Earl of Bristol

“ By the parliament he was regarded with peculiar abhorrence, due partly, no doubt, to the acts of his uncontrollable son, and in August, 1644, an ordinance was passed providing inter alia that “the house of John, Earl of Bristol ... in Queen Street ... with the gardens, stables, edifices and buildings thereunto belonging, with their appurtenances, heretofore the mansion house of the said Earl of Bristoll,” should be granted to Lady Brooke for her life, and after her decease to her youngest son, Fulke Greville. ”

“ Bristol remained quietly at Sherborne for some months longer. In January 1626 he asked to be present at the coronation. Charles replied by an angry charge against the earl of having tried to pervert him from his religion when he was in Spain, a charge which Bristol met by a renewed application for a trial. Bristol received no writ of summons either to the first or the second parliament of the reign. On 22 March 1626, soon after the opening of the second parliament, he applied to the House of Lords to mediate with the king for a trial or the acknowledgment of his right to sit. ”

“ Not much is heard of the life that must have been going on in the little town itself, with its Church and market [63] Cross; but the mere presence of this great Irish family among them must, by the laws of supply and demand, have wrought many changes in the little market town. The Earl paid his love and service to his neighbour and kinsman, the Earl of Bristol, at Sherborne Castle, and the Earl and Countess of Bristol, with all their house-party, immediately returned the visit; after which the whole family at the Manor were “feasted” for two days at Sherborne Castle. ”

“ Bristol.—Robert, Earl of Gloucester, the Empress Matilda’s half-brother and great champion, is always credited with the building of Bristol Castle; but this is one of the many instances in which the man who first rebuilds a castle in stone receives the credit of being the original founder. [298] For it is certain that there was a castle at Bristol long before the days of Earl Robert, as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle mentions it in 1088, when it was held by Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutances, and Robert Curthose against William II. ”

“ On her return to England she busied herself in taking measures for her defence. On 20 March 1775 her first husband, Hervey, succeeded his brother as Earl of Bristol. The duchess appeared in the court of king’s bench on 24 May, before Lord Mansfield, to answer the indictment preferred against her. She was attended by the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Mountstuart, and others, and entered into a recognisance (herself in 4,000l. and four sureties in l,000l. each) to stand her trial by her peers in parliament assembled. ”

“ HERVEY, AUGUSTUS JOHN, third Earl of Bristol (1724–1779) , admiral and politician, second son of John, lord Hervey of Ickworth [q. v.] , and grandson of John, first earl of Bristol [q. v.] , was born on 19 May 1724. He entered the navy as a midshipman in 1736, was stationed chiefly in the Mediterranean, and, as he quickly acquired a practical knowledge of nautical affairs, was advanced to be lieutenant on 31 Oct. In 1744 he met at Winchester races the notorious Miss Elizabeth Chudleigh [q. v.] ”

“ It is suggested by Lord Clarendon, that Buckingham’s motive for this journey, was an unwillingness that the Earl of Bristol, the ambassador in Spain, should have the sole honour of concluding the treaty of marriage. However, the king was vehemently against this journey, and indeed with good reason; but the solicitations of the prince, and the impetuosity of Buckingham, prevailed. ”

“ The lords of Berkeley took to trading in wool and corn and wine, and went partners with Bristol men in robbing carracks of Genoa as well as in lawful traffic. [584] So far had the wheel of fortune turned that one of the lords who made a treaty of peace with the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury meekly appeared before the mayor and council of Bristol to give surety; [585] and when he went out to fight at Nibley the Bristol merchants sent men to his help. [586] The alliance was cemented by marriage when a Berkeley in 1475 took to wife a daughter of the mayor of Bristol ”

“ Richard's ministers had fled to Bristol. Henry therefore moved to Berkeley, where, on 27 July, York himself joined him. Uncle and nephew now hurried towards Bristol, followed, it was believed, by one hundred thousand troops. The gates of Bristol Castle were thrown open, and on 29 July the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, and Green were beheaded. Henry now pressed northwards through the Welsh marches, and after passing through Gloucester, Ross, Hereford, Ludlow, and Shrewsbury, reached Chester on 9 Aug. No formidable resistance was made anywhere. ”

“ The disastrous intelligence which he received from Bristol, however, made him doubtful whether he should hold inviolate the truce which he had granted to the besieged. He did not doubt but that the Earl of Kent and his troops, flushed with conquest, would hasten to his destruction, and to the relief of Hereford, and that unless he could possess himself of the city and castle, and by shutting himself up in the latter be enabled to bid defiance to his enemies, the fate of his father must inevitably be his own. ”

“ In 1837 he was appointed dean of Bristol, when he finally left Cambridge. His friend Sedgwick wrote on his departure : 'A friend of thirty years' standing, with whom an unkind word or an unkind thought never passed, is not to be replaced' (ib. p. 431) . He held the deanery of Bristol only a few months, being nominated to the see of Hereford, vacated by the death of Bishop Edward Grey, brother to Earl Grey, the premier. ”

“ The wind prevented him, and he was driven to land in Wales. Bristol was taken by the Queen without a siege, and the King finally fell into the hands of his pursuers in Wales. He was put into the charge of Henry of Lancaster, brother of the late Earl, at Kenilworth. William Trussel, whom the Queen had made her judge, superintended the trial of the Despensers and their friends, and they were all put to death. In December the Parliament met at Westminster, and swore fealty to the Queen and Prince. The Bishop of Hereford put the question whether Edward or his son should henceforward rule. ”

“ In 1797 he was enrolled at Bristol in the mounted volunteers, a force organised among the wealthier citizens on a threatened French invasion. On his father's death, on 12 Sept. 1801 (aged 60) , at Earl's Mead, Bristol, Samford, who was in Spain, became independent, and took steps to enter the army. ”

