CRAM'S ROMANCE Or THE' PE - EnAGE.
Timobject of Mi. Craik-in this work is to give. biographical notices of the most remarkable persons in the British Peerage, when their lives partake of the character of romance, and to exhibit "curiosities of family history" when the subject in question is not sufficiently important to require a full biography—or rather, we opine,' when materials for a full biography fall short. Mi. Craik dwells with 'some pomp of phrase on the riChnesa. of the field, and its importance to the philosophy of the history of 'society and of human nature: but-his own example-scarcely justifies his theory. It is' not so much romance as vice and crime that he exhibits ; and three • of the .most remarkable- subjects—the favourite Essex, Carr Earl of Rochester and his wife who murdered Overbury, and the Banbury Peer- age carce—are well known 'to most readers: from this circumstance, perhaps, they are rather curtly treated by Mr. Craik. Queen Elizabeth's other" favourite, Leicester, is a conspicuetts person in the volume ; but his life and characterhad already been popularized by biographers, novelists, and poets.- Mr. Craik's plan appears to be, to take persons 'remarkable in them- selves, and their descendants, thus exhibiting the family and its con- nexions till they become extinct or cease to be memorable. The Knollys - family is the subject of the present volume, for Knollys was the name of the first Earl of Banbury; but " Lettice Knollys" gives the -title to by' far the largest division of the book. That lady, says Mr. Craik, "was one of Queen Elizabeth's nearest relations,—as near as Mary Stuart, one degree nearer than Mary's son who inherited Elizabeth's crown." Thia lofty proem, however, is scarcely sustained by the fact that the relation- ship was on the wrong side. The grandmother of Lettiee Knolles was ' the'elder sister of Anne Boleyn ; so that there could be no competition" with the blood royal : she was in fact nothing more in point of birth than numbers of persons in Mr. Burke'e Royal Families of England, Scot- lard-and Wales.* Lettice linollys was, however, a remarkable woman in her way. Mr; Craik thinks she was born in 1540, and she died in 1634; thus living' for nearly a century, the most eventful in English history,—contempo-. rary with the 'tyranny of Henry the Eighth, and witnessing the heaving of. that movement which brought Charles Stuart to the block. She had- three husbands. The first was Walter Devereux, first Earl of Essex; whose repute has paled before that of his celebrated son. To this hus- band she was unfaithful: her conduct may. be assumed to have embittered, his life, and, by putting him upon his desperate Irish enterprises, to have' hastened his, end. Some of her contemporaries suspected that Essex was poisoned by her paramour Leicester; but, it seems to us, without sufficient proofs. To her second husband, Leicester, she was also supposed to have been.unfaithful; and was suspected of poisoning him, in order to marry her * See Spectator for 1847, pp. 856-857. paiamour Cbristopher Blount,—a worthy who was subsequently executed tot' his participation in the mad revolt of Essex. This celebrated person- age was the favourite son of Lettice Knollys ; bat his untimely death did not shorten his mother's days, or, according to Mr. Craik's opinings, (pp. 207; 208;) inflict upon her a lasting wound ; and perhaps she might feel Mount's death a release, as he doubtless married her for her income. Her- „madam the third Earl of Essex- was the husband of Lady Frances l'ioward ; whose divorce from him. to marry Somerset brought about the Oierbury tragedy. Lady Rich, a sister of Essex and a-daughter of Let- is said to have had a tender friendship with Sir Philip Sydney ; and
tke, after Ids death with Lord Mountjoy, to whom she was subsequently mar.
rkvi, under circurnstances-of legal bigamy: Besides these well-known- names, there are various connexions of Lettice Knollys of lesser mark, of whom notice is taken in' the volume. A descendant:married a daughter of the Protector ; and her grandson, the husband of Frances Howard, was Lianature life theGeneral, of the Parliament, and the first nobleman who ever met his Sovereign in the field in the cause of the People. Her blood too has run, and still runs, in some of the noblest families of Britain. "One of her descendants, in the fifth degree, was the celebrated Henry St. John Viscount Bolingbroke; his mother was a daughter of the third Earl of Warwick, the son of the Lord Admiral Her esisting descendants are very numerous. Norong.those of her son Robert, second Earl of Essex, are, (through his eldest, daughter, Frances,) the- Deka of Buccleugh, the Duke . of Buokinghams thee Marquis of Ailesbury, the Earl of Cardigaa; through his,yenngest daughter; Dorothy, the.Marquis Townsbend and Earl Ferrer. Amongthose of, her eldest, daughter, Penelope,' are, the Duke 'of Mentrose, the Dake of Manchester; the sta`renis-ot Anglesey, the Earl of Galloway, the Earl de Grey, the Earl of Ripon, and Lord Kensington, Among those of her youngest daughter, Dorothy, are the; Ihike of Somerset, the Duke of St. Albans, the Duke of Devonshire, the Duke of Marlborough, the Duke of ,Newcastle.-the-Dake,ot Northumberland, the Earl of. irehbornitam; Earl Fitzwilliam, the Earl of fEgremont, Earl Spencer, the- Earl' ollieverley,' the-Earl of Carnarvon, the' Earl of Besborongh, the Earl of -Romney, tlit-Earl of 'Dude, Viscount Strangford, Lord-Churchill, and Lord de Lisle.” Such length of life, high station, and wide-connexions—not to forget the admitted gallantries and the mysterious crimes laid to their charge— would. seem to justify. more interest than the book excites: but this kind of interest, which depends upon association, is imaginative; not real, and- perishes as it is -approached. The reader, indeed, may be a 'little disap- pointed: he looks fora romance of the Peerage, and' finds in its stead' stories of" Doctors' Commons or' the criminal law ; and it strikes mi. th'at the weaker and -carnal parts of the really great men who are in- troduced into the- pages are made conspicuous, while their greater qualities are not developed, and sometimes sunk. This, however, would rather make- al coarse- book than an indifferent book; and indiffer- entir the character- of Mr. Craik's ROnzance of the. Peerage. The Most interesting persons are well known already ; and the accounts of them are unsatisfactory- from not being 'fill Theothers are personae who. do not inspire much or any interest, and of whom very little' is known ; so that the details are -often slight and dry, and there is' dis- c-talon about the settlement of 'points which nobody cares to have raised. From the nature of the plan, a very distinct wholer,ould not be- produced ; • but Mr. Craik has complicated lt-by needIess. digressions and reflections, which, with. the scanty faots preserved,respecting some of. the persons, give a disjointed air to the 'narrative. It is- rather a lot-of-an-- tiquarian gossip, sometimes wanting the interest of gossip,' than- a.tteries of useful biographical notices, much leas anything savouring of romance. Mr. Craik does not seem to have exercised a great deal-of original research, or•to have been noueh assisted by. access to family papers; but he has read the usual collections and contemporary publie,ations, and ex- plored the British Museum. From such .sources mush curious inatteris occasionally-drawn; as is this account of a nobleman's-diet in the' days of good Queen Bess. It is the secretary of Mountjoy delineating the character-of his lord after his death.
