Books: Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe
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Lady Fanshawe >> Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe
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He married first the daughter of Sir Giles Allington, by whom he hath
a daughter called Anne, who remains a maid to this day; his second
wife was Elizabeth, daughter to Sir William Cockain, Lord Mayor of
London. She was a very good wife, but not else qualified extraordinary
in any thing. She brought him many children, whereof now remain three
sons and five daughters.
Thomas, Lord Viscount Fanshawe, his eldest son, died in May 1674; he
was a handsome gentleman, of an excellent understanding, and great
honour and honesty. He married the daughter and sole heir of Knitton
Ferrers, of Bedford-bury, in the county of Hertford, Esq., by whom he
had no child. After his father's death he married the daughter of Sir
John Evelyn, widow to Sir John Wrey, of Lincolnshire; by this wife he
had several children, of which only two survived him, Thomas, now Lord
Viscount Fanshawe, and Katherine. His widow is lately married unto my
Lord Castleton, of Senbeck, in Yorkshire. He lies buried with his
ancestors in the Parish Church of Ware. Your uncle Henry, that was the
second, was killed in fighting gallantly in the Low Countries with the
English colours in his hand. He was very handsome and a very brave
man, beloved and lamented by all who knew him. The third died a
bachelor; I knew him not. The fourth is Sir Simon Fanshawe, a gallant
gentleman, but more a libertine than any of his family; he married a
very fine and good woman, and of a great estate; she was daughter and
coheir to Sir William Walter, and widow to Knitton Ferrers, son to Sir
John Ferrers, of Hertfordshire.
Your father, Sir Richard Fanshawe, Knight and Baronet, one of the
Masters of the Requests, Secretary of the Latin Tongue, Burgess for
the University of Cambridge, and one of his Majesty's most honourable
Privy Council of England and Ireland, and his Majesty's Ambassador to
Portugal and Spain, was the fifth and youngest son. He married me, the
eldest daughter of Sir John Harrison, Knight, of Balls, in the county
of Hertford; he was married at thirty-five years of age, and lived
with me twenty-three years and twenty-nine days; he lies buried in a
new vault I purchased of Humphry, Lord Bishop of London, in St. Mary's
Chapel in the Church of Ware, near his ancestors, over which I built
him a monument.
My dear husband had six sons and eight daughters, born and christened,
and I miscarried of six more, three at several times, and once of
three sons when I was about half gone my time. Harrison, my eldest
son, and Henry, my second son; Richard, my third; Henry, my fourth;
and Richard, my fifth, are all dead; my second lies buried in the
Protestant Church-yard in Paris, by the father of the Earl of Bristol;
my eldest daughter Anne lies buried in the Parish Church of
Tankersley, in Yorkshire, where she died; Elizabeth lies in the Chapel
of the French Hospital at Madrid, where she died of a fever at ten
days old; my next daughter of her name lies buried in the Parish of
Foot's Cray, in Kent, near Frog-Pool, my brother Warwick's house,
where she died; and my daughter Mary lies in my father's vault in
Hertford, with my first son Henry; my eldest lies buried in the Parish
Church of St. John's College in Oxford, where he was born; my second
Henry lies in Bengy Church, in Hertfordshire; and my second Richard in
the Esperanza in Lisbon in Portugal, he being born ten weeks before my
time when I was in that Court. I praise God I have living yourself and
four sisters, Katherine unmarried, Margaret married to Vincent
Grantham, Esq., of Goltho, in the county of Lincoln, Anne, and
Elizabeth.
Now I have shown you the most part of your family by the male line,
except Sir Thomas Fanshawe, of Jenkins, who has but one child, and
that a daughter, and two brothers, both unmarried. Their father as
well as themselves was a worthy honest gentleman and a great sufferer
for the Crown, wholly engaging his estate for the maintenance thereof;
and so is my cousin John Fanshawe, of Parslowes, in Essex, who hath
but two sons, one unmarried by his first wife, who was the daughter of
Sir William Kingsmill; and the other is a child whom he had by his
last wife, the daughter of my cousin, Thomas Fanshawe, of Jenkins.
I confess I owe Sir Thomas Fanshawe as good a character as I can
express, for he fully deserves it, both for his true honours, and most
excellent acquired and natural parts; and that which is of me most
esteemed, he was your father's intimate friend as well as near
kinsman; and during the time of the war he was very kind to us, by
assisting us in our wants, which were as great as his supports; which,
though, I thank God, I have fully repaid, yet must ever remain obliged
for his kindness and the esteem he hath for us.
