many crimes, but she disdained the contest, and almost at the first attack she retired to her own Palace at Herren- hausen, and there contented herself with turning the whole affair into gentle ridicule. Indeed she seems to have regarded men in general, and Princes in particular, as rather con- temptible creatures, whom it was desirable to keep m good liuinuur, but who were hardly accountable for their actions— who were more or less nasty in their tastes, and about whose vagaries it was not worth while for any sensible woman to put herself out of the way. Nevertheless, when the Elector grew old and sick, and had a return of his old affection for the wffe of his youth, Sophia went back to him and exerted herself to amuse him, with a most good humoured, if some- what contemptuous, kindness. It is said that Sophia did not like her eldest sDn George, but I do not find any evidence of anythmg approaching to dislike. On the contrary, it would seem that she treated George and her other sons much as she did her husband, with a good deal of kindness, but as somewhat irresponsible beings, over whose proceedings she had no control over m 586 History of the Royal Family of England. The Electress Sophia. whom she had no influence, and in whose private concerns she had no particular interest. Her affections, such as they were, were given almost exclusively to the women of her own family, and in particular to her niece, the eccentric Duchess of Orleans already spoken of, her own daughter afterwards the Queen of Prussia, and in her old age to Caroline the wife of her grandson, afterwards George 11. of England. In her daucrhtcr, from the moment of her birth, the chief interests and ambition of Sophia's life centred themselves. She was to be brought up as a model Princess, beautiful, learned, and accomplished; and she was to make a great match, by preference, and if possible, with the Dauphin, eldest son of Louis XIV. With this marriage in view, the Princess was educated without any religious bias of any kind so that she might be ready to turn Catholic, if she succeeded in gaining the Dauphin, or Protestant if, as happened, she had to fall back on a Protestant suitor. The Princess in the main realised her mother's wishes, and her sudden death on the ist of February 1705 was the great grief of Sophia's life. 1^ ortunately, however, her daughter's place in the Electress' affections was speedily taken by Caroline of Anspach her granddaughter-in-law, a Princess whose qualities of mind and body fully realised the ideals of her aged relative. riie Electress Sophia has been greatly blamed for her conduct to her daughter-in-law Sophia of Zelle, but I think witiiuui reason. That she did not greatly like her daughter- in-law, whose parentage was an offence to her family pride IS probable ; and it is also probable that she might easily have been more tender in her dealings with the forlorn and unhappy young woman who had married her son- but tenderness was not Sophia's strong point, and of actual injury or unkindness there is not the smallest reliable evidence. When the younger Sophia complained to her of the infidelities of her husband, the Electress told her such things must be expected, and that she had better make the best of her position. It was not a very sympathetic answer, but under the circumstances it was eminently practical ; and 587 It may be remarked that precisely the same answer was given to the Princess by her own mother, the Duchess of Zelle, who was commonly extolled as a model of conjugal and maternal affection. This piece of advice is the worst thing definitely alleged against Sophia in her relations with her daughter- in-law, and it is at all events clear that the mother-in-law only counselled what she herself practised. The Elector and Electress Ernest and Sophia had nine children, eight sons and one daughter. They were: (i) George, afterwards King George I., born the 28th of ^lav 1660; (2) Frederic, born in 166 1 ; (3) Maximilian, born between 1661 and 1668 ; (4 and 5) two twin sons, who were born between the same years, and who died as infants ; (6) Charles, also born before 1668 ; (7) Sophia, afterwards Queen of Prussia, born October 2nd, 1668 ; (8) Christian, born 1669, and (9) Ernest, afterwards Bishop of Osnaburg, and Duke of York, born 1674. Prince George was an undersized plain man, but his five younger brothers who grew up are said to have been tall, well grown and good looking men ; and they were all very brave soldiers, having been sent out into the European battle- fields as mere lads and spent the better part of their lives in camps and campaigns. Frederic was killed in a skirmish against the Turks at Pristina, on the ist of January 1690, at the age of twenty-nine. Maximilian the third, caused some trouble to his father by expressing a wish to revert to the original practice of the Guelphs as to the sub-division of the paternal property, whereas the Elector was anxious to con- solidate his whole dominions in the hands of his eldest son. Maximilian's claims, however, were made short work of and he left home in disgust. He subsequently became a Catholic and entered the Imperial army, in which he attained to high rank, and he died unmarried in 1726, a year before his brother King George. Prince Charles, the third of the five younger sons who grew up, fell in battle against the Turks on the last day of December 1690, and his next brother, Christian, was drowned m % 'I 588 History of the Royal Family of England. Sophia Charlotte Queen of Prussia. 589 in the Danube fighting against the French in 1703. Ernest, the youngest, succeeded his father in the lay Bishopric of Osnaburg, and was created Duke of York and Albany on the accession of George I. He seems to have maintained friendly relations with his eldest brother to the last, and when King George was seized with apoplexy, and died on a journey into Hanover, he was actually on his road to the Bishop's Palace at Osnaburg, and his body was in fact carried there. The Duke of York survived King George I. two years, and died in 1728. None of Sophia's younger sons married, they none of them seem to have produced any great impression on their generation, and neither Maximilian nor Ernest, the only two who were living when George became King, ever, as far as I am aware, visited England, or played any part in English politics. Sophia, or as she is commonly called " Sophia Charlotte," the only daughter of the Electress of Hanover, was born on the 2nd of October 1688, and she was married in her sixteenth year to the Electoral Prince Frederic, who shortly afterwards became Elector of Brandenburg, and who at that time was a widower, aged twenty-six, with an only daughter. As is well known, the Electorate of Brandenburg was in 170 1 erected into the Kingdom of Prussia, of which Sophia's husband became King Frederic I., and Sophia Chariotte herself was the first Queen. It is said that in the negotiations for turning the Electorate into a Kingdom, Frederic was deeply indebted to the diplomatic talents of his wife and his wife's mother. Since the publication of Cariyle's " History of Frederic the Great," so many and such minute accounts have been written of the first three Kings of Prussia and their Courts that it would be almost an impertinence to offer any . remarks in this work on a subject so thoroughly well known and thrashed out. Frederic I. is supposed to have modelled himself and his Court on Louis XIV. and the Court of that Monarch; and, to be in the fashion, he is said to have kept a mistress, whom he did not personally want, but whom he regarded as a sort of necessary appendage to a great King. The ceremonial observances at the Prussian Court were regulated in exact imitation of the Court of Versailles, and the King spent his whole time in a series of reviews, receptions and processions, so that it was sarcastically said, " he rose eariy in order to prolong his enjoyment of the kingly state, and kept up ti.e state of a King as much in his smoking room and the Queen's apartments as at his levees and in the Council Chamber." On the other hand, Queen Sophia Chariotte was the most lively and least formal of women. Highly literary and accomplished, her delight was to be with literary men and artists, and her intense sense of the absurd, unsoftened by any feeling of reverence for anything or anybody (for she believed in nothing), had been sharpened to so fine a point that no one, and least of all her august husband, could escape the shafts of her ridicule. Discussing with Leibnitz his theory of atoms, he asked her if she could form any idea of the "infinitely little"? She answered, "Of course I can! What a superfluous question to ask the wife of Frederic I. ! " —a bon mot more creditable to her wit than to her good taste. When she was dying she said, " Do not grieve for me, I shall satisfy my curiosity as to the principles of things which Leibnitz could never explain to me — on space of the infinite— our being, and the consequences of our dissolution ; and as the King, my husband, is fond of pageantry and empty shows, I prepare for him the pomp of my solemn funeral." Her funeral was, in fact, a splendid ceremony. The foibles however of the first King and Queen of Prussia did not amalgamate badly, and between them they held a Court, which was at once magnificent and lively, and which was remembered with much regret under the brutal squalor in which their son King Frederic William I. sub- sequently rejoiced. Queen Sophia Charlotte died in February 1705 in her thirty-seventh year. Her husband survived until 17 13, when he was succeeded by their only child Frederic Willilm I., who married his cousin Sophia Dorothea, only daughter of 590 >%^^ of the Royal Family of England. his mother's brother George I. of England, to whom I must refer later. After Queen Sophia's death Frederic I. married the Pnncess Soph.a Louisa of Mecklenburg Schwerin by whom he had no child. This lady went mad, and during her husbands last illness she contrived to escape from her apartments, and in doing so she accidentally broke a pane of glass and cut herself severely. In this condition she rushed mto the King's bedroom, and he, awakened by the appantion of a woman dressed in white and covered with blood, beheved her to be the traditional spectre of the house of Brandenburg who is supposed to visit moribund Princes of that house and warn them of their approaching dissolution. The King was so much frightened that the shock is said to have been the immediate cause of his death. CHAPTER XL. George I.-George II.-Sophia of Zelle. V^ITH the accession of George I. commenced the sixth Z n ?^' u^- ^u 1° "°* '"^'"'^^ '•^^ short-lived dynasty of f1. r tI \ ^T """'"^ ^"Sland since the time of eS J V r°" -^ "'"^ practically to an end with Edward the Confessor m ,056. The four Norman Kings rcc'es?on oTh"''/;" "^^' "^^ ^'-^agenets from tfe fn M«c Th t'^ V" "54 *'■" '^" ^^^"^ ^f R'^hard III. >n 1485. The Tudors from 1485 til] 1603, and the Stuarts may be sa.d to have ended at the death of Anne in 17,4. thl!^ Tr'r'"^L''rr"' ^'^y "• ""d A""^ ^°"'d each of them, If her hne had been perpetuated, have introduced into England a new reigning family ; in the case of Mary, that of the Prmces of Orange, and in the case of Anne, that of the reignmg family of Denmark. IT 7"!l *o^ new dynasty began a new state of things Under the Plantagenets the Sovereigns had reigned virtually .n and through the power of the Barons ; under the Tudor^ supreme power was concentrated in the hands of the Monarchs, who were in effect, if not in name, absolute Sovereigns ; and with the accession of the Stuarts began the educeTTh '"/''"''" '""^ ^''"^' ''"' '""^ people which Sovereins *° ''' '°"'''''°" "' --^'^utional When George I. became King that struggle had virtually ^nded, and thenceforward, though the Kings of England have exercised, and, I hope, will always exercise, great political and still greater social influence, their actual po«cr has been extremely limited, and the progress of public events has been 591 t 1| i 1 M 592 History of the Royal Family of England. George I. and George II. 593 less and less influenced by their personal characters. Con- sequently it will hardly be necessary for me in the i^^N remaining pages of this work to refer, even in passing to the public events, military or civil, which have gravely affected the destinies of the Empire, and which are in themselves of surpassing interest. George I. was born in Hanover on the 28th of May 1660. In his youth he was sent to England as, so it was supposed, a suitor for the hand of the Princess, afterwards Queen Anne' but the negotiations came to nothing. The reason commonly assigned is, that arriving in the midst of the disturbances of the Gates Plot, the Prince formed an unfavourable estimate of the stability of the Stuart dynasty, and was unwilling to throw in his lot with the Princes of that house. It has been suggested that the Princess Anne resented the coolness of her suitor, and that the dislike and jealousy with which she afterwards regarded the Hanoverian family was accentuated by some personal feeling. George I. was thirty-seven when he became Elector of Hanover on his father's death in 1697, he was in his fifty-fifth year when he became King of England in 1714, and in his sixty-eighth year when he died of apoplexy in Hanover on the nth of June 1727. His only son George, afterwards George II., was born in Hanover on the 30th of October 1683, and was in his twenty-eighth year, when he first came to England on the accession of his father. On that occasion he was created Prince of Wales, but in 1706 he had been created by Queen Anne, Duke of Cambridge. George IL was in his forty-fourth year when he became King in 1727, and was within five days of completing his seventy-seventh year when he died on the 25th of October 1760. Both these Princes have suffered in the estimation of English writers from causes over which they had no control. Both were, to speak plainly, under-sized and ugly men, ungracious, and somewhat uncouth in manner, much given to the perpetration of coarse speeches, and with little in their appearance or demeanour of that Royal dignity usually associated with Sovereigns, and to which the English people had become accustomed in nearly all the preceding Kings and Queens of England. Both George I. and George II. were to all intents and purposes foreigners, German in their habits and tastes, strongly attached to their own countiy, and little inclined to accept the English nation at its own estimation. Though the English people had deliberately turned out the Stuarts and accepted the new Kings in their place, and though upon occasions of urgency, as in 1715 and 1745, the bulk of the nation deliberately endorsed their original decision, neverthe- less there was an appreciable and influential body of persons who regarded the Stuart Princes as their lawful Kings. Moreover, even among those who acquiesced in the existing state of affairs, there was a wide-spread feeling of sentimental and romantic interest in the exiled family, which made many people willmg to enjoy a joke at the expense of the reigning Sovereigns, though by no means willing to part with them. The age was a vicious one, and public morals were approach- ing to their lowest ebb, which they may be said to have reached at the time of the French Revolution, an event which seemed to shake the foundations of all things, and which led to a new