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THE 
DEVON CARYS 

Volume II 



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SIR LUCIUS GARY 
1610-1643 

SBCOND VISCOUNT FALKLAND, SECRETARY OF STATE 



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7 






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I) \'-.W>» NT KALr.L A \'), SFa K^ r \i<^ O'r Si^TL 



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rhe 

DEVON CARYS 

IN TWO VOLUMES 




Volume II 



PRIVATELY PRINTED 

THE DEVINNE PRESS 

NEW YORK 
1920 



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Copyright, 1920, by 
The DeVinne Press 



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JAN 2 6^''^ ':• 






^1 



CONTENTS 

Vol. II 



Part Two {Continued) : GARY IN THE 
PEERAGE: 

CHAPTER PACE 

XVI Falkland 393 



Part Three: CARY OF BRISTOL: 

CHAPTER 

XVII The Meere Merchants . 

XVIII The Shock of the Puritan 
Revolt 



XIX Recovery and Extinction 

XX The Bristol Tradition in New 
England .... 



XXI The Virginia Emigrant 



483 

529 
541 

552 
564 



Part Four: CARY IN LONDON: 

CHAPTER 

XXII *Whose Merchants are Princes' 673 
Index of Family Names . . . 709 
Index OF Cary Households . .713 



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ILLUSTRATIONS 
Vol. II 



Sir Lucius Cary (1610-1643), second Viscount 
Falkland, Secretary of State . . Frontispiece 

From the portrait at the Bodleian Library. 

FAaNG PAGE 

Sir Henry Cary (i 576-1 633), first Viscount 
Falkland, Lord Deputy of Ireland . . 404 

From the portrait by Fan Somer in the possession of the 
Lord Falkland. 

Elizabeth Tanfield (1585-1639), Lady Falk- 
land ........... 407 

From the portrait by Fan Somer in the possession of the 
Lord Falkland. 

Bristol in 1568 483 

From the contemporary sketch by William Smith, for his 
Particulcr Description of England (Sloan MS. No. 2sg6), 
reproduced in The Little Red Book of Bristol, ed. Bickley, 
jgoo. 

The Cary House on Bristol Back . . . 502 

From a sketch in 1817 when the house was torn down. 

Swearing in the Mayor of Bristol, 1479 . .510 

From a contemporary drawing reproduced in Miss Toulmin 
Smith's edition (1872) of The Maire of Bristowe is Kalcndar. 



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FACING PAGE 

The Back Hall, Bristol 521 

From an old print. 

Virginia in 165 1 564 

From the map called Virginia Ferrar*s, reproduced in Win- 
sor*s Narrative and Critical History of America, Hi, 465, 

The Fruits of Early Industry and Oeconemy . 673 

From W, Ward*s mezzotint of the painting by George Mor- 
land, 1789. 

Roehampton House, Putney, Seat of Thomas 
Cary (1667-17 16), Virginia Merchant . 683 

From the architectural designs of T, Archer, 1710, repro- 
duced in Colin Campbell's Vitruvius Britannicus, -'/z/. 



Pedigree Charts: 

Plate VI Falkland 464 

** VII Bristol and London 541 

'' VIII Moushall 690 

** IX Bideford and London . 694 



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Part Two 

(continued) 



CARY IN THE PEERAGE 



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Chapter Sixteen 

FALKLAND 

The second son of Thomas Cary, "of Chilton 
Foliot," Sir John Cary (1491?-! 552), is called 
in the Visitation pedigrees* "of Plashey" in Es- 
sex, where he was doubtless sometime deputy for 
hisybunger brother William while the latter was 
constable for the crown of that ancient strong- 
hold of the Mandevilles, earls of Essex,* but he 
describes himself in his will as "of Hounesdon in 

^ Vivian, 154, where he appears as the eldest son, but we have 
shown {ante, p. 308), by the contemporary pedigree of 1505, that 
"Edward Cary de London" preceded him. Colonel Vivian did not 
pursue the Falkland pedigree as he did that of the Hunsdons, so 
that for them it is necessary to go back to the compilation made by 
Mr. Robinson in 1866 (//. & G., iii, 39). This admirable piece of 
work had the distinction of being the first to record the descent of 
the present viscounts from a younger son of the first. The parch- 
ment of 1701 terminated its Falkland record with the extinction 
of the elder line on the death of the fifth viscount in 1694, ignor- 
ing Patrick Cary*s son, so that until Mr. Robinson published his 
study the then current peerages {e.g., Burke and Debrett) made 
out that the sixth viscount was a son of the fifth. Again, on the 
death of the tenth viscount in 1884 without surviving issue, there 
was a current belief, which is recorded by Colonel Vivian, that 
the Falkland line was extinct. The devolutions of 1694 &nd 
1884 which had thus confused the genealogists, as well as the 
latest descents, are explained and correctly set forth in G. £. C, 
Complete Peerage, new cd. by Vicary Gibbs. 

^Letters and Papers of Henry Fill, iv, 4413. Fleshy, as the 
name is properly spelled, passed by marriage from the Mande- 
villes to the Bohuns and was the favorite seat of Thomas of 

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the countye of Hertford."* He began the tradition 
of his descendants of service in the royal navy. 
The first record of him, after his appearance in 
the pedigree of 1 505, is as captain of a king's ship, 
The Katherine Galley, cruising in the Channel 
between the Cinque Ports and Jersey in July, 1522, 
during Henry VHFs first war with Frangois I; 
near the end of the reign, in September, 1542, he 
appears at sea again as vice-admiral commanding 
the transports on the east coast in support of the 
Duke of Norfolk's expedition against Scotland.* 

His brother William's marriage had opened 
up to him also a career at court, and we find him 
enrolled as a groom of the privy chamber in 
1526 and thenceforth in other minor court func- 
tions throughout the reign of Henry VIIL' 
This relation gave him the opportunity of pru- 
dent marriage. He postponed that step until he 
had passed forty, but when he did marry it was 
to assure the future of his descendants. 

During the reign of Henry VII Edmund 
Denny had come up to London from Cheshunt 
in Hertfordshire to seek his fortune. He became 
a clerk in the exchequer; in 1504 was raised to 

Woodstock, the restless Duke of Gloucester, temp, Richard II, 
whose wife was a Bohun. Becoming a crown estate as part of 
the inheritance of Henry IV, it was attached to the Duchy of 
Lancaster, where it remained until the reign of Edward VI. (Sec 
Morant, Essex,) 

1 The will is calendared in H, & G,, iii, 51, from the register 
of the Bishop of London's Commissary Court. 

* Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, iii, 2296; xvii, 840. See 
also Alexander, Political History of England, v, 241, 456. 

8 Letters and Papers of Henry Fill, iv, p. 863 and passim, 

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the ancient office of king's remembrancer (the 
chief accounting officer of the royal revenue) ; 
and in 15 13 was promoted to be fourth baron of 
the exchequer, in which post he continued until 
his death in 1520.* He left among other chil- 
dren a son, Sir Anthony Denny (i 501-1549), 
who was educated at Cambridge, and early in 
life succeeded his father as king's remembrancer. 
Winning the regard of Henry VHI he was made 
groom of the stole (otherwise first gentleman of 
the bedchamber) and thus was in an excellent 
position to seek a favorite courtier's share of the 
spoils of the dissolved monasteries. He seems to 
have taken full advantage of his opportunity, and 
acquired twenty thousand acres of land in Hert- 
fordshire, then the richest and most highly culti- 
vated county in England.^ One of his sisters, 
Joyce Denny, had married William Walsingham, 
a successful and prosperous lawyer in London, 
and in 1 534 was left a "warm" widow at the age of 
thirty-four with several daughters and an only 
son, Francis Walsingham (i 530-1 590), destined 
to become Elizabeth's principal secretary of state.^ 

^ F088, Judges of England, 219. 

^ Sir Anthony Denny was, however, not a mere courtier and 
spoilsman, but had a character which was respected by his contem- 
poraries. Roger Ascham says that his whole time and cares were 
occupied with religion, learning, and affairs of state; Bishop 
Burnet says that when Henry VIII was on his death-bed, Denny 
had the honesty and courage to put him in mind of his approach- 
ing end and desired him to raise his thoughts to heaven, to think 
of his past life, and to call on God for mercy. See his portrait 
and a sympathetic appreciation of him in Lodge, Portraits, vol. i. 

3 See her will, P.C.C. Loftes, 3. 

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John Cary married the widow Walsingham, 
probably in 1535, for we find him joined with her 
as his wife in one of the earliest grants (July 21, 
1536) of property of the dissolved monasteries, 
that of the priory of Thremhall, co. Essex.* 
Thus was Anthony Denny able to provide for his 
sister as well as for himself ; and thus did John 
Cary establish himself in the world, for at the 
time of his marriage his father was alive and in 
possession of his property : his appeal to the widow 
Walsingham must have been purely personal. 

The grant of Thremhall was not the only favor 
which was procured for his brother-in-law by 
Sir Anthony Denny. That courtier held Henry 
VI IPs esteem to the end and was made one of the 
executors of his will, being therein named one of 
thesixteen guardians for his son and successor.* In 
this relation Denny was able, within a month after 
the accession of the boy king in 1547, to have 
John Cary dubbed a knight by Edward VI.^ 

It is not clear where Sir John Cary lived dur- 
ing the remaining five years of his life : it may 
have been at Thremhall, where his widow cer- 
tainly lived later, or it may have been at some of 

^ Thremhall was a priory of Austin Canons (or "black*' canons) 
which was suppressed by the Act of Parliament of 1536. Its 
annual revenue was returned at £60 18 j 75^</. See John Bacon, 
Liber Regis, 1786, and Gairdner, The English Church in the 
Sixteenth Century, 

* See the king's will in Froudc, Henry VIII, iii, 418. 

^ "Knightes of the Carpett dubbed by the Kinge 22^ day of 
Feb. in the aforesaid i^t yere of his reyne ... Sir John Cary." 
(Metcalfe, Book of Knights.) 

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the various leasehold estates in Essex and Herts, 
which it appears by his will he acquired during 
these years. At all events he was living at Huns- 
don as an officer of the crown when he died in 
September, 1552, and there in Hunsdon Church 
he was buried,^ the first Cary to be associated 
with the honour which subsequently gave their 
title to the Boleyn descendants, bearing the name 
not of this Sir John, but of his younger brother. 

By his wife Joyce Sir John Cary had two sons, 
Wymond,^ born in 1538, and Edward, born 
(probably) the following year. These boys 
grew up with their half-brother Francis Wal- 
singham, who was not more than six years of age 
at the time of his mother's second marriage. It 
is the distinction of this Sir John Cary that he 
had the rule and discipline of the future states- 
man during his formative years.* 

Both the sons of Sir John Cary "of Plashey" 
set up in life, like their father, as "farmers" of 
royal manors; both followed their father's ex- 

^ See the Hunsdon parish register. In Mr. Robinson^s calendar 
the date of the burial is entered September 8, 1551, an obvious 
mistake as to the year, for Sir John Car3r'8 will is clearly dated 
August 20, 1552. {H, & G., iii, 46, 51.) 

2 He was apparently named after Sir Wymond Carew of Antony, 
Cornwall, husband of his mother's sister Martha, whose grandson 
was Thomas Carew (i595?-i63i?) the poet. 

*The household was zealously Protestant: Walsingham felt this 
so strongly that he left England on the accession of Queen Mary. 
We have, however, in respect of this family a curious evidence of 
the ceremonial compromises incident to the change of faith. The 
Dame Joyce Cary survived until after Elizabeth's accession: her 
will is dated November 10, 1560, and was proved by her son 
Francis Walsingham on January 30, 1561. She directed that she 

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ample and married rich widows; and both 
shared in the contemporary prosperity of the 
gentry, which was due to the increase of rents 
incident to the inflation of agricultural prices 
following an expansion of the volume of silver in 
circulation ; finally, to complete the parallel, both 
were knighted and both lived to a ripe old age.* 
The younger brother, SiR EDWARD Cary 
(1539-1618) of Aldenham, co. Herts, came of 
age early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth and 
the same year secured a lease, of the royal manor 
of Great Berkhampstead, co. Herts, where he 
built the still existing Berkhampstead House out 
of the dilapidated masonry of the ancient castle.^ 

should be '^buried in the parish church of Aldermanbury» in Lon- 
don, beside my late husband Walsingham.'* Her funeral was 
apparently furnished by Henry Machyn (1498?-! 563?), the Lon- 
don merchant tailor, who eked out his livelihood by serving in the 
capacity we now term "undertaker." Machyn was a staunch 
Catholic and resented the curtailment of the offices of the Roman 
Church. In the surviving fragments of his diary {Camden 
Society Publications, 1848) there is the following entry in the year 
1559; ^^ ^r^ unable to reconcile the confusion of dates: 

"The vi day of Aprell [1559] was bered at [Saint Clements] 
without Tempyll bare, my lady Cary the [wjrff of Sir John] Cary and 
the wjrff also of Master Walsing^am . . . with ij wh3rt branchys 
and iiij gret tapurs and fo[ur] staff torchys, and ij dozen and di. 
skochyons of armes [without] masse and or communyon." 

iThe elder. Sir Wymond Gary (1538-1612), died without issue, 
having lived under five princes, a country gentleman who sought no 
court favors. He was buried at Snettisham, co. Norfolk, the manor he 
had farmed of Queen Elizabeth and James I, and divided his property 
between his nephews. See his will, P.CC. Tenner, a8, and that of 
his widow, P.C.C. Lavse, la. Snettisham was afterwards granted to 
the first Lord Falkland by James I, to be held in socage, by fealty. 

* Andrews, Bygone Hertfordshire, 1898, and Standing, Memori' 
als of Old Hertfordshire, 1905. Great Berkhampstead is a spot 
rich in associations of English history. Standing on the Roman way 
of Akeman Street, at the foot of a valley leading into the Chiltems, 

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About 1575 he married the widow of the second 
Baron Paget of Beaudesert, a daughter of Sir 
Henry Knyvet, who was a younger son of the 
Knyvets of Buckenham, co. Norfolk/ and in 
1588 purchased the manor of Aldenham, co. 
Herts, which was thenceforward the chief resi- 

it is a strategic position which was occupied successively as a 
Roman camp and an Anglo-Saxon stronghold. Here William 
the Conqueror received the submission of the ivitan and agreed 
to his election as king of the English. The Norman keep, built 
by the Conqueror's half-brother, Robert of Cornwall, Count of 
Mortain, was granted by Henry II to Thomas i Becket and by 
him greatly enlarged; Edward II granted it to Piers Gaveston; 
later it was the residence of the Black Prince, and for a time of 
Geoffrey Chaucer as clerk of the works. Both Henry VI and 
Edward IV occupied Berkhampstead Castle during the Wars of 
the Roses, but it was then abandoned, fell into decay, and had 
become a pile of ruins when Sir Edward Cary built an Eliza- 
bethan manor-house out of the old material. 

^ The Knyvets anciently seated in Northamptonshire had pro- 
duced a sterling lawyer, Sir John Knyvet, who was chancellor of 
England under Edward III. By the marriage of an lieiress they 
acquired Buckenham Castle in Norfolk, the fee and keep founded 
at the Conquest by William de Albini Pincerna, but they rose 
chiefly by robustious energy at the court of Henry VIII. (Blome- 
field, Norfolk, i, 379.) 

Our only human glimpse of the "Dame Katherine Lady Paget'* 
(as she calls herself in her will, P.C.C. Swan, 30) is in her old 
age and in the always doubtful relation of a mother-in-law. The 
year after her son Henr3r's marriage to Elizabeth Tanfield, while 
he was a prisoner in Spain and she still living with her mother, 
Lady Paget '*must needs have her to her, and her friends not 
being able to satisfy the mother-in-law with any excuse were 
fain to send her ... ; the mother-in-law having her, and 
being one that loved much to be humoured, and finding her not 
to apply herself to it, used her very hardly, so far at least as to 
confine her to her chamber, which she little cared for, but enter- 
taining herself with reading, the mother-in-law took away all 
her books, with commands to have no more brought her." (The 
Lady Falkland, 8.) It would not be fair to judge Lady Paget by 
this statement written years afterwards by one of Lady Falkland's 
daughters, who was seeking to make her mother's whole life that of 
an injured heroine, a sort of Cherubina de Willoughby; moreover, 
we know that Elizabeth Tanfield was a most exasperating person. 

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dence of his family for more than half a century.* 
Unlike his brother Wymond, he became a cour- 
tier, was groom of the privy chamber and 
master of the jewel-house to Elizabeth, with all 
that that implied of opportunity to secure a cour- 
tier's favors. Thus he was keeper of Maryle- 
bone Park, and when Sir John Neville's estates 
were confiscated after the "rising in the north" 
in 1569, Edward Gary secured from the queen 
the grant of Neville's manor of Hunslet,* near 
Leeds, in Yorkshire; again, in 1571 he secured a 
lease of the royal manor of Minster* in the Isle 
of Thanet, Kent. Finally in 1596 he was 

^ The first Gary whose name appears in connection with Alden- 
ham is "Edward Gary de London/' who was buried in 1567. (See 
aniif p. 308.) His appearance on the Aldenham parish register 
long before that manor became a Gary estate is like that of Sir 
John Gary "of Plashey" on the parish register of Hunsdon long 
before it was acquired by the Hunsdons. Aldenham was sold by 
the second Lord Falkland in 164a. 

< Hunslet was an ancient seat of the Gascoignes, from whom 
sprang Henry IV's chief justice, and from them passed to the 
Nevilles by marriage. See the description of the manor with pedi- 
grees of its lords in Thoresby, Ducatus Leodiensis (1715), i74» 
581. Here it appears that Edward Gary settled Hunslet upon his 
second son Philip, who "with John Gary, Esq., his son and heir, 
sold all the Lands, Mills and Wastes to the inhabitants," so that 
when Thoresby wrote the lordship was held in common by four 
families, Ba3mes, Gowper, Fenton, and Lloyd. 

Thoresb/s copious Gary pedigree was "extracted from a large 
MS. of Sir William Segar,'' Garter King-of-Arms, who died in 
1633; it follows the 1620 Visitation pedigree and was extended 
down to 171 5, especially to emphasize the marriage of Gharlotte 
Garey of the Hunsdon family with Bryan Fairfax, Thoresby*s 
friend. This entry of the first Fairfax-Gary marriage was, about 1760, 
annotated with exclamation points, when the copy of Thoresby, now 
penes me, was studied at Belvoir on the Potomac after two Fair- 
faxes of that household had married Virginia Garys. 

8 See H. W. Aldred, The Manor of Minster, 1889. In 161 1 
James I granted the reversion of this estate to Edward Gary's 

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knighted.* In these facts we can trace the po- 
tent and persistent influence of his half-brother 
Walsingham throughout his career; but he main- 
tained his own position at James I's court. 

Sir Edward Cary had nine children. He mar- 
ried all of the six daughters well and thereby 
greatly widened what in Virginia is called "the 
connection";^ but the best evidence of his en- 
lightened merit and of the position the family had 
taken is that he gave his three sons the largest op- 
portunity for education. In August, 1590, they 
were all entered at Gray's Inn, being then of 
the ages of fourteen, thirteen, and eleven; three 

son Sir Philip, from whom it passed to his son John Gary of 
Stanwell, as appears from his will (1686, P.C.C. Lloyd, 89]. 
Subsequently it was the subject of litigation at the suit of the 
Falklands of the Patrick Cary line. Now it is the resort of 
Margate **tripper8." 

^ He is not mentioned in Metcalfe's Book of Knights, but his 
will is evidence of the fact. For the date, see H. & G., iii, 35. 
In 1585 he is styled in the parish register of Great Berkhampstead, 
"ye rt worshippful Edwarde Carye, esq.", and in 1593, when his 
sons went to Oxford, is still armiger. 

2 A glance at the marriages of his sisters will enable one to 
understand the first Lord Falkland's position at court and in the 
society of his day. The eldest, Elizabeth, married Sir John Savilc, 
of Howley, co. York, who was (1628) created Baron Savile of 
Pontefract; Frances married Sir George Manners, who succeeded 
(1632) as seventh Earl of Rutland; Catharine married Sir Henry 
Longueville, of Bucks; Muriel married Sir Thomas Crompton, of 
Skerne, co. York; Jane married Sir. Edward Barrett, of Belhouse, 
CO. Essex, who was (1627) created Baron Newburgh of Fife; and, 
finally, the youngest, Anne, married Sir Francis Leke, of Sutton, 
CO. Derby, who was (1624) created Baron Deincourt of Sutton and 
(1645) Earl of Scarsdale. 

To all these new peers we can add Falkland himself. This 
illustration, in one family connection, of the process of transition 
of the well-to-do Englishman from a Tudor knight into a Stuart 
peer is as interesting as it is characteristic of the change in the 
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years later (1593) they matriculated together at 
Queen's College, Oxford:^ after which studies 
one, if not all of them, was sent to travel on the 
continent.^ Their father had the satisfaction of 
seeing all three of these sons make rich marriages 
and become knights, taking seats also in the 
House of Commons, so that he may be accounted 
in every worldly respect a successful parent. 

Sir Edward Cary died at Cary House in Great 
Bartholomew's, West Smithfield, London, on 
July 18, 161 8, and on August 6 following was 
buried at Aldenham.^ 

The younger sons of Sir Edward Cary of Aldenham. 

II Sir Adolphus Cary (i 577-1609) married in 1596 a 
daughter of Sir Robert Corbet of Moreton Corbet, co. Salop, 
was knighted at Whitehall May 12, 1604,* and sat in Parlia- 
ment as a burgess for the borough of St. Albans, Herts, from 
1 601 to his death. The family residence being at Aldenham, 
when he grew up he was established at Berkhampstead. At 
the end of March, 1609, he died of smallpox in London, 
while in attendance on Parliament,^ and was buried at*Berk- 
hampstead,the parish register recording him to be ''a most lov- 
ing benefactour to ye poore of this towne." He left no issue.* 

1 Foster, Admissions to Gray*s Inn and Alumni Oxonienses* 

^ In 1604 the second son, Adolphus, then twenty-seven, had re- 
cently returned "out of Italy with a good opinion of the Catholic 
religion." (See The Lady Falkland, 9.) 

*See his will, P.C.C. Meade, 75; that of his widow, P.C.C. 
Swan, 30; and the parish register of Aldenham, calendared in 
H. & G„ lii, 130, 131, 44. The Falkland Cary House in St. 
Bartholomew's must, of course, be distinguished from the Hunsdon 
Cary House at Paul's Wharf. 

* Metcalfe. 

^ See Chamberlain's news-letter, April 6, 1609. 

« See bis will, P.C.C. Dorset^ 33. 

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III Sir Philip Gary (1579-1631) married, 1609, Eliza- 
beth, daughter of Richard Bland of Carleton, co. York; 
was established at Hunslet in Yorkshire, and on March 23, 
1605, was knighted at Greenwich.* He sat in the House of 
Commons from 161 4 until: the accession of Charles I for 
New Woodstock, Oxon, and was an active member of the 
Virginia Company, serving on the council and on various 
committees in 1620 and 1621 ;^ from 1624 until his death he 
was a member of the first royal conmiission for Virginia, which 
took over from the company the administration of its affairs. 
Mr. Robinson's calendar of the Aldenham parish register' 
shows that he was there buried June 16, 163 1, but his will was 
not proved until 1635.* Sir Philip Cary had a number of 
children, sons and daughters;* they all died young except 
(a) John (1612-1686), known as "of Stanwell," co. 
Middlesex,* who lived through the Commonwealth (when 
he paid composition for his estate in a sum larger than any 
Cary except the unfortunate Sir Henry of Cockington) and 
into the reign of James H, and died without issue, a life- 

1 Metcalfe. 

^ Court Book of the Virginia Company, Library of Congress, 
190^, i» 375» 404i 473f 54^, and ii, 114. 
a //. ^ G,, iii, 45. 
* P.C.C. Seager, 77. 

^ For Sir Philip Gary's family see G. E. Cokayne in The Gene- 
' alogist, xxiii, 201. 

^ Stanwell is an interesting place. The ancient manor, lying 
on the Colne in western Middlesex on the banks of the modern 
Staines reservoir and not far from Windsor Castle, was held 
from Domesday to the time of Henry VIII by descendants of 
Walter Fitzother, who took the name Windsor from his warden- 
ship of Windsor Castle under William the Conqueror. Henry 
VIII coveted the place and tyrannically compelled Sir Andrew 
Windsor (1474-1543), first Baron Windsor of Stanwell, to ex- 
change his patrimony for the confiscated estates of the dissolved 
Bordesley Abbey in Worcestershire. The story is well told by 
Dugdale. This family is now represented by the descendants of 
the Indian hero Robert Clive as earls of Plsrmouth; (G.E. 
C[okayne], Complete Peerage, vi, 257.) James I granted Stan- 

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long country gentleman of the type of Sir Roger de Cover- 
ley. He was master of the buckhounds under Charles II. 
He left^ a substantial part of his large estate to Edward 
Cary, son of the penniless Patrick Cary, and so invigorated 
the new line of Falklands. Having been educated at St. 
John's College, Oxford (matriculated 1627), he left also 
a fund to endow certain church livings which he provided 
should be forever held by fellows of St. John's. 

(b) Anne^ who married William Willoughby (1615?- 
1673) of the Suffolk branch of that ancient family, and in 
1653 purchased the manor of Hunsdon from the first Earl of 
Dover, when the prosperity of the Hunsdon family had ended 
with the civil wars. In 1 666 her husband succeeded his brother 
Francis as sixth Baron Willoughby of Parham and also as gov- 
ernor of Bar badoes and the Caribbee Islands in the West Indies.^ 
Three of her sons and a grandson succeeded to the Parham 

well in 1603 to Sir Thomas Knyvet, afterwards Lord Knyvet of 
Escrick, a brother of the wife of Sir Edward Cary of Aldenham, 
who had the honor to discover the powder under the Houses of 
Parliament at the time of the gunpowder plot. During Knyvet's 
tenure James Fs daughter Mary died at Stanwell in 1607. Him- 
self dying childless in 1622, Lord Knyvet settled Stanwell on his 
great-nephew John Cary, who, also childless, in turn settled it by 
his will of 1685 on his great-niece Elizabeth Willoughby, condi- 
tioned upon her marrying the eldest son of his friend the Lord 
Keeper Guilford (Lives of the Norths, iii, 194), with remainder, in 
the event this marriage was not arranged, to the holder of the 
Falkland title. Elizabeth Willoughby did not marry Lord Guil- 
ford, with the result that in 1698 there was a lively litigation 
(Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv, 339-356), ending in compromise 
by which she held Stanwell for life, and was succeeded by the 
Jacobite Lucius Henry, sixth Lord Falkland, in 17 15. Living in 
Paris in exile he sold Stanwell in 1720, and it has since passed 
through the hands of the Dunmores to the Gibbons, who still hold 
it. The present Stanwell Place is a modern house on the site of 
the ancient manor house. (See Lysons, Environs of London, s.v. 
Stanwell,) 

^ See his curious will, P.C.C. Lloyd, 89. 

2 For the romantic career of these two Lords Willoughby of 
Parham and the sons of Anne Cary, in the West Indies during 
and after "the Troubles," see Flannigan, Antigua and the Antigu- 
ans, 1844; Davis, Cavaliers and Roundheads of Barbadoes, 1887; 

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SIR HENRY GARY 
1576-1633 

FIRST VISCOUNT FALKLAND, LORD DEPUTY OF IRELAND 



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^A^riaHKM0 



title Her daughter Elizabeth was that niece of John Gary 
of Stanwell who disappointed him by not marrying a North, 
but whose descendants Berties, earls of Abingdon, still flourish. 

The eldest son, SiR Henry Cary (i 576-1 633), 
first Lord Falkland, was born at Berkhampstead, 
and at fourteen^ was entered at Gray's Inn, 
August 2, 1590, a week before his younger 
brothers. Thence, two years later, he went to 
Oxford, where "by the help of a good tutor and 
extraordinary parts . . . became a most ac- 
complished gentleman."^ "It doth not appear he 
took any degree: but, however, when he quitted 
the university he left behind him a celebrated 
name."* He was then presented to Queen Eliza- 

and Did, Nat. Biog, (reissue ed.), xzi, 502. The complicated 
pedigree of the Willoughbys is io Collins Peerage (ed. Brydges), 
vi, 613; and see G. £. C, Complete Peerage, viii, 154, for elucida- 
tion of the tenure of the Parham barony in the eighteenth century, 
"when, after the failure of Anne Gary's line, a younger branch was 
recognized, although the true barons were then living at Hulls 
Creek in Rappahannock County, Virginia. For the Virginians 
tee Stanard, Some Emigrants, 191 5, and Va, Mag,, i, 447; iv, 83, 
where the Rappahannock family is distinguished from those 
Willoughbys who were seated in Norfolk County, Virginia, from 
the earliest days of the colony. 

1 Sir Henry Cary sought to conceal the year of his birth for 
an ingenious purpose. Fuller says of him (Worthies of England, 
ed. Nuttall, 1840, ii, 46), "Some beginning to counterfeit his hand 
he used to incorporate the year of his age in a knot flourished 
beneath his name, concealing the day of his birth to himself." 
(See also Horace Walpole, Royal and Noble Authors, 1759, ii, 
214.) He was probably bom at Berkhampstead, but the surviv- 
ing parish register begins, so far as relates to his father's family, 
with the baptism in 1585 of the youngest child, Anne, afterwards 
Lady Leke. (//. & G,, iii, 45.) The year of Sir Henry Gary's 
birth is, however, clearly revealed by the statement of hia age, 
fourteen, on his entiy at Gra/s Inn, 1590. 

^ Biographia Britannica, iii, 290. 

•Lloyd, State Worthies, ii, 255. 

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beth and became "a compleat courtier." When 
the Earl of Essex organized his Irish army at 
the beginning of 1599, Henry Cary, then twenty- 
three years of age, was one of the young gentle- 
men who volunteered to take part in what was 
intended to be a triumphal progress. We know 
nothing of what he did to win attention, but it 
must have been creditable, for during the sum- 
mer of 1599 he was dubbed knight by Essex at 
Dublin Castle.^ He evidently returned to Eng- 
land with Essex, for in the Parliament of 1601 
we find him first returned as a knight of the 
shire for Herts.* He now associated with the 
wits and made the acquaintance of Ben Jonson. 
About this time* his father arranged for him a 

1 Metcalfe, Book of Knights, This identificatioo was clearly 
established by John Nichols {Progresses of James I, 1828, i, 599; ii, 
343) but has been missed by the recent authorities, most of whom, 
in the endeavor to account for Falkland being a knight, confuse 
him with one or the other of his two contemporaries of the same 
name. Thus the honor of Knight of the Bath conferred 1610 on the 
Henry Carey who afterwards became Earl of Dover, and that con- 
ferred in 161 6 on the Henry Carey who afterwards became second 
Earl of Monmouth, are claimed for Falkland. This confusion is 
cleared up by a note in Marriott (p. 55), which, however, does not 
mention the Irish knighthood, but abandons the problem in despair. 

* Return of Members of Parliament, 1879. The future Lord 
Falkland sat continuously for Hertfordshire in the Parliaments of 
1 601, 1 603-1 1, 1605, and 1620 until he went to Ireland: it was held that 
his Scotch peerage did not deprive him of the privilege of sitting in 
the Commons (Court and Times of James I, ii, 228), as his de- 
scendants did after him until Scots peers were disqualified by the 
act of Union in 1706. There were three Sir Henry Caryt under 
James I, the future lords Falkland, Dover, and Monmouth, all of 
whom were in the Commons at times. There is no little confusion 
among them in the indexes. 

*The date of the marriage is uncertain. It undoubtedly took 
place at Burford, where the parish register does not begin until 
1612. The match is not likely to have attracted the prudent father, 

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ELIZABETH TANFIELD 
I 585- I 639 

LADY FALKLAND 



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marriage with Elizabeth Tanfield, daughter 
and sole heir of Laurence Tanfield of Burford 
Priory, in Oxfordshire, afterwards chief baron 
of the exchequer.^ It was a rich marriage, but 
the lady was only fifteen, an unconventional 
child, who had given her parents no little anxiety 
by her propensity to read books and think for 
herself:^ it was accordingly stipulated that she 
should live at home, unwed, for a year after the 

Sir Edward Cary, until after Laurence Tanfield had entertained 
James I in 1603 and was on his promotion; the author of The 
Lady Falkland says her mother married at fifteen, which would 
make the date 1600, but Sir James Paul (Balfour, The Scots Peer- 
age) says the marriage contract was dated June 27, 1602. At all 
events, Sir Henry Gary did not live with his wife for some years, 
and their first child was not born until 1609. 

"^ Sir Laurence Tanfield (i549?-i625) inherited Burford from his 
father and made a successful career in Parliament and at the bar. 
At Easter, 1603, he was made a sergeant-at-Iaw, and in September 
of that year James I, on his journey from Scotland, stopped with him 
three days at Burford; in consequence of which hospitality he was 
knighted. In 1606 he was appointed a puisne judge of the King's 
Bench and in 1607 chief baron of the exchequer, a post he held until 
hit death. He acquired the manor of Great Tew in Oxfordshire, 
where he and his family were most unpopular for their hard dealing 
with the inhabitants. (See Foss, 649, and Diet, Nat, Biog,, xix, 357.) 

^Elizabeth Tanfield, Lady Falkland (i 585-1639), is the subject of a 
memoir written by one of her daughters while a nun in the Benedictine 
Convent at Cambray. It was found in MS. in the Imperial Archives 
at Lille and edited by Richard Simpson (London, 1861) under the 
title The Lady Falkland, This book, written chiefly to justify the 
lady for her reconciliation with the Church of Rome, is a vital human 
document, not only revealing character but affording many details 
for the lives of the first and second lords Falkland and their times. 

It was from his mother that the famous Lord Falkland derived 
his intellectual as well as his physical characteristics, but he must 
have inherited his agreeability from the Carys. She was a good 
woman, a faithful wife and devoted mother, a sincere Christian, 
and withal diabolically clever. By her theatrical methods of ex- 
hibiting these qualities she succeeded in exasperating not only her 
own mother, her mother-in-law, her husband, and her eldest son, 
but the king, the privy council, and the Star Chamber as well ; yet 

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. ^ rm^iiSMB^jj i n i i II ■■■■■■ ■ ■<T li ij ^ 

marriage. The bridegroom, who *'had no ac- 
quaintance with her (she scarce ever having 

it is evident that they all felt her allure. She was in difficulties all 
her life by reason of her change of religion at the very moment 
of the gunpowder plot, but she held her course serenely to the 
end, had a close and sympathetic friend in Queen Henrietta 
Maria, and succeeded in landing two of her sons and four of 
her daughters in the Catholic Church against all the efforts of 
her eldest son and of Archbishop Laud. She lives in her daughter's 
book The Lady Falkland and in the sympathetic and lively pages 
of T. Longueville's Falklands (1897). Lady Georgiana Fullerton 
has also written a Life of Lady Falkland about her. 

The authorship of "Mariam" On December 17, 1612, there 
was entered at Stationers* Hall a dramatic poem in rhymed quat- 
rains which was subsequently published with a title-page reading 
"The Tragedie of Mariam, the fairc Queene of Iewr>', written 
by that learned, vertuous and truly noble Ladie £. C, 1613.'' In 
a few, but not all, of the surviving copies of the original edition 
is found the following sonnet: 

"To Dianaes 
Earthlie Deputesse 
and my worthy Sister Mistris Elizabeth Carye. 

"When cheerful Phoebus his full course hath run. 
His Sister's fainter Beams our harts doth cheere: 
So your fair Brother is to mee the Sunne 
And you, his Sister, as my moone appeare. 

"You are my next beloved, my second friend, 
For when my Phoebus absence makes it Night 
Whilst to th' Antipodes his beams do bende 
From you, my Phoebe, shines my second Light. 

"Hee like to Sol, cleare sighted, constant, free. 
You Luna-like, unspotted, chaste, deuine; 
He shone on Sicily, you destined bee 
T' illumine the now obscurde Palestine. 
My first was consecrated to Apollo, 
My second to Diana now shall follow. 

E. C." 

Modern scholarship has somewhat strained itself in efforts to 
identify the author of Mariam, There are those (Did, Nat, 
Biog., reissue ed., iii, 973) who have maintained that she was 
Elizabeth Carey, Lady Berkeley, daughter to the second Lord 
Hunsdon and his charming wife Elizabeth Spencer. (See ante, 
p. 359.) This proceeds largely on the known inclinations to 



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^^ 



spoke to him) ," was not eager. He had married 
her, according to his daughter, "only for being 

literature of the second Lady Hunsdon and her daughter and their 
relations with the poets Spenser and Nash, but does not attempt 
to reconcile the sonnet to the facts of family history. Now come 
the editors of the publications of the Malone Society with an in- 
teresting new theory: that the author was Elizabeth Tanfield, 
wife of Sir Henry Gary, afterwards first Lord Falkland. (See 
the Malone Society reprint of The Tragedie of Mariam, Oxford, 
1914.) The evidence upon which this attribution relies is partly 
internal and partly the dedication by John Da vies of his Muses 
Sacrifice, 1612, to three ladies, Lucy, Countess of Bedford, Mary, 
Countess-Dowager of Pembroke, "and Elizabeth, Lady Gary (wife 
of $1* Henry Cary)," with complimentary verses, which, in the 
case of Lady Cary, indicate that she also had sacrificed to the 
Muses. Elizabeth Tanfield's daughter, who wrote The Lady 
Falkland, confirms this in a passage which is significant in the 
present connection, viz. : "From this time [i .f ., during her husband's 
absence a prisoner in Spain] she writ many things for her private 
recreation, on several subjects and occasions, all in verse (out of 
which she scarce ever writ anything that was not translations) : 
one of them was after stolen out of that sister-in-law's her friend's 
chamber, and printed but by her own procurement was called in. 
Of all she then writ, that which was saicf to be the best was the 
'Life of Tamberlaine' in verse." 

The Malone Society editors next proceed to a less convincing 
attempt to clinch their argument by means of the sonnet. Trium- 
phantly they discover that Sir Henry Gary's younger brother 
Philip married Elizabeth Bland (see ante, p. 403), who might, 
therefore, be at once the "sister" of Sir Henry Gary's wife and 
herself "Mistris Elizabeth Garye"; whereupon they make her out 
to be she to whom the sonnet is indited: but in doing so they 
recognize that the sonnet is evidently addressed to a lady who at 
once is a virgin and has illumined "the now obscurde Palestine," 
while the author of the sonnet is equally evidently lamenting the 
absence of a beloved husband, who, unlike Sir Henry Gary, was 
"free." Upon all the evidence we are glad to be convinced of the 
probability that Elizabeth Tanfield was the author of Mariam, 
but venture to reject the argument that she also wrote the sonnet. 
As to it we revert to the interpretation (e.g., in the Huth cata- 
logue) which was uniformly maintained before the Malone 
Society editors, that the sonnet was gratulatory and was addressed 
to the author of Mariam. For this we rely upon the internal 
evidence of the sonnet itself. Without straining its allegory, it 
can be interpreted as referring to the virgin state of Sir Henry 
Gary's "widowed wife and wedded maid" while he was a 



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■■■■i ltuilJMil^^ ^^ 



an heir; she was nothing handsome,"^ and both 
her mother and his disapproved of her, so, with- 
out waiting for the expiry of the year of pro- 
bation, he went off to the wars in search of the 
bubble reputation.^ 

In 1605 the war of independence in the Low 
Countries had dragged on nineteen years since 
Elizabeth had issued her declaration of partici- 
pation. It had become the school of the profes- 
sional soldier, in which reputation was made and 
lost. Sir Francis Vere had retired to England 
and Prince Maurice of Nassau had succeeded to 
the command. A new general, Spinola, had 
arisen also on the Spanish side. The States-Gen- 

prisoner in Spain, especially if she had illumined "the now ob- 
scurde Palestine" by her versification of the story of Mariam, 
We do not, however, venture a definite conjecture as to the identity 
of the "£. C' who signs the sonnet If it was Sir Philip Gary's 
wife, then it is not impossible that she was lamenting her hus- 
band's absence in Sicily, which is within the possibilities, for 
quite incidentally The Lady Falkland testifies that the other 
brother Adolphus had been in Italy; but it may be noted that 
Elizabeth Tanfield's intimate friend among the Gary ladies was 
Jane, the wife of Sir Edward Barrett, afterwards Lord Newburgh. 
See the testimony of the daughter in The Lady Falkland, passim, 
and her own letter to Secretary Goke, March 24, 1627. {Cal, 
State Papers, Domestic, Iviii, No. 19.) 

^ This opinion of her daughter is borne out by her extraordinary 
portrait by Vansomer, now in the possession of the present Lord 
Falkland. Elsewhere the daughter records that after her mother 
became a widow and relaxed her effort to maintain appearances 
"she from hence left off chopins, which she had ever worn, be- 
ing very low and a long time very fat." 

* His son Patrick testified in a note on the MS. of The Lady 
Falkland that his elderly brother-in-law Sir William Uvedale had 
told him that he and Sir Henry Gary had gone over together in the 
train of "my Lord of Hartford, then ambassador for Queen Eliza- 
beth [«V]." In 1605 Sir Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, was 
ambassador extraordinary at Brussels. 



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I ■i fcmlilUMiJyiJ"' ^^ 



eral had suffered a great loss in the capitulation 
of Ostend after a stubborn siege, their replique 
was a brilliant achievement, the siege and recap- 
ture of Sluys. The campaign of 1605, on the 
other hand, went against Prince Maurice and he 
now barely held his own. In September Spinola 
was constructing a fort on the right bank of the 
Rhine where it receives the river Ruhr, leaving 
in his rear detachments to protect the valley of 
the Ruhr with the village of Mulheim and the 
castle of Broick. Prince Maurice, with Sir 
Horace Vere and the English contingent of the 
allied army, was stationed at Wessel some fifteen 
miles lower down the Rhine. With them was 
Sir Henry Cary as a volunteer. Believing that 
Spinola was absorbed in his work at Ruhrort, 
Prince Maurice determined to cut off Mulheim 
and the upper valley. By a night march (Octo- 
ber 8, 1605) he reached Mulheim in force and 
sent a detachment across the river, which suc- 
ceeded in capturing the castle of Broick. Spin- 
ola was now on the march to the rescue, with his 
general of cavalry, Don Luis de Velasco. After a 
hot fight he drove Prince Maurice across the river 
into Mulheim and thence into general retreat, 
the army being saved only by the gallant stand of 
the English to cover the crossing of the river.^ 

In this fight, known as the battle of Mulheim, 
Sir Henry Cary, after a gallant charge against 

^Markham, The Fighting Veres, 370; Motley, The United Neth- 
erlands, iv, 362. 



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i^iKwrou^^i 



desperate odds/ was captured and, being a vol- 
unteer, was held to ransom by Don Luis de Ve- 
lasco. As his father did not at once provide the 
ransom. Sir Henry was taken to Spain and there 
remained a prisoner for over a year: it was not 
until 1607 ^h^t h^ was again in England. The 
payment of the ransom made a large hole in his 
patrimony and was the beginning of the financial 
difficulties which embittered the remainder of 
Sir Henry's life. The experience was, however, 
not without its compensations. His reputation 
for gallantry was embalmed in amber by Ben 
Jonson^ and he evidently formed during his cap- 
tivity friendships strong enough to induce him 
to give Spanish names to his first two sons. 

1 Philip Gawdy, of Clifford's Inn, writing to his brother Sir 
B. Gawdy, October 28, 1605, tells (Historical MSS. Commission 
Report, vii, 529) the story which reached London immediately 
after the battle: '^he loss that was in Flanders was not so great 
as was first spoken of . . . but it was most shameful 1, for 
their wer 1200 Hollanders and English menne ran from 400 
Italionsy and only four did charge those 4xx>, which were Sir 
Henry Carie, Mr. Ratclife and Capt. Pigott, which thus were 
taken prisoner, the 4th, which was Sir John Roos . . . escaped." 
* Ben Jonsortf Epigrams, LXVI. 

"To Sir Henry Gary 

That neither fame, nor love might wanting be 

To greatness, Gary, I sing that and thee: 

Whose house, if it no other honor had 

In only thee, might be both great and glad: 

Who, to upbraid the sloth of this our time 

Durst valor make, almost, but not a crime, 
■ Which deed I know not, whether were more high. 

Or, thou more happy, it to justify 

Against thy fortune : when no foe, that day, 

Could conquer thee, but chance, who did betray. 

Love thy great loss, which a renown hath won. 

To live when Broeck not stands, nor Roor doth run: 

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Sir Henry now took to bed his neglected young 
wife and returned to his life in Parliament and at 
court, where his father procured him an appoint- 
mentas gentleman of thebedchamber. Forthenext 
ten years we hear little of him, but it is probable 
that it was at this time, before he had established 
his relations with Buckingham, thathe wrote what 
Horace Walpole describes as his "choice politi- 
cal observations" on the favorites of Edward 11.^ 

It is during this period that we have a glimpse 
of him in the autobiography of Lord Herbert of 
Cherbury. One of the liveliest pictures in that 
lively book is of the murderous assault on Her- 
bert by Sir John Ayres in the streets of London 
in 1611. There seem to have been a number of 
spectators but little interference. Herbert says 
that after he had been stabbed but had thrown 
his antagonist to the ground and, astride his 

Love honors, which of best example be, 

When they cost dearest, and are done most free. 

Though every fortitude deserves applause, 

It may be much, or little, in the cause. 

He's valiant'st that dares fight, and not for pay: 

That virtue is, when the reward's away." 
^ This interesting and highly creditable essay was found in MS 
among Falkland's papers and appeared in print in 1680 as The 
History of K. Edward the second, with Observations on him and 
his Favourtts, Gaveston and Spencer, Supposed to be writ by 
the right honourable Henry Viscount Falkland, Anthony k Wood 
says that it was published "when the press was open for all 
such books that could make anything against the then govern- 
ment, with a preface to the reader patched up from very incon- 
siderable authors by Sir Ja[mes] H[arrington] as is supposed." 
This is the octavo referred to by Horace Walpole (Royal and 
Noble Authors) and has been reprinted in the Harleian Miscellany, 
i, 90. The folio History of Edward II, published also in 1680, and 
confounded by Walpole with Falkland's essay, was, according to 

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uf ^ fcwIiaMBil^j U nBii %li > 

body, was belaboring him with a broken sword, 
"Sir Henry Gary, afterwards Lord of Falkland 
and Lord Deputy of Ireland, finding the dagger 
thus in my body, snatched it out." 

His need of money had led him into specula- 
tion. He was one of the incorporators and one 
of the council for Virginia named in the second 
charter of the Virginia Company in 1609, ^^^ 
one of the incorporators of the Northwest Pas- 
sage Company in 161 2. He had a venture also in 
the East India Company.^ 

In 161 1 he acquired, with his brother Philip, 
his father's interest in the royal manor of Min- 
ster in Kent, to which were attached rights of 
wreckageon which he founded high hopes and for 
which he was afterwards involved in litigation.* 

Instead of securing fortune from all these vi- 
sions, he had hard buffets from fate. The family 
leasehold in Berkhampstead was reclaimed by 
the crown for the Duchy of Cornwall ; the grant 
from the crown of the manor of Snettisham, of 
which he had inherited a "farm" from his uncle 

the title-page, "written by E. F. in the year 1627." The British 
Museum catalogue has identified this author as Edward Fannant. 
(See Lowndes, Bibliographers* Manual, 777 and 771.) 

^ He subscribed £75 to the Virginia Company, and in 1613 was 
sued for it and paid up. He dreamed of making his fortune in. these 
ventures beyond sea, and in 1618 commissioned Captain Richard 
Whitbourne, the navigator, to revive Sir Humphrey Gilbert's col- 
ony in Newfoundland. Whitbourne*s tract A Discourse containing a 
Loving Invitation for the advancement of his Maiestie*s most hope- 
full Plantation in the Ne*w-Found-Land (1622) was dedicated to 
him. See Brown, Genesis of the United States, 844 ahd 1050. 

2 State Papers, Domestic, Ixv, No. 52, and cxxvii, No. 43. 



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Wymond, hardly compensated because he was 
required to pay £1500 as a consideration. 

In 1618, when his father died, Sir Henry suc- 
ceeded to his court offices of keeper of Maryle- 
bone Park^ and master of the jewel house. The 
latter he promptly turned into cash to relieve his 
necessities.^ All of these transactions required 
him to look to court favor as the only way out of his 
difficulties, and so he cultivated the rising favorite 
George Villiers. By his aid he was in 1617 ap- 
pointed comptroller of the household® and a 
member of the privy council ; later he secured the 
lucrative office of master of the court of wards.^ 

Falkland was beyond all cavil a man of "excel- 
lent parts," as Clarendon testifies ; in his new re- 
lation and access to James he must have won 
some measure of the king's respect, but it is clear 
that it was through his practical relation with 
Buckingham that he now gained preferment.^ 

1 CaL State Papers, Domestic, xciv, No. 77. 

2 He sold it to Sir Henry Mildmah, ''a young man of no expe- 
rience/' for £2000, which was much more than it was worth. 
Chamberlain's news-letter, CaL State Papers, Domestic, xcv, No. 5. 

'The comptroller of the household was the third in rank of the 
great officers of the royal household, his function being "to control 
all accompts and reckonings of the Green Cloth" and to sit as a 
magistrate in the court, later known as the Marshalsea, whose ju- 
risdiction was "to hear and determine Treasons, Felonies and other 
Crimes committed within the Verges of the Court." (La*ws of Hon- 
our, 1714, Appendix, 9.) The "Verges of the Court" was the area 
within twelve miles of the king's person wherever he was. 

« Chamberlain's news-letter, CaL State Papers, Domestic, ciii, 
No. no. 

5 Wood says (Ath, Oxon., i, 586) that Cary was "in much esteem 
by . . . the King for his great abilities and experience in State af- 

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And so he continued to 

let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp 
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee 
Where thrift may follow fawning. 

Whatever it may have cost in money or self- 
respect, the fountain of honor was now gushing 
copiously. On November lo, 1620, Sir Henry 
Gary, then forty-four years of age, was created ' 
Viscount Falkland of Fife in the peerage of 
Scotland,^ and on September 18, 1622, he was 
sworn as lord deputy of Ireland, in succession 
to Viscount Grandison. 

Falkland's career in Ireland was not a success, 

fairs": it is altogether probable that he did not exhibit to James 
and "Steenie" his philosophical observations on the favorites of 
Edward II as proof of these qualities! Tulloch {Rational Theol- 
ogy* if 79) judiciously observes that this Falkland was "an ambi- 
tious, strong tempered and accomplished man, with more address in 
gaining power than ability in maintaining it." 

^ The title was derived from that royal palace of the Stuarts 
which was their favorite summer residence. "To be Falkland 
bred" was a Scots proverb to describe a courtier: can it be that 
James had a sense of humor in conferring this title upon Sir Henry 
Cary? The ancient palace fell into decay, but in 1888 was restored 
by the Marquis of Bute. It may now be seen by all who make 
their golf pilgrimage to St Andrews. 

In her autobiography {Life of William Cavendish, Duke of Nev^ 
castle, ed. Firth, 1886, 275) Margaret Lucas, Duchess of Newcastle, 
says of her father, who was a contemporary of Sir Henry Cary, 
that he "was not a peer of the realm ... yet at that time great 
titles were to be sold, and not at so high rates but that his estate 
might have easily purchased and was pressed for to take." Inci- 
dentally it may be noted that Clarendon {Life, iii, 225) records that 
the Duchess's brother, Sir John Lucas, did what his father dis- 
dained to do, a passage which is a pregnant evidence of the traffic 
in peerages under the Stuarts. In 1627 the price current, in the 
heraldic market, of being made a viscount was £5000. (CaL State 
Papers, Domestic, Charles I, Iv, No. 26.) 