He married the daughter and heir of Sir Edward Heath, a pretty lady
and a good woman; but I must here with thankfulness acknowledge God's
bounty to your family, who hath bestowed most excellent wives on most
of them, both in person and fortune; but with respect to the rest, I
must give with all reverence justly your grandmother the first and
best place, who being left a widow at thirty-nine years of age,
handsome, with a full fortune, all her children provided for, kept
herself a widow, and out of her jointure and revenue purchased six
hundred pounds a year for the younger children of her eldest son;
besides, she added five hundred pounds a piece to the portions of her
younger children, having nine, whereof but one daughter was married
before the death of Sir Henry Fanshawe, and she was the second, her
name was Mary, married to William Neuce, Esq., of Hadham, in
Hertfordshire; the eldest daughter married Sir Capell Bedells, of
Hammerton, in Huntingdonshire; the third never married; the fourth
married Sir William Boteler, of Teston, in Kent; the fifth died young.
Thus you have been made acquainted with most of your nearest relations
by your father, except your cousins german, which are the three sons
of your uncle, Lord Fanshawe, and William Neuce, Esq., and his two
brothers, and Sir Oliver Boteler, and my Lady Campbell, three maiden
sisters of hers, and my Lady Levingthorpe, of Blackware, in
Hertfordshire. There was more, but they are dead; and so are the most
part of them I have named, but their memories will remain as long as
their names, for honest, worthy, virtuous men and women, who served
God in their generations in their several capacities, and without
vanity none exceeded them in their loyalty, which cost them dear, for
there were as many fathers, sons, uncles, nephews, and cousins german,
and those that matched to them, engaged and sequestered for the Crown
in the time of the late rebellion as their revenue made nearly eighty
thousand pounds a year, and this I have often seen a list of and know
it to be true.
The use of which to you is, that you should not omit your duty to your
king and country, nor be less in your industry to exceed at least, not
shame, the excellent memory of your ancestors. They were all eminent
officers; and that, I believe, keeping them ever employed, made them
so good men. I hope in God the like parallel will be in you, which I
heartily and daily pray for.
I was born in St. Olave's, Hart-street, London, in a house that my
father took of the Lord Dingwall, father to the now Duchess of Ormond,
in the year 1625, on our Lady Day, 25th of March. Mr. Hyde, Lady
Alston, and Lady Wolstenholme, were my godfather and godmothers. In
that house I lived the winter times till I was fifteen years old and
three months, with my ever honoured and most dear mother, who departed
this life on the 20th day of July, 1640, and now lies buried in
Allhallow's Church, in Hertford. Her funeral cost my father above a
thousand pounds; and Dr. Howlsworth preached her funeral sermon, in
which, upon his own knowledge, he told before many hundreds of people
this accident following: that my mother, being sick to death of a
fever three months after I was born, which was the occasion she gave
me suck no longer, her friends and servants thought to all outward
appearance that she was dead, and so lay almost two days and a night,
but Dr. Winston coming to comfort my father, went into my mother's
room, and looking earnestly on her face, said "she was so handsome,
and now looks so lovely, I cannot think she is dead"; and suddenly
took a lancet out of his pocket and with it cut the sole of her foot,
which bled. Upon this, he immediately caused her to be laid upon the
bed again and to be rubbed, and such means as she came to life, and
opening her eyes, saw two of her kinswomen stand by her, my Lady
Knollys and my Lady Russell, both with great wide sleeves, as the
fashion then was, and said, Did not you promise me fifteen years, and
are you come again? which they not understanding, persuaded her to
keep her spirits quiet in that great weakness wherein she then was;
but some hours after she desired my father and Dr. Howlsworth might be
left alone with her, to whom she said, "I will acquaint you, that
during the time of my trance I was in great quiet, but in a place I
could neither distinguish nor describe; but the sense of leaving my
girl, who is dearer to me than all my children, remained a trouble
upon my spirits. Suddenly I saw two by me, clothed in long white
garments, and methought I fell down with my face in the dust; and they
asked why I was troubled in so great happiness. I replied, O let me
have the same grant given to Hezekiah, that I may live fifteen years,
to see my daughter a woman: to which they answered, It is done; and
then, at that instant, I awoke out of my trance;" and Dr. Howlsworth
did there affirm, that that day she died made just fifteen years from
that time. My dear mother was of excellent beauty and good
understanding, a loving wife, and most tender mother; very pious, and
charitable to that degree, that she relieved, besides the offals of
the table, which she constantly gave to the poor, many with her own
hand daily out of her purse, and dressed many wounds of miserable
people, when she had health, and when that failed, as it did often,
she caused her servants to supply that place.