departure for good or bad on lines and principles which had scarcely been imagined or heard of before. The age was, however, not only vicious, but pre-eminently coarse The dignity and refinement, superficial though it was, which had to some extent disguised the vices of the preceding generation had given way to open and unveiled debauchery • and It cannot be denied that under the first two Georges' manners at their Courts had become disgustingly indecent But if manners and speech at Court were coarse and often revolting, the nation in general was by no means behind hand ; and it would be difficult to imagine anything more filthy than some of the contemporary squibs and lampoons by which the Sovereigns and their families were held up to ridicule. In these days we have become, if not more moral at least more refined ; and it seems to me that many modern writers, pleased with the superficial charm which they find in 2 p ^ 594 History of the Royal Family of England. Geoige I. and George II, the accounts of the Courts of the Stuarts and the Bourbons, and disgusted with the indecencies of the early Georgian reigns, have combined to make George I. and George II, the scapegoats of all the blame, which in reality attached to their time far more than to themselves. Of course it must be admitted that both these Kings were very immoral men, but I really cannot see that their immorality was made more criminal, as a number of writers seriously seem to think, by the fact that they were ugly little men, and that their taste in female beauty did not commend itself to English ideas. Jnthe flood of ridicule and blame, often too well deserved, which has been poured upon these unfortunate Kings, it seems to me that there is a danger of their very good, and even noble, qualities being overlooked. In the first place, speaking of George I. and his mother, it would, in my opinion, be impossible to imagine conduct more straightforward, more dignified, or more honourable than was theirs from the first moment that the Hanoverian succession was proposed, until the death of Queen Anne. They neither sought for nor invited the succession, they accepted it when its was offered with dignity and composure, and during the period of thirteen years during which they were the acknowledged heirs to the Throne they intrigued with no one, they flattered no one, and they truckled to no one. They behaved to the reigning Sovereign (although they knew, and must have known, that she was personally opposed to their claims) with a courtesy and consideration which seem to me to have been the result of a truly honourable feeling. When Anne died George showed no sort of eager- ness to seize the Crown of which he was the heir, but acted with the deliberation and composure of a person conferring rather than receiving a favour, and indeed this was the case. There is no reason to suppose that he particularly desired the English Throne ; and on the other hand, to the bulk of the nation who sincerely desired a Protestant King, his refusal to accept the Crown would have been a crushing blow. Under these circumstances it seems to me ungenerous and inhospit- 595 able, havmg first invited a foreign Prince to reign over us for our own convenience, then to jeer at him because he was a foreigner, which he could not help being, and which, strange as It may appear, he would not have helped \{ he could. In truth Kmg George I. did not admire the English any more than they admired him ! As Kings, I do not think it is denied that George I. and George II. clearly understood their constitutional position, or that they ever endeavoured to materially exceed their powers • and the worst that can or has been said against them is that they unduly favoured their native dominions in Germany and their Hanoverian subjects. This was surely natural, and in a measure, praiseworthy. The English, when they invited a foreign reigning Prince to be their King, had no right to expect that he should forget or cease to love his native country and his original subjects; and when they asked two men, one of them well on in middle age and the other in the prime of life, to live among them they ought to have been prepared for a considerable prepossession on the part of the new Kings in favour of their own countrymen. The sub- stantial grounds of complaint on this head, however, were not in reality very grave. No one has denied that both the Georges were in pohtical matters honest and straightforward, and no one has denied that they w-ere both of them gallant and distinguished soldiers. Indeed, the exploits of George 11. at the Battle of Dettingen .n .743 would, in any other Sovereign, have raised h.m to a great height of military fame, though in George ! I they are either passed over and forgotten or admitted with the most grudgmg praise. It is said with truth that George I. and his son lived on bad terms, but it is not very easy, at a 1 events before the nineteenth century, to find instances of a Sovereign who has lived on good terms with a full fhTt'i.. /'.h" '•■\Th^°"« ; and on the whole I do not think • that the father and son in their paternal and filial relations were any worse than a very great number of their neighbours. Lastly, there is the grave question of King George's relations I"! ! I?' ij 59^ History of the Royal Family of England, George I.'s Marriage, 597 with his wife, in regard to which he has been assailed in terms of most unmeasured invective, and to which I must reluc- tantly refer at, I fear, some length. I have already said that on the 2ist of November 1682 George I. married his cousin Sophia, who was the daughter of his father's brother, Duke George of Zelle ; and I have detailed the circumstances which led to this marriage in his twenty-third year, when Sophia, who was born on the 1 5th of September 1666, was nearly sixteen. There were two children of the marriage, George, afterwards George II. of England, who was born on the 30th of October 1683, and Sophia, commonly called Sophia Dorothea, afterwards Queen of Prussia, who was born on the i6th of March 1685. The marriage, at no time a happy one, turned out very ill, and after the birth of their daughter the Electoral Prince and Princess lived on openly bad terms, the Princess being extremely jealous of the conjugal infidelities of the Prince. On the 1st of July 1694 the Elector Ernest was told by his mistress, Madame von Platen, that a certain Count Philip Konigsmark, who had gained an evil reputation throughout Europe, and whom the Elector had previously ordered to leave Hanover, was in the apartments of his daughter-in-law, the Princess Sophia. The Elector thereupon ordered, or authorised von Platen to order, Konigsmark's arrest. A small body of soldiers was placed outside the Princess' rooms, and when Konigsmark came out he was seized and killed in the scuffle, either accidentally or by design. His body was con- cealed and not discovered till long afterwards. Various versions of the story are current, but Horace Walpole, who derived his information from his father, George II.'s great minister, Sir Robert Walpole, tells it thus : — " Konigsmark's vanity, the beauty of the Electoral Princess, and the neglect under which he found her, encouraged his presumption to make his addresses to her, not covertly, and she, though believed not to have transgressed her duty, did receive them too indiscreetly. The old Elector, inflamed at the insolence of so stigmatised a pretender, ordered him to quit his dominions the next day. This Princess, surrounded by women too closely connected with her husband, and con- sequently enemies of the lady they injured, was persuaded by them to suffer the Count to kiss her hand before his abrupt departure ; and he was actually introduced by them into her bedchamber the next morning before she rose. From that moment he disappeared, nor was it known what became of him, till on the death of George I., on his son, the new King's first journey to Hanover, some alterations in the palace being ordered by him, the body of Konigsmark was discovered under the floor of the Electoral Princess' dressing-room— the Count having been probably strangled there the instant he left her, and his body secreted. The discovery was hushed up. George H., the son of Sophia Dorothea, entrusted the secret to his wife, Queen, Caroline, who told it to my father, but the King, was too tender of the honour ol his mother to utter it to his mistress, nor did the Lady Suffolk ever hear of it till I informed her of it several years afterwards. The disappearance of the Count made his murder suspected, and various reports of the discovery of his body have of late years been spread, but not with the authentic circumstances." This account, no doubt, is in the main correct, but there is now a pretty general agreement on three points : first, that Prince George, who was out of the country, and his mother, the Electress Sophia, who was at Herrenhausen, were ignorant at the time of the attempted arrest, and, of course, of the murder of the Count; secondly, that the Elector Ernest, though he sanctioned the arrest, did 7iot sanction the murder; and thirdly, that Count Konigsmark was not present in the rmcess rooms at her invitation, but in consequence of a forged letter which had been sent to him. It is believed that this letter was written by the Baroness von Platen herself, who not only entertained a strong personal enmity to the Princess, but is said to have had a grudge against the Count, who is supposed to have rejected amatory overtures on her side. After Konigsmark's disappearance his papers were seized, including some letters from Sophia, and Baron von PLiten i 59^ History of the Royal Family of England. (husband of the Baroness) was deputed to investigate the matter. The Princess, with the appearance of sincerity, denied all improper conduct, and her denial appears to have been formally accepted by the Electoral family. Nevertheless Sophia, who had been wrought up to a point of intense ex- asperation, announced her intention to leave her husband. It is certain that, probably for political reasons, this resolution was, at any rate formally, opposed by George, her husband, and his father, and some pressure was apparently brought to bear upon her to remain at her husband's Court. She, how- ever, stuck to her point, reiterating persistently the phrase, " If I am guilty, I am not worthy of him. If I am innocent, he is not worthy of me." The matrimonial court of Hanover, which as far as appears was duly constituted, was summoned. The Princess was not accused of adultery or misconduct with any one; and Konigsmark's name was never mentioned in the pleadings, but she w^.r accused of" intentional desertion of her husband/' The decree of the Court, which was pronounced on the 20th of December 1694, is in the following terms : " In the matri- monial suit of the illustratious Prince George Louis, Crown Prince of Hanover, against his consort, the illustrious Princess Sophia Dorothea, we, constituted President and Judges of the Matrimonial Court of the Electorate and Duchy of Brunswick Luneburg, declare and pronounce judgment, after attempts have been tried and have failed to settle the matter amicably, and in accordance with the documents and verbal declarations of the Princess and other detailed circumstances, we agree that her continued denial of matrimonial duty and cohabitation is well founded, and consequently that it is to be considered as an intentional desertion. In consequence whereof we consider, sentence and declare the ties of matrimony to be entirely absolved and annulled. Since in similar cases of desertion it has been permitted to the innocent party to remarry, which to the other is forbidden, the same judicial power will be exercised in the present instance in favour of his serene Highness the Crown Prince." George Us Marriage, 599 The Princess was offered the right to appeal, and refused ; and immediately afterwards she was sent to the Castle of Ahlden, where she was detained as a prisoner till her death on the 2nd of November 1726, about six months before the death of King George. It is said that on her deathbed she wrote a letter summon- ing her husband to meet her at the judgment seat of God, and that the shock occasioned by the delivery of this letter caused the fit of apoplexy which killed the King. Such is the outline of the known facts relating to one of the most tragic incidents in history. Of late years it has been the custom to condemn King George as the most inhuman monster, and to exalt his wife to the rank of a saint and martyr, but in both views I think there is great ex- aggeration. It is commonly represented that Sophia, arriving almost as a child at the Court of Hanover, was treated from the first with neglect and contempt, not only by her husband but by his parents. Nothing of the kind, however, is established. There appears to have been no open quarrel between the Prince and Princess until after the birth of their daughter, that is to say for more than three years ; and there is abundant evidence to show that the old Elector regarded his daughter- in-law, who was also his niece, with considerable affection, and that the Crown Princess lived with her mother-in-law in apparent harmony. It has been said that George " flaunted " his infidelity before his wife in a way that no woman of decency or spirit could have borne. He certainly kept a mistress Ermengarda von der Schulenburg, by whom he had a child, and this woman occupied a semi-official position at Court and was constantly meeting the Princess Sophia. This was very immoral ; and if it had happened in the present day, it would have been regarded as ungentlemanlike and disgraceful behaviour on the part of the Prince, fully justifying tl.e strongest measures on the part of his wife. 1 n the seventeenth century, however, such conduct on the part of I'l inces was the I s-i t ■ I I" |i| / 5 M 6oo History of the Royal Family oj England. rule and not the exception. Louis XIV. of France, the arbiter of fashion, had set the example ; and his wife Maria i lieresa, though a Queen and the daughter of a King, accepted the position ; and in Geon,^e's time that which he did was done by nine out of ten of the Princes in Europe, and that which Sophia suffered was suffered as a matter of course by nine out of ten of the ladies of the Royal caste. Why therefore should George be selected for special execration, or his wife for special commiseration ? Moreover George did to some extent conform to public decency. Before his marriage he had a mistress Madame von Busche, the sister of Madame von Platen, but when he married he .sent von Busche away. It is said indeed that she lingered long enough to see from an upper window the arrival of the Crown Princess ; but she did go, and she did not come back till long afterwards, not until the birth of the Princess Sophia in 1685, and then it was not as the mistress of Prince George. Unfortunately, however, she brought with her von Schulenburg, who then and not till then appeared upon the scene. It is said that George was guilty of personal cruelty to his wife, but it was also said that the Princess struck her husband. For neither story is there authentic evidence ; but there is a story tolerably well certified of Sophia's having forced her way into a pavilion reserved for von Schulenburg, whom she there surprised with the Prince, and it is said that upon that occasion a scene of unseemly violence took place. It is generally assumed that Sophia's relations with Konigsmark were in fact innocent. This may have been so, but since the publication some years ago of " The Love of an Uncrowned Queen, Sophia Dorothea, Consort of George I.," by W. H. VVilkins, which contains much correspondence between Sophia and von Konigsmark, I can hardly think any impartial person can believe it, and at any rate it must be admitted that her conduct m von Konigsmark's regard was to the last degree imprudent. Konigsmark was a man of extraordinarily loose life, and it is clear that the Princess admitted him to a considerable ' I Sophia of Zelle. 