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A70678
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Some notes concerning the life of Edward Lord North, Baron of Kirtling, 1658 by Sir Dudley North Lord North.
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North, Dudley North, Baron, 1602-1677.
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1682
(1682)
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Wing N1286A; ESTC R678
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21,672
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50
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well anihilate such gifts already made as prevent them for Dedication seemeth to consist rather in the declared intention of the giver than in the approbation of Governours either Ecclesiastical or Temporal Neither shall I define how little subjects are blamable for executing the decrees of their supreme Magistracy though unjust or seeming irreligious albeit it were an obstruction scarcely recoverable in a State if subordinate Ministers should be obliged to dispute the rectitude or obliquity of every decree But certainly it can be no other than a high presumption to apply the judgments of the Almighty with too much strictness to such and such a particular cause for as the judgments are evident and exposed to the view of all so their grounds lie concealed in the clouds and darkness which are said to encompass the Deity and many times those who are crushed under a punishment do no more exceed their fellows in guiltiness than they in the Gospel on whom the Tower of Siloah fell But to leave this digression Sir Edward North now stood so high in the favour of his Prince as he put him into the roll of Privy-Counsellours and made frequent grants of Land as a testimony of his favour and of the good acceptance of the services done by him These were great encouragements and could not but carry with them as great a satisfaction to the receiver but it was so usual with this King to throw down those whom he had raised as it made his great ones Stare sempre in cervello as the Italians term it or to be watchfull carrying still in their minds the instability of the ground whereon they stood And to give some tast how dangerous a Master he served and how apprehensive he was of a change in the way of displeasure I shall here insert a relation which came to me though not immediately from one who being himself an Attendant in his Bed-chamber then when the matter passed was an eye and ear Witness of it and this it is That once early in the morning there came from the King to Charterhouse then the Mansion house of Sir Edward North a Messenger known to be no friend of his to command his immediate repair to Court which message was also delivered with some harshness This was so terrible in the suddainness and other circumstances as he observed his Master to tremble at the delivery of it who yet finding it dangerous to use the least delay hasted thither and was admitted speedily to the King's presence with this his Servant attending on him The King was then walking and continued doing so with great earnestness and ever now and then cast an angry eye upon him which was received with a very still and sober carriage At last the King brake out into these words We are informed that you have cheated us of certain Lands in Middlesex whereunto having received no other than a plain and humble negation after some little space he replyed How was it then did We give those Lands to you whereunto Sir Edward answered yes Sir Your Majesty was pleased so to doe Whereupon having paused a little the King put on a milder countenance and called him to a Cupboard conferring privately with him a long time whereby said this Servant I saw that the King could not spare my Master's service as yet but whether or no the cause lay in the King's occasions or in the other's humble behaviour and answers it must be left to judgment for as Solomon saith A soft answer turneth away wrath But to pursue the Series of our discourse King Henry after a long and strange prosperity in all his undertakings which were extraordinary and full of hazard came to breath his last in the year of Grace 1546 and as a full and final testimony of his confidence in the integrity of Sir Edward North he constituted him one of his Executors leaving unto divers others of his Council persons of more eminent condition the title of Overseers of his Testament a character of higher honour but of lest trust And seeing that this King was so great a benefactour to the person who is the occasion of this tractate I shall adventure to borrow so much time of the Reader as to say thus much more of him I know that many things are laid to his charge as that he was burthensom to his Subjects and yet a waster That he was Sanguinary and Voluptuous almost to the height As I will not go about to absolve him concerning these so I shall leave it to others who may conceive themselves more proper for it to set him out in such colours but thus much I shall take upon me to say on his behalf That he was endued with very great and royal abilities and that of all the governours of our Nation he is the only Prince meriting to be styled Arbiter of the most important affairs of Christendom or the Ballancer as Guicchiardin calls him and this he did by assistance constantly but variously given in the Wars between Charles the 5th Emperour of Germany and Francis the first of France still supporting the weaker and opposing the stronger by which means he kept those Princes still in play one against the other and so established his own security and in that respect was very fitly honoured with this Motto Cui adhereo praeest And I think that the bitterest of his enemies must give him this testimony That he was no less bountifull in his Rewards than severe in his Punishments that he maintained the honour of the Nation with Foreign Princes in point of power and that he carried on the worst of his actions relating to the publick with a concurrence of his Parliaments which howsoever his heart was disposed yet sheweth a very great dexterity of Brain But that which leaveth him the greatest glory is this That he laid the ground-work of a Reformation in the Church of England which afterwards grew to that perfection as justly to be deemed by judicious persons the best tempered of any in the Christian World And now upon his death the Scene is wholly changed for in stead of an active King who for the most part governed his own affairs the Crown is fallen to a Prince who by reason of his Nonage being not able to govern himself and much less two so potent Nations falleth under the tuition of his Servants whose nature is such as they seldom fail to be guided by their own ambition rather than the improvement of their Master's interests And this renders the providence of God the more conspicuous for in this King's days the Reformation of the Church was exalted almost to the height and in a way of more Purity than before for King Henry seemed rather to seek the abolition of Papal authority which so far restrained his Regal power than any other change in the Articles of the then received Faith but during the reign of King Edward there was an aim at the establishment of Truth even in
