THE CLINTONS.—POLITICAL PERIOD.
WITH Henry VIII. the Clintons commenced their second career. They had been influential before, they were now to become great nobles. Edward, the ninth Lord Clinton by writ of summons, and thirteenth of his branch in the baronial dignity, was carefully educated under the eye of King Henry in all the accomplishments and learning of the age. His creed, therefore, was that of every successive Tudor, and he was present at the passing of the Act for the dissolution of the monasteries, on May 23, 1539, though he escaped his share of the mis- fortunes which, according to Sir Henry Spellman—from whom Cardinal Wiseman borrowed the idea—befel most of those who participated in that measure. Like his ancestors, he was a soldier rather than a statesman, and by land and sea be shed new lustre on the family name. His choice of the sea for a field of action—any brave man being then held to be equally competent on land and water, and the generation enjoying apparently an exemption from sea-sickness, — was decided by his friendship for John Dudley Viscount Lisle, Lord High Admiral, and in 1544 he accompanied that nobleman in the fleet sent to assist the Earl of Hertford in his expedition to Scotland, and stormed the Canongate at Edinburgh, at the head of the English forces, for which he was with others knighted by the Earl. The Admiral and his friend Lord Clinton then scoured the Scottish seas and coasts until they were sum- moned to attend the King at the siege of Boulogne. At the funeral of Henry VIII., Lord Clinton was one of the twelve principal Peers of England who were selected to act as chief mourners to the royal corpse, and on the accession of Edward VI., Somerset the Protector, who, as Earl of Hertford, had been a witness of his gallantry, enlisted his services again for an expedi- tion to Scotland. He was appointed to the command of the fleet, fifty men-of-war and twelve galleys, and greatly contributed to the Protector's success by the galling fire which he kept up on the Scotch and their Irish allies, as they came within his range. On his return from the expedition his services were rewarded by grants of the manor of Braunston, Lincolnshire, part of the possessions of Lord Hussey, executed in 1537 for the northern insurrection, and the manor of Folkingham, in the.same county, part of the pos- sessions of the Duke of Norfolk, then attaiuted of treason, and divers other manors, lands, and tenements in Lincolnshire, with the manor of Clifford, in Herefordshire. Lord Clinton was next sent by the Protector's Council to defend Boulogne against the French, and he held it until ordered by the King to surrender it (April 25th, 1550). On his return in May he was thanked for his services by the Council and King, appointed by the latter Lord High Admiral for life, and one of his Privy Council ; and had also lands of the value of 2001. a year assigned to him, and in June fol- lowing the King granted him the manors of Westenhanger, Stote- wood, alias Saltwood, and other manors, lands, and tenements in Kent, Cornwall, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Devonshire, and Sussex, to the value of 2461. 5s. 1d.
Clinton entered fully into the measures of Edward's Council— was one of those who signed the incriminating letter to Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, and was sent by the King with a menacing message to the Earl of Arundel. In the November of the same year in which he had his first grants, Lord Clinton obtained another, of the office of high steward of the manor of Westborough, and four others in Lincolnshire, for life. He was not, however, content, and honours, lands, and appointments fell on him in a shower which is absolutely astounding to read. He was, in fact, the one general at the Council's disposal, and his friend Lisle now governed England. In the January following he had a licence to make a deer-park in the lands which he had inclosed for a park in Aslackby and Kirby Underwood, in the same county, and the next day the King granted him during life the reversion of the office of steward of the manor of Bolingbroke, in that county, and of all the manors, &c., in the parts of Kesteven, parcel of the Duchy of Lancaster, after the death of Sir William Hussey. In February he obtained a gift of all the lordships, manors, lands, &c., lying in the town of St. Botolph, alias Boston, in Lincolnshire, belonging to the chantry of Corpus Christi, founded within the said town, to hold by fealty, and to take the profits from Easter in the 2nd Edward VI. On the 7th of the next month he exchanged with the King his lord- ships and manors of Folkingham and Aslackby for the lordship and manor of Wye and the rectory of Wye, in Kent, with divers other lands of the yearly value of 3581. ls. 8d., and on the 20th Lord Clinton had the stewardship of the lordship of Newark-upon- Trent, and all the lands and tenements thereunto belonging, with the office of constable of the castle there during life. On the 25th the King granted him a lease for sixty years of the manors of Folkingham, Aslackby, and