Earl of Nottingham

“ The earl of Nottingham here glanced at was Charles lord Howard of Effingham, lord high admiral of England under queen Elizabeth and king James the First. He died in 1624.
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From Leicester to Nottingham (twenty-five miles) the travellers pass without noticing any thing on their way, until approaching the latter place they cross the Trent, pray to St. Andrew as they ride up hill, into the town, and observe that the people burrow, like conies, in caverns, from whence the smoke ascends at the feet of the woman who stands on the surface watching, down the chimney, the cooking of her dinner. ”

“ But nothing seemed more extraordinary, than the event of this refined management, by which the earl of Nottingham was so far from bringing over proselytes, (wherein his abilities fell very short even of the duke of Somerset's) or preserving the reputation of a firm churchman, that very few people did so much as imagine he had any such design; only, when he brought in the bill, they conceived it was some wonderful deep reach of politicks, which they could not comprehend: however, they liked the thing ”

“ This great lawyer, who has been called ‘the Father of Equity,’ and ‘Finch the Silver Tongue,’ died at his house in Queen Street, Covent Garden, and was buried at Ravenstone, near Olney, county Bucks, where a grand monument assigns him every virtue under the sun. He had fourteen children, of whom the eldest son was the ancestor of the present Earl of Winchilsea and Nottingham, and the second of the Earl of Aylesford.
Lord Nottingham was a liberal patron of literary men, and encouraged rising talent. ”

“ Even Philip II. was forced to admit that the world had never seen more chivalrous humanity among victors, and Queen Elizabeth in her letter of thanks to Howard and Essex, wrote: "You have made me famous, dreadful, and renowned; not more for your victory than for your courage; nor more for either than for such plentiful liquor of mercy, which may well match the better of the two."
On the 23rd of October in the following year, 1597, the Lord High Admiral was created Earl of Nottingham for saving his country twice from invasion.
In 1599 he was made Lieutenant-General of all England ”

“ Henry Fitz Roy, as he was called, was born in 1519, and when six years old was created Earl of Nottingham and Duke of Richmond and Somerset, the title of the King's father.
In 1527, before the commencement of the disturbance on the divorce, Henry endeavoured to negotiate a marriage for him with a princess of the imperial blood; and in the first overtures gave an intimation which could not be mistaken, of his intention, if possible, to place him in the line of the succession. ”

“ No man durst name him any other than Earl of March; a greater rout of men followed at his heels than on the king's person; he would suffer the king to rise to him, and would walk with the king equally, step by step and cheek by cheek, never preferring the king, but would go foremost himself with his officers." While he took up his own lodgings with the queen and her son in Nottingham Castle, he directed that the highest of the other nobility, including the king's cousin, the Earl of Lancaster, should be lodged in the most distant parts of the town or without it. ”

“ In consideration of this distinguished piece of service he was created earl of Nottingham; and the queen's partiality towards her relations increasing with her years, he became towards the end of the reign one of the most considerable persons at her court, where his hostility to Essex grew equally notorious with the better grounded antipathy entertained by Sussex, also a royal kinsman, against Leicester, the earlier favorite of her majesty. ”

“ It may be easily conceived what ceaseless fighting and squabbling, what corruption, litigation, 254and oppression were the result of an authority which was so little controlled by the discussions of Parliament in those days, or by the honour and conscience of individuals in power. So long as the Earl of Nottingham slumbered over his duties, dreaming, doubtless, of delightful shipwrecks and desirable transgressions and piracies, the navy, of course, was not augmented. ”

“ They therefore retired to their estates, 'where they could live more at their ease than with the king' (Walsington, ii. 156) . Nottingham was one of those whose destruction the king and the Duke of Ireland plotted after Easter (ib. p. 161 ; Monk of Evesham, p. 84) . Yet he does not seem to have taken any open part in the armed demonstration in November by which Gloucester, Arundel, and Warwick, with whom the Earl of Derby, eldest son of John of Gaunt [see Henry IV] , had now ranged himself, extorted from Richard a promise that his advisers should be brought to account before parliament. ”

