Earl of Shrewsbury

“ Judging from the virtuous, no less than the vicious, men on whom she cast her spells, my Lady Shrewsbury, like King Arthur's sister Morgan le Fay, must have possessed the secret of enchantment. Not otherwise can one explain how the Earl of Arran, the noble Duke of Ormond's noble son, became the first and most ardent of her many lovers. This brave and upright young man long languished a slave to the passion with which she had inspired him. Perhaps, so powerful and seductive was her charm, he might never have been freed but for her own caprice. ”

“ John, the second earl of Shrewsbury, was the 1st earl’s son by his first wife. He had been knighted at Leicester in 1426 along with the infant king Henry VI., had served in the wars of France, and been made chancellor of Ireland during his father’s lifetime, when he was only Lord Talbot. Afterwards he was made lord high treasurer of England, and in 1459 was rewarded for his services to the house of Lancaster with a grant of 100 marks a year out of the lordship of Wakefield, forfeited by Richard, duke of York. ”

“ The building of Worksop Manor house had been commenced in the time of the first Earl of Shrewsbury, but was not finished when the new Countess became its mistress. Having built Chatsworth, here was another opportunity for her to display her genius in architecture, and under her direction it was completed, and became a sumptuous residence.
The Earl must have been a nobleman of redoubtable and fearless disposition, or a courtier whose pliant will was easily moulded by accomplished and attractive women, else he would not have been involved in the feminine intrigues that he was. ”

“ Whilst the Earl’s duties to his sovereign kept him at Court, the Queen’s custody was in the hands of Sir Ralph Sadleir, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and a distinguished soldier. Sir Ralph wrote, on August 25th, 1584, to Sir Francis Walsyngham, and informed him that he had begged the Earl of Shrewsbury not to transport the Queen to Wingfield till further instructions from the Sovereign were received. He continues by saying that he would rather “keep her here (Sheffield Castle) with 60 men than at Wingfield with 300.” ”

“ Alston House was for many years the residence of the Shrewsbury family.
George, Earl of Shrewsbury, succeeded his father in the title, June 28th, the 13th Edward IV., while a minor. In the reign of Henry VIII. he was in high favour with that monarch, was steward of the household, and a privy counsellor, and accompanied the King at his interview with Francis I. at Guisnes. ”

“ William of Orange, like all great statesmen, was quick to recognise talent; he readily offered high office to this young Earl of Shrewsbury who had helped to make him King of England, and on whom such high popular hopes were built. It may be said that a young career never bloomed under a more vivifying sun. ”

“ In 1460, Edward IV. marched with an army of 23,000 men from this town to the battle of Mortimer’s Cross, and he chose this place for the residence of his queen, where she was delivered of her second and third sons, Richard and George Plantagenet.
On the landing of the Earl of Richmond, afterwards King Henry the Seventh, at Milford Haven, in August, 1485, he determined to march for Shrewsbury. On his arriving at the Welsh Bridge he found the place in a posture of defence, the gates closed against him, and the bailiffs within ready to give their answer. ”

“ The monument of Sir John Talbot of Lacock describes him as born of the most noble family of the Duke of Shrewsbury, which is somewhat confusing. Sir John was descended from John, second Earl of Shrewsbury, who died in 1460, and his monument was erected when the twelfth earl and first duke was living. ”

“ His first wife Maud, a granddaughter of Thomas, Lord Furnival, brought him the castle of Sheffield as part of her inheritance, and he was accordingly summoned to parliament in the days of Henry IV. as John Talbot of Hallamshire, otherwise Lord Furnival, more than thirty years before he was made earl of Shrewsbury. The property became a favourite residence of the family during the Tudor era; and, but for the death in 1616 of Gilbert, 7th earl of Shrewsbury, without male issue, Sheffield might have remained much longer a centre of feudal magnificence rather than of commerce and manufactures. ”

