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Bible Encyclopedias
Earls of Essex
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
or The first earl of Essex was probably Geoffrey de Mandeville, who became earl about 1139, the earldom being subsequently held by his two sons, Geoffrey and William, until the death of the latter in 1189. In 1199 Geoffrey Fitzpeter or Fitzpiers (d. 1213), who was related to the Mandevilles through his wife Beatrice, became earl of Essex, and on the death of Geoffrey's son William in 1227 the earldom reverted for the second time to the crown. Then the title to the earldom passed by marriage to the Bohuns, earls of Hereford, and before 1239 Humphrey de Bohun (d. 1275) had been recognized as earl of Essex. With the earldom of Hereford the earldom of Essex became extinct in 1373; afterwards it was held by Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester, a son of Edward III. and the husband of Eleanor de Bohun; and from Gloucester it passed to the Bourchiers, Henry Bourchier (d. 1483), who secured the earldom in 1461, being one of Gloucester's grandsons. The second and last Bourchier earl was Henry's grandson Henry, who died early in 1540. A few weeks before his execution in 1540 Thomas Cromwell was created earl of Essex; then in 1543 William Parr, afterwards marquess of Northampton, obtained the earldom by right of his wife Anne, a daughter of the last Bourchier earl. Northampton lost the earldom when he was attainted in /553; and afterwards it passed to the famous family of Devereux, Walter Devereux, who was created earl of Essex in 1572, being related to the Bourchiers. Robert, the 3rd and last Devereux earl, died in 1646. In 1661 Arthur Capel was created earl of Essex, and the earldom is still held by his descendants.
[[Essex, Arthur Capel, 1st 1 Earl Of]] (1632-1683), English statesman, son of Arthur, 1st Baron Capel of Hadham (c. 1641), executed in 1649, and of Elizabeth, daughter and heir of Sir Charles Morrison of Cashiobury in Hertfordshire, was baptized on the 28th of January 1632. In June 1648, then a sickly boy of sixteen, he was taken by Fairfax's soldiers from Hadham to Colchester, which his father was defending, and carried every day round the works with the hope of inducing Lord Capel to surrender the place. At the restoration he was created Viscount Malden and earl of Essex (20th of April 1661), with special remainder to the male issue of his father, and was made lord-lieutenant of Hertfordshire and a few years later of Wiltshire.2 He early showed himself antagonistic to the court, to Roman Catholicism, and to the extension of the royal prerogative, and was coupled by Charles II. with Holies as "stiff and sullen men," who would not yield against their convictions to his solicitations. In 1669 he was sent as ambassador to King Christian V. of Denmark, in which capacity he gained credit by refusing to strike his flag to the governor of Kronborg. In 1672 he was made a privy councillor and lord-lieutenant of Ireland. He remained in office till 1677, and his administration was greatly commended by Burnet and Ormonde, 3 the former describing it "as a pattern to all that come after him." He identified himself with Irish interests, and took immense pains to understand the constitution and the political necessities of the country, appointing men of real merit to office, and maintaining an exceptional independence from solicitation and influence. He held a just balance between the Roman Catholics, the English Church and the Presbyterians, protecting the former as far as public opinion in England would permit, and governing the native Irish with firmness and moderation. The purity and patriotism of his administration were in strong contrast to the hopeless corruption prevalent in that at home and naturally aroused bitter opposition, as an obstacle, to the unscrupulous employment of Irish revenues for the satisfaction of the court and the king's expenses. In particular he came into conflict with Lord Ranelagh, to whom had been assigned the Irish revenues on condition of his supplying the requirements of the crown, and whose accounts Essex refused to pass. He opposed strongly the lavish gifts of forfeited estates to court favourites and mistresses, prevented the grant of Phoenix Park to the duchess of Cleveland, and refused to encumber the administration by granting reversions. Finally the intrigues of his enemies at home, and Charles's continual demands for money, which Ranelagh undertook to satisfy, brought about his recall in April 1677. He immediately joined the country party and the opposition to Danby's government, and on the latter's fall in 1679 was appointed a commissioner of the treasury, and the same year a member of Sir William Temple's newmodelled council. He followed the lead of Halifax, who advocated not the exclusion of James, but the limitation of his sovereign powers, and looked to the prince of Orange rather than to Monmouth as the leader of Protestantism, incurring thereby the hostility of Shaftesbury, but at the same time gaining the confidence of Charles. He was appointed by Charles together with Halifax to hear the charges against Lauderdale. In July he wrote a wise and statesmanlike letter to the king, advising him to renounce his project of raising a new company of guards. Together with Halifax he urged Charles to summon the parliament, and after his refusal resigned the treasury in November, the real cause being, according to one account,4 a demand upon the treasury by the duchess of Cleveland for £25,000, according to another "the niceness of touching French money," "that makes my Lord Essex's squeasy stomach that it can no longer digest his employment." 1 in the Capel line.