“ Hitherto, the young favourite had proved himself possessed of no higher qualities than those which a courtier’s life requires. He was now placed in a situation which drew forth abilities of which his enemies and his friends were alike ignorant. On the thirtieth day of January, 1618-19, Buckingham was created Lord High Admiral; a post which he at first refused to accept on account of his youth and inexperience. James would, however, admit of no excuse, and the aged Earl of Nottingham resigned that pre-eminent place, alleging as a reason, his advanced years, but, actually, for a “consideration.” ”

“ He at once sprang into favour and became king’s counsel. In 1671 he was made solicitor-general and received the honour of knighthood. In 1673, he succeeded Finch as attorney-general, and in 1675 was appointed chief justice of the common pleas. On the death of the Earl of Nottingham in 1682 he succeeded him as Lord Keeper, and from that day, his brother Roger says, “he never (as poor folks say) , joyed after it, and he hath often vowed to me that he had not known a peaceful minute since he touched that cursed seal.” [401] In 1683 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Guilford. ”

“ Adam of Usk (p. 14) mentions the presence of Kent and others who coveted the condemned earl's lands. Nottingham was at once granted the castle and lordship of Lewes, of which he had been given the custody as early as 26 July, and all the forfeited lands of Arundel in Sussex and Surrey, except Reigate (Dugdale, i. 129) . On the day of Arundel's death the king issued a writ, addressed to Nottingham as captain of Calais, or his deputy, to bring up the Duke of Gloucester before parliament to answer the charges of the appellants (Rot. Parl. iii. 377 ; Fcedera, viii. 15) . ”

“ Here it is proved, fair lady that your lover and your father quarrelled, and that the Earl promised to meet him--wherefore, or when, no one knows,--and that as soon as this young stubborn lord makes his escape from this castle of Nottingham, your father receives a letter from him, calling upon him to come alone to a secluded place. Your father is there found murdered; the boy that bears the letter is bidden to tell no one that it comes from Hugh de Monthermer ”

“ At the same time the Earl of Worcester’s company was taken into the Queen’s patronage, and its members were known as ‘the Queen’s servants,’ while the Earl of Nottingham’s company was taken into the patronage of the Prince of Wales, and its members were known as the Prince’s servants. This extended patronage of actors by the royal family was noticed as especially honourable to the King by one of his contemporary panegyrists, Gilbert Dugdale, in his Time Triumphant, 1604, sig. ”

“ His nearest relations profited by their influence at Court to obtain grants of his chief ancestral estates. The Earls of Nottingham, Northampton, [30] and Suffolk had each of them a share in the spoil;—salving their consciences, probably, by the reflection that, despite his poverty, their young kinsman had made a great marriage. For his alliance, in 1606, with Lady Aletheia Talbot, daughter and co-heir of Gilbert, Earl of Shrewsbury, had already brought to him considerable means in hand, and a vast estate in prospect. The marriage, in higher respects, was also a happy one. ”

“ The Earl of Essex appeared in the field on September 9, and advanced to Northampton, with an army of twenty regiments of infantry and seventy-five squadrons of cavalry, which were not all of the full complement, but still numbered from 12,000 to 14,000 men. The formation of this army and its advance secured the Parliamentary interest in all the neighbouring counties. The King, who had only 500 horse and a couple of weak regiments of foot with him, could not possibly await its approach: he gave up entirely his first plan of holding Nottingham, as well as of conquering Coventry and Hull. ”

“ Nevertheless, that night towards seven o'clock, when every one in Nottingham had returned home from the sight-seeing and amusements of the day, and all was profoundly quiet, both in the castle and the town, two armourers, who sat burnishing a magnificent hauberk in the outer chamber of the young Earl of Ashby's apartments in Nottingham Castle, were interrupted by some one knocking at the door. In a loud voice they bade the visitor come in ”

“ Moreover she was often troubled concerning the safety of her relatives. Her eldest brother, Sir Allen Apsley, of whom she was exceedingly fond, was fighting gallantly for the king, and believing that the Parliamentarians would triumph, she feared that if he escaped death on the battle-field, it would only be to suffer imprisonment and the confiscation of his estate.
At last, in 1644, the Earl of Newcastle sent a messenger to Colonel Hutchinson calling upon him to surrender Nottingham Castle to the Royalists, a demand that was promptly refused. ”

