Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Southampton

“ Should the King die within a few years, the natural protectors of the prince in his minority would be his mother's family. Sir Edward Seymour, her brother, was now created Earl of Hertford, to give him the necessary rank; and for additional security, peerages were bestowed upon three others of the council whose loyalty could be depended upon. Sir William Fitzwilliam, now lord high admiral, was created Earl of Southampton; Sir William Paulet became Lord St John ”

“ In 1660 the king made him a knight, and in 1661 he became a member of parliament and secretary to another lord treasurer, Thomas Wriothesley, earl of Southampton, retaining this post until the treasury was put into commission on Southampton's death in May 1667. ”

“ Southampton, a wealthy peer without brothers or uncles, was the only male representative of his house. A lawful heir was essential to the entail of his great possessions. Early marriages—child-marriages—were in vogue in all ranks of society, and Southampton’s mother and guardian regarded matrimony at a tender age as especially incumbent on him in view of his rich heritage. When he was seventeen Burghley accordingly offered him a wife in the person of his granddaughter, Lady Elizabeth Vere, eldest daughter of his daughter Anne and of the Earl of Oxford. ”

“ In 1600 he went to the Low Countries, and took part in military operations about Ostend. The English commander-in-chief, Sir Francis Vere, treated him with less respect than he deemed fitting, and, after brooding over his injuries, he sent Vere, in 1602, a challenge, which that general declined to treat as serious. A very angry correspondence followed. A similar quarrel with Lord Southampton was composed by the council. ”

“ By her Southampton had two sons, Charles and Henry, who died young, and three daughters—Magdalen, who died an infant; Elizabeth, wife of Edward Noel, first earl of Gainsborough; and Rachel, wife first of Francis, lord Vaughan, and secondly of William, lord Russell, ‘the patriot.’ Southampton's second wife was Elizabeth, eldest daughter and heiress of Francis Leigh, lord Dunsmore (afterwards earl of Chichester) , by whom he had four daughters; only one survived youth, namely Elizabeth, who married, first (23 Dec. 1662) , Josceline Percy, eleventh earl of Northumberland ”

“ For I shall now make no scruple in declaring that my Lord was the most noble Earl of Southampton, being withheld from so saying before through very plainness and bluntness, desiring as a simple yeoman to make no boast of serving a man of so high quality. ”

“ 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. ”

“ His portrait, painted by Lucas van Heere, now at Bridgewater House, is reproduced in Lee's ‘Life of Shakespeare,’ (illustrated edit. 1899) ; with the inaccuracy common at the time it is inscribed ‘ætatis 19, 1566.’ By his wife, whose portrait is at Welbeck, Southampton had issue a son, who died young; his son and successor, Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton [q. v.] ; and a daughter Mary, who in 1585 married in her mother's private chapel in St. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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] . ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Who taught thy tongue the woeful words of plaint?
Who filled your eyes with tears of bitter smart?
Who gave thee grief and made thy joys to faint?
Who first did paint with colours pale thy face?
Who first did break thy sleeps of quiet rest?
Above the rest in court who gave thee grace?
Who made thee strive in honour to be best?
In constant truth to bide so firm and sure,
To scorn the world regarding but thy friends?
With patient mind each passion to endure,
In one desire to settle to the end? ”

“ My sighing seas shall flow with streams of tears;
Amidst disdains drive forth thy doleful chance,
A valiant mind no deadly danger fears;
Who loves aloft and sets his heart on high
Deserves no pain, though he do pine and die. ”

“ I muse that men forget themselves so far.
To mark the choice they make, and how they change,
How oft from Phoebus do they flee to Pan,
Unsettled still like haggards wild they range,
These gentle birds that fly from man to man;
Who would not scorn and shake them from the fist
And let them fly fair fools which way they list.
Yet for disport we fawn and flatter both,
To pass the time when nothing else can please,
And train them to our lure with subtle oath,
Till, weary of their wiles, ourselves we ease ”

“ Others of the old buildings have recently been removed, but those that are left are sufficient to recall the time when, plundered alike by friend and foe, and compelled to maintain its enemy, Southampton yet patriotically contributed its quota of men to the war for independence. ”

“ Who worketh most to their share least doth fall,
With due desert reward will never be.
The swiftest hare unto the mastiff slow
Oft-times doth fall, to him as for a prey;
The greyhound thereby doth miss his game we know
For which he made such speedy haste away.
So he that takes the pain to pen the book,
Reaps not the gifts of goodly golden muse;
But those gain that, who on the work shall look,
And from the sour the sweet by skill doth choose,
For he that beats the bush the bird not gets,
But who sits still and holdeth fast the nets. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Southampton was in no mood to curry favour with Buckingham, and the quarrel was never healed. When in July 1623 the privy councillors took an oath to support the Spanish marriage treaty, Southampton was one of six who absented themselves. He and Edward lord Zouche were the only absentees who offered no excuse for their absence. During the session of parliament (February–May 1624) he was especially active, sitting on committees to consider the defence of Ireland, for stopping the exportation of money, and for rendering firearms more serviceable. ”

“ 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. ”

“ North urged that ‘such port towns as are unwalled must be reinforced with men ... the forces of the sea-coast must upon every sudden be ready to impeach [the enemy's] landing. ... The places of most danger to the realm and to do him good are the Isle of Wight and Southampton.’ In the same year the queen gave him the office of treasurer of her household ”

“ There is little doubt that the good Elder (William Brewster) was also transferred to the larger ship at Southampton, while it would not be a very wild guess—in the light of Bradford’s statement—to place Carver, Winslow, Bradford, Standish, Cooke, Howland, and Edward Tilley, and their families, among the passengers on the consort. Just how many passengers each vessel carried when they sailed from Southampton will probably never be positively known. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Robert de Vere (1599?–1632) was the only son and heir of Hugh de Vere, grandson of John de Vere, fifteenth earl of Oxford [q. v.] , by Eleanor, daughter of William Walsh. Hugh de Vere, who was first cousin of Sir Francis Vere [q. v.] , and to Horace, lord Vere [q. v.] , of Tilbury, served as a volunteer in Leicester's first campaign in the Netherlands. His son Robert followed in his footsteps, serving under Horace, lord Vere. In April 1625 Robert claimed the earldom of Oxford, and also the office of lord chamberlain in succession to Henry de Vere, eighteenth earl [q. v.] ”

“ Forasmuch as it is to the surety of the Realm of England that the Isle of Wight, in the county of Southampton, be well inhabited with English people, for the defence as well of our antient enemies of the Realm of France as of other parties ”

“ 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. ”

“ The warmth of temper which distinguished Lord Southampton in early life, seems not to have been adequately repressed by time and experience; he was ever prone to resentment, though not difficult to conciliate, and, unhappily, the manners of the age were not such as to impose due restraint on the tumultuary passions. ”