601 share of friendly intercourse, though this is excused on the ground that she had known him when she was a child at Zelle. It is tolerably certain that whatever may have been her views about hini^ his views upon her were not innocent ; and that he had spoken of her not privately but publicly at the Court of Poland in terms which fully justified the old Elector in ordering the Count, as he did, to leave Hanover. Certainly under these circumstances the visit paid by the Count to the private apartments of the Princess in the absence of her husband was calculated to arouse strong suspicion. Mademoiselle von Knesebeck, Sophia's lady-in-waiting, a witness whose testimony appears to be reliable, while she asserted that Konigsmark's visit was unexpected and that she herself was present during the whole interview, admitted that the interview was somewhat prolonged, and that the Princess had seized the opportunity to complain to Konigsmark of her husband's behaviour, and to discuss with him plans which she had already formed for leaving Hanover. Moreover the witness admitted that Konigsmark had offered to assist the Princess in this project, not indeed avowedly as her lover, but in a manner which, if it had been adopted, he and the Princess, who was no longer a child, must have been well aware would have seriously compromised her reputation. Such a con- versation at such a time argued not only much indiscretion, but much previous intercourse of a familiar character (see Dr. Doran's " Lives of the Queens of England of the House of Hanover"). Again, it is assumed that the judicial proceedings were a mere farce, and that Sophia, like another Katharine Howard, was the victim of an absolute Prince determined to destroy her ; but the Elector Ernest was no autocrat, still less his son, and Sophia was b\- no means friendless. Her parents are said to have at one time loved her passionately, and the Duke of Zelle had considerable influence with the Emperor. Xe\'er- thele^'s VM-X ^^vAy So'phia herself but her fatrier most foTmcdIv and deiiberateh- acce^ned the xi-nWd of the Cmirt. Imiriedi^ ately after the sentence of the Court, Sophia was remned 1 1 4\ ,1 |l ^; ■ t i i 6oa History of the Royal Family of England, the Castle of Ahlden, and there she was detained as a prisoner, or at all events she lived with all the appearance of being a prisoner for thirty years, during eighteen of which her husband was Elector of Hanover, and during twelve of which he was King of England. Sophia was not placed in the castle of Ahlden under any order of any Court ; and as far as appears she was detained there by the absolute will of her husband. The whole force of the English language has been exhausted in denouncing the cruelty and illegality of this imprisonment. In truth, however, it would have been so cruel and so illegal to detain the Princess as a prisoner merely because she refused to live with her husband, who was notoriously unfaithful, that startling as it may sound, I believe it would have been impossible if she and her friends had not practically acquiesced in her confinement. George I. was as I have said no autocrat, and he was neither in theory nor in fact above the law. As a German Prince he was amenable to the German Emperor, and as an English King he was amenable to the English Parliament ; and even supposing that all justice and fair play had died out of the world he had a large number of enemies, personal and political, whose interest it would have been to bring him to account if it had been thought for his wife's advantage to do so. It is of course said that Sophia of Zelle was a woman crushed by her misfortunes, whose natural friends had, turned against her, and who, kept a close prisoner in the hands of her enemies, was unable to make her voice heard. This however seems to me to be little short of nonsense. In the first place, no incident is recorded in the life of Sophia of Zelle which would lead one to suppose that she was a woman easy to be crushed, or who would have submitted tamely to injustice which she could help. The whole world knew she was alive ; the whole world knew precisely where she was, for there never was the smallest mystery on the subject ; and even supposing her captivity to have been as strict as that of a condemned prisoner in the Bastille, there were plenty of people whose interest, Sophia of Zelle. 603 as well as whose duty, it was to procure her release if they could have made out a good case. Her father survived her captivity for nine years and died in 1705. Her mother lived on till 172 1. Her son, who was a boy of eleven when she was sent to Ahlden, had completed his majority before the first decade of her captivity had run out. George H. is said to have retained a kindly memory of his mother, and to have made unsuccessful attempts to see her, but why in the world did he not insist on seeing her ? George I. was not an Eastern Satrap, before whom his son stood trembling for his life. On the contrary, it is well known that as Prince of Wales, George II lieaded the opposition to his father's government, and had, and freely used, great political power. Much contempt has been thrown upon ti I iuke of Zelle and upon George II., but I do not know tliat anyone has suggested that either of them was altogether destitute of natural affection ; and at all events they were not destitute of family pride, and it cannot have been to the credit of either that the daughter of the one, and the mother of the other, should languish as a disgraced woman in a foreign prison. The Princes of the House of Brunswick Wolfen- buttel claimed to be the heads of the Guelph family, and it is well known that they regarded the Princes of Hanover with much jealousy. One of the Princes of Brunswick Wolfenbuttel had proposed to marry Sophia, and he is said to have been at one time much in love with her ; and tliere were many other Princes in Europe to whom slie must have been personally known, and to whom she was more esr less related or connected. Nevertheless, no single man or woman of all Sophia's kindred ever made the smallest serious attempt to obtain her liberation, or uttered any word of real protest against her confinement. But Sophia's captivity was by no means strict. Not only the place of her residence, but every detail of her life was carefully arranged with the full concurrence of her own father. Her income was a large one, large enough at any rate to enable her to save a i 6o4 History of the Royal Family of England. considerable sum of money, which she had accumulated at her death, and, as she has been greatly commended for her charity to the poor, and her diligence and care in managmg her property, her income must, to a great extent, have passed through her own hands. Her establishment was mounted in accordance with her rank, and in the Castle of Ahlden all the forms and observance of a miniature Court were duly kept up. She had her regular levees and receptions, at which her neighbours of sufficient rank were allowed to be present ; and for many years at any rate she kept up a large correspondence. No doubt her children were not allowed to see her (though it is difficult to suppose that when they grew up, either the Prince of Wales or the Queen of Prussia could have been prevented from seeing her if they had really wished it) ; and no doubt her intercourse with the outside world was to some extent restrained. Under these circum- stances is it really to be supposed that if Sophia had wished to state her case before the Emperor or before the English Parliament, she would have had any practical difficulty m doing so ? Again, in 1704 a P'rench army invaded Hanover, and the Castle of Ahlden became for a time an unsafe residence. One would have expected to hear that Sophia was hurried off to some other dungeon, but in point of fact she was sent home to her father and mother, and stayed with them for a year. Horace Walpole indeed says " that they did implore, though in vain, that she might continue to reside with them." But why on earth did they not keep her, or why did she not run away? George, then Elector of Hanover, could hardly have sent an army to besiege his uncle and carry off his wife by force, and if he had done so all Europe would have rung with the scandal. To my mind all the circumstances point to one irresistible conclusion. I believe that George I. was in a position to prove such conduct on the part of his wife as would have made it impossible for her to be recognised as Queen— that his family and relatives, and most of the Princes of Europe, Sophia of Zelle. 605 including Sophia herself and her parents, and including after- wards her children, were perfectly aware of this — and that they all shrank from the exposure. I believe that the whole matrimonial proceedings took the form they did by precon- certed arrangement, and to save the honour, not merely of Sophia herself, but of the whole family, and that it was part of the agreement come to, and acquiesced in by the Princess herself and her father, that she should live at Ahlden as she in fact did. I cannot say that King George comes well out of the affair, for he was certainly a harsh and unfaithful husband, and might well have shown more gentleness and kindness than he did ; but even in this matter I think it very possible that if Sophia had been willing to let bygones be bygones, after the death of Konigsmark, George would have met her half way, and they might have gone on living together, not perhaps happily, but at least without open scandal, for the rest of their lives. Sophia was, in my opinion, a headstrong, impulsive, passionate and not very wase woman, and her husband was a cold, reserved and harsh man. Neither of them liked the other, and they both behaved badly ; but I decline to accept the popular verdict that Sophia was an injured saint and George a kind of modern Bluebeard. King George was buried in Hanover, and his wife at Zelle. I may here mention that Ermengarda von der Schulen- burg accompanied George I. to England, and was created Duchess of Kendal. She died in 1743. She had a daughter by the King, Melusina, who was created Countess of Walsingham, and who married the celebrated Philip Stan- hope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield, but had no child. fi I CHAPTER XLI. Sophia Dorothea, Queen of Prussia.— Her Descen- dants. — Caroline of Anspach. — Anne Princess of Orange.— Her Descendants.— Princess Amelia. — Princess Caroline.—William Duke of Cumber- land. SOPHIA Dorothea, only daughter of George I., was born on the 1 6th of March 1685, and was married, being in her twenty-second year, on the 28th of November 1706, to h( r cousin fthe only son of her father's sister), Frederic William, Crown Prince of Prussia, who, on the death of his father in 171 3, became King Frederic William I. Sophia's husband died in 1740, and his wife survived him for seventeen years, and died on the 9th of June 1757 in her seventy-third year. The late Mr. Carlyle in his history of " Frederic the Great," and many other writers, including Mons. Ernest Lavisse (translated by S. L. Simeon) in his book "The Youth of Frederic the Great," have recorded the events of the lives of Frederic William I. and his wife in such minute, and I must add repulsive, detail, that I feel myself relieved from entering on the subject here, and I do not intend to do so, all the more as it would be impossible to speak, even in the most cursory way, of the Court of Frederic William I. of Prussia without exceeding the very limited space left at my command. Queen Sophia Dorothea of Prussia may be said to have been an English Princess, inasmuch as she was the daughter of a Prince who afterwards became King of England, but she never was in England in her life, and was a married woman 606 bo c - W-a •—I w^ So5s (x« ^j wi " — q;« O-xJ 2 N4 ^l W c ^.^ •c •-* (li CO m J3 %\ PC, ^ Oh CL4 b « 2 1-^ - < « •J & ^ as Pi s (X4 (4 o O 00 o C/} o pi: I/) 1/3 a •< Pi in yj <~ "^ s Pi . I a O a: u li- te) H H O . J o ■< " (S l-l Coo s 525 "^ OS a « ►J 5 i^ •— • o t— I h t> O §-00 I— I C 00 . (^ td 00 W c " W g o ^ «< ^ 2 o l»4 .2 2; X is] a e C/5 < o ac Pi — - »* fi ^ S ►J s > fcc] o PS o • a O c Ij 6o8 History of the Royal Family of England. settled in Prussia for full eight years before her father became King. Sophia had I, believe, ten children. I said in the commencement of this work that I proposed to give a short account of the personal history of the several Kings and Queens, of their children, and of such of their immediate descendants or relatives as have played any part in English History or have lived in England ; but the children of Queen Sophia Dorothea of Prussia, and the children of other English Princesses to whom I shall refer later, though the immediate descendants of English Kings, did not play any part in English as distinguished from general European History, and did not live in England, and therefore they do not fall within the scope of this work. I may, however, say that Queen Sophia's eldest son became Frederic H., or Frederic the Great of Prussia, and was the first cousin of Frederic Prince of Wales, eldest son of George n. of England. Frederic H. died in 1786, and was succeeded by his nephew (the son of his next brother William) Frederic William H., who was the grandson of Frederic William and Queen Sophia Dorothea, and who was second cousin to King George HI. Frederic William H. died in 1797, and was suc- ceeded by his son Frederic William HI. who died in 1840 leaving two sons, Frederic William and William. Frederic William became Frederic William IV. of Prussia, and died in i860 without male issue, when he was succeeded by his brother William, who became King William I. of Prussia, and in 1871 was proclaimed German Emperor. The Emperor William died in the year 1888 (see Table XXI.). The Emperor William I. was not only distantly related to Queen Victoria through his father (by reason of their common descent from King George I.), but also more nearly related through his mother, Queen Louisa of Prussia. That Queen was the daughter of Charles Duke of Mecklenburg Strelitz and niece of his sister Queen Charlotte, wife of George III. of England. Consequently she was the first cousin of the Duke of Kent, and her son the Emperor William I. was, through her, second cousin of Queen Victoria Caroline of Anspach. 