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though he held the sword of state for seven years. 
He was early induced by Archbishop Usher to 
banish the Roman priests in the midst of the 
negotiations for the Spanish marriage of the 
Prince of Wales, which made his action as un- 
popular at court as it was inexpedient in Ire- 
land: he quarreled with the Irish nobles; he 
failed in an attempt to oust the Byrnes from their 
lands in Wicklow, where he planned to set up a 
plantation of his own; in 1625 he sent his wife 
back to England, where she publicly turned 
Catholic and gave the privy council and even the 
Star Chamber no little trouble in consequence 
of her husband's stopping her allowance and her 
own theatrical behavior/ 

These considerations combined to make Falk- 
land's tenure of his high ofRce uncomfortable 
to the government: on August 10, 1629, he was 
recalled.^ 

Professor Gardiner sums up these seven years 
with the characterization : 

''A man naturally kindly and desirous of fulfilling his 
duties, he was alike wanting in the clear sightedness which 
detects the foot of an evil, and in the firmness which is needed 
to eradicate it."* 

^ See Cal. State Papers, Domestic and Ireland, for the period, 
passim. Most of the correspondence is reprinted by Richard Simp- 
son in his Appendix to The Lady Falkland, 

2 A successor was not appointed for three years, when the new 
lord deputy was Thomas Wentworth (i 593-1 641), the exponent of 
'thorough." 

^ Gardiner, History of England, viii, 9. 



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Falkland was received graciously by Charles I, 
now king, who recognized his good intentions 
even in failure, but his career was over. He was 
reconciled with his wife, but was overwhelmed 
by debt.^ His eldest son had disappointed his 
last hopes of fortune by refusing a rich match 
from which the father might have profited: his 
last years were unhappy. 

One day in September, 1633, Lady Falkland 
received a message that her husband had been 
**waiting on the King (then newly come out of 
Scotland) a-shooting in Tibald's Park" when he 
fell from a stand and broke his leg, and, a gen- 
tleman to the end, "instantly broke it in a second 
and a third place with standing up at the King's 

^ He was actually "a prisoner in the Duchy house in London" for 
debt during 1631. (Cat. State Papers, Domestic, cxcviii, No. 12.) 
He had built hopes on his wife's inheritance, but her father left 
his estate to his grandson, passing over his daughter entirely. She 
charged (in her letter to Secretary Coke, March 34, 1627, Cal, State 
Papers, Domestic, Iviii, No. 19) that the reason for this was be- 
cause she had angered her father by complaisance with her hus- 
band's necessities, in releasing her jointure to enable him to outfit 
on gping to Ireland. This story is repeated in The Lady Falkland, 
15 (see also Chamberlain's news-letter, Cal. State Papers, Domestic, 
Ixvii, No. 67), but it is only fair to Sir Henry, whose reputation for 
veracity is untarnished, to record that he denied it vigorously in 
his letter to Secretary Conway of July 5, 1627 (Cal. State Papers, 
Ireland) : "That her father disinherited her for her obedience to me 
is much misreported by her: he foresaw in her that bad condition 
which she hath since manifested to the world, which made him do 
that he did against her and me for her sake. If her jointure be 
sold, it is she that hath had the benefit of the sale and hath spent 
treble the value of it out of my purse, who never saw penny out 
of her father's, but my part of her first petty portion at her mar- 
riage." While Sir Henry was undoubtedly severe in his treatment 
of his wife, he was sorely provoked and was supported by his 
wife's mother and his own family. 



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coming to him."^ He was taken to a lodge in 
Theobald's Park, and by the king's command 
was attended by the court surgeons. They failed 
to set the fractures, so that the leg gangrened; 
then after a week the surgeons cut off the leg 
just above the knee, but failed to sear it: within 
the next twenty-four hours hemorrhage set in 
and Falkland died. He continued to show his 
breeding during the week he was in the hands of 
these criminally negligent surgeons. During 
the amputation of his leg "he never changed his 
countenance, nor made any show of pain" : when 
one of the surgeons, fearing that Lady Falkland 
was trying to convert his patient to Rome, several 
times bawled vulgarly in his ear a demand that 
he declare he died a Protestant, he said at last, 
"Pray do not interrupt my silent meditation."* 
On September 25, 1633, Henry Gary, first 
Lord Falkland, was buried beside his father at 
Aldenham,^ leaving four sons and six daughters. 

The younger children of the first Lord Falkland, 

n Sir Lorenzo Gary (161 3- 1642) was born at Berk- 
hampstead, where he was baptized October 5, 1613.^ He 
was named for his maternal grandfather, Sir Laurence Tan- 



1 The Lady Falkland, 46. 

' The Lady Falkland, 49. His daughter remarks sententiously 
enough that his last words showed "he could have said the other if 
he would." 

< Parish register, calendared in //. & G,, iii, 45. There is no 
record of a will. 

^ Parish register, H. & G,, iii, 45. 



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field, though the name was given a Spanish form by the 
father, then fresh from his captivity in Spain. At nine he 
went with the other children to Ireland, but, unlike Lucius, 
was sent back for his education, for in 1630, after Lucius 
was established at Burford, we find Lorenzo recorded as 
obtaining the degree of B.A. at Oxford, as "from Exeter 
CoU.*'^ He returned to Ireland to make his career, taking 
with him an order from the king to Wentworth, his father's 
successor as lord deputy, to give him command of a company 
of foot. This was doubtless a compensation for the removal 
of his elder brother from a like command in 1630, but it 
excited the hot indignation of Wentworth.^ Lorenzo ap- 
parently justified the appointment: at all events he was 
knighted by Wentworth at Dublin Castle on March 17, 
1634,^ and in the spring of 1641, when the Irish army was 
disbanding, he had been promoted colonel and was assigned 
to the command of 1000 men for foreign service.^ The 
outbreak of the Irish rebellion later in that year diverted 
him to his last duty: on January 11, 1642, serving under Sir 
Charles Coote, he was killed in the obscure fight against the 
rebels as Swords.^ He had never married. 

Ill Edward, bom 16 16, died an infant and was buried 
at Aldenham.^ 

The other sons, Patrick and Henry (Father Placid), arc 
noticed, post p. 464. 

Of the daughters, the eldest, Catherine, married the Earl 

* Foster, Alumni Oxon, 

* CaL State Papers, Ireland, ccliv. 
« Metcalfe. 

^ Cal, State Papers, Ireland, cclix. The foreign service intended 
was that of the* king of Spain to whom Charles I had agreed to 
sell eight Irish regiments, but the plan was vetoed by the English 
parliament. See Burghclere, James, First Duke of Ormonde, i, lao. 

^ CaL IState Papers, Domestic, cccclxxxviii, No. 75; Gardiner, 
History, x, 114, 173; and The Lady Falkland, 185. 

* Parish register, H, & G,, iii, 44. 

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of Home at the age of thirteen, and died as the result of a 
distressing accident;^ Victoria, after service at court as a 
maid of honor to Queen Henrietta Maria, married Sir Wil- 
liam Uvedale of Wickham, co. Hants, who seems to have 
had a penchant for Cary women, as he had already married 
and buried a daughter of Sir Edmund Carey, son of the first 
Lord Hunsdon; the other four daughters, Anne, Elizabeth, 
Lucy, and Mary, all died nuns in the Benedictine Convent 
at Cambray.2 One of them was the author of The Lady 
Falkland. 

Sir Lucius Cary (1610-1643), his father's 
eldest son and successor as second Viscount Falk- 
land, is the most famous of all Carys. He had 
the fortune to win the devoted friendship of one 
who wielded a facile and fascinating pen, who 
wrote a great history of a vital constitutional 
crisis and in doing so deliberately sought to cele- 
brate his friend as Tacitus had celebrated Agri- 
cola. As an almost inevitable consequence, when 
Whig principles became dominant in England 
after the revolution of 1688, Falkland's name 
was the target for partizan arrows: he almost 
lost his personality and became a paradigm of 
the execrated high church and Tory politics 
which had been overthrown. For the same rea- 
son, or unreason, in the reaction of opinion in 
the nineteenth century, Falkland was adopted as 
a protomartyr of a principle and from that was 
soon translated into a saint of the cult of "sweet- 

1 The Lady Falkland, 24. 

* See Appendix to The Lady Falkland, 184. 



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tfUta 



ness and light." By this process, directly attrib- 
utable in the last analysis to Clarendon's stately 
periods, Falkland has taken a place in English 
history which is greater than his actual signifi- 
cance. On his public and literary side he was 
in fact a brilliant failure; but on his human side, 
in every light we can throw on him, indepen- 
dently of Clarendon, he stands clear a charming 
companion, a high-minded and cultivated gen- 
tleman, a character to love.^ 

^ Falkland's fame, in the literary sense, is a creature of the eigh- 
teenth century. Clarendon's Rebellion was first published in 170a 
and the character of Falkland in it at once took hold of the histor- 
ical imagination. Thus Dean Swift commented on the story of 
Falkland's death,' "it moves grief to the highest excess," and in 
1734 Fope {Essay on Man, iv, 99) crystallized the current view of 
him and his death in the verses: 

"See Falkland dies, the virtuous and the just I 
See godlike Turenne prostrate in the dust! 
See Sidney bleeds amid the martial strife ! 
Was this their virtue, or contempt of life?" 

In 1759 Clarendon's Life was published with a fresh contribution 
of Falkland material. All of this had been too much for the en- 
durance of Horace Walpole, who combined an insatiable appetite 
to be different from other people as a badge of cleverness, with the 
tradition of the Whig principles of the revolution of 16SS. He had, 
therefore, in 175S taken a tilt at Falkland's reputation in a mascu- 
line judgment (Royal and Noble Authors, ii, 316) which has since 
been the text of one political principle as Clarendon has been that 
of another. We are to read the latter, here is Walpole: 

"There never was a stronger instance of what the magic of 
words and the art of an Historian can effect, than in the character 
of this Lord, who seems to have been a virtuous, well-meaning 
man, with a moderate understanding, who got knocked on the head 
early in the civil war, because it boded ill: and yet by the happy 
solemnity of my Lord Clarendon's diction, Lord Falkland is the 
favorite personage of that noble work. We admire the pius Aen- 
eas, who with all his unjust and usurping pretensions we are 

n422 3 



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^%. 



Lucius Gary was born at his maternal grand- 
father's house at Burford in Oxfordshire in 1610 

taught to believe was the saint of Heaven: but it is the amiable 
Pallas we regret, though He was killed before He had performed 
any action of consequence. That Lord Falkland was a weak man, 
to me appears indubitable. We are told He acted with Hampden 
and the Patriots till He grew better informed what was Law. It 
is certain that the ingenious Mr. Hume has shown that both King 
James and King Charles acted upon precedents of prerogative 
which they found established, yet will this neither justify them nor 
Lord Falkland. If it would, wherever tyranny is established by 
law, it ought to be sacred and perpetual. Those Patriots did not 
attack King Charles so much for violation of the Law, as to oblige 
him to submit to the amendment of it; and I must repeat, that it 
was great weakness to oppose a Prince for breaking the Law, and 
yet scruple to oppose him when He obstructed the correction of it. 
My Lord Falkland was a sincere Protestant: would He have taken 
up arms against Henry the Eighth for adding new nonsense to 
established Popery, and would he not have sought to obtain the 
Reformation? Again: When he abandoned Hampden and that 
party, because he mistrusted the extent of their designs, did it jus- 
tify his going over to the King? With what— I will not say. Con- 
science — but with what reason could He, who had been so sensible 
of grievances, lend his hand to restore the authority from whence 
those grievances flowed! Did the Usurpation of Cromwell prove 
that Laud had been a meek pastor? If Hampden and Pym were 
bad men and ambitious, could not Lord Falkland have done more 
service to the State by remaining with them and checking their at- 
tempts and moderating their councils, than by offering his sword 
and abilities to the King? His Lordship had felt the tyranny; did 
not He know that, if authorized by victory, neither the King's tem- 
per nor government were likely to become more gentle? Did he 
think that loss of Liberty or loss of Property are not Evils but when 
the Law of the land allows them to be so? Not to descant too long: 
It is evident to me that this Lord had much debility of mind and a 
kind of superstitious scruples that might flow from an excellent 
heart, but by no means from a solid understanding. His refusing 
to entertain spies or to open letters, when Secretary of State, were 
the punctilios of the former, not of the latter: and his putting on a 
clean shirt to be killed in, is no proof of sense either in his Lord- 
ship, or in the Historian, who thought it worth relating. Falkland's 
signing the declaration that He did not believe the King intended 
to make war on the Parliament, and at the same time subscribing 
to levy twenty horse for his Majesty's service, comes under a de- 

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ifi*^ 



and was taken by the grandfather "to live with 

scription, which, for the sake of the rest of his character, I am 
willing to call great infatuation." 

This opinion has been adopted by all subsequent Whig and Lib- 
eral historians and is reflected in the pages of Hallam, Carlyle, 
Macaulay, John Forster, and Goldwin Smith. About the middle of 
the nineteenth century in the recrudescence of the Tory party there 
came a pro-Falkland literary reaction. Lord Lytton {Pym versus 
Falkland, Quarterly Review, i860) effectively answered Horace 
Walpole: "Falkland, from the first to the last, was a lover of 
Liberty. ... It is no proof of apostasy from the cause of Liberty 
if he thought that a time had come when Liberty was safer on the 
whole with King Charles than with 'King Pym' " : and he found 
the justification of Falkland's politics in modern England with its 
throne reconciled to Parliamentary freedom, its Church purified 
from ecclesiastical domination over secular affairs and intolerant 
persecution of rival sects. Then in 1878 the Falkland monument 
was dedicated at Newbury ''by those to whom the majesty of the 
crown and the liberties of their country are dear," with a stirring 
invocation, quoted from Pericles' immortal oration, of the noblest of 
all sepulchres, that in which glory survives on the tongues of men. 

On this occasion Matthew Arnold {Mixed Essays, 236) declared 
that Falkland was a "martyr of sweetness and. light, of lucidity of 
mind and largeness of temper," a sentiment which Disraeli im- 
mediately adopted by claiming Falkland, in Endymion, as the 
founder and protomartyr of the Tory party ("Are not the tradi- 
tions of the Tory party the noblest pedigree in the world? Are 
not its illustrations that glorious martyrology that opens with the 
name of Falkland and closes with the name of Canning?") There- 
after Oxford took up the chorus. A fellow of Balliol, the 
Rev. W. Hudson Shaw {Lucius Cary, Phila., 1896), delivered a 
lecture in America, admirable in its collection of material but 
uncritical as history, for it records only enthusiastic praise. An- 
other Oxford scholar, J. A. R. Marriott, has since written a "big 
bow-wow" biography {The Life and Times of Lucius Cary, Vis- 
count Falkland, 1907), the tone of which will appear in the claim 
that Falkland's was a "character which combined in no ordinary 
degree the intellectual luxuriance of the Greek and the moral 
austerity of the Puritan. A man of culture surrounded by narrow- 
minded fanaticism, a lover of truth beset by bigots, a farseeing 
statesman reduced to despair by party spirit." 

It is a relief to turn from these substitutions of rhetoric for analy- 
sis to the pleasant sympathetic humor of T(homas) L(ongue- 
ville), a descendant of a sister of the first Lord Falkland, in Falk- 
lands, 1897, and to the solid sense as well as sweet reasonableness 

C424II 



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ifciuuiaiJi^ijw i ^^ 



him from his birth."^ In 1621, when he would 
be eleven, he was entered in the register of St. 
John's College, Cambridge, and later in life 
called himself "a St. John's man," but it seems 
that he was entered with a view to future attend- 
ance and was never in residence at Cambridge.^ 
When his father went to Ireland, Lucius was 
taken along, and was educated at Trinity Col- 
lege, Dublin. He was at this time "very wild, 
and also mischievous, as being apt to stabbe and 
doe bloudy mischiefs,"* but, "being sent to travel 
under the care of a discreet tutor, he soon shook 

of Professor S. R. Gardiner, who admires Falkland but does not 
permit his .judgment to be carried away by enthusiasm (Diet, Nat, 
Biog, iii, 1159)- 

"The desire to secure intellectual liberty from spiritual tyranny 
was the ruling principle of his mind. His claim to our reverence 
lies in the fact that his mind was as thoroughly educated as 
Milton's was with the love of freedom as the nurse of high 
thought and high morality, while his gentle nature made him in- 
capable of the harsh austerities of Milton's combative career. As 
an efficient statesman, Falkland has little claim to notice. He 
knew what he did not want, but he had no clear conception of 
what he did want: no constructive imagination to become a foun- 
der of institutions in which his noble conceptions should be em- 
bodied. It was this deficiency which made him during his future 
life a follower rather than a leader, to choose the royalist side 
not because he counted it worthy of his attachment, but because 
the parliament side seemed to be less worthy, and to accept a 
political system from his friend Hyde as he had accepted a sys- 
tem of thought from his friend Chillingworth. Falkland's mind 
in its beautiful strength as well as in its weakness was essentially 
of a feminine cast" 

^The Lady Falkland, ii. The birthday is not known: the Bur- 
ford parish register does not begin until 1612. Robinson, in H, fff 
G,, iii, 45. 
« Falklands, 24. 
* Aubrey, Letters, ii, part i, 347. 



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IfciUJMjyi^n i ^^ 



off all levity and extravagance and became a 
wise, sober and prudent person."^ He does not 
appear to have been altogether tamed, however. 
His father had given him the command of a 
company in Ireland, but immediately on the 
father's recall in 1629 the Irish council took his 
command away and gave it to Sir Francis Wil- 
loughby. Indignant at this slight not only on 
himself but upon his father, Lucius challenged 
Willoughby to a duel and was promptly com- 
mitted to the Fleet by order of the home gov- 
ernment, to be released after ten days of reflec- 
tion, upon his father's petition to the king.^ 

In the same year — he was now nineteen — his 
grandmother. Lady Tanfield, died, having sur- 
vived her husband four years, and so in accord- 
ance with Sir Laurence Tanfield's will Lucius 
came into possession of his grandfather's estates 
of Burford and Great Tew. It was now that he 
first came to know the delights of London and 
the cheerful conversation of men of parts. One 
of his new friends was a young Wiltshire man, 
six months his senior. Edward Hyde, the future 
Lord Clarendon, who was destined not only to 
influence Falkland's destiny but to establish his 
fame, had recently come up from Oxford 

^ Biographia Britannica, iii, 391. 

* Sec the correspondence in Lewis, Lives of the Friends of Clar- 
endon, i, 189, and Falklands, 27. 

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^^ 



and was now a law student at the Middle Tem- 
ple. Another was Sir Henry Moryson, a 
younger son of Sir Richard Moryson of Tooley 
Park, CO. Leicester.^ The one was his devoted 
friend for the rest of his life; the other died 
early,^ leaving a pretty and pious sister Lettice, 
whose face was her fortune, and her Lucius Gary 

1 Sir Richard Moryson (i57i?-i63S) wis a brother of Fjmes 
Moryson, the author of the Itinerary, and like him had served in 
Ireland under Mountjoy. He had six children, of whom Lettice, 
Lady Falkland, was the only daughter. Of the sons, other than 
Lucius Gary's friend Henry, three, Richard, Francis, and Robert, 
emigrated to Virginia and took the place there to which their 
breeding entitled them. It is of interest in the present connection 
that it was Falkland who, in 163S, procured for his brother-in-law. 
Major Richard Moryson, the command of the fort at Point Com- 
fort. (Fa. Mag., ii, 383, and IT. ^ M, Quar,, ix, 83, 122.) This 
was one of the families of English gentry which Governor Berke- 
ley cited (Discourse and Vienv of Virginia) in 1663 against the 
imputation that the colony harbored "none but those of the meanest 
quality and Corruptest lives." 

* Ben Jonson had renewed with Lucius the friendship he had 
for his father. It must have been friendship in both cases, for 
Jonson was no mere flatterer and patron seeker. The first of the 
many poetical effusions which Lucius Gary evoked from contem- 
porary poets was from Jonson on the occasion of Moryson's death: 
"A Pindaric Ode to the immortal memory and friendship of that 
noble pair, Sir Lucius Gary and Sir H. Morison." (Underwoods, 
Ixxxvii.) It is in Jonson*s best manner, and in celebrating Mory- 
son's death has been often quoted as a prophecy of Gary's own 
early taking off. Thus: 

"The Strophe, or Turn. 

It is not growing like a tree 

In bulk doth make man better be, 
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, 
To fall a log at last, dry, bald and sear: 

A lily of the day 

Is fairer far in May 
Although it fall and die that night: 

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iS%^ 



promptly married, to the serious disturbance of 
his father's plans for him.^ 

We now invoke Clarendon^ to take up and 

It was the plant and flower of light. 
In small proportions we just beauties see, 
And in short measures, life may perfect be. 

The Antisirophe or Counterturn 

Call, noble Lucius, then for wine. 

And let thy looks with gladness shine: 
Accept this Garland, plant it on thy head. 
And think, nay know, thy Morison's not dead. 

He leaped the present age, 

Possest with holy rage. 
To see that bright eterdal day, 
Of which we priests and poets say 
Such truths, as we expect for happy men: 
And there, he lives with memory, and Ben.'' 

^ The father had already attempted to negotiate a marriage for 
Lucius with a daughter of the rich Earl of Cork, whom we met in 
the days of Sir George Cary of Cockington. Now the "intended'' 
was a daughter of the lord treasurer, Richard Weston, Earl of 
Portland, under a bargain that, in consideration of the match, Port- 
land's influence was to secure the reinstatement of Falkland as 
lord deputy of Ireland. 

> "His marvellous talent of delineating character," says Hallam 
{Constitutional History, chap, viii), "a talent I think unrivalled by 
any writer (since, combining the bold outline of the ancient histor- 
ians with the analytical minuteness of de Retz and St. Simon, it 
produces a higher effect than either) is never more beautifully dis- 
played than in that part of the memoir of his life, where Falkland, 
Hales, Chillingworth, and the rest of his early friends pass over 
the scene." In the face of this estimate it seems expedient, if not 
merely polite to one's readers, to present Clarendon intact rather 
than in the inevitable paraphrase and piecemeal quotation which 
modern writers on Falkland have adopted. This is desirable also 
as an opportunity to bring together in one convenient compass 
Clarendon's characterizations of the earlier and the later portions 
of Falkland's life which in the original are separated in the pages 
of the Life and the Rebellion. This has been done also, in a dif- 
ferent form, by Mr. Nichol Smith in his Characters from the His- 
tories and Memoirs of the Seventeenth Century, which has been 
published as these pages are going through the press. 

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continue the story, reserving only the privilege 
of comment : 

^With Sir Lucius Cary^ he had a most entire friendship 
without reserve, from his age of twenty years to the hour 
of his death, nearly twenty years after: upon which there 
will be occasion to enlarge when we come to speak of that 
time, and often before, and therefore we shall say no more 
of him in this place, than to shew his condition and qualifica- 
tions, which were the first ingredients into that friendship, 
which was afterwards cultivated and improved by a constant 
conversation and familiarity, and by many accidents which 
contributed thereto. He had the advantage of a noble ex- 
traction,* and of being born his father's eldest son, when 
there was a greater fortime in prospect to be inherited, (be- 
sides what he might reasonably expect by his mother,) than 
came afterwards to his possession. His education was equal 

1 Clarendon, Life, i, 42. 

2 For Clarendon's spelling of the name see ante, p. 10. It is 
probable that Lucius Cary had been knighted at his father's pro- 
curement, in preparation for the great match which was intended 
for him; at all events, he was Sir Lucius Cary when he was com- 
mitted to the Fleet in January, 1629-30 (see the warrant in Lewis, 
Lives of the Friends of Clarendon, i, 189), when Jonson wrote his 
ode and when he married (Lodge, Portraits, No. 104), but he is 
not recorded in Metcalfe's Book of Knights, It seems improbable 
that he could have been knighted in 1626, as Marriott asserts (p. 
66), for he would then have been no more than sixteen years of 
age. Marriott is not strong on his purely genealogical details. 

* Triplet, the Oxford scholar who had frequented Great Tew 
and edited Falkland's Infallibility after his death, says with Puri- 
tan unction in the dedication of that book to Henry Cary, fourth 
Lord Falkland: "While others studied the heraldry of horses, of 
doggs or at the best their owne, he, though not inferior to his neigh- 
bours in descent or honour, knowing how much more glorious it is 
to be the first than the last of a noble family (blood without 
vertue making vice more conspicuous) was fll> far from relying 
upon that empty title, that he seemed ipse suos genuisse parentis, 
to have begotten his ancestors, and to have given them a more 
illustrious life than he received from them." 

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to his birth, at least in the care, if not in the climate; for his 
father being deputy of Ireland, before he was of age fit to 
be sent abroad, his breeding was in the court, and in the 
university, of Dublin; but under the care, vigilance, and di- 
rection of such governors and tutors, that he learned all 
those exercises and languages, better than most men do in 
more celebrated places; insomuch as when he came into 
England, which was when he was about the age of eighteen 
years, he was not only master of the Latin tongue, and had 
read all the poets, and other of the best authors, with notable 
judgment for that age, but he understood and spake and 
writ French, as if he had spent many years in France. 

He had another advantage, which was a great ornament 
to the rest, that was, a good, a plentiful estate, of which he 
had the early possession. His mother was the sole daughter 
and heir of the lord chief baron Tanfield, who having given 
a fair proportion with his daughter in marriage, had kept 
himself free to dispose of his land, and his other estate, in 
such manner as he should think fit ; and he settled it in such 
manner upon his grandson Sir Lucius Gary, without taking 
notice of his father, or mother, that upon his grandmother's 
death, which fell out about the time that he was nineteen 
years of age, all the land, with two very good houses very 
well furnished (worth above 2000 £, per anniun), in a most 
pleasant country, and the two most pleasant places in this 
country, with a very plentiful personal estate, fell into his 
hands and possession, and to his entire disposal. 

With these advantages, he had one great disadvantage 
(which in the first entrance into the world is attended with 
too much prejudice) in his person and presence, which was 
in no degree attractive or promising. His stature was low, 
and smaller than most men; his motion not graceful; and 
his aspect so far from inviting,^ that it had somewhat in it 

^ Aubrey (Letters, ii, part i, 351) sayv: "He was a little man and 
of no great strength of body: he had blackish haire, something 

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of simplicity; and his voice the worst of the three, and so 
untuned, that instead of reconciling, it offended the ear, 
so that nobody would have expected music from that tongue; 
and sure no man was less beholden to nature for its recom- 
mendation into the world: but then no man sooner or more 
disappointed this general and customary prejudice; that little 
person and small stature was quickly found to contain a great 
heart, a courage so keen and a nature so fearless, that no 
composition of the strongest limbs, and most harmonious and 
proportioned presence and strength, ever more disposed any 
man to the greatest enterprise ; it being his greatest weakness 
to be too solicitous for such adventures: and that untuned 
tongue and voice easily discovered itself to be supplied and 
governed by a mind and understanding so excellent, that the 
wit and weight of all he said carried another kind of lustre 
and admiration in it, and even another kind of accepta- 
tion from the persons present, than any ornament of delivery 
could reasonably promise itself, or is usually attended with; 
and his disposition and nature was so gentle and obliging, so 
much delighted in courtesy, kindness and generosity, that 
all mankind could not but admire and love him. 

In a short time after he had possession of the estate his 
grandfather had left him, and before he was of age, he com- 
mitted a fault against his father, in marrying a young lady, 
whom he passionately loved, without any considerable por- 
tion, which exceedingly offended him; and disappointed all 
his reasonable hopes and expectation of redeeming and re- 
pairing his own broken fortune, and desperate hopes in court, 
by some advantageous marriage of his son; about which he 
had then some probable treaty. Sir Lucius Gary was very 
conscious to himself of his offence and transgression, and the 
consequence of it, which though he could not repent, having 

flaggy, and I think his eies black.'' Triplet sayv: "He was of 
David'8 stature, of his courage too." Falkland derived both physi- 
cal and mental characteristics from his mother. 

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married a lady of a most extraordinary wit and judgment, 
and of the most signal virtue and exemplary life, that the age 
produced,^ and who brought him many hopeful children, in 
which he took great delight; yet he confessed it, with the 
most sincere and dutiful applications to his father for his 
pardon that could be made; and for the prejudice he had 
brought upon his fortune, by bringing no portion to him, he 
oflFered to repair it, by resigning his whole estate to his dis- 
posal, and to rely wholly upon his kindness for his own 
maintenance and support ; and to that purpose, he had caused 
conveyances to be drawn by council, which he brought ready 
engrossed to his father, and was willing to seal and execute 
them, that they might be valid : but his father's passion and 

^ It would not be fair to estimate Lettice Moryson, Lady Falk- 
land, by Clarendon's panegyric; even less by the opinion of her 
lively mother-in-law, who could not endure her. We have the 
documents for her life from the hands of those who best under- 
stood her. She was a religious enthusiast of a strong Puritan cast. 
Her fervor being sincere, and to her age exemplary, caused her to 
be celebrated in three publications shortly after her death in 1646, 
viz.: (i) a long elegy in verse by an anonymous author, To the 
memory of the most religious and virtuous Lady, the Lady Letice, 
Fi'Countesse Falkland; (a) a collection of her own letters, The 
Returnes of Spiritual Comfort and Grief in a Devout Soul; and 
(3) a biography by the Rev. John Duncon entitled Letter to Lady 
Morison, containing many remarkable passages in the most holy life 
and death of the late Lady Letice Vi-Countess Falkland. This last 
describes in detail the regimen of spiritual discipline which she im- 
posed upon her household. Her rule was that her maid-servants 
should "pray with David seven times a day," and if not seven times 
with David, then "with Daniel three times," and if not even three 
times with Daniel, then at least "with Levi to offer up Morning 
and Evening sacrifice. . . . This she required from the busiest 
servants in the house. . . . When faults were evident she would 
reprove with a great deal of power." On this the ribald author of 
Falklands comments: ''It was a pity that she had not searched the 
scriptures sufficiently to draw the pretty obvious inference that 
neither David, nor Daniel, nor Levi had to dust the rooms, make 
the fires or peel the potatoes for 'men of parts,' " and proceeds: "Let 
me add that I hope I have not allowed her to bore my readers, so 
much as I suspect she bored her husband." 

Against this searching suggestion the priests of the Falkland cult 

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indignation so far transported him, (though he was a 
gentleman of excellent parts,) that he refused any reconcilia- 
tion, and rejected all the offers that were made him of the 
estate; so that his son remained still in the possession of his 
estate against his will ; for which he found great reason after- 
wards to rejoice: but he was for the present so much afflicted 
with his father's displeasure, that he transported himself and 
his wife into Holland,^ resolving to buy some military com- 
mand, and to spend the remainder of his life in that pro- 
fession : but being disappointed in the treaty he expected, and 
finding no opportunity to accommodate himself with such a 
command, he returned again into England; resolving to re- 
tire to a country life and to his books ;^ that since he was not 
like to improve himself in arms, he might advance in letters. 
In this resolution he was so severe (as he was always 

have taken comfort in the fact, first pointed out by Clarendon, that 
by his will made June 12, 1642, just at the beginning of the serious 
trouble between the king and the Farliament, Falkland left his en- 
tire estate and the unrestricted custody and education of his boys 
to "my dearly beloved wife Lettice Viscountess of Falkland." The 
fact that Falkland was a gentleman cannot disguise the other fact 
that in tastes and interests he and his wife must have become un- 
sympathetic, which to one of his sensitive nature, who respected his 
wife's high ideals, would go far to explain his state of mind when 
war came. It is too Plutarchian to attribute his death altogether to 
discouragement over the political situation, though that undoubtedly 
contributed. Falkland sincerely loved his wife and a breach of sym- 
pathy in a matter of as much importance to both of them as religion 
was likely to prey on his fine soul. Lettice survived her husband 
only three years, dying of a consumption, and leaving to her sons a 
tubercular tendency, to which three of them promptly succumbed. 

1 It was during this visit to Holland that he made the acquaint- 
ance of Grotius. (Tulloch, Rational Theology, i, 91.) 

3 Triplet says of these occupations: ''How often have I heard him 
pitty those hawking gentlemen who in unseasonable weather for 
their sports had betrayed them to keep house, without a worse exercise 
within doores, could not have told how to have spent their time and 
all because they were such strangers to such good companions with 
whom he was so familiar, such as neither cloy nor weary any with 
whom they converse, such companions as Erasmus so much extolleth." 

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naturally very intent upon what he was inclined to,) that he 
declared he would not see London in many years, which was 
the place he loved of all the world; and that in his studies 
he would first apply himself to Greek, and pursue it without 
intermission, till he should attain to the full understanding 
of that tongue: and it is hardly to be credited, what industry 
he used, and what success attended that industry: for 
though his father's death, by an unhappy accident, made his 
repair to London absolutely necessary, in fewer years than 
he had proposed for his absence; yet he had first made him- 
self master of the Greek tongue (in the Latin he was very 
well versed before), and had read not only the Greek 
historians, but Homer likewise, and such of the poets as were 
worthy to be perused.^ 

Though his father's death brought no other convenience to 
him but a title to redeem an estate, mortgaged for as much 
as it was worth, and for which he was compelled to sell a 

1 In one of his own poems Falkland, discoursing on classical 
studies, told how he himself eschewed 

'Those looser poets, whose lascivious pen 
Ascribing crimes to gods, taught them to men." 

•Although Clarendon does not mention it, Falkland produced a 
considerable body of verse. Anthony k Wood {Ath. Oxon, ii, 566) 
says: "His first years of reason were spent in poetry and polite 
learning, into the first of which he made divers plausible sallies 
which caused him, therefore, to be admired by the poets of those 
times.'' These "plausible sallies" were not published at the time, 
but have been collected by Dr. A. B. Groshart (The Poems of L. 
Carey in Miscellanies of the Fuller's Worthies Library, 1870). 
They include invocations to George Sandys, Grotius, Dr. Donne, 
Ben Jonson, "the Ladie Marquesse Hamilton" and Elizabeth Count- 
ess of Huntington. The last named elegy Horace Walpole, at- 
tributing it to Falkland's father, characterizes as "not bad." The 
contemporary opinion of Falkland as a poet was judiciously ex- 
pressed by Dr. John Earle (1601-1665), one of the Great Tew con- 
vivium philosophicum mentioned by Clarendon, who after the 
Restoration became Bishop of Salisbury and was by way of being 
a poet himself. According to Aubrey "Dr. Earle would not allow 
Falkland to be a good poet though a great wit: he writt not a 

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finer seat of his own ;^ yet it imposed a burden upon him of 
the title of a viscount, and an increase of expense,^ in which 
he was not in his nature too provident or restrained ; having 
naturally such a generosity and bounty in him, that he seemed 
to have his estate in trust, for all worthy persons who stood 
in want of supplies and encouragement, as Ben Jonson, and 
many others of that time, whose fortunes required, and 
whose spirits made them superior to, ordinary obligations ,** 
which yet they were contented to receive from him, because 
his bounties were so generously distributed, and so much 
without vanity and ostentation, that, except from those 

smooth verse, but a great deal of sense.'' This was Falkland's 
own estimate also; he had no illusion that he was an inspired 
poet. Thus in his verses to George Sandys he says: 

"Such is the verse thou writ'st that who reads thine 
Can never be content to suffer mine: 
Such is the verse I write, that reading mine 
I hardly can believe I have read thine; 
And wonder that, their excellence once knowne, 
I nor correct, nor yet conceale, mine owne." 

This judgment is confirmed by modern opinion. Matthew Arnold, 
a true poet and an acute critic of the best in poetry, as well as one 
of Falkland's greatest admirers, says: "As a writer, he scarcely 
counts." Gardiner characterizes Falkland's verse as "pleasing, but 
there is no trace of imaginative power." 

^This was his own birthplace, Burford Priory. The purchaser 
was William Lenthall, afterwards speaker of the House of Com- 
mons. Eight years later, in 1642, Falkland sold also his ancestral 
estate of Aldenham in Herts. 

2 He was made a gentleman of the privy chamber after his 
father's death, which required occasional attendance at court. 

^ This is a delicious sally at the poets, whose gatherings at Great 
Tew apparently did not interest Clarendon (or at least did not 
seem to him to be worthy of his hero) as did the convivium theo- 
logicum: at all events Clarendon does not mention them except by 
implication. Thus elsewhere {Rebellion, iv, 242) Clarendon takes 
another fling at these associations: "And it cannot be denied, 
though he admitted some few to his friendship for the agreeable- 
ness of their natures, and their undoubted affection to him, that his 
familiarity and friendship, for the most part, was with men of the 

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few persons from whom he sometimes received the char- 
acters of fit objects for his benefits, or whom he intrusted,, 
for the more secret deriving them to them, he did all he 
could that the persons themselves who received them should 
not know from what fountain they flowed; and when that 
could not be concealed, he sustained any acknowledgment 

most eminent and sublime parts, and of untouched reputation in 
point of integrity; and such men had a title to his hosom." Sir 
John Suckling has, however, supplied the omission in his verses 
A Session of the Poets, in which we meet under Falkland's roof, 
early in 1637, most of the Caroline wits: 

"A session was held the other day 

And Apollo himself was at it (they say) ; 

The laurel that had been so long reserved 

Was now to be given to him best deserved; 

And 
"Therefore the wits of the town came thither; 

'Twas strange to see how they flocked together. 

Each strongly confident of his own way. 

Thought to gain the laurel away that day. 

'*There Selden, and he sat hard by the chair: 
Weinman not far off, which was very fair: 
Sands with Townsend, for they keep no order: 

. Digby and Shillingworth a little further: 

And 

"There was Lucans translator too, and he 
That* makes God speak so big in*s poetry: 
Selwin and Waller and Bartlets, inbrothers: 
Jack Vaughan and Porter, and divers others. 

"The first that broke silence was good old Ben, 
Prepared before with Canary wine, 
And he told them plainly he deserVd the bays. 
For his were calPd works, where others were but plays. 

"Tom Carew was next, but he had a fault 
That would not stand well with a laureate: 
His muse was hard bound, and th' issue of his brain 
Was seldom brought forth but with trouble and pain. 

''Will Davenant, asham'd of a foolish mischance 
That he had got lately travelling in France, 



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from the persons obliged with so much trouble and bashful- 
ness, that they might well perceive that he was even ashamed 
of the little he had given, and to receive so large a recom- 
pense for it. 

Modestly hoped the handsomeness of his muse 
Might any deformity about him excuse. 

"Suckling next was called but did not appear, 
But straight one whispered Apollo i'th'ear, 
That of all men living he cared not for't, 
He loved not the muses so well as his sport. 

"Wat Montague now stood forth to his trial, 
And did not so much as expect a denial; 
But witty Apollo asked him first of all 
If he understood his own pastoral. 

"Hales, set by himself, most gravely did smile. 
To see them about nothing keep such a coil; 
Apollo had spied him, but knowing his mind, 
Fast by, and called Falkland that sat just behind. 

But 

"He was of late so gone with divinity 
That he had almost forgotten his poetry; 
Though to say the truth, and Apollo did know it. 
He might have been both his priest and his poet.'' 

There is another record of such a gathering, this time in John 
Hales* rooms at Eton, at which Falkland presided, when, after lively 
debate on the comparative merits of Shakespeare and the classical 
poets, there was a unanimous verdict in favor of Shakespeare. 
See Gildon, Miscellaneous Letters and Essays, 1694, p. 85. 

Falkland himself completes the catalogue in his Eclogue on the 
death of Ben Jonson: 

"Digby, Carew, Killigrew, Maine, 
Godolphin, Waller, that inspired traine." 

Of all these names perhaps the most interesting is that of George 
Sandys (1578-1644), whom Suckling calls Sands. He was forty 
years Falkland's senior and had seen much of the world— Italy, 
Turkey, Egypt and Palestine; but is now chiefly remembered by 
reason of his participation in the planting of Virginia and his trans- 
lation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, a part of which was written in 
Virginia between 1621 and 1628. (See Brown, Genesis of the 
United States, 994.) 

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As soon as he had finished all those transactions, which the 
death of his father had made necessary to be done, he re- 
tired again to his country life, and to his severe course of 
study, which was very delightful to him, as soon as he was 
engaged in it: but he was wont to say that he never found 
reluctancy in any thing he resolved to do, but in his quitting 
London and departing from the conversation of those he en- 
joyed there; which was in some degree preserved and con- 
tinued by frequent letters, and often visits, which were made 
by his friends from thence, whilst he continued wedded to 
the country ; and which were so grateful to him, that during 
their stay with him he looked upon no book, except their 
very conversation made an appeal to some book; and truly 
his whole conversation was one continued convivium philo- 
sophicum, or convivium theologicum, enlivened and refreshed 
with all the facetiousness of wit and good humour and 
pleasantness of discourse, which made the gravity of the 
argument (whatever it was) very delectable. His house 
where he usually resided, (Tew, or Burford, in Oxfordshire), 
being within ten or twelve miles of the university,* looked 
like the university itself, by the company that was always 
found there. There were Dr. Sheldon, Dr. Morley,^ Dr. 
Hammond, Dr. Earles, Mr. Chillingworth, and indeed all 
men of eminent parts and faculties in Oxford, besides those 
who resorted thither from London; who all found their 
lodgings there, as ready as in the colleges; nor did the lord 

^ Great Tew was in fact sixteen miles from Oxford. Burford, 
which was still further west, had now passed out of Falkland's 
possession. 

2 George Morley (i 597-1 684) remained loyal to the crown, and 
after the Restoration became Bishop of Winchester. Bishop Burnet 
says (History of My Own Time, i, 321) that he "became known to 
the world as a friend of Lord Falkland's, and that was enough to 
raise a man's character." He was a staunch Calvinist and is 
credited (Clarendon, Life, i, $6) with a pleasant witticism: being 
asked what the Arminians held, he replied, "All the best bishoprics 
and deaneries in England." 

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of the house know of their coming or going, nor who were 
in his house, till he came to dinner or supper, where all still 
met;^ otherwise, there was no troublesome ceremony or re- 
straint, to forbid men to come to the house, or to make them 
weary of staying there; so that many came thither to study 
in a better air,^ finding all the books they could desire in his 
library, and all the persons together whose company they 
could wish, and not find in any other society. Here Mr. 
Chillingworth wrote, and formed and modelled his excel- 
lent book against the learned Jesuit Mr. Nott,^ after fre- 

^The author of Falklands merrily comments: "If any mistress 
of a country house should honour me by glancing at these pages, 
it may occur to her mind that servants would be rather hard 
worked in an establishment such as that just described. The diffi- 
culty connected with clean sheets, where there was a constant inter- 
change of visitors, may not have been on exactly the same footing 
in the earlier part of the seventeenth century as in the later part 
of the nineteenth; but at best the promiscuous comings and goings 
so ably described by Clarendon would have been . . . embar- 
rassing to the hostess." 

Dean Swift has an anecdote (A Letter to a Young Gentleman 
lately enter* d into Holy Orders) which indicates that Falkland did 
consider his wife's maid-servants, however, if in a novel manner. 
"I believe the method observed by the famous Lord Falkland in 
some of his writings would not be an ill one for young divines: 
I was assured by an old person of quality who knew him well that 
when he doubted whether a word was perfectly intelligible or not, 
he used to consult one of his lad/s chambermaids (not the waiting 
woman, because it was possible she might be conversant in romances) 
and by her judgment was guided whether to receive or reject it." 

^ Clarendon expressed this thought more elaborately elsewhere 
(Rebellion, iv, 243) in a passage which has become a familiar quo- 
tation : 

•*They frequently resorted, and dwelt with him, as in a college 
situated in a purer air ; so that his house was a university in a less 
volume; whither they came not so much for repose as study; and 
to examine and refine those grosser propositions, which laziness 
and consent made current in vulgar conversation." Dr. Birbeck 
Hill considers this passage an admirable expression of the char- 
acter of Dr. Samuel Johnson (Bos*well, iv, 494). 

• This was The Religion of Protestants, a Safe Way to Salvation 
(1637), which Principal Tulloch describes (Rational Theology, i, 

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quent debates upon the most important particulars ; in many 
of which he suflFered himself to be overruled by the judg- 
ment of his friends, though in others he still adhered to his 
own fancy, which was sceptical enough, even in the highest 
points. 

^ Many attempts were made upon him by the instigation of 
his mother (who was a lady of another persuasion in religion, 
and of a most masculine understanding, allayed with the 
passion and infirmities of her own sex) to pervert him in his 
piety to the church of England, and to reconcile him to that 
of Romc;^ which they prosecuted with the more confidence, 

261) as still "a bulwark of Protestant argument," though he ad- 
mits that it is now more respected than read. William Chilling- 
worth (1602-1644) was one of Falkland's closest friends and his 
theological guide. He had flirted with Rome: Clarendon tells an 
amusing story that Chillingworth unfolded his own doubts to 
a certain clerg3rman so logically and eloquently "the poor man 
not able to live long in doubt too hastily deserted his own 
church; . . . but he had always a great animosity against 
him for having (as he said) unkindly betrayed him and car- 
ried him into another religion and there left him." Taine 
(English Literature, tr. Van Laun, book II, chap. 5) characterizes 
Chillingworth as "a notably brilliant and loyal mind, the most exact, 
the most penetrating and the most convincing of controversialists, 
first Protestant, then Catholic, then Protestant again and forever, 
has the courage to say that these great changes, wrought in him- 
self and by himself, through study and research, are, of all his 
actions, those which satisfy him most. He maintains that reason 
applied to Scripture alone ought to persuade men: that authority 
has no claim in it." This at the time was called Socinianism. If 
Chillingworth was a Socinian, so doubtless was Falkland. The 
modem low churchman, with his Calvinist prejudices, holds up this 
epithet as a stigma upon Falkland, but it no longer disturbs the 
high churchman, who has always taken kindly to Arminianism. 

^ Clarendon, Rebellion, iv, 243. 

^ There are illuminating discussions of the vigorous and confident 
Roman propaganda in England at this time, in Hallam, Constitu- 
tional History, viii, and in Masson, Milton, i, 638. "Their success 
in conversions . . . were . . . less remarkable for their 
number than for the condition of the persons." Lady Falkland and 
Lady Buckingham were conspicuous examples. 

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because he declined no opportunity or occasion of conference 
with those of that religion, whether priests or laics; having 
diligently studied the controversies, and exactly read all, or 
the choicest, of the Greek and Latin fathers, and having a 
memory so stupendous, that he remembered, on all occasions, 
whatsoever he read. And he was so great an enemy to that 
passion and uncharitableness, which he saw produced, by 
difFerence of opinion, in matters of religion, that in all those 
disputations with priests and others of the Roman church, 
he affected to manifest all possible civility to their persons, 
and estimation of their parts; which made them retain still 
some hope of his reduction, even when they had given over 
offering farther reasons to him to that purpose. But this 
charity towards them was much lessened, and any corre- 
spondence with them quite declined, when, by sinister arts, 
they had corrupted his two younger brothers, being both 
children, and stolen them from his house, and transported 
them beyond seas, and perverted his sisters: upon which oc- 
casion he writ two large discourses against the principal posi- 
tions of that religion, with that sharpness of style, and full 
weight of reason, that the church is deprived of great jewels 
in the concealment of them, and that they are not published 
to the world. ^ 

^ Dean Swift comments: "Ten thousand pities that they are not 
to be recovered." In the event the Church was not to be deprived 
of these jewels. The Discourse of the Infaliibility of the Church 
of Rome, which is Falkland's chief claim to theological reputation, 
was written in 1635, the occasion being, as Clarendon says, Falk- 
land's distress at his mother's success in kidnapping his younger 
brothers and sending them off with four of his sisters to be edu- 
cated in France in the Roman Church; but he took as his text the 
"reconciliation" with Rome of his friend Walter Montague, the 
"Wat" of the Session of the Poets. The MS. was edited and pub- 
lished in 1646, after Falkland's death, by Thomas Triplet (accord- 
ing to Aubrey "a very wity man of Ch. Ch."), who had frequented 
Great Tew. There was another edition in 1651 and a third in 
1660, This last includes Falkland's speech in the House of Com- 
mons against the "root and branch" bill and bears the title A Dis- 

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^But all his parts, abilities and faculties, by art and in- 
dustry, were not to be valued or mentioned in comparison 
of his most accomplished mind and manners: his gentleness 
and affability was so transcendent and obliging, that it drew 
reverence, and some kind of compliance, from the roughest 
and most unpolished and stubborn constitutions; and made 
them of another temper in debate, in his presence, than they 
were in other places. ... In his conversation which 
was the most cheerful and pleasant that can be imagined, 
though he was young (for all I have yet spoken of him doth 
not exceed his age of twenty-five or twenty-six years) and of 
great gayety in his humor, with a flowing delightfulness of 
language, he had so chaste a tongue and ear, that there was 
* never known a profane or loose word to fall from him, nor 
in truth in his company ;2 the integrity and cleanliness of 
the wit of that time not exercising itself in that license be- 
fore persons for whom they had any esteem. 

^In the last short parliament he was a burgess in .the 
house of commons; and, from the debates which were there 
managed with all imaginable gravity and sobriety, he con- 
tracted such a reverence to parliaments, that he thought it 
really impossible they could ever produce mischief or incon- 

course of Infallibility, with Mr. T, White's ansiuer to it and a 
reply to him. Also Mr. fV. Montague . . . his letter against 
Protestantism and his lordship's ansiver thereto . . . to *which 
are nonv added two Discourses of Episcopacy by Viscount Falkland 
and JVilliam Chillingtworth. 

Gardiner's judgment upon these writings is that they show ability 
without originality. Falkland is sympathetically and critically 
studied on the theological side in Principal Tulloch's Rational 
Theology and Christian Philosophy in England in the Seventeenth 
Century (1874), an excellent and most stimulating book. 

1 Clarendon, Life, i, 49. 

* This characteristic of the gentleman in all ages, like the story 
of his putting on clean linen in which to be killed, at which the 
vulgar have sneered, is ample warrant for Lord Lytton's reference 
to Falkland's ''fastidious tastes." 
• 3 Clarendon, Rebellion, iv, 244. 

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venience to the kingdom; or that the kingdom could be 
tolerably happy in the intermission of them. And from the 
unhappy and unseasonable dissolution of that convention, he 
harbored, it may be, some jealousy and prejudice to the court, 
towards which he was not before immoderately inclined; 
his father having wasted a full fortune there, in those offices 
and employments by which other men used to obtain a 
greater. He was chosen again this parliament to serve in 
the same place,^ and, in the beginning of it, declared himself 
very sharply and severely against those exorbitances, which 
had been most grievous to the state; for he was so rigid 
an observer of established laws and rules, that he could not 
endure the least breach or deviation from them ; and thought 
no mischief so intolerable as the presiunption of ministers 
of state to break positive rules, for reasons of state; or 
judges to transgress known laws, upon the title of con- 
veniency, or necessity; which made him so severe against the 
earl of Strafford and the lord Finch, contrary to his natural 
gentleness and temper: insomuch as they who did not know 
his composition to be as free from revenge, as it was from 
pride, thought that the sharpness to the former might pro- 
ceed from the memory of some unkindnesses, not without a 
mixture of injustice, from him towards his father. But with- 
out doubt he was free from those temptations, and in both 
cases was only misled by the authority of those, who, he be- 
lieved, understood the laws perfectly; of which himself was 
utterly ignorant ;* and if the assumption, which was then 



1 From the Official Return of Members of Parliament it appears 
that in the Short Parliament (1640) "Luke Visct Falkland" sat for 
the borough of Newport in the Isle of Wight: in the Long Parlia- 
ment following (what Clarendon calls "this parliament'-) he is 
entered for the same borough as "Lucius, Ld. Visct Falkland" with 
the note against his name "disabled to sit," which means that 
about January i, 1642, he was appointed secretary of state. 

2 It is possible that Falkland's early marriage prevented him from 
studying law ; at all events, on February 18, 1637, he had been admitted 
to Lincoln's Inn. See Foster's Calendar of the Admission Register. 

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scarce controverted, had been true, "that an endeavor to 
overthrow the fundamental laws of the kingdom was 
treason," a strict understanding might make reasonable con- 
clusions to satisfy his own judgment, from the exorbitant 
parts of their several charges. 