2 Hist. MSS. Comm. ser.; Duke of Beaufort's MSS. 45.
'Life of Ormonde, by T. Carte, viii. 468 (1851), vol. iv. p. 529. 4 Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. app. 477b.
a Ib. 6th Rep. app. 741b.
Subsequently his political attitude underwent a change, the exact cause of which is not clear - probably a growing conviction of the dangers threatened by a Roman Catholic sovereign of the character of James. He now, in 1680, joined Shaftesbury's party and supported the Exclusion Bill, and on its rejection by the Lords carried a motion for an association to execute the scheme of expedients promoted by Halifax. On the 25th of January 1681 at the head of fifteen peers he presented a petition to the king, couched in exaggerated language, requesting the abandonment of the session of parliament at Oxford. He was a jealous prosecutor of the Roman Catholics in the popish plot, and voted for Stafford's attainder, on the other hand interceding for Archbishop Plunket, implicated in the pretended Irish plot. He, however, refused to follow Shaftesbury in his extreme courses, declined participation in the latter's design to seize the Tower in 1682, and on Shaftesbury's consequent departure from England became the leader of Monmouth's faction, in which were now included Lord Russell, Algernon Sidney, and Lord Howard of Escrick. Essex took no part in the wilder schemes of the party, but after the discovery of the Rye House Plot in June 1683, and the capture of the leaders, he was arrested at Cashiobury and imprisoned in the Tower. His spirits and fortitude appear immediately to have abandoned him, and on the 13th of July he was discovered in his chamber with his throat cut. His death was attributed, quite groundlessly, to Charles and James, and the evidence points clearly if not conclusively to suicide, his motive being possibly to prevent an attainder and preserve his estate for his family. He, was, however, undoubtedlya victim of the Stuart administration, and the antagonism and tragic end of men like Essex, deserving men, naturally devoted to the throne, constitutes a severe indictment of the Stuart rule.
He was a statesman of strong and sincere patriotism, just and unselfish, conscientious and laborious in the fulfilment of public duties, blameless in his official and private life. Evelyn describes him as "a sober, wise, judicious and pondering person, not illiterate beyond the rule of most noblemen in this age, very well versed in English history and affairs, industrious, frugal, methodical and every way accomplished"; and declares he was much deplored, few believing he had ever harboured any seditious designs.' He married Lady Elizabeth Percy, daughter of Algernon, Toth earl of Northumberland, by whom, besides a daughter, he had an only son Algernon (1670-1710), who succeeded him as 2nd earl of Essex.
Bibliography. - See the Lives in the Dict. of Nat.'Biography and in Biographia Britannica (Kippis), with authorities there collected; Essex's Irish correspondence is in the Stow Collection in the British Museum, Nos. 200-217, and selections have been published in Letters written by Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex (1770) and in the Essex Papers (Camden Society, 1890), to which can now be added the Calendars of State Papers, Domestic, which contain a large number of his letters and which strongly support the opinion of his contemporaries concerning his unselfish patriotism and industry; see also Somers Tracts (1813), x., and for other pamphlets relating to his death the catalogue of the British Museum.