609 K (see Table XXII). It is needless to say that the Emperor William's son, the Emperor Frederic 111., who died shortly after his father in 1888, had married Queen Victoria's eldest daughter (who died in 1901), and was the father of the present Emperor William II. who was consequently grand- son and nephew of the late Sovereigns Queen Victoria and King Edward Y\\., and is first cousin to his present Majesty. I may add that the Princess Chadotte of Prussia, sister of the Emperor William I., married the Emperor Nichuiab i. of Russia, and was the great grandmother of the present Russian Emperor. Consequently the Emperor Nicholas II. of Russia, like the German Emperor William II. is descended from' King George I. (See Table XXII.) I have said all I think it necessary to say of King George II. Nor is it needful that I should speak in detail of his wife. Queen Caroline, for the writings of Horace Walpole, the Memoirs of Lord Hervey, and innumerable other books have made the life of this Queen, her virtues and her failings, the manners at her Court, and even the smallest incidents of her daily life (which are not, however, for the most part very edifying), familiar to all students of the history of the eighteenth century, and more or less familiar even to casual readers. Caroline was the daughter of John Frederic Margrave of Brandenburg Anspach, which was an exceedingly small German State. She was born in 1683, and was left an orphan at a very early age, when she was sent to the Court of Brandenburg, afterwards Prussia, where she was brought up under the care of Sophia, sister of George I. On the death of that Princess in January 1705, Caroline was trans- ferred to the Court of the old Electress Sophia of Hanover, whose grandson, afterwards George II. of England, she married on the 22nd of August in that year, 1705. Caroline, was a Princess entirely after the hearts of the two Sophias, the Queen of Prussia, and the Electress of Hanover Hand- some, clever, and eminently capable, she was at once patient 2Q \ 6 1 o History of the Royal Family of England. and ambitious. She was fond of literature if not literary herself. She had a strong sense of the ludicrous, no particular religion or sense of reverence for God or man, and she was extremely witty, and often, it is to be feared, extremely coarse in her conversation. "Virtuous," accord- ing to the technical use of that word, in her own life, she was absolutely tolerant to the vices of others, and though perfectly good-natured she appears to have been absolutely without softness or tenderness of any kind. From the moment of her marriage she took and maintained the upper hand with her husband, and from the time of her husband's accession to the Throne until her death, it is not perhaps too much to say that she was virtually Queen Regnant of England. Her power she exercised with wisdom and moderation, but she acquired it by the exercise of much duplicity. King George was neither a fool nor a particularly weak man, and he feared intensely the reputation of being ruled by his wife. Con- sequently it required all the tact of a very clever woman to avoid raising his suspicions. Caroline, however, succeeded in managing him without allowing him to suspect that he was being managed in a manner which is very diverting to read about, but which cannot be said to give one a high idea of the lady's moral tone. King George was notoriously an unfaithful husband, and the Queen accepted the position with that philosophy which had become fashionable in the eighteenth century. Probably, however, her philosophy was fortified by the knowledge that her husband liked and respected her infinitely more than any of his mistresses, or perhaps than all of them put together. Nevertheless the spectacle of a married man calmly discussing his love affairs with his own wife is not edifying, and with all her good sense, and personal virtue, Queen Caroline probably did as much to lower the tone of the century in which she lived as the most profligate woman of her age. She died on the 30th of November 1737, and her husband, who survived her for twenty-two years, died on the 26th of October 1760. They are both buried in Westminster Abbey. TABLE XXM. CHARLES LOUIS, Duke of Mecklenburg Strelitz. (1) Charles Louis, ist Grand Duke of Mecklenburg Strelitz. (2) Charlotte d. 1818. King George III. d. 1820. Louise = Frederic William IH. ^' 1810. of Prussia, d. 1840. Edward, Duke of Kent. d. 1820. m a, 2 R (/I a O U i 1-" 55 Oi IS ■Qu-- 00 O o 00 o - 10 : 00 Oh v.> O « c 11 < H OS O 00 '^ " <>i 'to ^i 3 i> b) O oi d N ^ s; 00 V > . « OS ^ 00 N 3 (A S? o < o N 00 Q : < -Q C ■ 9 be J S ■ feQ ^ ^ iJX ^ ^ '"^ J j^ o 3 ^ • ,;; . "^ 4) n S; J2 OC. ^ "^ «, N a S "^ r^« lis •-I 00 r W •-^ %: K _ o 0-2 '' o Q < * 0\ < ,<« w i II n _ O u-^ ■= td c 3 o H o -> ^ ^ o -^ ^ OS • .• O o V bJQ = 2 _0h B 5 t) C/5 ti< B I. f 0!i < OS a 2 Q 2 '»' ^ a. ^ il w MM o 2s 626 History of the Royal Family of England. Frederic Prince 0/ Wales. 627 left in Hanover, and he there remained till 1728, a year after the accession of his father to the English Throne. Before he came to England Frederic was successively created Duke of Gloucester and Duke of Edinburgh, and on his father's accession he became Prince of Wales. The reasons which induced the Prince and Princess of Wales to leave the Prince who was heir-apparent to the Crown of England to be educated and to pass his boyhood and youth in a foreign country have never been satisfactorily explained ; but it is said they disliked the child from its birth, and certainly if they desired him to turn out ill they omitted no means to that end. When Prince Frederic died, certain doggerel rhymes were written by way of a mock epitaph : " Here lies Fred Who was alive and is dead Had it been his father I had much rather Had it been his brother Still better than another Had it been his sister No one could have missed her Had it been the whole generation Still better for the nation But since 'tis only Fred Who was alive, and is dead There is no more to be said." These lines, certainly not complimentary to the Royal family as a whole, are usually quoted as suggesting that the Prince of Wales was a contemptible person, who, if less objectionable than his family, was more insignificant. I can see no reason for coming to any such conclusion. On the contrary, it seems to me that in point of ability Frederic was at any rate not conspicuously inferior to either his grandfather or his father, and that in personal character he was the most estimable man of the three. It is true that from his first coming into England until his death, there existed between him and his parents what can only be described as a bitter and unrelenting hatred. Such a state of things could not have existed without grave faults on both sides; but in my opinion the blame chiefly rested with the parents. It was they who allowed their son to be brought up as a stranger to them ; they seem to have omitted no opportunity of treating him, in public as well as in private, with contempt and unconcealed aversion, they refused his requests for active employment of any kind, and they did their best to keep him without adequate means for his position. Indeed, in their pecuniary relations with the Prince they acted in a manner that was scarcely honest. Thus, though when he first came to England the allowance made to the King by Parliament for Frederic's maintenance was ;^ioo,ooo a year, the actual sum paid by the King to his son was ;^30,CXX) a year ; and every subsequent increase of income to the Prince had to be extorted from the King and Queen, almost by threats. When Queen Caroline was dying she refused, so it is said, to see her eldest son ; and when George II. heard of the death of his heir his only remark was, "Dead, is he? why they told me he was better!"— at least that is the story told and apparently credited at the time. Under these circumstances it is not to be wondered at that a Prince who gave abundant evidence that he was naturally of an affectionate disposition should have deeply resented the conduct of such parents, though the manner in which he showed his resentment was often undignified and reprehensible. Frederic, who died in his forty-fifth year, is described as having been a good looking florid man, gay and rather volatile in temper, but as a rule gracious and affable in manners ; and whatever may be said to the contrary I think it is plain from contemporary writings that he actually enjoyed at least as large a share of popularity as any of his kindred. He was deeply interested in literature, and a warm patron of art and the theatre, he was passionately fond of music, and certainly in his personal tastes he was a man 628 History of the Royal Family of England. of greater culture and refinement than either George I. or George II. Though his moral character left much to be desired, and he was an unfaithful husband, Frederic's infidelities appear, strange as it may sound, to have been due rather to a mistaken sense of what was due to his position as a Royal Prince than to his own tastes ; for there can be no doubt that he was extremely fond of his wife (in whose praises he wrote many very indifferent verses), and that he greatly preferred her society to that of any of the women with whom his name is associated. Lastly, it is certain that he was both fond and proud of his children, to whom he was a kind and affectionate father. Prince Frederic died on the 31st of March 17 51 from the effects of a chill, and he is buried in Westminster Abbey. In 1736 the Prince of Wales married the Princess Augusta, youngest daughter of Frederic II., Duke of Saxe-Gotha. At the date of the marriage he was twenty-nine, and the Princess, who was born in 1 7 19, was aged seventeen. There were originally two Duchies, the one of Saxe- Gotha and the other of Saxe-Coburg, but these were united in the year 1826 under Duke Ernest I. (the uncle of the late Queen Victoria and the father of her husband the Prince Consort), who became the first Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The Princess Augusta came of the family of Saxe- Gotha, which was a distinct family from that of the Saxe- Coburg, and she was not therefore related, or at all events related in any very near degree, to the family of which the late Oueen and Prince Consort were members. The story of the circumstances attending the birth of the first child of the Prince and Princess of Wales is tolerably well known. The whole Royal family were resident at Hampton Court, where the King and Queen desired that their grandchild should be born. Frederic, however, as it would seem out of pure perversity, determined that his child should be born at St. James' Palace, and accordingly late on the evening of the 31st of July 1737, after the Prince and The Prince and P^^incess of Wales. 629 Princess had retired to their apartments, on its becoming apparent that the Princess was about to be delivered, Frederic without apprising his parents had his wife carried to a carriage in which, in the middle of the night and already suffering the pangs of childbirth, she was driven at the imminent risk of her life into London. Her first child was born at St. James' about 4 A.M. in the morning. This incident caused great scandal, and is usually cited as a proof that the Prince of Wales was a harsh and a cruel husband, but in point of fact the Princess of Wales, though she had good cause to complain and was, so to speak, urgently invited to do so, did 7iot complain, and there is a large amount of evidence that throughout their joint lives Frederic and Augusta lived together on terms of harmony, which in the eighteenth century were very unusual in Royal households. The Princess appears to have been sincerely shocked at and grieved by her husband's death, and she afterwards paid his debts out of her own jointure. Augusta of Saxe-Gotha is represented as being, and pro- bably was, an ambitious and narrow-minded woman, who in her later years became somewhat hard and morose in her manners. It is said that to her children, other than her eldest son (who afterwards became King), she showed little affection. It is, however, certain that she possessed much influence over the mind of George III., which she did not use very wisely. It is to her influence that John Stuart, third Earl of Bute, owed his short-lived and disastrous position as Prime Minister to King George, and it is said, and I believe with some grounds, that the Princess of Wales and this Lord Bute were before her death secretly married. The Princess of Wales died on 8th of February 1772, nearly twelve years after the accession of her son, and aged fifty-three. She is buried in Westminster Abbey. ' Frederic Prince of Wales and his wife had nine children : (i) Augusta, afterwards Duchess of Brunswick, born 1737; (2) George, afterwards George HI., born 1738; (3) Edward', afterwards Duke of York and Albany, born 1739; (4) 6 ^o History of the Royal Family of England. Elizabeth, born 1740 ; (S) William, afterwards Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, born I743 ; (6) Henry, afterwards Duke of Cumberland, born 1/45 ; (7) Louisa, born 1748 ; (8) Frederic, born 1750; and (9) Caroline Matilda, afterwards Queen of Denmark, born four months after her fathers death on the 22nd of July 175 1. I propose to speak first of the daughters then of the younger sons, and lastly of the eldest son of the Prince and Princess of Wales. Augusta, their eldest daughter, was born under circum- stances already referred to on the ist of August 1737, and her father insisted, for reasons which are not very intelligible, that she should be styled not Princess but the "Lady" Augusta. On the i6th of January 1764. more than three years after her brother had become King of England, Augusta married Charles William Ferdinand, then hereditary Prince, and who in 1780 became Duke of Brunswick Wolfenbuttel It will be remembered that long before the time of the Electress Sophia of Hanover the original Duchy of Bruns- wick had been divided into the branches of Brunswick Wolfenbuttel and Brunswick Luneburg, of which the former represented the elder and the latter (of which Sophia's son, afterwards George I., became the head) the junior branch of the great Guelph family. At the date of the marriage of the Prince of Brunswick Wolfenbuttel and the " Lady Augusta" their respective ages were twenty-nine and twenty-three. The bridegroom had already attained a considerable military reputation, and as the victorious general of the allied forces over the French at the Battle of Minden in 1759 he was received by the English with much interest and cordiality— a cordiality which, it is said, was not altogether shared by the English Court. In his subsequent career the Duke fairly maintained his previous military reputation, and he was ultimately killed in 1806 fighting on the Prussian side at the Battle of Jena, he being arthe time in his seventy-first year. In 1794 the first Lord Malmcsbury was the Ambassador from the Court of George Augusta Duchess of Brunswick. 