George Henry Thomas

“ He knew that, if treated according [305] to his deserts, this would be the last friendly note written him by his brother for many a day to come. Thomas was then being whirled on his way to the full knowledge of his, George’s, delinquency; or, if not to the full knowledge, which perhaps could only be unfolded by degrees, as we turn the pages of a book, to quite enough of it. It was time for him to be off now. If inquisitive callers must be seen, Hurde could see them.
Conscience makes cowards of us all: a saying, not more trite than true. Very absurd cowards it makes of us now and then. ”

“ Servants, carriages, horses, dress, dinner-parties!—I know you must spend enormously.”
[170] “Well, so we do,” replied Maria. “But, mamma, you are perhaps unaware that George has an equal share with Thomas. He has indeed. When Mr. Crosse retired, Thomas told George it should be so for the future.”
“Did he? There are not many like Thomas Godolphin. Still, Maria, whatever may be your income, I maintain my argument, that you keep up unnecessary style and extravagance. Remember, my dear, that you had no marriage settlement. And, the more you save, the better for your children. ”

“ Thomas, George Henry, American general, born in Virginia; a man of fine character, lacking none of the sterner stuff of the soldier, but blended with modesty and gentleness; universally popular in the army, which he joined in 1840 and continued in till his death, rising to be general of a division through gallantry in the Indian frontier wars and in the Civil War, in which, at the battle of Nashville (1864) , he completely routed the Confederate forces ”

“ His mother is said to have tried to dissuade him, and the able Bishop of Hereford, Gilbert Foliot, records his own opposition. But the complete devotion to the king's will and the zealous services of Thomas as chancellor might well make Henry believe, if not that he would be entirely subservient to his policy when made archbishop, at least that Church and State might be ruled by them together in full harmony and co-operation, and the days of William and Lanfranc be brought back. ”

“ At Canterbury the monks received him as an angel of God, crying, "Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord." "I am come to die among you," said Thomas in his sermon. "In this church there are martyrs," he said again, "and God will soon increase their number." A few days later he made a triumphant progress through London on his way to visit the young king; his fellow-citizens crowded round him with loud blessings, while a procession of three hundred poor scholars and London clerks raised a loud Te Deumas Thomas rode along with bowed head scattering alms on every side. ”

“ But few men have contributed more to fill the measure of the glory and prosperity of their country, than the subject of this brief sketch. He was a native of Chester county, Pennsylvania, and born on the 19th day of March, 1734. He was the son of William M’Kean, who immigrated from Ireland when quite young. He placed Thomas, at an early age, under the tuition of the Rev. Francis Allison, then principal of one of the most celebrated Seminaries of the Province, and a gentleman of profound science and erudition. The talents of Thomas soon budded and blossomed like the early rose of spring. ”

“ Thomas was born of poor parentage in Ireland in 1756, deserted from the British Navy in Madras, and made his way north to Delhi, where he took service under the begum Samru of Sardhana. Supplanted in her favour by a Frenchman, he transferred his allegiance to Appa Rao, a Mahratta chieftain, and subsequently set up an independent kingdom of his own in Hariana with his capital at Hansi. Thomas was a man of great personal strength and daring, and considerable military genius. ”

“ Indeed, such good company did Henry find him that, as quick to take fancies as he was to tire of them, he would hardly allow the poor man to spend an evening alone, so sir Thomas in despair gave up being amusing, and sat silent, though no doubt with a twinkle in his eye, resisting all the king's efforts to make him speak, till at length everyone grew weary of him, and his place was filled by some livelier man. ”

“ Thomas, the son of a wealthy merchant of London, had been the king's chief secretary or Chancellor for the last eight years. He was a clever, versatile, not very scrupulous man, with a devouring ambition: hitherto he had been a devoted servant, and a genial companion to the king, and had lived much more like a layman than a cleric. In spite of his priesthood, he had borne arms in the war of Toulouse, and even distinguished himself in a single combat with a French champion. Henry thought that Thomas would be no less obliging and useful as archbishop than he had been as Chancellor. ”

