John Fortescue

“ In certain deeds of the 17th century (e.g., Close Roll, 24 November, 8 Charles I.—Indenture between Francis, Lord Russell, and Earl of Bedford and John, Earl of Bristol, etc.) the road is called “Drury Lane alias Fortescue Lane.” It is just possible that the latter name is to be connected with Sir John Fortescue, who held the Elm Field (i.e., the land between Castle Street and Long Acre) in the reign of Henry VI. (Close Roll, 30 Henry VI. (302) —Grant by John Crouton and Wm. Horn to John and Katherine Nayler) ; in fact there is reason for thinking that the “viam regiam ducentem ... ”

“ FORTESCUE, SIR JOHN (c. 1531–1607) , English statesman, was the eldest son of Sir Adrian Fortescue (executed in 1539) , and of his second wife, Anne, daughter of Sir William Reade or Rede of Borstall in Buckinghamshire. The exact date of his birth is unrecorded. [1] He was restored in blood and to his estate at Shirburn in Oxfordshire in 1551. Through his father’s mother, Alice, daughter of Sir Geoffrey Boleyn, he was a second cousin once removed from Queen Elizabeth. ”

“ He and the army that fought with him at Agincourt are the true precursors of Craufurd and the Light Division. His body, borne with mournful pomp from the castle of Vincennes, still rests among us in Westminster Abbey, and above it still hang his saddle, his shield blazoned with the lilies of France, and the helmet, deeply dinted by two sword-cuts, which he wore at Agincourt. Not for three centuries was another soldier to rise up in England of equal fame with the Black Prince, John Hawkwood, and King Harry the Fifth. ”

“ He held his office during the remainder of the reign of Henry VI., to whom he steadily adhered; and having faithfully served that unfortunate monarch in all his troubles, he was attainted of treason in the first parliament of Edward IV. When Henry subsequently fled into Scotland, he is supposed to have appointed Fortescue, who appears to have accompanied him in his flight, chancellor of England. In 1463 Fortescue accompanied Queen Margaret and her court in their exile on the Continent, and returned with them afterwards to England. ”

“ He married, in June 1795, Henrietta, only daughter of Sir Richard Hoare, Bart., and widow of Sir Thomas Acland, Bart. He has a son in the Coldstream regiment of foot guards. His brother is the present Earl of Fortescue. ”

“ But in process of time he became a tardy victim, and married a lady of the Fortescue family, who bore him four stout sons, the eldest of whom, another John, was accounted one of the most athletic men of his time. “He could leap 16 ft. at one leap, and would commonly, at a stand-leap, jump over a high long table in the hall, light on a settle beyond the table, and raise himself straight up.” This magnificent young man was not without literary taste; he edited his father’s posthumous poems, and wrote an enthusiastic elegy on him; he was killed in 1644 at the siege of Gloucester. ”

“ All the accused were convicted and condemned to death, but their lives were spared by the queen, and their sentences commuted to imprisonment in the Tower. There, between 1565 and 1578, both the Poles died, while Fortescue, at what date is unknown, was released or allowed to escape. He probably owed his freedom to the influence of his brother Sir John, who was highly esteemed by Elizabeth. Of the remainder of his career nothing is known; he is spoken of as living, probably abroad, in his brother Thomas Fortescue's will, dated May 1608.
Sir Anthony left three sons, Anthony, John, and George ”

“ Fortescues ball, my friend P. came late at night to see me. He said, “I have a dreadful thing to tell you. I have a secret to reveal at which you will be aghast. . .—I am Mrs. Fortescue!” Early in the year, observing how apt men were to assume intimacies which they did not possess, he and one or two other friends had agreed to talk incessantly of one person, a wholly imaginary person, and, while “making her the fashion,” see if, very soon, a number of men would not pretend to be intimate with her. Dozens fell into the trap. ”