631 h III. to the Court of Brunswick to negotiate the marriage which afterwards took place between the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV., and his cousin the Princess Caroline, youngest daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Brunswick- Lord Malmesbary has left an account of the Ducal family of Brunswick which is very unpleasant reading. He represents the mistress of the Duke as living at the Court and interfering in the details of the proposed marriage with as much freedom as the bride's mother— the Duchess as a silly and garrulous old woman, indulging herself in coarse invective against her sister-in-law, Queen Charlotte of England, and gratifying her love of gossip even in the presence of her daughter, with little regard to propriety or even decency, and he represents the Princess Caroline herself as a somewhat sharp young woman, dirty in her person, vulgar in her manners, and to say the least very free in her conversation. I fear that this picture was too true, and I have no wish to dwell further upon it After the death of the Duke of Brunswick the troubles on the Continent made it expedient for his widow to take refuge in England. She came to London in July 1 807, and continued to live in England till 18 1 3, when she died aged seventy- three. She is buried at Windsor, which in the reign of George III. began to be preferred to Westminster as the place of Royal Sepulture. The Duke and Duchess of Brunswick had six children, four sons and two daughters. Of their sons three died with- out issue, and the fourth, Frederic, was that gallant Duke of Brunswick who fell fighting at the Battle of Quatre Bras in 181 5. This Prince left two sons who successively bore the title of Duke of Brunswick, and who both died without issue, ths latter in 1884, whereupon the elder line of the Guelph family became extinct. After the war of 1866 the kingdom of Hanover, into which the Duchy of Brunswick Luneburg had been erected, was absorbed into the kingdom of Prussia, and ceased to exist as an independent State, and its King, George V., was driven into exile. He died in 1878, and his only son, who now bears the title of Duke of Cumber- O 632 History of the Royal Family of England. Caroline Matilda Qtieen of Denmark. 6; land, became the head of the junior branch of the Guelph family, and on the death in 1884 of the last male of the elder branch he and his sons became and are now the sole remain- ing members of the Guelph family, and consequently heirs to the Duchy of Brunswick. To these Princes I must return later, and it is sufficient to say now that as hitherto they have refused to recognise the right of Prussia to the kingdom of Hanover, they have not been allowed to succeed to the Duchy of Brunswick. That Duchy still exists as nominally an independent State, but as since 1884 it has been governed by a series of Regents practically nominated by Prussia, it may be doubted whether it will long retain its independence. The daughters of the Duke and Duchess of Brunswick were Charlotte, who married Frederic, last Duke and first King of Wurtemburg, and Caroline, who married George IV. of England. They were two of the most unhappy women in history, but to both of these ladies I must shortly refer in a later chapter. Elizabeth, second daughter of the Prince and Princess of Wales, is said to have been a girl of exceptional intellect and power, but she was unhappily deformed. She was born in 1740, and died in 1759. Her next sister, Louisa, was born in 1748 and died in 1768 unmarried. Both these Princesses are buried in Westminster Abbey. It will be remembered that in 1743 Louisa, fifth daughter of George II., married Frederic V., King of Denmark, and that she died in 175 1, leaving an only son who afterwards became Christian VII. It has also been mentioned that after the death of Queen Louisa, Frederic V. married the Princess Juliana of Brunswick. When he died his son by his first marriage was still a boy, and the Regency passed into the hands of Queen Juliana, who bears in history a very evil reputation. Her stepson was a youth of feeble intellect and vicious tendencies, and it is said that Juliana, hoping for the advancement of her own children, neglected his education, -and deliberately threw him into bad company in the hope of further perverting his mental and moral powers. This young ft King, Christian VII., was born in 1748, and in 1766, when he was eighteen, he came to London to visit King George III., who was the son of the eldest brother of Christian's mother, and therefore his first cousin. Being in London, Christian on the 1st of October 1766 married King George's youngest sister, the Princess Caroline Matilda. The Princess was as I have said a posthumous child, and had been born in July 175 1, and she was therefore in her sixteenth year. I have endeavoured as far as possible to avoid using double names for the Princes and Princesses who are the subject of this work, but in the case of this lady it is impossible to avoid doing so, as she is not only always known as Caroline Matilda, but she herself signed her letters sometimes "Caroline Matilda," sometimes "Caroline," and sometimes, and this to documents of importance, " Matilda " only. She appears to have been a handsome and clever woman, decidedly masculine in her tastes, and very ambitious in her projects. From the date of her arrival in Denmark she set herself to counteract the influence of her husband's step- mother, Queen Juliana, and in the struggle for power which ensued she was greatly aided by the ability of Count Struensee, a man who had commenced life as a doctor of medicine, and who under the auspices of Caroline Matilda became for a time Prime Minister of Denmark. For some years the Queen appeared to have gained the upper hand, but she had many formidable enemies, and on the 17th of January 1772, after a masked ball, the Queen and Struensee, and several of their principal adherents, were suddenly arrested. Struensee and some of the others were almost immediately executed. The Queen would probably have shared the same fate but for the remonstrances of the English Ambassador ; and in fact she was banished from D.nimark, and by direction of her brother King George III., . conveyed to Zelle in Hanover, where she remained for the rest of her life. She died there three years later in May 1775 in her twenty-fourth year. ' sincere personal regard and strong bonds of common interest. I have said in a former chapter that in the Middle Ages what are called political marriages often brought about disastrous results in the shape of unfounded and sometimes frivolous claims set up by the husbands against the dominions of their wives' families. In the present day, however, the danger of such claims is comparatively remote, and is much overweighed by the advantages arising from the constant familiar intercourse between the ruling houses of Europe— an intercourse which experience shows, does much to prevent the misunderstandings and to allay the asperities which in the nature of things must from time to time arise between rival nations, and which intercourse was greatly fomented by the kindly interest and sympathy the two great Sovereigns, Victoria and Edward VII., always showed in and with their numerous relatives. Queen Victoria was the only child of Edward Duke of Kent, fourth son of King George III., and Victoria, fourth daughter of Duke Francis of Saxe Coburg and widow of Emich Charles, Prince of Leiningen. She was born on the 24th of May 1 8 19, succeeded to the Throne on the death of her uncle King William IV. in 183;, and died on the 22nd of January 1901 in her eighty-second year. In 1840 she married her first cousin on her mother's side, Prince Albert of Saxe f 670 History 0/ the Royal Family of England, Coburg and Gotha, who was born in 18 19, and whose death in 1 86 1 was a source of great regret to the nation ; for in spite of some jealousy and prejudice at the date of the marriage, his great abilities and many virtues had been fully recognised before his death, and have since been testified to by writers of every shade of opinion. The Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg and Gotha came of the very illustrious family of Wettin, a family which had become distinguished in the tenth century, and has produced a great number of influential Sovereigns and Princes. In the fifteenth century this family and its great estates were divided into two great lines, known as the Ernestine and Albertine branches, the founders of which were Ernest and Albert, the two sons of Frederic II., called the Good. From the Albertine branch the present King of Saxony is descended, and from the Ernestine branch the reigning Grand Duke of Saxe Weimar and the reigning Dukes of Saxe Meiningen, Saxe Altenburg, and Saxe Coburg and Gotha, to say nothing of many minor Princes and nobles, claim descent. All the members of these families — or at all events of the four ducal families I have mentioned — are entitled to the title of " Duke or Duchess of Saxony," a privilege which gives rise to some confusion. Under ordinary circumstances, on the marriage of Queen Victoria with a Prince of the House of Wettin, her descen- dants would have taken their father's name, but I believe an exception is claimed on behalf of female Sovereigns to the ordinary rule, and that the descendants of Queen Victoria will take her name of Guelph and not that of her husband. The Duchies of Saxe Coburg and Saxe Gotha were till 1826 quite distinct, but in that year the male line of the Princes of Saxe Gotha having become extinct the Duchy of Saxe Gotha was annexed to that of Saxe Coburg, and Duke Ernest I. of Saxe Coburg (the father of Prince Albert), became first Sovereign of the united Duchies of Saxe Coburg and Gotha. Duke Francis of Saxe Coburg, the father of Duke Ernest I., married a Princess of Reuss-Lobenstein-Ebersdorf, and had seven children, three sons and four daughters, namely, Ernest, The family of the Duke of Saxe Coburg. 671 Ferdinand, Leopold, Sophia, Antoinette, Juliana and Victoria aftewards Duchess of Kent. Ernest, the eldest son, who was born in 1784, succeeded his father m 1806 and became Duke Ernest I. of Saxe Coburg and, as I have said, in 1826 Duke also of Saxe Gotha }fe married Prmcess Louise of Saxe Gotha Altenburg, who was of the family of the former Dukes of Saxe Gotha, and who died in 183 f, and had two children, both sons, who received the historic names of Ernest and Albert. When the younger of these sons, Prince Albert, married Queen Victoria, the elder brother was unmarried, and a family treaty was made by virtue of which if his brother Ernest died without a son (which happened) the Duchies of Saxe Coburg and Gotha were to pass to Prince Albert's second son. Duke Ernest I. died in 1844 and was succeeded by his eldest son as Ernest II who married a Princess of Baden and died in 1893 leaving no issue, and on his death the Duchies passed to Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, second son of his brother Prince Albert by Queen Victoria. Prince Ferdinand, the second son of Duke Francis and uncle of Queen Victoria, who was born in 1785, married a daughter of Prince Francis of Kohary and died in 185 1, having had three sons and a daughter, through whom his descendants at the present day are very numerous. I do not propose to trace these descendants in detail, as to do so would take up much space and probably weary my readers. I shall therefore only name those of his descendants who have come prominently before the public. His eldest son, Ferdinand, who was I believe born in 1816, was married in 1836 to Queen Maria II. (da gloria), Queen of Portugal, whereupon he assumed ti e title of King Consort of Portugal. By this marriage he wa^ the father of King Louis of Portugal, who died in i8.'<9, the grandfather of King Carlos I. of Portugal, who was assassinated with his eldest son in 1908, and the great-grandfather of King Manoel II., who, having seen his father and brother massacred under his eyes, has recently been driven from his dominions. As 6; 2 History of the Royal Family of England. King Ferdinand was first cousin to Queen Victoria, his son and grandson, Kings Louis and Carlos I., were respectively second cousin to King Edward VII., and third cousin to King George V. of Great Britain. (See Table XXV.) Prince Augustus of Saxe Coburg, next brother to King Ferdinand of Portugal, who was born in 1818 and died in 18S1, was married in 1848 to Princess Clementine (who died in 1907), youngest daughter of Louis Phillippe King of the French, by whom with other children he had two sons who were second cousins to King Edward VII. Of these, the elder, Prince Philip, who is still living, was married in 1875 to his cousin Princess Louise of Belgium, daughter of King Leopold II., King of that country. This marriage proved very unhappy, and having been a source of great scandal in Europe for many years has recently been dissolved. There were issue of the marriage two children. Prince Ferdinand, younger brother of Prince Philip, was elected reigning Prince in 1887, and in 1908 was declared King of Bulgaria, and is now reigning Sovereign of Bulgaria. (See Table XXV.). Princess Victoria of Saxe Coburg, daughter of Prince Ferdinand of Saxe Coburg, and sister of the two Princes last mentioned, namely, King Ferdinand of Portugal and Prince Augustus, was born in 1822 and died in 1857. She was married in 1840 to the Due de Nemours, (who has recently died), second son of King Louis Phillippe, and she is the "cousin Victoria" frequently mentioned in "The Letters of Queen Victoria," and for whom the Queen seems to have felt a strong affection. Her portrait with the Queen in a picture called " the Cousins " by VVinterhalter, is one of the illustra- tions in that work. The Due and Duchesse de Nemours left several children. Leopold, the third son of Duke Francis of Saxe Coburg, was born in 1790 and died in 1865. He was married in 18 16 to Princess Charlotte of Wales, only daughter of King George TV , and after her death in the following year he continued to live in England (at Marlborough House and Claremont, \J U IT, < c on " o-s *• 1^ o - O « ,•* < ^; M SCi. <: a ^ i r ^ II H ^ ** c ^«4 w N W (40 W S^ s 2 U •"Is ajco o ^-^^ Coo ►^ 3 * - w §.= . ►H 3-- _Q 03 U! W be o MT3 l-X ^ "N OS , ui II & ^ s ^ O 00 ►J °>: O O -« o z M o u X >—, d ■'^ to < .3 a4 History of the Royal Family of England. 674 which were settled upon him on his marriage) till '8.3°. ^J^^ he was elected first King of the Belgians. He marr.cd as h second wife Princess Louise, eldest daughter of K.ng L^ms PhiliDoe by whom he had two sons Leopold and FhUip. The dder succeeded him as King Leopold II.. and d.ed I'hout male issue in .909. P^nce Philip, who bore the ftle : Count of Flanders, died in ,905 leaving an °n'y sonjho on the death of his uncle King Leopold II. succeeded to the Belgian Throne as King Albert L He was second cousm to KinjT Edward VII. (See Table XXV.) ^'"fr^iss Sophia of Saxe Coburg. the eldest daughter of Duke Francis and sister of the Duchess of K-t^d-d " .835^ She married Emmanuel Count von Mensdorff-I ou.Uy _ and had several sons with whose rather numerous descendants fthough with patience they can be traced through the pages of he A^manach de Gotha) I do not think it necessary to trouble !nv readers Students of the Court Circular, however, will be To e ^b y famihar with the name of Mensdorff, though they mav not know how near is the relat.onsh.p between the members of that distinguished family and the Royal fam.ly of Great Britain. a- a \r^ iR-?.! Princess Antoinette of Saxe Coburg, who d.ed n 1824 married Duke Alexander of Wurtemburg (who died •" '833), Tnd "ad a son also Duke Alexander of Wurtemburg w^J^^^^^ in 1 88 1 The second of the above named Dukes Alexander of Wurtemburg married P-cess Marie, second of the ^hre daughters of Louis Philippe, King of the French The eldest I'-of this marriage, Duke Philip of Wurtemburg. .s now living and has many descendants. (See Table XX V) I'have already said that in addition to the Royal hne of Wurtemburg. of which the head is the present Kmg and wh" h wSl probably become extinct in the male hne on h.s lath there are several " ducal lines." The present Duke of Teck is the representative of the senior of these hnes. but as the marriage of his grandfather was 'n°'-f -^.c he .s not .n the succession to the Throne. The third a.id fourth ducal ines •• have also failed, one by extinction of male .ssue and Queen Victorias Relatives. 