She left behind her three sons, all much older than myself. The
eldest, John, married three wives: by his last, who was the daughter
of Mr. Ludlow, a very ancient and noble family, he left two daughters,
who are both unmarried. My second brother, William, died at Oxford
with a bruise on his side, caused by the fall of his horse, which was
shot under him, as he went out with a party of horse against a party
of the Earl of Essex, in 1643. He was a very good and gallant young
man; and they are the very words the king said of him, when he was
told of his death: he was much lamented by all who knew him. The
third, Abraham, hath left no issue; I was the fourth, and my sister
Margaret, the fifth, who married Sir Edmund Turner, of South Stock, in
Lincolnshire, a worthy pious man.
My father, in his old age, married again, the daughter of Mr.
Shatbolt, of Hertfordshire, and had by her a son, Richard, and a
daughter, Mary. The son married the eldest daughter of the now Lord
Grandison, and the daughter married the eldest son of Sir Rowland
Lytton, of Knebworth, in Hertfordshire. My father lived to see them
both married; and enjoyed a firm health, until above eighty years of
age. He was a handsome gentleman of great natural parts, a great
accomptant, vast memory, an incomparable penman, of great integrity
and service to his prince; had been a member of several Parliaments; a
good husband and father, especially to me, who never can sufficiently
praise God for him, nor acknowledge his most tender affection and
bounty to me and mine; but as in duty bound, I will for ever say, none
had ever a kinder and better father than myself. He died on the 28th
day of September, 1670; and lies buried by my mother in his own vault
in Allhallows Church, in Hertford.
My father was born at Bemond, in Lancashire; the twelfth son of his
father, whose mother was the daughter of Mr. Hippom, cousin german to
the old Countess of Rivers. I have little knowledge of my father's
relations more than the families of Aston, Irland, Sandis, Bemond, and
Curwen, who brought him to London and placed him with my Lord
Treasurer Salisbury, then Secretary of State, who sent him into Sir
John Wolstenholm's family, and gave him a small place in the Custom-
house, to enable him for the employment. He, being of good parts and
great capacity, in some time raised himself, by God's help, to get a
very great estate, for I have often heard him say that, besides his
education, he never had but twenty marks, which his father gave him
when he came to London, and that was all he ever had for a portion. He
made it appear with great truth that, during the time of the war, he
lost by the rebels above one hundred and thirty thousand pounds, and
yet he left his son sixteen hundred pounds a year in land, and gave
his daughter above twenty thousand pounds.
Now it is necessary to say something of my mother's education of me,
which was with all the advantages that time afforded, both for working
all sorts of fine works with my needle, and learning French, singing,
lute, the virginals and dancing, and notwithstanding I learned as well
as most did, yet was I wild to that degree, that the hours of my
beloved recreation took up too much of my time, for I loved riding in
the first place, running, and all active pastimes; in short, I was
that which we graver people call a hoyting girl; but to be just to
myself, I never did mischief to myself or people, nor one immodest
word or action in my life, though skipping and activity was my
delight, but upon my mother's death, I then began to reflect, and, as
an offering to her memory, I flung away those childnesses that had
formerly possessed me, and, by my father's command, took upon me
charge of his house and family, which I so ordered by my excellent
mother's example as found acceptance in his sight. I was very well
beloved by all our relations and my mother's friends, whom I paid a
great respect to, and I ever was ambitious to keep the best company,
which I have done, I thank God, all the days of my life. My father and
mother were both great lovers and honourers of clergymen, but all of
Cambridge, and chiefly Doctor Bamberge, Doctor Howlsworth,
Broanbricke, Walley, and Mickelthite, and Sanderson, with many others.
We lived in great plenty and hospitality, but no lavishness in the
least, nor prodigality, and, I believe, my father never drank six
glasses of wine in his life in one day.