The great opinion he had of the uprightness and integrity 
of those persons who appeared most active, especially of Mr. 
Hambden, kept him longer from suspecting any design 
against the peace of the kingdom; and though he differed 
from them commonly in conclusions, he believed long their 
purposes were honest. When he grew better informed what 
was law, and discerned in them a desire to control that law 
by a vote of one or both houses, no man more opposed those 
attempts, and gave the adverse party more trouble by reason 
and argumentation; insomuch as he was by degrees looked 
upon as an advocate for the court,^ to which he contributed so 
little, that he declined those addresses, and even those invita- 
tions which he was obliged almost by civility to entertain. 
And he was so jealous of the least imagination that he should 
incline to preferment, that he affected even a moroseness to 
the court, and to the courtiers; and left nothing undone 
which might prevent and divert the king's or queen's favour 
towards him, but the deserving it. For when the king sent 
for him once or twice to speak with him, and to give him 
thanks for his excellent comportment in those councils, which 

^ Falkland's brief career in Parliament (so much like that of 
Strafford without the virility) is marked by five notable speeches, 
in which we can trace the development of his opinion from the 
first generous indignation at the abuse of prerogative, through 
doubts of the sincerity and ultimate purpose of the radicals, to 
a logical but reluctant choice of the court party as the lesser of 
two evils. The first stage is illustrated by the speech of Decem- 
ber 5, 1640, in the Commons against ship money, followed shortly 
by that at the bar of the Lords for the impeachment of Lord Keeper 
Finch. (These are both quoted at length from Rushworth in Mar- 
riott, x6i and 16S.) The next stage begins with the speech of 
February 8, 1641, in favor of curtailing the power of the bishops 
(quoted from Rush^'orth in Marriott, x8i), and ends with that of 

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his majesty graciously termed **doing him service," his an- 
swers were more negligent, and less satisfactory, than might 
be expected; as if he cared only that his actions should be 
just, not that they should be acceptable, and that his majesty 
should think that they proceeded only from the impulsion of 
conscience, without any sympathy in his affections; which, 
from a stoical and sullen nature, might not have been mis- 
interpreted; yet, from a person of so perfect a habit of 
generous and obsequious compliance with all good men, 
might very well have been interpreted by the king as more 
than an ordinary averseness to his service: so that he took 
more pains, and more forced his nature to actions unagree- 
able, and unpleasant to it, that he might not be thought to 
incline to the court, than most men have done to procure 
an office there. And if any thing but not doing his duty 
could have kept him from receiving a testimony of the king's 
grace and trust at that time, he had not been called to his 
council ; not that he was in truth averse from receiving pub- 
lic employment; for he had a great devotion to the king's 
person, and had before used some small endeavor to be recom- 
mended to him for a foreign negociation, and had once a 
desire to be sent ambassador into France ; but he abhorred an 
imagination or doubt should sink into the thoughts of any 
man, that, in the discharge of his trust and duty in parlia- 
ment, he had any bias to the court, or that the king himself 
should apprehend that he looked for a reward for being honest. 

May 27, 1641, against the "root and branch'' bill. (This was in- 
cluded in Triplet's 1660 edition of Falkland's Infallibility, and is 
quoted in Marriott, 198.) The final stage was the speech of No- 
vember 22, 1 641, in the debate on the Grand Remonstrance which 
led directly to Falkland's appointment as secretary of state about 
January i, 1642. This last speech has been pieced out by Forster 
(Grand Remonstrance, 287) from the notes taken on the spot by 
Vemey and D'Ewes. Forster's picture of Falkland on this momen- 
tous occasion is vital. He "spoke with greater passion in his 
warmth and earnestness: his thin high-pitched voice breaking into a 
scream, and his little spare slight frame trembling with eagerness." 

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For this reason, when he heard it first whispered, "that 
the king had a purpose to make him a 'privy counsellor/ for 
which there was, in the beginning, no other ground, but 
because he was known sufficient, (haud semper errat fama; 
altquando et elegit ^) he resolved to decline it; and at last 
suffered himself only to be overruled, by the advice and per- 
suasions of his friends, to submit to it. Afterwards, when he 
found that the king intended to make him secretary of state, 
he was positive to refuse it; declaring to his friends, "that 
he was most unfit for it, and that he must either do that 
which would be great disquiet to his own nature, or leave 
that undone which was most necessary to be done by one 
that was honored with that place; for the most just and 
honest men did, every day, that which he could not give 
himself leave to do." And indeed he was so exact and strict 
an observer of justice and truth, that he believed those neces- 
sary condescensions and applications to the weakness of other 
men, and those arts and insinuations which are necessary for 
discoveries, and prevention of ill, would be in him a de- 
clension from his own rules of life: though he acknowledged 
them fit and absolutely necessary to be practised in those 
employments. He was, in truth, so precise in the practic 
principles he prescribed himself, (to all others he was as in- 
dulgent,) as if he had lived in republica Platonis, non in faece 
Romuli.^ 

Two reasons prevailed with him to receive the seals, and 
but for those he had resolutely avoided them. The first, the 
consideration that his refusal might bring some blemish upon 
the king's affairs, and that men would have believed that he 
had refused so great an honour and trust because he must 
have been with it obliged to do somewhat else not justifiable. 
And this he made matter of conscience, since he knew the 
king made choice of him, before other men, especially because 

1 Tacitus, Agricola, ix. 

> Cicero, Epist, ad Atticum, ii, I. The quotation is not literal. 

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he thought him more honest than other men. The other 
was, lest he might be thought to avoid it out of fear to do 
an ungracious thing to the house of commons, who were 
sorely troubled at the displacing Sir Harry Vane, whom 
they looked upon as removed for having done them those of- 
fices they stood in need of ; and the disdain of so popular an 
incumbrance wrought upon him next to the other. For as he 
had a full appetite of fame by just and generous actions, 
so he had an equal contempt of it by any servile expedients: 
and he so much the more consented to and approved the 
justice upon Sir Harry Vane, in his own private judgment, 
by how much he surpassed most men in the religious observa- 
tion of a trust, the violation whereof he would not admit 
of any excuse for. 

For these reasons, he submitted to the king's command, 
and became his secretary, with as humble and devoted an 
acknowledgment of the greatness of the obligation, as could 
be expressed, and as true a sense of it in his heart. Yet two 
things he could never bring himself to, whilst he continued 
in that office, that was to his death; for which he was con- 
tented to be reproached, as for omissions in a most necessary 
part of his place. The one, employing of spies, or giving any 
countenance or entertainment to them. I do not mean such 
emissaries, as with danger would venture to view the enemy's 
camp, and bring intelligence of their number, or quartering, 
or any particulars that such an observation can comprehend ; 
but those, who by conununication of guilt, or dissimulation 
of manners, wind themselves into such trusts and secrets as 
enable them to make discoveries. The other, the liberty of 
opening letters, upon a suspicion that they might contain 
matter of dangerous consequence. For the first, he would 
say, ''such instruments must be void of all ingenuity, and 
conmion honesty, before they could be of use; and after- 
wards they could never be fit to be credited: and that no 
single preservation could be worth so general a wound, and 

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corruption of human society, as the cherishing such persons 
would carry with it." The last, he thought "such a viola- 
tion of the law of nature, that no qualification by office could 
justify him in the trespass"; and though he was convinced by 
the necessity, and iniquity of the time, that those advantages 
of information were not to be declined, and were necessarily 
to be practised, he found means to put it off from himself; 
whilst he confessed he needed excuse and pardon for the 
omission: so unwilling he was to resign any part of good 
nature to an obligation in his office. 

In all other particulars he filled his place with great suffi- 
ciency,^ being well versed in languages, to understand any 

^ This complaisant judgment hardly seems borne out by the facts. 
Clarendon defines elsewhere (Life, i, 104) Falkland's mature views 
on the political problems of the times: 

*'But he had in his own judgment such a latitude in opinion, that 
he did not believe any part of the order or government of [the 
Church] to be so essentially necessary to religion but that it might 
be parted with and altered for a notable public benefit or con- 
venience; and that the crown itself ought to gratify the people, in 
yielding to many things; and to part with some power rather than 
to run the hazards which would attend the refusal." 

If Falkland had been able to persuade the king to such views 
as these then he would have been a great secretary of state and 
have performed an inestimable service to his country and to his 
king as well. Once in office, what he thought may be interesting 
but the important is what he accomplished. Clarendon supplies 
also the reason for Falkland's failure (Life, i, 105) : 

"Albeit, he had the greatest compliance with the weakness and 
even the humour of other men, when there could be no suspicion 
of flattery; and the greatest address to inform and reform them: 
yet towards the King, who many times obstinately adhered to many 
conclusions which did not naturally result from good premises, 
and did love to argue many things to which he would not so posi- 
tively adhere, he did not practice that condescension; but contra- 
dicted him with more bluntness, and by sharp sentences; and in 
some particulars (as of the church) to which the King was in 
conscience most devoted: and of this his majesty often complained; 
and cared less to confer with him in private, and was less per- 
suaded by him, than his affairs, and the other's great parts and 
wisdom, would have required: though he had not a better opinion 
of any man's sincerity or fidelity towards him." 

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that are used in business, and to make himself again under- 
stood. To speak of his integrity, and his high disdain of any 
bait that might seem to look towards corruption, in tanto 
viro . . . injuria virtutum fuerit.^ Some sharp expressions 
he used against the archbishop of Canterbury, and his con- 
curring in the first bill to take away the votes of bishops in 
the house of peers, gave occasion to some to believe, and 
opportunity to others to conclude, and publish, "that he was 
no friend to the church and the established government of 
it;" and troubled his very friends much, who were more 
confident of the contrary, than prepared to answer the allega- 
tions. 

The truth is he had unhappily contracted some prejudice 
to the archbishop; and having observed his passion, when, it 
may be, multiplicity of business, or other indisposition, had 
possessed him, did wish him less entangled and engaged in 
the business of the court, or state : though, I speak it know- 
ingly, he had a singular estimation and reverence of his great 
learning and confessed integrity ; and really thought his own 
letting himself loose to those expressions, which implied a 
disesteem of the archbishop, or at least an acknowledgment 
of his infirmities, would enable him to shelter him from part 
of the storm he saw raised for his destruction; which he 
abominated with his soul. 

The giving his consent to the first bill for the displacing 
the bishops, did proceed from two grounds: the first, his not 
understanding then the original of their right and suffrage 
there ; the other, an opinion that the combination against the 
whole government of the church by bishops was so violent 
and furious, that a less composition than the dispensing with 
their intermeddling in secular affairs, would not preserve the 
order. And he was persuaded to this by the profession of 
many persons of honour, who declared, "they did desire the 
one, and would not then press the other;" which, in that 

1 Tacitus, Agricola, ix. 

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particular, misled many men. But when his observation and 
experience made him discern more of their intentions, than 
he before suspected, with great frankness he opposed the sec- 
ond bill that was preferred for that purpose; and had, with- 
out scruple, the order itself in perfect reverence ; and thought 
too great encouragement could not possibly be given to learn- 
ing, nor too great rewards to learned men. He was never 
in the least degree swayed or moved by the objections which 
were made against that government in the church (holding 
them most ridiculous) or affected to the other, which those 
men fancied to themselves. 

He had a courage of the most clear and keen temper, and 
so far from fear, that he seemed not without some appetite 
of danger; and therefore, upon any occasion of action, he 
always engaged his person in those troops, which he thought, 
by the forwardness of the conunanders, to be most like to be 
farthest engaged; and in all such encounters he had about 
him an extraordinary cheerfulness, without at all affecting 
the execution that usually attended them, in which he took 
no delight, but took pains to prevent it, where it was not, 
by resistance, made necessary: insomuch that at Edge-hill 
when the enemy was routed, he was like to have incurred 
great peril, by interposing to save those who had thrown 
away their arms, and against whom, it may be, others were 
more fierce for their having thrown them away: so that a 
man might think, he came into the field chiefly out of curi- 
osity to see the face of danger, and charity to prevent the 
shedding of blood. Yet in his natural inclination he acknowl- 
edged he was addicted to the profession of a soldier; and 
shortly after he came to his fortune, before he was of age, 
he went into the Low Countries, with a resolution of procur- 
ing command, and to give himself up to it, from which he 
was diverted by the complete inactivity of that summer: so 
he returned into England, and shortly after entered upon 
that vehement course of study we mentioned before, till the 

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first alarum from the north; then again he made ready for 
the field, and though he received some repulse in the com- 
mand of a troop of horse, of which he had a promise, he went 
a volunteer with the earl of Essex. ^ 

From the entrance into this unnatural war, his natural 
cheerfulness and vivacity grew clouded, and a kind of sad- 
ness and dejection of spirit stole upon him, which he had 
never been used to ; yet being one of those who believed that 
one battle would end all differences, and that there would be 
so great a victory on one side, that the other would be com- 
pelled to submit to any conditions from the victor (which 
supposition and conclusion generally sunk into the minds of 



^ This was Charles Vs futile array in the summer of 1639 against 
the Scots Covenanters, known as the First Bishops' War, "sl crusade 
in favor of episcopal power and a compulsory liturgy.'' Falkland's 
taking part in it was the occasion of an outburst from the poets. 
Waller sang: 

''Brave Holland leads, and with him Falkland goes, 
Who hears this told, and does not straight suppose 
We send the Graces and the Muses forth 
To civilise and to instruct the North/" 

The youthful Cowley, then just preening his wings, followed: 

Great is thy -Charge O North/ be wise and just, 
England commits her Falkland to thy trust: 
Return him safe: Learning would rather chuse 
Her Bodley and her Vatican to lose. 
All things that are but ^vrit or Printed there, 
In his unbounded Breast engraven are." 

There was in fact as little danger in, as there was opportunity to 
civilize, the north. The Scots had marched within the ten-mile 
limit on the border and established themselves at Kelso. The 
king's general, the Earl of Holland, was ordered to drive them out. 
He "drew his sword as other commanders did, with intention and 
order to charge; but the nearer they went, the more the Scottish 
troops increased." Holland sent a trumpeter to ask them what they 
were doing there. They replied by asking him a similar question 
and by recommending him to go "bock again." This considerate 
advice Holland "found to be most expedient." Within a fortnight 
the Treaty of Berwick was signed and the cruel war was over. 
(Gardiner, History, ix^ 27.) 

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most men, and prevented the looking after many advantages 
that might then have been laid hold of), he resisted those in- 
dispositions, et in luctu bellum inter remedia erat.^ But 
after the king's return from Brentford, and the furious reso- 
lution of the two houses not to admit any treaty for peace, 
those indispositions, which had before touched him, grew into 
a perfect habit of uncheerf ulness ; and he, who had been so 
exactly easy and affable to all men, that his face and counte- 
nance was always present, and vacant to his company, and 
held any cloudiness, and less pleasantness of the visage, a kind 
of rudeness or incivility, became, on a sudden, less com- 
municable; and thence, very sad, pale and exceedingly 
affected with the spleen. In his clothes and habit, which he 
had minded before always with more neatness and industry 
and expense than is usual to so great a soul, he was not now 
only incurious, but too negligent; and in his reception of 
suitors, and the necessary or casual addresses to his place, so 
quick and sharp and severe, that there wanted not some men 
(strangers to his nature and disposition) who believed him 
proud and imperious, from which no mortal man was ever 
more free. 

It is true, that as he was of a most incomparable gentle- 
ness, application and even submission to good, and worthy, 
and entire men, so he was naturally (which could not but be 
more evident in his place, which objected him to another 
conversation and intermixture, than his own election would 
have done) adversus malos injucundus;^ and was so ill a dis- 
sembler of his dislike and disinclination to ill men, that it 
was not possible for such not to discern it. There was once 
in the house of commons such a declared acceptation of the 
good service an eminent member had done to them, and, as 
they said, to the whole kingdom, that it was moved, he being 
present, "that the speaker might, in the name of the whole 



1 Tacitus, Agricola, xxix. 

2 Ibid., xxii. 



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house, give him thanks ; and then, that every member might, 
as a testimony of his particular acknowledgment, stir or 
move his hat towards him;" the which (though not ordered) 
when very many did, the lord Falkland (who believed the 
service itself not to be of that moment, and that an honour- 
able and generous person could not have stooped to it for any 
recompense), instead of moving his hat, stretched both his 
arms out, and clasped his hands together upon the crown of 
his hat, and held it close down to his head ; that all men might 
sec how odious that flattery was to him, and the very appro- 
bation of the person, though at that time most popular. 

When there was any overture or hope of peace, he would 
be more erect and vigorous, and exceedingly solicitous to 
press any thing which he thought might promote it; and 
sitting among his friends, often, after a deep silence and 
frequent sighs, would, with a shrill and sad accent, ingemi- 
nate the word Peace, Peace; and would passionately profess, 
"that the very agony of the war, and the view of the calami- 
ties and desolation the kingdom did and must endure, took 
his sleep from him, and would shortly break his heart." This 
made some think, or pretend to think, "that he was so much 
enamoured on peace, that he would have been glad the king 
should have bought it at any price;" which was a most un- 
reasonable calumny. As if a man, that was himself the most 
punctual and precise in every circimistance that might reflect 
upon conscience or honour, could have wished the king to 
have committed a trespass against either. And yet this sense- 
less scandal made some impression upon him, or at least he 
used it for an excuse of the daringness of his spirit; for at 
the leaguer before Gloucester, when his friend passionately 
reprehended him for exposing his person unnecessarily to 
danger (for he delighted to visit the trenches and nearest 
approaches, and to discover what the enemy did), as being 
so much beside the duty of his place, that it might be under- 
stood rather to be against it, he would say merrily, "that his 

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office could not take away the privilege of his age ; and that a 
secretary in war might be present at the greatest secret of 
danger;" but withal alleged seriously, "that it concerned him 
to be more active in enterprises of hazard, than other men ; 
that all might see that his impatiency for peace proceeded 
not from pusillanimity, or fear to adventure his own person." 
In the morning before the battle, as always upon action, 
he was very cheerful,^ and put himself into the first rank of 
the lord Byron's regiment, then advancing upon the enemy, 
who had lined the hedges on both sides with musketeers ; from 
whence he was shot with a musket in the lower part of the 
belly, and in the instant falling from his horse,^ his body was 

^The clean shirt story which aroused Horace Walpole's scorn 
is not in Clarendon, but in the Memorials of "wooden headed old 
Bulstrode" Whitelocke: 'Xord Falkland on the morning of the bat- 
tle called for clean linen as though expecting to be slain. His 
friends tried to dissuade him from fighting, but he declared that 
he was weary of the times, foresaw much misery to his own coun- 
try, and did believe he should be out of it ere night." 

* Byron's narrative of the battle of Newbury, September 20, 1643 
(Money, Two Battles of Newbury), describes Falkland's end as 
follows : 

'The service grew so hot that, in a very short time, of twelve 
ensigns that marched up with my Lord Gerard's regiment eleven 
were brought off the field hurt, and Ned Villiers shot through the 
shoulder. Upon this a confusion was heard among the foot, calling 
horse/ horse/ Whereupon I advanced with those two regiments I 
had and commanded them to halt while I went to view the ground 
and to see what way there was to that place where the enemy's 
foot was drawn up, which I found to be enclosed with a high quick 
hedge and no passage into it but by a narrow gap through which 
but one horse at a time could go and that not without difficulty. 
My Lord of Falkland did me the honour to ride in my troop this 
day and would needs go along with me. The enemy had beat 
our foot out of the close, and was drawne up near the hedge: I 
went to view, and as I was giving orders for making the gapp 
wide enough, my horse was shott in the throat with a musket bul- 
let and his bit broken in his mouth, so that I was forced to call 
for another horse; in the meanwhile my Lord Falkland (more gal- 
lantly than advisedly) spurred his horse through the gapp, where 
both he and his horse were immediately killed." 

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not found till the next morning; till when, there was some 
hope he might have been a prisoner; though his nearest 
friends, who knew his temper, received small comfort from 
that imagination. Thus fell that incomparable young man, 
in the four and thirtieth year of his age, having so much de- 
spatched the true business of life, that the eldest rarely attain 
to that immense knowledge, and the youngest enter not into 
the world with more innocency: whosoever leads such a life, 
needs be the less anxious upon how short warning it is taken 
from him. 

^ Much hath been said of this excellent person before ; but 
not so much, or so well, as his wonderful parts and virtues 
deserved. He died as much of the time as of the bullet:* 
for, from the very beginning of the war, he contracted so deep 
a sadness and melancholy, that his life was not pleasant to 
him; and sure he was too weary of it. Those who did not 
know him very well imputed, very unjustly, much of it to a 

1 Clarendon, Life, i, aoi. 

^This epigram ought to have been the source of Pope's verse, 
but was not published until after the Essay on Man: the opinion 
that Falkland sought his death was, however, current at the time; 
both Whitelocke and Aubrey voice it. Falkland himself had prac- 
tically foretold it in the last verses he ever wrote, those inscribed 
to George Sandys at the beginning of the troubles: 

"And since there are who have been taught that death 
Inspireth prophecie, expelling breath, 
I hope when these foretell what happie gaines 
Posteritie shall reap from these thy paines . . . 
The so taught will not belief e refuse 
To the last accents of a dying Muse." 

The modern priests of the Falkland cult have done their best to 
refute the suggestion of suicide by argument, but the latest author- 
ity, S. R. Gardiner, who founds his judgments in analysis, has come 
back to Clarendon's theory, "By a death," he says (Diet. Nat. 
Biog,, iii, 1160), *Svhich is scarcely distinguishable from suicide, 
Falkland closed his eyes to the horrors which he loathed." That the 
weakness of Falkland's character which developed under stress, as is 
here pointed out, was congenital is well illustrated by the fact that the 
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violent passion he had for a noble lady ; and it was the more 
spoken of, because she died the same day, and, as some com- 
puted it, in the same hour that he was killed : but they who 
knew either the lord or the lady, knew well that neither of 
them was capable of an ill imagination. She was of the most 
unspotted, unblemished virtue ; never married ; of an extraor- 
dinary talent of mind, but of no alluring beauty; nor of a 
constitution of tolerable health, being in a deep consumption, 
and not like to have lived so long by many months. It is very 
true the lord Falkland had an extraordinary esteem of her, 
and exceedingly loved her conversation, as most of the persons 
of eminent parts of that time did ; for she was in her under- 
standing, and discretion and wit, and modesty, above most 
women ; the best of which had always a friendship with her.^ 
But he was withal so kind to his wife, whom he knew to be an 
excellent person, that, though he loved his children with more 
affection and fondness than most fathers used to do, he left by 
his will all he had to his wife; and committed his three sons, 
who were all the children he had, to her sole care and bounty. 

^ Aubrey, who loved a morsel of scandal and is not the less enter- 
taining in consequence, rehearses (Letters, ii, part I, 350) the gos- 
sip which Clarendon here refutes. He had, he says, *'been well 
informed by those that best knew the Lord Falkland and knew 
intrigues behind the curtains (as they say), that it was the grief 
of the death of M"8 Moray, a handsome lady at court, who was 
his mistresse, and whom he loved above all creatures, was the true 
course of his being so madly guilty of his own death." Before 
there was any question of "M^is Moray" Falkland had a perfectly 
clear appreciation of the ultimate consequence of all such relations. 
In his verses to George Sandys he had written: 

"Those who make wit their curse, who spend their brain, 
Their time and art, in looser verse, and gain 
Danmadon and a mistress, till they see 
How constant that is, how inconstant she." 

Human nature and philosophy are not, however, always compatible. 
Doubtless Falkland confided to "M"> Moray" that his Lettice was 
no longer sympathetic, but it is altogether unlikely that he was 
unfaithful to her. 

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As Clarendon says, the body of Falkland was 
not found on the night of the battle. The next 
day Prince Rupert wrote to the Earl of Essex, 
commanding the Parliamentary army, to enquire 
if he was a prisoner, or, if dead, that his servant 
might fetch him away. At last the body was 
identified. "Stript, trod upon and mangled," 
says Aubrey, it "could only be identified by one 
who waited upon him in his chamber by a certain 
molehis lordship had upon his neck." Laid on one 
of the king's chargers, the body was taken toNew- 
bury, thence to Oxford and thence to Great Tew, 
where it was buried in the churchyard. No stone 
marks the place, but the parish register* records: 

The 23d Day of September, A. D. 1643, The | Right 
Honble Sr Lucius Cary, Knyght, | Lord Viscount of Falk- 
land I and Lord of the Manor of Great Tew, | was buried 
here. 

Descendants of the second Lord Falkland. 

Lucius Cary, second Viscount Falkland, had 
had four sons, but while he endowed them with 
a famous name and "parts," he did not leave 
them much vitality with which to face that world 
in revolution to escape which he had himself 
given his life. The two elder* both succeeded 
to the peerage. The firstborn, 

1 Robinson's calendar, if. & G., iii, 48. Lord Falkland's will 
may be found in P.C.C. Crane among the wills proved at Oxford 
during Charles Ps residence there. 

2 The youngest, Adolphus, died an infant (baptized at Alden- 
ham, May 22, 1639, and buried there within the year, January 22, 

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Lucius Gary (1632-1649), third Viscount 
Falkland, survived his father only six years. He 
had been baptized at Great Tew July 5, 1632, 
and matriculated at Ghrist Ghurch, Oxford, in 
1646, but the city having surrendered to Fairfax 
and the king fled to the Scots, the university was 
disorganized : so young Falkland was sent to seek 
his education on the continent, in charge of the 
Oxford scholar and physician Dr. John Maplet 
(1612-1670), who afterwards long practised 
medicine at Bath. While at Montpellier, in Sep- 
tember, 1649, Falkland died in his eighteenth 
year: his body was brought home and buried at 
Great Tew two months later.^ He was suc- 
ceeded by his next brother, 

Henry Gary (1635-1663), fourth Viscount 
Falkland, who crowded no little experience into 
a short life. Lloyd says^ that as a boy under his 
father's eye he had "a strict education (for no 
man was ever harder bred)." There is no rec- 
ord of his education after his father's death, but 
he had little respect for books in the end, for he 
sold his father's library, that collection which had 

1640). The third, Lorenzo, was apparently the flower: baptized 
at Aldenham, November 28, 1637, he was buried at Great Tew, 
November 2, 1643, having survived his father less than two months. 
The author of Holy Life an4 Death of the Lady Letice, Fi-Countess 
Falkland, calls him his mother's "most dear son whom God had 
endowed with the cleverest of natural abilities and to whom her 
affections were most tender by reason of these fair blossoms of 
piety." 

1 Parish register, calendared in H, & G., iii, 49. 

^ State Worthies, ii, 259. 

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made Great Tew a university "in a purer air," 
for the price of "a horse and a mare." Anthony 
a Wood and other mere bookmen have been 
much scandalized by this performance, but it 
was human : few wholesome young men bred in 
the country are interested in a father's col- 
lection of books, especially books on theology, 
in which the Great Tew library was strong, or 
would stand on a point of sentiment for holding 
it intact when there was a question of winning a 
match at horse-racing. Before he came of age 
Henry Gary married, in 1653, an heiress, Rachel 
Hungerford,^ daughter of Anthony Hunger- 
ford of Blackbourton, co. Oxon, and Farley 
Castle, CO. Somerset He was soon involved in 
Royalist pU)ts. Thus in 1655 ^^ was arrested by 
the Major-Generals and in 1659 was imprisoned 
for participation in Sir George Booth's plot* 
To the Convention Parliament of 1660 he was 
returned as a burgess both from Arundel in Sus- 
sex and Oxford City, electing to sit for the latter.* 

^Long after her husband's death, Rachel, Lady Falkland, ap- 
pears in the Virginia records. In 1698, when she was "aged sixty 
or thereabouts," she testifies, in an ejectment suit involving the 
title to the 'Tort Field" at Kecoughtan (Elizabeth City), which 
had been acquired in 1648 by Major Richard Moryson, that her 
husband's mother was daughter to Sir Richard Moryson, and gives 
the history of the Moryson family down to and including Henry 
Mor3rson (son of Colonel Francis Moryson, our Virginia worthy), 
**who is now a Lewt. Coll. in ye Lord Cuts Regemt. of ffoot 
Guards." (See fT. & Af. Quar., ix, 119.) She survived until 1719. 
See her will, P.C.C. Browning, 208. 

^ See Masson, Life of Milton, v, 50, 473. 

^Return of M, P.'s, 1879. 

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He at once took a conspicuous part, serving as 
one of the committee of the House of Commons 
to carry the restoration message to Charles II 
and later in the formulation of that life-and- 
death measure, the Indemnity Bill/ Although 
then only about twenty-four years of age and 
even more youthful in appearance, he had his 
wits about him. Horace Walpole tells the story^ 
that "a grave senator objecting to his youth and 
to his not looking as if he had sowed his wild 
oats, he replied with great quickness: Then I 
am come to the properest place, where are so 
many geese to pick them up.' " Aubrey^ has pre- 
served another example of the same kind of 
House of Commons wit. Sir Henry Martin, be- 
ing charged with having had a part in the execu- 
tion of Charles I, this Lord Falkland "saved his 
life by witt, saying: ^Gentlemen, ye talke here of 
making a sacrifice : it was olde lawe all sacrifices 
were to be without spot or blemish: and now 
you are going to make an old rotten rascall a sac- 
rifice.' This witt took the house and saved his 
life." Horace Walpole makes him out, as fur- 
ther evidence of his "wit and parts," the author 
of a tragi-comedy. The Marriage Nights In the 

1 Masson, Life of Milton, v, 505 ; vi, 23, 173. 

2 Royal and Noble Authors. 
' Letters, iii, 435- 

^ It was published in quarto 1664, was included in the original 
(1744) edition of Dodsley's Old Plays, and again in the fourth 
(1874) edition, xv, 109. Pepys saw it played on March 2i, 1667, 
and damned it with faint praise. {Diary, ed. Bright, vii, 63.) 

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second Parliament of 1660, and thenceforth un- 
til his death, he sat as a knight of the shire for 
Oxfordshire, and was also lord lieutenant of his 
county. His contemporary Thomas Fuller^ 
says of him towards the end of his life that his 
"pregnant parts (now clarified of juvenile ex- 
travagance) perform much, and promise more, 
useful service to this nation." He did not live to 
fulfill this prediction, but died in London April 
2, 1663, in his twenty-ninth year, and was buried 
a week later at Great Tew.^ He was succeeded 
by his son 

Anthony Gary (i 657-1 694), fifth Viscount 
Falkland, who was born at Great Tew; matricu- 
lated at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1672; mar- 
ried Rebecca, daughter of Sir Rowland Lytton 
of Knebworth, co. Herts; was returned to Par- 
liament for Oxfordshire in 1685, and sat the 
remainder of his life successively for Oxford- 
shire, Great Marlow, Bucks, and Great Bedwin, 
Wilts. Charles H made him treasurer of the 
navy and paymaster of the forces ; after the revo- 
lution he succeeded in keeping on his feet and 
became a privy councillor and first commis- 
sioner of admiralty under William III.' He 

^ Worthies of England, ed. Nuttall, 1840, ii, 46. 

2 Parish register, calendared in H. & G., iii, 47. The adminis- 
tration on his estate is in P.C.C. Admon. Act Book, 1663. 

'Luttrell, i, 76; ii, 163; iii, 74. This office in the admiralty ac- 
counts for the fact that in 1690 the English navigator, Captain 
Strong, gave the name of Falkland to the sound between the two 
islands in the South Atlantic which, after several changes of own- - 

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was a diligent and successful speculator: one of 
the syndicate which in 1687 backed Captain 
William Phips of New England in his second 
and successful search for the shipwrecked His- 
paniola treasure in the Bahamas/ from which 
adventure he and his mother's second husband, 
Sir James Hayes of Bedgebury, Kent, reaped a 
fortune.^ On another occasion one of his enter- 
prising speculations, in which he sought to enlist 
the king, got him into trouble with the House of 
Commons on a question of privilege, and he was 
committed to the Tower.® He had an inherited 
turn for verse-making and was the author of a 

ership, and after engaging the pens of Junius and Dr. Johnson, 
have since 1833 been an outpost of the British Empire under the 
name of the Falkland Islands. 

1 Evelyn records {Diary, Chandos ed., 510) under date of June 6, 
1687: "There was about this time brought into the Downs a vast 
treasure which was sunk in a Spanish galloon about 45 years ago 
somewhere neere Hispaniola or the Bahama Islands, and was now 
weight up by some gentlemen, who were at the charge of divers 
&C., to the enriching them beyond all expectation. The Duke of 
Albemarle's share came to, I believe, £50,000. Some private gentle- 
men who adventured £100 gained from £8 to £io,ooa His 
Majesty's tenth was £10,000." 

Evelyn is well within the facts in his statement. The recovery 
in bullion, coin, and plate was valued at £3oo,ooa Phips's own 
reward was £16,000 and the honor of knighthood. His life is one 
of the most romantic in American colonial history. From an ob- 
scure origin in Maine he rose to be the conqueror of Port Royal, 
royal governor of Massachusetts (as such finally to end the witch 
burning), and the subject of a memoir in Cotton Mather's Magnalia, 

3 A plate let into the foundation of the new house which Sir 
James Hayes built at Bedgebury recorded that construction "spo- 
His profundi et absconditis arenar' thesauris, quasi coelitus locuple- 
tcs facti." Hasted, History of Kent, 1790, iii, 36. Sir James Hayes' 
will is P.C.C. Box, 4a. 

« Wood, Life and Times, iii, 444. 

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d tf^ i M> ii yiiaiWi8toJWii ^% , 

prologue to Otway's Soldier's Fortune, and an- 
other to Congreve's first play, The Old Bachelor, 
which was produced in 1693. The latter is 
printed with the play in Congreve's Works, but 
was not recited at the performance, having, says 
Horace Walpole, "too little delicacy even for 
that play and that age." He died suddenly of 
smallpox at the top of his fortune, and was 
buried in Westminster Abbey, May 28, 1694.^ 
John Evelyn sums up his career :^ 

Lord Falkland, (grandson to the learned Lord Falkland, 
Secretary of State to K. Cha. I, and slain in his service) 
died now of small pox. He was a pretty, brisk, understand- 
ing, industrious young gentleman: had formerly been faulty 
but much reclaimed. He married a greate fortune, besides 
being intitled to a vast sum as his share of the Spanish Wreck, 
taken up at the expense of divers adventurers. From a Scotch 
Viscount he was made an English Baron,^ designed Ambas- 
sador to Holland: had ben Treasurer of the Navy, and ad- 
vancing in the new court. All now gone in a moment, and 
I think the tide is extinct. 

Anthony Gary had an only daughter who died 
in infancy. The two younger brothers of his 
father having died in childhood, he was indeed 
the last representative of Clarendon's Lord Falk- 

* Luttrell, iii, 299, 317. His will is P.C.C. Box, 153. 

^ Diary, ChaDdos ed., 557. 

<That Falkland was to have an English peerage was current 
gossip for several weeks before sudden death cut short his career. 
(See Luttrell, iii, 280; and Wood, Life and Times, iii, 453.) Evelyn 
is, however, incorrect in his statement that it was accomplished, as 
also when he says that the Falkland title became extinct. 

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i^rt9Hi9to^B^iHHMiMM»^ 



land, but he was succeeded in the title by his 
cousin Lucius Henry Gary, grandson of Patrick 
Gary, the fourth son of the first viscount. 

Patrick Gary and his descendants. 

It was the third surviving son of the first Lord 
Falkland who was to preserve the Falkland line 
from failure. 

Patrick Gary* (1624-1657) was born in Ire- 
land during his father's term as lord deputy, 
which is the explanation of his name, doubtless 
a bid for the revival of a waning popularity. 

We first meet him, immediately after the birth 
of his younger brother Henry (or Placid),^ in 

^ It is only comparatively recently that the standard peerages 
have recognized Patrick Gary: it was assumed that his grandson 
Lucius Henry, the sixth viscount, was the son of Anthony, the fifth 
viscount (See H. & G., iii, 38.) He is still stated to be the 
youngest son, though The Lady Falkland is clear that he was older 
than Placid. 

2 Almost all we know of Henry Gary (1625-^0// 1654) >> con- 
tained in The Lady Falkland, where he is linked with his brother 
Patrick in the rehearsal of their conunon youthful adventures. 
When they reached Paris in 1635, Henry was placed in the Bene- 
dictine convent and there educated until in time he took the vows, 
being known in religion as Father Placid. There his sister's annals 
leave him, but on the register of admissions to Lincoln's Inn ap- 
pears the following entry under date of September 28, 1654: "Henry 
Gary, 4th [surviving] son of Henry Lord Viscount Falkland, dec'd." 
(//. & G„ iv, 48.) It seems then that he followed his brother Patrick 
back to England and to the study of law; but ^'the rest is silence," 
there is no further certain evidence for him or for the end of his 
life. He must, of course, have renounced the Roman Ghurch. Ten- 
tatively we attribute to him, as the only one of his name whose 
dates and education fit, that curious little book The Law of Eng- 
land, or A True Guide for All Persons Concerned in Ecclesiastical 
Courts, . . , By H, Cary, London, Printed for the Author. There 
is no date of publication on the title-page or elsewhere, but the 

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the midst of peril. When his mother returned 
to England in 1625, taking with her the younger 
children, she encountered a violent tempest in 
the Irish Sea, when "the child at her breast (she 
sitting upon the hatch) had his breath struck 
out of his body by a wave and remained as dead 
for a quarter of an hour." * Arrived in London the 
children were at once taken down to their grand- 
mother's in Oxfordshire to avoid the plague. 

When he and Henry were "ten or eleven years 
old" they were placed by their mother in the 
custody of her eldest son at Great Tew. Their 
brother entrusted their education to his "ra- 
tional" friend Chillingworth, which so exasper- 
ated their Catholic mother that she had them 
kidnapped, brought up to London, and finally, 
with the aid of the Benedictines, smuggled away 
into France, to be educated at a Benedictine con- 
vent in Paris.^ After three years in Paris, Pat- 
rick was, as afterwards in 1650 he wrote to his 
brother's friend Sir Edward Hyde, transferred 
to Rome, "being recommended to Cardinal Bar- 
berini by the Queen's most excellent Majesty." 
There he lived for twelve years, supported at 

bibliographers (e.g,, Lowndes and Allibone) supply 1666. The in- 
ternal evidence is ample that the book was written after the Resto- 
ration. There is a copy of this rare work in the Harvard Law 
Library, to whose librarian's courtesy I owe the privilege of 
examining it. 

1 The Lady Falkland, 24. 

2 The kidnapping and its consequence is told in great detail and 
with much spirit in The Lady Falkland, 94 ft, 

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first by a small but sufficient pension from his 
mother's friend Queen Henrietta Maria; later, 
Pope Urban VIII, "upon her Majesty's recom- 
mendation, conferred upon me an abbey and a 
priOry in commendam and besides some pensions 
on other benefices wherewith I subsisted well."* 
During this period we have two pleasant 
glimpses of him in the best of company. In the 
Travellers' Book of the English College at Rome 
there is an entry of 1638: "The 30th of October 
there dined in our College, and were hospitably 
received, the following English gentlemen, the 
most distinguished Mr. P. Gary, brother of Lord 
Falkland, Dr. Holding of Lancaster, Mr. N. 
Fortescue, and Mr. Milton, with his servant."^ 
Again, when in November, 1644, John Evelyn 
reached Rome on his grand tour, he notes in his 
diary:* "I was especially recommended to 
Father John, a Benedictine monke and Superior 
of his Order from the English College of Douay, a 
person of singular learning, religion and human- 
ity: also to Mr. Patrick Gary, an Abbot, brother 
to our learned Lord Falkland, a witty young 
priest,who afterwards came over to our Church."* 

1 Clarendon, State Papers, ii, 535, ssSn. 

2 Masson, Life of Milton, i, 800. 

8 Evelyn, Diary, Chandos ed., 86. 

^ This last comment must have been interlined in the Diary long 
after the date of the original entry, as Patrick Gary was certainly 
a member of the Roman Church until after 165a The intimacy 
of Evelyn's family with that of Anthony, fifth Lord Falkland, is 
persuasive of the correctness of the fact of the reconversion. 

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iS^ 



These happy days came to an end before 
March i8, 1650, when Patrick Gary wrote from 
Brussels to Sir Edward Hyde that he was in 
great distress and contemplated going into a con- 
vent, but was deterred by the fact that his 
nephew Lucius Gary had then recently died. 
Hyde advised him to wait: he seems, however, to 
have assumed the Benedictine habit at Douay, 
but within the year threw it off on the ground 
that he could not stand the regimen of the order. 
"He then went to England in hopes of obtaining 
a pension from his relatives there. Being disap- 
pointed of this also he desired Sir Edward 
Hyde's interest to procure him some military 
post in the Spanish service. His friend earnestly 
dissuades him by very good arguments from this 
and advises him to lie by a little while in expec- 
tation of some favorable change."^ 

On February 10, 165 1, he was admitted to Lin- 
coln's Inn, evidently intending to support him- 
self by practising law, but during the following 
summer we find him in Hampshire with an 
empty pocket, though in high animal spirits and 
careless of politics; so he is able to sing: 

Delinquent Tde not feare to bee 

Though 'gainst the Cause and Noll Fd fought: 

Since England's now a state most free 

For who's not worth a groat, boyes, 

For who's not worth a groate. 

^ A note of the editor of Clarendon's State Papers, ii, 538, sum- 
marizing correspondence before him. 

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His sister Victoria had married Sir William 
Uvedale of Wickham. At Warnford, in the 
neighborhood of Wickham, lived a daughter of 
Sir William by his first marriage,* now the wife 
of Thomas Tomkins. From her house on August 
20, 1 65 1, and, as he says, "in obediance to the 
commands of Mrs. Tomkins," Patrick Gary in- 
dites his volume of Triviale Ballads^^ in which 
he sings merrily of his visit: 

Come (fayth) since Tm parting and that God knows when 
The walls of Sweet Wickham I shall see aghen, 
Letts e'en have a f rolicke and drincke like tall men 
Till heads with healths goe round :^ 

^ Sir William Uvedale had married first Anne, daughter of Sir 
Edmund Carey, of the Hunsdon family: their daughter Lucy mar- 
ried first, in 163a, Thomas Neale of Warnford, and second, in 
1643, Thomas Tomkins. 

2 In 177 1 the Rev. Pierrepoint Cromp published Poems from a 
manuscript written in the time of Oliver Cromwell, the advertise- 
ment of which stated that '*they appear to have been written about 
the middle of the last century by one Carey, a man whom we now 
know nothing of, and whose reputation possibly in his own time 
never went beyond the circle of private friendship.'* Another auto- 
graph MS. came into the possession of John Murray, the publisher, 
who gave it to Walter Scott. In 18 10 Scott published some of the 
poems in the Edinburgh Annual Register, and in 1820, being then, as 
he subsequently admitted in his note to Woodstock (chap, xxxi), 
ignorant of Mr. Cromp's publication or of the author's identifica- 
tion, made a new book of the verses under the title Trivial Poems and 
Triolets by Patrick Carey. In the introduction he characterizes Pat- 
rick "as staunch a cavalier and nearly as good a poet as the cele- 
brated Colonel Lovelace. . . . The proprietor of an unique manuscript 
is apt to over-rate its intrinsic merit: and yet the editor cannot help 
being of opinion that Carey's playfulness, gaiety and ease of expres- 
sion, both in amatory verses and political satire, entitle him to rank 
considerably above the *mob of gentlemen who write with ease.'" 

'These are the verses Scott puts in the mouth of Charles II in 
Woodstock (chap, xxxi) : 

" *We make the hour heavier,' he said, 'by being melancholy 

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proceeding to celebrate each of the family by 
name: Sir William, his "chaste lady," "young 
Will" the heir, "well graced Victoria," "plump 
Bess" her sister, the parson, and all the servants. 

During the same visit he doubtless made the 
acquaintance of Susan Uvedale, a niece of his 
brother-in-law, whom he married some time dur- 
ing the next year,^ though he does not mention 
her in the verses. 

In 1655 Patrick Gary accompanied Admiral 
Sir William Penn, as his secretary, on Crom- 
well's "Western Design" to the West Indies, to 
war with Spain. It was neither a glorious nor 
a profitable expedition, resulting chiefly in the 
sacrifice of reputation by the commanding offi- 

about it. Had you not better join roe, Mistress Alice, in Patrick 
Carey's jovial farewell ?— Ah, you do not know Pat Carey— a 
younger brother of Lord Falkland's?' 

" *A brother of the immortal Lord Falkland's, and write songs 1' 
said the Doctor. 

" 'Oh, Doctor, the Muses take tithe as well as the Church,' said 
Charles, 'and have their share in every family of distinction. You 
do not know the words, Mistress Alice, but you can aid me notwith- 
standing, in the burden at least— 

" 'Come, now that we're parting, and 'tis one to ten 
If the towers of sweet Woodstock I e'er see agen, 
Let us e'en have a frolic, and drink like tall men. 
While the goblet goes merrily round.' " 

It will be observed that Sir Walter does for Patrick Gary's verse 
the office which Betsinda performed upon the drawings of the 
Princess Angelica in The Rose and Ring, 

^ The parish register of Great Tew records in 1654, "John 
Gary, son of the honl>le Patricke Gary, Esq., was bom at Great 
Tew, October the 30th, and was baptized there November the 2nd." 
(H,& G,, ill, 48.) This son evidently died young. 

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cers when they teached home/ We know noth- 
ing more of Patrick Gary's life. He had fallen 
upon hard times to be a younger son of his name 
and tradition. He evidently tried his fortune in 
Ireland when he got back from the West Indies, 
for his second son Edward was born in Dublin 
in 1656,^ as he certified in 1673 when he matricu- 
lated at Christ Church, Oxford. Two years 
later (June 9, 1675) this same Edward was ad- 
mitted to Lincoln's Inn and is there entered as 
"son and heir of Patrick Cary of Horden, Dor- 
set, Arm. dec." So it would seem that Patrick 
Cary returned to England once again, but he did 
not live to see the Restoration. He is recorded' 
to have died March 15, 1657, when he would be 
thirty- two years of age. 

1 Sec the graphic story in Gardiner, History of the Common' 
wealth and Protectorate, iv, 120. 

*See parish register St. John's, Dublin, April 25, 1656. 

s Burke, Peerage (1916 ed.), s.v, Falkland. This Patrick Cary 
had a contemporary of the same name and something of the same 
career, for whom the genealogical evidences are fairly complete, 
thus leading the student of the Falkland family up frequent false 
trails. This other Patrick Cary first appears as admitted to the 
Middle Temple in 1648, *'son and heir apparent of Thomas Cary 
of Port Lester, Co. Meath, Knight'': which clearly identifies him 
as of the Bucks family of Carys of Wycombe. (See post, p. 522, 
and the pedigree in H, & G., vi, 32.) He married, 1659, Dorothy, 
daughter of William Brewer, of Ditton, co. Kent {Fisitation of 
Kent, 1663-68), and died leaving a will proved July 7, 1669 (P.C.C. 
Coke, 32), mentioning his lands in Ireland, a son Patrick by an 
earlier marriage, and children Dorothy and Thomas by his wife 
Dorothy. Cussans {Hertfordshire, iii, 19) gives his M. I. in the 
parish church of Northaw, Herts: "Cuhat hie inhumatus Patricius 
Cary, ar, clausit tile diem extremum decimo octavo Junii anno orbis 
redempti 1669" 

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Patrick Gary's son Edward Gary (1656- 
1692) must have been brought up by his 
mother's people, the Uvedales. After being 
educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and Lin- 
coln's Inn, he married his cousin (through the 
Lekes) Anne Lucas, daughter and coheir of 
Charles Lord Lucas of Shenfield,^ and is thence- 
forth described as "of St. James's, Westmin- 
ster"^: he was sometime high bailiff of the city 
of Westminster, and by the interest of the Lucas 
family was M. P. for Colchester in 1688-9, the 
Parliament of the revolution.® By the will of his 

^ This was a nephew of that Sir Charles Lucas who was shot 
by Fairfax at Colchester in 1648 and of Margaret, Duchess of 
Newcastle, in whose autobiography is a human and pleasant 
picture of the Lucas household at St. John's near Colchester. 

It was this household which was described on the M. L in 
Westminster Abbey by a phrase which has become a familiar quo- 
tation: "Here lyes the Loyall Duke of New Castle and his Dutchess, 
his second wife, by whom he had noe issue: Her name was Mar- 
garet Lucas, youngest sister to the Lord Lucas of Colchester, a 
noble familie: for all the Brothers were Valiant and all the Sisters 
virtuous.'' (See Dart, Westmonasterium, ii, 133, pi. 141.) 

The Lucas family appears to have become extinct: at all events 
their genealogical record is in some confusion. Cf. Collins Peer- 
age (ed. Brydges, 1812), vii, 114; Burke, Extinct Peerage (1846), 
325; and Life of William Cavendish (ed. Firth, 1886), 283. Mr. 
Robinson clearly established, however, the marriage of Edward 
Cary in //. & G., iii, 38, 41, 136, and his authority is now accepted, 
e,g,, in the Falkland pedigree given in current issues of Burke's 
Peerage. 

* I.e., on the administration of his estate by his widow November 
24, 1692, P.C.C. Admon. Act Book, 1692. 

' We may doubtless relate the persistence of the Falkland family 
to the fact that this Edward Cary became a Whig and accepted 
what was to prove the surviving cause. The revolution of 1688 
was the turning-point in the history of many English families. 
Thus in contrast to the Falklands, who henceforth, with some hesi- 
tation, adapt themselves to the new order in England, the Devon 



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kinsman John Gary of Stanwell he acquired the 
estate of Caldicott in Monmouthshire. He left 
a daughter;^ and a son 

Lucius Henry Gary (1687-1730), sixth Vis- 
count Falkland, who in 1694 succeeded to the title 
of his cousin Anthony Gary, the last male descend- 
ant of the "learned" Lord Falkland: in 171 5 he 
succeeded also to the reversion of Stanwell but 
soon disposed of it. He saw service in Spain 
under General Stanhope and the Earl of Peter- 
borough, and if he did not "die in purple Alma- 
nara's plain," had his willingness to do so cele- 
brated in verse by his contemporary George 
Granville (1667-173*5), Lord Lansdowne.^ On 

and the Hunsdon Carys remained steadfast Jacobites, with the re- 
sult that the latter became extinct by inanition, while the former 
were for generations without political opportunity. 

iThis Frances Gary married, 1706, John Villiers, fifth Viscount 
Grandison (created 1721 Earl Grandison of Limerick in Ireland), 
and died 1768. Her husband was of the interesting family which 
had produced "Steenie" Duke of Buckingham and Charles IPs Lady 
Castlemaine, but inherited his Irish peerage from his maternal 
uncle Oliver St John (1559-1630), whom we met in Ireland in the 
time of Sir George Gary of Gockington. This line is now repre- 
sented by the earls of Jersey, but Frances Gary's issue became ex- 
tinct with her grandson the Earl Grandison, who died in 1800. At 
the time of her marriage she was duly recorded (Luttrell, Brief 
Relations, vi, 14) as sister of the sixth Lord Falkland, but by reason 
of the confusion which we have noted (ante, pp. 393, 464) she was 
later erroneously set down (e,g., in Collins Peerage, ed. Brydges, 
iii, 789) as a daughter of Anthony, fifth Viscount Falkland. 

2 Among the survivors of the books which Colonel Wilson Gary 
of Geelys brought home to Virginia from his two years' residence at 
Trinity College, Cambridge (1721-1723), is a slender duodecimo 
Poems Upon Several Occasions, by G. G., 1721. In his preface, the 
bookseller, Mr. Tonson, confides to us that these poems were writ- 
ten "by the Right Honourable George Granville, Lord Lans- 

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his return from a captivity in Spain, he went 
over to the old Pretender, who made him an 
earl in 1722/ and thenceforth he resided in 
Paris, where he died, and was buried in the 
church of St. Sulpice. In 1704 he had married 
Dorothy Molineux,^ the daughter of a rich Lon- 
don merchant, and after her death in 1722 mar- 

dowDc.*' AmoDg these pleasant verses we find an "Ode od the 
present corruption of mankind," which begins: 

"O Falkland I offspring of a gen'rous race, 
Renown'd, for arms and arts, in war and peace, 
My kinsman and my friend" . . . 

and, after rehearsing evidences of degeneracy in the poet's con- 
temporaries as compared with the men of Agincourt and Cressy, 
pauses to make an exception: 

'*when thou in arms wert seen 
Eager for glory in the embattled green. 
When Stanhope led thee thro' the heats of Spain 
To die in purple Almanara's plain." 