675 one by reason of a morganatic marriage, and consequently Duke Philip of Wurtemburg, who is the grandson of Queen Victoria's aunt Antoinette, and consequently was second cousin to King Edward VII., will probably succeed to the Crown of Wurtembure. Princess Juliana of Saxe Coburg married the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, from whom she was separated, and she died without issue in i860. It will be seen from the above that the recently deposed King of Portugal and the actually reigning Sovereigns of Belgium and Bulgaria, and the heir presumptive to the Throne ot Wurtemburg. are related in blood to King George V. both through his grandfather Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria, and through that Queen's mother, the Duchess of Kent. It may be worth noting that of the three daui^^hters of King Louis Philippe of France (whose great-grandson the present Duke of (Orleans is recognised as the heir to the ancient Royal family of France) one, Princess Louise, married Queen Victoria's uncle King Leopold I. of Belgium, and the other two Princesses, Marie and Clementine, married her first cousins, Duke Alexander of Wurtemburg and Prince Augustus of Saxe Coburg, and the King's second son, the Due de Nemours, married the Queen's cousin, Princess Victoria of Saxe Coburg. (See Table XXV.) The Duchess of Kent prior to her marriage with the Duke had been married to Emich Charles Prince of Leining^en, and had two children by him, Charles and Feodore, afterwards Princess of Hohenlohe-Langenburg. The families of Leiningen and Hohenlohe-Langenburg are extremely ancient and were originally among the reigning families of Europe, but ha\e long since been "mediatized." Prince Charles, who on his father's death succeeded to his titles and estates, was born m 1N04, and was therefore nearly fifteen years older than his half-sister Queen Victoria. He was married in 1829 to Maria Countess de Klebelsburg 676 mstory of the Royal Famifyj>fjingland^ T"V'^ 'X^'e^e ir; E:n:sr;ho Succeeded to h. faS:- J^w^'Sn . .S30 and^d in .^. He earned a Princess of Baden who d.ed '" '«99' jf he ^^ and has a numerous family. ,..,„_ Queen Victoria's The i'rincess Feodore of '-^'""IS^n: y"^^" ^^ ,,^, half-sister, was born in .807 --\^;f^Xll^^^^Z^,rg, • J • tC-78 tn Frnest Prince ot Honenionc i^aw^ & "'"!,.'• ML TheTl ad four children. Charles. Hermann, v"': Id Addaide The eldest son, Charles, who diea m r; mal a motanatic marriage, and ^Hereupon .nounced hfrights -J'^'i^-^i^^'f^rd J ami -s born in Hermann, who .'^^^^ ^e head ol ^>^^ ^ ^^^^^^^^ f ^^, "Hrlldest"^ sorE™°h, ^ho is hereditary Prince, fam.ly. "'^ ^^^^^^J^„ victoria's granddaughter Pnncess married in ibQO yueen ^^J!,„h ^on the late Duke Alexandra, third daughter of her ^«=°"^ °"^^fj,, .^ildren. Alfred of Saxe-Cobourg Gotha, ^^^^[J^^l^^^^ ^e was. Prince Victor, the third -j^' --^^^^^.'^ ,f Ts's. Miss Laura I believe, naturalised. He "'^'."^j, gj^ George Seymour, Seymour, youngest daughter oj Admiral S'r <^eo^ y of the family of the Marquis of Hertford. This m^^^ J^^,^^^^ regarded as --8=^"=^*"^ .^y^u^r of Count Gleichen. one of and the ^""- -^s^J^ ^^er that name gained great 5rstSS^n\Tnc:ipS;V\^ritiirofrart T"^ "7^ ir:^^ "Uh SSraffectio. he Queen 7 ''^'°"^; ^J° ^°' victor of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, aThis ^^'ra^e^d his -le with Him.n-^^^^^^^^^^^^ Queen Victorian Relatives. 677 «P son and several daughters, who under the titles of Count and Countesses Gleichen are well known members of London society. As the grandchildren of Queen Victoria's half sister they are second cousins to King George V., and they are also, as will be shown later, first cousins to the reigning German Empress. Princess Adelaide of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, only daughter of Queen Victoria's half sister Feodore and sister of the three Princes above mentioned, died in 1900, and was married in 1856 to Prince Frederic of Schleswick Holstein, who died in 1880. The Duchies of Schleswick and Holstein are chiefly known to Englishmen as having been the bone of contention of the great European war of the "sixties" — a war which convulsed most of the European States, and involved the most complicated questions of succession — questions so complicated that it was once said only one person in the world fully understood them, and that he went mad from the effort of studying them. I may add that the genealogy of the " Maison de Holstein " {vide " Almanach de Gotha ") and its numerous branches is almost as complicated. It is sufficient for my purpose to say that at one time a Prince Frederic of Schleswick Holstein (not the husband of Princess Adelaide), who then bore the title of Duke of Augustenburg, was put forward as a claimant to the Danish Crown, which subsequently by the Treaty of London in 1852 was settled on Prince Christian of Schleswick Holstein Sondenburg Gluckstein, who became King Christian IX. This Duke of Augustenburg afterwards in 1 864 renounced his " name and rights," and assumed the title of Count de Noer. He was the son of Duke Frederic Christian, who died in 18 14, by the Princess Louise of Denmark, whose mother was Caroline Matilda, sister of King George HI., and he was consequently second cousin to Queen Victoria (see ante\ He died in 1865, but on the renunciation of his rights, the Duke Frederic, who married Princess Adelaide of Hohenlohe Langeiiburg, became the head of the family of Schleswick Holstein Sondenburg Augustenburg, and I think assumed the title of Duke ^.^'SS^I^ 678 History^of^h^Royal_Fa^^^ K „ There was issue of his marriage with Princess Augustenburg. 1 here was ibbu Ernest Adelaide one son and four daughters _ Jfj^ ^^^^ Gonthierwas in .885 formally recognised by P™^^ ^ ^f .^^^^^ ^. ^ 1 1 1 Hr^lctein He was married in I59^ ^" ^ "^^ , of Schleswick Holstem. ne wct Coburd elder ,.,rothy a daughter of PHncePh.hp of S^ brother of the K.ng of Bulgana by ^^.^^,^ ^^^^ ^.^^^^^_ but has no child. Of l^"''^ '.T^. ... ^resent German the eldest Princess Augusta Victoria, .s the P'^^'^"/ the eldest, ^j^^^ ^j^g p^g3g„t German Empress. IwUlthu ^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^p^^^. Emperor William ll.isthroug ^^^^ ^.^ ^.^^ ^^^^ Frederic, grandson ot yueen v , Princess Empress is the granddaughter, ^h- J ^e ^oth ■ F ^^^^ Adelaide of Hohenlohe L-f^ti,g;n a "consequently the sister Princess Peodore ^' ^e ""^f^"^^^,^ carman Empress German Emperor is first .'-»"^'" ^"'' ;" y .gee Table second cousin to His Majesty King George V. ^ ^^^'•'' u . AA that Prince Christian of Schleswick :--t-oS-s^^^^^^^^^^ believe, heir presumptive to hi Utls^^ had nine children. Q en V.c^ a and he^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ . 3^^ "T^^ -^ -1^ K^' She was married in .858 to Prince r'/'^VViUiam" of Prussia, who ultimately became the f rederic William o' J^ ' ^^om she became the German Emperor ^'^deric 111 y ^^.^^.^^ ,j ^^^ mother of the present German tmp ^ ^ Edward, who was borriinj84.,and be ameK,^^ ^^^ ^^^ and died in .910. 3) f]'-'':J'^l2^ ^Vo afterwards became in .878. .She-arried Pr.nce Lo«^ wlo^^^^^^^^^^^ ^'^r '"^^ *e -other of the pre.sent Grand Duke whom bhe becanie ^^ Edinburgh, who was born Ernest Louis (4 Alfred ^ ^^^^j „„,,,_ Ernest I J., in 1844. and on the ^^ath ot n I ^ ^^^^^ succeeded him as reigning Duke ^[^^^ [^^ ^^l^^^^ ^ho was He died without male issue in 1900. Kh) X X ILI _l QQ < I- d Gotha 1900. Q=-^ < «g 05 2z i.S • < ^° "^ P^ «'2 sac oi S c 1" 1!^ - NH •^ - P» W Z>i Ed f— ^ M N-^ t) > . Q > % cx> ^ 2 Pi CQ Q — W ^5 u 1 Wo S5 UJ 0) ^,^ X 3 C' < 11 0) < fc^ 1-^ Oi " • £fd - 00 lis ^ - : > II 5|r D II CO z < Q ^S ^ c'S-^ a: I— ^j Kit •C^ c e" < i»6 J=00 " II M.2 • <:-^ . » Oj3 1 'rT V— ' c aa £J II ^ Q'2 1 ohenlohe- IDRA OK Gotha, . z g ^X kV < Q W"«j <: J H^E?x9 . ^ (i) Herm rince of Hohenlohe- 1 Ernes lereditary Prince Langenbu = Pkincrss Ale Saxk-Cobukg a and has issue. 68o History of the Royal Family of England. Qtieen Victorias Children, 68 1 .orn in .846, and is .a.ied ^^T^StS. ^It anTJho Holstein above mentioned. (6) Louise, born m 14 - ,s married to the present Duke of Argyll. (7) A^;^"^;°f;, of Connaught. who was born in 1850 and who on the death o his brother Alfred renounced for h^mse f and^ h.s^^son th ^ succession to the Duchy of Saxe Cobur^ ,o,,anddied in Prinze Hen'ry of Battenburg. The history of the sons and ^r,?.hters of Oueen Victoria is too well known to be spoken o £ Sut 1 Sd hardly say that they have aH deserved -d obtained great popularity, and exercised .reand beneficent influence by their gracious manners and "" ""f '"^^ ^^^ all charitable and philanthropic works It is p oper to say here however that the marriages of these I rinces ana Pr nces^es a^d in particular of the four sons -d ^^ ^Ul « daughters of Queen Victoria, have greatly ^-^^"dedfe family rnnnection of the British Royal Family. In 1863 the late KTng Edward, then Prince of Wales, married Princes A exandra of Denmark, a lady who may be said to have feme seen and conquered the British Nation almost with a Zee and who happily still lives as the Queen mothen glance, ctuu v> ^^ J , V shown is descended Princess Alexandra, who, as has f ^" f^^'J" , . ^^^^ r v:\r.cs George II through his daughter Mary from King ueorge ii. «^" b vYlV^ u/a«; the T and^ravine of Hesse-Cassel (see Table XXIV.), was the Landgravine oi x rhrUtian IX of Denmark and eldest daughter ^Lf^^l^^^'^^^,,, Denmark (whose is the sister of King tiederic viii. u second son, Prince Charles, was in .^OS f ? . ^o'^th:! Norway and -^ re.g.,s - Km^jJ-J^ , ,,, dowager ErpSolRtsiTcrhe^moihi of the signing Emperor Nicholas II.), and of the Duchess of Cumberland. Duke Alfred of Saxe Coburg and Gotha was married m 1874 to the Grand Duchess Marie of Russia, only daughter of the Emperor Alexander II. and aunt of the now reigning Emperor Nicholas II., a lady who still lives. The Duke of Connaught married in 1879 Princess Louise Margaret of Prussia, a daughter of the late Prince Frederic Charles of Prussia, who was first cousin to the late Emperor P'rederic III., and who as the " Red Prince " was known as one of the most distinguished generals of the Franco-Prussian War ; and the late Duke of Albany was married in 1882 to Princess Helene of Waldeck and Pyrmont, a lady whose early widowhood enlisted the sympathy, and whose genial and kindly devotion to good works has won for her the great love and esteem, of all her husband's countrymen. The Duchess of Albany is the sister of the reigning Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont and of Queen Emma of the Netherlands, the mother of the reigning Que^n Wilhelmina. At the present time the grandchildren of Queen Victoria include His present Majesty King George V. and his sister the Queen of Norway, wife of King Haakon VII. (children of the late King Edward VII.), the Crown Princess of Roumania, (eldest daughter of the late Duke Alfred of Saxe Coburg and Gotha), the Crown Princess of Sweden (eldest daughter of the Duke of Connaught), the reigning Duke Charles Edward of Saxe Coburg and Gotha (son of the late Duke of Albany), the German Emperor William II., and his sister the Crown Princess of Greece (children of the late Empress Frederic, Princess Royal of Great Britain), the reigning Grand Duke of Hesse Darmstadt and his sister the Empress of Russia (children of the late Princess Alice), and the Queen of Spain, daughter of Princess Beatrice. I have now finished this work. It has been objected by some of my friends that I have given no authorities for my statements, and this is to a great extent true ; but I think the objectors do not realise how very limited has been the avowed scope of my work. For the dates, which are the bones of all history, I have relied on those very valuable and learned, but not very recondite, works 682 History of the Royal Family of England. Conclusion, 683 " Burke's Peerage," " Burke's Extinct Peerage," the *' Almanach de Gotha," " Richard Doyle's Official Baronage of England,"^ and Mr. Courthope's revised edition of Sir Harris Nicholas' " Historic Peerage of England." I have endeavoured not to state, as a fact, anything about an\ body which is not generally admitted to be true, or at all events is not to be found in one or other of the popular works of history which are not only in every library, but, and this is more to the purpose, in every circulating library in the king- dom. I believe that I have mentioned in the text most if not all the books upon which I have relied, but I may say once again that in treating of Queens and Princesses I have been enormously indebted to the series of lives published by Miss Strickland, " Queens of England," '■ Queens of Scotland and English Princesses," and "Tudor Princesses," and to Mrs. Everett Green's " Lives of English Princesses," and that I have been indebted, though to a very much smaller extent, to Dr. Doran's " Queens of England of the House of Hanover." It is, however, right to say that in drawing the general conclusions at which I have arrived about the characters of particular persons, I have done so rather as the result of miscellaneous reading, extending over many years, than upon the authority of any book or books in particular. In beginning this book I disclaimed all originality, and I said, and I now repeat, that I had not and did not intend to make any examination of original documents or anything like profound or learned research. All I have attempted to do is to give to general readers some rough and ready account of the members of the English Royal family from the time of the Conquest, leaving my readers to fill in for themselves the details out of other works ; and if in some cases, indeed in most, I have offered my personal views about the people of whom 1 have written, I have not done so from any wish to force my own views upon any one. If in stating my own views I have said anything to wound any one's susceptibilities I am very sorry ; and I should be especially sorry if in speaking of the failings of the illustrious dead I have caused any pain to their living descendants. It is one of the many penalties of high position in the world that the personal history and characters of great personages, and of their ancestors and relations, must of necessity be subjected to observation and comment which they would escape if those personages were not distinguished ; but in dealing with recent Sovereigns and their families, 1 have endeavoured to steer between the risk of giving offence by speaking truths which would give pain, and the risk of appear- ing to be a flatterer by concealing or slurring over facts too well known to be ignored. I will conclude by asking the indulgence of my readers for the many errors which I am sure there must be in a work purporting to give the history of many hundreds of persons whose lives, taken altogether, have extended over more than eight centuries. Finis. GENEALOGICAL TABLES. TABLE PAGE •W ■■.-.- TABLE PAGE I. ... vol. i. 15 XIV. . vol. i. 343 II. 19 XV. » 362 III. 109 XVI. vol. ii. 549 IV. 115 XVII. » 551 V. „ 120 XVI 11. " 553 VI. 135 XIX. n 565 vn. „ 163 XX. 567 VIII. 171 XXI. 607 IX. 181 XXII. 611 X. „. 187 XXIII. 