“ Thomas, the king said, had entered as a tyrant into his land, had excommunicated the bishops for obedience to the king, had troubled the whole realm, had purposed to take away the royal crown from his son, had begged for a legation against Henry, and had obtained from the Pope grants of presentations to churches, which deprived knights and barons as well as the king himself of their property. The council fell in with the king's mood. Thomas was worthy of death. The king would have neither quiet days nor a peaceful kingdom while he lived. ”

“ Later he spent some time in the schools of London, which enjoyed at that time a high reputation, and finally studied theology at Paris. Returning at the age of twenty-two he was compelled, through the misfortunes of his parents, to become a notary in the service of a wealthy kinsman, Osbert Huit Deniers, who was of some importance in London politics. About 1142 a family friend brought Thomas under the notice of Archbishop Theobald, of whose household he at once became an inmate. ”

“ But if I did not believe it, if I believed him to have been in the past all that his opponent has said; even if I believed that, only last evening, spurned, driven from his child, penniless and hopeless, he had yielded to the weakness which has been his curse all his life—even if I believed that, still I should demand that Henry Thomas, repentant and earnest as you see him now, should be given his rightful opportunity to become a man again. He is poor, but he is not—shall not be—friendless. ”

“ Sir Thomas, like most others in the country at this period, was one of those proud men who like to do every thing with circumstance and parade, and accordingly if he only rode across the park to shoot a buck, he usually was attended by a round dozen of his keepers and servants. ”

“ BECKET, THOMAS (c. 1118–1170) , by his contemporaries more commonly called Thomas of London, English chancellor and archbishop of Canterbury under Henry II., was born about the year 1118 in London. His mother was a native of Caen; his father, who came of a family of small Norman landowners, had been a citizen of Rouen, but migrated to London before the birth of Thomas, and held at one time the dignified office of portreeve, although he ended his life in straitened circumstances. The young Thomas received an excellent education. ”

“ That he might put a rebuke upon Thomas for his incredulity. He had neglected the former meeting of the disciples; and, to teach him to prize those seasons of grace better for the future, he cannot have such another opportunity for several days. He that slips one tide must stay a good while for another. A very melancholy week, we have reason to think Thomas had of it, drooping, and in suspense, while the other disciples were full of joy ”

“ Speaking for our company, I can safely say that their hearts are full of courage and devotion to thy person."
"'Tis well, Sir Thomas. Thrice happy is a king whose people's hearts are his throne. Again, farewell, and may Heaven look favourably upon us this coming day."
"Geoffrey, thou hast heard his Majesty's word?" asked Sir Thomas. "Certes, thy service in the matter of the conspiracy at Southampton he hath not forgotten. How sayest thou? Art willing to undertake this enterprise? Bethink thee; 'tis a perilous service, and short will be thy shrift if thou art discovered." ”

“ In the opinion of anxious critics of the day, indeed, the victory which had been almost won by Thomas seemed altogether lost after his death. Even the monasteries, where the ecclesiastical temper was most formidable, were forced to choose abbots and priors whom the king could trust. In its subjection the Church was in Henry's eyes an admirable engine to serve the uses of the governing power. ”

“ The death of his father next year, and his second marriage (on 2 Dec. 1617, at Deptford) with a widow, Judith Taylor, daughter of William Bennet of London, by whom he had a large family, greatly increased his difficulties. Wiston, which had fallen into ruins, was sold, but he continued to sit in parliament as M.P. for Steyning in 1614, 1615, and 1620. Sir Thomas is said to have subsequently retired to the Isle of Wight, and to have died there about 1630. By his first wife, Frances Vavasour, he had three sons and four daughters. Henry [q. v.] , the second son, was the dramatist. ”

“ He was interested in the tobacco trade; in 1715 he conveyed 130 Jacobite prisoners to the American plantations. In 1723, having lost in speculation the fortune which he had inherited from his father, he went himself to Virginia as collector of customs on the Rappahannock river. He died in Jamaica in 1729. A Liverpool street is named Sir Thomas Buildings after him. ”