This was doubtless written under the stimulus of a report that 
Falkland had fallen in the fighting at Almenara in July, 1710 (see 
Fortescue, History of the British Army, i, 531), but he was in fact 
a prisoner. See his letter from Valladolid, February 11, 1710/11, 
to the Marquis of Ormonde, asking for aid in securing his de- 
liverance from captivity. (Historical MSS. Commission, Ormonde 
Papers, i, 64.) If "every schoolboy" has not read Lord Mahon's 
story of this campaign in the War of the Spanish Succession, he has 
undoubtedly read Macaulay's review of that spirited book and so 
appreciates how romantic was this Falkland's opportunity. It does 
not appear how Falkland was Lansdowne's kinsman: the relation 
probably dated back to the origins of both of them in Devonshire. 

^ See the list of the Jacobite peerages in G. £. C[okayne], Com- 
plete Peerage, i, 63. 

> Her father was Francis Molineux, according to Le Neve (Crisp, 
Fragmenta Genealogica, N.S. (1910), i, 124), "a Woolen Draper in 
St. Paul's Churchyard," but according to that extraordinary book, 
de Ruvigny's The Plantagenet Roll of Blood Royal (Mortimer- 
Percy volume, 1911), son of Sir Francis Molineux of Mansfield, 
Notts, and a descendant of Edward III. This blood line brought 
the modern Falklands their third infusion of Plantagenet. 

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ried, secondly, Laura Dillon,^ daughter of Gen- 
eral Arthur Dillon ( 1670-1733), one of the suc- 
cession of the family of Viscounts Dillon, who 
for a century commanded the Irish Jacobite 
regiment in the French service known as Dil- 
lon's. By his first wife the sixth Lord Falkland 
had several children, who, reared in England by 
their mother, gave their allegiance to the Prot- 
estant succession and the House of Hanover. 
The eldest son, Lucius CHARLES Gary (1705- 
1785), seventh Viscount Falkland, married, first, 
the rich widow of his cousin, the eldest son of 
the first Earl Grandison, and, second, the even 
richer widow Sarah Inwen, countess dowager of 
Suffolk.^ He had several children by his first 
wife: in his will* he provides for his daughters 
but makes no mention of his successors in the 
title, the sons of his deceased son. His brother. 
General George Gary* (i7o7?-i792), began 
the tradition of professional military service un- 

1 His daughter and only issue by this second marriage, Lucy 
Gary, married Lieutenant-General Comte de Rothe of the French 
army. She survived until 1804. 

«She died in 1776, leaving a will (P.C.C. Bellas, 265), which 
in its numerous large charitable bequests and other detailed dis- 
positions affords as characteristic a picture as one of Morland's 
prints, of the heavy, comfortable, and insular life of the well-to-do 
in England in the middle of the eighteenth century. 

» P.C.C. Ducarel, laS. 

^This General George Gary had a number of daughters (see 
H, & G., iii, 41), but it does not appear that he left any surviving 
male issue, or contracted any second marriage, as has been argued. 
See the genealogical discussion in the MS. Cary Papers in the li- 
brary of the Virginia Historical Society. 

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ift^ 



der the House of Hanover which has ever since 
been maintained by the family, and after a long 
career in all ranks attained the highest grade in 
the army list, being promoted general in 1782. 
He acquired a terre at Scutterskelfe* on the 
moorland of the Cleveland Hills in the North 
Riding of Yorkshire, looking northward over 
the valley of the Tees, which gave the family a 
foothold on the land for several generations. His 
daughter Elizabeth married in 1767 his col- 
league in the army. Sir Jeffrey Amherst (1717- 
1797), who completed Wolfe's work by the con- 
quest of Canada and played a large part in 
American colonial history, dying a field-marshal 
and Baron Amherst of Montreal.^ General 
Cary's nephew, the son of the seventh Lord Falk- 
land, was Colonel Lucius Ferdinand Cary 
(i735?-i78o), who followed his uncle into the 
army. The high tide of his career was the com- 
mand of the British garrison in the island of 
Tobago in the West Indies during the American 

^ Scutterskelf e appears in Domesday book as a soken under the 
name Codeschelf, (Victoria County History, Yorkshire, ii, aai.) 
It is not far from Yaim. In 1883 the estate included 301 1 acres, 
worth £4461 per annum. 

*One is apt to forget that Sir Jeffrey Amherst was governor- 
general of Virginia during the golden consulship of Colonel Fran- 
cis Fauquier as lieutenant-governor. Amherst was never in 
Virginia. There would doubtless have been prolonged festivity at 
Ceelsrs if he had brought over his Cary wife. What Amherst ac- 
complished in America in organizing victory for the British arms 
against the French on the ruins of the mistakes of his predecessors, 
Braddock and Loudoun, is eloquently appreciated by Fortescue, 
History of the British Army, ii, 40a. 

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i*^ 



Revolution, but he had a seat in the House of 
Commons, 1 774-1 780, as a burgess for Brid- 
port, Dorset. He married the daughter of a fel- 
low-officer, and, dying before his father,^ left 
two sons, both of whom succeeded to the family 
title, viz. : HENRY THOMAS Cary ( 1761 P-I796) , 
eighth Viscount Falkland, who inherited Scutter- 
skelfe from his great-uncle General George 
Cary, but after a brief career in the army died 
unmarried and was succeeded by his brother, 
Charles John Cary (1768-1809), ninth Vis- 
count Falkland, who began life in the army and 
later transferred to the navy, in which service he 
attained command rank. He was killed in a duel 
for no better reason than because he had in a 
public place addressed to his adversary a con- 
vivial remark coupled with his familiar name 
Pogey.^ He left three sons by his wife Chris- 

^ He died abroad and his estate was not administered until after 
his father's death. See P.C.C. Admon, Act Booh, 1785. 

* The fatal event of this affair, contrasted with its trivial cause, 
stirred public opinion even in a year when cabinet ministers re- 
sorted to the field of honor on questions of haute politique. See 
the comment on the Powell-Falkland duel in the London Times, 
March 2, 1809, and the Gentleman's Magazine, Ixxix, 273. 

It is an interesting fact that two of England's greatest poets have 
each pointed a moral by the violent death of a Lord Falkland. We 
have quoted Pope's invocation of the second viscount in the Essay 
on Man. In his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, Lord Byron, 
for a like purpose of social satire, refers to the fall of the ninth 
Lord Falkland: adding the following note on the verse: *'I knew 
the late Lord Falkland well. On Sunday night I beheld him pre- 
siding at his own table in all the honest pride of hospitality: on 
Wednesday morning at three o'clock I saw stretched before me all 
that remained of courage, feeling and a host of passions. He was 

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tiana Anthon.^ The eldest, Lucius Bentinck 
Gary (i 803-1 884), tenth Viscount Falkland, 
succeeded to Scutterskelfe, won his way to be a 
captain in the army and then becoming a 
courtier, assured his success in that career by 
marrying in 1830 Amelia Fitz Clarence,* the 
youngest of the many children of the sailor 
prince, William Henry, Duke of Clarence, by 
the celebrated actress Mrs. Jordan. His father- 
in-law being king (as William IV) at the time 
of the marriage, he was. May 15, 1832, created 
a peer of the United Kingdom, with a seat in the 

a gallant and successful officer: his faults were the faults of a 
sailor, as such Britons will forgive them. He died like a brave 
man in a better cause; for had he fallen in like manner on the 
deck of the frigate, to which he was just appointed, his last mo- 
ments would have been held up by his countrymen as an example 
to succeeding heroes." 

The young poet (he was then just of age) did himself honor by 
his generous conduct to his friend's family. He says in a letter to 
his mother (Moore, Byron, i, ia6) : "Poor Falkland . . . left with- 
out a shilling four children and his wife.'* Delicately, but substan- 
tially, Byron went at once to their relief at a time when he was 
himself strapped (Leslie Stephen, Byron, in Diet, Nat, Biog., iii, 
588), and, as godfather, gave his name to the youngest orphan, the 
grandfather of the present Lord Falkland, who also bears the poet's 
name. 

^This Lady Falkland survived until 1822. (See Gentleman's 
Magazine, xcii, 184.) She was probably of the same breeding as 
Dr. George Christian Anthon, of a German family established at 
Amsterdam and in the West Indies. After an interesting expe- 
rience as a surgeon in the British army at Detroit at the time of 
Pontiac's conspiracy (1763) he founded in New York the family of 
Anthon long distinguished in education, the church, and at the bar. 
(See Charles Edward Anthon, Narrative of the Settlement of 
George Christian Anthon in America, New York, 1872.) 

> Amelia, Viscountess Falkland, published in 1857 & pleasant 
book, Chow-chow— Journals kept in India, Egypt and Syria, 

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House of Lords, as Baron Hunsdon^ of Scutter- 
skelfe, CO. York. He was a lord of the bed- 
chamber 1830, lord in waiting 1 837-1 839, gov- 
ernor of Nova Scotia 1 840-1 846, captain of 
the yeomen of the guard 1 846-1848, and gover- 
nor of Bombay 1 848-1 853. His first wife died 
in 1858, when he married a dowager duchess 
of St. Albans. He had one son, who died in his 
lifetime, and was succeeded by his brother 
Plantagenet Pierrepont Gary (i 806-1 886), 
eleventh Viscount Falkland, an admiral in the 
navy, who died without issue. He inherited 
Scutterskelfe from his elder brother, but by his 
will directed it to be sold and the proceeds with 
the rest of his estate invested in trust for his 
nephew Byron Plantagenet Gary. The third 
brother was Byron Charles Ferdinand Plan- 
tagenet Gary (i 808-1 874), the poet Byron's 
godson, a captain in the navy, who left a son 
Byron Plantagenet Gary (1845-), who suc- 
ceeded his two uncles and sits in the House of 
Lords as a representative peer for Scotland.^ 

^This revival of the Elizabedian title of the extinct Hunsdon 
family, for one who revived also a relation with the royal family, 
lapsed on the death of the tenth Lord Falkland without surviving 
issue. 

>The first, second, fourth, and fifth Lords Falkland, though 
Scotch peers, sat in the House of Conmions: under the act of 
union of the English and Scotch crowns, temp, Anne, this ceased to 
be possible. The status of the present Lord Falkland in the House 
of Lords, like that of the present Lord Fairfax, without a drop of 
Scotch blood or a vestige of inherited association with Scotland, is 
an interesting commentary on the development of Parliamentary 
practice. 

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He. married an American, Mary, daughter of 
Robert Reade of New York. He has been an 
officer in the army but now lives in London (26, 
Upper Grosvenor Street, S.W.). He describes 
himself in Who's Who (1916) as "retired on a 
pension with honorary rank of Lieutenant Colo- 
nel. A small property in the City worth about 
£25,000: has no gallery but owns a few good 
pictures. Recreations: boating, fishing, shoot- 
ing: has no hobbies." His eldest son, LuciUS 
Plantagenet Cary (1880-), who wears the 
picturesque designation of Master of Falkland, 
served throughout the South African war as a 
subaltern of the Grenadier Guards, and was 
afterwards deputy governor of Wandsworth 
Prison. In the war against Germany he com- 
manded the King's Battalion of the Guards, and 
had the young Prince of Wales in his charge. 
A younger son of Lord Falkland then gave his 
life in the submarine service, a new form of an 
ancient family tradition; while a third is Cap- 
tain the Hon. PHILIP PLANTAGENET CARY, who 
has lately (1919) been gazetted "Blue Mantle" 
in the Heralds' College. 



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Part Three 
CARY OF BRISTOL 



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"In this place also are our merchants to be installed, at amongst 
the citizens (although they often change estate with gentlemen, as 
gentlemen doo with them, by a mutuall conversion of the one into 
the other) whose number is so increased in these our daies, that 
their onelie maintenance is the cause of the exceeding prices of the 
forreine wares, which otherwise when everie nation was permitted 
to bring in her owne commoditie, were far re better cheape and 
more plentifullie to be had. . . . And whereas in times past their 
cheefe trade was into Spaine, Portugall, France, Flanders, Danske, 
Norwaie, Scotland and Iseland onelie; now in these daies, as men 
not contented with these joumies, they have sought out the East 
and West Indies, and made now and then suspicious voiages not 
onelie unto the Canaries, and new Spaine, but likewise unto 
Cathaia, Moscouia, Tartaria, and the regions thereabout, from 
whence (as they sale) diey bring home great comnoodities.'' 

William Harrison, A Description of England, 1577. 

"The King [Henry VII] also, having care to make his realm 
potent, as well by sea as by land, for the better maintenance of 
the navy, ordained: *That wines and woads from the ports of 
Gascoign and Languedoc should not be brought, but in English 
bottoms,' bowing the ancient policy of this estate from considera- 
tion of plenty to consideration of power. For that almost all the 
ancient statutes incite by all means merchant-strangers to bring 
in all sorts of commodities; having for end cheapness, and not 
looking to the point of state concerning the naval power.'' 

Sir Francis Bacon, i6a2. 

"Neither should any of the ancient Gentry be so foolishly super- 
cilious as to under value the trading Part of the Nation, but to 
consider that in Reality Omnis Sanguis est concolor; and that the 
wisest and one of the greatest Men that ever lived thought it no 
Disparagement to deal in Trade: Solomon in all his Glory (like 
the Great Duke of Tuscany) accounting Traffick no Abatement to 
hit Majesty. Some also of the Kings of England have traded in 
the two grand Commodities of this land, Wool and Tin. Mr. 
Philipot is said to deserve highly of the City of London for prov- 
ing in a learned and ingenious Book, That Gentry doth not abate 
with Apprenticeship but only sleeps during the Time of the Inden- 
tures, and awaketh again when they are expired."— Ralph 
Thoresby, Ducatus Leodiensis (171 5), xii. 



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29 TjtWQ^tt . 



~ZT 



s- ^/ yy j<^ j^^ 



3 



BRISTOL IN 1568 



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«^0^<HHH^BBiiiiHiii^fl%Ht9HiiH0>Miiiii^iBB^i"^^ 



Chapter Seventeen 

THE MEERE MERCHANTS 
As English towns go, Bristol^ is not ancient. 

1 There it a long list of books on the history of Bristol. 
Of the sources available in print perhaps the most significant 
is Miss Toulmin Smith's edition of The Main of Bristowe 
is KaUndar, published by the Camden Society, 1872. This 
interesting chronicle was begun by Robert Ricart, town clerk, 
temp. Edward IV, and is still maintained. It is the book 
sometimes referred to as the Tolzey Book, because it was kept at 
the Tolzey or Comptoir, where the mayors of Bristol held their 
court The lists of early civic officers, compiled by Ricart and his 
continuators, have been checked, corrected, and amplified from the 
attestations of contemporary deeds, etc., by John Latimer (Bristol 
and Gloucester Archeological Society, Transactions, 1903, xxvi, 
108). We have now also a print (1900, edited by F. B. Bickley) of 
the oldest surviving municipal record, the Little Red Book of Bris- 
tol, a compilation of charters, franchises, etc., dating back to 1344. 
Of the authorities I have found three of value: first and foremost, 
Dr. William Hunt's Bristol (1886) in the Historic Towns series; 
then the Rev. Samuel Seyer's Memoir Historical and Topograph' 
ical of Bristol and its Neighbourhood (1821-23); and last, of an 
earlier period and altogether different character, Dr. William Bar- 
rett's History and Antiquities of the City of Bristol (1789). This 
last-named author was the physician who was gulled by Chatter- 
ton, so it may be imagined diat his book is not critical; but it is 
still worth study for tradition and atmosphere. 

There is a characteristically graphic sketch of Bristol before 1695 
in Macaulay (History, i, 312), and genre pictures of Bristol mer- 
chants and shipping in Pepys, Diary (for June 13, 1668) ; The 
Lives of the Norths (in 1680) ; Defoe, Tour Through the Whole 
Island of Great Britain (relating to 1692) ; Alexander Pope, Letters 

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df» i i >i iJLBMli i i< ^^ 

The earliest fact of its recorded history is a 
silver penny struck by one Aelfwerd "on Brie" 

(in 1739); Thackeray, The Virginians, chapter i; and Stevenson, 
Treasure Island, chapters vii-ix. 

The classical authority on the early foreign commerce of Eng- 
land, in which Bristol played so large a part, Adam Anderson's 
Historical and Chronological Deductions of the Origin of Com- 
merce (1764), followed by MacPherson (1805) and Craik (1844), 
has not been altogether superseded by W. Cunningham, Growth of 
English Industry and Commerce (sth ed. 1910-12). Craik*8 gen- 
eralizations (in a book now unduly neglected. Knight's Pictorial 
History of England) are especially illuminating. Charles Gross' 
The Gild Merchant (1890) is invaluable for an understanding of 
medieval municipal trade organization. John Latimer's Merchant 
Venturers of Bristol (1903) supplies the local conmiercial docu- 
ments still extant, but once more reveals the distressing lack of 
such material for Bristol before the seventeenth century. 

For the Carys in Bristol we have little individual coloring- 
matter: they no longer speak for themselves, except in their 
wills. The loss of all their papers may be due to the scat- 
tering of the family in the seventeenth century, but more likely 
is an incident of that destruction of ancient parchments in all 
the cloth-manufacturing districts by the use of them in hot 
presses, a practice which antiquarians have often lamented. (C/. 
Atkinson, Ralph Thoresby, 1887, ii, 6.) There is, however, an 
ample resource of thoroughly authenticated genealogical facts dating 
without interruption from 1537, and, in a fragmentary way, back to 
1 3 12: they are herein cited and may be consulted in detail in The 
Virginia Carys (1919). The MS genealogical sources are public 
records, the three pedigrees filed in the Heralds' College in support 
of the confirmation of arms of 1699, ^^^^ ^^^ wills at Somerset House, 
London, the Great Orphan Books at the Council House, Bristol (the 
latter calendared by £. A. Fry in British Record Society Index Li- 
brary, vol. xvii, 1897), and the several surviving parish registers 
of Bristol: all of which check, correct, and in both directions ex- 
tend, the pedigrees. There are transcripts of all of these docu- 
ments in fV, M. Cary Notes made from the original records in 1869, 
after the existence of the Heralds' College pedigrees had been 
brought to the attention of Captain Cary by Colonel J. L. Chester. 
In recent years Mr. Fitzgilbert Waters of Salem, Mass., discovered 
contemporary copies of two of the three Heralds' College pedigrees 
in the British Museum (Stovje MS,, 670), which he reproduced 
with many of the wills of the Bristol Carys in his Genealogical 
Gleanings in England (ii, 861, 1057, 1059). In 1876 Captain Cary 
saw in the possession of Mr. D. C. Cary-Elwes of South Bersted, 

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at the beginning of the eleventh century:^ it is 
recognized as a purely English town, owing 
nothing to Roman stimulus. The reason for the 
first hamlet of thatched houses out of which 
Bristol developed, like that of many another 
nucleus of human industry and habitation 
which has grown into a city, was a crossing of a 
river which was convenient as a place for trad- 
ers to meet: in this case the passage between the 
Saxon kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia at their 
boundary river Avon. This passage, when we 
first hear of it, had 'the distinction, almost if 
not actually unique in England, of being by 
means of a bridge; but the site had another ad- 
vantage for a town — it looked out upon the world 
from the head of deep-sea navigation of a tidal 
river, seven miles above its mouth. 

Bognor, co. Sussex, a pedigree of the Bristol Carys, which was 
apparently compiled from the same information and at about 
the same time as the Heralds' College pedigree, and there- 
after extended. This was probably the paper referred to in 
the will (P.C.C. Nevjcastle, 584) of Anne Gary, who, dying at 
Bristol in 1795 the last of her line, says: "I have received since 
my brother's death y« Genealogy of the Carys, beg Mr. Cad- 
rington will let any one of the family have them should they chuse 
them," and perhaps the source of the illuminated parchment pedi- 
gree which was originally in the possession of Wilson Gary of 
Ceelys in Virginia, if not of his father the second Miles Gary, and 
was in 1843 recalled by the elders of the children reared at Garys- 
brook, Fluvanna County, Virginia, to have been handled by them 
before the fire which destroyed it with Garysbrook House in 1826. 
1 Hunt, Bristol^ 3. The penny here cited is attributed to the reign 
of Ethelred II (the Unready) 979-1016. It may be noted that the 
British Museum Handbook of the Coins of Great Britain^ 1899, does 
not identify any coin struck at Bristol until late in the reign of 
Cnut (loi 6-1035). 

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The original stow, like the walled town into 
which it had developed by the thirteenth cen- 
tury, was at the bridge-head* on the Mercia (or 
Gloucester) bank of Avon, where a protected 
neck of land was formed by the confluence of the 
Frome with the Avon, but in time the settle- 
ment spread beyond both rivers and occupied 
some of the territory of both the adjoining 
shires of Gloucester and Somerset; so that when 
by reason of its natural advantages and the 
enterprise of its inhabitants the congeries of in- 
dustry thus formed was recognized as the chief 
seaport of western England, it was by Edward 
III erected into a county in its own right. Bris- 
tol was never a shire town, or the site of a great 
religious house, or an important military post:* 
from its origin it owed its importance entirely 
to trade. On the basis of this trade it long 

^ The oldest form of the name is Bricgstow, the stow (or fenced 
place) of the bridge. It was written Bristow for centuries before 
it assumed its present form of Bristol. **The fact," says Taylor 
(fFords and Places, a6o), "that ^vt shire and ten county towns 
take their names from fords, while Bristol is the only city whose 
name bears witness to the existence of a bridge, affords a curious 
testimony to the want of facilities of travel at the time when our 
local names originated. A river as large as the Severn had to be 
forded at Hereford, and we do not find a bridge before we come 
to Bridgenorth. The Thames had to be forded at Wallingford 
[e.g,, by William the Conqueror], Halliford, and Oxford, the Ouse 
at Bedford, and the Lea at Stratford. Cambridge, Bridgewater, 
and Redbridge cannot be reckoned among towns with bridges, since 
they are corruptions of earlier names, while at Tunbridge and 
Weybridge the streams are small." 

* The castle built at Bristol at the end of the eleventh century by 
Bishop Geoffrey de Coutances, and enlarged by Robert Fitz Roy, 
Earl of Gloucester, frequently brought the name upon the page of 

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i« >ii i<g M im jw i ^% . 



ranked as the second city in the kingdom, 
"aunciently reputed and called the Chamber of 
the Queenes of England, as London is called the 
Kinges Chamber," and conscious of its import- 
ance was, as Roger North testifies, "a proud 
body" : it was not until the use of steam coal had 
transferred the preponderance of commercial im- 
portance from the south to the north of England 
that Liverpool took its present place as a port. 

This foreign trade of Bristol had its origin in 
relations with the Northmen who had estab- 
lished themselves on the east coast of Ireland at 
Dublin and Waterford : from them it spread to 
their kinsmen in Scandinavia and for a time to 
Muscovy. When princes of southern France 
became kings of England, Bristol merchants 
traded throughout the Angevin empire: thence 
they extended their operations to Spain, to the 
Levant, and ultimately to the west coast of 
Africa. But the greatest opportunity of Bristol 
came, after the discovery and plantation of 
America, in relations with the colonies.* It was 

national history during the Norman and Angevin reigns, but it was 
as a prison for magnates and a school-house for Henry II rather 
than a fortress. 

1 "The discovery of America and thit of a passage to the East 
Indies by the Cape of Good Hope are the two greatest and most im- 
portant events recorded in the history of mankind . . . one of the 
principal effects of those discoveries has been to raise the mercan- 
tile system to a degree of splendour and glory which it could never 
otherwise have attained to. It is the object of that system to enrich 
a great nation rather by trade and manufactures than by the im- 
provement and cultivation of the country. But in consequence of 
those discoveries the commercial towns of Europe instead of being 

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in trade in West India sugar and Virginia 
tobacco, even more than in Irish wool, Iceland 
fish, Scandinavian naval stores, French and 
Spanish wines, oils and dyestuffs, Levantine cur- 
rants and figs, or even in slaves,* that the Bristol 
merchant achieved his place in the sun. 

This commerce came to be based largely on 
the export of rough woolen cloths, frieze, cog- 

the manufacturers and carriers for but a very small part of the 
world . . . have now become the manufacturers for the numerous 
and thriving cultivators of America." (Adam Smith, Thi fFealth 
of Nations, 1776, book iv, chap. 7.) 

^Bristol long practised and always hankered after the slave 
trade. Almost the earliest appearance of "vicus maritimus Brick- 
ston dictus" on the page of history was when in the reign of 
William the Conqueror S. Wulfstan thundered against her monm 
vetujtissimum of kidnapping English men and women for export to 
Ireland (William of Malmesbury, de vita S, Wistmn) ; and the 
canons of Laon who visited England in the time of Henry I report 
that they were congratulated on having escaped after going to 
trade aboard the ships in Bristol harbor. (Norgate, England under 
the Angevin Kings, i, 35.) In 1461 Bristol was importing Christian 
slaves purchased in the Mediterranean for what we should now 
call *'sweat shop" occupations. (Hunt, Bristol, 82.) As late as 
1685 Chief Justice Jeffreys ordered the Mayor of Bristol off the 
bench beside him and stood him, "accoutred with his scarlet and 
furs," in the prisoners' dock on a charge of shipping kidnapped 
children to the American plantations. (Lives of the Norths, ed. 
Jessop, i, 285.) At the beginning of the eighteenth century her 
American trade was regularly carried on by triangular voyages, ex- 
porting home products to AJFrica, there taking on a cargo of ne- 
groes, to be in turn traded in the American colonies and the West 
Indies against tobacco and sugar. John Gary, writing from ex- 
perience, said in 1695 (Essay on Trade) that this was "indeed the 
best traffic the Kingdom hath." Latimer (Merchant Venturers, 
178-186) gives some figures. In 1755 at the height of the business 
there were 237 merchants in Bristol engaged in it, at a profit of more 
than £500,000 per annum. About 74,000 negroes were then shipped 
annually from Africa. Bristol was much aggrieved when at the end 
of the eighteenth century Liverpool succeeded in wresting from her 
the primacy in this slave trade. (See Macaulay, History, i, 313.) 



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^ 



■■< aiWBByu>" »f|i > 



ware, "Bristol cotton," ^ and kersey stockings. 
These had been characteristic west-of-England 
household products from the twelfth century 
and had doubtless entered into Bristol's early 
trade with Ireland and Scandinavia, but it was 
only in the fourteenth century that the manufac- 
ture of cloth became, under the stimulation of 
Edward III,* a national industry in the sense 

^ English spinning of the vegetable fibre we now call cotton 
dates only from the sixteenth century, having spread from the 
Orient through Spain and Flanders. The fabric known as "Bristol 
cotton'' was a woolen imitation of the Flemish cotton cloth. 

It was not until after the third great emigration of Flemings to 
England, in Elizabeth's time, that English craftsmen became eman- 
cipated from economic dependence upon their more expert fellows 
in the Low Countries. Thus they had until then been compelled to 
ship their finer products abroad to be dyed. See the acute Observa- 
tions touching Trade and Commerce attributed to Sir Walter 
Raleigh. This heavy handicap to Norwich was felt less in Bristol 
because of the less exacting demands of its market. 

The parallel between the mutual dependence of English wool 
growers and Flemish weavers, on the one hand, and American cot- 
ton growers and English (or New England) spinners, on the other, 
has been often pointed out; but there is another parallel in the re- 
cent development of cotton manufacturing in the cotton-growing 
States of the United States. There the sole product for some time 
was a coarse cloth which could be jnarketed only in China, and 
when at last the finer goods were produced there was an interval 
during which they were shipped to New England to be finished and 
dyed. 

* Just as those Flemish weavers whom we meet in The Betrothed 
had followed William the Conqueror's Flemish wife to England, so 
it was Edward Ill's queen who may in some measure be credited 
with this later and stronger stimulus of an industry which has 
meant so much for English commerce. Old Fuller gives a pleasant 
turn to it: '*The King, having married Philippa, the daughter of 
the earl of Hainault, began now to grow sensible of the great gain 
the Netherlands got by our English wool, in memory whereof the 
duke of Burgundy, a century after, instituted the order of the 
Golden Fleece, wherein, indeed, the fleece was ours, but the gold 
theirs, so vast was their emolument by the trade of clothing. Our 

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tmmi/mmUiM^ ^ ^Ti > 



that justified Bishop Berkeley's description of it 
as "the basis of our wealth." In the capitalistic 
development which followed the Black Death 
and the consequent influx of the rural popula- 
tion into towns/ all England, earl and churl, 
churchman and tradesman, embarked in the 
woolen industry, directly or indirectly. For- 
tunes were made, families were founded, and 
the peerage recruited on it. 

Bristol was early an important seat of the 
manufacture, but the industry served that tradi- 
tionally commercial community in a more char- 
acteristic way: the ability to export cloth col- 
lected from all the West Country gave the 
needed assurance of the French and Mediter- 
ranean markets and the balance of trade upon 
which was founded the prosperity Bristol de- 
veloped under the Tudor kings. Those who 
controlled this trade at Bristol were naturally 
the governing municipal aristocracy. Imitat- 
ing their London colleagues who had shut them 
out of the profitable markets of the Low Coun- 
tries and Germany, they endeavored to main- 
tain a close and exclusive class monopoly of 
their own; but while they generally dominated 
the municipal government with this end in 

King, therefore, resolved if possible to reduce the trade to his own 
countrymen, who as yet were ignorant, as knowing no more what 
to do with their wool than the sheep that bore it/' 

1 See Alice Law, English nouveaux riches in the XIV century; 
Transactions Royal Historical Society, N.S. (1895), ix, 49. 



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view, they had constant competition from inter- 
lopers at home and abroad. It was, then, as 
much to protect their trade from poaching by 
their feliow-burgesses engaged in the crafts and 
the retail trades, as from Londoners, that they 
organized about the middle of the fifteenth cen- 
tury their Fellowship of Merchants, the gild 
which was reorganized in 1552 under a charter 
of Edward VI as "The Arte or Misterie of 
Marchaunt Venturers of the Citty of Bristoll."^ 
Most of the members of this gild were engaged 
exclusively in overseas trade, but some of them 
certainly confined themselves to a domestic 
trade, the inland collection, from the clothiers, 
of cloth intended for export: which is the dis- 
tinction between the "merchants" and the 
"drapers" among them.^ It is clear, in any 

^ThiB merchant gild, long charged with functions of local gov- 
ernment of commerce at Bristol and celebrated by Hakluyt for its 
enterprise, still exists after a turbulent career as a select club with 
large eleemosynary responsibilities. Unfortunately few of its rec- 
ords, prior to 1605, are extant. (Latimer, History of the Society 
of Merchant Venturers of Bristol, 1903.) 

2 Until the introduction of the factory system in the nineteenth 
century the processes of the manufacture and marketing of cloth 
were distributed among several successive and generally inde- 
pendent functions, which are distinguishable as early as the act 
4 £dw. IV, d. Beginning with the raw wool in the hands of 
the carders, the material passed on to spinners, weavers, fullers 
(or tuckers, as they were called in the west), and was finished as 
cloth by the sheremen and dyers: they in turn delivered it to 
the clothiers to be marketed. But this was not the first part which 
the clothiers had played in the process, for they were capitalists. 
They bought and collected the raw material, and financed several 
of the processes, sometimes under the single roof of a suppressed 
monastery, and so controlled the industry locally: they must, how- 
ever, be carefully distinguished from what we call manufacturers, 

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event, that the test of membership in the Mer- 
chant Venturers was wholesale as distinguished 
from retail trade, without limitation of market 
or commodity, and that is the true Bristol sig- 
nificance of their designation of themselves as 
"meere merchants." ^ 

There were Carys enrolled among these Bris- 
tol meere merchants from the early years of the 
fourteenth century, who maintained a tradition 

though they were their predecessors. The type of them was that 
"Jack of Newberry," the hero of chap books. But there was al- 
ready another and larger scale capitalist in the field, what we 
now call the commission merchant He financed the clothiers 
throughout an extensive territory and collected their wares, main- 
taining for that purpose his own inland agencies and carriers. De- 
foe supplies this interesting detail of competitive practice in his 
description of Bristol. In the popular imagination the type of 
these traders was Dick Whittington, or at Bristol William Ca- 
nynges. At London they belonged chiefly to the Drapers* Company, 
and by reason of its prestige the designation "draper," whatever 
had been its original significance or whatever it came to con- 
note, was in the sixteenth century the badge of a purely commer- 
cial, wholesale, and capitalistic occupation. See the chapter on 
the Woolen Industry in Sir William Ashley's English Economic 
History (1893), and the articles, full of curious interest, in Diet. 
Nat. Biog, on Richard Whittington, mercer of London (d. 1423), 
William Canynges, merchant of Bristol (d. 1474) > and John Winch- 
combe, clothier of Newberry (d. 1520). It will be observed that 
their lives overlapped. Their popular cults as good apprentices 
developing into model masters have in common that they rest on 
different forms of the cloth trade at a time when it dominated 
the imagination of the English people. 

^ Mr. Latimer {ibid., 222), doubtless voicing the current Bristol 
tradition, interprets this phrase which occurs so frequently in the 
commercial records as "merchants trading overseas," apparently 
reading meere = French mer. This is such a reasonable explana- 
tion that one might accept it without question except for the fact 
that the early documents printed by Mr. Latimer, and, indeed, 
the tenor of his whole book, materially modify it. The ordinances 
adopted by the Merchant Venturers in 161 8 (Latimer, 76) several 

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that they were sprung from Devon. At the end 
of the seventeenth century this tradition was 
formulated in a petition to the College of Arms, 
asserting that they were lineally descended 
from, and "time out of mind" had borne the 
arms of, the Devon Carys. In support of this 
claim they produced a written recognition by 
Edward Gary of Tor Abbey, the contemporary 
"Heir Male and Principal Branch of the Family 
of the Carys of Devonshire," who certified that 

times refer to "meerc merchants," but elsewhere to the qualifica- 
tion for membership that the candidate "shall bee borne meere 
Englishe, that is to saie, within the Kings maiesties Dominions." 
It is thus apparent that certainly in 1618 the Merchant Venturers 
understood "meerc" to be what we now spell "mere," in the 
derivative sense of pure or unmixed. The Oxford Dictionary 
cites many historical examples to that end. A "meere merchant" 
was one who was nothing but a merchant in the strict English 
sense of wholesaler. Mr. Latimer has shown that the history of 
the Merchant Venturers of Bristol was a continuous and vain 
struggle for a monopoly, not only against the competition of London, 
but the "interloping" in foreign trade by retailers at home— the class 
they denounced in 1571 (Latimer, p. 54) by enumeration of "the rich 
retailers, as the grocer, mercer, haberdasher, soapmaker, vintner." 
It was to protect themselves against the retailers that the Mer- 
chant Venturers limited their membership to wholesalers and pro- 
hibited their members from engaging in any craft: it was for 
the same reason that they secured their various royal monopo- 
listic charters. On the other hand it was the retailers who secured 
the prompt repeal in 1571 of the Merchant Venturers* single Par- 
liamentary charter and were thus enabled to continue their petty 
ventures well down into the eighteenth century. This is the point 
of Roger North's comment on Bristol in 1680 (The Lives of the 
Norths, ed. Jessop, i, 156) : "It is remarkable there that all men 
that are dealers, even in shop trades, launch into adventures by sea, 
chiefly to the West India plantations and Spain. A poor shop-keeper 
that sells candles will have a bale of stockings or a piece of stuff for 
Nevis or Virginia, &c., and rather than fail they trade in men." 

A Merchant Venturer was, then, a "meere merchant" because he 
was engaged only in wholesale trade. 

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he had "heard and do believe that the Carys of 
Bristol sprung some generations past from a 
younger Branch of the Carys of Devonshire," 
and with it a list of the municipal office-holders 
of their name in obvious, if not asserted, claim of 
relation with all of them also.^ 

The critical genealogical evidences for the 
Devon Carys do not preclude the credibility of 
this tradition. While it is not possible to estab- 
lish the identification,* there are several possible 
points of contact. As we have seen, there are ' 
surviving records of a number of Carys at the 
beginning of the fourteenth century who are 
ignored by the Visitation pedigrees, the earliest 
of which dates from, two centuries later and then 
is concerned only with the line of primogeniture 
through which the manor of Cary descended. 
They were all apparently landless men, making 
various careers (courtier, cleric, scholar, mer- 
chant) by their industry, but all taking positions 
of dignity which indicate a background. The 
strong probability is, then, that most of them 
were Devon cadets. 

The first of these Bristol Carys was one LAW- 
RENCE DE Cary, evidently a merchant who 

1 Heralds' College Book of Grants, iv. The full record of the 
proceeding is reproduced in The Virginia Carys, 

*The attempted identification {The Cary Family in England, 
Boston, 1906) of the first mayor with William Caryi^ of Ladford in 
Devon, a grandson of the Compostela pilgrim, must be ignored, for if 
ever there was any uncertainty as to what became of the Ladford 
line, it has been dispelled by Colonel Vivian. (See ante, p. 167.) 

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■^%b. 



traded salt fish for French wines. He appears 
for a moment upon the page of national history 
in 13 13 playing a part in an episode character- 
istic of the reign of Edward II. The modern 
authority on the history of the times, summariz- 
ing the lively contemporary chronicle attributed 
to a monk of Malmesbury, tells us^ that in 1313 : 

Fourteen Bristol magnates had long a preponderating in- 
fluence in the government of the town. The commons bit- 
terly resented their superiority and declared that every 
burgess should enjoy equal rights. A royal inquiry was 
ordered, but the judges, bribed, as was believed, by the four- 
teen, gave a decision which was unacceptable to the commons. 
Lord Badlesmere, warden of the castle, sided with the 
oligarchs, and thus the whole authority of the state was 
brought to bear against the popular party. But it was an 
easy matter to resist the government of Edward II. The 
commons took arms and a riot broke out in court. Twenty 
men were killed in the disturbances and the judges fled for 
their lives. Eighty burgesses were proved by inquest at 
Gloucester to have been the ringleaders. As they refused to 
appear to answer the charges, they were outlawed. Indigna- 
tion at Bristol then rose to such a height that the fourteen 
fled in their turn and for more than two years Bristol suc- 
ceeded in holding out against the royal mandate. At last in 
1 316 the town was regularly besieged by the earl of Pem- 
broke. The castle was not within the burgesses power, and 
its petrariae, breaking down the walls and houses of the 

iTout, Political History of England (1905), iii, 268. The Vita 
di Edward II, of which this is a paraphrase, is included in the 
Chronicles of Edward I and II edited by Bishop Stubbs for the 
Rolls Series, 1883. Dr. William Hunt's discussion of the incident 
(Bristol, 63-71) is illuminating. 

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jfii iii ^ iilltWBate^ 



borough, compelled the townsmen to surrender. A few of 
the chief rebels were punished, but a pardon was issued to 
the mass of the burgesses. 

Like his twentieth-century colleague, whom 
we have quoted, the fourteenth-century monk 
of Malmesbury is strongly sympathetic with the 
party among the Bristol citizens called, by Pro- 
fessor Tout, the "commons." It seems prob- 
able, however, that the turbulent burgesses who 
made the local trouble were deliberately incited 
by those barons who were at the moment engaged 
in making general trouble for Edward II's 
weak government; for these events fell out just 
after the murder of the favorite Gaveston, while 
the disaster at Bannockburn occurred in the 
midst of them. There can be little doubt, then, 
that the historical odium put upon "the four- 
teen" was that to be expected by a party which 
fell from power for supporting the constituted 
interest of the crown against a victorious fac- 
tion; certainly the history of Bristol during the 
succeeding generation, as Dr. Hunt points out, 
does not indicate any inherent local disincli- 
nation to oligarchy or aspiration to popular 
government. We can read this diagnosis be- 
tween the lines of the sober record of the pro- 
ceedings relating to this Bristol insurrection 
which is preserved in the Rolls of Parliament,^ 

^RoL Pari, (9 Edw. II), i, 359. One of the lawyers who here 
appears prosecuting the Bristol rebels was William de Herle, 
whose descendants intermarried with the Clovelly CsLvys. 

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. Jf^ I i i «Ha i iili1ffilia|liLJIM 



a record which yields also the details which 
bring the incident upon these pages. There it 
appears that "the fourteen," who had ruled 
Bristol and were now violently expelled, were 
William Randolf, John Snow, John atte Celer, 
Peter le Fraunceys, Lawrence de Gary, Robert 
de Otry, Reymond Fermbaud, John de London, 
Martin de Horncastel, William de Kaerdyf, 
William de Hanyngfeld, Richard de Camera, 
Stephen de Sarum, the miller, and John le 
Parker. Ricart's list of municipal magistrates 
at the time shows this Lawrence de Gary to have 
been one of the seneschals (or bailiffs) of Bris- 
tol in 1312-13,^ and a count in the indictment 
against the borough confirms this in the specifi- 
cation that among the "Ballos & Ministros Dni 
Regis'' who had been imprisoned by the rebels 
for more than seven weeks, or until they escaped 
and fled the town, was Lawrence de Kary and 
his servant John. The Parliament Roll shows 
that after "the fourteen" had fled, their wives 
and children, their apprentices and servants 

1 The town record known as The Main of Bristoive is Kalendar, 
which is sometimes referred to as the Tolzey Book, testifies that 
from Henry III to Henry VII the municipal magistrates were a 
mayor and two deputies or assistants who at all times performed 
substantially the same functions but were known progressively as 
Prepositi or provosts, Senescalles or stewards (translated also 
Senister and Seneschal), and Ballivi or bailiffs: all names taken 
from the time-honored rural organization of the manor. When the 
town became a county under the charter of Edward III, a Vice' 
comes or sheriff was added, and he eventually superseded the 
bailiffs. 

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were all expelled from Bristol: their goods and 
chattels and stocks of merchandise, wine, salt, 
and other commodities, were plundered; but it 
does not appear what became of them. After the 
rebels had surrendered the king required the 
city to send twelve burgesses up to Westminster 
formally to beseech pardon and pay the fine of 
4000 marks which was assessed upon them: 
among these twelve were two of "the fourteen," 
Randolf and Otry, and it may be assumed from 
this that the others also had returned to Bristol.^ 
Of the next generation one John de Castelcare 
is recorded by Ricart to have been bailiff of Bris- 
tol in 1350 and 1353, and in 1699 he is assumed 
by official Bristol opinion* to have been of the 
family of Lawrence. At a time of the greatest 
diversity in the spelling of names it is possible 
that they were of kin, but it seems more likely 
that this John might be traced to an origin in 
Somerset and that he had no relation to the 
Devon family to which we assume Lawrence be- 
longed. But it is probable in any event that 
Lawrence left issue and that they engaged in the 
manufacture of cloth. Lawrence de Gary's son 
would have been a contemporary of that Thomas 
Blanket whose name has survived as the repre- 
sentative of the Bristol burgesses who in 1339, 
against vigorous local opposition but under 

1 But see post, p. 522, the excursus on the Wycombe Carys. 

2 See the certificate of the chamberlain of Bristol of 1699 in The 
Virginia Carys, 

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i« ^i ilg M Bfc :^ifc—i %t ^ 



the king's protection, set up looms in their 
own houses and began to manufacture English 
wool with the aid of immigrant Flemish 
weavers/ Blanket's name, since a household 
word, was that of the woolen textile which he 
manufactured. In the same generation another 
such fabric was used in England under the name 
cary. There are several literary references to 
it, e.g., about 1394 in Piers Ploughman:^ 

His cote was of a cloute that cary y-called; 

and in the next century, according to the Oxford 
Dictionary, "a russet cloke lynd w* care aboute 
ye schuldyrs," and "thys lady was in care clad." 
It seems clear, then, that some of the fourteenth- 
century Carys were clothiers and gave their name 
to their product. This waif of evidence fur- 
nishes an instructive commentary on the vicissi- 
tudes of English families, for it thus appears 
that the Bristol Carys began where the Huns- 
dons ended, with a weaver. 

In any event the name reappears at Bristol at 
the end of the fourteenth century in the person 
of one William Cary, a pious, well-to-do, and 
charitable burgess, who died in 1395. He left a 
will,^ in which, after legacies to each order of 
mendicant friars of Bristol, to the sick poor in 

1 Rymcr, Fadera, ii, 1098. 

2 Crede, 422. 

» Wadlcy, Great Orphan Books of Bristol, i886, No. 84, p. 4^* 

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ibS^ 



the hospital of St. Bartholomew, clothing of 
Welsh russet for thirteen very needy poor people 
and a pair of shoes apiece to thirteen other poor,^ 
he leaves his estate to his infant son John ; and 
commits his custody and education to the son's 
godfather, Sir John Warwyk, rector of St. Wer- 
burgh, Bristol, for whom, in consideration of 
such pains, the executors are instructed to buy 
"a corrody [pension] in the Abbey of Keynsham, 
made secure to him under the seal both of the 
convent and abbey, so that he shall have no lack 
of proper victuals." 

There is no surviving record of Carys in Bris- 
tol during the succeeding century, perhaps be- 
cause they then sank, as we are able to see them 
doing again at the beginning of the seventeenth 
century, in the general commercial depression 
which bore heavy on Bristol in the middle of 
the fifteenth century,* but it appears reasonably 
certain tha,t the William who died in 1395 leav- 
ing a son John was the direct ancestor of the 
William and John who flourished at Bristol un- 
der Henry VIII. The William of 1395 may 

^This is the most elaborate disposition of charity in any of the 
Gary wills though they all uniformly make some such provision. 
Several of them provided for a sermon to be preached at the 
funeral and for the attendance of the "poor householders of 
Bristol/' Henry Hobson provided in his will forty shillings "to 
the company of Innholders of said city of Bristol 1 for attending at 
my burial." Macaulay says of Bristol (History i, 313), **Thc 
pomp of the christenings and burials far exceeded what was seen 
at any other place in England." 

2 Seycr, Bristol, ii, 144. 

CSooH 



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m ^ ^ ^ij ^ 



himself have been derived from Lawrence, but 
it seems more likely that he was an immediate 
bud from the Devon stock: it is indeed within 
the probabilities of the dates that he was one of 
the "numerous issue" of the Chief Baron ^ who 
are not named in the Visitation pedigrees. It 
is not unlikely that at that time a son of such a 
magnate as the Chief Baron might have been 
apprenticed to a merchant even in the days of 
his father's prosperity. In a land where, unlike 
the continent, no hedge has been built around a 
noblesse, where participation in commerce has 
ever been regarded with the practical vision of 
Aristotle and Cato rather than the finicking 
judgment of Plato and Cicero, that was long the 
practice of the English gentry in respect of at 
least one of the younger sons of a large family: 
it is only since snobbery was introduced into 
England with the Georges that it has ceased.^ 

When we pick up these Carys again in the 
middle of the sixteenth century with a merchant 
in the magistracy, a monk who was canon of 

1 Izacke, Memorials of Exeter, 71. 

» Sec Stow, Survey, cd. Strypc, 1720, v, 329, and the historical il- 
lustrations in that curious book variously attributed to John Phili- 
pot, Somerset herald under Charles I, Sir William Segar, Garter 
King-of-Arms in 1633, and the learned Edmund Bolton, entitled 
(in the second edition, 1675) "The Cities great Concern in this 
Case or Question of Honour and Arms, Whether apprenticeship ex- 
tinguisheth Gentry? Discoursed, with a clear refutation of the 
pernicious error that it doth." For the literary tradition cf, Aris- 
totle, Politics, iv (Bekker), chap. 6, and Cato, de Agricultura, i, 
with Plato, Laius, iv, 6, and Cicero, de Officiis, i, 42. 

nsoo 



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la^ 



St. Augustine's Abbey, and a sea-captain, they 
appear against a background of the cloth trade, 
and so they continued, styling themselves some- 
times "merchant" and sometimes "draper," until 
after the civil wars of the seventeenth century.* 
The first of them from whom we have uninter- 
rupted proof of descent is 

William Gary (i492?-i572), who was sher- 
iff in 1532, mayor in 1546,^ and died in 1572 at 
the age of about eighty, as we deduce from the 
known ages of his sons, having outlived those 
sons by two marriages and retired from trade. 

^ Following the mayor of 1546 there were six generations of 
Carys identified with the trade of Bristol, to Richard Cary, the 
Bristol merchant, who died in Virginia in 1730; but after the civil 
wars they ceased to be drapers: the fifth generation traded in Pen- 
insula wines, e.g., "Bristol milk,'' and the last two in West India 
sugar and Virginia tobacco. 

*The mayor's Kalendar (or Tolzey Book) of Bristol. 

From 1559 to 1567 "William Carre" represented Bristol in the 
House of Commons. (Barrett, History . , , of Bristol, 156, and 
Return of Members of Parliament^ XS79.) Considering the variety 
of spellings of the name at this time, we might be justified in claim- 
ing this service for our first Cary mayor. Dr. Barrett relates him, 
however, to that prosperous soap-boiler John Carr (also written 
Carre in the old records) who died in 1586, leaving his lands to 
the corporation of Bristol as a foundation for an orphanage which 
was afterwards established on the site of the dissolved religious 
house the "Gaunts" and is known as Queen Elizabeth's Hospital. 
(Sec Ricart's Kalendar, 62; Barrett, History , , , of Bristol, 352- 
376; Latimer, Annals of Bristol XVH Century, 9.) This John Carr 
(who bore the arms of Carr of York— see Burke, General Ar- 
moury) had a soap factory also at Bow near London, and to may 
have had his Origin not in Bristol but in the north of England, 
where the name Carr was as common as it was unprecedented in 
Bristol and Devon, and whence it spread to London. The names of 
"the fourteen" of 13 13 show from what widely separated places of 
origin the population of a trading town like Bristol was drawn, 
even in the middle ages. 

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THE GARY HOUSE ON BRISTOL BACK 



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i»^ 



By his will/ dated April 2, 1571, he describes 
himself as "William Carye, the Elder, dwelling 
upon the Backe in St. Nicholas Parish in ye city 
of Bristol." He was buried, as he had directed, 
in the "Crowd" (or crypt) of St. Nicholas' 
Church, March 28, 1572.^ The John Carye, 
canon of St. Augustine's when it was suppressed, 
and the Walter Carie, a mariner and burgess of 
Bristol, who had died August 21, 1561, were un- 
doubtedly his brothers.^ 

In the time of William Cary "the elder," 
when Bristol was just emerging from the mid- 
dle ages into the modern world, the physical as- 
pect of the town was much what it had been at 
the time of the Black Death ; and, indeed, much 
what it was down into the eighteenth century. 
It was still a dirty place, closely built up and 
densely crowded. The access to the original 
walled "stow" from the south was over the stone 
bridge which stood from the thirteenth century, 
when it replaced the wooden structure from 
which the town derived its name, until 1767. 
This bridge was lined with overhanging houses, 

1 P.C.C. Daper, 19. 

* St Nicholas' parish register. Reputed to hare been founded in 
1030 by that Saxon thegn Brihtric, who, to his ultimate ruin, flouted 
the young Countess Matilda of Flanders, three church buildings 
have stood over the still more ancient burying-ground now known 
as St. Nicholas' crowd, or crypt, where the Carys are buried. The 
present handsome structure dates from 1768, when the city walls 
and gate were removed. 

» For John see post; for Walter, F.C.C. Admon, Act Book, 1561. 



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i**U 



and in the sixteenth century doubtless was, as 
when Alexander Pope saw it in 1739/ "crowded 
with a strange mixture of seamen, women, chil- 
dren, loaded horses, asses and sledges, with goods 
dragging along all together without posts to 
separate them." From the bridge High Street 
passed under St. Nicholas' Gate, on which stood 
the chancel of St. Nicholas' Church, and thence 
up a steep hill to the "carfax" which was the 
centre of the town. But turning south from the 
gate and church "you come," continues Pope, 
"to a Key along the old wall with houses on both 
sides, and in the middle of the street, as far as 
you can see, hundreds of ships, their masts as 
thick as they can stand by one another, which is 
the oddest and most surprising sight imaginable. 
This street is fuller of them than the Thames 
from London Bridge to Deptford, and at certain 
time the water rises to carry them out, so that at 
other times a long street full of ships in the mid- 
dle and houses on both sides looks like a dream." 
This quay was, and still is, the Welsh Back,^ 
and here, close by the public warehouse for im- 
ported merchandise, Spicers' Hall (or Back 

1 As described in a letter to Mrs. Martha Blount (Pope, Works, 
Murray ed., ix, 320.) 

2 There were several "Backs/' or waterside streets, in Bristol, 
e,g,, Augustine's Back, Redcliff Back, St. James's Back, Hollow 
Back; but the oldest and most important of them, the Welsh Back, 
is usually styled simply "the Back." Thus as early as 1449 it is re- 
corded in Ricart's Kalendar that "this yere the Bakke of Bristowe 
was repay red, al the egis of it and of the slyppes, with free stone." 