Temple Aslackby, in Lincolnshire, with divers other lands. On April 2nd he was elected a Knight of the Garter, along with Henry King of France. The King, or the King's Council, seem not to have thought even these honours and gifts enough. In the same year Lord Clinton had a grant of the stewardship of all the King's lordships and manors in Lincolnshire, forming parcel of the possessions of the late monasteries of Valday, Newbol, Swineshed, &c., for life, with several fees, amounting to a hundred marks, and had the King's letter to the Bishop of Carlisle for the grant of a lease for sixty years of the Manor of Horncastle, in Lincolnshire. He was sent as one of the Royal Commissioners for proroguing Parliament, and on the first appointment of lord-lieutenants of counties lie and the Earl of Rutland had Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire com- mitted to their custody. In November, 1551, he set out as Ambassador Extraordinary from King Edward, to act as his proxy as godfather to the French King's son, afterwards the wretched Henry III. Before starting Lord Clinton received 500 marks in French crown-pieces of six shillings each towards his expenses, and carried with him two flagons of gold and gold chains, weighing 105 ounces, which he was to present to Catherine de Medicis, and a ring to be presented to the Princess Elizabeth of France (between whom and King Edward there was then a treaty of marriage, and who afterwards married Philip II. of Spain). Lord Clinton was ordered to negotiate this marriage. He brought back what seemed satisfactory ratifications under the Great Seal of France, and in return received new marks of the royal favour—two good lordships—Kingston, in Somersetshire, and Chisselborn, in Dorsetahire, with the advowsons thereof, part of the possessions of Sir Thomas Arundel, attainted. In 1552, when the great Lords raised a considerable body of men at their own expense, splendidly attired, who were reviewed by the King, Lord Clinton had a troop of fifty, clad in black (the rest being in colours), with the Cross of St. George, a silver anchor (he being Lord Admiral), and white em- broidery. In the same year he was constituted sole Lord-Lieutenant of Lincolnshire. He was also one of a commission to take account of all the lead, bell-metal, jewels, plate, &c., which had come into the King's hands from the dissolution of monasteries or the attainder or forfeiture of individuals. He was next employed in dismantling several fortifications and removing the powder to the Tower of Lon- don, of which he was appointed constable, and ordered to take the sole charge thereof. He was one of those entrapped by Northumber- land—his old friend Lisle—on the 21st June, 1553, into signing the letter of acquiescence in the new disposition of the Crown by Edward to Lady Jane Grey; but, like most greedy men, he was wary, and he failed the Duke in the crisis of the revolution ; and we next find him accompanying the Duke of Norfolk, in 1554, on his unsuccessful expedition against Sir Thomas Wyatt. He now was in favour with Queen Mary as he had been with King Edward, and was one of those appointed to receive Philip of Spain when he came over to marry the Queen. On the breaking out of war with France in 1557 Clinton was again in his vocation, and he went over, as Lieu- tenant-General with the Earl of Pembroke, to besiege St. Quentin, and being re-appointed Lord High Admiral, commanded the somewhat inglorious expedition [which failed to take Brest, but burnt Conquet and its adjacent:villages. Elizabeth continued the royal favour to the lucky and competent Peer, confirmed him in his dignity of Lord High Admiral, made him one of the Commis- sioners to hear Murray's accusations against Mary of Scotland, and then appointed him to the command of the army which broke up the force raised by the Northern Earls, in the last war ever made by English nobles against an English sovereign. They fled in utter rout, and Lord Clinton, on May 4th, 1572, was raised to the dignity of Earl of Lincoln, still the title borne by the eldest son of the House. He died on January 16th, 1585, after a life of such adventure, excitement, and success as few men have ever enjoyed. He was married three times, and his third wife was Elizabeth, daughter of Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare—Lord Surrey's Fair Geraldine, and still fair, though a widow, when she came to Lord Clinton. It may be added to his history that he sold Arring- ton, so long the seat of his House, to the Repington family, who had for many years previously bought bits of the estate, which the Clintons, oddly enough, seem for generations to have regarded as a sort of bank to be drawn on whenever they wanted money. It is curious how very little of this man's character is perceptible among the voluminous notices of his deeds, but the latter prove him to have been a true Clinton, a man of weight and activity, always very prominent, always very trustworthy as far as work was concerned, and always as efficient as it is possible for a man without genius to be.