About 1641, my brother, William Harrison, was chosen Burgess of ----,
and sat in the Commons' House of Parliament, but not long, for when
the King set up his standard he went with him to Nottingham; yet he,
during his sitting, undertook that my father should lend one hundred
and fifty thousand pounds to pay the Scots who had then entered
England, and, as it seems, were to be both paid and prayed to go home,
but afterwards their plague infected the whole nation, as to all our
sorrows we know, and that debt of my father's remained to him until
the restoration of the King. In 1642 my father was taken prisoner at
his house, called Montague House, in Bishopgate Street, and threatened
to be sent on board a ship with many more of his quality, and then
they plundered his house, but he getting loose, under pretence to
fetch some writings they demanded in his hands concerning the public
revenue, he went to Oxford in 1643, and thereupon the Long Parliament,
of which he was a member for the town of Lancaster, plundered him out
of what remained, and sequestered his whole estate, which continued
out of his possession until the happy restoration of the King.
My father commanded my sister and myself to come to him to Oxford
where the Court then was, but we, that had till that hour lived in
great plenty and great order, found ourselves like fishes out of the
water, and the scene was so changed, that we knew not at all how to
act any part but obedience, for, from as good a house as any gentleman
of England had, we came to a baker's house in an obscure street, and
from rooms well furnished, to lie in a very bad bed in a garret, to
one dish of meat, and that not the best ordered, no money, for we were
as poor as Job, nor clothes more than a man or two brought in their
cloak bags: we had the perpetual discourse of losing and gaining towns
and men; at the windows the sad spectacle of war, sometimes plague,
sometimes sicknesses of other kind, by reason of so many people being
packed together, as, I believe, there never was before of that
quality; always in want, yet I must needs say that most bore it with a
martyr-like cheerfulness. For my own part, I began to think we should
all, like Abraham, live in tents all the days of our lives. The King
sent my father a warrant for a baronet, but he returned it with
thanks, saying he had too much honour of his knighthood which his
Majesty had honoured him with some years before, for the fortune he
now possessed: but as in a rock the turbulence of the waves disperses
the splinters of the rock, so it was my lot, for having buried my dear
brother, William Harrison, in Exeter College Chapel, I then married
your dear father in 1644 in Wolvercot Church, two miles from Oxford,
upon the 18th day of May. None was at our wedding but my dear father,
who, at my mother's desire, gave me her wedding-ring, with which I was
married, and my sister Margaret, and my brother and sister Boteler,
Sir Edward Hyde, afterwards Lord Chancellor, and Sir Geoffry Palmer,
the King's Attorney. Before I was married, my husband was sworn
Secretary of War to the Prince, now our King, with a promise from
Charles I. to be preferred as soon as occasion offered it, but both
his fortune and my promised portion, which was made 10,000 pounds,
were both at that time in expectation, and we might truly be called
merchant adventurers, for the stock we set up our trading with did not
amount to twenty pounds betwixt us; but, however, it was to us as a
little piece of armour is against a bullet, which if it be right
placed, though no bigger than a shilling, serves as well as a whole
suit of armour; so our stock bought pen, ink and paper, which was your
father's trade, and by it, I assure you, we lived better than those
that were born to 2OOO pounds a year as long as he had his liberty.
Here stay till I have told you your father's life until I married him.
He was but seven years old when his father died, and his mother, my
Lady, designed him for the law, having bred him first with that famous
schoolmaster Mr. Farnaby, and then under the tuition of Dr. Beale, in
Jesus College in Cambridge, from whence, being a most excellent
Latinist, he was admitted into the Inner Temple; but it seemed so
crabbed a study, and disagreeable to his inclinations, that he rather
studied to obey his mother than to make any progress in the law. Upon
the death of his mother, whom he dearly loved and honoured, he went
into France to Paris, where he had three cousins german, Lord
Strangford, Sir John Baker of Kent, and my cousin Thornhill. The whole
stock he carried with him was eighty pieces of gold, and French silver
to the value of five pounds in his pocket; his gold was quilted in his
doublet; he went by post to lodgings in the Fauxbourg St. Germain,
with an intent to rest that night, and the next day to find out his
kindred; but the devil, that never sleeps, so ordered it, that two
friars entered the chamber wherein he was, and welcoming him, being
his countrymen, invited him to play, he innocently only intending
diversion, till his supper was ready; but that was not their design,
for having engaged him, they left him not as long as he was worth a
groat, which when they discovered, they gave him five pieces of his
money until he could recruit himself by his friends, which he did the
next day: and from that time forward never played for a piece. It came
to pass, that seven years after, my husband being in Huntingdonshire,