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Hall, as it is still familiarly called), William 
Cary, and his great-grandson after him, lived in 
a house in which his grandfather had perhaps 
lived also. What this house was like within 
doors we can gather from a modern historian:* 

The richest merchants lived magnificently enough. Below 
their houses were vast cellars for merchandise, now built 
with groined stone roofs, on the ground floor a warehouse 
or two or more shops open to the street, and above a parlour 
and bedrooms, the whole being generally three stories hig^, 
besides attics in the sharply pitched gables. Behind stood a 
lofty hall, fit for a royal banquet, the walls often rich with 
hangings and the roof of carved timber and plaster adorned 
with designs. . . . The plate cupboard of a rich mer- 
chant must have been a fair ornament of his hall. 

This description seems to be of the house of Wil- 
liam Canynges in Redcliff Street at which Ed- 
ward IV had stopped, but as that was the show 
house of Bristol,^ should, of course, be materi- 
ally stepped down to fit the abode of the typical 
merchant. We must be here content to realize 
the f agade of the Cary house on the Back, which 
survived until the nineteenth century, and to 
read the language of the bequest of Sheriff 
Richard Cary "the younger," who inhabited it, 
to his wife in 1569,^ viz.: 

^Hunt, Bristol, io8. 

*Pryce, The Canynges Family (1854), 125. 

* Waters, Genealogical Gleanings in England, ii, 105a. 

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. . . three. hundred pounds and plate and household 
stuff, saving my counting chests containing my writings and 
my shops and shop books and debts. 

These testimonies will serve the fancy as a 
picture of how the Bristol Carys lived in the 
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, if the modern 
man, who may be dazzled by the high lights, 
will remember also that the house was practically 
bare of furniture, that there were probably not 
more than two beds for the whole family, that 
despite drafts there was little ventilation, that 
the floors were bare and damp except for straw 
mats, and that what we call the sanitary arrange- 
ments were unspeakable. 

Whatever may have been the case of the mer- 
chants' houses within doors, out of doors in Bris- 
tol there was little that was magnificent. 

The streets of the town were very narrow, for, as in the 
busier parts, the ground was honeycombed with cellars for 
storing wine, salt and other merchandise: no vehicle was 
allowed to be used in them. All goods were carried by por- 
ters or packhorses.^ . . . And thcs streets were still 
further narrowed by the hig^ built heads and projecting 
stalls of shops and by the entrances into cellars. The less 
important streets were little better than deep dark lanes. 

Defoe testifies, in 1692, that all heavy goods 

^ When Samuel Pepyi visited Bristol in 1668 he had to leave his 
coach in Redcliff and walk to the Sun tavern. "No carts," he says 
of the city, "it standing generally on vaults, only dog carts.*' 
(Diary, ed. Bright, viii, 330.) 

Macaulay (History, i, 312) says: "The richest inhabitants exhibi- 

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i^wlgWlifc^ w i ^^ 



were drawn on sledges, which the people called 
"gee-hoes," a practice which he says "kills a 
great multitude of horses, and the pavement is 
worn so smooth by them that in wet weather the 
streets are slippery." 

Such was the physical aspect of the town in 
which William Cary lived out his life, but its 
dirt and squalor and narrow streets could not 
bound the imagination of one who had the for- 
tune to be a boy in Bristol at the beginning of the 
sixteenth century, for he stood on the threshold 
of a new world. This William Gary's father be- 
longed to the middle ages. He must have been 
a lad in Bristol during the Wars of the Roses and 
have seen Sir Baldwin Fulford going to his death 
under the eyes of Edward IV and the cruel Duke 
Richard "Crookback," in the procession which 
survives in the Rowley ballad of the Bristowe 
Tragedy; again, the father must have seen his 
kinsman. Sir William Cary, ride into Bristol 
in the train of Queen Margaret a few days be- 
fore the tragedy of Tewkesbury. This William 
Cary fell himself upon a more stimulating if 
not a more exciting time. Born, as we conjec- 
ture, in 1492, the very year of the discovery of 
America, a subject of Henry VII, and living 
down well into the reign of Elizabeth, his earli- 

ted their wealth, not by riding in gilded carriages, but by walking 
the streets with trains of servants in rich liveries and by keeping 
tables loaded with good cheer.'' 

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est impressions must have been of that stirring 
year 1497, when, in the spring, the town was ar- 
rayed in arms to defy and keep out the Cornish 
rebels who were soon to be scattered at Black- 
heath. A few months later he saw John Cabot 
warp his ship into Bristol Back on his return, as 
he reported, from "the territory of the Grand 
Cham," having in fact discovered the continent 
of North America, with fateful consequences to 
the whole world, and especially to Bristol. 

It is difficult now to imagine the quickening 
of thought, the wider outlook, of an enterprising 
seafaring town like Bristol, which had built up 
a large trade in a small way, but now, in the news 
which Cabot brought to it, faced the dizzy possi- 
bilities of a boundless opportunity: for it proved 
a community capable of turning towards the set- 
ting sun with as resolute an intention as Venice 
had shown when first she faced the morning and 

held the golden east in fee.^ 

^ While the sixteenth-century Bristol merchants saw their oppor- 
tunity for new markets which the plantation of the English colonies 
in America and the West Indies would open to them, free from the 
servitude of the medieval monopolies which had limited their trade 
with the Netherlands and East Indies, and to that end were fore- 
most in promoting the voyages of discovery, their successors in the 
seventeenth century did not bear their due share of the patient con- 
structive work of colonization. They did, indeed, venture planta- 
tions in Newfoundland and at Pemaquid, but it was without 
determination, and in the event they were unsuccessful. The 
honors of the American colonial achievement, so far as British 
merchants may be credited with it, rest with London. The Bristol 
historians generally struggle with this disagreeable fact. We may 
perhaps see in that failure to maintain the reputation of their an- 



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^^ mummii^m^ . ^^ 

It must have been a dull boy indeed who could 
grow up in the midst of this excitement and not 
realize the romance of constructive commerce. 
He saw Sebastian Cabot's ships come up the nar- 
row gorge of the Avon from their long voyage 
to the bleak northern shores of Labrador, where, 
with imagination undaunted by ice, they had 
searched the way to Cipango, the land of spices, 
bringing as the first-fruits of their hope not 
spices but something highly odorous neverthe- 
less, three outlandish savages, who "were clothed 
in beasts' skins and ate raw flesh and were in 
their demeanor like brute beasts."^ He haunted 
the quay in front of his father's house, intoxi- 
cated by the heavy narcotic savor and bright 
colors of the barrels and bales with which it was 
piled : the cargoes, in which he was himself, in 
time, to trade, of sweet Andalusian wines, mus- 
cadei and bastard ; dyeing drugs from the Cana- 
ries; lustrous silks, gorgeous Turkish carpets, 
and spices from the Levant; sweet oils from 

cestors the beginning of the decay of Bristol as a port, an event 
which was postponed during the eighteenth century only by the 
commerce of mere exploitation— the trade in slaves and sugar. 
There were, of course, many emigrants from Bristol both in Vir- 
ginia and New England, but they apparently went out on their own 
responsibility and without organized support at home. 

1 See the documents for Cabot in Pollard, The Reign of Henry VII, 
ii, 329, ff. The Bristol mayor's Kalendar for 1497 records the array 
against the Cornish rebels, but makes no mention of Cabot's return, 
little appreciating the relative importance of the events. The first 
entry with respect to America in that record is nearly a century later, 
of the return in 1578 of Martin Frobisher from "Cataye" laden with 
a gold ore which proved "not worth the chardges." 

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iri0Mi9k^i^^B>^— iii-H^^ 



Sicily. He talked with the blackavised Italian 
sailors and coveted the gay handkerchiefs on 
their heads and the rings in their ears, while 
they told him wild stories of adventure and cap- 
tivity with Turks and Algerine pirates. 

When at last, after long service in his father's 
counting-house, William Cary was in business 
for himself, his quickened spirit and his wider 
opportunity led him to a prosperity and a place 
in the community greater than had been achieved 
by any of his forebears in Bristol. By the time he 
was forty he had been one of the municipal com- 
mon council and had served the office of sheriff 
of Bristol; fourteen years later he attained the 
highest dignity in the local magistracy and was 
chosen mayor, thenceforth to play his part 

In fair round belly, with good capon lined, 
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut, 
Full of wise saws and modern instances. 

Descriptions of the municipal ceremonies in 
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries enable us to 
get a glimpse of William Cary in his official dig- 
nity, clad in a red robe and fur cloak, and girt 
with a gold chain and the king's sword of office, 
and charged, says Ricart, with "the grete sub- 
stance of poletyk provision, wise and discrete 
guydinge and surveyeng of all officers and others, 
dcpendinge, concernynge the comunewelc of the 



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SWEARING IN THE MAYOR OF BRISTOL 
1479 



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hole body of this worshipfull Toune and the pre- 
cincte of the same." 

The municipal ceremonies of Bristol were marked by the 
same mixture of religion, stateliness and good cheer as the 
lives of the burgesses. At the election of the Mayor on 
September 15th, the Council, for the right was now vested 
in that body, met at the Guild Hall and there the outgoing 
Mayor exhorted all "with a pater nosier and an ave'* to 
pray for the guidance of the Holy Ghost. The new Mayor 
did not take office till Michaelmas day, to give him time ''to 
make his purveyance of his worshipful household." On that 
day "at the stynting of the common bell" the outgoing Mayor 
took leave of the Council in a set form, and the new Mayor 
took the oath and received the insignia of his office, the King's 
sword, the hat and seals. Then all brought the new Mayor 
home with trumpets and clarions, for the city kept its min- 
strels to play before the Mayor until 1835. After dining, 
part with the old and part with the new Mayor, the com- 
pany went to St. Michaels Church to offer: then met again 
at the new Mayor's house for cake-bread and wine, and so 
each man went home in time for even song. . . . The 
festival of the Boy Bishop, who was elected on St. Nicholas 
day, and who held office until Innocents day, was kept with 
much ceremony. On the day of his election, the Mayor, 
Sheriff and Council attended at St. Nicholas Church to hear 
the boy's sermon and receive his blessing. After dinner they 
met and played dice upon the Mayor's counter (probably a 
brass table in front of the Tolzey, the Sheriff's courthouse, 
like those that now stand before the Exchange), until the 
bishop and his "chapel" or boy choir came there to sing and 
the bishop to give his blessing: then the boys were served 
with bread and wine, all went to the bishop's at even song. 
. . . Grander than all the rest were the ceremonies of 
Corpus Christi day: for then there was feasting through all 



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the town, and a long procession in which the guilds exhibited 
their pagcnts. Every holiday, indeed, was kept with glad- 
ness and religious observance. Busy as the merchants were, 
they never grudged these days on which the Mayor and his 
brethren would go out duck shooting on the pond at Trecn- 
mill, or look on at wrestling and other sports.^ 

With the other vital changes of the new world 
in which he lived, William Gary faced that 
of religion. He had grown up a good Catholic : 
we are justified in assuming that the John Carye 
who was a monk and canon of St. Augustine's 
Abbey at its dissolution was his brother.* But 
the new influences of the Reformation, the 
breaking down of authority, and the substitu- 
.tion of personal faith, were at work all during 
his life, making their contribution to the develop- 
ment of that individualism which was for cen- 
turies to be the characteristic of the Englishman 
in economic as well as religious development* 

While these Carys were still young men, Hugh 
Latimer preached in Bristol and made a great 

1 Hunt, Bristol, io8. 

2 St Augustine's surrendered to Henry VIII on December 9, 1539. 
One of the two canons, who were then allowed a pension of £6 13/ 
^d each, was John Carye. Letters and Papers of Henry Fill, iv, 
660; V, 103a (183b). 

^The growth of state socialism all over the world in our own 
day under the stress of war is not the less interesting historically 
because it involves in some vital respects a reversion to the intellec- 
tual conditions of the middle ages; to the time when authority had 
not yet been superseded by individualism. The man of the middle 
of the twentieth century is destined to find more texts for his serious 
thoughts in Dante than in Shakespeare or St. Paul. 



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^^ 



stir with appeal from spiritual emotion to com- 
mon sense, leading to the novel doctrine that it 
was of no avail to worship saints or to go on pil- 
grimages. For little stronger opinions George 
Wishart did penance for heresy by bearing a 
faggot in their own parish church of St. Nicho- 
las; but before William Gary was mayor Eng- 
land had defied Rome and the "good old times" 
were gcfne. The very monasteries, which were 
the outward and visible sign of Rome and had 
played a large part in Bristol's medieval life, 
were uprooted, and his own monkish brother 
was deprived of his prebend. In 1542 the 
church of the dissolved abbey of St. Augustine 
was converted into the cathedral of a new dio- 
cese, and, to support the new dignity as the seat 
of an episcopal see, Bristol was raised to the rank 
of a city: it was then that the ornaments of the 
churches, which were Bristol's eminent decora- 
tion, were defaced, the altars pulled down, the 
wall paintings wiped out with whitewash, and 
such church plate and other treasures as could 
be put to other use ruthlessly confiscated. This 
must have distressed all those who had grown up 
in the town and had a sentimental interest in her 
monuments; perhaps they were somewhat as- 
suaged by the new importance of their being a 
city, and individuals undoubtedly had other and 
more substantial douceurs. We know that some 
of the Bristol merchants whose predecessors had 



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■ ii lfcjgHMBmiu#ii i ^»k . 



originally endowed the church were permitted 
to share in the spoils : perhaps William Gary had 
his bit, like his kinsmen at court; certainly we 
find him taking part in the movement as early as 
1537/ and if we may judge from the religious 
expressions in his will, he was no papist at the 
end of his life. 

William Gary "the elder" had married twice, 
but we do not know the name of either of his 
wives : they were both dead and gone when he 
came to make his will. He had had three sons 
and two daughters.* The eldest and youngest 
sons, by different mothers, both named Richard, 
were in turn distinguished^ as "the elder" and 
"the younger." Richard "the younger," the son 
of his father's second marriage, describes him- 
self in his will* as "draper" and as dwelling 
"upon the Back, in St. Nicholas' Parish," and 
provides an annuity out of his estate for his 
father in consideration of previous advance- 
ments : so it appears that he continued to reside in 
the paternal house and to carry on the paternal 
business after his father's retirement. He suc- 

^ He was one of the commission which then reported to the privy 
council on the preaching at Bristol. His name appears Kary in the 
body of the document, but he signs it Care, (Letters and Papers of 
Henry Fill, xii, 1147. See also Hunt, Bristol, 116.) 

*The surviving parish register of St. Nicholas' Church does not 
begin until the next generation, but the children of William Gary 
are all identified from the wills. 

« In their wills. 

^It is dated August 8, 1569, and proved September 17 of the 
same year. (P.C.C. Sheffield, 20.) 

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jff^ 1— lij^^gi 



ceeded also to the municipal tradition and died 
while serving the office of sheriff.^ He was 
buried in St. Nicholas' Church, August ii, 
1569.* 

The second son, William, had meanwhile 
gone up to London and there established himself 
as a "citizen and clothworker." • This emigra- 
tion was doubtless in the interest of the family 
as a whole rather than a mere swarming of the 
hive. For more than a century past the London 
merchants had been secured in a monopoly of the 
export of wool and English drapery to the Low 
Countries, despite the protest of the West Coun- 
try merchants, and exports for those markets 
were required to be shipped via Blackwell Hall 
in London. It was then clearly important to 
such a family as the Carys to have one of their 
number enrolled among the Merchant Adven- 
turers of London.* We may conjecture that it 

1 See Latimer's correction of the list in the Mayors Kalendar, 
Transactions Bristol and Gloucester Archeological Society, xxvi, 
108. 

2 Parish register. 

^So he describes himself in his will dated March 2, 1572, and 
proved March 13, 1572. (P.C.C. Petre, 9.) For the genealogical 
evidence as to him and his family see Thi Firginia Carys^ 

^ For the monopoly of the Merchant Adventurers of London since 
the time of Henry IV and the unavailing protests against it from 
Bristol, see the act of 1497 (12 Henry VII, c. 6) and the discussion 
in Knight's Pictorial History of England^ book vi, ch. 4; Cunning- 
ham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, ii, 244. Exeter 
had a similar monopoly for France but exercised it in close relation 
with London. It was this situation which concentrated Bristol's 
trade on Spain. 



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jf9 I I fcgilBBiijLJM ^^ 

was in the capacity of family export agent to an 
otherwise inaccessible market that this William 
left home, as we find him remaining in close 
touch with his kindred and serving as executor 
under the wills of both his brothers. 

It was through his eldest son that the first 
mayor's line was carried on. RICHARD Cary 
"the elder" (151 5-1 570) described himself in 
his wilP as "merchant." He married about 1541 
his first wife Anne, of whose surname no record 
survives, and in 1562 a second, Joan Hoi ton, 
sister of Robert Holton, chamberlain of Bristol. 
He died before his father and was buried in St 
Nicholas' Church, June 17, 1570.^ There is no 
record of his having been of the magistracy. 

Among this Richard's children by his second 
wife was his daughter Anne, baptized in 1564, 
and mentioned in her father's will. She married 
Nicholas Ball of Totnes in Devon, a merchant 
who "grewe to a greate quantity of wealth in a 
short space, especially by trading for pilchers,"* 
and after serving as mayor of his town died 
leaving Anne Cary, at twenty-two, a "warm" 
widow with several children.* She was imme- 

1 It is dated June ii, 1570, and proved in London November 3, 
157a (P.C.C. Lyon, 31.) See also Bristol, Great Orphan Books 
(ed. Wadley, 1876), p. 245. 

> St. Nicholas* parish register. 

3 John Manningham, Diary, 1602-03 (ed. Bruce for Camden So- 
ciety, 1868), p. 129. 

^ Her youngest daughter, Elizabeth Ball (1585-1659), m. 1603 
Ralph V/inwood (1563-1617), who, like Bodley, was then in the 

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diately the quest of suitors. The successful 
swain was the son of an Exeter merchant who 
was soon to be employed in diplomatic service 
by Queen Elizabeth, and as Sir Thomas Bodley 
ultimately founded the public library at Oxford 
which still bears his name. Of his wooing, a 
contemporary anecdote survives: 

Mr. Bodely, the author, promoter, the perfecter of a 
goodly library at Oxford, wan a rich widdowe by this meanes. 
Coming to the place where the widdowe was with one whoe 
is reputed to have bin sure of hir, as occasion happened the 
widdowe was absent. While he was in game, he, finding 
the opportunity, entreated the surmised assured gent to hold 
his cards till he returned ; in which tyme he found the wid- 
dowe in a garden, courted and obteined his desyre: so he 
played his game, while an other held his cards.* 

Thomas Bodley married Anne Gary at Totnes 
on July 19, 1586. She died as Lady Bodley in 
161 1, and is buried in the church of St. Bartholo- 
mew the Less in London.^ 

diplomatic service, but ended his life as secretary of state and 
leader of the House of Commons. Anne Gary's Winwood grand- 
daughter, another Anne, m. 1633 Edward Montagu, second Baron 
Montagu of Boughton, and was the mother of that Ralph Montagu 
who was created Duke of Montagu in 1705. See Did. Nat, Biog, 
(reissue ed.), xxi, 707; xiii, 673, 710. 

^ Manningham, ua,, p. 63. 

2 Sir Thomas Bodley does not mention his wife by name in his 
autobiography, but her genealogical identification was established 
by Colonel Vivian from the Totnes parish register and HarL MS, 
1538, fol. 281. (See Vivian, Visitations of Devon, p. 96; Troup, 
The Pedigree of Sir Thomas Bodley; Transactions of the Devon 
Association, xxxv, 713; and The Virginia Carys, 17.) Anthony i 
Wood (Athenae Oxon., ii, 124) records that Lady Bodley was 



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ii ltoiJgaMiHit#in ^»k . 



The youngest son of Richard "the elder/' 
Christopher^ Gary (1568-1626), was, like his 
father, a "merchant." He married Lettice 
Young, dwelt on the "Key of Bristol," was 
sheriff in 161 2, warden of the Merchant Ven- 
turers in 1 613, and died in 1626.* 

The eldest surviving son, WiLLlAM Cary 
(1550-1633), destined to be the second mayor of 
Bristol of his name, was baptized in St. 
Nicholas' October 2, 1550, and married Alice 
Goodal January 7, 1575. He styled himself 
"draper" like his uncle Richard "the younger," 
and undoubtedly succeeded to his business in the 
first mayor's house "on the Back" : that it was a 
wholesale business we have evidence not only in 
his membership in the Merchant Venturers,* but 

"Anne, the daughter of . . . Carew of the City of Bristol (the rich 
widow, as I have heard, of one Ball)/' and this confusion of the 
name is adopted by Macray in Diet, Nat. Biog, (reissue ed.)> ii> 
757. Edmund Lodge, who apparently knew something of Bristol 
names, in quoting Wood (Portraits, iv, No. 66) changes the spell- 
ing from Carevf to Carey. The monument Bodley erected to his 
wife in St. Bartholomew the Less is described in Malcolm's Lon^ 
dimum Ridivivum. 

1 This name Christopher was evidently derived from the family 
friend, "Christopher Pacye, preacher," who was a witness to the 
will of William Cary the elder, and is named also in the will of 
Richard Cary the younger, and cannot, therefore, be related to the 
contemporary Christopher Caryj, the "gentleman" of Shipdonlee, 
CO. Budcs, or the Balliol physician, both of whom we have credited 
(see posty p. 522) to the Wycombe Carys. 

>His will is dated October 30, 1615, and was proved May 31, 
1626. (P.C.C. Heli, 60.) For his descendants in Bristol and Lon- 
don see post^ pp. 543, 685. 

» Latimer, Merchant Venturers, 64. This William is the first of the 
Carsrs to appear in the surviving records which begin only in 1605. 

1:518:1 



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when in 1586 the mercer Roger Shipman refers 
in his wilP to the expected profit "uppon my 
parte of the Twenty Tonnes of Oile wch. is be- 
tweene my Gossippe Willm Carie and me." In 
1598 he served the office of sheriff and in 161 1 
was elected mayor.^ 

He just missed by a year being inoflScewhen in 
1613 Bristol had the honor of entertaining James 
Fs queen, Anne of Denmark. From the space 
given to the ceremonies, the pageants, and the 
fetes in the city annals, this would seem to have 
been the most important municipal event -since 
the visit of Queen Elizabeth in 1574.* On the 
occasion of Queen Anne's visit in 1613, William 
Gary doubtless met and entertained the third 
Lord Hunsdon, who seems to have been then in 
attendance upon the queen. The most interest- 
ing event of his own magistracy was the estab- 
lishment by a Bristol merchant, John Guy, him- 
self to be a later mayor, of a plantation of Bris- 
tol men in Newfoundland as a base from which 
to carry on a fishery. The city annals record that 
the mayor and many of the leading citizens sup- 
ported the expedition warmly, but the project 
being one of commercial interest primarily to 
those merchants who had long been engaged in 
the Iceland fisheries, we do not find any of the 

^Wadley, Great Orphan Books, No. 393, p. 242. 

2 The mayor's Kalendar or Tolzey Book, 

3 Nicholls, Progresses of James L 

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cloth merchants enrolled among the patentees of 
this "ancient, primitive and heroical work" ; for, 
as Bacon says, merchants "look ever to present 
gain." ^ 

After his term as mayor he was alderman for 
his ward, but judged by his will and such other 
evidence as we have for him, he then initiated a 
decline in the family fortunes. He must have 
suffered some severe loss from which he never 
recovered, doubtless the loss of a ship. Under 
the peace-at-any-price policy of James I piracy 
had become again the scourge of English com- 
merce; and it is recorded that twenty-nine 
Bristol ships were "taken by the Turks" between 
1607 and 1 617, some of them even in Bristol 
Channel. Bristol merchants were in difficulty at 
this time for other reasons also. There is in 
existence a jeremiad which they addressed to the 
privy council in 1595 complaining of the unfair 
competitive practices of the London merchants 
in their regard and of their own decrepitude in 
consequence.^ 

William Gary lived to experience also the 

1 Barrett, History . . . of Bristol, 688; Hunt, Bristol, 137. The 
patent to "the Treasurer and Company of Adventurers and Planters 
of the Citie of London and Bristoll for the Colony or Plantation in 
New Found Land" was dated April 27, 1610. (Purchas his Pil- 
grimes, 1625 ed., iv, 1876.) Among them appears Sir Lawrence 
Tanfield, the father-in-law of the first Lord Falkland, and Sir 
Francis Bacon. One might wish that William Gary had "adven- 
tured" in such company and so identified himself with the earliest 
English settlement in America. 

2 Latimer, Merchant Venturers^ 60, 127. 

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blind domestic tyranny and futile foreign policy 
of Charles I, when the French and Spanish 
commerce of Bristol was interrupted and those 
markets often closed, when even the arrogant 
London merchants were in straits; one of them 
told the privy council in 1628 that as a class 
they were worse "screwed and wrung" than their 
correspondents in Turkey. In his misfortune 
William Gary evidently held the esteem of his 
fellows, for at the end of his life we find him 
exercising by their election the function of 
keeper of Spicers* Hall (called from its location 
the Back Hall), where, from the middle of the 
fifteenth century, under the ordinances of the 
Merchant Venturers, all foreign merchandise 
brought to Bristol by any one not of their 
society had to be stored and offered for sale. In 
this situation he was distinguished by a domestic 
achievement which was considered of sufiScient 
importance to record, with some exaggeration, 
for the edification of posterity. In his MS. 
material for the history of Bristol, Mr. Alder- 
man Haythorne says : ^ 

This Mayor was afterwards Keeper of the Back Hall: 
in which time his wife, an ancient woman, died: and four 
score years old or more he married his servant, by whom he 
had a son, having then sons living that were nearly three 
score years old. 

1 Quoted in John Evans, Chronological Outline of the History of 
Bristol, 1824. 

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He was buried^ beside his father and his 
grandfather in the "crowd" of St. Nicholas' 
Church ten years before the civil war scattered 
his seed beyond the sea. By his first wife, who 
survived until 1623, he had had seven sons and 
two daughters; the second marriage was ac- 
tually at the age of seventy-four.^ 

The prolongation of this William Gary's life, 
practically to the end of the generation of his 
sons, brings him to the end of an era, not only 
in the history of England and of Bristol, but, in 
consequence of the political and social disturb- 
ances of the civil war, of his family as well. 
With his death Gary of Bristol ceased to be 
characteristically a cloth merchant. 

THE WYCOMBE CARYS 

An excursus by way of elimination 
The surviving records of the ancient and picturesque "chep- 
ing** or market town of Wycombe, amidst the beech forests 
of the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire, show a family of 
Carys there established as early as 8 Henry V (1421), and 
thenceforth for at least two centuries. They were engaged 
in the cloth trade and made four contributions to the local 
magistracy, viz.: Richard Cary, bailiif 1449; Richard Cary, 

1 St. Nicholas' parish register, March i, 1633. His will (in Bris- 
tol Great Orphan Books, iii, 311) is dated the same day on which 
he is recorded to have been buried and was proved June 15, 1633: 
in it, like his grandfather, having a son of the same name, he 
styles himself "the elder." 

2 The children were all baptized at St. Nicholas', viz.: William 
1576, Richard 1579, John 1583, Walter 1588, Robert 1589, Ann 1591, 
Susan 1593, Thomas 1596, James 1600. Henry, the son by the 
second marriage, was baptized November 20, 1625. 

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mayor at intervals, 1 477-1 493; Richard Cary, mayor 1547; 
and Edward Cary, mayor 1552. These Carys had the vision 
to take advantage of their proximity to Oxford, and steadily 
pursued that opportunity for education. In consequence they 
spread from Wycombe to London not only as merchants but 
as barristers and physicians, and, by means of their marriages, 
to adjoining counties as squires and clergymen. The family 
finally became extinct in the eighteenth century.^ As early 
as 1 55 1 one of them styles himself "gentleman" in his will, 
and by the seventeenth century they were displaying the arms 
of Cary of Devon. They did not, however, take the precau- 
tion to pay the Heralds' College fees, as did the Bristol 
Carys, so that their claim of arms aroused the wrath of the 
heralds who conducted the Visitation of Buckinghamshire in 
1634; one of them was then denounced^ as "No gent, nor 
hath any right to bear arms, which he usurpeth." Never- 
theless they continued to describe themselves as "armiger" 
in their wills and to display the Devon arms on their tombs 
down to their extinction.^ Perhaps they held with old 
Fuller that "Cloathing as it hath given Garments to Mil- 

^ Mr. John Gough Nichols constructed a partial pedigree for this 
family from the end of the sixteenth century onward. {H,.& G., vi, 
3a) The disconnected evidence for their earlier generations may 
be found in the ancient Wycombe archives (Historical MSS. Com- 
mission Report, V, 556), the will of Edward Cary, 1475 (Parker, 
History and Antiquities of Wycombe, 1878, p. 134) ; of Christopher 
Carye and his widow Anne, 1 551-4 (P.C.C. Bucke, 31; and More, 
18) ; of Rowland Care, 1552 (P.C.C. Powell, 8) ; and of Richard 
Carey, 1586 (P.C.C. Windsor, 51); the administration of the estate 
of Nicholas Carewe, "citizen and clothworker" of London, first by 
his brother Rowland Carewe and later by his own son, another 
Nicholas (P.C.C. Admon. Act Book, 1564, 1594), and Foster's 
Alumni Oxon., s,v. Christopher Carie of Balliol, 1 553-1664, and 
Walter Cary of Magdalen, 1560-1571. Cf. also H, & G,, iv, 388, 
and Lipscomb, History of Bucks, i, 436. 

^Harl. MS. 1533, fol. 195. 

^ Cf, Cussans, Hertfordshire, iii, 19, and Lysons, Environs of 
London, iii, 29. 

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lions of People hath also Coats of Arms (and Gentility there- 
with) to many Families in this Land." At all events the 
right of the Wycombe Carys to the Devon arms was never 
proved, nor has the origin of the family been established. 
Their history, closely parallel to that of the Bristol Carys, 
strongly suggests, of course, that they might have been de- 
rived from Bristol early in the fourteenth century, an hy- 
pothesis which would carry with it a tradition of a Devon 
origin and Devon arms, and serve to explain what became 
of Lawrence de Cary and his family after their expukion 
from Bristol in 131 3. Neat as this would be, there is ab- 
solutely no evidence to bear it out. On the other hand, 
there is evidence which tends to carry the Wycombe Carys 
back to the time of Edward I, or before the Bristol Carys 
appear at all, and under circumstances which suggest an origin 
entirely independent of Bristol and Devon. We have noted 
the occurrence of unrelated Carrs and Carys throughout the 
northern and eastern counties of England in medieval as well 
as modern records. They all appear within the limits of the 
Dane law.^ The author of the Life of William Carey, the 
Indian missionary, argues convincingly that they were of 
Danish descent and derived their name from the Norse 
Caroe, which is still common in Denmark. The place the 
Hunsdons and Falklands took in the world might readily 
enough have induced, and probably has induced, the imita- 
tion of their spellings of the name and even the usurpation 

^ Thus there was a family at Great Yarmouth in Norfolk among 
whom we have noted William Carre, a mariner, in 1495 (Paston 
Letters, ed. Gairdner, iii, 388) ; William Cary, hosier, in 1664 
(P.C.C. Hyde^ 13) ; and John Cary, mayor of Lynn 1740-1765 
(Blomefield, Norfolk). 

Again, there were two families in Suffolk who prospered in the 
seventeenth century and used the Devon arms but have not yet 
been identified. It is clear, however, that they had no connec- 
tion' with the Long Melf ord family. One of them begins with Alan 
(or Allen) Cary, who died, 1591, a shipwright of Woodbridge, 
Suffolk, and ends with his grandson William Cary "of Halesworth 

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of their anns in modern times; but there were Carys, pure 
and simple, within the Dane law long before the Hunsdons 
and Falklands were heard of. We take this to be such an 
entirely spontaneous and independent formulation of the 
name, though from a different root, as occurred in Devon, 
Somerset, and elsewhere where it was influenced by Celtic 
place names. So when we find that the Crutched Friars in- 
habited a house near Broadgate Hall at Oxford, called 
Granspount, which had been given them by Richard Gary, 
mayor of the borough, in the reign of Howard I,^ and that 
the name of the benefactor does not carry the particle "dc," 
as is the invariable test of the Devon family at that time, we 
are persuaded that this Richard derived his blood from with- 
in the Dane law; and we conjecture that he was the ancestor 
of the Wycombe Carys. While the evidence for this last 
assumption is slender, there is at least a chain. In 1339 
there was what must have been another Richard Gary sitting 
as an alderman on the bench of the Oxford hustings^ who 
may well have been a son of the Richard of Edward I. He 
was, of course, a merchant, as his father had been before him, 
and probably a wool merchant, for Oxford was in their days 
an important primary market for wool.' But it was about 
the time of this second Richard that the university began to 
encroach upon the town of Oxford, and bitter rivalry was 

in com. Suffolk, gent," 1 633-1 686, who founded an almshouse and 
records a pedigree in the Visitation of Suffolk of 1664. (See HarL 
MS. 1085, fol. 28; P.C.C. Admon, Act Book, 1591; Ruthven, 364; 
Lloyd, 137.) A branch of this family were lawyers in London 
(P.CC. Scroope, 86, and Berkley, 30). The other family was that 
of Philip Gary "of Huntingfield, co. Suffolk, gentleman,'' who died 
in 1635 (P.CC. Hele, 36), followed by his eldest son John in 1638 
(P.CC. Lee, 60). 

1 Gentleman's Magazine, 1765, pp. 73-75. 

> Historical MSS. Commission Report, iv, 447. 

* Boise, Oxford, in Historic Towns series, 36. A gild of Oxford 
weavers appears as early as 1130 in Henry Fs sole surviving Pipe 
Roll. 

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engendered. At the feast of St. Scholastica, 1354, there was 
k bloody town and gown row, when the town "held the place 
of slaughter," as a consequence of which Edward III trans- 
ferred from the town to the university several of the local 
governing functions.^ This was the turning-point in the 
process which J. R. Green has described in a graphic-phrase, 
"the University found Oxford a busy, prosperous borough, 
and reduced it to a cluster of lodging houses." We find 
that about this time also the nearby borough of Wycombe, a 
"carfax" on the main highway leading from the north through 
Oxford to London, began to develop in importance as a wool 
market and cloth manufactory.^ It is persuasive that the 
decay of business at Oxford and the growth of it at Wycombe 
induced the migration of Alderman Richard Cary or some 
of his family to the newer market: at all events, in 1449 and 
thenceforth for a century to come we find his name among 
the magistrates of Wycohibe, while members of this family 
testify in their wills to their participation in the cloth trade. 

Among the Wycombe Carys have been several interesting 
characters, viz.: 

Walter Cary (1551-^05/ 1627) matriculated at Mag- 
dalen College, Oxford, in 1560, proceeded B.A. 1568 and 
M.A. 1 57 1,' and was probably the physician of that name 
who was author of the three tracts: (i) The Hammer for 
the Stone, 1581, (ii) Carte's Farewell to Physicke,^ 1583; 

1 Lang, Oxford, 1890, 49. 

* Parker, History of IVycombe, 44, 45. 

^ Foster, Alumni Oxon. 

^Lowndes, Bibl. Man,, 383. The British Museum catalogue at- 
tributes to this Walter Cary the authorship of the Herbal pub- 
lished by R. Banckes 1535, by Redman i53o( ?), and by W. Copland 
1553 (?). The evidence is that Copland's edition purports to be 
"drawen out of an auncyent booke of Phisyck by W. C": the 
Did. Nat. Biog. assumes, not unfairly, that the initials stand for 
Copland himself. If any Walter Cary was connected with the 
Herbal he must have been a generation ahead of the one who ma- 
triculated at Oxford in 15 6a 

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and (ill) at seventy-six years of age, of that spirited and 
sensible discourse against individual extravagance ''The 
present State of England expressed in this Paradox, our 
Fathers were very rich with little, and we poore with 
much" (1627, and reprinted Harleian Miscellany, iii, 552). 

Colonel Thomas Gary ( 1660 ?-i 718), the North 
Carolina "rebel" of 171 1, who is discussed post, p. 664. 

The Rt. Hon. Walter Gary, M.P. (1685-1757), son 
of Walter Gary of Everton, co. Beds, matriculated at New 
College, Oxford, 1704, B.A. 1708, M.A. 1730;^ and sat in 
the House of Commons continuously from 1722 until his 
death in 1757, first for Helston in Cornwall, and after 1727 
for Clifton, Dartmouth, and Hardness in Devon.* In 1725 
he became clerk in ordinary to the privy council; from 
1727 to 1730 a member of the board of trade; 1 730-1 738 
chief secretary for Ireland under the Duke of Dorset; from 
1 738 until his death one of the four clerks comptrollers of the 
Board of Green Cloth, or accountants of the royal house- 
hold.^ He had inherited a good estate in Leicestershire from 
his mother, who was daughter and heiress of Sir William 
Holford, and married, first, 1716, Elizabeth, daughter of 
Anthony Sturt of London, and second, 1738, Elizabeth, 
daughter of Anthony ColUns of Baddow Hall, Essex, co- 
heiress with her sister, the wife of Robert, seventh Lord Fair- 
fax. He is buried in Heston Church, Middlesex, where his 
tomb displays the Devon arms.^ 

This record of a career affords us little appreciation of the 
man, but his contact with the wits of the age has supplied 
the lack. He seems to have had many of the characteristics 
of Dr. Johnson's Boswell. Spence in his Anecdotes records 
Pope as saying that "Addison's chief companions before he 

1 Foster, ^lumni Oxen, 

^Return of M.P/s, 1879. 

^Annual Register. 

^ See Lysons, Environs of London, iii, 29. 

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married Lady Warwick (in 1716) were Steele, Budgell, 
PhUips, Carey, Davenant and Colonel Brett." In a letter 
of 1 73 1 Swift says:^ "Our friend Addison had a young fel- 
low, now a figure in your Court, whom he made to dangle 
after him, to go where and to do whatever he was bid." Pope 
had meanwhile in 1727 parodied this shadow of the great 
Addison as Umbra in his amusing verses under that title : 

Close to the best known author Umbra sits, 

The constant index of old Button's wits. 
"Who's here?" cries Umbra: "Only Johnson." "O! 

Your slave," and exit; but returns with Rowe: 
"Dear Rowe, lefs sit and talk of tragedies:" 

Ere long Pope enters, and to Pope he flies: 

Then up comes Steele: he turns upon his heel 

And in a moment fastens upon Steele; 

But cries as soon "Dear Dick, I must be gone; 

For, if I know his tread, here's Addison." 

Says Addison to Steele: '*Tis time to go:" 

Pope to the closet steps aside with Rowe. 

Poor Umbra left in this abandon'd pickle 

Ev'n sits him down and writes to honest Tickell, 

Fool ! tis in vain from wit to wit to roam ; 

Know, sense, like charity, begins at home. 

Pope brings in his Umbra for similar satire in other verses, 
and, indeed, in The Three Gentle Shepherds names him — 
Carey. The editors now agree in identifying him as our 
Walter Cary. While in Ireland he again exposed himself 
to ridicule by his vanity. He considered himself the most 
important member of the Irish government and used to speak 
of "his administration." 2 

1 Ball, Correspondence of Swift, iv, 219. 

2 Mrs. Thomson, Memoirs of Viscountess Sundon, ii, 2$. 



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Chapter Eighteen 

THE SHOCK OF THE PURITAN REVOLT 

The elders among the eight sons of William 
Gary, second mayor of Bristol of that name, 
were born, grew to maturity, and had embarked 
on their careers as Bristol citizens and mer- 
chants before the death of Queen Elizabeth. 
Though they fell on the time in which the 
Dutch controlled the seas, they had long years 
of trade in which to maintain the tradition of 
the family before they were compelled to face 
the shock of civil war/ When that crucial time 
came some of them had already ended their 
lives; the survivors, no longer young men, lived 
only to see their commerce rudely interrupted 
and their family scattered. In the years pre- 
ceding that catastrophe there is evidence of the 

1 If we are to accept Sir Walter Raleigh {Observations Upon 
Trade and Commerce, 1653) as authority, English foreign com- 
merce was at a low ebb at the beginning of the reign of James I. 
It was then that the Dutch undoubtedly had the supremacy in the 
carrjring trade; but to check Raleigh's pessimism we have the 
anonymous tract The Trades Increase, 161 5, and Lewes Roberts, 
The Merchants Map of Commerce, 1638, which cite facts to show 
that English ships were still trafficking in English cloth in many 
parts of the world during the period before the civil war. 
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national ferment even in their quiet households: 
the family had already lost forever its medieval 
solidarity; division and realignment in religion 
and politics had begun in a manner character- 
istic of what was going on, certainly in the cities, 
all over England during that generation. 

As in every large family in such a time of 
change, some of these Carys were unable to 
maintain their position in the world. Crowded 
out of the home nest by their very numbers, or 
following the persuasion of their wives, they 
scattered to dwell in various parts of town and 
to follow other occupations than that of the 
family tradition, perhaps to become craftsmen. 
In so doing these Ishmaelites, removed from the 
conservative influences of home, became Puri- 
tans and soon grew to hold the radical political 
opinions which were characteristic of their re- 
ligious faith. 

Thus two of the brothers* dwelt across the 

when the Dutch were still at war with Spain, had opened to the 
English merchant, free from Dutch competition, not only his old 
market in the Spanish Netherlands, but also, through Spain itself, 
a share in the lucrative West India trade. It was Cromwell, 
called by some "the restorer of English commerce," who inter- 
rupted this commerce. (R. Coke, Discourse of Trade, 1670; and 
Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, ii, 187.) 
There is, then, ample room for a family of merchants to develop 
an inherited trade with fair if not dazzling success, and that 
seems to be the case of William Gary and his sons in this genera- 
tion, certainly until the crisis in the cloth trade in 1623. (Cunning- 
ham, ibid., ii, 50, 316.) 

1 They were : William, the eldest son, who married his first 
wife at St. Nicholas^ but his second at St. Thomas's in Redcliff, 

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river near the Temple fee in Redcliff, the im- 
memorial headquarters of the weavers, which 
had now become the hotbed of Puritan fa- 
naticism. In such an environment we are not 
surprised to find that a younger brother has 
married a woman labeled "an extraordinary en- 
thusiast,"^ and that the youngest emigrated as 
early as 1639 to the Puritan colony of Mas- 
sachusetts. 

In contrast, William Gary's elder surviving 
sons, Richard and John, were before the war 
modestly prosperous, though probably confined 
to retail trade;* and to the end they were con- 
servative. They style themselves "draper" and 
doubtless carried on, in partnership, the ances- 
tral business "on the Back:"' Richard, indeed, 

where he was buried, dying, according to the Heralds' College 
pedigree, without issue male; and Thomas, who also was buried 
at St. Thomas's. 

1 She was Grace Browne, of St. Swithins, Gloucester, who had 
married Walter Gary and was described in the Heralds' College 
pedigree of 1700 by the epithet quoted in the text. In her widow- 
hood she resided at Usk in Monmouthshire, where, in consequence 
of brooding over the Bible, she began to see apocalyptic visions 
of a new papist England, which she felt a call, like Joan of 
Arc, to rehearse to her king, to his considerable annoyance. A 
pamphlet called England's Forewarning, published in 1644, recites 
her adventures. (See Seyer, Memoirs . . , of Bristol, ii, 388.) 

2 They were not enrolled as Merchant Venturers in the sur- 
viving list of 1 618. (Latimer, 81.) 

3 Perhaps the two younger brothers were also partners in the 
paternal house. They were Walter and Robert, who died before 
the war, in 1634 and 1628 respectively, leaving wills (the only 
ones of this generation which have survived; see calendar in 
Waters, Genealogical Gleanings in England, ii, 1055) in which 
they style themselves "draper." 

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dwelt with his father in his great-grandfather's 
house.^ 

These two married into solid families as long 
established at Bristol as their own, and died 
sufficiently well-to-do, despite the times, to dis- 
pose of respectable estates.^ These facts are 
significant when we find one of them participat- 
ing in the plots to secure Bristol to the king and 
a continuity of high-church and Royalist opin- 
ions among the descendants of both. 

The modern man, and especially the modern 
American man, has read the history of England 
in these times chiefly through the spectacles of 
the Liberal historian: he has been moved to 
fervent sympathy for the wrongs which made 
the Puritans of England so stiff necked in their 
Protestantism, so determined in their opposi- 
tion to the prerogative of the crown and the 
rule of the bishops; he has been taught to ap- 
plaud the high principle of the political action 
of the revolutionists until he is led almost to 
wonder how any reasonable man of that age 
could be found in the other party. There was, 
however, another political principle, then as 
now, which is not altogether pusillanimous, and 

1 He is the only one of the brothers whose entire family record 
is found in the register of the single parish of St. Nitholas. 

« While the wills of Richard and John Gary have been lost, 
their sons and grandsons alone among a numerous kin appear 
to have taken advantage, after the Restoration, of the new com- 
mercial prosperity of England. It is unlikely that they could have 
done this unless they had something substantial to start on. 

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when we find it held by men of the same breed- 
ing, even in the same families which produced 
violent republicans, candor moves us to look for 
an explanation of the antagonism elsewhere 
than among the eternal verities. 

Such an explanation is not far to seek. Prac- 
tical politicians find that the action of the 
average man is determined not so much by 
philosophy as by what he believes to be his im- 
mediate interest, that he takes his stand not al- 
ways with those who are right but generally 
with those who promise to be of service to him. 
It is, then, illuminating to apply the economic 
test to a representative mercantile family in the 
constitutional crisis in England at the beginning 
of the seventeenth century, as an aid to under- 
standing their internal differences of political 
and religious opinion. 

If Richard and John Gary adhered to the 
Royalist and high-church party while their 
brothers became radicals and Puritans, they did 
so perhaps because they had more to lose by 
revolution, and may well, though as it turned 
out mistakenly, have deemed themselves to be 
safer in the hands of the king than of a leveling 
Parliament. 

On the other hand, it may have been with 
their Puritan brothers that 

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars. 
But in ourselves, that we are underlings. 

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The Royalist Carys were not isolated in 
Bristol; in fact the city was, at the beginning of 
the struggle, so equally divided that it was rent 
to its foundations by faction. When war suc- 
ceeded to debate, neither party in Bristol was 
able at first to secure control; a Parliamentary 
garrison was introduced only after preparations 
for armed defense had been made by the mayor 
and had been betrayed from within. The con- 
sequence was plot and counterplot between 
citizens, with interludes of overt violence, until, 
in July, 1643, the city was taken by assault by 
Prince Rupert.^ 

Although this change of control had been 
made possible, like its predecessor, largely by 
aid and comfort from within the walls, the Roy- 
alists paid a heavy price for their loyalty. The 
king's straits were now such that he at once 
turned for a substantial part of his revenue to 

^ Colonel Henry Washington (a cousin of the Virginia inuni- 
grant John Washington, who was George Washington's great- 
grandfather) distinguished himself in the Royalist army that day. 
See the Washington pedigree, the achievement of Mr. Walter's 
research, in Fiske, Old Virginia and Her Neighbours, ii, 36. 
Pepys (Diary, Oct. 12, 1660) notes: "Office day all the morning, 
and from thence with Sir W. Batten and the rest of the officers 
to a venison party of his at the Dolphin, where dined withal 
Colonel Washington, Sir Edward Brett and Major Norwood, very 
noble company." All of Pepys's companions had relations with 
Virginia. Colonel Washington had two cousins resident there; 
Sir Edward Brett, sergeant-porter to the king, was the maternal 
uncle of Henry Isham, from whom the Randolphs of Virginia are 
descended (see his will, P.C.C. Hare^ 27) ; while Major Norwood 
was the treasurer of the colony, the author of the Voyage to 
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the Bristol merchants, while the Parliamentary 
navy treated Bristol ships as fair prize.^ What- 
ever had been their politics, men of business 
like the Carys, who experienced none of the 
glory of war and knew only its fell power of 
destruction, must have soon learned that the 
honor of having the king as a guest meant that 
the hosts would soon be destroyed. The healths 
to King Charles which kept up the morale of 
Prince Rupert's officers and stir us to-day in 
the Cavalier verse, were, in Bristol, drunk at the 
expense of the merchants. During the two years 
the city remained in the royal power, the resi- 
dent community was brought almost to ruin.^ 

Under such conditions, any change being a 
relief, it was only a small band of determined 
Royalists among the citizens who regretted the 
recapture of the city on behalf of the Parlia- 
ment in September, 1645.' We take it that John 
Cary, his sons Thomas and Miles, and his 

^ See (John Winthrop, Journal, ed. Hosmer, ii, 183) the account 
of the capture in 1644 of a Bristol ship in Boston harbor, by 
Captain Stagg, with a transcript of his letters of marque from the 
Ear! of Warwick, the Parliamentary admiral, **to set forth and to 
take all vessels in or outward bound to or from Bristol." In 
April of the same year the Dutchman DeVries saw two London 
ships fight a Bristol ship just below Jamestown and drive her 
into Warwick River for shelter, the incident which encouraged 
old Opechancanough to renew that year the Indian warfare on the 
Virginia colony. (Neill, Virginia Carolorum, 178.) 
* Hunt, Bristol, 155; and Latimer, Merchant Venturers, 
3 This was one of the brilliant achievements of the young Parlia- 
mentary general Sir Thomas Fairfax in that campaign of un- 
broken success which began at Naseby and ended in the king's 
flight to the Scots army. 

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nephew Shershaw, were of this steadfast opinion. 
During these troubled years the Carys as a 
family suffered severely. Many died before 
their time; some perhaps of the plague which 
visited Bristol twice during the first half of the 
seventeenth century; some of the youngsters per- 
haps under arms, but of that we have no certain 
knowledge. The bare records which survive 
indicate an economic contraction of the family 
under changed conditions which is the more ap- 
parent when contrasted with the stirring days of 
mercantile prosperity when the first mayor was 
head of the house, and the days to come when 
Carys of this breeding were to take places in 
the councils of the East India Company, the 
bank of England, and the colony of Virginia. 
Those who now persisted and were destined to 
carry on and to develop the race represented the 
working of the familiar biological law, the sur- 
vival of the fittest. Of the eight sons of the 
fourth generation, we lose trace of the descend- 
ants of all but three; the others, if they survived 
at all, are absorbed in the mass of the English 
industrial population and cease to have special 
character. Our concern is, then, with the brothers 
Richard, John, and James, each of whom sur- 
vived in his descendants, but in different soils 
from that in which the meere merchants had 
flourished. From a great-granddaughter of 
Richard sprang a race of country gentlemen 

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who still maintain themselves in England; a 
son of John planted the name in Virginia, where 
it has endured; and James was the progenitor 
of Carys who for more than two hundred and 
fifty years have flourished in New England. 

Of these three brothers, RICHARD Cary 
( 1 579-1 644), "draper," the second son, was 
baptized at St. Nicholas' August i, 1579. About 
1606 he married Mary, daughter of Nicholas 
Shershaw^ of Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, 
a Bristol merchant who had retired to the coun- 
try; and like his ancestors, begot many chil- 
dren, nine sons and nine daughters. He died in 
1644* in the midst of the civil war. Of all his 
sons, Shershaw alone certainly left issue.^ 

John Cary (1583-1661), "draper," the third 
son of the mayor, was baptized at St. Nicholas' 
April 10, 1583.* When he was twenty-one he 

1 The IT. M. Cary Notes record that the will of Nicholas Sher- 
shaw makes reference to his 'brother William Carye, the elder, 
of Bristol," and names his son-in-law Richard Cary his executor, 
but do not calendar the will or give other reference to it. The 
statement suggests that Nicholas Shershaw married one of the 
daughters of Richard Cary '*the elder,*' who was unmarried at 
the date of her father's will. This would have made him a 
"brother" of William Cary. 