“ The King, being surrounded by Roman Catholic priests, soon gave indication of his designs against the reformed religion; the Earl of Shrewsbury, who was a stanch Protestant, resigned his commission, and afterwards proceeded to Holland and joined the Prince of Orange, to whom the nation began to look for deliverance from popish tyranny. ”

“ She still retained much of her good looks; her charms and her wealth outweighed her reputation for rapacity, and she was much sought in marriage. With the approval of Queen Elizabeth, who was not by habit a matchmaker, she was married in 1568 for the fourth time to George Talbot, 6th earl of Shrewsbury. ”

“ He was early called the King of Hearts, and never, through a long, eventful, and chequered life, lost his right to that name. 315 Shrewsbury was Lord Lieutenant of Staffordshire and Colonel of one of the regiments of horse which had been raised in consequence of the Western insurrection. He now refused to act under the board of regulators, and was deprived of both his commissions.
None of the English nobles enjoyed a larger measure of public favour than Charles Sackville Earl of Dorset. He was indeed a remarkable man. ”

“ On the 27th of July, when the queen was dying, the earl of Oxford received his long-delayed dismissal from the office of lord treasurer. On the 30th Shrewsbury and other ministers assembled at Kensington Palace, and being admitted to the queen’s bedchamber Bolingbroke recommended the appointment of Shrewsbury to the vacant treasurership; Anne at once placed the staff of that high ollice in the duke’s hands. When the queen died on the 1st of August Shrewsbury was thus in a position of supreme power with reference to the momentous question of the succession to the crown. ”

“ While satire thus found employment at her cost, there were continual contests for the favours of another beauty, who was not much more niggardly in that way than herself; this was the Countess of Shrewsbury.
The Earl of Arran, who had been one of her first admirers, was not one of the last to desert her; this beauty, less famous for her conquests than for the misfortunes she occasioned, placed her greatest merits in being more capricious than any other. As no person could boast of being the only one in her favour; so no person could complain of having been ill received. ”

“ The countess of Shrewsbury, now at open variance with her husband, had employed every art to infuse into the queen suspicions of a too great intimacy subsisting between the earl and his prisoner; and Elizabeth, either from a jealousy which the long fidelity of Shrewsbury to his arduous trust was unable to counteract, or, as was believed, at the instigation of some who meant further mischief to Mary, ordered about this time her removal to the custody of sir Amias Paulet and sir Drugo Drury. ”

“ The Queen practically declared him a useless gaoler: “I have found no reliance on my Lord Shrewsbury in the hour of my need, for all the fine speeches he made me formerly, yet I can in no wise depend on his promise.” Therefore she added two guards—the Earl of Huntingdon and Viscount Hereford.
More household complications, more goings and comings, more trouble for Earl and Countess! Afflicted with chronic gout and irritated in every direction, Shrewsbury decided to make for Tutbury again. ”

“ Elizabeth of England, called to the immense sacrifice of her womanhood for England, fell back in private on petty vanities, and had her reward in the love of the larger public of her day and in the enlightened homage of posterity to her sacrifice and her statesmanship. Elizabeth Shrewsbury justly refused to sacrifice herself to the official burdens put upon her earl, unjustly refused to go shares with him in their common responsibilities, and so in her the “combat for the individual” ran to exaggeration, with its harvest of sheer bitterness and errors. ”

“ Lord Shrewsbury was doubtfully silent. His timorous nature had been startled by the sudden action into which circumstances had spurred it. A sense of loyalty, a terror of underhand methods, a dread of anything so violent as a revolution made him already secretly regret the part he had so far played so well.
Mr. Fletcher answered carelessly and thoughtlessly—
"You set too high a value on the little Prince. His life is not worth a year's purchase."
Lord Mordaunt flashed an extraordinary look over the fine person of the speaker, and the comely youth of the Earl. ”