their Judges giving to Copyholders a Tenure by custom as they grew altogether deaf at the call of their Landlords And so it was found by this our Edward and others who would have used their Tenants for service of the Crown in foreign wars under Henry the 8th This was some inconvenience to the Prince but little in comparison of that which hath shewed it self in these latter times wherein the Commonalty or third Estate hath assumed a power not only to subject their Sovereign to a jurisdiction established by the said Commons but to abolish the Regal power it self and as a consequent thereunto to bring the ancient Peerage to a level with themselves And this may be very much attributed to the former extirpation of power in great persons who stood as a wall of defence between Prince and People The other part of the ordinary Militia consisted in the arraying of all persons fit for War defensive and this was first managed by Commissioners of Array authorised from time to time by the Kings themselves which made them to countenance it much more than the other But in process of time this power residing in many who are more subject to find out dilatory scruples than a single person gave occasion to the Princes more to affect the placing of it in some one for one may more easily be commanded and is more subject to an account upon miscarriage But on the other side this gave more offence to the Commons in Parliament who bear the Purse for supply of their Princes extraordinary occasions which perhaps might be the cause of Queen Elizabeth's laying it down for that time though she resumed it afterwards After this it appeareth not that Edward Lord North ever desired other than an exemption from publick employments with a quiet enjoyment of himself and of the fruits of his past labours and in this it pleased God to bless him very far for he had little publick molestation yet was he not free from disquiet at home by reason of some apprehensions arising within his own family by the prodigality of his eldest Son for whom as is exprest in his Will he was constrained at the last to pay a great debt besides much of the same nature formerly In those days the sum which he paid was esteemed very great yet was not the debt so considerable in his thoughts as a disposition in his Son easily discernible as he esteemed to proceed in the same way of expence He feared that this would make the young man to exceed all bounds when he should become master of his Estate which made the impression so deep with him as he failed not to admonish his Son in the said Will with very great reflexions upon him as to his prudence and perhaps it wrought great effects after the Father's death And here may be noted that the ablest persons make their judgments as to the future with great incertainty for Roger Lord North proved a most industrious and provident man and a person of great honour for he was Ambassadour extraordinary from Queen Elizabeth to Charles the 9th of France and bare many other publick employments abroad and at home till at the last he became Treasurer of the houshold to the Queen and one of her Privy-Council dying with that Character upon him in which he exceeded his Father Neither had Edward Lord North any greater hopes of Sir Thomas North his other Son who though a man of courage a man learned as appears by divers translations of his and indued with very good parts otherwise yet never had a steadiness comparable to his Brother which made the Father to settle his Estate by way of Entail as strongly to prevent Alienations as the Law of those times would bear with a remainder to his Kindred of Walkeringam as hath been already touched And in the year 1563 he made the Will before-mentioned and constituted Sir William Cordall and Sir James Dyer Executors of the same both of them persons very eminent in those times Sir William being Master of the Rolls and Sir James Dyer Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. In the year succeeding having crowned his wisedom by a discreet settlement of his private fortune he paid his last debt to Nature ending his life with the Julian year on the last day of December and so changed this for a better being then about the 68th year of his age as near as we can gather by conjecture Thus terminated the life of this noble and worthy person who hid not the talent wherewith his Maker entrusted him but improved it for the advantage of his Nation and Family which ought to be an eternal honour to him His marriages were two whereof the first was to Alice Squier Daughter to a Gentleman estated in Hamp-shire she then being Widow of Edward Myrfyn Son to an Alderman of London so named and having also had a former Husband called Brigantine or Brickenden and by each of these Husbands one Son By this Wife he had four Children whereof Roger Lord North and Sir Thomas North have already been named and in some sort Characterized herein The other two were Daughters whereof Christian the elder was married to William Earl of Worcester and Mary the younger to Henry Lord Scroope of Bolton Of every one of these four there is Posterity left and now grown so numerous in the whole and it is become so far an honour to their common Progenitor as I my self who am the Grandchild of his Grandchild may in the year of our Lord 1658 affirm that I know not any of the Race that have as yet applied themselves to courses dishonest or dishonourable This Lady Alice as she brought him a considerable estate in Marriage so she was a great and constant assistant to him in the improvement of his fortunes always shewing her self a discreet and provident person in the government of his domestique affairs and she continued so till the time of her death which hapned some four or five years before that of her husband who failed not to yield a fair mention of her goodness in his Testament desiring also to be buried with her at Kirtling His second and last Wife was the Lady Margaret Widow to Sir David Brooke and surely she was a person worthy of his choice for he shewed much care of her in his last settlement by Will which is all that I shall need to say of her By his Picture whereof there is yet a copy remaining with us he appears to have been a person of moderate stature somewhat inclining to corpulency and of a reddish hair As for his inward abilities it were extravagant to question them in a man so versed in affairs of State as a Privy-Counsellour and that sate at the Stern so many years in an eminent place of Judicature Such persons seldom want elocution sufficient but if we may judge of his Oratory by his Letters he seemed rather to have affected the delivery of a full and clear sense