[[Essex, Robert Devereux, 2nd 2 Earl Of]] (1566-1601), son of the 1st Devereux earl, was born at Netherwood, Herefordshire, on the 19th of November 1566. He entered the university of Cambridge and graduated in 1581. In 1585 he accompanied his stepfather, the earl of Leicester, on an expedition to Holland, and greatly distinguished himself at the battle of Zutphen. He now took his place at court, where so handsome a youth soon found favour with Queen Elizabeth, and in consequence was on bad terms with Raleigh. In 1587 he was appointed master of the horse, and in the following year was made general of the horse and installed knight of the Garter. On the death of Leicester he succeeded him as chief favourite of the queen, a position which injuriously affected his whole subsequent life, and ultimately resulted in his ruin. While Elizabeth was approaching the mature age of sixty, Essex was scarcely twenty-one. Though well aware of the advantages of his position, and somewhat vain of the queen's favour, his constant attendance on her 1 Diary and Corresp. (1850), ii. 141, 178.
2 i.e. in the Devereux line.
at court was irksome to him beyond all endurance; and when he could not make his escape to the scenes of foreign adventure after which he longed, he varied the monotony of his life at court by intrigues with the maids of honour. He fought a duel with Sir Charles Blount, a rival favourite of the queen, in which the earl was disarmed and slightly wounded in the thigh.
In 1589, without the queen's consent, he joined the expedition of Drake and Sir John Norris against Spain, but in June he was compelled to obey a letter enjoining him at his "uttermost peril" to return immediately. In 1590 Essex married the widow of Sir Philip Sidney, but in dread of the queen's anger he kept the marriage secret as long as possible. When it was necessary to avow it, her rage at first knew no bounds, but as the earl did "use it with good temper," and "for her majesty's better satisfaction was pleased that my lady should live retired in her mother's house," he soon came to be "in very good favour." In 1591 he was appointed to the command of a force auxiliary to one formerly sent to assist Henry IV. of France against the Spaniards; but after a fruitless campaign he was finally recalled from the command in January 1592. For some years after this most of his time was spent at court, where he held a position of unexampled influence, both on account of the favour of the queen and from his own personal popularity. In 1596 he was, after a great many "changes of humour" on the queen's part, appointed along with Lord Howard of Effingham, Raleigh and Lord Thomas Howard, to the command of an expedition, which was successful in defeating the Spanish fleet, capturing and pillaging Cadiz, and destroying 53 merchant vessels. It would seem to have been shortly after this exploit that the beginnings of a change in the feelings of the queen towards him came into existence. On his return she chided him that he had not followed up his successes, and though she professed great pleasure at again seeing him in safety, and was ultimately satisfied that the abrupt termination of the expedition was contrary to his advice and remonstrances, she forbade him to publish anything in justification of his conduct. She doubtless was offended at his growing tendency to assert his independence, and jealous of his increasing popularity with the people; but it is also probable that her strange infatuation regarding her own charms, great as it was, scarcely prevented her from suspecting either that his professed attachment had all along been somewhat alloyed with considerations of personal interest, or that at least it was now beginning to cool. Francis Bacon, at that time his most intimate friend, endeavoured to prevent the threatened rupture by writing him a long letter of advice; and although perseverance in a long course of feigned action was for Essex impossible, he for some time attended pretty closely to the hints of his mentor, so that the queen "used him most graciously." In 1597 he was appointed master of the ordnance, and in the following year he obtained command of an expedition against Spain, known as the Islands or Azores Voyage. He gained some trifling successes, but as the Plate fleet escaped him he failed of his main purpose; and when on his return the queen met him with the usual reproaches, he retired to his home at Wanstead. This was not what Elizabeth desired, and although she conferred on Lord Howard of Effingham the earldom of Nottingham for services at Cadiz, the main merit of which was justly claimed by Essex, she ultimately held out to the latter the olive branch of peace, and condescended to soothe his wounded honour by creating him earl marshal of England. That, nevertheless, the irritated feelings neither of Essex nor of the queen were completely healed was manifested shortly afterwards in a manner which set propriety completely at defiance. In a discussion on the appointment of a lord deputy to Ireland, Essex, on account of some taunting words of Elizabeth, turned his back upon her with a gesture indicative not only of anger but of contempt, and when she, unable to control her indignation, slapped him on the face, he left her presence swearing that such an insult he would not have endured even from Henry VIII.