“ Manger, buried here in 1458. Ditto. Robert Hope was rector here, and resigned in 1471, to John Chapman, who was presented by John Talbot Earl of Shrewsbury, Lord Talbot, &c. he died in 1506, and was buried in the chancel, and gave a legacy to our Lady's gild in this church, and another to that of the Baptist in All-Saints church. 1507, Robert Jermyn, by lapse, united to All-Saints; he died in 1523, and George Earl of Shrewsbury presented Ric. Blonston, who resigned in 1526, and the Earl presented John Johnson, who died in 1546, and Frances Countess of Shrewsbury presented John Harrys ”

“ A good courtier always paid this dole to his queen under the guise of a handsome gift, while the nobles and country gentry in their turn were the recipients from their tenants and friends of heterogeneous articles varying from capons, wine, and foodstuffs to gloves, clothes, or furniture.
No one in that great and rich family group, so full of promise, had any notion of the events which would call down upon the Countess the wrath of the Queen, or the fresh accusations which would be hurled against the Earl.
Life just now was as easy as Shrewsbury could ever hope to find it. ”

“ It is built of a deep red stone. A noble simplicity combined with a massive solidity characterizes the whole structure, to which time has given a most venerable appearance; and, though marks of mutilation are too evident throughout, it displays many curious features of ancient Norman architecture combined with the earlier pointed style.
It originally formed part of the richly endowed monastery founded in 1083 by Roger de Montgomery, Earl of Shrewsbury, and when entire was a stately cruciform building, equal in size to some of our cathedrals, having a central and western tower, transepts, &c. ”

“ It is to this sixth Earl of Shrewsbury, and to his times, that we owe much of the glamour and interest of Wingfield’s history, owing to the fact that for well nigh sixteen years he was the custodian of that unhappy lady, Mary Queen of Scots. For various lengthy periods the poor harassed Queen was a close prisoner within the all-too-hospitable walls of this manor house. The Earl’s charge of Queen Mary was no sinecure it seems, as according to Blore:—
“In this service he preserved his fidelity to Elizabeth unshaken ”

“ There is nothing to indicate its exact date, but it must be of considerable antiquity, as the Earl of Richmond, afterwards Henry VII., slept here on his road to Bosworth field.
Shrewsbury is full of exceedingly interesting{45} remains, and in no town in England are they more scrupulously taken care of. It is almost a matter of regret that the scope of the present work forbids a more detailed account of the Shakespearean recollections of Shrewsbury battlefield, and the church which was erected in memory of the day. ”

“ Sir Rice ap Thomas and Sir Walter Herbert were intrusted with his authority in Wales; but the former immediately deserted to Henry; the second made but feeble opposition to him; and the earl, advancing towards Shrewsbury, received every day some reënforcement from his partisans. Sir Gilbert Talbot joined him with all the vassals and retainers of the family of Shrewsbury: Sir Thomas Bourchier and Sir Walter Hungerford brought their friends to share his fortunes; and the appearance of men of distinction in his camp made already his cause wear a favorable aspect. ”

“ Family correspondence has proved how strained were the conjugal relations of Earl and Countess, and how a barrier beginning, seemingly, with a foundation no less tangible than an armful of tapestries (but subsequently 214solidified by the sheer masonry of Chatsworth) had grown up between them. All matters of private dispute were complicated by their own difficulties in regard to the tenants of their various estates and any neighbours with whom they were on bad terms. Little by little the fact that the house of Shrewsbury was not at peace with itself must penetrate to the greater world. ”

“ On the death of her mother, nine years previously, she, being both a catholic and an heiress, was confided by the court of chancery to the guardianship of her near relations and coreligionists, the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury. ”

“ The first record we possess of the existence of such charitable institutions in Shrewsbury is as early as the time of Henry the Second, beside an “Infirmary” founded by Earl Roger de Montgomery, within the precinct of the “Abbey,” as an asylum for diseased and superannuated monks, a fragment of which erection yet remains. ”

“ In 1234, Richard, Earl Marescall, being told that Henry intended to seize him when he repaired to parliament, fled to Llewelyn, and they both appeared before Shrewsbury with a powerful army, and burned part of the suburb of Frankwell, returning to the mountains laden with the spoil of the inhabitants, many of whom they had barbarously murdered. ”