617 XI. V 205 XXIV. 625 Xll. „ 245 XXV. , 673 XIII. 299 XXVI. „ 679 INDEX TO PRINCIPAL PERSONS REFERRED TO. Adela Countess of Blois, daughter of William the Conquerer. vol. i., 33) 36, 37- Adelaide, sister of William the Conqueror, vol. 1., 20. Adelaide of Saxe Meiningen, Queen, wife of William IV., vol. n., 657, 658- Adelaide of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Duchess of Schleswick-Holstem vol. ii., 677,678. Adelais of Lorraine, Queen, second wife of Henry I., vol. i., 45» 40, 55- Adelais, Queen, third wife of Louis VI I. of France, vol. 1., 46. Albany, John Stuart, Duke of, vol. ii., 380. Albany, natural daughter of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, titular Duchess of, vol. ii., 537- , x^j .0 Albany, Louisa of Stolberg Gedern, wife of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, titular Countess of. (See Loutsa.) Albany, Leopold, Duke of, son of Queen Victoria, vol. ii , 678, 680. Albemarle, Arnold von Keppel, Earl of, vol. ii. 514- Albemarle, Earls of, vol. i., 20. -^ ■ ^ Albert of Saxe-Coburg, Prince, husband of Queen Victoria, vol. 11., 670. Alexander L, King of Scotland, vol. i., U- Alexander II., King of Scotland, vol. i., 92, 93> 105-107. Alexander III., King of Scotland, vol. i., 93. Alexander II., Pope, vol. i., 22. Alexander III., Pope, vol. i., 61. . Alexandraof Denmark, Queen, wife of King Edward VII., vol. 11., 623, 680. Alfred the Great, King, vol. i., 23. , ■• ^ ^ o /lq Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg, son of Queen Victoria, vol. 11., 671, 678, 680. Alice of France, daughter of Louis VII., vol. i., 70, 7 1- Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse Darmstadt, daughter of Queen Victoria, vol. ii., 678. Alphonso XIII., King of Spain, vol. ii., 550, 552. Amelia Princess, daughter of George II., vol. ii., 614-617. Amelia Princess, daughter of George III., vol. ii., 644, 648, 649. Anjou, Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of. (See Geoffrey.) Anjou, Counts of, vol. i., 51. Angus, Archibald Douglas, Earl of, vol. ii., 381-383, 385, 39o. 686 Index to principal Persons referrea to. 687 Anne of Bohemia, Queen, first wife of Richard II., vol. i,, 157, 158. Anne Mortimer, Countess of Cambridge. (See Mortimers^ Anne Plantagenet, Duchess of Exeter, sister of Edward IV., vol. i., 239, 240. Anne, Princess (Lady Thomas Howard), daughter of Edward IV., vol. i., 277, 278. Anne, Neville, Queen, wife of Richard III., vol. i., 234, 262-264. Anne Boleyn, Queen, second wife of Henry VIII., vol. i., 298-305. Anne of Cleves, Queen, fourth wife of Henry VIII., vol. i., 307-311. Anne of Denmark, Queen, wife of James I., vol. ii., 434-439. Anne Hyde, Duchess of York, vol. ii., 497-499. Anne of Austria, Queen, wife of Louis XIII., vol. ii., 451-540. Anne, Queen of England, vol. ii., 515-523. Anne of Orleans, Queen of Sardinia, vol. ii., 544, 545 ; her descendants, vol. ii., 547-552. Anne de Gonzague, Princess Palatine, vol. ii., 575-576. Anne, Princess of Orange, daughter of George II., vol. ii., 612-614. Anselm, St., Archbishop of Canterbury, vol. i., 36. Aquitaine, William IV., Duke of, vol. i., 65, 66. Arabella Stuart, Countess of Hertford, vol, ii., 396-398. Aragon, Kings of, vol. i., J 23, 124, 286, 289. Arlotta, mother of William the Conqueror, vol. i., 18. Arthur, Prince, Duke of Brittany, vol. i., 81, 82. Arthur of Brittany, Prince, Constable of France, vol. i., 217. Arthur, Prince of Wales, son of Henry VII., vol. i., 286-288. Arundel, William de Albini, Earl of, vol. i., 46. Arundel, Philip Howard, Earl of. (See Howards.) Arundel, Earls of, vol. i , 46, 160. Augusta of Saxe Gotha, Princess of Wales, mother of George III., vol. ii., 628, 629. Augusta, Duchess of Brunswick, sister of George III., vol. ii., 630-632. Augusta of Brunswick, Duchess of Wurteniburg, vol. ii , 645, 646. Augusta, Princess, daughter of George III., vol. ii., 647. Augusta of Hesse Cassel, Duchess of Cambridge, vol. ii., 668. Augusta of Cambridge, Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg Strelitz, vol. ii., 668, 669. Baliols, The (Claimants to the Throne of Scotland), vol. i., 107. Barlow, Lucy, vol. ii., 470, 480. Battenburg, Princes of, vol. ii., 640, 667. Bavaria, Mary, Princess Louis of, vol. ii., 546-548. Beaton, Cardinal, vol. ii., 401. Beatrice, Princess of Brittany (daughter of Henry III.), vol. i., 108-110. Beatrice de Falquemont, Countess of Cornwall, vol. i., 100. « 688 Index to principal Persons referred to. Index to principal Persons referred to. 689 Beatrice (Princess Henry of Battenburg), daughter of Queen Victoria, Beau^n^Henry, Cardinal, Bishop of Winchester. (See Winchester, Beauforts, The, vol. i., 204-209- . Beaufort, The Somersets, Dukes of, vol 1., 209. Becket St. Thomas-a-, Archbishop of Canterbury, vol. 1., 57, »o. Bedford, John Plantagenet Duke of, vol. 1., 219-222. Bedford, Jasper Tudor, Earl of. (See Pembroke) Beren-aria, Queen of Leon and Castile. (See Castile) Be enSaria of Navarre, Queen, wife of Richard I., vol. , 76, 86 87. le" Duchess de, daughter of the Regent Duke of Orleans, vol. n., 564. " Bess of Hardwick," Countess of Shrewsbury, vol. n., 392. 393- Berwick, James Fitz- James, Duke of, vol. 11., 503, 304, 53 1- Blanche of Castille, Queen of France, vol. 1., 74, 75- Blanche of Artois (Queen of Navarre), Countess of Lancaster, vol. .., 112, 113. BLANCHE PLANTAGENET, Duchess of Lancaster, vol. i., 112, 196. Blanche Plantagenet, Queen of Castile. f^'^^^'f'\,. . ^^^ Blanche. Princess of Bavaria, daughter of Henry IV., vol. ... 218, 219. Blois, Counts of, vol. i., 36, 37, 49- Blois. Henry de. Bishop of Winchester. (See Wtnchester.) Blois, William de, son of King Stephen, vol. k, 56, 59- Boleyns, The, vol. i., 298, 30c. Bossuet, Bishop, vol. ii., 541, 574- Bothwell, James Hepburn, Earl of, vol. n., 410, 416-41^. Boulogne, Counts of, vol. i., 52, 61, 62. Bourgigne, Princess of Cyprus, vol. l, 76, 11- Brabant, Dukes of, vol. i., 130, ^l^- Brittany, Dukes of, vol. i., 35, 108-110, 173, i74, 2i7- Brittany, Prince John of, vol. i., 1 10. Bristol,Earlsof, vol. ii., 444,617, 618. , ,, , • ,„., Bruces, The (claimants to the Throne of Scotland), vol. k, 107. Brunswick Luneburg, Dukes of, vol. ii., 578- Brunswick Wolfenbuttel, Dukes of, vol. 11., 578, 630-632. Buckingham, The Staflfords, Dukes of, vol. 1 , 177-179. Buckingham, George Villiers, Duke of, vol. 11., 433, 434, 44:>-445- Burgundy, Dukes of, vol. i., 221, 244. Burgh, Hubert de, Earl of Kent, vol. i., 8l Burleigh, William Cecil, Lord, vol. i., 354 ; vol. n., 426. Bute, John Stuart, Earl of, vol. ii., 629. CAMBRIDGE, Richard Plantagenet, Earl of, vol. i., 192, I93- Cambridge, Adolphus Duke of (son of George HL), vol. n., 667, 668. Cambridge, George Duke of, vol. li., 668. Campeggio, Cardinal, vol. i., 295. Canute, King of England, vol. i., 4, 5. Carey, Mary Boleyn, Lady. (See The Boleyns.) Caroline of Anspach, Queen, wife of George IL, vol. ii., 609, 610. Caroline, Princess, daughter of George IL, vol. ii., 617, 618. Caroline Matilda Queen of Denmark, sister of George III., vol. ii., 632-635. Caroline of Brunswick, Queen, wife of George IV., vol ii., 650-654. Castile, Kings of, vol. i., 34, 73-75, 153, 154, 173, 195, 199,286. Cerdic, Founder of Kingdom of West Saxons, vol. i., 3, 6. Chambord Henri, Comte de, vol. ii., 550. Charles I., vol. ii., 441-449. Charles II., vol. ii., 464-472. Charles IV., King of France, vol. i., 113, 158. Charles VI., King of France, vol. i., 229. Charles the Bad, King of Navarre, vol. i., 214, 215. Charles V., German Emperor, vol. i., 343. Charles II., King of Spain, vol. ii., 543. Charles Edward Stuart, Prince, vol. ii., 530-537. Charles Louis, Elector Palatine, vol. ii., 559-561. Charlotte of Hesse Cassel, Electress Palatine, vol. ii., 560, 56L Charlotte of Mecklenburg Strelitz, Queen, wife of George III., vol. ii., 640-643. Charlotte Queen of Wurtemburg, daughter of George III., vol. ii., 643-645. Charlotte of Wales, Princess, daughter of George IV., vol. ii.. 654. Chastelar, The Poet, vol. ii., 410. Chester, Earls of, vol. i., 27, 31, 37, 81. Christina, Abbess of Romsey, vol. i., 11, 14, 43, 44. Churchhill, Arabella, vol. ii., 303. Cicely, Abbess of Caen, daughter of William the Conqueror, vol. i., Z% 35- Cicely Neville, Duchess of York, vol. i., 237, 238. Cicely, Princess (Vicountess Welles), daughter of Edward IV., vol. i., 277. Clarence, Lionel Plantagenet (son of Edward III.), Duke of, vol. i., 179, 180. Clarence, Thomas Plantagenet (son of Henry IV.), Duke of, vol. i., 219. Clarence, George Plantagenet (brother of Edward IV.), Duke of, vol. i., 247, 248. Clarendon, Edward Hyde, Earl of, vol. ii., 495, 496. Clares, The de Earls of Gloucester. (See Gloucester.) Clement XII., Pope, vol. i., 293. 2 X 690 / ndex to principal Persons referred to. \ Clementina Sobieski, Princess, wife of Prince James Stuart, vol. ii., Cleveland,' "aTbara Villiers, Duchess of, vol. ii., 474, 48°, 48., 48.. Clifford, Rosamond, vol. i., 69. cfnnLlht, Arthu'r (son of Queen Victoria), Dul.365. breaerc i v Emperor, vol. i., 93, 94- ';"f" 11 GeTman Em'pero'r, vol. ii.. 609, 678. 'FredSc Ki^ng Tf Pruss.l vol. ii,, S89^59.. Fredenc, William ., Kmg o ^^^ ..^ ^^^ Frederic, WUham "., Kmg^^^ ^^^^ ^,„„,.,.) rdS VI.,";::^ng o^-nmarU. (See^~^^^^^ ,„, ,, ,,,,,,. I Frederica of Prussia, Duchess of York, vol. ii., 655, 656. Frederica of Mecklenburg Strelitz, Queen of Hanover, vol. ii., 660, 661. Gardiner, Stephen, Bishop of Winchester. (See IVinchester.) Gascoigne, Chief Justice, vol. i., 227. Gaveston, Piers, Earl of Cornwall, vol. i., 114. Geoflfrey Plantagenet, father of Henry II., vol. i., 51-56. Geoffrey Plantagenet, brother of Henry II., vol.i., 50, 58. Geoffrey Plantagenet, Duke of Brittany, son of Henry II., vol. 1., 65, 7 1' 81. Geoffrey, Archbishop of York, natural son of Henry II., vol. 1., 70. George Neville, Archbishop of York. iSt^ Nevilles.) George of Denmark, Prince, husband of Queen Anne, vol. 11., 5I7-5I9- George I., King, vol. ii., 592-606. George II., King, vol. ii., 592-597. George III., King, vol. ii., 640-643. George IV., King., vol. ii., 650-654. George V., King, vol. ii., 681. George V., King of Hanover. (See Cumberland.) Gerbod, Hereditary Advocate of St. Bertin's, vol. i., 27. Glendower, Owen, vol. i., 183. Gloucester, Robert, Earl of, natural son of Henry I., vol. 1., 49, 5o> 53-50. Gloucester, Earls of, vol. i., 87, 88, 125-128. Gloucester, Thomas Plantagenet, Duke of (son of Edward III.), vol. 1., Gloucester, Humphrey Plantagenet, Duke of (son of Henry IV.;, vol. .., 222-226. Q Gloucester, Henry Stuart, Duke of (son of Charles I.), vol. 11., 45». 459- Gloucester, William, Duke of (son of Queen Anne), vol. 11., 522, 523- Gloucester, William, Duke of, brother of George III., vol. 11., 636, 640. Gloucester, William, Duke of, nephew of George III., vol. 11., 64b. Gowrie, The Ruthvens, Earls of, vol. ii., 427, 438- Greece, Sophia, Crown Princess of, vol. ii., 681. Greys, The Marquises of Dorset, vol. i., 259, 260, 362. Greys, de. The, Earls of Kent, vol. i., 165. Greys de Ruthyn, The Lords, vol. i., 165. Guelderland, Dukes of, vol. i., i45> H6. Gundreda Countess of Surrey, vol. i., 27-3 1; Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, vol. ii., 558- Gwynne, Nell, vol. ii., 482, 483- Hanover, John, Duke of, vol. ii., 580, 581- .. Hanover, Ernest Augustus, Duke and Elector of, vol. n., 579-584- Hanover, Dukes and Kings of. (See Cumberland.) I 1 1 694 Index to principal Persons referred to. Index to principal Persons referred to. 695 Harold I., King, vol. i., 4- Harold II., King, vol. i., 5, »> 22, 33, 34, 47- Hardicanute, King, vol. i., 4- Hastings, The (Claimants to the Throne of Scotland), vol. i., 107. Hawise of Gloucester, first wife of King John. (See Gloucester.) Helena, Princess, daughter of Queen Victoria, vol. ii., 678. Helene of Waldeck, Duchess of Albany, vol. ii., 681. Henrietta of France, Queen, wife of Charles I., vol. ii., 446, 455- Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, daughter of Charles I., vol. ii., 539-543- Henrietta, Princess Palatine, Princess of Transylvania, vol. ii., 576. Henry I., King, vol. i., 11, 33, 39, 40, 43-46, 48. Henry II., King, vol. i., 56-71. Henry III., King, vol. i., 91, 95-99- Henry IV., King, vol. i., 210-213. Henry V., King, vol. i., 64, 226-229. Henry VI., King, vol. i., 230, 231. Henry VII., King, vol. i., 242, 243, 270-275- Henry VIII., King, vol. i., 282-323. Henry I., King of France, vol. i., 23. Henry IV., King of France, vol. ii., 449, 45o- Henry II., St., German Emperor, vol. i., 7- Henry V., (ierman Emperor, vol. i., 49, 50- Henry I., King of Castile. (See Castile.) Henry II., King of Castile. (See Castile.) Henry, Prince, son of Henry II., vol. i., 65, 70, 7', 79-8 1- Henry (of Almaine) Plantagenet, nephew of Henry III., vol. i., loi. Henry (The Navigator) of Portugal, Prince, vol. i., 198- Henry, Prince of Wales, son of James I., vol. ii., 44°, 44i- Henry'stuart, Prince and Cardinal, titular Duke of York, vol. ii., 537, 538- Hereford, The Bohuns, Earls of, vol. i., 133- Hertford, The Seymours, Earls of (See Seymours.) Herveys, The Earls of Bristol. (See Bristol.) Hesse Cassel, Landgraves and Princes of, vol. ii., 621-623. Hesse Homburg, Landgraves of, vol. ii., 647, 648. Hohenlohe Langenburg, Princes of, vol. ii., 675-678. Holland, Earls of, vol. i., 132, i33- Holland, Kings of, vol. ii., 614. Holland, Wilhelmina, Queen of, vol. ii., 614. Hollands, The, vol. i., 160-167, I99, 200. " Hotspur," Henry Percy. (See Northumberland.) Howards, The, Dukes of Norfolk. (See Norfolk.) Howard, Lord Edmund, vol. i., 312. Howard, Lord Thomas, vol. ii., 385, 386. Hunsdcn, William Carey, Lord. (See Boleyns.) Huntingdon, David, Earl of, brother of William the Lion of Scotland, vol. i., p- 21. 78- Huntingdon, The Hastings, Earls of, vol. i., 253- Isaac, Emperor of Cyprus, vol. i., 76. Isabella of Angouleme, Queen, v»ife of King John, vol. 1., 88-90. Isabllla, Gernfan Empress, daughter of King John, vol. -., 9', 93, 94- Isabella Marshall, Countess of Cornwall, vol. .., 100. Isabella of France, Queen, wife of Edward II. vol. ., .42, 43- Isabella of France, Queen, second w.fe °f '^J,^,'^"^; ,' "^ol'i .68-r7o. Isabella, Countess of Bedford, daughter of Edward III., vol. .., .68 r7o lsabellaofCastile,DuchessofYork,vol..., 190, '9'- Isabella Neville, Duchess of Clarence, vol. ,.247. Isabella the Great, Queen of Cast.le. (See M^ Inverness, Cecilia, Duchess of, vol. ..., 665, 666. I ACOUELINE of Holland, Duchess of Gloucester, vol. i., 222-224. Jacqueua of Luxen,burg, Duchess of Bedford, vol. ... 22,, 222. James I., King, vol. n., 424-439- lames II., King, vol. ii., 485-505- James I., King of Scotland, vol. ..,213, 229. James II., King of Scotland vol n., 404- lames IIL, King of Scotland, vol. n., 435, 43^- Tames IV King of Scotland, vol. u., 379, 38o- iames V King of Scotland, vol. ii., 380, 383,399-404- James V , ^ ^ of James IL, vol. n., 525-530- re" e;rur,'Q:::^. third life of Henry VIII.. vol. i., 305-307. Joan;t Co:;ts of Gloucester, daughter of Edward 1„ vol. i., .2.,2, ; her descendants, vol. '•' J^^V'^- , jj ^^i i ,46-148. joan^rfrfncess, daughter of Edw.^^^^^^^^ ]zz rurt: ^QTen of s--^„(s;-it:^,3... oanna of Navarre, Queen -f^l^^;^ of France, vol. i., 292. !rnrQ"r:V":::>" ;'r ^of ^.peror Char.es V.. vol. i., 2.. 