^ St. Nicholas' parish register does not give a record of his 
burial, but it is asserted in the Heralds' College pedigree that he 
was buried there "circa an© 1644." 

" For the conjectural identification of Nicholas Cary, M.D., of 
London, with the second Nicholas, son of Richard Cary, see post, 
p. 687. 

^St. Nicholas' parish register. The Heralds' College pedigree 
of 1700 describes him as "4th son," putting his brother Walter 
ahead of him, but the parish register shows that Walter was not 
baptized until June t8, 1588. 

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*%u 



married, May 29, 1604, Elizabeth Hereford, 
and by her had three sons and two daughters.* 
For a second wife he married Alice Hobson, 
one of the two daughters of Henry Hobson, 
"Innholder'' and afterwards mayor of Bristol.* 

^ For a discussion of the evidence for this marriage see The 
Virginia Carys (1919). These Herefords were merchants like the 
Carys and had been mayors of Pl3rmouth. (See The Ancestor, 
vii, 71.) 

^The Hobsons were a family of municipal importance. They 
bore arms "argent on a chevron azure, between three pellets as 
many cinquefoils of the field: a chief chequy or and azure*': so 
when Henry Hobson died a funeral certificate was filed by his 
son in the College of Arms (Volume I» 24, folio 87^), as follows: 

"Henry Hobson, late Maior and Alderman of the Citty of 
Bristoll, Departed this mortall life at his house in ye said Citty, 
the 3 1 St day of March 1635, and was interred in ye parish 
church of All Saints there the 29th day following. He married 
Alice, Da: of William Davis of the said Cittie, by whom he 
had yssue one sonne and two daughters: William Hobson, his 
only sonn and heir, who hath borne ye office of Shreiff of Bris- 
tol!, married Margarett Colston, da: of William Colston of the 
said Cittie, merchant: Alice, ye eldest Da: of the said Henry 
Hobson, married to John Cary, sonne of William Cary, Alder- 
man of the said Cittie: and Anne, his youngest Da: married to 
Thomas Jackson, Marchaunt, late one of the Shreiffs of the 
said Cittie. 

"This Certificate was taken the 19th day of Aprill, 1637, 
by George Owen, Yorke herauld, and is testified to be true by 
the relation and subscription of the aforenamed W°i. Hobson, 
sonne and heire to the defunct 

Signed William Hobson.*' 

Throughout the reign of Charles I and the Commonwealth the 
family connection of these Hobsons was made up of the most 
enterprising and successful of the Bristol meere merchants, whose 
names appear in the commercial "adventures*' of that generation. 
Thus, the William Hobson and Thomas Jackson mentioned in the 
above certificate; Miles Jackson, brother of Thomas and named 
for the same Miles Hobson as was Miles Cary; and the Francis 
Creswick mentioned in Henry Hobson's will as his kinsman, as 
well iis the sons of several of them, were wardens and masters 



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Of this marriage there were born four sons and 
three daughters/ Although he was an old man 
when the civil war came, we find him recorded 
among those Bristol citizfens who in March, 
1642, under the leadership of the merchants 
Yeomans and Boucher, plotted to deliver the 
city to Prince Rupert and in consequence suf- 
fered a rigorous imprisonment.^ He survived 
the Commonwealth and saw not only the restor- 

of the Merchant Venturers between 1624 and 1660. They were 
all Royalist in their sympathy, but served as sheriffs and some 
of them as mayors. In 1631 Francis Creswick declined knight- 
hood, and in 1650 the second Miles Jackson was M. P. for Bris- 
tol. (See Latimer, Merchant Venturers.) This is the reason why 
Miles Gary's sons emphasized their Hobson blood on their father's 
Virginia tomb in 1667. 

1 They are named in the will of their grandfather Henry Hobson 
(P.C.C. Pile, 52), viz., Henry, Matthew, Richard, Myles, Alice, 
Honor, and Mary, and so were all living in March, 1635, when 
that will was made. Richard, Miles, and Honora alone appear 
on the baptismal record of the parish register of All Saints, which 
was the Hobsons' church. Miles was the Virginia immigrant. 
Of the others we have but meagre information by reason of the 
dispersal of the family after the civil war. Matthew Gary (1619?- 
1648) became a sea-captain, and describes himself as "of Stepney, 
mariner,'' when, in 1640, he married. (Bishop of London's Mar- 
riage Licenses, October 12, 1640.) He died in 1648, leaving by 
his will (P.C.C. Essex, 115) all his property to his daughter Alice, 
who in turn died, a spinster, at Stepney in 1660, leaving a will 
(P.C.C. Nabbs, 206), which is of interest genealogically by reason 
of bequests as tokens of affection: one shilling each "to my grand- 
father John Gary of Bristol, woolen draper," "to my uncle Myles 
Gary of Virginia," and "to my cousin William Hobson." She also 
mentions her uncle Richard and his wife as if she was living 
with them, but he has not been further identified. There are wills 
and administrations which suggest that Henry, the eldest son, was 
also a sea-captain and left descendants who followed the sea, but 
the identification is not conclusive. 

*Seyer (Memoirs , , . of Bristol, ii, 359) has preserved the 
list of those who suffered for this plot as one of Bristol's rolls of 
honor. 

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toUlJMimj^^i I ^j ^ 



ation of his king but the prosperity of his son 
Miles. He dwelt apparently at the end of his 
life in the parish of St. Mary Redcliff, for he is 
described as "of Redcliff parish" in his burial 
certificate, when, in his seventy-eighth year, he 
was laid to rest with his wife and her family in 
the church of All Saints, February 13, 1661.^ 

^AIl Saints parish register. 



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IV ? Lawrence de Gary 
seneschal of Bristol 
1312-1313 
See Plate I 



VI? John de Castelcarb 

bailiff of Bristol, 1350 and 
1353 

VIII? William Gary 

burgess of Bristol, will 

1395 

See Plate I 



IX? John 

named in his father's will 
as an infant, 1395 
{Proof is lacking of inter- 
mediate descents connect- 
ing the above one with an- 
other, or with those below) 



XII William i492?-i572 John Wa 

"^>o»^^" TUotrr^r ^f Rrlfu rannn ni <^|-^ ^^gyytine'a^ mar 



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^ — iiiM%i^aMi8fc 



Chapter NineteExNT 

RECOVERY AND EXTINCTION 

The death in 1661 of John Cary, "draper," the 
last survivor of the sons of the second mayor, 
closed the record of the family in their relation 
to the cloth trade and to the medieval back- 
ground of Bristol, of which the cloth trade is 
the significant feature. He had, indeed, lin- 
gered beyond the active participation of the 
family in that trade, for the two scions of the 
generation which came on the stage during his 
old age both dropped the designation "draper" 
and recurred to the broader "merchant" and the 
earlier scope of their family's activities. They 
were part of the larger commercial life the 
nation developed after the Restoration. We 
shall see how this stimulus created special op- 
portunities for the ambitious young traders who 
had the energy to migrate to London ; but it was 
felt also in Bristol, which, refreshed by the new 
Portuguese market,* was in 1685 still the first 
English outport, as Norwich was still the first 
English manufacturing town. These two pro- 

1 Sec the testimony in John Gary's Essay on Trade (1695). 

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vincial cities stood next in importance to the 
capital in other respects, "but next at an im- 
mense distance," as Macaulay says. There was 
then no compelling economic call to London for 
the elder sons of the two branches of the Bristol 
Carys who had survived the shock of the Puri- 
tan revolt and had not emigrated to America; 
but on the contrary, if limited, the opportunities 
at home were still enough to make them claim 
the right to enjoy them as a right of primogeni- 
ture. 

One of those who so stayed at home was the 
eldest son of the first Christopher Cary/ another 
Christopher Cary (i592?-i672), "mer- 
chant," who was active in business at Bristol 
throughout the Commonwealth and the earlier 
part of the reign of Charles 11.^ He exhibits 

1 Sec ante^ p. 518. 

2 It was in his time that John Evelyn (June, 1654) and Samuel 
Pepys visited Bristol. Evelyn was a mere tourist, but Pepys leaves 
us a glimpse into the life of the town one cannot forget {Diary, 
June 13, i668, ed. Bright,. Viii, 320): 

'^ . . set out toward Bristol!, and come thither, in a coach 
hired to spare our own horses, the way bad but country good, 
about two o'clock; where set down at the Horse-shoe, and there 
being trimmed by a very handsome fellow, 2s, walked with my 
wife and people through the city, which is in every respect another 
London, that one can hardly know it to stand in the country no 
more than that. No carts, it standing generally on vaults, only 
dog-carts. So to the Three Crowns Tavern I was directed; but 
when I came in the master told me that he had newly given over 
the selling of wine; it seems grown rich: and so went to the Sun; 
and there Deb. going with W. Hewer and Betty Turner to see 
her uncle Butts, and leaving my wife with the mistress of the 
house, I to see the quay, which is a most large and noble place; 
and to see the new ship building by Bally, neither he nor Furzer 

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jf^^mmama^^mm^tiai^ 



the tendency of the new conditions of life in his 
residence, for he abandoned the "Key" where 
his father had dwelt and moved out to Stony 
Hill in St. Michael's parish on the highland in 
the direction of Clifton, where, like his contem- 
porary kinsmen, the London merchants, he es- 
caped brick and mortar and the smell of busi- 
ness and had a suburban "seat" with a garden 
and orchard quite in the Dutch style: he de- 

[Survcyor to the Navy] being in town. It will be a fine ship. . 
Spoke with the foreman, and did give the boys that kept the cabin 
2S. Walked back to the Sun, where I find Deb. come back, and 
with her, her uncle, a sober merchant, very good company, and 
so like one of our sober wealthy London merchants as pleased me 
mightily. Here we dined, and much good talk with him, 7s. 6d.: 
a messenger to Sir John Knight [[then Mayor and M.P.^, who 
was not at home, 6d. Then walked with Butts and my wife and 
company round the quay, and to the ship; and he showed me the 
Custom-house, and made me understand many things of the place, 
and led us through Marsh-street, where our girl was born. But, 
Lord ! the joy that was among the old poor people of the place, to 
see Mrs. Willet's daughter, it seems her mother being a brave 
woman and mightily beloved I And so brought us a back way by 
surprise to his house; where a substantial good house, and well 
furnished; and did give us good entertainment of strawberries, a 
whole venison-pasty, cold, and plenty of brave wine, and above 
all Bristol milk: where comes in another poor woman, who hear- 
ing that Deb. was here, did come running hither, and with her 
eyes so full of tears, and heart so full of joy, that she could not 
speak when she come in, that it made me weep too: I protest that 
I was not able to speak to her, which I would have done, to have 
diverted her tears. Butts' wife a good woman, and so sober and 
substantiall as I was never more pleased any where. Servant- 
maid, 2s. So thence took leave and he with us through the city; 
where in walking I find the city pay him great respect, and he the 
like to the meanest, which pleased me mightily. He showed us the 
place where the inerchants meet here, and a fine cross yet stand- 
ing, like Cheapside. And so to the Horse-shoe, where paid the 
reckoning, 2s. 6d. We back, and by moonshine to the Bath again, 
about ten o'clock: bad way; and giving the coachman is. went all 
of us to bed." 

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scribes it with unction in his will.* His branch 
of the family seem to hiive had the habit of 
landowning, for he not only inherited from his 
father several parcels of Bristol real estate, as 
did his younger brother William, who had mi- 
grated to London, but himself added to his 
holdings. This Christopher Cary had two 
sons, Richard and John, by his first marriage ; * 
they were living at their father's death in 1672, 
but must have been then already provided for 
by advancements, for in his will their father 
leaves them legacies of only ten shillings each, 
devoting the bulk -of his estate to provision for 
his wife Margaret, then living. There is no 
further trace of these sons of the second Chris- 
topher Cary in Bristol, perhaps because they 
emigrated.* For such an explanation of the sub- 
sequent silence of the English records as to them 
there is sufficient precedent in their own family 
as well as in the spirit of the times. Their elder 
kinsmen James and Miles were in their day 
permanently and successfully established in 
America, while of their own generation we find 

iP.C.C. Eure, ii8. 

2 He may have been married three times. In the record of 
marriage licenses issued at Exeter (calendared in iV, M, Cary 
Notes) appears the entry, "August 5, 1629 Christopher Cary of 
Bristol, Merest & Mary Harvey of Uplyme." This may have been 
his first marriage; though from his own age and the possibility 
that the Richard Cary, born 1618, who emigrated to Virginia in 
1635, was his son, this was more probably his second marriage. 

•Sec The Virginia Carys, 146. 

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iS%^ 



one of their first cousins a merchant in Bar- 
badoes, and their kinsman John Gary, later of 
Putney, as well as the grandsons of Shershaw 
Gary, all trying the experiment of life overseas. 
Whatever became of them, the line of Chris- 
topher Gary comes to an end in England with 
the disappearance in 1689 of the survivor of 
their first cousins in London.* / 

The descendants of Richard Gary, "draper," ^ 
who survived the civil war showed more per- 
sistency. We shall meet some of them in Lon- 
don, but they remained also the worthy uphold- 
ers of the name in Bristol until the end of the 
eighteenth century. A son of that Richard was 
Shershaw Gary (161 5-1 681), who was bap- 
tized at St. Nicholas' Ghurch,^ and, like his 
kinsman and contemporary the second Christo- 
pher, called himself "merchant" and held on to 
the family tradition of trade at the old home 
base. 

He was one of the well-to-do men of Bristol 
who in 1664 declined to qualify for the Common 
Council because of the burdens then imposed on 
the office;^ but he was active in the Merchant 

^The second Christopher Gary had five sisters, who all married 
well in Bristol. These marriages are identified by the will of 
Francis Bannister (proved 1625, P.C.C. Clarke, 67), the husband of 
one of them, as was pointed out by Mr. H. F. Waters, Genealogical 
Gleanings in England, ii, 1054. 

2 See ante, p. 537. 

* Parish register, April 6, 161 5. 

^Latimer, Annals of Bristol XFIl Century, 330. 

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Venturers' Society, serving as warden in 1658 
and master in 167 1. In his marriage, about 
1646, with Mary, daughter of John Scrope of 
Castlecombe, co. Wilts, we see an evidence of 
the social changes brought about by the civil 
war. A merchant, he found a wife outside the 
circle of Bristol citizens in which his immediate 
ancestors had always married, and in the ranks 
of the ruined Royalist landed gentry: in so do- 
ing he undoubtedly enlarged the horizon of his 
children. He was one of the Englishmen who 
took advantage of Charles IPs Portuguese mar- 
riage to enter into the inheritance of the Portu- 
guese world trade, and he left a substantial 
estate when death overtook him in 1681 in the 
midst of his affairs, at Lisbon.* He had three 
sons: the second, Richard, found his career in the 
West Indies and in London, but the other two 
stood by in Bristol. The eldest of them, John 
Gary (1647-1730), "merchant," came to be 
known as the Bristol publicist. He specialized 
in West India sugar, being one of the earliest of 
the Bristol "St. Kitts" traders.* He was warden 
of the Merchant Venturers in 1683, and in 1688 

^The record of the administration of his estate (P.C.C. Admon. 
Act Book, 1681) describes him as "nupi* apud Lisboa als Lisbon in 
pt^ transmarinis.*' 

2 We must remember that until after the elder Pitt's ministry 
England was but a third-rate ppwer in the West Indies. In 
1749 she held oi>Iy Jamaica, Barbadoes (St. Kitts), Antigua, and a 
few settlements in the Bahamas. The French colony of San 
Domingo was still the great exporter of sugar. 

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appears as the last Bristol burgess who was "ad- 
mitted into the Liberties of the Staple of Bris- 
tol."* Spreading out from the practice to the 
theory of commerce, he won high reputation as 
an economist. In 1695 ^^ published An Essay 
on the State of England in relation to its Trade, 
its Poor, and its Taxes, for carrying on the pres- 
ent War against France. This treatise under 
the more convenient name of Gary's Essay on 
Trade at once took hold and long held a place as 
authority on the theoretical consideration of 
trade: in Bristol it became an economic bible 
during the eighteenth century.* New editions 
under different names and with additional ma- 
terial were published in 171 9 and (after his 
death) 1745; the work was translated into 
French and thence into Italian. Holding the 
current economic views about the balance of 
trade, he advocated what we now call a na- 
tional protective system for the development of 
domestic manufactures, and to the same end a 
restraint of the export and encouragement of the 
import of raw materials, especially wool. The 
inherited Bristol jealousy of London appears in 
a vigorous denunciation of the ancient London 
monopolies in foreign trade, and in urging the 
abolition of them he evinced his sole recognition 
of the merits of what is now called free trade. 

1 Latimer, Merchant Venturers, 15. 

2 Latimer, Merchant Venturers, 177; G. P. Macdonnel in Diet. 
Nat, Biog, (reissue ed.)} iii, ii53- 

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i9%L 



The political influence of his principles was 
effective principally with respect to Ireland and 
the colonies; for not only did he insist on the 
right of the mother country to compel the colo- 
nies to trade only with her and on her terms, but 
he formulated the policy, soon after adopted by 
Parliament, of reducing Ireland to the status of 
a crown colony by prohibiting the export of 
Irish cloth altogether or of Irish wool except to 
England/ By his energetic argument and 
wealth of practical mercantile illustration he 
won the support of the philosopher John Locke, 
who said of his book, "It is the best discourse I 
ever read on that subject.'' He advocated a na- 
tional bank, and in his second edition said that 
"the famous Mr. Laws drew his scheme from 
this proposal." But he has a better claim to 
the respect of posterity: in 1696 he organized a 
rational system of poor relief in Bristol, long 
maintained as "the Incorporation of the Poor," ^ 
and in 1700 published a pamphlet descriptive 
of that experiment, which was widely dissem- 
inated and had influence elsewhere in England. 
The reputation gained by these publications led 
to his employment in public business. In 1700 
he was elected by Parliament ^ one of the com- 
missioners for the sale of the estates in Ireland 

1 Cf, Lecky, History, \\ ao6, ff; and Swift, Drapier's Letters. 

2 Latimer, Annals of Bristol XV HI Century, 32. 
» Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv, 628. 

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which had been forfeited under the "violated" 
treaty of Limerick after William Ill's conquest 
of that unhappy kingdom, and in that and other 
government functions he spent the last thirty 
years of his life in Ireland, surviving all his 



sons.* 



This John Cary married a "daughter of 
Matthew Warren of Bristol, Gent.," and had 
by her four sons, all Bristol merchants and all 
identified with America. Matthew (1672- 
1694), tl^c eldest, died unmarried in Jamaica.* 
Shershaw (1674-1707) served in the army, 
married in Nevis, and died in Pennsylvania.^ 
Richard (1679-1730) and Warren (1683- 
1729) maintained the counting-house in Bristol, 
though neither was a stay-at-home. Thus Rich- 
ard makes a will in 171 1, being then bound on a 
voyage to the Canaries, and ultimately dies 
while in Virginia,^ and Warren lived for some 
time in Virginia,* but died in Bristol.' They 
belonged to the roaring days of Bristol trade, 
the days of privateers and bucaneers, of Cap- 
tain Woodes Rogers and of Treasure Island, and 

^The date of his death is given by Macdonnel as 1720, but 
P.CC. Admon, Act Book, 1730, shows his death in Dublin during 
that year and administration on his estate by his granddaughter 
Jane Cary, "/?(«/ et prole unica aniequam mortms" 

2 Heralds' College pedigree of 170a 

^Ibid,, 1715, P.CC. Admon, Act Booh, 1730; and Isham, 173. 

* P.CC. Auber, 301 (1730), and Admon, Act Book, 173a 

*At Yorktown. See The Virginia Carys. 

•P.CC Abbott, 161 (1729), and Admon. Act Book, 173a. 

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they prospered greatly. They were Tories and 
Churchmen in the midst of a Whig community, 
like their fellow-merchant and contemporary 
Edward Colston, the philanthropist. Only one 
of the four brothers left issue. Jane Cary, 
daughter of the second Shershaw, who was born 
at Nevis, returned to Bristol in 1730 to admin- 
ister upon the estates of her father, her uncles, 
and her grandfather, being the last survivor of 
the line. 

The third and youngest of the first Shershaw 
Cary's sons was Thomas Cary (1650-1711), 
a clergyman, who matriculated at Jesus College, 
Oxford, in 1666 (M.A. 1673), and afterwards 
held various Church preferments, being at the 
end of his life, like his Tudor forebear the monk 
of St. Augustine, prebendary of Bristol Cathe- 
dral and rector of All Saints Church.^ His son 
William Cary (1689-1758) was also educated 
at Oxford and took orders, becoming rector of 
St. Philip and Jacob, Bristol, and chancellor of 
the diocese.* His son, another William Cary 
(1710-1790), followed the tradition of his line 
at Oxford and in the Church. His first cure was 
at Bigby in Lincolnshire, one of the estates of 
his Cary-Elwes cousins, but he ultimately suc- 

^ See his will, P.C.C. Barnes, 45, and notices of him and his 
tomb in LeNeve, Fasti (1716), 52, and Monumenta Anglicana 
(1717), 234. 

* See his will, P.C.C. Arran, 48, and obituary in Gentleman's 
Magaxhte, 1759, 46. 



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. ^ i m%ijt«MliiUui iiii »r|^ 

ceeded his father at St. Philip and Jacob in 
Bristol. He died without issue and is buried 
at Bigby in Lincolnshire.^ And so, after being 
part of the life of the city for five hundred years, 
the Cary name ceased to be of active significance 
in Bristol. 

^ See his M.I. in Gentleman's Magauine, i799> P- 377> and 
the will, P.C.C. Newcastle, 584, genealogically highly interesting, 
of his spinster sister Anne, who survived him, and, dying in 1795, 
was the last of the line. From this will it appears that the family 
had speculated in South Sea shares and suffered in consequence. 



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uJ^ BMMM^M^BJ^gMifeg^ttllMMMMBMMai^ 



Chapter Twenty 

THE BRISTOL TRADITION IN 
NEW ENGLAND 

The seventh and youngest son of the second 
mayor, William Gary of Bristol, by his first 
wife, was James Cary (i 600-1681), who was 
baptized at St. Nicholas' Church April 14, 
1600.^ His mother died when he was twenty- 
three, and he may then have come under the 
Puritan influence of the wives of some of his 
older brothers, who fixed his religious prin- 
ciples and inclined him towards Massachusetts 
when he determined to emigrate. 

Bristol had already made a contribution, 
though not an eminently successful one, to the 

^ St. Nicholas' parish register. The genealogical proofs of the 
identity of James Gary on both sides of the Atlantic are ample. 
St. Nicholas' parish register gives his baptism in Bristol in 1600, 
and his M. I. at Charlestown shows his death in 1681, "aged 81 
years." The Heralds' College pedigree of 1700 describes him in 
his place among the sons of William Cary as ''J^^^s Cary of 
New England, 7th son, married Ellanor Hawkins." The name of 
the wife fits with the New England record. (See Savage, Genealog- 
ical Dictionary of Ne<w England,) 

There are published records of some of the descendants of 
James Cary of Charlestown in Mrs. Charles Pelham Curtis, The 
Cary Letters (Boston, 1891), and Bayard Tuckerman, The Tuck- 
erman Family (New York, 1914). 

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colonization of New England. Some of her 
merchants had taken, rather grudgingly, an in- 
terest under Sir Ferdinando Gorges in the 
Plymouth Company and had sent out "a tall 
ship well furnished": the settlement at Pema- 
quid which grew out of this was, indeed, made 
up chiefly of Bristol men. But Bristol's relation 
to the Massachusetts colony was ancillary. Cap- 
tain Martin Pring had indeed been in what 
came to be Plymouth Bay in a Bristol ship, the 
Speedwell J as early as 1603, ^^^ that was a mere 
trading venture; and it was another Bristol ship, 
the Liouj which relieved Winthrop at Charles- 
town after his first diflicult winter, and which 
brought out the next supply of immigrants. 
Among them were some Bristol men, and more 
from the West Country followed each year 
thereafter, so that James Cary simply fell in 
with a current which was in full sweep about 
him, when he undertook his great adventure 
and became one of that first twenty thousand, 
the heroes of the New England historians, who 
settled the colony of Massachusetts Bay during 
those ten vital and successful years between the 
sailing of Governor Winthrop's fleet from the 
Isle of Wight and the meeting of the Long 
Parliament. 

We wish that we might know something of 
James Gary's personal experience, but others 
have told the contemporary story with such full 

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flavor that it is not diflicult to reconstruct his 
life in the early years of the colony.^ 

James Gary was already a mature man, being 
thirty-nine years of age when he left Bristol: he 
seems to have taken life deliberately. It was not 
until 1647 that, with his wife Elinor Hawkins, 
he became a member of the First Church of 
Charlestown and still later a holder of town 
oflice. He was clerk of the writs in 1663, re- 
corder 1669, tythingman 1678, and at last was 
laid to rest in the old burying-ground of 
Charlestown under a monument reading: 

Fugit hora. 

Memento te esse mortalem. 

Here lyeth buried the Body of James Gary, aged 81 years. 

Deed November ye 2, 1681. 

Eleanor, his wife, lyes buried by his side.^ 

^ See the Massachusetts classic Johnson's Wonder Working 
Providence, the narrative of one who was resident at Charlestown 
at the time of James Gary's emigration. 

2 Pedigree compiled by Edward Montague Gary of Boston in 
W. M. Gary Notes. 

John Gary of Bridgevjater, In addition to the descendants of 
James Gary, there is another large and flourishing family of 
Garys which has spread from New England throughout the middle 
west, producing, among others of distinction, Golonel Nathaniel 
Gary, who commanded a Rhode Island regiment in the American 
Revolution, the Ohio poetesses Alice and Phoebe Gary and several 
members of Gongress. Their inunigrant ancestor John Gary is said 
by Savage {Genealogical Dictionary of New England) "to have 
come from neighbourhood of Bristol, England, at the age of 25 and 
settled first, 1637, at Duxbury. Then having grant of land, married 
in June, 1644, Elizabeth, daughter of Francis Godfrey. He was first 
town clerk, and early his name was written Garew: but as the 
English pronounce that name Gary, spelling soon followed sound." 
His grandson left a written record of a tradition that he was edu- 
cated in France, and returning to England quarreled with his four 

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jf^ I I II iii inniiii iji 



James Gary had six children born at Charles- 
town between 1640 and 1648, four sons and two 
daughters. One of them, Nathaniel Gary 
(1645-1722), a sea-captain^ had the misfortune 
of having his wife accused and tried as a witch 
in 1692 ; they escaped together to New York and 
there lived under the protection of Governor 
Fletcher until 1699, when they returned to 
Gharlestown and were readmitted to the church. 

His own narrative * of this adventure is one of 

brothers over their inheritance, took his portion of £ioo, and so made 
his way to New England. This John Gary was one of the sept of the 
Plymouth Colony which founded the town of Bridgewater, Massa- 
chusetts, and there died: the high point in the modern town of 
Brockton is still known after him as Gary hill. One of his de- 
scendants, Mr. Samuel Fenton Gary, of Ohio, has published (Gary 
Memorials, Cincinnati, 1871) an excellent record of the wide- 
spread generations of this stock; another, Henry Grosvenor Gary 
(The Gary Family in America, Boston, 1907), has sought uncon- 
vincingly to identify him as a brother or nephew of James Gary 
of Gharlestown. He was certainly not a son of, nor can he be 
identified in the Bristol parish registers and wills or the Heralds' 
College pedigrees as any other kin to, William Gary, mayor of 
Bristol in 1 61 1. If he was a Gary and not a Garew, the fact that 
he is reputed to have come from Somersetshire and took part in 
the founding of Bridgewater is suggestive that he may have 
sprung from the valley of the Somersetshire river Gary which 
drains from its fountain near Gastle Gary into the Bristol Channel 
at Bridgewater Bay. The W, M. Gary Notes record a family of 
Gar3rs in this region, whose wills in the seventeenth century show 
them to have been yeomen, with an occasional clergyman; but 
there is no evidence of merchants among them. In this connection 
it is of interest to note that Mr. Henry Grosvenor Gary, in his 
book referred to, says that most of his New England family are 
farmers, and to contrast this characteristic with the inherited bent 
of the descendants of James Gary, who have been shipmasters and 
merchants. 

^ It is included in Robert Galef s More Wonders of the In' 
visible World, the book printed in 1700 as a record of the author's 
charge that Cotton Mather fomented the witch delusion after the 



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ii fcd^ i Baiu i in ^y!k > 



the most interesting of the surviving documents 
for the Salem witch delusion, and does credit to 
his head as to his heart, especially when we re- 
member that some husbands then turned against 
their unfortunate wives in the same plights. 

I having heard some days, that my Wife was accused of 
Witchcraft, being much disturbed at it, by advice, we went 
to Salem-Village, to see if the afflicted did know her; we 
arrived there, 24 May, it happened to be a day appointed 
for Examination; accordingly soon after our arrival, Mr. 
Hathom and Mr. Curwin, etc., went to the Meeting-house, 
which was the place appointed for that Work, the Minister 
began with Prayer, and having taken care to get a convenient 
place, I observed that the afflicted were two Girls of about 
Ten Years old, and about two or three other, of about 
eighteen, one of the Girls talked most, and could discern 
more than the rest. The Prisoners were called in one by one, 
and as they came in were cried out of, etc. The Prisoner 
was placed about 7 or 8 foot from the Justices, and the Ac- 
cusers between the Justices and them; the Prisoner was 
ordered to stand right before the Justices, with an Officer 
appointed to hold each hand, least they should therewith 
afflict them, and the Prisoners Eyes must be constantly on 
the Justices; for if they look'd on the afflicted, they would 
either fall into their Fits, or cry out of being hurt by them ; 
after Examination of the Prisoners, who it was afflicted 
these Girls, etc., they were put upon saying the Lords 
Prayer, as a tryal of their guilt ; after the afflicted seem'd to 
be out of their Fits, they would look steadfastly on some one 
person, and frequently not speak ; and then the Justices said 



Salem tragedy had been ended by Sir William Phips. (See Burr, 
Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases, 350, in the scries Original 
Narratives of Early American History.) 

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they were struck dumb, and after a little time would speak 
again ; then the Justices said to the Accusers, "which of you 
will go and touch the Prisoner at the Bar?" then the most 
courageous would adventure, but before they had made three 
steps would ordinarily fall down as in a Fit; the Justices 
ordered that they should be taken up and carried to the 
Prisoner, that she might touch them; and as soon as they 
were touched by the accused, the Justices would say, they 
are well, before I could discern any alteration; by which I 
observed that the Justices understood the manner of it. Thus 
far I was only as a Spectator, my Wife also was there part 
of the time, but no notice taken of her by the afflicted, ex- 
cept once or twice they came to her and asked her name. 

But I having an opportunity to Discourse Mr. Hale (with 
whom I had formerly acquaintance) I took his advice, what 
I had best to do, and desired of him that I might have an 
opportunity to speak with her that accused my Wife ; which 
he promised should be, I acquainting him that I reposed my 
trust in him. 

Accordingly he came to me after the Examination was 
over, and told me I had now an opportunity to speak with 
the said Accuser, viz: Abigail Williams, a Girl of ii or 12 
Years old; but that we could not be in private at Mr. Par- 
ris's House, as he had promised me; we went therefore into 
the Alehouse, where an Indian Man attended us, who it 
seems was one of the afflicted: to him we gave some Cyder, 
he shewed several Scars, that seemed as if they had been long 
there, and shewed them as done by Witchcraft, and ac- 
quainted us that his wife, who also was a Slave, was im- 
prison'd for Witchcraft. And now instead of one Accuser, 
they all came in, who began to tumble down like Swine, 
and then three Women were called in to attend them. We 
in the Room were all at a stand, to see who they would 
cry out of; but in a short time they cried out, Gary; and 
immediately after a Warrant was sent from the Justices to 

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bring my Wife before them, who were sitting in a Chamber 
near by, waiting for this. 

Being brought before the Justices, her chief accusers were 
two Girls; my Wife declared to the Justices that she never 
had any knowledge of them before that day; she was forced 
to stand with her Arms stretched out. I did request that I 
might hold one of her hands, but it was denied me; then she 
desired me to wipe the Tears from her Eyes, and the Sweat 
from her Face, which I did ; then she desired she might lean 
her self on me, saying, she should faint. 

Justice Hathorn replied, she had strength enough to tor- 
ment those persons, and she should have strength enough to 
stand. I speaking something against their cruel proceedings, 
they commanded me to be silent, or else I should be turned out 
of the room. The Indian before mentioned, was also brought 
in, to be one of her Accusers: being come in, he now (when 
before the Justices) fell down and tumbled about like a 
Hog, but said nothing. The Justices asked the Girls, who 
afflicted the Indian? they answered she (meaning my Wife) 
and now lay upon him; the Justices ordered her to touch 
him, in order to his cure, but her head must be turned an- 
other way, least instead of curing, she should make him 
worse, by her looking on him, her hand being guided to 
take hold of his ; but the Indian took hold on her hand, and 
pulled her down on the floor, in a barbarous manner; then 
his hand was taken off, and her hand put on his, and the 
cure was quickly wrought. I being extreamly troubled at 
their Inhiunane dealings, uttered a hasty Speech (That God 
would take vengeance on them, and desired that God would 
deliver us out of the hands of unmerciful men.) Then her 
Mittimus was writ. I did with difficulty and charge obtain 
the liberty of a Room, but no Beds in it ; if there had, could 
have taken but little rest that Night. She was committed 
to Boston Prison; but I obtained a Habeas Corpus to re- 
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Middlesex. Having been there one Night, next Morning 
the Jaylor put Irons on her legs (having received such a 
command) the weight of them was about eight pounds; these 
Irons and her other Afflictions, soon brought her into Con- 
vulsion Fits, so that I thought she would have died that 
Night. I sent to intreat that the Irons might be taken off, 
but all intreaties were in vain, if it would have saved her 
Life, so that in this condition she must continue. The 
Tryals at Salem coming on, I went thither to sec how 
things were there managed; and finding that the Spectre- 
Evidence was there received together with Idle, if not 
malicious Stories, against Peoples Lives, I did easily perceive 
which way the rest would go; for the same Evidence that 
served for one, would serve for all the rest. I acquainted her 
with her danger; and that if she were carried to Salem to 
be tried, I feared she would never return. I did my utmost 
that she might have her Tryal in our own County, I with 
several others petitioning the Judge for it, and were put in 
hopes of it ; but I soon saw so much, that I understood there- 
by it was not intended, which put me upon consulting the 
means of her escape; which thro the goodness of God 
was affected,^ and she got to Road Island, but soon found her 
self not safe when there, by reason of the pursuit after her ; 
from thence she went to New York, along with some others 
that had escaped their cruel hands ; where we found his Ex- 
cellency Benjamin Fletcher, Esq, ; Governour, who was very 
courteous to us. After this some of my Goods were seized 
in a Friends hands, with whom I had left them, and my 
self imprisoned by the Sheriff, and kept in Custody half a 
day, and then dismist; but to speak of their usage of the 
Prisoners, and their Inhumanity shewn to them, at the time 
of their Execution, no sober Christian could bear; they had 
also tryals of cruel mockings ; which is the more, considering 

^ July 30, 1693, as noted at the time in Sewall's Diary, i, 363. 

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u tf^ I B^igai gii iB^ 



what a People for Religion, I mean the profession of it, we 
have been; those that suffered being many of them Church- 
Members, and most of them unspotted in their Conversation, 
till their Adversary the Devil took up this Method for ac- 
cusing them.^ 

In the spring of 1704 Captain Nathaniel Gary 
had another adventure. He was employed by 
Governor Dudley of Massachusetts to solicit 
from the home government arms and stores for 
the protection of the colony from the French. 
On his voyage to England his ship Seaflower 
was captured by a French privateer and he was 
taken a prisoner to Brest. He had meanwhile 
discreetly thrown his papers into the sea, and so, 
having escaped from Brest, when he turned up 
in London in October, 1704, to present his 
claims on behalf of Massachusetts, he was with- 
out credentials. At last, on January 1 1, 1705, he 
secured through the good offices of the Board of 

^ Among the family reminiscences of Miss Margaret Graves 
Gary (1775-1868), which are included in The Gary Lftters, 1891, 
is another version of the story, as Miss Gary had it by tradition: 

*'Her husband had gone to England in his vessel. Mrs. Ciiry 
was imprisoned soon after his departure, and her daughter Mrs. 
Switcher or Sweetzer gained access to her, and by changing clothes 
succeeded in restoring her mother to liberty. Assisted by her 
friends, she was put on board a ship ready to sail for London 
and arrived in the Thames soon after her husband. He was on 
board his ship shaving himself when she entered the cabin. He 
started and exclaimed: 'My wife! I really believe you are a 
witch and have come over in an egg shell.' 'Don't be a fool, 
Nat, like the rest of your countrymen,* she replied. This is as my 
father used to relate the story; and they returned together to 
America by which time the people had recovered their senses and 
deplored the many cruel deaths which had taken place." 

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Trade and Plantations a grant of twenty cannon 
for Castle William in Boston harbor/ 

There survive among the plate of King's 
Chapel, Boston, and the First Church of Med- 
ford, Mass., two silver dishes which once be- 
longed to this Nathaniel Cary and are so 
marked. Their interesting pedigree is well au- 
thenticated.* 

From another son of the immigrant, 
Jonathan Cary (1646-1738) has descended a 
numerous progeny which has spread out of New 
England into New York. They have main- 
tained in a most interesting way the tradition 
of foreign trade inherited from their Bristol 
ancestors : a number of them have followed the 
sea in the merchant marine; others have been 
deep-sea merchants at New York and Philadel- 
phia. Their Harvard breeding has produced, as 
Oxford breeding did among the Bristol Carys 
in the eighteenth century, several clergymen.^ 

1 See Palfrey, History of Netv England, iv, 266 ; and CaL State 
Papers, Colonial, Am. W. & I., 1704-05, No. 594, p. 68 ct scq. When 
in 1707 the herald Peter LeNeve was engaged in his elimination 
of Americans from the Hunsdon pedigree, he heard of Captain 
Nathaniel Cary and later met his nephew Samuel. In the pedigree 
of the Bristol Carys in America which LeNeve then compiled 
{Harleian MS. 6694) he describes them as follows: "Nathaniel 
Carey, a sea captain, living in 1704, and was then in England. 
Frequented the New England Coffee House behind the Exchange. 
Samuel Carey, have spoke with him, 1707." 

2 E. Alfred Jones, The Old Silver of American Churches, 1913, 64. 
8 For instance, the Rev. Thomas Gary (1745-1808) of Newbury- 

port, and the Rev. Samuel Gary (1785-1815), rector of King's 
Chapel, Boston. Both left a number of published sermons. 

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"»^. 



One of his family, SAMUEL Cary (1713-1769), 
acquired through his marriage with Margaret 
Graves in 1741 the house in Charlestown built 
in 1670 by Governor Bellingham, which is still 
one of the monuments of New England colonial 
architecture.* His son, another Samuel Gary 
(1742-18 1 2), was long a sugar planter in the 
island of St. Kitts, but returned to Boston to end 
his life. He left a large family which still per- 
sists.^ 

Another descendant of Jonathan Cary was 
Richard Gary (b. 1746), who was an aide- 
de-camp to General Washington in the Ameri- 
can Revolution.* He established his children at 

1 For more than a hundred and fifty years it has been known 
to the public as the Cary House, but to the family as "The Re- 
treat,'* and until recently was occupied by successive generations of 
the family. The interesting story of the descent of title, from 
Governor Bellingham to Margaret Graves, of the farm originally 
known as Winnisimmet and now included, as part of Chelsea in the 
city of Boston, is told in Mrs. Curtis's The Cary Letters. 

* Mrs. Curtis's The Cary Letters is the record of this family at St. 
Kitts and elsewhere. These Carys married Grays, Perkins, Tucker- 
mans, and other characteristic Massachusetts names: two sisters 
among them married President C. C. Felton of Harvard and Profes- 
sor Louis Agassiz. The last named was the first president of Rad- 
cliffe College. (See Paton, Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, 191 9.) The 
father of these sisters was Thomas Graves Cary (1791-1859) of 
Boston, who was the author of a number of publications on banking. 

Some of these Carys migrated to New York as merchants. One 
of them, Henry Cary (1785-1857), who lived in St. John's Park, 
is to be met in the Diary of Philip Hone. (See also Bayard 
Tuckerman, The Tuckerman Family,) 

* M!r. Ford justly observes that "much loose statement exists 
concerning the military family of Washington." Ther« were all 
told thirty-four aides named by Washington in General Orders. 
Richard Cary is included in those of June 21, 1776. (Ford, Writ" 
ings of Washington, xiv, 433.) 

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Cooperstown, New York, at the beginning of the 
nineteenth century. EDWARD CARY(b. 1738), an 
uncle of this Richard Gary, planted the name 
in the tight little island of Nantucket, where it 
has since flourished. 



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toUIIiWillUJ Ilil % > k . 



Chapter Twenty-one 

THE VIRGINIA EMIGRANT 

Miles Gary' (1623-1667), fourth son of 
John Gary, "draper" of Bristol, by Alice Hob- 
son his wife, was baptized at All Saints Ghurch 

1 There are no known surviving personal papers of the emi- 
grant Miles Gary. Even the colonial records of Warwick County, 
where he lived, are gone, having been sent to Richmond during 
the war between the States for safe-keeping, and there destroyed 
in the fire which consumed the office of the General Court after 
the evacuation in April, 1865. (R. A. Brock in Winsor's Narra- 
tive and Critical History of America, iii, 161.) We are, therefore, 
compelled to piece out our immigrant's career from such scraps 
of information as may be derived from the surviving public rec- 
ords of Virginia. For the general and political history of the 
colony in the middle of the seventeenth century we have Beverley 
{History, 1705) for the nearest approach to contemporary opinion; 
Burk (History, 1805) for the extreme republican view of the 
generation following the American Revolution; and Charles 
Campbell (History, i860) for the conventional Virginia judg- 
ment of Berkeley. Modern studies of value are Doyle (English 
Colonization, 1882), Osgood (The American Colonies in the Seven- 
teenth Century, 1904-1907), Wertenbaker (Virginia under the 
Stuarts, I9i4)» and Flippen (Royal Government in Virginia, 1919). 
As source books there are Mr. Philip Alexander Bruce's three 
scholarly and impressive studies of the surviving MS. records 
(Economic Hist,, 1895, Social Life, 1907, and Institutional Hist,, 
1910), Neil! (Virginia Carolorum, 1886), Hening (Latvs of Vir- 
ginia, 1823), Mcllwaine (Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1913), 
the Calendar of State Papers, America and West Indies, and the 
contemporary tracts included in the collections of Peter Force 
(1836). In the Virginia Magazine and William & Mary Quarterly 
are published many of the transcripts of English records pre- 

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NO 
< 

3 



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i%iri0Hi8bs^ 



in Bristol on January 30, 1622 (O. S.)/ De- 
riving his blood remotely from the gentry (to 
use the word in the special sense which Crom- 
well gave it*), he was begotten and bred of 

served in the Virginia State Library and Library of Congress, as 
well as contemporary local letters and documents which have come 
to light in the last twenty-five years. 

^All Saints parish register, calendared in JV. M, Gary Notes, 
The name Miles is heretofore unprecedented among Carys and 
undoubtedly was borrowed from the Hobsons. There was a Miles 
Hobson in 1609 {Bristol Orphan Books) who was probably the 
maternal great-grandfather of Miles Cary. There was also Miles 
Jackson, one of the most enterprising and successful of the Bristol 
meere merchants of his day, who was a friend of both Miles 
Gary's grandfathers and a neighbor of the old mayor, William 
Cary, "on the Back." He is named in Henry Hobson's will 
(P.C.C. Pile, 5a), where it appears that his son Thomas had 
married the sister of Miles Car/s mother. Another son, also 
Miles Jackson, was M. P. for Bristol. 

Genealogically, the identification of Miles Cary in England and 
in Virginia is proved by (i) his M. L in Warwick County, Vir- 
ginia, showing that he was son of "John Cary and Alice, his wife, 
daughter of Henry Hobson of the City of Bristol, Alderman"; 
(2) the parish register of All Saints, Bristol, showing the baptism 
of "Myles," son of John and Alice Cary; (3) the parish register of 
St. Nicholas^ Bristol, showing the baptism of John, son of William 
Cary; (4) the Heralds' College pedigree of 1700 (of which a 
contemporary copy is in Stowe MS,, 670; see Waters, Gleanings, 
ii, 1057), showing John Cary as "4th son" of "William Cary, Mayor 
of Bristol, anno 161 1" and "married Alice, dau^ of Henry Hob- 
son, Aid. of Br. vide I 24, 87b"; and (5) the Heralds' College 
pedigree of 1699, showing "Miles Cary, son of John, settled in 
Virginia, and had issue Thomas Cary, who md Anne, da. Francis 
Milner." Supplementary evidence is the will of Henry Hobson 
(supra) f mentioning his grandson "Myles Car/' as a child of his 
daughter Alice, and the will (P.C.C. Nabbs, 206, to which atten- 
tion was first called by Mr. H. F. Waters) of Alice Cary of Shad- 
well, mentioning "my grandfather John Cary of Bristol, woolen 
draper," "my uncle Myles Cary of Virginia," and "my cousin 
William Hobson." 

* At a moment when the world has been made "safe for democ- 
racy" it is not inexpedient to recall his words. Cromwell was ad- 
vising the first Protectorate Parliament in 1654 to take order for 
"Healing and Settling" the nation, as who should say for a policy 

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the citizen merchant class of his contemporary 
England; of the aristocracy of that class, it is 
true, for his two grandfathers had both been 
mayors of Bristol when it was the second city of 
the kingdom, but of the merchant class never- 
theless. We can guess that he attended such a 
school in Bristol as that to which he afterwards 
sent from Virginia one if not more of his sons, 
and that he had as much opportunity of educa- 
tion as any of his contemporaries who did not go 
to the universities/ When he came to manhood 

of post-war reconstruction. Among other things he said (the 
speech is reproduced by Carlyle in Oliver Cromwell's Letters and 
Speeches, iv, 23 ) : "What was the face that was upon our affairs 
as to the Interest of the Nation? As to the Authority in the 
Nation: to the Magistracy: to the Ranks and Orders of men— 
whereby England hath been known for hundreds of years? A 
nobleman, a gentleman, a yeoman; the distinction of these, that is 
a good interest of' the Nation and a great one. The natural 
Magistracy of the Nation, was it not almost trampled under foot, 
under despite and contempt by men of levelling principles? I 
beseech you. For the orders of men and ranks of men, did not that 
levelling principle tend to the reducing of all to an equality? Did 
it consciously think to do so, or did it only unconsciously practice 
towards that for property and interest? At all events, what was 
the purport of it but to make the Tenant as liberal a fortune as 
the landlord? which, I think, if obtained would not have lasted 
long! The men of that principle after they had served their own 
turns would then have cried up property and interest fast enough! 
This instance is instead of many. And that the thing did and 
might well extend far is manifest: because it was a pleasing voice 
to all Poor Men and truly not unwelcome to all Bad Men. To my 
thinking this is a consideration which in your endeavors after 
settlement you will be so well minded of, that I might have spared 
it here: but let that pass.'' 
^ The merchant class which planted Virginia, being in touch with 
• the world through foreign trade, was eminently better educated 
and more enlightened than many of the gentry in seventeenth- 
century England. To understand the limitations of the country 
gentleman who was Miles Gary's contemporary, it is necessary to 

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Bristol was in the throes of civil war. He was 
just twenty when his father was imprisoned for 
his part in Yeomans' Royalist plot, and twenty- 
two when, in 1645, the city was recaptured by 
the Parliamentary army. Those two years must 
have been years of disaster for his father, as 
they were to the merchants of Bristol generally, 
and led to the scattering of the children. One 
and perhaps two of the brothers took to the 
sea, another went up to London, but what to do 
we do not know. It was then, and under an 
economic pressure which was felt by all the mer- 
chant class in England,^ that Miles determined 
to seek his fortune by emigration, following the 

read the plays of Wycherley, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar. Cf, for 
the mercantile educational tradition, Eggleston, Thi Transit of 
CiviliMaHon, 1901. 

1 Convincing evidence of this pressure in the middle of the 
seventeenth century among the merchant class in England to which 
Miles Gary belonged may be found in their family letters, which 
by happy accident have been preserved; i,g,, William Mason, a 
London merchant, writes in August, 1650, to a kinsman established 
in Virginia: "I must informe you yt or trading since o^ troubles 
began in England is much decayed and since I was married to 
yoi" sister there hath been much of y« estate lost that both myselfe 
and she thought would have beene very good." Again William 
Hallam, a salter of Bumham, co. Essex, writes in 1655: "Now 
brother and sister, y« bearer hereof, my kinsman, Thomas Hallam, 
eldest son of my late brother Thomas Hallam, haveing a desire 
to go beyond sea in regard of a troublesome land that we have 
and do live in, o^* trade growing very, very bad and haveing 
great losses at sea whereby that p'tion whch ^as left him by his 
late father is much decayed." {fT. & M, Quar., viii, 241, 343.) 
These letters might well have been written by some of the Carys 
of Bristol. For a comprehensive contemporary statement of the 
economic causes of emigration, see the testimony of Thomas Violet, 
goldsmith, before a Parliamentary committee in 1650. {Cal, State 
Papers, Domestic, 1650, No. 61, p. 778.) 

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example of his uncle James, who had now been 
for some years established in Massachusetts. 
Bristol was then trading with both the northern 
and southern colonies, and the conditions of each 
must have been well understood in the Gary 
family. Of Virginia they heard tales of risks 
of Indians and devastating fevers, but also of in- 
dependence achieved in a few years by planting 
tobacco in a pleasant climate.* Doubtless young 
Miles read also the voyages in Purchas and Cap- 
tain John Smith's romantic pages and picked up 
from the latter a few Indian words, studying 
anxiously his map of the country.* Perhaps, on 
the other hand, they had letters from James 
Gary to the effect that Massachusetts was no El 
Dorado, but an opportunity for hard work in a 
severe climate.* Arguing from his subsequent 

^ ''The land of Virginia is most fruitfull and produceth with 
very great increase whatsoever is conunitted into the Bowells of it, 
Planted, Sowed. A fat rich soile everywhere watered with many fine 
springs, small rivolets and wholesome waters. . . . Their tobacco is 
much vented and esteemed in all places. ... A man can plant two 
thousand waight a yeare of it, and also sufficient come and roots, 
and other provisions for himself. . . . And in tobacco they can make 
20 I sterling a man at 3d a pound per annum: and this they find and 
know and the present gain is that, that puts out all endeavors from 
the attempting of others more staple and solid and rich commodi- 
ties." {A New Description of Virginia, 1649, in Force Tracts , ii.) 

* Colonel Norwood (A Voyage to Virginia, 1649, in Force Tracts, 
iii, 10) had read Captain John Smith and there learned what a 
vjerowance was. The famous Map of Virginia was first published 
in 1 612, and again in Purchas in 1625. Ferraris map, which we 
reproduce, was not published until 1651, when Miles Gary was 
established in Virginia. 

' "Thence I sailed to New England, where I found three months 
snow, hard winter, but lean land, in generall all along the sea 

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political alignment we may assume that not the 
least element in Miles Gary's election for Vir- 
ginia was that his immediate family were not 
only Royalist but anti-Puritan in their opinions. 
Nothing in Miles Gary's career suggests any 
trace of the religious fervor which drew men to 
Massachusetts. 

If political opinion was, indeed, any part of 
the decision, there was special reason after the 
capture of Bristol by the Parliamentary army for 
Miles Gary ta go to Virginia. Fresh from the 
first years of his governorship, flushed with the 
popularity won by his successful Indian cam- 
paign and the approval of his king for his 
adroit promotion of a colonial resistance to the 
last attempt at revival of the London Gompany, 
which had just won him his knighthood. Sir 
William Berkeley had been in England during 
that year of the king's military disaster, and had 
lately returned to loyal Virginia, having "indus- 
triously invited many gentlemen and others 
thither as to a place of security."^ Berkeley 
felt a pride in the colony and was well aware 
of the evil reputation the first population of Vir- 
ginia then and for long after had in the unin- 
formed English imagination,^ and in conse- 

coast, well peopled Towns, the people very thrifty, industrious 
and temperate." (Niiv Albion, 1648, in Force Tracts, ii.) 