In 1599, while Ulster was in rebellion under the earl of Tyrone, the office of lieutenant and governor-general of Ireland was conferred on Essex, and a large force put at his command.
His campaign was an unsuccessful one, and by acting in various ways in opposition to the commands of the queen and the council, agreeing with Tyrone on a truce in September, and suddenly leaving the post of duty with the object of privately vindicating himself before the queen, he laid himself open to charges more serious than that of mere incompetency. For these misdemeanours he was brought in June 1600 before a specially constituted court, deprived of all his high offices, and ordered to live a prisoner in his own house during the queen's pleasure. Chiefly through the intercession of Bacon his liberty was shortly afterwards restored to him, but he was ordered not to return to court. For some time he hoped for an improvement in his prospects, but when he was refused the renewal of his patent for sweet wines, hope was succeeded by despair, and half maddened by wounded vanity, he made an attempt (Feb. 7, 1601) to incite a revolution in his behalf, by parading the streets of London with 300 retainers, and shouting, "For the queen! a plot is laid for my life!" These proceedings awakened, however, scarcely any other feelings than mild perplexity and wonder; and finding that hope of assistance from the citizens was vain, he returned to Essex House, where after defending himself for a short time he surrendered. After a trial - in which Bacon, who prosecuted, delivered a speech against his quondam friend and benefactor, the bitterness of which was quite unnecessary to secure a conviction entailing at least very severe punishment - he was condemned to death, and notwithstanding many alterations in Elizabeth's mood, the sentence was carried out on the 25th of February 1601.
Essex was in person tall and well proportioned, with a countenance which, though not strictly handsome, possessed, on account of its bold, cheerful and amiable expression, a wonderful power of fascination. He was a patron of literature, and himself a poet. His carriage was not very graceful, but his manners are said to have been "courtly, grave and exceedingly comely." He was brave, chivalrous, impulsive, imperious sometimes with his equals, but generous to all his dependants and incapable of secret malice; and these virtues, which were innate and which remained with him to the last, must be regarded as somewhat counterbalancing, in our estimation of him, the follies and vices created by temptations which were exceptionally strong.
See Hon. W. B. Devereux, Lives of the Earls of Essex (1853); and Bacon and Essex, by E. A. Abbott (1877). Also the article Bacon, Francis, and authorities there.
[[Essex, Robert Devereux, 3rd 1 Earl Of]] (1591-1646), son of the preceding, was born in 1591. He was educated at Eton and at Merton College, Oxford. Shortly after the arrival of James I. in London, Essex (whose title was restored, and the attainder on his father removed, in 1604) was placed about the prince of Wales, as a sharer both in his studies and amusements. At the early age of fifteen he was married to Frances Howard, daughter of the earl of Suffolk, but she was his wife only in name; during his absence abroad (1607-1609) she fell in love with Sir Robert Carr (afterwards earl of Somerset), and on her charging her husband with physical incapacity, the marriage was annulled in 1613. A second marriage which he contracted in 1631 with Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Paulet, also ended unhappily. From 1620 to 1623 he served in the wars of the Palatinate, and in 1625 he was vice-admiral of a fleet which made an unsuccessful attempt to capture Cadiz. In 1639 he was lieutenant-general of the army sent by Charles against the Scottish Covenanters; but on account of the irresolution of the king no battle occurred, and the army was disbanded at the end of the year. Essex was discharged "without ordinary ceremony," and refused an office which at that time fell vacant, "all which," says Clarendon, "wrought very much upon his rough, proud nature, and made him susceptible of some impressions afterwards which otherwise would not have found such easy admission." Having taken the side of the parliament against Charles, he was, on the outbreak of the civil war in 1642, appointed to the command of the parliamentary army. At the battle of Edgehill he remained master 1 i.e. in the Devereux line.
of the field, and in 1643 he captured Reading, and relieved Gloucester; but in the campaign of the following year, on account of his hesitation to fight against the king in person, nearly his whole army fell into the hands of Charles. In 1645, on the passing of the self-denying ordinance, providing that no member of parliament should hold a public office, he resigned his commission; but on account of his past services his annuity of io,000 was continued to him for life. He died on the 14th of September 1646, of a fever brought on by over-exertion in a stag-hunt in Windsor Forest; his line becoming extinct.