“ Thwarted in their plans for the active prosecution of the war by the extreme high tories, Marlborough and Godolphin determined to obtain the dismissal of Nottingham and his followers. Harley was sworn a member of the privy council on 27 April 1704, and on 18 May was appointed secretary of state for the northern department in the place of Nottingham, while Mansel, the Earl of Kent, and St. John replaced Sir Edward Seymour, the Earl of Jersey, and Clarke. Harley, in spite of his new appointment, continued to occupy the chair until the dissolution of parliament in April 1705. ”

“ Some months, however, elapsed, and to put a stop to his idleness in London, he was summoned to Chatsworth. On reaching Nottingham he found his father in arms, under the Earl, who had raised some troops in favour of William, Prince of Orange. As the old sculptor could make but an indifferent soldier, his son was readily accepted as his substitute, and he entered upon his new career with high glee. ”

“ Howard now 'held [it] with almost regal authority for the space of six weeks, being sometimes with the fleet in the Downs, and sometimes on shore with the forces' (Campbell, i. 397) .
Nottingham was one of the commissioners at Essex's trial (19 Feb. 1600–1) , and after the execution of Essex served on the commission with the lord treasurer and the Earl of Worcester for performing the office of earl marshal (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 10 Dec. 1601) . He was in high favour with the queen. ”

“ The very day after the judges had delivered their decision at Nottingham, and bound themselves to keep it profoundly secret, one of them in the other interest, Sir Richard Fulthorpe, had betrayed the whole matter to the Earl of Kent, and through him to the Duke of Gloucester. A royal proclamation was issued, forbidding the citizens to aid or supply with provisions the armed force without ”

“ Newton, 300. Nithisdale, Earl, joins Prince James, 224; surrender, 226; impeached, 236; escape, 241. Northallerton, Viscount, 91. Northumberland, Duke of, 140. Nottingham, Lady, and Caroline, 151. Nottingham, Lord, President of the Council, 145; and the Jacobites, 240. Oldenburg, 23. Onslow, Mr., 58. Order of the Golden Bracelet, 10. Ormonde, Duke of, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, 98; and the Jacobites, 126; impeachment and flight, 192; return to England, 217. Oxford, Earl of, Lord-Treasurer of England, 98; fall, 125; impeachment, 192 ”

“ Nottingham, Charles I. raises his standard at, 14. "Novum Organum," The, 181. Oates, Titus, the Popish plot, his story before the Council, 248; imitators of, 250; effect upon the people, 251; his real character, 252; his forgeries, 253; impeachments by, 255; convicted of perjury, 292. Oath, Coronation, of William and Mary, 403. Occasional Conformity Bill, The, 543, 547. O'Connelly, Sir John, 2. O'Neil, Sir Phelim, 2; the Irish massacre of 1641, 3. Orange, Prince of, 587. Orange, William of (see William III.) . Ordinance, The Self-denying, 31. Ormond, Earl, makes terms with Parliament, 55 ”

“ And let me see the man in all Nottinghamshire that dare disobey the warrant of our sovereign lord King Harry, for, by the shrine of Saint Edmund, I will hang him forty cubits high! But if no man in Nottingham dare win fourscore angels, I will send elsewhere, for there should be men of mettle somewhere in this land. ”

“ Parl. iii. 348) . He attacked Arundel, now his personal enemy, who hotly gave him the lie (Monk of Evesham, p. 137; Usk, p. 14) . On the rehearsal of the commons that Derby and Nottingham had been ‘innocent of malice’ in their former appeal, the king vouched for their loyalty (Rot. Parl. iii. 353) . On 29 Sept. Henry was made Duke of Hereford, the king himself girding him with his sword and putting on his head the cap of honour (ib. iii. 355) .
The triumph of Richard was so complete that Nottingham, now Duke of Norfolk, became uneasy. ”