Earl of Southampton

“ Southampton was a patron worth cultivating. Both his parents came of the New Nobility, and enjoyed vast wealth. His father’s father was Lord Chancellor under Henry VIII, and when the monasteries were dissolved, although he was faithful to the old religion, he was granted rich estates in Hampshire, including the abbeys of Titchfield and Beaulieu in the New Forest. He was created Earl of Southampton early in Edward VI’s reign, and, dying shortly afterwards, was succeeded by his only son, the father of Shakespeare’s friend. The second earl loved magnificence in his household. ”

“ Margaret's Church, Westminster, the king, the Earl of Oxford, and Lady Suffolk (sister of the Countess of Castlemaine) being sponsors. The entry in the register was ‘Charles Palmer, lord Limerick, son to the Right Honourable Roger, earl of Castlemaine, by Barbara,’ and he bore the title of Lord Limerick until 1670, when the patent which created his mother Countess of Southampton and Duchess of Cleveland, with remainder in tail male, conferred upon him the right to use the title of Earl of Southampton during his mother's life, and from that date he is commonly referred to as Lord Southampton. ”

“ The Earl of Southampton was grandson of Wriothesley, the famous Chancellor of Edward the Sixth, father to the excellent and noble Treasurer Southampton, grandfather to Rachel Lady Russel. In his later years he commanded an English regiment in the Dutch service, and died in the Netherlands, 1624. Shakespeare dedicated some of his minor poems to him; the County of Southampton, in Virginia, probably also took its name from him. Captain Smith, who had been unjustly displaced by the company, approved of the dissolution of their charter. ”

“ Viscount Lisle was created earl of Warwick, and Wriothesley became earl of Southampton;—an empty dignity, which afforded him little consolation for seeing himself soon after, on pretence of some irregular proceedings in his office, stripped of the post of chancellor, deprived of his place amongst the other executors of the king, who now formed a privy council to the protector, and consigned to obscurity and insignificance for the short remnant of his days. ”

“ He was styled Baron Wriothesley from 1547 until 30 July 1550, when he succeeded as second Earl of Southampton. In August 1552 Edward VI was entertained at Titchfield, and in 1560 the council entrusted the earl, ‘as a ward of state,’ to the care of William More of Loseley Park, near Guildford (Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. App. p. 615) . Southampton, who was privately educated, inclined to the Roman catholic religion, and married into a Roman catholic family. His wife was Mary, daughter of Anthony Browne, first viscount Montague [q. v.] ”

“ It is a matter of history that Nash sought, and succeeded in obtaining for a time, the patronage of the Earl of Southampton, one of the most liberal men of his day, and a prominent figure in the declining years of Elizabeth. ”

“ Thomas, who had now become Earl of Southampton, found on his return to England that public affairs were in great confusion. The Parliamentarians did all in their power to gain over the young nobleman to their side, but he disapproved of their proceedings, and would take no part in them. ”

“ England became divided into two parties—some for him, and some against him. Among the king’s firmest and most staunch supporters was the Earl of Southampton, Rachel Russell’s father. He was a loyal Englishman, and when affairs came to a crisis, and civil war broke out—though he saw what must be the result—he stuck to his king, and fought manfully for him. He married a French lady of noble birth, and had two daughters, Elizabeth and Rachel. ”

“ Wriothesley, now Earl of Southampton, remained the solitary genuine adherent of the old faith belonging to the Council. His lack of caution in putting the great seal into commission without the authority of his colleagues afforded them an excuse for ousting him from his post of Chancellor; he was compelled to resign his office, and received orders to confine himself to his house, whilst Hertford, become Duke of Somerset, took advantage of his absence to obtain letters patent by which he became virtually omnipotent in the State. ”

“ Lord Russell had added to the family estates by his marriage with Rachel, daughter and co-heir of Thomas Wrothesley, the fourth earl of Southampton, from whom she finally inherited the earl's property in Bloomsbury, with Southampton House, afterwards called Bedford House. Her son, the second duke of Bedford, married the daughter of a rich citizen, John Howland of Streatham, a match strangely commemorated by the barony of Howland of Strea-tham, created for the bridegroom's grandfather, the first duke, in 1695. ”

“ An early attachment to a good and beautiful woman proved a strong safeguard to the young courtier, which was crowned about the year 1669, by a marriage, the happiness of which family and historical records can vouch. It was indeed a well-assorted union, the commencement of ‘domestic bliss,’ as the poet says, ‘the only happiness which has survived the Fall.’ William Russell’s choice was Rachel, the daughter of the noble loyalist, Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, and the daughter-in-law of the Earl of Carbery, being the widow of his eldest son, Lord Vaughan. ”

“ Some of these, including the Duke of Richmond, the Marquis of Hertford, the Marquis of Worcester, and the Earl of Southampton, remained in England, submitting moodily to the new order of things, and studying opportunities of still being useful to their sovereign. ”

“ Chancery Lane is a corruption of “Chancellor’s Lane,” originally containing the court and official residence of the Lord High Chancellor. Southampton Buildings occupy the site of Southampton House, which witnessed the death of Thomas, the last Earl of Southampton, Lord Treasurer of Charles II. Those sorry tenements, Chichester Rents supply the place of the old town mansion of the Bishops of Chichester. Lincoln’s Inn Fields are situated on the east side of the Inn, [272] or mansion, of Henry de Lacey, Earl of Lincoln, in the fourteenth century [see Inns of Court] . ”