“ See the proceedings on the mutual charges of Buckingham and Bristol in Rushworth, or the Parliamentary History. Charles's behaviour is worth noticing. He sent a message to the house, desiring that they would not comply with the earl's request of being allowed counsel; and yielded ungraciously, when the Lords remonstrated against the prohibition. Parl. Hist. 97, 132. The attorney-general exhibited articles against Bristol as to facts depending in great measure on the king's sole testimony. Bristol petitioned the house "to take in consideration of what consequence such a precedent might be ”

“ In 1247 a new course was cut for the river Frome which vastly improved the harbour, and in the same year a stone bridge was built over the Avon, bringing Temple and Redcliffe into closer touch with the city. The charter granted by Henry III. in 1256 was important. It gave the burgesses the right to choose coroners, and as they already farmed the geld payable to the king, Bristol must have been practically independent of the king. The growing exclusiveness of the merchant gild led to the great insurrection of 1312. ”

“ After him came, from different parts, earls, barons, knights, and esquires, with such an armed force, that they no longer thought they had any thing to apprehend. As they advanced, their forces were still increased; so that a council was called to consider if they should not march directly to Bristol, where the king and the two Spencers then were.
Bristol was at that time a large town, well enclosed, and situated on a good port. Its castle was very strong, and surrounded by the sea. The queen, with all her company, the lords of Hainault, and their suite, took the shortest road for that place. ”

“ We were in Bristol on that awful day. My mother, the King had left in charge of the Tower of London; but in Bristol, with the King, were my grandfather and father my Lord and Lady of Arundel, their son Richard, and Isabel, and myself. I was then a maiden of sixteen years. When Dame Isabelle’s banners floated over the gates of the city, and her trumpets summoned the citizens to surrender, King Edward, who was a timid man, flung himself into the castle for safety, and with him all of us, saving my grandfather, and my Lord of Arundel, who remained without, directing the defence. ”

“ It seems there was a certain Colonel Lane, whose wife had obtained a pass from the authorities of the Republican army to go to Bristol, on the occasion of the sickness of a relative, and to take with her a man servant. Bristol was a hundred miles to the southward, near the mouth of the Severn. It was thought that if the king should reach this place, he could, perhaps, succeed afterward in making his way to the southern coast of England, and embarking there, at some sea-port, for France. ”

“ To some fanciful folk the pall of smoke that hangs over the town may seem a gloomy retribution for the fact that from the days of the Saxon and the Norman down to the abolition of slavery, Bristol was the greatest port in England for that nefarious traffic. ”

“ And this dreariness is not removed by our tracing the destiny of man on the storied pavements or on the graven brass, that still bears upon its surface the names of those who obtained the world's regard years back. This old pile is not only an ornament to the city, but it stands a living monument to the genius of its founder. Bristol has long sustained a high position as a place from which the American Abolitionists have received substantial encouragement in their arduous labours for the emancipation of the slaves of that land ”

“ At the dissolution of the monasteries the diocese of Bristol was founded, which included the counties of Bristol and Dorset. The voyages of discovery in which Bristol had played a conspicuous part led to a further trade development. In the 16th century Bristol traded with Spain, the Canaries and the Spanish colonies in America, shared in the attempt to colonize Newfoundland, and began the trade in African slaves which flourished during the 17th century. Bristol took a great share in the Civil War and was three times besieged. ”

“ Bristol with its two encircling rivers was a natural stronghold of no common order; and on the one side where nature had left it unprotected, art had supplied the deficiency. The narrow neck of land at the eastern end of the peninsula on which the town stood—the only point whence it could be reached without crossing the water—was in the Conqueror’s last days occupied by a castle which in the Red King’s reign passed into the hands of Robert Fitz-Hamon, famed alike in history and legend as the conqueror of Glamorgan ”

“ If any one in any other place in my land shall take toll of the men of Bristol, if he does not restore it after he is required to, the Prepositor of Bristol may take from him a distress at Bristol, and force him to restore it. ”

“ Few traces remain of the old castle, but portions of the ancient walls can still be seen. In the fifteenth century the city-walls were described as lofty and massive and protected by twenty-five embattled towers, some round and some square. The abbey of St. Augustine was also then flourishing, having been founded in the twelfth century. Bristol was in the Middle Ages the second port of England, enjoying lucrative trade with all parts of the world, and in the fifteenth century a Bristol ship carrying nine hundred tons was looked upon with awe as a leviathan of the ocean. ”

“ Bristol was a member of the Royal Manor of Barton. At an early date, probably in Heptarchic times, a town grew up on the peninsula between the river Avon and its tributary the Frome; the existence of silver pennies of Ethelred the Unready, which were coined here, shows that it was at that time a burgh with the usual privilege of a mint. The reader will remember that it was the principal seaport of the western coast, and the principal emporium of the slave-trade in Saxon men, women, and children until Bishop Wulstan succeeded with difficulty in suppressing the nefarious traffic. ”

“ Within its comparatively narrow limits Bristol must have been in general character and aspect not unlike what it is to-day—a busy, bustling, closely-packed city, full of the eager, active, surging life of commercial enterprise. ”

“ A magnificent landscape of vast extent, stretching around on every point of the compass, burst almost simultaneously on the sight, embracing views of the Bristol Channel, the mountains of South Wales and Monmouthshire, the Severn, Gloucestershire and the Malvern Hills, Bath, the Vale of White Horse in Berkshire, and the Mendip Range; while at the foot of the rich champagne valley below you, which gradually descends for about five miles, lies the city of Bristol with its numerous fine churches; and a splendid view of Clifton completed the scene. ”