“ Having been ordered to prosecute the siege, Fortescue commenced operations. But the new sheriff was little more successful than his predecessor. Moreover, the Mount, which was connected with the main land by an isthmus, dry at low water, but at other times overflowed, gained the reputation of being impregnable; and the king, who ascribed the want of success to the want of loyal zeal, and described Cornwall as "the back door of [Pg 359] rebellion," instructed Fortescue to hold a parley with Oxford in order to ascertain the earl's desires and expectations. ”

“ Fortescue died at his house in Fetter Lane on 2 Nov. 1633, and was buried in the private chapel of Cookhill, where his tomb may still be seen. He married Prudence, daughter of William Wheteley of Holkham, Norfolk, by whom he had five sons, William, Francis, Edmund, Nicholas, John, and two daughters. ”

“ With the uncovering of its right flank the whole of Don John's line wavered, and few regiments, except those under the immediate direction of Condé, far away on the left, showed more than a feeble resistance to the advancing French. Very soon the whole force—Spaniards, Walloons and Germans, Scots and Irish—were in full retreat, and a single small corps of perhaps three hundred men stood isolated and alone in the position among the sand hills. ”

“ John, who was condemned by the same act of attainder, on the more definite charge of travelling to foreign courts in the interests of the king's enemies.
Fortescue has long been regarded by the order to which he belonged as a martyr, and according to Mr. Winthrop (Notes and Queries, viii. 191) his death was commemorated on 8 July. The first step towards his canonisation has been recently taken by his inclusion in the list of 261 persons executed during the reigns of Henry VIII, Elizabeth, and James I, on whom the title of venerable has been bestowed by the pope. ”

“ FORTESCUE, THOMAS (1784–1872) , Anglo-Indian civilian, son of Gerald Fortescue, by Elizabeth, daughter of John Tew, was born in 1784, acted as secretary to his cousin, Henry Wellesley (afterwards Lord Cowley) , lieutenant-governor of the recently ceded province of Oude, 1801–3, and on the capture of Delhi, October 1803, was appointed civil commissioner there. He married on 19 March 1859 Louisa Margaret, second daughter of Thomas Russell, esq., and died on 7 Sept. ”

“ Surely I ought not to allow a weak scruple to deprive the world of the immense advantages which depend on my life; and this old thing, if she has any right feeling, ought to be proud of such an opportunity of making herself useful. ”

“ A sailing cruise round the West Indies sounds extremely like a yachting excursion, but, in absolute fact, a journey performed by a squadron of sailing frigates keeping meticulous station under sail, and sometimes having to make short tacks every five minutes or so, to come into their anchorage, and all this in tropical heat, does not seem to have much of the yacht connected with it. ”

“ Goring in the extreme advanced sap paid extra wages from his own pocket to any who would work with him, and remained there while two-and-twenty men were shot down round him, until at last he was compelled to retire by a bullet in the ankle. Meanwhile fresh volunteers kept pouring in—Herbert, son of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Sir Faithful Fortescue of the King's cavalry in Ireland, Sir Charles Slingsby, with many more, and lastly Captain George Monk of Potheridge in Devon, one day to be the first colonel of the Coldstream Guards, and even now distinguished by peculiar bravery. ”

“ Bertie Fortescue was twenty-three, he weighed twelve stone, was rather fatter than he should have been, and wore an eyeglass. His father was good to him, his mother spoiled him, he had not been to a public school, and had never had a thrashing in his life. He believed in himself, in clothes and money, and imagined he was born to rule men. He was trying, it was for the first time, in the steamship Pilgrim of 6000 tons register, owners Fortescue and Son of Liverpool, bound from New Orleans to Cape Town with a cargo of mules and horses for the British Government. ”

“ They put on more speed; so did we. Then came loud shouts of “Halte!” These producing no effect, several pistol shots were fired.
“Dios mio!” said Carmen; “they will rouse the camp, and the road will be barred. Look here, Fortescue; about two miles farther on is an open glade which we have to cross, and which the fellows must also cross if they either meet or intercept us. The trail to the left leads to the llanos. It runs between high banks, and is so narrow that one resolute man may stop a dozen. If any of the gauchos get there before us we are lost. Your horse is the fleetest. ”