Henry, second Earl of Lincoln and tenth Lord Clinton, who succeeded his father in 1585, although he filled several important posts under Elizabeth and James I., reflected no credit on his family name. He fell into great pecuniary embarrassments, which, con- sidering the wealth accumulated by his father, speaks volumes as to his spendthrift habits. He was sent on an embassy to the Landgrave of Hesse in 1596, and Sir Anthony Bacon arraigns his conduct to that Court in the most bitter terms. He is said to have been a great tyrant among the gentry of Lincolnshire, and Denzil Holies (not the patriot, of course, but a relative of an older gene-
ration, who seems to have much resembled him in spirit) used to confront Lord Lincoln on the bench, and " carry business against him, in spite of his teeth." Lodge mentions Lord Lincoln's out- rages against Roger Fullshaw, of Waddingworth, and observes that his conduct seems to have been strongly tinctured with insanity. He died September 29, 1616. He was twice married, and left four sons, from a younger son of the second of whom (Sir Edward Clinton) is descended the present Duke of Newcastle. The eldest son, Thomas, who succeeded as third Earl of Lincoln, and was forty-five years of age when his father died, inherited the following estates in Lincolnshire :—The manors of Aslackby and Temple A alackby, the castle and manor of Tattershall, the house and site of the monastery of Sempringham, with the manor of Sempringham, and the advowson of the church, the manor of Billingborough, rectory of the church; and advowson of the vicarage, the manors of East and West Claughton, the honour, castle, and manor of Folkingham, and manor of Thirkingham, and advowson of the churches, the manors of Thorp and Kirby Byrne, Roughton, Marton-jazta-Thornton, Conisby, Billingay, Walcot-jurta-Billingay, Burthorp, and Kirksted, alias Criated. He sat in the House of Commons during the reign of Elizabeth for St. Ives, in Cornwall, and Grimsby, in Lincolnshire; and in the 1st James L was returned for the county of Lincoln, and was one of the Parliamentary Commissioners appointed to treat with the Scotch Parliament for the union of the two kingdoms. In 1610 he was called in his father's life to the Upper House as Baron Clinton and Saye, and dying January 15, 1619, his eldest surviving son, Theophilus, succeeded as fourth Earl of Lincoln, at the age of nineteen, having been made a Knight of the Bath, along with Prince Charles, in 1616. He became colonel of a regi- ment of foot and two troops of horse, which were part of 12,000. men raised by Count Mansfeld in England to assist the Palatine in the 22nd of James I. ; but neither France, Holland, nor Brabant allowing the troops to land on their shores, they were decimated by pestilence, and scarce one-half reached Germany. His share in thin expedition shows the political leanings of the Earl of Lincoln, the Puritans being deeply interested in the Palatine's enterprise ; but these were displayed more decidedly when the rupture took place between the King and Parliament. He espoused warmly the Puritan side, attaching himself to the Presbyterian party. He continued firm to the Parliament throughout the first civil war ; but in the year 1647 he fell under suspicion with the army, and on the 8th Sep- tember he was impeached by the Commons, with other Presbyterian Peers. The impeachment, however, was afterwards dropped, and he was discharged from it. He took no prominent part during the Commonwealth, but acquiesced in it, petitioning, in 1649, for compensation for the demolition of his castle of Tattershall in the civil war. Like the other great Presbyterian Peers, he joined in the Restoration, and was carver at the coronation of Charles• II., and thenceforth, like them, he disappears from history, and died in 1667. He married twice, but had children only by his first wife, a daughter of William Fiennes, Viscount Saye and Sele, and a sister of Nathaniel Fiennes. His son, Edward, who sat for Kellington in the Long Parliament, and followed his father's line of political conduct, died before him, leaving by his wife, daughter of John Mlles, Earl of Clare, a son Edward, who succeeded his- grandfather as fifth Earl of Lincoln. This Edward, who was a. political nonentity, died without iasue, November, 1692, and for the first time since the ennoblement of this branch of the Clin- tons in the reign of Henry IL the direct male line failed, and the Earldom reverted to a collateral, Sir Francis Clinton, eldest son of. Francis, third son of Sir Edward Clinton, second son of. Henry, second Earl of Lincoln. The Barony of Clinton fell into abeyance twice among the daughters of Earl Theophilus and their co-heirs, until at length it came to the Trefusis family, who now enjoy it. Francis, the sixth Earl of Lincoln, died the year after his accession to the title, at the age of fifty-eight. His younger son George became a distinguished Admiral, and was Governor- General of New York. He was the father of the celebrated Sir Henry Clinton, Commander-in-Chief of the royal