" FOrhis diet; he used to fare plentifully and of the hest; and as his means in- creased so -hitrtabte was better served, so that in his latter time no lord in Eng- land might compare with him in that kind of bounty. Before these wars [the' Irish] ,he used to have nourishing breakfasts, as ponadoes and broths; but in the time of the war he need commonly to break his fast with a dry crust of, bread, and in the spring-time with butter and, sage, with a cup of stale beer, wherewith sometimes in winter he would have sugar and nutmeg mixed. He fed plentifully both at dinner and supper, having the choicest and most nourishing meats, with the best wines, which he drunk plentifully, but never in great excess; and in his latter years, (especially in the time of the war, as well when his night Sleeps were broken, as at other times upon full 'diet,) he used to sleep in the after- noons, and that long, and upon his bed. He took tobacco abundantly, and of the best; which I think preserved him from sickness, especially in Ireland, where the foggy air of' the bogs, and waterish fowl,. plenty of fish, and generally all meats With fi.e-common sort always unsalted and green-roasted, do most prejudice the health; for be was very seldom sick only he" wastroubled with the headache, Which duly and constantly, like an ague,.for many years, till his death, took him once every three months, and vehemently held 'him some three days: and himself isrgood part attribated as well the reducing of this pain to these certain and dis- tant times as the ease he therein found to the virtue of this herb. He was very. neat, loving cleanliness both in apparel and diet."
Perhaps the newest matter in the book, of an antiquarian kind, are. the letters respecting Amy Robsan's death, dug out from the manuscripts in, the Pepysian Library since the text was 'primed:' As soon as Leicester (then Lord Dudley) heard of the death, he seems, oddly enough, to have thought that. he should' be suspected of- something,, and sends off an agent with instructions to make the most rigid private inquiry, as well as to have a searching public inquiry by coroner's inquest. This was doner according to his follower's account, in the most severe manner. The' minutes of the inquest have never been found; but, unless the whole was an understood contrivance, with the letters written to be produced, the verdict may be considered satisfactory. The correspondence is special, but. some parts give a picture of manners; such as this Elizabethan inn.
"The-present advertisement I can give to your Lordship at this time is, too, trhe it is that my Lady is dead, and, as it seemeth, with a- fall; but yet how or Which. way I cannot learn. Your Lordship shall hear the -manner of my pro- ceeding since 1 cam from you. The same night Learn from Windsor I lay at n all that night; and, because I,was desirous to hear what news, went abeend in the country: at my supper I called for mine host, and asked him what news was thereabout, taking upon me I was going bite Gloucestershire. He said, there was fallen a great misfortune within three or four miles of the town; lee said, my Lord Robert Dudley's wife was dead; and I axed how; and he said, by a misfortune, as he heard, by a doll from a pair of stairs. I asked him by what chance; he said, he knew not. I axed him what was his judgment, and the judg- ment of the people; he said, some were disposed to say well and some evil. 'What is your judgment? said I. By my truth, said he, I judge it a misfortune, be-,, cause it chanced in that honest gentleman's house (Forster's); his great honftty; said he, cloth mach cat (?) the evil thoughts of the people. My think, said lc. that some of her people that waited upon her should somewhat say to this. No,' Sir; said he, but little; for it was said that' they were all here at the fair,' and none left with her: How might that chance? said I. Then said lie, it is said how that'she rose that day very early, and commanded all her sortsto go [to] the fair, and would suffer none to tarry at home; and thereof is mach judged."
The Banbury Peerage case is not of a pleasantnature ; being, in faot,, the narrative of a.series of attempts to foist-corrupt if not supposititious: blood into 'the House of Lords. It has, however, more interest than' Lettice Khollys, from the legal precision of its statements, the orderly' marshalling of the facts, and the steady rejection of unessential matters. For these merits, however, Mr. Craik. is much- indebted to Sir Harris Nicolas, from whose.Lani qf Adulterine Bastardy • be has derived the case.• Thearguments upon the law are his own.; -for he. differs from &V Harris; and we agree' with' Mr. Craik. To adtilit no evidence' againsta the legitimacy of a child, if-the' husband could possibly have had access' to -the wife—that is, under the old legal axiom, unless he were " beyond the-four seas "—is unjust as regards private property, butatrikes at the. very institution of the Peerage, -whose,firat -principle is -purity, of blood.
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