“ In another quarter the Royal Scots and the Seventh Fusiliers gained not less brilliant success; and in fact it was the most creditable action that William had fought during the whole war. It cost the Allies two thousand men killed and wounded, the three battalions of Guards alone losing thirty-two officers. The British were to fight many such bloody combats during the next twenty years—combats forgotten since they were merely incidents in the history of a siege, and so frequent that they were hardly chronicled and are not to be restored to memory now. ”

“ Meanwhile he despatched a party of backwoodsmen forthwith to the forks of the Ohio, there to build, on a site selected by Washington, the fort for which he had pleaded so long. Forty men were actually at work upon it when, on the 17th of April, a flotilla of small craft came pouring down on the Alleghany with a party of five hundred French on board. The troops landed, trained cannon on the unfinished stockade, and summoned the British to surrender. Resistance was hopeless. The backwoodsmen perforce yielded ”

“ Fortescue's commands were not to be lightly treated. We stood in far more awe of her than of Madame St. Aubert herself; and I had not the least doubt that, if the dinner-bell rang before her orders were obeyed, I should be condemned to solitary banishment in the schoolroom while the other girls were enjoying their walk in the cool of the evening.
'"Poor child! How woeful she looks!" cried Bessie Davenant compassionately. "Never mind, Frances, I'll come and help you. There is time before dinner, if we run in at once, trusting to good luck not to meet Mrs. Fortescue by the way;" ”

“ He had left word at every house that he passed, and parties had gone up the road in the valley with lanterns. "I hope and trust, my Lady," said the Corporal in conclusion, "that Master Dick and Miss Elsie have followed the hunt to the end, for his honour the colonel will see to them. A man that I met on the road promised to carry a message to Fitzdenys Court, but the deer was travelling fast, so I doubt if the colonel will come home to-night unless so be as he must. But, if you please, my Lady, I'll just take another horse and ride over to the Court myself."
"Can nothing more be done?" ”

“ And you mind her son, my Lady, him that went for a marine, and what terrible shakums he had when he comed back from the Injies. And I consider that they stolen chimases is a jidgment, my Lady, a jidgment for the mischief her fowls have done in my garden—"
"Stop, stop," said Lady Eleanor, whose eye had wandered to a shady spot under the trees where the Corporal was lunging a steady old Exmoor pony round and round, while Dick, with a pair of long gaiters added to his attire, sat firmly on its back, though without saddle or stirrups. "Tell me; has anything happened to the boy to frighten him?" ”

“ Before the rock itself stood the French Sepoys with the grenadiers in support; on either flank of them the French artillery was playing on his own troops, in rear of the rock was the battalion of French, with the entire Mysorean army drawn up a cannon-shot behind him, while the Mahratta horse scoured the plain in small parties, continually menacing Lawrence's flanks and rear. The courage of the British rose to the occasion. After the tedious disappointing work with the French entrenchments on the Pennar they asked for nothing better than a brush with their old enemy in the open field. ”

“ Colonel George looked at the beautiful face before him, and Lady Eleanor knew that she had gained her point. "Well, well," he said at last; "I will write on his behalf, and better still I will get my father to write also, which will have more effect. But it is all wrong," he added; "it is not discipline."
"I am quite sure that it will be all right," said Lady Eleanor with great decision.
Colonel George shook his head smiling; but he and old Lord Fitzdenys wrote, as he had promised; and it may as well be said that they obtained pardon for Henry Mugford the deserter. ”

“ The early months of the summer were occupied with the task, always vexatious and troublesome, of collecting the Provincial troops, and of sending supplies up the Mohawk and the Hudson to Fort Edward. The latter work was tedious and harassing, despite the facilities of carriage by water, for there were three portages between Albany and Fort Edward, at each of which all boats had to be unladen, and dragged, together [323] with their stores, for three or even more miles overland before they could be launched again for easier progress. None the less the business went forward with great energy ”

“ He looks after everything, and an uncommon sharp domo he is, too, Jim says. Nobody can do him a penny piece. And then there is Mr. Fortescue’s body-servant; he’s a dark man, with a big scar on one cheek, and rings in his ears. ”