“ Both sides began to raise armies and to prepare for war. Before commencing hostilities, however, the king was persuaded by his counselors to send a messenger to London and propose some terms of accommodation. He accordingly sent the Earl of Southampton to the House of Peers, and two other persons to the House of Commons. He had no expectation, probably, of making peace, but he wanted to gain time to get his army together, and also to strengthen his cause among the people by showing a disposition to do all in his power to avoid open war. ”

“ Southampton’s Almshouse, near Monmouth street. The ground upon which this house stands, together with a piece of ground adjoining, were granted by lease to the parish of St. Giles’s in the Fields, by the Earl of Southampton, in the year 1656, for the use of the poor, for the term of five hundred years. And towards the support of twenty poor inhabitants, Henry Carter, in the year 1674, gave the sum of 50l. the profits whereof to be destributed among them, out of which, and the produce of the ground which is now built upon, each of the poor women have an allowance of 2l. ”

“ Exeunt all but Essex and Southampton.
Essex. Disgraced and struck! Damnation! Death were glorious!
Revenge! revenge!
South. Alas, my friend! what would
Thy rage attempt? Consider well the great
Advantage now your rash, ungovern'd temper
Affords your foes. The queen, incensed, will let
Their fury loose.—I dread the dire event!
Essex. Has honest pride no just resentment left?
Nor injured honour, feeling?—Not revenge! ”

“ Great quickness of apprehension, and that readiness of expression on any sudden debate, that no man delivered more efficaciously with his hearers, so that no man ever gave them more trouble in his opposition, or drew so many to concurrence in opinion.’ The Earl of Southampton was thrice married. His first wife was Rachel, daughter of Daniel de Massey, lord of Ruvigny, in France, by whom he had two sons, who died young, and three daughters, the second of whom was Rachel, the faithful wife and widow of William Lord Russell, who was beheaded, her first husband being Lord Carbery, in Ireland. ”

“ Exit Raleigh.
Enter Southampton.
South. Where is the man, whom virtue calls her friend?—
I give you joy, my lord!—Your quenchless fury
At length prevails,—and now your malice triumphs.
You've hunted honour to the toil of faction,
And view his struggles with malicious joy.
Bur. What means my lord?
South. O fraud! shall valiant Essex
Be made a sacrifice to your ambition? ”

“ The queen will listen now, will now believe,
And trust the counsel of her faithful Burleigh.
Dispose them well, till kind occasion calls
Their office forth; lest prying craft meanwhile
May tamper with their thoughts and change their minds:
Let them, like batteries conceal'd, appear
At once, both to surprise and to destroy.
Ral. His headstrong friend, the bold Southampton, too,
Now finds his rash endeavours all defeated,
And storms at thee, and the impeaching commons.
Bur. Let him rave on, and rage. The lion, in
[Pg 11] The toils entangled, wastes his strength, and roars
In vain ”

“ Southampton-street—so called after Rachel, the heroic wife of Wm. Lord Russell, who was a daughter of Thomas, Earl of Southampton—Tavistock-street, and some others were built upon its site. It was in Southampton-street that formerly stood the "Bedford Head," a famous and fashionable eating-house. Pope asks:—
"When sharp with hunger, scorn you to be fed,
Except on pea-chicks at the 'Bedford Head'?"
He who loves his London, more especially he who loves his Strand, will not forget that No. ”

“ Southampton’s patronage may have introduced him to the brilliant circle that gathered round the earl of Essex, but there is no reason to suppose that he or his company were held personally responsible for the performance of Richard II. at the command of some of the followers of Essex as a prelude to the disastrous rising of February 1601. The editors of the First Folio speak also of favours received by the author in his lifetime from William Herbert, earl of Pembroke, and his brother Philip Herbert, earl of Montgomery. ”

“ His complicity, therefore, in the plot discovered at Southampton on 20 July to dethrone Henry in favour of the Earl of March (‘if King Richard be really dead’) caused general surprise. It seemed strangely inconsistent with his character as well as his past career. ”

“ John the Baptist’s Day, 1346, the king took leave of the queen, and, setting out, left her to the care of his cousin the Earl of Kent. He appointed the Lord Percy, and the Lord Neville of Raby, the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of Durham, and the Bishop of Lincoln, to be his lieutenants for the northern parts of his kingdom; and he did not take so many forces out of the realm but that there was a sufficiency of men at arms left to defend it, should there be occasion. He took the road to Southampton, where he tarried until he had a favorable wind, when he embarked with his whole army. ”

“ In July 1603, when the queen expressed astonishment, in the course of conversation with him in the presence chamber, ‘that so many great men did so little for themselves’ on the fatal day of Essex's rebellion, Southampton replied that they were paralysed by the course skilfully taken by their opponents to make their attempt appear to be a treasonable attack on Queen Elizabeth's person. ”

“ Upon the accession of Elizabeth he was removed from his post in the household as well as from the privy council, and thereupon retired to his Suffolk estates and rebuilt Brome Hall. Being a staunch papist and a trusted servant of the late queen, he was naturally an object of suspicion to Elizabeth's ministers. On the appearance of symptoms of disaffection among the catholic nobles in 1570, Lord Southampton, one of the intended leaders of the insurrection, and Cornwallis were at once arrested. ”

“ The second Countess of Southampton was Elizabeth, daughter and co-heir to Francis Booth, Lord Dunsmore, who brought him four girls, one of whom was Elizabeth, Countess of Northumberland. The third wife was the daughter of William, second Duke of Somerset, and widow of Viscount Molyneux. ”