^ Clarendon, Rebeliion, vi, 610. 

> There is ample testimony of this reputation in the pamphlets 
published to refute it. See e.g,, A Nevi Description of Virginia 

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jf^ — — ^iM^i^gMBteB^iai— — i— ^^ 

quence was keen to secure as immigrants "gentle- 
men and others" to whom he could point as rep- 
resentative of the planters, to support the boast 
which later he actually made that "men of as 
good family as any subjects in England have re- 
sided there." 

At the moment when the fame of Falkland 
filled the mouths of all Cavalier England, Berke- 
ley, having such ambitions, would be quick to 
appreciate the significance of the name Gary in 
the colony, whether drawn from the counting- 
house or the manor-house, especially in view of 
the fact that more Carys than any other single 
family in England had taken part in the London 
Company, before it became a "seminary of 
sedition."^ 

(1649), in Force Tracts, ii. As late as 1663, in his Discourse and 
Vie*w of Virginia, Berkeley himself says: "Another great imputa- 
tion lyes on the Country, that none but those of the meanest quality 
and corruptest lives go thither." 

1 Sir George Gary of Cockington, Sir Robert Carey, afterwards 
Earl of Monmouth, Sir Henry Carey, "Captaine," afterwards Earl 
of Dover, and Sir Henry Gary, afterwards Lord Falkland, were 
all subscribers to the Virginia Company under the second charter 
of 1609, while the last named then became a member of the Council 
for Virginia. Under the Southampton administration of the com- 
pany in 1 621, Sir Philip Gary, of the Falkland family, became a 
member of the council and thenceforth until his death in 1631 was 
active in Virginia affairs, being one of the Warwick faction which 
provoked the revocation of the charter and a member of the 
commission appointed by James I in 1624, the prototype of the later 
Board of Trade, which supervised the transition of Virginia from 
a proprietary to a crown colony. (Brown, Genesis, ii, 844; Neill, 
Virginia Carolorum, 11; Va, Mag., vii, 39, viii, 33.) 

If Miles Gary knew anything at all of these distant and glitter- 
ing kinsmen, he was doubtless more concerned with his own ad- 
venture. 

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jf^ 'il fc ii J i l IWiiili i i i Mnf i fiTji u 

Berkeley sailed from Bristol for Virginia in 
the spring of 1645. It is not impossible that 
young Miles Gary then and there stood before 
Sir William for the first time, felt the glamour 
of his courtly presence and his charming man- 
ners, and received a gracious approval of the 
project to become one of his "subjects."* We 
can imagine Miles Gary outfitting himself 
for his great adventure. He had received a 
small legacy under the will of his grandfather 
Hobson, but his mother being one of the three 
residuary legatees of what was evidently a sub- 
stantial estate and perhaps now dead, it is more 
likely that the bulk of his capital was derived 
from her portion : to this would be added what 
his father could advance him.^ He must have 
been able to go as well outfitted as most with the 
things which were necessary, for "although 
many howsholds in Verginia are soe well pro- 

^ See the portrait of Sir William Berkeley in the Virginia State 
Library. The original from which this copy is derived is at- 
tributed to Sir Godfrey Kneller; if so, it could not have been 
painted until after Berkeley's final return to England, for Kneller 
did not begin his work in England until 1678. It seems more 
likely that the portrait was made in 1645: the face and figure 
are of one in the prime of life, not an embittered old tyrant at 
whom his king sneered, but a gracious and courtly gentleman, as 
all the testimony indicates Berkefey to have been before the Dutch 
foray in 1667. 

^ It does not seem probable that Miles had much from his 
father until John Car/s estate was distributed after 1661. He 
died seized of two houses in Bristol, one in Baldwin Street and 
the other in Nicholas Street: both were in St. Nicholas' parish, and 
so must have come to him from his father rather than the Hobsons. 
We have assumed that it was to take possession of this inheritance 
that Mileff Gary was absent from Virginia in 1663. 

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vided as to entertayne a stranger with all things 
necessary for the belly, yet few or none better 
provide for the back, as yeat, than to serve 
theyre own turns; therefore tis necessary that 
hee bee provided." So he took with him not 
only such "household stufFe" and "aparell," in- 
cluding "for his own particular use a fether bed, 
bolster, blanquetts, rugg, curtayns and val- 
lance," but "i suit of complete light armour,^ 
I sword, I musket or fowling peece, with 
powder and shot convenient," and, over and 
above the personal necessaries, what no scion of 
a merchant house would think of going without, 
a stock of "what wares may prove his profit 
there" as were recommended by those who had 
had experience in the colony.* 

We do not know when or by what ship Miles 
Gary sailed,* but we may assume that it was in 

^Beauchamp Plantagenet {Ne*w Albion, 1648) describes the re- 
quirement as "half an old slight armour, that is two to one 
armour." Armor was useful against the Indian arrows long after 
it had ceased to be effective against fire-arms, and so its use was 
prolonged in colonial Virginia. A piece of such mail, excavated 
at Jamestown in 1861, is now in the collection of the Virginia 
Historical Society. 

^ For the outfit see the letter written in 1634 to Sir Edward 
Verney advising what was necessary for his young son about to be 
sent to Virginia, Verney Papers, Camden Society, and quoted in 
Neill, Virginia Caroiorum, 109; Williams, Virginia Richly and 
Truly Valued (1650), in Force Tracts, in; Evelyn, New Albion 
(1648), in Force Tracts, ii; and Bullock, Virginia (1649). I^or 
Verney it was estimated that the cost of the absolute necessities, 
including transportation, for an adventurer, with two servants, 
would come to £56. Williams later estimates £20 a man. 

' Hotten bases his valuable compilation of the names of *'those 
who went from Great Britain to the American Plantations 1600- 

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one of the two Bristol ships which then still reg- 
ularly trafficked to Virginia despite the risks of 
the Commonwealth privateers/ and that the 
ship was commanded by his future father-in- 
law, Thomas Taylor. The voyage out, before the 
direct route was established,* was still long and 
tedious; touching at the Azores and passing 
north by Bermuda, it took more than seven 
weeks if all went well with the three-hundred- 
ton ship, and much more in case of adverse 
winds or disaster.^ 

When Miles Gary entered the Virginia capes, 
then, as now, bearing the names of James I's 
sons, it was scarce forty years since that soft 
April day when Captain Christopher Newport 
piloted into the broad bosom of "the mother of 

1700'* largely on the clearances of ships sailing from London. He 
says (The Original Lists, 1880, p. xxxi) of Bristol, "no records of 
departures from that port remain." This is unfortunate in respect 
of the many Virginia families who emigrated through Bristol, be- 
cause on the other hand the surviving archives of Virginia are 
bare of immigration records for the period after the dissolution of 
the London Company. There was indeed a law passed in 1632 
(Hening, i, 166) requiring the commander of the fort at Foint 
Comfort to repair on board of all ships on their arrival, take a 
list of the passengers, "and to keepe record of the same.*' The 
enforcement of this provision was unpopular because it carried a 
capitation tax, and it doubtless fell into abeyance. 

^A Perfect Description of Virginia (1649), 14, in Force Tracts, 
ii. 

2 "The seamen of late years having found a way that now in 
5, 6 and 7 weeks they saile to Virginia free from all Rocks, Sands 
and Pirats." {A Perfect Description of Virginia (1649), 7, in 
Force Tracts, ii.) 

'See Colonel Norwood's Voyage to Virginia (1649), in Force 
Tracts, iii. No. 10. 

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^ itfawB^jiii i i »u > 



waters"^ that band of Englishmen who were to 
lay the foundation of a mighty destiny. He had 
indeed no difficulty in realizing the emotions of 
Newport's company when they had strained 
their eyes upon the distant low-lying shores,* for 
little was changed. While much history had 
been made during those forty years and the 
colony was now securely established, the physi- 
cal aspect of the country was not yet modified : 
Virginia was still an adventure on the edge of 
the wilderness.* 

Before proceeding to rehearse Miles Gary's 
career let us attempt to realize what country he 
was in, how he was to live, and among what kind 
of people. 

When he arrived the total white population in 

^ Such is the significaiice of the Indian word from which we 
derive Chesapeake. 

2 ''Breathes there the man with soul so dead" who has sailed 
up Hampton Roads on a brilliant spring morning and cannot still 
realize the emotions of Captain Newport's company? The ex- 
panse of waters is so nobly great, but the air so full of the 
promise of land though the aspects of civilization are long delayed, 
that it does not require much imagination to carry oneself back 
three hundred years to Master George Percy's thrill when on 
"the six and twentieth day of April [1607] about foure a clocke 
in the morning, wee descried the Land of Virginia. The same 
day wee entred into the Bay of Chesupioc directly, without any 
let or hindrance." (Purchas his Pilgrimes, iv, 1686.) 

^ The most graphic realization of this fact may be obtained from 
a study of Virginia Ferrar's map of 1651, with its mountains and 
forests inhabited by fabulous beasts and its waters the resort of 
leviathan. This map illustrates a lively imagination, excited by 
tales of adventure in the interior and visualized through the pages 
of the Book of Job. For Virginia Ferrar, see Neill, Virginia 
Company t 191, Phillips, Virginia Cartography , and Va, Mag,, xi, 42. 

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■*W1« <^% , 



the colony, though rapidly increasing, was not 
more than half that of the city in which he had 
been born and reared.^ As a consequence of the 
removal of the Indians above the falls of the 
rivers and the treaty made in 1644 after the cap- 
ture and death of Powhatan's successor, the 
mysterious old "pow-wow" Opechancanough, 
the "seated" area had begun to spread out from 
the valley of the James and the peninsula of Ac- 
comac, where it had been confined since the first 
settlement. Crossing the York River it was now 
extending rapidly up the western shores of 
Chesapeake Bay and the valleys of its tribu- 
taries until by the end of Miles Cary's life it 
embraced all of what we .now call tidewater 
Virginia.^ 

The life of these colonists was in many re- 
spects a reversion to the earliest agricultural ex- 
perience of the English race. Their practice 

1 Macaulay says {History, iii) : "In the reign of Charles the 
Second no proyindal town in the Kingdom contained thirty thou- 
sand inhabitants. . . . Next to the capital . . . stood Bristol." 
The English population of Virginia, which in 1616, nine years 
after the first settlement, did not exceed 351 (John Rolfe, Relation, 
Fa, Hist, Reg., i, no), grew by 1635, when a census was taken, 
to 5,000 (Neill, Virginia Carolorum, 114), by 1649 to 15,000 {A 
Perfect Description of Virginia, in Force Tracts, ii), and in 1671 
to 40,000 (Berkeley's report in Neill, ibid, 335). These bare figures 
do not, however, tell the story of the effort they represent. Beau- 
champ P\antagenet(New Albion, 1648, in Force Tracts, ii) heard "old 
Virginians affirm the sicknesse there the first thirty years to have 
killed 100,000 men." Berkeley himself {u,s., 335) confirms this, say- 
ing in 1671 that "heretofore not one of five escaped the first year." 

> See the series of maps in Robinson, Virginia Counties (Va. 
State Library), 191 6. 

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^itt^i— ■ ^^ 



of extensive cultivation of the land they won 
from the forest and then turned out again in "old 
fields" was closely parallel to that described by 
Caesar and Tacitus, which obtained in Frisia 
when our Teutonic ancestors first responded to 
an economic pressure and gave over their nomad 
habits: like that earlier life, again, they soon de- 
veloped a reliance upon involuntary servitude to 
accomplish their laborious tasks. 

The outstanding physical facts of their exist- 
ence were the rivers and the forests ; their char- 
acteristic occupations were felling trees and 
planting tobacco: the country has for these 
reasons been happily described as a sylvan 
Venice. Not only all commerce but practically 
all communication with one's neighbors was 
water-borne, for the early planter built his house 
on the tidewater of a stream or creek and main- 
tained a heavy barge, to be rowed by his servants, 
or a sloop, as much as a matter of course as his 
descendant maintained a farm-wagon or a coach. 
Afloat, the colonist was free, in touch with the 
world ; he could well sing "an holy and a chear- 
ful note"; but ashore, he was ever face to face 
with his great competitor for possession of the 
soil — the forest. Much of the primeval growth 
of oak, chestnut, tulip-poplar, cypress, and cedar 
was still standing everywhere awaiting subjuga- 
tion, but on the peninsula between the James 
and York rivers there was no longer that un- 

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jS^ ' - % 



broken, oppressive, and continuously dark can- 
opy which covered the clay lands of the interior. 
The trees which predominated in the tidewater 
region were walnut, hickory, ash, and locust: 
they stood in serried but open array, without 
undergrowth, revealing a land checkered with 
shadows.^ At intervals also there were cleared 
areas of considerable extent, Indian **old fields" : 
when these had been kept burned off the spon- 
taneous grass grew "as high as a horse and his 
rider."* In this environment the first and fore- 

^ In 1650 it was estimated that a fourth of the trees in the 
Virginia forest were walnut (Virginia Richly Valued, in Force 
Tracts, iii), which is understood to include hickory, a tree and a 
name then new to the colonists. The habit of both these trees is 
to be intolerant of shade and to resist crowding. The early 
writers insist also on the abundance of plums, persimmons, sumac, 
and sassafras, all "old field trees.*' On these statements modem 
scientific opinion concludes that before the colonists' arrival much 
of the primeval forest had already been replaced in tidewater 
Virginia by a second growth on land previously cleared and 
cultivated by the Indians; and that the forest standing at the be- 
ginning of the seventeenth century was thin and let in abundance 
of light. (Sec Maxwell, The Use and Abuse of Forests by the 
Virginia Indians, in W. & M, Quar., xix, 97.) This judgment 
fits in with the absence of undergrowth, which is well authenti- 
cated. Captain John Smith testifies (Works, ed. Arber, 56) that 
"a man may gallop a horse amongst these woods any waie." 
(Ibid,, 67.) And again: "Thicks there is few." (Ibid,, 34.) 
Bullod[ (Virginia, 1649, 3) says that even in the thickest forest 
the trees stood so far apart that a coach could have been driven 
through without danger of coming into contact with the trunks 
and boughs. It is of interest also to observe that De Br/s en- 
gravings (reproduced in Beverley) nowhere show a land of dense 
forest. The original forest trees were scarce enough to serve as 
land marks: Thus in Miles Gary's patents we find corners called 
by "a great white oak" and "a great poplar." 

2 This fact explains why the planters were early able to export 
cattle to New England. For the Indian "old fields" see Virginia 
Richly Valued, 1650, 13, in Force Tracts, iii; and for the grass, 

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most economic effort was further to clear the 
land. To get rid of the forest was the badge of 
the colonist's civilization.^ He learned to fell 
a tree by the use of fire without damage to the 
trunk, after the labor-saving Indian fashion,* 
and much of the lumber so saved he worked up 
for market. As late as 1671 the colony craved 
the privilege of exporting to the south of Europe 
pipe-staves and hand-split clapboards (or "clove 

WilHam Byrd, Works, cd. Bassett, 289. While Colonel Byrd 
was writing of the Roanoke Valley, grass grew also in the pen- 
insula. We assume this with confidence because even after three 
centuries of exhausting cultivation grass still grows spontaneously 
on the sandy loam of the peninsula, a consequence of the marl in 
the soil. '*The pasturage consists of native grasses which come 
up voluntarily. . . . Hay is cut for two years, after which 
the fields are used for pasture. . . . The following yields are 
reported. . Hay from i to 2 tons." (Burke and Root, Soil 

Survey of the Yorktovm Area, 1906.) 

The experience of the growth of grass on the "old fields" if 
they were kept clear of forest had taught the Indians to prepare 
prairies on a larger scale, to attract their herbivorous game. When 
the colonists arrived the deliberate burning of the forests for this 
purpose, which had already created the prairies of Kentucky 
(Shaler, Nature and Man in America, 184), was just beginning 
in the east "Virginia between its mountains and the sea was 
passing through its fiery ordeal and was approaching a crisis at 
the time the colonists snatched the fagot from the Indian's hand. 
The tribes were burninjg everything that would burn, and it can 
be said with at least as much probability of Virginia as of the 
region west of the Alleghanies, that if the discovery of America 
had been postponed fiyt hundred years Virginia would have been 
pasture land or desert." (Maxwell, u,s,) 

^ So much a part of pioneer life has this been throughout the 
conquest of the American continent that it is not difficult to under- 
stand the slow progress of the attempt to educate the descendants 
of the pioneer in the conservation of the now fast disappearing 
forests of America. 

2 See Beverley, iii, 6a, illustrated by De Bry*8 engraving. 

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^%iJ?glB i iilLy ^i^toMMM iiii i i n ii m^^ 



boards," as they were then called), but, coupled 
with the prohibitions of the navigation law,^ the 
supply of neither labor nor ships was sufficient to 
use the forest, thus economically, fast enough to 
keep pace with the demand for land on which 
to plant tobacco. In consequence the settlers of 
the lands above the peninsula had learned from 
the Indians also the wasteful practice of "gird- 
ling" and so killing the mighty giants of the 
forest, thus removing the canopy of foliage and 
opening the land to the sun and rain: the tall 
skeleton stumps were left to be removed at lei- 
sure as they rotted down.* 

On the land so cleared, whether by the Indians 
before his arrival or by his own effort, the colo- 
nist began the cultivation of the light friable 
diluvial soil, then rich in humus, underlaid with 
argillaceous clay • abounding in fossil shells, 
which was for a time marvelously fertile, in the 
production of the renowned sweet-scented Vir- 
ginia tobacco.^ 

^ Sec all the early tracts, and finally Berkeley's report (in Vir^ 
ginia Carolorum, 336) complaining that the navigation laws had 
put an end to a prosperous export of pipe-staves to the wine- 
producing countries of southern Europe. 

*See Beverley, iii, 61. This practice can still be seen on the 
cotton plantations along the Gulf of Mexico to-day. 

^Captain John Smith (Works, ed. Arber, 49) calls the soil "a 
black sandy mould/' indicting its humus content since exhausted; 
in the peninsula the soil is now generally gray, brown, or yellow- 
ish. Geologically the peninsula is a tertiary formation equivalent 
to miocene. For the distribution of the marl see Rogers, Geology 
of the Virgimas (1884), 28, and for the benefits of the local use 



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i^mmaMJUiJMi ^^ 



His second wasteful practice was to plant 
tobacco, and practically nothing but tobacco,^ 
year after year, without drainage, without com- 
pensation of manure, without rotation, and with- 
out even the restorative influence of leguminous 
crops, until the greedy tobacco plant had eaten 
all the humus out of the soil and the beneficent 
soil bacteria had fled before the deadly plough.^ 
Then the planter cleared another area of 
forest, and so proceeded until he had exhausted 
all his land, and, if he had no other means of 
livelihood, was compelled to patent and take up 
a new plantation on the widening western 
frontier. 

of it in agriculture see Ruffin, Calcareous Manures, fifth ed^ 1852. 
This Virginia classic is the record of the studies and experiments 
which made it possible for the plantations of the peninsula, apparently 
exhausted by tobacco planting, to produce wheat profitably during 
the first half of the nineteenth century. For the blight of the Civil 
War on agriculture in the peninsula and the economic explanation 
of the large areas since grown up in scrub oak and loblolly pine, 
see Burke and Root, Soil Survey of the Yorktovm Area (1906). 

^ Almost from the moment when the colonists learned from the 
Indians to plant tobacco and maize the effort of intelligent author- 
ity was to keep the two crops in balance. (John Rolfe, Relation, 
1616, Va. Hist, Reg., i, loa; Wyatt's Report for 1622, in Neill, Vir- 
ginia Company, 282.) The regulations succeeded in securing the 
production of enough corn not only for food, but, as we have 
seen, for export, but the Virginia god continued to be Tobo, In 
Miles Gary's lifetime new efforts were made to diversify the crops, 
to grow small grains, and especially to produce silk, but, like the 
manufactures which the London Company had sought to establish, 
they were never more than experiments. The very fact that 
tobacco was the medium of all commercial transactions obstructed 
them. Few men who live by the soil have the self-restraint to 
suspend the money crop. 

' See, for enlightened contemporary observation, Clayton, Account 
of Several Observables in Virginia, 1688, at p. 22, in Force Tracts, iii. 

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From the physical world he lived in we turn 
for a glance at the domestic economy of the sev- 
enteenth-century planter. 

There was little stone in the peninsula between 
the York and James rivers, but, as we have seen, 
abundance of lumber; and for the same reason 
that the contemporary Englishman was just be- 
ginning to rebuild his towns of brick,^ the Vir- 
ginia colonist built his house of wood, at first of 
logs, but soon of f rame.^ We can in imagination 
reconstruct Miles Gary's house.* It stood in a 
grove of lofty walnuts under a cypress-shingled 
roof, looking down Warwick River to its con- 
fluence with the broad brown waters of the 
James: of one-story-and-attic construction, 
sheathed with weathered clapboards, with brick 
chimneys and a one- room wing at each end, the 
main roof, pierced by dormer-windows, running 

^ See Turner, Domestic Architecture in England, ed. Parker, 
1S51-1S59; and cf. Akioton, Ralph Thoresby, i, 62. 

' Bricks were burned in Virginia at early as 1638, when the 
first brick house was built at Jamestown, but they were of poor 
quality. (See NeiH Virginia Carolorum, 163, a^.) The weather- 
beaten, unpainted frame house such as one sees still on the planta- 
tions df the far South was the typical plantation house in the 
seventeenth century, and, indeed, long afterwards. The richest 
planters had not begun to build brick houses until the beginning 
of the eighteenth century. Those stately mansions of which the 
survivals are depicted in Lancaster, Historic Virginia Homes and 
Churches, 1910, are the more distinguished because they were 
never common. 

3 This first home of Gary in Virginia has disappeared, leaving 
only a grassy cavity and the fragments of Miles Gary's tomb to 
mark its site— a characteristic Virginia phenomenon. (See The 
Virginia Carys, 33, and Bruce, Social Life, 109.) 

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down over a deep veranda. There was a wide 
hall through the house to catch the summer 
breezes from the river, and this was the living- 
room. There were four or perhaps six sleeping- 
rooms/ in which stood the feather and flock beds 
and their furniture, an encompassing set of red 
linsey-woolsey curtains supported on rods, with 
a valance of drugget. The sheets were of osna- 
burg, the blankets of duffle. Worsted yarn rugs 
were on the floors, and the windows were hung 
with printed linen. The table ware was at first 
of pewter.^ The kitchen and outbuildings were 
near at hand within the palisade of the house- 
yard, and adjoining was the garden where grew 
vegetables — Indian peas, "better than ours," says 
an English commentator, beans and lupins, as 

^ James Neale had been a merchant in Spain and in Maryland, . 
where h^ was of sufficient importance to be a member of the 
^council. *ilc acquired a plantation in Westmoreland County, Vir- 
ginia, called it Wollaston Manor, and in 1661 contracted to have 
a dwelling-house built thereon. This house was probably typical 
of the better class plantation houses in the seventeenth century. 
The specifications call for "one house of forty foote long & 
twenty-five foote wide, framed work to be nine foote between ye 
ground-sill k wall plate k all ye ground-sills to bee of locust 
wood; ye lower part to bee divided into five Roomes wth two 
chimnies below and one small chimnye above. And build to it a 
porch ten foote long & eight foote wide, ye loft to be layed w^ 
sawed wood. And to build two Dormer windowes above k other 
windows at y« end of y« loft. And to point all windowes and 
Dores below stayres k all compleatly furnished except ye covering 
& weather boarding." (XT. & M. Quar,, xv, 181.) 

' While the house remained the same, by the end of Miles Car/s 
life prosperity had doubtless greatly increased the luxury of its 
furnishings. The loss of the inventory of his estate prevents 
specification, but we know what some of his contemporaries in the 
council had at home. Miles Gary mentions his plate in his will. 

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well as roots, including "potatoes, Sparagras, 
Garrets, Turnips, Parsnips, Onions and Harti- 
chokes," all bordered with the well beloved flow- 
ers of England which Perdita names, rosemary 
and rue, "hot lavender, mint, savory and majo- 
ram," on which murmured innumerable bees. 
Strawberries grew wild, "much fairer and more 
sweete than ours," and in such quantity that in 
their season one's feet were habitually stained 
with the juice. Nearby was the genius of the 
home, the spring, which was the reason for its 
location, with a cool dairy-house. Upon a tall 
pole in the yard towered the box for the bee mar- 
tins, who boldly protected the poultry from the 
forays of the hawk and crow. An orchard was 
near at hand, apples grafted on the native crab 
stocks, besides "apricocks, peeches, mellicotons, 
quinces, Wardens and such like fruits." There 
was no ice-house, and so no means of keeping 
fresh meats, but in the smoke-house hung the 
bacon and hams, which were not less delicious 
than they are now^ in those days of deep mast 
beds surrounding every plantation. But there 
was no lack of other meat for the carnivorous 
English colonist: he had not yet learned to sub- 
sist upon corn bread, "hog meat," and preserves, 
like so many of his descendants. There was 
abundance of poultry of the dunghill, and the 
teeming forest supplied wild turkey; then there 
. were wild fowl in the river and swamp in quan- 

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titles to make the modern sportsman sick with 
envy.^ The woods were literally filled with pas- 
senger pigeons during their flights. Oysters the 
planter had in plenty, and fish of the best, sheeps- 
head, shad, bream, and bass. Walnuts, chest- 
nuts, hickory nuts, and hazel nuts were stored to 
stuff the turkey withal, and honey there was of 
course; every planter had a row of "skeps" in his 
garden. Nor was he without liquid cheer. Ma- 
deira, sherry, canary, Malaga, muscadine, Fayal, 
and other foreign wines imported through Bris- 
tol were for sale and generally used, while at 
home he made "excellent good Matheglin" from 
his honey, and, from his fruit, perry and cider.^ 
The plantation life had already taken on the 
patriarchal character which distinguished it in 
the next century. To illustrate this and complete 
our picture, we have a vivid glimpse, soon after 
Miles Gary's arrival, of the life of his near neigh- 
bor, "worthy Captaine Matthews, an old Planter 
of above thirty yeers standing." It is described^ 

^ "Four or five hundred Turkeys in a flock, Swans, Hoopers, 
Geese, Ducks, Teles and other Fowles, a mile square and seven 
mile together on the shores, for here is all Chestnuts, Wallnuts and 
Mastberries, and March seeds, Wilde Oats and Vetchs to feed 
them." (New Albion, 1648, 27, in Force Tracts, ii.) In every one 
of De Bry*s engravings the waters are covered with wild fowl. 

3 Hugh Jones, Present State of Firginia (i724)» 4i» pleasantly 
remarks upon the "excellent cyder not much inferior to that of 
Herefordshire when kept to a good Age: which is rarely done, the 
Planters being good companions and guests whilst the cyder lasts." 

^A Perfect Description of Virginia (1649), '5. >n Force Tracts, 
ii. Cf, description of the similar plantation economy at Gunston 
Hall a century and more later, in Rowland, George Mason, i, 94. 

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in 1649 as typical, though Blunt Point was prob- 
ably then the show place of the country. 

He hath a fine house and all things answerable to it: he 
sowes yeerly store of Hempe and Flax, and causes it to be 
spun : he keeps Weavers and hath a Tan-house, causes leather 
to be dressed, hath eight Shoemakers employed in that trade, 
hath forty Negroe servants, brings them up to Trades in 
his house: He yeerly sowes abundance of Wheat, Barley, 
&c The Wheat he selleth at for shillings the bushell: kills 
store of Beeves, and sells them to victuall the ships when 
they come thither: hath abundance of Kine, a brave Dairy, 
Swine, great store, and Poltery: he married the daughter 
of Sir Tho. Hinton, and in a word keeps a good house, lives 
bravely and a true lover of Virginia : he is worthy of much 
honor. 

Socially, in the middle of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, Virginia was a community that was made 
up of a comparatively few^ English merchants 
and seafaring men;^ this small community was 

1 At the result of his study of the $01 land patents issued in 
Virginia from 1623 to 1637, Dr. Stanard (Fa, Mag., viii, 441) can 
identify only 336 heads of families who emigrated to the colony 
as free men during that period. We may then estimate that when 
the population was 5000 in 163$, the "master" class, including 
their families, did not exceed 1000, or at most i$oo. After 163$ 
the disproportion increased as the greater number of the im- 
migrants thenceforth came over under indenture. 

2 The Merchant Class in Virginia, It is still unsafe to generalize 
dogmatically upon the constitution of society in Virginia in the 
seventeenth century. Despite a flood of new light from the great 
collection of English wills having reference to the settlement of 
America, which is now available in Mr. Fitzgilbert Waters, 
Genealogical Gleanings in England, and Mr. Lothrop Withington, 
Virginia Gleanings in England, we do not yet know even ap- 
proximately all the facts. Dr. W. G. Stanard estimates that we 
still lack definite information as to the origin of sixty per cent. 

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leavened with a sprinkling of the younger sons 
of the landed gentry and of ruined Royalist offi- 

of the landowning class in Virginia before 1700; the remaining 
forty per cent, who can be identified, he divides half and half 
between the English landed gentry and the merchant class. In 
small sympathy with the school of history now flourishing in many 
American colleges, which is engaged in stepping down the civiliza- 
tion of the past to the democratic standards of to-day, because 
they have distorted the Virginia of the consulship of Berkeley in 
one direction as much as the "old Virginia gentleman" in the 
early nineteenth century distorted it in the other direction, it may 
still be recognized that the weight of the evidence, so far as it is 
now available, is that the great majority of the landowning plant- 
ers in the seventeenth century were derived from the 'iniddle" 
class in England. This may be argued, d posteriori, from the 
history of modem colonial emigration ; from the part the merchants 
played in the London Company; from the long list of surnames 
common to Virginia and New England where the facts of origin 
have been more nearly ascertained than in Virginia (for such a 
list see Hayden, Firginia Genealogies, xii) ; from the similarity of 
economic conditions of those Virginia families of which the origin 
is unknown with those of which the origin is known; from the 
mercantile practice, so characteristic of seventeenth-century Vir- 
ginia, of settling personal difficulties by litigation rather than by 
duel; and from the sensible but unwarlike political attitude of the 
colony in such crises as the appearance of the Parliament fleet in 
1 65 1. It seems to me, then, that Mr. P. A. Bruce is not only 
eloquent but correct in his judgment {Economic History of Fir^ 
ginia, ii, 131): 

*'£ven from an economic point of view it is important to know 
that the great body of men who sued out patents to public lands 
in Virginia were sprung from the portion of the English com- 
monwealth that was removed from the highest as well as from the 
lowest ranks of the community, and which while in many instances 
sharing the blood of the noblest, yet as a rule belonged to the 
classes engaged in the different professions and trades, in short 
to the workers in all the principal branches of English activity. 
With those powerful traditions animating them, the traditions of 
race and nationality, blending with the traditions of special pur- 
suits, they had also that enterprising spirit which prompted them 
to abandon home and country to make a lodgment in the West." 

The aristocratic development of Virginia in the eighteenth cen- 
tury has made the modern representatives of Virginia families 
resentful of such an analysis of their beginnings; although from the 
American Revolution unto the present day they have more and more 

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cers^ in control of a population of indented ser- 
vants and a still insignificant number of negro 
slaves. 

themselves engaged in the occupations attributed to their immi- 
grant ancestors, they have so steeped themselves with feudal 
ideals derived from Sir Walter Scott's novels, that they take the 
suggestion of commerce to be an insulting imputation of taint in 
their breeding. There are, then, still intelligent people who say 
with unction, "Thank God there is no drop of tradesman blood 
in our family"; but such people are as often ignorant of the facts 
of their own English origin as of one of the most characteristic 
and interesting peculiarities of the English people throughout their 
history, that distinguishes them from all the continental nations, 
namely, that there has never been a strict dividing line between 
the landowning and the industrial classes. They have constantly 
blended, and in doing so have refreshed one another. (Cf, 
William Harrison, Description of England, 1577.) But whatever 
was the colonist's origin, the fact with respect to Virginia is fairly 
stated by Mr. J. S. Bassett (The Relation between the Virginia 
Planter and the London Merchant, Report of American Historical 
Association, 1901, i, 561): '*There was hardly a family of social 
and political importance in the first century of the colony which 
did not have some kind of a connection with commerce." 

* The Cavaliers in Virginia. The loose use of the word 
"Cavalier" by popular writers has developed in Virginia an 
unfortunate confusion of political sentiment with technical social 
status in reference to the seventeenth century. As a consequence, 
the term suggests to most Virginians to-day one who, driven by 
the Commonwealth from a far descended manor-house because he 
stood in arms for the Stuart dynasty, sought refuge for his opinions 
in the forests of Virginia: we picture the colonial Cavalier **with 
lace on his ruffles and war in his heart." There were indeed such 
men in Virginia, but there persists much misinformation about the 
number of them: it is due to the superficial assumption that the 
aristocratic caste which flourished in the eighteenth century con- 
sisted chiefly of their descendants. Berkeley was himself the in- 
carnation of the true Cavalier, and dominated the colony so 
utterly from 1642 to 1651, and again after the Restoration, that 
in the eyes of his contemporaries he almost personified Virginia: 
he may then in his single person be accepted as the foundation of 
the opinion that the ruling class in Virginia in his day were 
largely Cavaliers. After the failure of the king's cause in 1645 
he undoubtedly tried to make this a fact: he invited the Royalist 
officers to come to Virginia, just as he "almost" invited Charles II 



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The ruling planter class were still much, but 
no longer quite, the kind of Englishmen from 

himself: Clarendon's statement establishes the fact that "many" 
of them accepted the invitation, but it is a fair question, how 
many? John Esten Cooke (Firginia, in American Commonwealth 
series, 1892) is perhaps the most picturesque (and it must be added 
the most reckless) of the asserters of a large emigration of them 
to Virginia. He quotes a "passionate old chronicle" to the effect 
that a crowd of refugees, "the nobility, clergy and gentry, men 
of the first rate who wanted not money, nor credit, and had fled 
from their native country as from a place infected with the plague," 
came in numbers to Virginia, "and one ship," adds Mr. Cooke, 
"brought (September, 1649) three hundred and thirty." We are 
pained to find as careful a student as Mr. Brock adopting this 
last statement (Winsor, Nar, & CriU Hist,, iii, 148). On examina- 
tion Mr. Cooke's authority turns out to be Colonel Norwood's 
Voyage to Virginia, 1649 (Force Tracts, iii). Norwood does in- 
deed use the language quoted about the "nobility, clergy and 
gentry" ; he does not say that they went to Virginia, but that they 
"did betake themselves to travel," which is a very different thing. 
On the other hand, the 330 on one ship was the sum of the entire 
company of the Virginia Merchant in 1649: there were only three 
Cavalier officers among them, and at least one known Roundhead 
officer, who undoubtedly represented a considerable element among 
the emigrants at that time— Presbyterians who had at first sup- 
ported the Parliament but now girned at the government of the 
Independents: they could not have been politically welcome to 
Berkeley. John Fiske {Old Virginia and Her Neighbours, 1897, 
ii, 18), in a chapter which did much to correct traditional errors 
about the origin of the eighteenth-century aristocracy, nevertheless 
himself exaggerates the number of the Cavalier political refugees. 
He says, referring to Berkeley's invitation, "within a twelve 
month perhaps as many as 1000 had arrived, picked men and 
women of excellent sort." No authority is given for this computa- 
tion : it seems to be a mere balance for the 1000 nonconformists who, 
Fiske says, left the colony in 1649 under the stress of Berkeley's 
insistence on their going to church. Berkeley himself, having 
every inducement of personal pride to prove that his invitation had 
been accepted, later (in his Discourse and Vie^iv of Virginia, 1663) 
enumerating those of "good families" who had resided in Vir- 
ginia, gives the names of only six Cavaliers. Again, in his report 
of 1671, famous for its unfounded thanks to God that there were 
then no free schools or printing in Virginia, the old governor 
describes the "Coming of the Cavaliers" in language which does 
not suggest numbers: he refers to the deterioration of the quality of 



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whom they had sprung (during Miles Gary's 
life the community had already begun to show 

the emigrants "since the persecution in Cromweirs tiranny drove 
divers worth men hither." Another nearly contemporary authority, 
Hugh Jones {The Present State of Virginia, 1722, 23), is even 
more moderate : "One particular occasion that sent several Families 
of good Birth and Fortune to settle there, was the Civil Wars in 
England." From this it seems likely that the guests Colonel 
Norwood found "feasting and carousing*' with Captain Wormeley 
at Rosegill in 1649 included most if not all the true Cavaliers then 
in Virginia. Indeed, a list of the Cavaliers known to have been 
at any time in Virginia, compiled from the records by Dr. L. G. 
Tyler (W, & M, Quar., vi, 89), is liniited to twenty-four names; 
or, if we include the ten gentlemen among the head rights of Sir 
Thomas Lunsford, the total is thirty-four. Mrs. Stanard {Colonial 
Virginia, 19 17, 49) adds a few more names. It has been shown 
that a number of those included in these lists returned to England 
and others left no issue in Virginia. 

In several of the books on Virginia the Carys are included in 
lists of "Cavaliers." Miles Cary undoubtedly stood for Church 
and king in his politics. If we confine ourselves to the contem- 
porary use of the term as including "all that took part or ap- 
peared for his Majestic" (Lilly, Monarchy, 1651, 107), or even to 
Mr. Jefferson's description of the Virginians as "loyal subjects of 
both King and Church," then Miles Cary was a Cavalier as were 
in the same sense other contemporary immigrants who like him 
were derived immediately from the mercantile class, but whose 
blood may be traced to the English squirearchy; e.g., Allerton, 
Ashton, Bacon, Bland, Boiling, Bushrod, Byrd, Claiborne, Corbin, 
Fitzhugh, Lee, Ludwell, Munford, Peyton, Washington. These 
men and others like them emigrated for economic rather than 
political reasons; because they saw better opportunity to achieve 
independence in the colony than at home: not at all because they 
were dispossessed landed gentry who had been officers in the 
Royalist army. It is, however, in this latter sense that Fiske {Old 
Virginia, ii, 25) gives a list of eleven typical "Cavalier" families 
in Virginia, and it is significant of the kind of misinformation on 
this question which has passed for history that of those eleven 
families the English source has as yet been proved for only five, 
and of them three (Cary, Parke, and Washington) are now shown 
to have emigrated as merchants. See Stanard, Some Emigrants to 
Virginia, and especially the illuminating preface, listing "promi- 
nent Virginia names" which "have not been traced positively to 
their former homes across the sea." It may undoubtedly be 
argued from the political complexion of Virginia under Berkeley 

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the effects of a sea change), but they were far 
from being what their descendants became. 
Those of them who had been bred in the sub- 
ordination of urban and gild life suddenly found 
themselves in the possession of land and a liveli- 
hood secured by the labor of others, and, like the 
feudal aristocracy of England in its beginning, 
soon developed a class pride. The first mani- 
festations of this craving were crude. Furbish- 
ing up the claims of blood, to which most Eng- 
lishmen are entitled more or less remotely, they 
called themselves gentlemen, as they had always 
heard landowners call themselves, but with an 
iterated insistence on the word, on military titles, 
and on coats of arms, which suggests that they 
were not quite sure of themselves. 
This effort at self-expression led them into 

that the list of emigrants to Virginia after the civil war was 
swelled by refugees who had supported the royal cause; but our 
point is that it does not follow that they were all "Cavaliers" 
in the traditional Virginia sense. They came from all classes 
of the community, gentle and simple ; in that, as in other respects, they 
resembled the loyalists who emigrated from Virginia at the time of 
the American Revolution. For the variety of social status of the 
latter, see Sabine, Loyalists of the American Revolution, 1864, &nd 
Mr. C. H. Van Tyne's later (190a) study under the same title. 

It is an interesting fact, bearing upon this discussion, that what- 
ever may have been the "Cavalier" origins of any of them, few 
Virginians remained Jacobites after that most mercantile and 
sordid of great political events, the "glorious revolution'' of 
1688, as did so many of the country gentry in England. See Va, 
Mag., vi, 389, and particularly the "Cavalier" names signed to the 
addresses to William III from every part of Virginia, when, on 
the death of James II, Louis XIV recognized the Chevalier as king 
of England. Certainly Miles Gary's sons were staunch Whigs, and, 
as typical Virginians, their descendants so remained until the be- 
ginning of the nineteenth century. 

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vulgarities of personal display. Aping in the 
wilderness the current court fashions,^ their ap- 
pearance must have astonished their sober mer- 
chant kinsmen in England, as their manners 
might have mortified their descendants. Be- 
neath their gauds they were reliant and alert; 
more avid of knowledge than those they had left 
at home, importing and perhaps reading solid 
books; more hospitable to strangers than their 
fathers, but like them conspicuously affectionate 
and loyal in family relations, and so evincing 
that "inner tenderness" which Green has re- 
marked in their English contemporaries. In 
business they were insistent on their rights and 
their opinions, selfish and cautious, notoriously 
hard traders.^ In strong contrast to their 

^Lacking a portrait of Miles Gary when he became councillor, 
we must conjure his appearance out of Mr. Bruce's study of the 
inventories of his contemporaries: the men wore black beaver hats, 
camlet coats, with sleeves ending in lace ruffles: waistcoats black, 
white, and blue, or adorned with patterns elaborately Turkey- 
worked, short clothes made of the costliest olive plush or broad- 
cloth. They still wore their own hair, flowing in ringlets on their 
shoulders. (See Lodge, Portraits, viii.) About their necks they 
wore cloths of muslin or the finest holland, on their legs silk 
stockings, and on their shoes shining brass, steel, or silver buckles; 
a sword was worn on a gold lace belt, while they carried in their 
hands or pockets silk or lace handkerchiefs delicately scented. To 
this description Miles Gary adds a touch in his will, his rings. 
Think of it! olive plush breeches and rings, with the howling 
wilderness just beyond the site of Richmond! 

2 David Pieterssen De Vries, patroon of Swanendal, the unsuc- 
cessful Dutch colony on the Delaware, was several times in Vir- 
ginia between 1632 and 1644, and gained a wholesome respect for 
the trading ability of the planters. "You must look out," he says, 
"when you trade with them—Peter is always by Paul— or you will 
be struck in the tail; for they can deceive any one; they account 

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New England kinsmen, their religion, although 
including piety and prayer with superstition, 
was of a conventional social form and without 
deep roots in their souls. Unlike their descend- 
ants, but like their New England kinsmen, their 
political conduct was as little influenced by 
mere sentiment as was their business. They 
were too quite lacking in that high and romantic 
chivalry towards women and quickness on the 
point of personal honor which afterwards came 
to be the distinguishing characteristic of their 
descendant "the old Virginia gentleman."^ 

Their great achievement, in which all their 
faults are merged, is their foundation of a new 
commonwealth in America. This required cour- 
age and industry and imagination, high quali- 
ties, which justify their descendants in looking 
back on them with unmitigated pride and satis- 

it a Roman action. They say in their language *He played him an 
English trick.' '* See his entertaining book, Voyages from Holland 
to America (tr. Murphy, 1853), 186. 

1 There were few duels in Virginia in the seventeenth century 
but much resort to the law, the merchant's palladium, for the 
settlement of purely personal difficulties. As to women, it will 
suffice to recall the celebrated but ever disgraceful episode of the 
"white aprons"— Bacon was supposed to be a gentleman in his 
time— and to contrast Daniel Parke's boorish insult to Mrs. Blair 
in Bruton Church in 1697 (Tyler, Jfilliamsburg, 124) with the 
courtesy of Colonel Francis Moryson to Lady Berkeley {Virginia 
Carol orum, 379). 

For the unfavorable view of the Virginia planter in the seven- 
teenth century, see Eggleston, The Transit of Civilisation from 
England to America, 1901. For the favorable view, see Bruce, 
Social Life in Virginia, 1907. Mr. Wertenbaker {Patrician and 
Plebeian in Virginia, 1910) has restated the facts in support of the 
theory of local development of the eighteenth-century civilization. 

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faction. In the third and fourth generations, as 
society became more settled and the planters 
learned not only respect for one another but for 
those dependent on them, the things to which 
these men aspired became real, and Virginia flow- 
ered into one of the most agreeable civilizations 
which has ever existed on the face of the earth; 
but in 1650 that was still in the womb of time. 

The custom was for a newcomer to Virginia 
in the seventeenth century to seek lodging for the 
time being in the household of some established 
planter until he might look about him.^ Mean- 
while, if he was a bachelor, it was not unusual 
for him to secure his position in the community 
at once by marriage.^ Miles Gary apparently 
did both of these things. He went to live with 
Thomas Taylor* on Warwick River, and not 

^ "After his cumming into Virginia, I doubt nott, but, by friends 
I have there, hee shall bee well acomodated for his owne person 
and at a reasonable rate, and his men maye likewise be taken off 
his hande and dyated for they re works for the first yeare, and with 
some advantage to your sonne besides: then the next yeare if hee 
shall like the country and be mynded to staye and settle a planta- 
tion himself these servants will bee seasoned and bee enabled to 
direct such others as shall bee sent unto him from hence hereafter." 
{Verney Papers, Camden Society Publications,) 

2 "Few there are but are able to give some Portions with their 
daughters, more or lesse, according to their abilities: so that many 
coming out of England have raised themselves good fortunes there 
meerly by matching with Maidens born in the Country." (Leah and 
Rachel, 1656, 17, in Force Tracts, iii.) 

3 Thomas Taylor and Miles Gary were perhaps distant kinsmen ; 
for, according to the parish register, on May 12, 15S3, Bridgett 
Gary, daughter of Richard Gary, **the younger," married at St. 
Nicholas' Ghurch, Bristol, one Roger Taylor, and Miles and Anne 



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long after his arrival married his host's daughter, 

Gary reproduced the name Bridget for one of their daughters: 
furthermore, the will of Robert Perry, of Bristol, clerk, 1652 (P.C.C. 
Bovjyer, 243; Va, Mag,, xi, 364), refers to a Mrs. Mary Taylor, 
widow of John Taylor, late alderman of Bristol (who had been 
mayor, M.P., and warden of the Merchant Venturers of Bristol), 
and to relations with the Carys. 

Thomas Taylor is described in his patent of 1643 as ''marring." 
He was, perhaps, a brother of the John Taylor just mentioned and, 
doubtless, a Bristol shipmaster who traded to Virginia in competi- 
tion with such men as the Captain Stegg who founded the London 
house of Byrd in Virginia. Mr. J. S. Bassett (The Relations be- 
tween the Virginia Planter and the London Merchant, Report of 
American Historical Association, 1901, i, 555) has given us a 
graphic picture of these ship captains in the early days of the 
colony: "The independent trader appeared first in the colony as a 
ship captain. With his ship loaded with such goods as he thought 
the people would need, he came into the rivers with offers to trade. 
As between him and the Company's agents there was the usual ad- 
vantage of him who enters competition with a clear head and with 
the incentive to quick turns and shrewd dealings against a sedate 
and rather clumsy agent of government. He undersold the agent. 
He was in the first instance frequently the owner of his ship and of 
his cargo. But sometimes he was merely agent for the owner. 
He established a warm and familiar relation with the inhabi- 
tants along the James, and his periodic trips to the colony were 
looked forward to with something more than the interest one felt 
in the arrival of one's supply of winter clothing. He was an 
emissary from that world of happy memories which all the people, 
except the children, had once lived in. He brought the news of 
friends in England, or at least he brought information about politi- 
cal happenings. In the dreariness of the forest life he was a 
messenger of light. He was well received by the people. He was 
really a man of parts if he was a successful merchant. He held an 
influential position among the people." 

It is recorded that "most of the Masters of ships and Chief 
Mariners have also Plantations and houses and servants &c in 
Virginia." (A Perfect Description of Virginia, 1649, 5, in Force 
Tracts, ii.) As early as 1626 Thomas Taylor was one of the 
thirty-three persons who had then patented and planted lands in 
the "corporacon of Elizabeth Cittie." (Hotten, Original Lists, 273.) 
Later he purchased lands in Warwick County. When the civil war 
interrupted Bristol's commerce, Thomas Taylor apparently re- 
tired from the sea to this plantation. Perhaps it was his Bristol 
ship which on April 13, 1644, ^^ Vries saw attacked by two Lon- 
don ships and driven into Warwick River. (Neill, Virginia 

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Anne Taylor:^ soon he succeeded to the posses- 
sion of the plantation. It was a pleasant neigh- 
borhood. Warwick County was not one of the 
oldest settlements, if we may use such a term in 
a country where there had been no English with- 
in the memory of Indians then still living, but 
already it had an interesting history,* was 

Carolorum, 178.) Thomas Taylor sat in the assembly as a burgess 
for Warwick in 1646 and was also in the commission of the peace 
for the county, sitting as late as 1652. (See "Cort held for 
Warwick County the Twelfth day of Aprill, i6sa" in York County 
Deeds, i, 174.) He died before 1657, when we find Miles Cary in 
possession of liis lands described as having been "bequeathed*' to 
him by Thomas Taylor. 

1 She was bom in England and married in Virginia, for Miles 
Cary returns her under her maiden name as one of the head rights 
named in his patent of 1657. The date of the marriage has been 
lost, but it could not have been later than 1646: the eldest son was 
not of age when his father made his will in June, 1667. Anne 
Cary was a model wife of her time: she bore and reared seven 
children and left no other record. That sad dog Thomas Morton 
of Merry Mount, who had so much fun at the expense of his Puritan 
neighbors in the earliest days of Massachusetts, says gaily {New 
English Canaan, 1632, in Force Tracts, ii) that the Virginia women 
were "barren does" because they did not have any lobsters to eat! 
Anne Cary is evidence to the contrary. If, as Morton claims on 
behalf of his lobsters, "Venus is born of the sea," perhaps the 
oysters which grew in sight of Anne Cary's porch had the same 
effect. She survived her husband, as shown by the direction in his 
will that his body shall "be decently interred by my Loving Wife." 
Under her dower right she lived on at the home place, Windmill 
Point, and there she was as late as 1682, as shown by her son 
Miles's land patent of November 20, 1682. {Fa. Land Records, 
vii, 201.) 

2 The beginnings of 1Var<wick County, In 16 17, when the treas- 
ury of the Virginia Company was exhausted, societies of private 
adventurers were authorized to settle "particular plantations" in 
Virginia under the style of "hundreds." One of the first of these 
societies, organized in 161 8 as Martins Hundred, was named for 
Richard Martin (1570-1618), of the Middle Temple, one of the 
counsel of the Virginia Company and one of Ben Jonson's "subjects" 
at the Mermaid Tavern. He had defended the colony before 

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now comparatively populous/ and was setded 

Parliament in 1614 on a notable occasion (Neill, The London Com- 
pany, 67), and when the society named for him was organized 
had then recently died as recorder of London. (Diet, NaU Biog,, 
xu, 1 176.) To the society of Martins Hundred was set apart 
80,000 acres of land on the north side of James River about seven 
miles below Jamestown (Brown, Genesis, 945), and in 1619 the 
ship Gift of God arrived in Virginia with 250 people sent out by 
the society. When on August 9, 161 9, there convened at Jamestown 
the first representative legislative assembly in America, the colony 
had been divided into four corporations, the city oiF Henricus, 
Charles City, James City, and the borough of Kiccowtan (after- 
wards Elizabeth City), each of which sent representatives for its 
several "towns, hundreds and plantations/' Martins Hundred was 
included in James City, and was represented by "Mr.'' John Boys 
and John Jackson as burgesses. (Brown, First Republic, 313.) 
The society was strong in England and the plantation flourished. 
In January, 1622, when a consignment of maids was received to 
be wives of the colonists, Thomas Harwood, "Chief of Martins 
Hundred," reported that his people "doe willinglie and lovinglie 
receave the new comers." (Neill, Virginia Carolorum.) Later 
that year came the Indian massacre, when Martins Hundred suf- 
fered severely, seventy-thretf people being killed, including the first 
burgess, John Boys. (John Smith's JVorks, ed. Arber, 583.) The 
next assembly of which we have record, that of 1629, shows that 
new settlements had been made lower down the river, for then 
burgesses appeared for Mulberry Island, Warwick River, and 
Nutmeg Quarter, as well as Martins Hundred. (Stanard, Colonial 
Virginia Register, 54.) In 1630 a new borough was added, Denby 
(Denbigh), and in 1633 Stanley Hundred. In 1634 the colony was 
divided into eight shires (Hening, i, 224), when the neighborhood 
south of Martins Hundred was consolidated as one of them under 
the name Warwick River County. This name had been derived 
(after 1626, for in that year Sir George Yeardley calls the river 
Blunt Point River in establishing Stanley Hundred ; The Cradle of 
the Republic, 238) from Robert Rich, second Earl of Warwick 
( 1 587-1 658), who led the "court" faction in the Virginia Company 
against Southhampton and Sandys, and brought about the revoca- 
tion of the company's charter: at the time of the settlement on the 
river which took his name, he was a member of the council for 
Virginia which Charles I appointed in 1625. (Brown, Genesis, 
945.) In 1643 (Hening, i, 249, 250) the name was shortened to 
Warwick County and the territorial limits defined as "from the 
mouth of Keth's (originally Keith's and since corrupted to Skiffs) 

^See note ^ on page $97' 

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with as good people as there were in the colony.^ 
Of the generation of "ancient planters" still sur- 
viving, Miles Gary found himself between two 
mortal enemies : to the north dwelt, or had only 

Creek, upp along the lower side to the head of it, including all the 
divident of Mr. Thomas Harwood (provided it prejudice not the 
antient bounds of James Citty County) with Mulberry Island, 
Stanly Hundred, Warwick River, with all the land belonging to 
the Mills and so down to Newports News, with the families of 
Skowen's damms and Persimon Ponds.*' The old name Martins 
Hundred has survived as the designation of a plantation of the 
Harwoods, in James City County. (See fV, & M. Quar., xv, s'O 

^ The census of 163s (Neill, Firgifda Carolorum, 114) showed 
''from Ketches Creeke & Mulberry Island to Marie's Mount on the 
northward side of the [James] river, being with the countie of 
Warrick River, 811." This was a larger population than any 
other single settlement. James City, which returned 886, and 
Elizabeth City, which returned 859, each covered settlements on 
both sides of the James. 