forces during the American War of Independence, Henry, who succeeded his father Francis in 1693, as seventh Earl of Lincoln, was one of the Gentlemen of the Bedchamber to Prince George of Denmark. He was a firm Whig, and strongly opposed the Harley Administration and the Peace of Utrecht, refus- ing every offer made to him to join the Tories. This conduct so delighted Arthur Herbert, Earl of Torrington, that on his death he left Lord Clinton the bulk of his property. The accession of the House of Hanover was, of course, a welcome event to the Earl. He carried the pointed sword at the coronation of George I., became Master of the Horse to the Prince of Wales, a Lord of the Bedchamber to the King, Paymaster-General of the Forces, one of the Privy Council, and a Knight of the Garter—Lord- Lieutenant of the Tower Hamlets and Constable of the Tower, and Cofferer of the King's Household. He again carried the pointed sword at the coronation of George II., was appointed Lord- Lieutenant or the county of Cambridge, a Gentleman of the Bed- chamber, and a Privy Councillor. H e married, in 1717, Lucy, daughter of Thomas Pelham, first Lord Pelham, and sister of Thomas (who had taken the name of Holies), the well-known Duke of Newcastle, of the reigns of George II. and III., and of Henry Pelham, the statesman of the same period. The Earl died September 7, 1728. His eldest son, George, who succeeded him as eighth Earl of Lincoln, died April 30, 1730, in the thirteenth year of his age, and was succeeded by his brother Henry, ninth Earl of Lincoln, who married, October 14, 1744, his cousin, Catherine Pelham, daughter of Henry Pelham. This Henry Pelham, having died without male issue, his brother (the Duke of Newcastle on Tyne) obtained a new patent in 1756, by which he was created Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne, with re- mainder to his nephew, the Earl of Lincoln, and his heirs male by Catherine Pelham ; and, in accordance with this patent, Henry Clinton, ninth Earl of Lincoln, became, November 17, 1768, Duke of Newcastle. He obtained, by this succession, Nottingham Castle (purchased by the loyal Duke of Newcastle, after the Restoration) and Clumber Park, in Nottinghamshire, which has become the chief seat of the family. On succeeding to his new dignity Lord Lincoln prefixed the name of Pelham to his own. He held various offices, but was of no political rank, and died February 22nd, 1794, as much of a political non- entity as a Duke can in England be. He was succeeded by his son Thomas, also a nullity, and he by his son Henry, the third Duke, who would have been a nullity but for his superb Toryism, and a disposition which reminded his tenants and family of the tinge of insanity ascribed to his ancestor the second Earl of Lincoln. He crippled his fortunes by the only form of private war now allowed to English Peers—fierce electioneering battles ; and is said, though we mention this with reserve, to have never forgiven the Liberal principles of his far abler son, the fourth Duke and the twenty-fourth noble of the family. This Duke has held all offices short of the Premiership,—which he never will hold,—and has rejected the one British office which affords larger scope than that—the immense Indian Viceroyalty. A follower of Sir Robert Peel, and a man who sacrificed much for his political convictions, he fell during the Crimean war into a disrepute, which Mr. Hinton], then the proprietor of this journal, who had unusual means of knowing the truth, always asserted to be wholly undeserved ; but Dukes survive clamour, and the country will hear with pleasure that the fortunes of the House, though of late years often threatened, may, through circumstances which would make a romance, yet be re-established. It is really a great House, though strangely lacking in hold on the popular imagination, and for seven hundred years has poured out a scarcely intermitted suc- cession of men who have spent their lives in the furtherance of England's greatness and policy. If it has never had a genius, it has also never produced a traitor ; and if it has never risen to the immense position of one or two of its rivals, it has not in its annals chapters which it would give estates to conceal. The popular theory which makes it responsible for Pitt's Duke of Newcastle, the mighty Parliamentary Whip, who was thought a fool by every man who came into contact with him and cheated every man who thought him so, is a careless blunder, and one of which Mr. Disraeli, when he wrote that the family " was distinguished in the last generation by an incapacity for statesman- ship and a genius for jobbing," might have been ashamed. The Pelhams, indeed, raised jobbery to a science demanding respect,— their jobs cost us some three hundred millions, for without them there had been no Revolutionary War—but this family is not Pelham, any more than the Stanleys are Smiths or Farrens.
V' The date of the death of William de Clinton, Earl of Hun- tingdon (in our last paper) should be 1354.
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