243, 343- 696 Index to principal Persons referred to. Joan of Arc, vol. i., 220-222. John, King of England, vol. i., 65, 71, 83-89. John, King of France, vol. i., 169. Jordan, Mrs., vol. ii., 657. Judith, niece of William the Conqueror, vol. i., 21. fuliana of Brunswick, Queen of Denmark. (See Denmark.) Katharine Swynfokd, Duchess of Lancaster, vol. i., 196, 197. Katharine Plantagenet, Queen of Castile. (See Castile.) Katharine of France, Queen, wife of Henry V., vol. i., 229, 268. Katharine Woodville, Duchess of Buckingham. (See Woodvilles.) Katharine, Countess of Devon, daughter of Edward IV. (See Courtenays.) Katharine of Aragon, Queen, first wife of Henry VIII., vol. i., 286-297. Katharine Howard, Queen, fifth wife of Henry VIII , vol. i., 312-316. Katharine Parr, Queen, sixth wife of Henry VIII., vol. i., 317-323- Katharine Grey, Countess of Hertford, vol. i., 368-372. Katharine of Portugal, Queen, wife of Charles II., vol. ii., 472-477. Kendal Ermengarda, Duchess of, vol. ii., 600, 601, 606. Kent, Earls of, vol. i., 138. (See Hollands.) Kent, Edmund Plantagenet, Earl of, son of Edward I., vol. i., 138, 139. Kent, Edward, Duke of, son of George III., vol. ii., 658-659. Keyes, Thomas, vol. ii., 375-377. Konigsmarck von Count Philip, vol. ii., 597-599- Lancaster, Edmund Plantagenet, Earl of, son of Henry III., vol. i, 111-113. Lancaster, Thomas Plantagenet, Earl of, vol. i., 1 13-1 16. Lancaster, Henry Plantagenet, Earl of, vol. i., 1 16-118. Lancaster, Henry Plantagenet, Duke of, vol. i., 118-119. Lancaster, John (of Gaunt) Plantagenet, Duke of, son of PLdward III-, vol. i., 194-197. Lancaster, Duchy of, vol. i., 213. Lanfrance, Archbishop of Canterbury, vol. i., 22-25. Latimer, John Neville, Lord, vol. i., 318-319. Lauzun, Due de, vol. ii., 452. Leicester, Simon de Montfort, Earl of (See The l)e Montforts.) Leicester, Robert Dudley, Earl of, vol. i., 356-393 ; vol. ii., 412, 421. Leiningen, Princes of, vol. ii., 675-678. Leo. IX., St., Pope, vol. i., 24. Leopold I., King of the Belgians, vol. ii., 654. Lennox, Matthew Stuart, Earl of, vol. ii., 389-392, 427. Lennox, The Stuarts, Earls and Dukes of, vol. ii., 395-396- Lincoln, Henry de Laci, Earl of, vol. i., 70, 113. Index to principal Persons referred to. 697 Lincoln, John de la Pole, Earl of. (See The de la Poles.) Louis VI., King of France, vol. i., 41, 65, 66. Louis VII., King of France, vol. i., 65-69, 81. Louis VIII., King of France, vol. i., 74. Louis IX., St., King of France, vol. i., 75. Louis X., King of France, vol. i., 1 13. Louis XL, King of France, vol. i., 220, 222, 244. Louis XII., King of France, vol. i., 359. Louis XIII., King of France, vol. ii., 445. Louis XIV., King of France, vol. ii., 493, 494, 54^- 54', 563- Louis Philippe, King of the French, vol. ii., 672-675. Louisa of Medonia Sidonia, Queen of Portugal, vol. ii., 472, 473. Louisa, Princess, daughter of James II., vol. ii., 523, 524. Louisa of Orleans, Queen of Spain, vol. ii., 543, 544- Louisa, Princess Palatine, Abbess of Maubusson, vol. ii., 573-575- Louisa of Stolberg Gedern, wife of Prince Charles Edward Stuari, vol. ii., 536, 537. Louisa, Queen of Denmark, daughter of George II., vol. ii., 623, 624. Louisa of Hesse Cassel, Queen of Denmark, vol. ii., 623. Louisa, Duchess of Argyle, daughter of Queen Victoria, vol. ii., 678. Louisa, Princess Royal, Duchess of Fife, daughter of King Edward VII., vol. ii., 639. Lusignans, The de, Counts de la Marche, vol. i., 88-91. Magdalene of France, Queen of Scotland, vol. ii., 402-404. Maintenon, Madame de, vol. ii., 524, 563, 651. Malcolm III., King of Scotland, vol. i., 9-14- Malmesbury, first Earl of, vol. ii., 630, 631. Manny, Sir Walter, vol. i., 136. March, The Mortimers, Earls of (See The Mortimers.) Margaret, St., Queen of Scotland, vol. i., p. 8-14. Margaret of France, daughter of Louis VII., vol. i., 69, 70, 80. Margaret of Provence, Queen of France, vol. i., 98. Margaret of Scotland, daughter of Henry III., vol. i. 104, 105 descendants, vol. i., 108, 109. Margaret of France, Queen, second wife of Edward I., vol. i., 122. Margaret, Duchess of Brabant, daughter of Edward I., vol. 1., 130, 131 Margaret Plantagenet, Duchess of Norfolk, vol. i., 136. Margaret, Countess of Pembroke, daughter of Edward III., vol. i., i74- Margaret (Queen of the North), Queen of Denmark. (See Denmark.) Margaret of Anjou, Queen, wife of Henry VI., vol. i., 225, 231-234- Margaret Plantagenet, Duchess of Burgundy, vol. i., 243, 244. Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond, vol. i., 270, 271, 273, 274- Margaret Plantagenet Countess of Salisbury, vol. i , 250, 253. '\ !■: her \ \ \ S" i I: 698 Index to princ ipal. Persons referred to. ^ Margaret, Qu«n of Scotland, daughte, of Henry VI ^ vol. ii., 379-384. Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lenno., vol. "..384-395. MarearetClifrord, Countess of Derby, vol. M., 377-379- M^^ILet of Connaugh,, Crown Princess of Sweden vol. ..., 68.. Maria (da Gloria) II., Queen of Portugal, vol. n., 671. ^r!: ^f sltc;S^"an1 S,' cl:.'; P^^l^ of Koutnanla, vol. .. Marv of Scotland, Countess of Boulogne, vol. i., 52- Mary, countess of Boulogne, daughter of King Stephen, vol ..., 58-68. Mary de Coucy, Queen of Scotland, vol. ... 93- Mary of Guelderland, Queen of Scotland, vol. .., 208 , vol. ..., 404- Mary, Princess, daughter of Edward I., vol. ...131. Mary, Duchess of Brittany, daughter of Edward III., ^"l' '• '", >74 Mary de Bohun. Countess of Derby, firs, w.fe of Henry IV., vol. .., 3,3, Mary'o?' Lorraine (Duchess of Longueville), Queen of Scotland, vol. i... MarrQ"een of Krance (Duchess of Suffolk), daughter of Henry VII., vol i., 356-362. Mary L, Queen of England, vol. i., 3^7, 338, 340-351- Mary, Queen of Scotland, vol. ii., 394, 407-423- Mary Grey, Lady, vol. ii., 375-377. At,a-ahl. Marv Princess of Orange, daughter of Charle. I .vol., '•-459 40 Ma7y'of Modena, Queen, second wife of James II., vol. .... 493-503. Mary of Cambridge, Duchess of Teck, vol. >. 668 ^9_ Mary of Teck. Queen, wife of King George V., vol n„ 623, 669. Marlborough, John Churchill, Dt.ke of, vol. .K 49- Marlborough, Sarah Jenn.ngs, Duchess of, vol. .... 5'9 5-' Marshalls, The. {^<^t Pembyoke^ Matildk'of Scotland, Queen first wife of HenryJ^., vol i., 43, 44- Matilda, Queen of Scotland, wife of Davidl., vol. 1., 21. M^t da German Empress, daughter of Henry I., vd- J. 44, 48-58. Matilda of Boulogne, Queen, w.fe of fng Stephen vol^ - • ^^^ Matilda, Duchess of Saxony, daughter of Henry 11., 1 , 7 , / descendants, vol. i., 73- T7^„,a,rl VII vol ii., 681. Maud, Queen of Norway, daughter of Kmg tdwaid Vil., vol. ..., Index to principal Persons referred to. 699 Maurice, Prince Palatine, vol. ii., 571, 572. Maximilian of Hanover, Prince, vol. ii., 5B8, 589. Mazarin, Duchess'of, vol ii., 482. Mecklenburg Strelitz, Grand Dukes of, vol. n., 608, 609, 640. Methven, Henry Stuart, Lord, vol. ii., 383- Montague, Henry Pole, Lord. (See The Poles.) Montforts, The de, vol. i., 102-105. Monmouth, James Scott, Duke of, vol. ii., 47o, 478-480. Monthermer, Ralph, Lord, vol. i., 126, 127. Montpensier, Mdlle. de, vol. ii., 452. More, Sir Thomas, vol. i., 345- Mortimers, The, vol. i., 180-188. Morton, James Douglas, Ead of, vol. ii., 4^7, 420, 427- Mowbrays, The, Dukes of Norfolk. (See Norfolk.) Murray, James Stuart, Eari of, vol. ii., 402, 418, 421, 427- Navarre, Kings of, vol. i., 86. Neville, George, Archbishop of York, vol. 1., 247- Neville, Isabella, Duchess of Clarence. (See Isabella.) Nevilles, The, Earls of Westmoreland, vol. 1., 200, 201, 202. Nicholas II., Pope, vol. i., 25. Nicholas II., Emperor of Russia, vol. 1.., 609, 680, 681^ . • ,,, ,,. Norfolk, Thomas Plantagenet, Duke of, son of Edward I., vo 1. .., 134, '36- Norfolk, Margaret Plantagenet, Duchess of. (See Margaret.) Norfolk, The Mowbrays, Dukes of, vol. 1., 136, 137- Norfolk, The Howards, Dukes of, vol. i., 138, 324-3^8, vol. 11., 420, 42.. Norfolk, Agnes Tylney, Duchess of, vol. u, 3^3, 3i6. Normandy, Dukes of, vol. i., 16-18. , . ^ Northumberland, The Percys, Dukes of voL 1., 182, 22^ Northumberland, John Dudley, Duke of. (See Fhe Dudleys.) Norway, Kings of, vol. ii., 435- Odo, Bishop of Bayeux and Earl of Kent, vol. i., 18, 19- Olaf, King of Sweden, vol. i., 5- Orange, Princes of, vol. ii. 459-462,612-614. Orieans, Dukes of, vol. i., I59, 540-543, 562, 564-5f>&- Ormonde, The Butlers, Eari s of, vol. 1., I33- Osnaburgh, Bishops of, vol. ii., 57 9- Otho IV., German Emperor, vol. 1., 73- Otho, Duke of Brunswick, vol. i., 73- Oxford, Robert de Vere, Eari of, vol. 1., 1 70-1 73- PAUL III., Pope, vol. i., 296. , ^^ n, Pembroke, The de Valences, Earis of, vol. 1., 90- 9'- 41 tl \\ \ 700 Index to principal Persons referred to.^ Index to principal Persons referred to. lo\ Pembroke, The Marshalls, Earls of, vol. i., 95, ^^i, 102. Pembroke, The Hastings, Earls of, vol. 1., I74, 175- Pembroke lasper Tudor, Earl of, vol. 1., 269, 270. , . ,x PeSs The Earls of Nor.hu..berland. (See ^or,kun,Urland.■) Perrers, Alice, vol. i., 1 52- Peterof Savoy, vol. i., 97-99- ., .., n Peter the Cruel, King of Castile. (See Castile.) Philip I., King of France, vol. 1., 9, 38- Philip II. (Philip Augustus), King of \ ranee, vol. 1., «», »9. Philip III.. King of France, vol. i., II2. Philip IV., King of France, vol. i., 112. Philip v., King of France, vol. i., 1 J 3- Philip II., King of Spain, vol. i , 343-345- Philip IV., King of Spain, vol. ii., 443-445- Philip v.. King of Spain, vol. ii., 550- f'K:,rlps V vol. i., Philip, Archduke of Austria, father of Emperoi Charles V., vol , 242, 243. Philip, Prince Palatine, vol. 11., 577- Ph.lippaof Hainault, Queen, wife of Edw^rcl I"' -^-^/^-^^g 3,^. Philippa, Queen of Denmark, daughter of Henry y^-'/.^j-;-' '^'' '^^ Philippa Plantagenet, Countess of March, (bee MorHmers.) Philippa de Coucy, Countess of Oxford, vol. 1., »70-i73^ Phihppa Plantagenet, Queen of Portugal, vol. 1., 197-199- Platen, von. Baroness, vol. ii., 5^6, 598- Pole, Reginald, Cardinal, Archbishop of Canterbury, vol. Poles, The, vol. i., 250-254. Poles, de la, Dukes of Suffolk, vol. 1., 226, 240-243. Portland, William Bentinck, Earl of, vol. n., 5 > 3, 5 U- Portsmouth, Louise de la QuerouaiUe, Duchess of, vol. u., 482 , descendants, vol ii., 482. Portugal, Kings of, vol. i., 198 ; vol. ii., 472, 473, t>7i- Provence, Counts of, vol. i., 97) 98. REN6, King of Sicily and Duke of Anjou. (See Sicily.) Richard I., King, vol. i., 65, 70, 7 1, 83-86. Richard II., King, vol. i., i56-i59- Richard III., King, vol. i., 260-264. Richmond, Edmund Tudor, Earl of, vol. 1., 270. Richmond, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of, vol. 1., 324 ; vol. u. 47». Richmond, Frances Stuart, Duchess of, vol. 1., 395 ; vol. n., 483, 484- Richmond, Dukes of, vol. i., 395, 483, 484^ Rivers, Richard Woodville, Earl. (See Woodvtlles.) Rizzio, David, vol. ii., 410. Robert, King of France, vol. i., 23. i., 251, 252. Robert II., King of Sicily. (See ^^^^/y) TXl n^Com^h^tf Duke of Normandy, son of WUliam the Con- queror, vol. i., 10, n, 33» 37-40. r- i ^\ Rochester, John Fisher, Cardinal Bishop of. (See FisAer.) Rochester, Laurence Hyde, Earl of, vol. n., 496, 497- Rochford, T. Boleyn, Viscount. (See Boleyns.) Rochford,Vicountess,vol.i., 303, 314,316. KdJXrd'XCet, Ear. of, Wther of Edward IV., vo.. i., Rutland, The Manners, Earls and Dukes of, vol. i., 240. ST. LBGER, Sir Thomas, vol. i., 239, 240- Salisbury, William Longsword, Earl of, vol. 1., 70. Salisbury, The Montacutes, Earls of, vol. 1., 155- Salisbury, Richard Neville, Earl of, vol ,200, 20. Salisbury, Margaret Plantagenet, Countess of (See Mar^arel ) Salisbury Robert Cecil, Earl of, vol. 11., 426. Sanchia of Provence, Countess of Cornwall, vol. -., 98, .00. ti^rrlinia Kings of, vol. ii., 546, 547- Sa^^y Dukes and Princes of, vol. i., 98 ; vol. .1-, 544, 545- Saxe, Altemburg, Duchy of, vol. u. 670. Saxe Coburg, Dukes and Princes of, vol. m 670-67 5^ irx: Coburg Gotha, Dukes and Ponces of, vol. n., 670-67. Saxe Gotha, Dukes and Princes of, vol. n., 628. S^xe Meiningen, Dukes and Pr.nces of. vol. .,., 658, 670. Saxe We.mar, Prince Edward of, vol. 11., 658. Saxe Weimar, Grand Dukes of, , . „ ,, Saxony, Henry the Lion, Duke of, vol, 1. 7', 72. Saxony, Kings of, vol. u., 670. Segrave, The Lords, vol^, .36, 137. ^^^ . Seymours, The, vol. .., 306, 33°. 33'. 372 374 . Seymour of Sudeley, Thomas, Lord, vol .., 320, 323-^ Lhleswick Holstein, Prince <^^Z£:t^-:^S%y^ <'^^- Sicily, Kings of, vol. i., 10, 75, 76, 98, 231. Simnel, Lambert, vol. 1., 249. ,g Beaufort!.) Somerset, The Beauforts, Laris and D"k« °^ ^^^„ , Somerset, The Seymours, Dukes of. (See icc 1 «« Sussex! Augustus (son of George 111.), Duke of, 665-669. Sweden, Kings of, vol. ..., ^^^ Normandy, vol. i., 40. Sybil of Conversana, wife of Robert 11., i^"^ TECK, Francis, Duke of, vol.ii., 647, 674- Toulouse, Counts of, vol. )., 76, 76. Toulouse, Raimond VI., Count of, vol. .., 76, 77- Tudor, Owen, vol. i., 268, 269. ULSTER, The de Burghs, Earls of, vol. .-, .29, -80. Ursula Pole, Lady Stafford. (See Poles.) VALENCES, The Earls of Pembroke. (^-^-^^^^'^ Vendfime, P:'"«-.^'*";,tdm a"'(See sX ar^d Sardinia.) ro:ia^:ft::'c^;::^r;:r:;rof}cent,vo,^..,65. Victoria Eugenie, Queen of Spain, vol. m 678. Index to principal Persons referred to, 7Q3 ViUiers, The Dukes of Buckingham. (See Buckingham.) Villiers, Elizabeth, vol. ii., 3I3- Wales, Llewellyn, Prince of. (See de Montforts.) Walsingham, Melusina Countess of, vol. n., 606. Waltheof, Earl, vol. i., 21. Warbeck, Perkyn, vol. i., 261. Warwick, The Beauchamps, Earls of, vol. 1., 201. , ' ,«, Warwick, Richard Neville vThe King Maker), Earl of, vol. .., 20,, 202. r 1 • Q Warwick, Edward Plantagenet, Earl of, vol. 1., 248, 249- Warwick, Ambrose Dudley, Earl of. (See Dudleys.) Welles, Thomas, Viscount, vol. i., 279- Westmoreland, The NevUles, Earl of (See the Nevtl/es.) William (The Conqueror), King, vol. 1., 5, S-'o, 21-23, 4»- William II. (Rufus), King, vol. i., 10, u, 38, 41-43, 4»- William III., King, vol. ii. , 5^6-5 1 5- William IV., King, vol. ii., 657, 658. William the Lion, King of Scotland, vol. 1., 78- William (Clito), Princl son of Robert U., Duke of Normandy, vol. 40, 41. William, Prince, son of Henry I., vol. 1.,. 44, 45- William, Prince, son of King Stephen. (See B/oi.^.) William, Prince, son of Empress Matilda, vol. 1., 58- William IV., Duke of Aquitaine. (See Aguz/ame.) William II., Prince of Orange. (See Orange.) William I., German Emperor, vol. 11., 609. William II., German Emperor, vol. 11., 681. Wiltshire, James Butler, Earl of, vol. 1., 233-^ Wiltshire, Thomas Boleyn, Earl of. (See foleyn.) Winchester, Henry deBlois, Bishop of, vol. 1.54-57. Winchester, Henry Beaufort, Cardinal, Bishop of, vol. 1., -02, 203, 5, Winchester, Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of, vol. i., 3i2, 34i- Wolsey Thomas, Cardinal, Archbishop of York, vol. 1., 294. Woodvilles, The, vol. i., 258-260. Wurtemburg, Kings and Dukes of, vol. n., 646, 647, 674, ^75 YARMOUTH, Charlotte Paston, Countess of, vol. li., 480. Yolande de Dreux, Queen of Scotland, vol. 1., I93- York, Earls of, vol. i., p. 190- „ jj ^ (See Geoffrey.) York, Geoffrey, A-hbishop of (natural so of^^^^^^^^^ _f^.,^, York, Edmund Plantagenet, Duke of (son ot Ed a Edward Plantagenet, Duke of, vol. .., 191, ■92- 704 Index to principal Persons referred to. York, Richard Plantagenet, Duke of (father of Edward IV.) vol. i., i94, York,^R'c?ard Plantagenet, Duke of (son of Edward IV.) vol. i., 137. York' Ernest of Hanover, Duke of (brother of George I.), vol. ii., 588, 589 York! Edward Duke of, (brother of George III.;, vol. n., 636. York, Frederic, Duke of, son of George III., vol. u., 654-65C>- Zelle, tieorge, Duke of, vol. ii., 578-583- Printed by James Skinner & Co., 27 Thistle Street, Edinburgh. /^ P COLUf*^^'-^ •."i'-^T^'" 1! U¥ ' i ■ i!! ' ! 1 \