“ In the seclusion of garrison life in Texas during the exciting period from 1855 to 1861, Major Thomas watched with increasing apprehension the gradual approach of the inevitable conflict. In affection for and pride in his native state he was a Virginian of the Virginians; but he never for a moment doubted where his duty lay. Early in November, 1860, he left Texas on a long leave of absence. Before its expiration he was ordered, 11 April, 1861, to take charge of his regiment, which had been treacherously surrendered in Texas, and was now arriving in New York. ”

“ And the consummate fashioning faculty, the devout and intellectual temperament of Thomas, are writ large in his treatises. His work has unity; it is a system; it corresponds to the scholastically creative personality, from the efficient concord of whose faculties it proceeded. The unity of Thomas’s personality lay in his conception of man’s summum bonum, which sprang from his Christian faith, but was constructed by reason from foundation to pinnacle ”

“ Educated at home, and afterwards at Cambridge, where he gained an excellent reputation for conduct and study. His father dying when Thomas was twenty-one, he found himself at that early age the Master of Wentworth, of large estates and property, the husband ‘of a fair wife,’ (the daughter of Francis Earl of Cumberland,) and the guardian of a flock of young relatives, yet he found time not only for the diligent pursuit of study, but for the relaxations of ‘hunting, hawking, and fishing;’ in fact, for all the varied business and pleasures of a country life. ”

“ Two nobles were sent to warn Thomas that orders for his death were already given unless he would submit. The weeping bishops with lamentable voices besought him to save them; knights of the Hospital and the Temple from the king's household knelt before him, sighing and pouring forth tears. "In fear of death," says one chronicler, he yielded. "I am ready," he said, "to keep the customs of the kingdom." Hardly were the words out of his mouth, when Henry commanded him to order the bishops to give the same promise, and again the Primate obeyed. But the king was still unsatisfied. ”

“ Henry of Winchester took his stand on the side of Thomas. "If the authority of the king was to prevail," he argued, "what remains but that nothing shall henceforth be done according to law, but all things shall be disturbed for his pleasure—and the priesthood shall be as the people," he concluded, with a stirring of the churchman's temper. The Bishop of Exeter added another plea to induce Thomas to stand firm: "Surely it is better to put one head in peril than to set the whole Church in danger." Not so, thought the Bishop of Lincoln, "a simple man and of little discretion;" ”

“ He told him
likewise, that ever since he was in Sir Thomas's family he had employed
all his hours of leisure in reading good books; that he had read the
Bible, the Whole Duty of Man, and Thomas a Kempis ”

“ His family were staunch supporters of the Lancastrian cause. His brother, William, was slain at the battle of Bosworth gallantly defending the standard of Henry VII. A contemporary manuscript speaks of Sir Thomas as having 'greatly favoured and followed the party of Henry, earl of Richmond.' He married Anne, daughter of John Fiennes, Lord Dacre, and widow of the Marquis of Berkeley. ”

“ Hast thou a trusty level-headed man or two whom thou canst send through the woods on our left? If so, I pray thee dispatch them with haste, and let them bear me a full report within an hour. But, bear in mind, none but those who have counted the cost and are willing to undertake the hazard are to be sent. Thy zealous squire, there: he hath lurked in trees before to-day, as we know full well—perchance he may be eager to repeat his exploits. But that is his affair. Fare thee well, Sir Thomas.... Stay—another question: What dost thou think of the spirits of the men under thy command? ”

“ One of his enemies at a later time said that, ‘having in his hand the sword of the state, he plunged it into the bosom of the church, his mother, when he robbed her of so many thousands for the war of Toulouse;’ while John of Salisbury declared that Thomas was in this matter only ‘a minister of iniquity,’ yielding, under compulsion, to the will of the king. In the war itself the deacon-chancellor figured prominently, at the head of a troop of picked knights, foremost in every fight. When Louis VII came to relieve Toulouse, Thomas vainly urged Henry to continue the siege. ”