See the "Life of Robert Earl of Essex," by Robert Codrington, M.A., printed in Hart. Misc.; Clarendon's History of the Rebellion; and Hon. W. B. Devereux, Lives of the Earls of Essex (1853).
Essex, Walter Devereux, 1sT 2 Earl Of (1541-1576), the eldest son of Sir Richard Devereux, was born in 1541. His grandfather was the 2nd Baron Ferrers, who was created Viscount Hereford in 1550 and by his mother was a nephew of Henry Bourchier, a former earl of Essex. Walter Devereux succeeded as 2nd Viscount Hereford in 1558, and in 1561 or 1562 married Lettice, daughter of Sir Francis Knollys. In 156 9 he served as high marshal of the field under the earl of Warwick and Lord Clinton, and materially assisted them in suppressing the northern insurrection. For his zeal in the service of Queen Elizabeth on this and other occasions, he in 1572 received the Garter and was created earl of Essex, the title which formerly belonged to the Bourchier family. Eager to give proof of "his good devotion to employ himself in the service of her majesty," he offered on certain conditions to subdue and colonize, at his own expense, a portion of the Irish province of Ulster, at that time completely under the dominion of the rebel O'Neills, under Sir Brian MacPhelim and Tirlogh Luineach, with the Scots under their leader Sorley Boy MacDonnell. His offer, with certain modifications, was accepted, and he set sail for Ireland in July 1573, accompanied by a number of earls, knights and gentlemen, and with a force of about 1200 men. The beginning of his enterprise was inauspicious, for on account of a storm which dispersed his fleet and drove some of his vessels as far as Cork and the Isle of Man, his forces did not all reach the place of rendezvous till late in the autumn, and he was compelled to entrench himself at Belfast for the winter. Here, by sickness, famine and desertions, his troops were diminished to little more than 200 men. Intrigues of various sorts, and fighting of a guerilla type, followed with disappointing results, and Essex had difficulties both with the deputy Fitzwilliam and with the queen. Essex was in straits himself, and his offensive movements in Ulster took the form of raids and brutal massacres among the O'Neills; in October 1574 he treacherously captured MacPhelim at a conference in Belfast, and after slaughtering his attendants had him and his wife and brother executed at Dublin. Elizabeth, instigated apparently by Leicester, after encouraging Essex to prepare to attack the Irish chief Tirlogh Luineach, suddenly commanded him to "break off his enterprise"; but, as she left him a certain discretionary power, he took advantage of it to defeat Tirlogh Luineach, chastise Antrim, and massacre several hundreds of Sorley Boy's following, chiefly women and children, discovered hiding in the caves of Rathlin. He returned to England in the end of 1575, resolved "to live henceforth an untroubled life"; but he was ultimately persuaded to accept the offer of the queen to make him earl marshal of Ireland. He arrived in Dublin in September 1576, and three weeks afterwards died of dysentery. There were suspicions that he had been poisoned by Leicester, who shortly after his death married his widow, but these were not confirmed by the post-mortem examination. The endeavours of Essex to better the condition of Ireland were a dismal failure; and the massacres of the O'Neills and of the Scots of Rathlin leave a dark stain on his reputation.
See Sidney Lee's article in the Diet. Nat. Biog.; Lives of the Devereux Earls of Essex, by Hon. Walter B. Devereux (1853); Froude's History of England, vol. x.; J. S. Brewer, Athenaeum (1870), part i. pp. 261, 326.
These files are public domain.
Chisholm, Hugh, General Editor. Entry for 'Earls of Essex'. 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/bri/e/earls-of-essex.html. 1910.