at a bowling-green, with Sir Capel Bedells, and many other persons of
quality, one in the company was called Captain Taller. My husband, who
had a very quick and piercing eye, marked him much, as knowing his
face, and found, through his peruke wig, and scarlet cloak and buff
suit, that his name was neither Captain nor Taller, but the honest
Jesuit called Friar Sherwood, that had cheated him of the greatest
part of his money, and after had lent him the five pieces; so your
father went to him, and gave him his five pieces, and said, 'Father
Sherwood, I know you, and you know this:' at which he was extremely
surprised, and begged of your father not to discover him, for his life
was in danger. After a year's stay in Paris, he travelled to Madrid in
Spain, there to learn that language; at the same time, for that
purpose, went the late Earl of Caernarvon, and my Lord of Bedford, and
Sir John Berkeley, and several other gentlemen. Afterwards, having
spent some years abroad, he returned to London, and gave so good an
account of his travels, that he was about the year 1630 made Secretary
of the Embassy, when my Lord Aston went Ambassador. During your
father's travels, he had spent a considerable part of his stock, which
his father and mother left him: in those days, where there were so
many younger children, it was inconsiderable, being 50 pounds a year,
and 1,500 pounds in money. Upon the return of the ambassador, your
father was left resident until Sir Arthur Hopton went Ambassador, and
then he came home about the year 1637 or 1638; and I must tell you
here of an accident your father had coming out of Spain in this
journey post: he going into a bed for some few hours to refresh
himself, in a village five leagues from Madrid, he slept so soundly,
that notwithstanding the house was on fire, and all the people of the
village there, he never waked; but the honesty of the owners was such,
that they carried him, and set him asleep upon a piece of timber on
the highway; and there he awaked, and found his portmanteau and
clothes by him, without the least loss, which is extraordinary,
considering the profession of his landlord, who had at that time his
house burnt to the ground. After being here a year or two, and no
preferment coming, Secretary Windebank calling him Puritan, being his
enemy, because himself was a Papist, he was, by his elder brother, put
into the place of the King's Remembrancer, absolutely, with this
proviso, that he should be accountable for the use of the income; but
if in seven years he would pay 8,000 pounds for it to his brother,
then it should be his, with the whole revenue of it; but the war
breaking out presently after, put an end to this design; for, being
the King's sworn servant, he went to the King at Oxford, as well as
his fellows, to avoid the fury of this madness of the people, where,
having been almost a year, we married, as I said before; and I will
continue my discourse where we left.
Now we appear on the stage, to act what part God designed us; and as
faith is the evidence of things not seen, so we, upon so righteous a
cause, cheerfully resolved to suffer what that would drive us to,
which afflictions were neither few nor small, as you will find. This
year the Prince had an established Council, which were the Earl of
Berkshire, Earl of Bradford, Lord Capel, Lord Colepeper, Lord Hopton,
and Sir Edward Hyde, Chancellor of the Exchequer. My husband was then,
as I said, newly entered into his office of secretary of the Council
of War, and the King would have had him then to have been sworn his
Highness's Secretary, but the Queen, who was then no friend to my
husband, because he had formerly made Secretary Windebank appear in
his colours, who was one of her Majesty's favourites, wholly
obstructed that then, and placed with the Prince Sir Robert Long, for
whom she had a great kindness; but the consequence will show the man.
The beginning of March 1645, your father went to Bristol with his new
master, and this was his first journey: I then lying-in of my first
son, Harrison Fanshawe, who was born on the 22nd of February, he left
me behind him. As for that, it was the first time we had parted a day
since we married; he was extremely afflicted, even to tears, though
passion was against his nature; but the sense of leaving me with a
dying child, which did die two days after, in a garrison town,
extremely weak, and very poor, were such circumstances as he could not
bear with, only the argument of necessity; and, for my own part, it
cost me so dear, that I was ten weeks before I could go alone; but he,
by all opportunities, wrote to me to fortify myself, and to comfort me
in the company of my father and sister, who were both with me, and
that as soon as the Lords of the Council had their wives come to them
I should come to him, and that I should receive the first money he
got, and hoped it would be suddenly. By the help of God, with these
cordials I recovered my former strength by little and little, nor did
I in my distressed condition lack the conversation of many of my
relations then in Oxford, and kindnesses of very many of the nobility
and gentry, both for goodness sake, and because your father being
there in good employment, they found him serviceable to themselves or
friends, which friendships none better distinguished between his place
and person than your father.
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