2 Bishop Meade examined the Warwick County records before the 
war between the States. Writing in 1856, he says {Old Churches, 
i, 240) : "Old Warwick, though the least of all shires of Virginia 
was one of the most fruitful nurseries of the families of Virginia. 
. . . The result of my hasty examination of the old and decayed 
records at Warwick Court House, some of which are like the ex- 
humed volumes from the long buried towns of the East and will 
scarce bear handling, was the discovery that the following were 
the most prominent names in this county in times long since gone 
by: Fauntleroy, Hill, Bushrodd, Ryland, Ballard, Purnell, Ashton, 
Clayborne, Cary, Dade, Griffith, Whittaker, Pritchard, Hurd, Har- 
wood, Bassett, Watkins, Smith, Digges, Dudley, Petit, Radford, 
Stephens, Wood, Bradford, Stratton, Glascock, Pattison, Barber, 
Allsop, Browinge, Killpatrick, Nowell, Lewellin, Goodale, Dawson, 
Cosby, Wythe, Reade, Bolton, Dixon, Langhorne, Morgan, Fenton, 
Chisman, Watkins, John, Lang, Parker, West.'' He might have 
added that, after his return to the colony in 1617, John Rolfe, the 
progenitor of the Pocahontas caste among the Virginians of a 
later day, lived on Mulberry Island adjoining lands of the father 
of his third wife. Captain William Peirce, commander of the fort 
at Jamestown. 

As evidence of the character of this society. Bishop Meade adds 
that in the seventeenth century there were eight parish churches 
in Warwick, where in his day there were but two. 

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recently died, Sir John Harvey, the governor 
who, "thrust out," and in 1639 finally removed 
from office, had retired to the Warwick planta- 
tion of Councillor Richard Stephens,^ whose 
widow he married; to the south was Captain 
Samuel Matthews of Blunt Point, who had taken 
a conspicuous part in the "thrusting out" ; called 
by Harvey "the patron of disorder," he was 
destined to be governor himself during the time 
of the colony's greatest prosperity in that cen- 
tury. Immediately across Potash Creek was 
Denbigh, the seat of Captain Matthews' son, 
where the Digges were long to be seated. Not 
far away were Zachary Cripps and Thomas 
Flint, both old burgesses, whose lands Miles 
Cary soon acquired,^ and John Brewer of Stan- 
ley Hundred, son of another "ancient planter." 
There on a bold bluflf, still known as Windmill 
Point, at the confluence of Potash Creek with 

^This was the plantation originally known as Balirope, which 
after the death of Lady Harvey passed to her son Samuel Stephens, 
whose widow, Frances Culpeper, married Sir William Berkeley, 
and sold it (Hening, ii, 321) to that Colonel William Cole who 
succeeded Miles Cary in the council and played so active a part in 
affairs during Bacon's rebellion. (See T. M. in Force Tracts, i, No. 
II.) A William Cole was warden of the Merchant Venturers of 
Bristol in 1610 (Latimer, 326), so that the Carys and Coles were 
probably old neighbors. At all events they intermarried in Vir- 
ginia in the eighteenth century, and Bolthrope ultimately belonged 
to Judge Richard Cary (1730-1789). See The Virginia Carys, 

2 Captain Samuel Matthews, Captain Richard Stephens, Captain 
Thomas Flint, Zachary Cripps, gent, John Brewer, gent., and 
Thomas Ceely, gent., constituted the commission of the peace in 
Warwick River in March, 1632 (Ncill, Virginia Carolorum, 90), 
and so were that early the leading men in the county and probably 
the owners of the most valuable lands. 

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Warwick River, standing well above the encom- 
passing marshes and their mosquitos, Miles Gary 
lived to become one of the leading men of the 
colony ; and there on the plantation long remem- 
bered as Gary's Quarter, though properly called 
Windmill Point, his dust has for two hundred 
and fifty years been incorporated in the soil he 
once proudly called his own. 

We may be quite sure that Miles Gary, like 
several of his contemporaries who got ahead in 
the world, was more a trader and a politician 
than a planter : what else could we expect in his 
case considering that he sprang from a race of 
merchants who had for a century past diversified 
their commerce with municipal office-holding? 
He acquired land, and doubtless cultivated it, 
more for the social standing which landholding 
entailed, but we picture him handling more 
tobacco than he planted and waxing his profits 
by staking Indian traders to collect furs for him.^ 

1 The Firgifda fur trade. Furs proved to be the substitute for the 
gold which the first colonists had expected to find in America. The 
French in Canada controlled the best of this trade until Wolfe's 
conquest of Quebec, but the Dutch, trading out of Albany, were 
their constant competitors. Efforts were made to secure to Virginia 
a share in this traffic from the beginning, so that, if never to be 
compared with the part they played in the north, furs became an 
important item of Virginia exports throughout the seventeenth 
century. It was then merely, what John Lederer called, "a home 
trade with neighbour Indians," for it was not until after Miles 
Gary's death that Lederer explored the hinterland of Virginia and 
first reported in Virginia on the strange tribes of Indians who 
lived beyond the mountains on the westward draining rivers. (Led- 

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From the first doubtless he maintained "the 
Store" ^ which he mentions in his will, and it is 

ercr, Discoveries, 1672.) The Virginia fur trade was, however, of 
enough importance to make the appropriation of the export duties 
a substantial contribution to the support of William and Mary 
College in 1693. (See Hening, iii, 123; and Spotswood Papers, 
ii, 144.) 

As elsewhere in America, the Virginia trade with the Indians 
was prohibited except under license (Hening, ii, 20), to the end 
that firearms might be kept out of their hands ; but this precaution 
fell into abeyance. The Dutch in New York and the Virginians 
each professed to believe that the other was furnishing firearms 
to the Indians and that they would be excluded from the trade if 
they did not follow suit (Hening, ii, 215.) The result was that 
when the Indian wars were renewed in 1675 the savages were 
more formidable than ever they had been. Uncandidly enough, 
Bacon accused Berkeley of being solely responsible for this condi- 
tion (see IT. & M. Quar., vi, 6), alleging that he reserved one 
skin in three as the fee for a fur-trading license, and that to in- 
crease the yield he had encouraged the distribution of firearms 
among the Indians. This last charge is quite incredible in the 
case of Berkeley, but it illustrates how the traffic was carried on 
by the unscrupulous. We have no doubt that in Miles Gary's time 
and after, several of the council were interested in the fur trade 
under the stimulus of the governor's desire to have it in responsible 
hands, and that Miles Gary was one of them. The letters of the 
elder William Byrd {Fa. Mag., xxiv, ff.) in the next generation 
illustrate the business life we assign to our inomigrant: an importer 
and distributor of general merchandise and an exporter of furs 
and tobacco. There is also an illuminating sketch of this trade as 
carried on by Gapt. Abraham Wood, the founder of Fort Henry 
(Petersburg), in Alvord and Bidgood, The First Explorations of 
the Trans-Allegheny Region by the Firginians, 1912. 

^ Dr. Bradley in the Oxford Dictionary characterizes as an 
Americanism the use of the word ''store" in the sense of a place 
where merchandise in great varieties is held for sale or trade. 
His earliest illustration of it is drawn from the Pennsylvania 
Gazette of 1740. We have noted casually the much earlier use 
of the word in Virginia not only in Miles Gary's will (1667), l>ut 
in Mrs. Gotton's letter on Bacon's rebellion (1676), and in the 
correspondence of the elder William Byrd (1684). At the first 
settlement the company's magazine was also called the '^store." If 
then the colonists did not bring the word "store" with them out of 
their previous commercial practice, they began to coin "American- 
isms" from the moment they landed. 

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apparent that he prospered progressively/ We 
have no record of him until after the long-de- 
layed visit of the Commonwealth fleet, when 
Governor Berkeley was compelled to swallow 
his resolution of warlike resistance and retire 
to private life at Green Spring, while the colony 
(including, we may assume. Miles Gary, like 
Richard Lee and Edmund Scarburgh), some- 
what to the surprise of the court of the exiled 
Charles II, accepted cheerfully, if not heroi- 
cally, the change of dominion from king to 
Protector.* 

^ How interesting would be the letters he wrote home to his 
father in Bristol during this period. 

* The capitulation of Virginia in 1651. Clarendon says, "More 
was expected from Virginia." The modern historians also have 
expressed surprise at the sudden collapse of the supposedly strong 
Royalist party in Virginia at the first show of force, and have 
attributed it to the prevalence of Puritan principles at the first 
opportunity. One cannot help feeling that Berkeley must have 
been himself disappointed to find that among the men who sur- 
rounded him, and in their horror at the execution of Charles I 
had agreed to his proposals of legislation against political Puritan- 
ism, there were few who were of the type which makes a sacrifice 
for a lost cause. Berkeley had been generally and sincerely re- 
spected, for, unlike* Harvey, he had warmly espoused the interests 
of the planters, but there was nothing feudal in his relations with 
the colonists. The proceedings after the arrival of Captain Dennis 
seem to reveal not that there was a determined Puritan party in 
opposition to Berkeley, but that Berkeley himself was in the political 
sense, as well as in breeding, one of the few real Cavaliers in 
Virginia. Once fear of the governor was removed, even those who 
were anything but Puritans, and in the first flush of enthusiasm 
had supported Berkeley in his bellicose preparations for resistance, 
had a sober second thought upon the consequences of civil war, not 
only in bloodshed but more immediately in loss of property: already 
they had felt the pinch of the act of Parliament of 1650 which 
prohibited trade with the Royalist colonies until they should submit. 
(Va, Mag,, xi, 37; i, 78; Osgood, iii, 125.) The much lauded 

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Miles Gary took out his first patent for 
land in 1654/ when, in consideration of the 
transportation of sixty persons into the colony, 
he located three thousand acres at the falls of 
Acquia Creek in the northern part of the then 
newly organized Westmoreland County,^ which 

reservations in the capitulation (Hening, i, 363) all smack of such 
a judgment: there is nothing in them of the honors of war or the 
things Virginia soldiers would have stipulated for a century later, 
except in the case of Berkeley himself ; the rest are sensibly sordid 
even in respect of such men as Francis Moryson and Sir Thomas 
Lunsford. Old Beverley has been sneered at for his tale of the 
merchandise of members of the council, but it is within the proba- 
bilities. How in truth could this still feeble trading community 
have existed if its English market had been then cut off, without 
throwing itself altogether into the arms of the Dutch? The ties of 
Virginians with their merchant kinsmen at home, who were then 
putting forth every energy in competition with the Dutch, were 
still too strong to contemplate such an alternative, although they 
were willing enough to entertain the Dutch as competitors of their 
English friends. See John Bland's lucid argument to that end in 
Fa, Mag., i, 141, and a new emphasis upon the Dutch commercial 
influence, and indeed population, in the colony at this time in 
J. C. Wise, The Eastern Shore of Firginia, 191 1. 

^The original patent was issued by Governor Richard Bennet 
under date of October $, 1654, the head rights named being: Roger 
Daniel, Sen^, Roger Daniel, Jun^., Anne Taylor, Thomas Haynes, 
Ro. Synsbury, Robt. Heynes, John Ledrick, John Squire, Anne 
Whitson, Margt. Creese, David Bevan, Evan Le.wis, Martin Chains, 
John Beireman, Anne Colton, Sam. Wilbourn, Andrew Wyatt, John 
Hayres, Mary Martin, Mary Cordecur, Mary Taylor, Anne Bennes, 
Jno. Hatherell, Jenken Wotten, Walter Johnson, Anne Madoxe, Val. 
Prentice, James White, Eliz. Browne, Rich. Workman, John Clark, 
Anne Tildamus, twenty-one men and eleven women. The patent was 
renewed by order of the council October 7, 1657, Samuel Matthews 
being then governor, when undoubtedly the remaining twenty-eight 
head rights were named. Mr. Conway Robinson noted the record of 
the original patent and its renewal in General Court Order Book, 
16S4-1659, pp. 13 and 321, when he examined that book before its 
destruction: and so certified in 1866 in the fF. M. Gary Notes. 

« Westmoreland. When, after 1648, the territory north of York 
River was opened to settlement by Virginians, it was rapidly occu- 

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was afterwards set off as Stafford. He never 
**seated" this Northern Neck land/ much less 

pied. Gloucester, Lancaster, and Northumberland counties were 
incorporated northward on the shores of the Chesapeake, and in 
i6s3 Westmoreland was added, to include the Potomac River terri- 
tory from Machodoc River to the Great Falls. (Hening, i, 381.) 
In this new country were soon established the inunigrant ancestors 
of many noted Virginians of later times, e.g., Richard Lee, Nicholas 
Spencer, Valentine Peyton, George Mason, Andrew Monroe, and 
the brothers John and Lawrence Washington. Far to the north, 
at Acquia Creek, where Miles Cary located his patent, was Giles 
firent {ff^. & M. Quar., iv, 28). For years this community was a 
true frontier, exposed to the Indians, isolated from the older 
settlements in the valley of the James, and trading direct with 
England. It was, indeed, in so much closer relation with "home'' 
than with the rest of Virginia that Dr. Tyler calls it a suburb of 
London. Under these conditions Westmoreland developed a char- 
acter and flavor of its own which made it in the eighteenth 
century one of the most agreeable parts of Virginia. If Miles Cary 
had "seated" his Westmoreland patent his family would have be- 
come one of the company which Mr. Moncure Conway calls the 
''Barons of the Potomac and the Rappahannock,*' and we would 
have known more of the details of their lives, for the colonial 
records of Westmoreland have largely survived, though the later 
records of Stafford have perished. Several of Miles Car/s de- 
scendants, charming women, were, however, destined to live in that 
conununity, and one of them was to play there a part in shaping 
the character of the Father of his Country. See Sally Cary (pri- 
vately printed), 1916. 

^ The condition of the Virginia patents was that the land should 
be "planted and seated" within three years. In 1666 this was 
defined (Hening, ii, 244) as "building a house and keeping a stock 
one whole yeare upon the land shall be accounted seating, and that 
cleering, tending and planting an acre of ground shall be accounted 
planting and either of those shall be accounted a suffitient perform- 
ance of the condition required by the pattent." Miles Cary was evi- 
dently not fortunate in the location of the lands covered by his 
Westmoreland patent, for they did not tempt him to go to the 
small expense of perfecting his title. He does not mention this 
patent in his will, but in the Book of General Court Judgments and 
Orders, 1670-1676, now in the library of the Virginia Historical 
Society, is an entry under date of October 10, 1670: "Thomas Baxter 
& Wm. Harris hath order granted to patent 3000 acres of land in 
Stafford County, deserted by Coll. Miles Cary, entering rights ac- 
cording to law." 

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took up his residence upon it, being evidently 
too well satisfied with his prosperous affairs in 
the older peninsula region : perhaps he had little 
natural appetite for either the physical hard- 
ships and isolation or the wild delights of life 
in the wilderness.^ 

His father-in-law, Thomas Taylor, had died 
before 1657, and by will devised to him his prop- 
erty, consisting of the home place on Warwick 
River originally patented in 1624 by John Bayn- 
ham and purporting to consist of 350 acres but 
found by survey to be 688 acres,^ and another 
tract of 250 acres, adjacent but not adjoining, 
lying up Potash Creek and known as Magpy 
Swamp.* Later he purchased Zachary Cripps's 
lands, which, with small additions by original 

1 How demoralizing was the contact with the Indians in West- 
moreland in 1662 may be seen in the unvarnished contemporary 
records (Hening, ii, 150 et seq.), and yet the life can be colored 
to heroic proportions through the glasses of a later civilization. 
(See Rowland, George Mason, 6.) 

3 Baynham's patent was dated December i, 1624, ^^nd was con- 
firmed to Thomas Taylor by his first patent of October 23, 1643. 
Miles Gary undoubtedly took out in 1657 a new patent confirming 
the devise of this tract to him, but the record of it has been lost. 
In his will he recites the possession of it as "that tract or parcell 
of land which I now reside upon," and gives the area as enlarged 
by survey. 

' On the same day that he took a patent confirming his purchase 
of the Baynham patent, October 23, 1643, Thomas Taylor took out 
an original patent, in consideration of dve head rights (one of 
whom, William Tandy, survived to witness Miles Gary's will), for 
the Magpy Swamp tract. On March 15, 1657, Miles Gary took out 
a patent confirming his possession of this tract as "bequeathed** to 
him by Thomas Taylor's will, and by his own will annexed it to 
the home place. 

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patent, made up two parcels, one aggregating 
195 acres lying at the south end of Mulberry 
Island over against Saxons Gaol, including 
Joyles Neck, and the other aggregating 1144 
acres adjoining Magpy Swamp: this included 
Claiborne's Neck (later known as Richneck) 
and the plantation known as The Forest/ Still 
later he purchased Captain Thomas Flint's pat- 
ent lying up Warwick River.* 

1 William Claiborne, who plays such an interesting part in early 
Virginia history, is recorded (Hotten, 272) to have been the owner 
of 500 acres at Blunt Point in 1626, which he must have acquired 
before 1624, for John Baynham's patent of 1624 for the lands 
afterwards known as Windmill Point is described as "adjoining 
the lands of Captain Samuel Matthews and William Claiborne, 
gentleman.'' (The Virginia Carys, 32.) In Miles Gary's will he 
speaks of one of his boundaries as Claiborne's Neck dams, so that 
it seems clear that the later name Richneck was a modification of 
Claiborne's Neck. Zachary Cripps undoubtedly acquired Clai- 
borne's lands and passed them on to Miles Gary, though neither 
of them mentions Claiborne in their respective patents of 1643 and 
1 66s relating to this property. The two tracts of land on the 
south end of Mulberry Island, which had made up Cripps's original 
patent of 1628, were devised by Miles Cary to Roger Daniel, pre- 
sumably the "Roger Daniel, JunV named as one of the head rights 
in his Westmoreland patent of 1657. What relation these Daniels 
bore to the Carys is not known, but they were perhaps kinsmen, 
for the daughter of the second Christopher Cary of Bristol had 
married a Henry Daniels. (See the will, P.C.C. Eure, 118.) 
The Virginia Quit Rent Rolls, 1704, show this land as then belong- 
ing to "Roger Daniel's orphans." 

2 On September 20, 1628, Thomas Flint patented 1000 acres of 
land lying between Warwick and James rivers. {Fa. Mag., i, 
44S.) Dr. Tyler says {The Cradle of the Republic, 238) that this 
represented the purchase from the widow of Sir George Yeardley, 
of Stanley Hundred. In May, 1636, there was proved in London 
the will (P.CC. Dale, 66; Waters, Gleanings, i, 715), dated Sep- 
tember 4, 1631, of John Brewer, "citizen and grocer," who had 
lately died in Virginia, whereby he devised to his son John "my 
plantation in Virginia called Stanley Hundred als. Bruers 
Borough." From this it would appear that Thomas Flint had 

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As the result of these transactions Miles Gary 
died seized of four separate plantations in War- 
wick aggregating at least 2637 acres, not to men- 
tion the unseated patent for three thousand acres 
in Stafford.^ 

sold Stanley Hundred to Brewer. Later, on March i, 1637, Flint 
took out another patent for 850 acres, lying "upon the river*' to- 
wards Stanley Hundred. In his will Miles Gary recites ''a tract or 
parcel of land which lyeth up Warwick River formerly belonged 
unto Capt. Thomas Flint and since purchased by me.'' 

^ Mr. Bruce {Econ, Hist, ii, 253) estimates the average size of 
the landed property held by the leading planters in the seventeenth 
century at 5000 acres, but his illustrations refer to the patents of 
wild land on the frontier, like Miles Gary's 3000 acre patent on 
the upper Potomac In the ''settlements," even at the end of the 
century, few owned as much as 5000 acres; there the large hold- 
ings seldom exceeded aooo acres, a fact which is established by 
the Virginia ^uit Rent Rolls of 1704. (MS. in library of Virginia 
Historical Society.) It is not until the middle of the eighteenth 
century, when the interior had been opened up far from tidewater 
and the number of slaves had greatly increased, that we find 
what we have come to consider the typical large landholdings in 
Virginia. The process seems to have been for the more stirring 
of the well-to-do class to dock the entails of their inherited tide- 
water lands and acquire in lieu of them greater areas of wild 
lands, e,g,. Miles Gary's grandson Henry, who thus transferred his 
inheritance from Warwick to what became Cumberland and Buck- 
ingham. With them went also the three and four hundred acre 
planter who had exhausted his tidewater lands. Those who did 
not feel the lure of the frontier contemporaneously increased their 
tidewater holdings by acquiring the lands of those who migrated, 
e.g., another of Miles Gary's grandsons, Wilson, who thus ex- 
panded Richneck from aooo to 4000 acres, and the Burwells, who, 
in the same way, acquired a belt of lands stretching entirely across 
the peninsula from the James to the York River. Thus the sine of 
individual holdings was increased both in tidewater and Piedmont. 

Mr. Bruce estimates aUo {ibid,, ii, 254) the value of land in 
Virginia in the seventeenth century at four shillings an acre, 
equivalent in purchasing power to five dollars in modem money. 
It is probable that the bulk of Miles Gary's estate was invested in 
his mercantile business, which his will provided should be disposed 
of and the proceeds divided equally among his children. As the 
inventory is lost we can make no estimate of this. 

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We may assume that Miles Cary began his 
cursus honorum in the vestry of Stanley parish; 
for the vestry in colonial Virginia was not only 
the censor of individual morals and the local 
taxing body, but the forum in which a man could 
first exhibit his capacity for public aflfairs.^ We 
have, however, our first record of him in Vir- 
ginia on a higher step of the ladder. In April, 
1652, before he was thirty, he is found sitting 
on the bench of magistrates of Warwick County, 
with his father-in-law, under the presidency of 
their neighbor, the son of "worthy Captaine 
Matthews."^ As he then bore no military title, 

1 For the functions of the vestry see Bruce, Inst. Hist., i, 6a. In 
the seventeenth century there were two parishes in Warwick, 
divided by Potash Creek» Stanley above and Denbigh below. They 
were subsequently merged as Denbigh, which now includes the 
entire county. (See Hening, i, 435, and Bishop Meade, i, 34a) 

* The Virginia County Court, The Warwick records being 
mostly destroyed, it is mere chance that we find the following entry 
in the York records (Deeds, etc, i, 174) : "At a Cort held for 
Warwick County the twelfth day of Apr ill, 1652, Present Lt. 
Coll. Samuel Matthews, Mr. Wm. Whitby, Mr. Henry Filmer, 
Mr. Thomas Taylor, Mr. Miles Cary, Mr. Thos. Glascock, Mr. 
John Smith, gent°. Justices, etc.'' 

From the surviving court records we have identified (The Fir' 
ginia Carys) thirty-one descendants in the male line of the 
immigrant Miles Cary, who, following his precedent, sat on the 
bench of the county court as barones comitatus during the century 
and a half after his death. They were practically all the heads of 
households of the family in its various branches during seven 
successive generations. Among them we find also eight clerks of 
these courts, a function of high dignity as well as practical im- 
portance during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This 
service is the badge of the social position of the family in the 
colony; for during the greater part of the history of Virginia the 
local functions of government, not only judicial but legislative 
and administrative as well, were largely combined in the now 
dead and gone county court, the direct representative of the Saxon 

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it must have been after this time that he began 
to take an active part in the militia. When he 

shire moot. (See Stubbs, Constitutional History, i, 134, 444; Ingle, 
Local Institutions in Virginia; Johns Hopkins University Studies, 
1885, 91, ff.; Bruce, Inst, Hist,, i, 540; and a penetrating apprecia- 
tion in Osgood, The American Colonies in the XVII Century, iii, 
84: "After the Restoration . . . clearly appeared the intimate 
political and social relationship between the governor and council, 
on the one hand, and the county families and magistrates, on the 
other, which constituted the essence of Virginia government In 
no province was the combination so perfect and harmonious as in 
Virginia. To it the aristocracy of that colony owed its origin. It 
was buttressed on the one side by the plantation S3rstem and on the 
other by commercial, social and political relations with England.**) 
The county court was the only colonial institution which survived 
the Revolution without substantial modification, and so in the 
nineteenth century was Virginia's principal link with her past It 
had its origin in the provision by the assembly at its session of 
March 1623/4 ^^^ "monthly courts** to be held by "the commanders 
of the places and such others as the governor and council shall 
appoint by commission.** (Hening, i, 125.) In 1643 the name was 
changed to county court. (Hening, i, 273.) The members were 
from the beginning the ablest and most substantial men resident in 
the several counties ; at first they were styled commissioners, but in 
1662 and thenceforth justices of the peace. (Hening, ii, 70.) 
While these justices were nominated and commissioned by the 
governor, a personnel of high character was assured by the in- 
sistence of the justices themselves that they should not be required 
to sit with any one of whose character they did not approve. (See, 
e,g., early instances of exceptions to the governor's unadvised 
nominations in Palmer, Calendar of Virginia State Papers, i, 88, 
237.) From this grew up the custom, which ultimately was in 
terms crystallized in the organic law by the constitution of 1776, 
that the governor should nominate a justice of the peace only on 
the recommendation of the respective county courts; so that the 
county court thus became, and until the adoption of the constitution 
of 185 1 continued to be, practically self-perpetuating. (Staples, 
Old County Court System of Virginia, Presidential address before 
the Virginia State Bar Association, 1894, Transactions, vii, 141 ; 
Chitwood, Justice in Colonial Virginia, Johns Hopkins University 
Studies, 190S, 77.) As the service was an obligation which was 
always burdensome and sometimes expensive and there was no 
remuneration, the office of justice of the peace tended under this 
system of recruiting to become hereditary in certain families; but 
it so continued only while these families maintained a first-rate 

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did he was promoted rapidly: in 1654 he is re- 
corded as major, in 1657 as lieutenant-colonel, 

position in the community and with it a capacity for leadership 
which held their neighbors' respect. Memories of Bacon's rebel- 
lion and the very civilization of Virginia which kept the justices in 
a full glare of publicity combined to protect the system from abuse. 
By reason of the scattered habit of life of the people, "court day,'' 
especially in the spring and autunm, made the court-house a general 
rendezvous, almost a fair. All classes of the community attended to 
transact private as well as public business, to hear the "speaking," 
and to indulge In sport and politics, or merely to escape the tedium 
of life at home. With the eyes of all his neighbors so upon him no 
man could disgrace himself on the bench with impunity. 

Despite their recognized value, the aristocratic savor of these 
courts drew upon them the lightning of Mr. Jefferson's disapproval. 
(See his letter to John Taylor of Caroline, July ii, 1816, Writings, 
Ford ed., x, 52.) This opinion served to make the county court one 
of the chief objects of the attack of the democrats in the conven- 
tion of 1829, notwithstanding the fact that the county court S3rstem 
had then for some time been the foundation of Jefferson's own 
democratic political machine. (Beveridge, John Marshall, iv, 146, 
485.) To this attack we own convincing testimony of the charac- 
ter and practical capacity of the court. Chief Justice Marshall, 
Benjamin Watkins Leigh, Philip P. Barbour, Chapman Johnson, 
and Governor Giles then united to resist, and for the moment suc- 
cessfully did resist, the attempt to overthrow the time-honored 
system. (See Debates of the Convention of 182^30^ 502-531.) 
Marshall said: "There is no part of America where less dis- 
quiet and less ill feeling between man and man is to be found than 
in this Commonwealth, and I believe most firmly that this state 
of things is mainly to be ascribed to the practical operation of our 
county courts. The magistrates who compose these courts consist in 
general of the best men in their respective counties. They act in 
the spirit of peacemakers and allay rather than excite the small dis- 
putes and differences which will sometimes arise among neigh- 
bors. . . . These courts must be preserved: if we part with 
them can we be sure that we shall retain among our justices of the 
peace the same respectability and weight of character as are now to 
be found? I think not" 

Judge Barbour said: "After a twenty-five year acquaintance with 
the county courts of Virginia it is my conscientious opinion that 
there is not, and never has been, a tribunal under the sun where 
more substantial practical justice is administered." 

Mr. Johnson said : "It is in these family tribunals with their mild 
and patriarchal jurisdiction, their meetings held at short intervals, 

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and in 1660 as colonel,^ commanding the forces 
of the county. This rapid promotion during the 
Commonwealth period, when the House of Bur- 
gesses was the fountain of honor, must have been 
based* not only on efficiency but on personal 
popularity and the arts of the politician. In 
this latter respect we have an interesting con- 
firmation of the conjecture in an incident which 
led to further public service. In the assembly 
which met March i, 1658/9, John Harlowe rep- 

and in small districts, that the obligations and rights of the citizen 
are taught to the humblest member of the community.'' 

Mr. Lei^ asserted that while it was true that the office was 
often hereditary, it was so because certain families maintained the 
character and capacity to hold it; but there were as few instances 
of exclusion of the capable man as there were of corruption on the 
bench. 

None of these statements of fact was seriously controverted in 
the lively debate, which is the more significant because, technically 
the opponents of the county court S3rstem in the convention of 1839 
had the better of the argument on the limited question under con- 
sideration—whether the constitution should specify the county 
courts any more than other inferior courts. Virginia made an 
expensive sacrifice to the Goddess of Liberty when she finally 
wiped out her ancient county court system. No substitute has yet 
been found effectively to bring together all classes of her rural 
communities in a common concern. Under the new conditions, 
with rare exception, the best educated and most responsible men 
are no longer willing to serve in local public office, which is an 
unmitigated loss of political and social stamina. Judge Staples 
(ibid., 142) sums up this point: "In the progress of time the predic- 
tions of Mr. Leigh and Mr. Randofph in the convention that the 
office would deteriorate when compensation was attached to its 
duties, were fully verified. Men of high position in the Common- 
wealth who were influenced only by patriotic motives declined to 
enter into contests with aspirants who sought the office only for the 
pecuniary benefits attached to its possession, and so the glory and 
the dignity and the esprit de corps of the old tribunal as it was in 
the earlier days passed away." 

^ His patent of October 7, 1657 (Records of the Land Office in 
Richmond), styles him lieutenant-colonel and confirms the earlier 

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resented Warwick.^ Miles Gary and John 
Brewer, son of the "citizen and grocer" who 
had purchased Stanley Hundred from Captain 
Flint, thereupon brought suit against Harlowe 
before the assembly to recover on behalf of Stan- 
ley Hundred a certain tract of fifty acres which 
Harlowe had patented but which it was claimed 
had been, in 163 1, dedicated "for a common unto 
the inhabitants of the said Stanley Hundred." 
Harlowe apparently had sufiicient influence 
with the assembly, of which he was a member, 
to have the suit dismissed, "in respect of the pre- 
terjudicially bringing ye said suit before ye As- 
sembly," but it was obviously a popular move at 
home in Warwick, and the immediate conse- 
quence was that, at the ensuing election for t>ur- 

patent of October 5, 1654, in which he was styled major. See also 
Hening, i, 513, and Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1619-1659, 
113 and 116, for reference to him as lieutenant-colonel in April, 
1658, and March, 1659. When in March, 1660, he entered the 
House of Burgesses he was already colonel. (Hening, i, 529.) The 
Colonel of a shire in seventeenth-century Virginia was charged 
with more than training the fyrd for the emergency of an Indian 
campaign or foreign invasion, though that was part of his duty. 
In a county far from the Indian frontier, as Warwick was, he 
represented chiefly the principle of organization against that 
terror by night in every civilization such as Virginia then exem- 
plified—revolt by indentured servants, later of the African savages 
recently imported as slaves. He performed also certain important 
purely civil duties, such as the enforcement of the regulations with 
respect to tobacco culture and the public health. He was usually 
the presiding officer in the county court. See the chapters on the 
military system in Bruce, Institutional History, and the judicious 
observations on the reasons for the prevalence and survival of 
military titles in the South in McCrady, South Carolina under the 
Proprietary Government, chap. i. 
^ Hening, i, 506. 

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gesses, Harlowe lost his seat and Miles Gary was 
returned in his place. At once thereafter the 
burgesses, overcoming their objection to the 
"preterjudicial" character of the proceeding, 
ordained that Harlowe's patent was void, that 
Stanley Hundred be confirmed in their right of 
common,^ and that Harlowe himself be sus- 
pended from the commission of the peace.^ 

Meanwhile Miles Gary had had another pub- 
lic employment of a nature which was highly 
lucrative and became practically hereditary 
among his descendants during the remainder of 

* Sec Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1619-1658/9, 113, and 
i659/6o-i693» 5; Hening, i, 506, 529, 54S. This amusing illustra- 
tion of the play of a kind of politics which doubtless began when 
the first two or three men gathered together for mutual defense 
and will last as long as civilization, is the more interesting be- 
cause it is coincident with the change of government in Virginia. 
The first act of the assembly of 1660 had been to elect Sir William 
Berkeley governor. If this was a Cavalier revolt against Puritan 
rule, then one might expect special privilege, such as Harlowe 
claimed, to have prevailed over popular rights in a Cavalier as- 
sembly, but the fact was precisely otherwise— special privilege pre- 
vailed only in the "popular" assembly. 

Mr. Edward Eggleston {Transit of CiviltKation, 2S5) sees in this 
unique reference to a common in Virginia evidence that in the 
middle of the seventeenth century the "township or village com- 
munity could be found germinating in the Southern colonies,'* 
although the later development in the South was altogether one 
of individualism, on the basis of the county as the political unit. 
In founding Stanley Hundred and dedicating the common Sir 
George Yeardley perhaps contemplated that it might develop into 
a town, but it remained a proprietary plantation. 

^ Hening, i, 550. This was not the end of HarIowe*s troubles 
with his neighbors. In 1661 he had two judgments rendered against 
him "for planting tobacco after the day appointed by the act" 
and pleaded the king's pardon, whereupon the assembly, after 
asserting that "his majes^s pardon doth not extend to any busi- 
ness of that nature," remitted the fine. (Hening, ii, 36.) 

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the colonial period.^ The principle of taxation 
which had obtained quite steadily in Virginia 
was that land being subject to the quit rent re- 
served first by the company and then by the crown, 
the fairest distribution of the cost of government 
was a poll tax. Before the Commonwealth, 
however, one of the principal items of expense, 
the governor's salary, was paid by the crown out 
of the customs duties collected on tobacco im- 
ported into England. During the Common- 
wealth period, when Virginia was left to her 
own resources, this means of paying the gover- 
nor was lacking, and it was necessary to increase 
the poll tax until in 1657 it had become burden- 
some to the poorer class of the community. It 
was accordingly proposed that a tax of two shil- 
lings should be imposed on every hogshead of 
exported tobacco, and that the governor's salary 
should henceforth be paid out of this fund : the 
expectation was that this would not only make 
possible a reduction of the poll tax, but would 
compel shipmasters to import coin, of which the 
colony was always short, with which to pay the 
tax, and would also encourage agricultural di- 
versification under the stimulus of avoiding the 
tax. After some hesitation as to the amount of 
the tax this proposal was in March, 1658, en- 

^ His son Miles Gary, his grandson Wilson Gary, and his great- 
grandson Wilson-Miles Gary, were all naval officers in the revenue 
service, the last named resigning his office at the time of the 
American Revolution in order to espouse the patriot cause. 

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acted into law for a trial period of one year.^ To 
carry the new law into effect it was provided that 
"collectors of the severall rivers and places in 
Virginia for the receiving of the said two shil- 
lings per hogshead be appointed and confirmed 
by the present Grand Assembly," to be commis- 
sioned by Governor Matthews. One of the col- 
lectors so appointed was Miles Gary. It ap- 
pears, however, that the shipmasters at once 
made difl5culties; doubtless they had the sup- 
port of the large planters, who were never un- 
selfish. At all events, at the next session of the 
assembly, in 1659, "complaint being made to the 
Assembly by Le^ Coll. Miles Gary and Mr. 
Henry Gorben, two of the collectors of the im- 
position of two shillings per hhd," that certain 
shipmasters had "refused to give caution for the 
payment of the said levy," the recalcitrants were 
summoned before the assembly;* whereupon the 
whole question was reconsidered, and, it appear- 
ing that "certaine inconveniences have ben found 
in the manner of collecting the imposition of 
two shillings per hogshead to which an apt 
remedy could not bee applied and the said act 
now expired," it was enacted that the law should 
not be renewed, but that the "next yeeres levy 

1 Hening, i, 491, 498; Va, Mag,, viii, 392; Bruce, Inst, Hist., ii, 
540, 584. 
> Hening, i, 512. 

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be raised in tobacco as formerly,*' and, as a con- 
sequence, by reversion to the tax per poll/ 

In pursuance of this line of public service 
Gary was, after the Restoration, appointed to 
a function which his ancestors the Bristol mayors 
had exercised:^ as "His Majestys Escheator 
General for this Gountry," it was his duty to take 
possession of ,or compound on behalf of the crown 
for, all lands which were forfeited under the 
law for non-payment of quit rents.^ From 1663 

1 Hening, i, 523. This export tax was renewed after the Restora- 
tion (ibid., ii, 130), when Miles Gary resumed the office of collector. 
(MS. statement, in IT. M. Cary Notes, by Conway Robinson, June 
17, 1866, of record in General Court Order Book No, 2, 1660-1664, 
p. 161, examined by him before its destruction. See also Va, Mag,, 
viii, 168.) It appears from the act of 1662 that the original diffi- 
culty was rather in the stipulation for payment in money than in 
the character of the tax. Thereafter it long remained one of the 
principal sources of public revenue. (Bruce, Inst, Hist,, i, 587.) 

2 Cf, the Bristol Mayor's Kalendar, 73. 

^ Mr. Conway Robinson noted (Va. Mag,, viii, 167) in the Gen- 
eral Court Book No, 2, 1660 to 1664, pp. 28-37, under date May is, 
1661: "Major Norwood, the Treasurer, having empowered Sir 
William Berkeley, he appointed Colo. Francis Morrison and Mr. 
Thomas Ludwell to execute the office of Treasurer in his place. 
They appointed Col. Miles Cary Escheator General." In the York 
County records (Liber xi, 106) is a deed dated September 2$, 
1662, which recites^ "Whereas his Majesty by Letters Patent, bear- 
ing date September 22, 1650, granted to his trusty subject and ser- 
vant Henry Norwood, Esq., the office of Treasurer of Virginia, and 
Whereas the said Henry Norwood by deed bearing date October 17, 

1660, hath given power and authority to Sir William Berkeley, Knt., 
to execute said conunission, and he by his commission dated May 15, 

1 66 1, did invest said Morryson & Ludwell with power to issue 
writs for the finding of any land escheated, and to make composi- 
tion and grant of ye said land to any person that should desire 
to purchase the same, and Whereas the said Morryson and Ludwell 
did by their commission dated August 7, 1661, appoint and consti- 
tute Collo. Miles Cary to be H. M. Escheator Gen", for the country." 

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until his death he had, too, a farm of the quit 
rents for Warwick and Elizabeth City, doubt- 
less a profitable contract* 

Miles Gary first appears as a legislator as bur- 
gess for Warwick^ in the assembly which met in 

In Hening, ii, 56, 136, there appears a memorandum whereby 
the deputy governor and secretary of state, "Francis Morrison and 
Thomas Ludwell, who are at present intrusted by his majesties 
treasurer to make composition of all lands soe escheated to his 
majestie/' lay down principles for the mitigation of the rigor of 
the practice of escheat, which was apparently given the sanction 
of a statute and so became a part of Miles Cary^s commission as 
escheator general. He exercised the office until his death. (See 
Land Office Records , 1662-1666.) Mr. Conway Robinson notes that 
Henry Randolph acted as his deputy. 

^ Fa, Mag., iii, 43. It was the custom for the members of the 
council, including the governor, to farm the quit rents (Bruce, Inst, 
Hist,, ii, 577), but it would appear that Miles Cary had the contract 
before he entered the council. 

A few years after Miles Cary^s death. Bacon charged that the 
"great men" of Virginia, meaning Berkeley and his council, were 
responsible for the distress of the colony by taking all the public 
offices into their own hands and using them to oppress the people to 
their own advantage. If this was true of all Berkeley's council, 
it was true of Miles Cary also, for he was an undoubted pluralist 
during the last five years of his life. When the commissioners, 
Jeffrey and Berry, invited the counties to state their grievances 
after Bacon's death, some of them (e.g., Charles City, Fa, Mag,, 
iii, 132) specified charges of oppression by some of the council, but 
it is of interest to note that the good people of Warwick (Winder 
Abstracts, ii, 245, MSS. Va. State Library) were so evidently put 
to it to find something to complain of that the commissioners labeled 
their paper of grievances "a modest instification." Warwick had 
taken no part in Bacon's proceedings except to take his oaths, which 
they repented, and they named no names of oppressors. It is true 
that they prayed that no person might henceforth hold "two places 
of publicke profitte," which may have related back to some jealousy 
of Miles Cary, but on that point the commissioners comment sap- 
idly: "Perhaps if this should be admitted there would not be found 
able men sufficient to execute them." 

^Hening, i, 529; Stanard, Colonial Virginia Register, 7$, In 1629 
Fawcctt, Harwood, Clause, Ceely, Flint, and Cripps were burgesses 
for the boroughs afterwards included in Warwick County. These 

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an alehouse at "James Cittie" on March 13, 
1660/ It was a moment which has intrigued the 
historians and given them much to write about.^ 

names of ancient planters reappear in the lists until the surrender 
of the colony to the Commonwealth in 1651, when Lieutenant- 
Colonel Samuel Matthews (son of "worthy Capt. Matthews" who 
had been described in 1649 as "a most deserving commonwealths 
man") and William Whitby became the burgesses. After Matthews 
was advanced to the council in 1655 Warwick was represented by 
Thomas Davis, John Smith (who was speaker in 1658), and that 
John Harlowe who made himself so disagreeable to his neighbors. 
It seems likely that they were followers of the Matthews faction and 
that when Miles Cary and Edward Griffith took their places in 1660 
there was a change in the political sentiment of the county. Perhaps 
this was promoted by the Royalists and the attack on Harlowe was 
part of the campaign to unseat the Commonwealth men. 

* After the destruction by fire of Harve3r's "old state house" 
during the Conunonwealth, the assembly met for some time in 
rented quarters until the second state-house was built on an un- 
identified site back from the river. This building also was de- 
stroyed by fire before 1660, so that when Miles Cary sat in the 
assembly that body was put to the "dishonour of all our laws being 
made and our judgments given in alehouses." (Hening, ii, 204.) 
Under the "cohabitation" act of 1662 a third state-house was at 
last built, about 1665, at the western end of the island, to which 
Philip Ludwell subsequently added three houses, filling the space 
between this state-house and another public building known as 
the "country house." Bacon burned this block in 1676, after which 
a fourth state-house was built on the site of the third, and was 
used until the removal to Williamsburg. See Tyler, Cradle of the 
Republic, 172, and the graphic restoration of the block of the third 
and fourth state-houses at p. 167. 

2 The recall of Berkeley in 1660, The history of Virginia during 
the Commonwealth, and especially the incident of the recall of 
Berkeley, is still obscure. Beverley {History of Virginia, 1705, i, 
54) is the fountain of the picturesque story which is still deeply 
imbedded in the imagination of Virginians: 

"It ought to be remembered ... to the immortal Honour of 
the Colony that it was the last of all the King's Dominions that sub- 
mitted to the Usurpation, and afterwards the first that cast it off. 

"Oliver had no sooner subdued the Plantations, but he began to 
contrive how to keep them under, that so they might never be 
able for the time to come to give him further trouble. To this 
End he thought it necessary to break off their Correspondence with 

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There were many new names among the bur- 
gesses: arguing from modern parliamentary 
practice and the theory that "the whole early 

all other Nations, thereby to prevent their being furnished with 
Arms, Ammunition, and other Warlike Provisions. According to 
this Design, he contrived a severe act of Parliament, whereby he 
prohibited the Plantations from receiving or exporting any Euro- 
pean Commodities, but what should be carried to them by English 
men and in English built ships. They were absolutely forbid cor- 
responding with any Nation or Colony, not subject to the Crown 
of England. Neither was any Alien suffered to manage a Trade 
or Factory in any of them. In all which Things the Plantations 
had been till then indulged, for their Encouragement. 

"Notwithstanding this Act of Navigation, the Protector never 
thought the Plantations enough secured; but frequently changed 
their Govemours, to prevent their intriguing with the People. 
[Beverley's statement here that Cromwell 'frequently changed their 
Govemours' has long been scouted by the democratic historians, 
but see Fa. Mag,, xviii, 156, for evidence that after all the gov- 
ernors elected by the Virginia assembly during the Conmionwealth 
were probably nominated by the English government] So that 
during the small time of his Protectorship, they had no less than 
Three Governours there, namely, Diggs, Bennet and Mathevjs. 

"The strange arbitrary curbs he put upon the Plantations ex- 
ceedingly afflicted the People. He had the Inhumanity to forbid 
them all manner of Trade and Correspondence with other Nations, 
at a Time when England itself was in Distraction; and could 
neither take off their Connmodities, nor supply them sufficiently 
with its own. Neither had they ever been used to supply them 
with half the Commodities they expended, or to take off above half 

. the Tobacco they made. Such violent Proceedings made the people 
desperate, and inspired them with a desire to use the last Remedy, 
to relieve themselves from this Lawless Usurpation. In a short 
time afterwards a fair Opportunity happened: For Governour 
Mathews died, and no Person was substituted to succeed him in 

'the Government. Whereupon the People applyed themselves to 
Sir William Berkeley (who had continued all this time upon his 
own Plantation in a private Capacity) and unanimously chose him 
their Governour again." 

Robertson (History of America, 1777, iv, 230) adopted Beverley's 
view and furbished it out with the Cavaliers': "Warmly attached 
to the cause for which they had fought and suffered and animated 
with all the passions natural to men recently engaged in a fierce 
and long protracted civil war, they, by their intercourse with the 

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history of Virginia loses its meaning and co- 
herence unless we believe in the existence of two 
parties whose antecedents and interests led them 

colonists, confirmed them in principles of loyalty and aaded to their 
impatience and indignation under the restraints imposed on their 
commerce by their new masters." 

. Burk {History, 1805, ii, 118) was too consistent a democrat to 
be willingly convinced by this rhetoric He did not, indeed, have 
before him, to support his opinion, the proceedings of the assembly 
in 1660, the only surviving copy of which, preserved in MS. by 
Sir John Raldolph, was at the time Burk wrote in the library of 
Thomas Jefferson at Monticello (Hening, i, 530) ; but he must 
have received some credible tradition, for, while flouting Beverley 
and Robertson, he asserted roundly that he was ''satisfied" from 
"the evidence before me" that Berkeley was first reinstated as 
governor "by the tumultuary proceedings of a mob" of Royalists. 
When Hening published, in 1833, his Statutes and included Mr. 
Jefferson's MS., he was able to show that, so far as the record 
went, Berkeley was elected governor by the assembly in March, 
1659-60, or several months before the Restoration, in precisely the 
same form that other governors during the Commonwealth—Ben- 
nett, Digges, and Matthews— were elected, and by reference to the 
contemporary record of patents that the occasion for the election 
of a new governor was, as Beverley said, the death of "worthy 
Captain Matthews." Hening argued then that Berkeley's election 
was not necessarily a recognition of Charles H. The subsequent 
historians, including Doyle (1882), Fiske (1897), and even Osgood 
(1907), have accepted Hening's conclusion: this was apparently 
enforced by the discovery of a letter (Neill, Firginia Carolorum, 
1886, 273) written by Berkeley to Governor StU3rvesant of New 
York, August 20, 1660, in which he said: "I am but a servant of 
the assembly, neither do they arrogate any power to themselves 
further than the miserable distraction of England force them to," 
and evidence (IT. & M, Quar., 1892, i, 19s) that Charles H was 
not proclaimed in Virginia until September 20, 1660, after the news 
had been received in Virginia of his proclamation in England in 
the May preceding. See also (in Wertenbaker, Virginia Under the 
Stuarts f III) what purports to be Berkeley's spefech in the assembly 
in March, 1660, professing reluctance to assume the governorship 
again, which was first published in the Southern Literary Mes- 
senger, January, 1845. But now the question has been opened up 
again, for it appears from a surviving transcript of a minute of the 
council (Va, Mag., vii, 314) that on March 9, 1660, four days before 
his election by the assembly, Berkeley appointed a sheriff for lower 

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to side the one with the crown, the other with 
the Parliament,"^ it has fairly been assumed that 
this represented a return to power of the Royalist 
interest, but it was more probably simply a re- 
volt against the growing pressure of the naviga- 
tion laws and an expression of the hope that 
change of political control might bring relief. 
Whatever were its motives, when the assembly 
met, to which Miles Gary had been elected. Gov- 
ernor Matthews was dead and its first act was to 
elect Sir William Berkeley "Governour and 
Captaine Generall of Virginia,'" but, asserting 
that "by reason of the late frequent distractions 
in England there is no absolute gen'll confessed 
power," the burgesses retained all the essential 
functions of government in their own hands. 
After providing for the suppression of Quakers, 
the encouragement of Irish immigration, and 

Norfolk County; which gives new color to Bcrkclc/s own state- 
ment (in his Declaracon and Remonstrance, published during Ba- 
con's rebellion) that "not onely the assembfy but the vnanimous 
votes of all the Country concurred to make me Govern*", etc." (Neill, 
Virginia Carolorum, 352.) It is clear, then, that Berkeley acted 
as governor before the assembly of 1660 elected him; and it may 
well be that the older historians, Beverley, Robertson, and Burk, 
have stated the fact as to the method of the original reinstatement: 
that there was, months before the Restoration in England, some- 
thing akin to a Royalist revolution in Virginia, which was formally 
confirmed by the assembly. Englishmen everywhere were then 
weary of the Conmion wealth, not the least in Virginia, where the 
navigation law was detested. See the famous tract Killing No 
Murder (1657) for the bitterness against Cromwell at the end of 
his life. 

1 Doyle, English Colonies in America, i, 213. 

2Hening, i, 530. 

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free trade with the Dutch, the assembly ad- 
journed. When they reconvened on October 1 1, 
1660, the Restoration was an accomplished fact; 
Charles II had been proclaimed in Virginia^ as 
well as in England, and Berkeley appeared as 
"his Majesties Governor."^ 

When thfe assembly again convened the fol- 
lowing spring they learned that the king had 
authorized Berkeley to return to England to kiss 
the royal hand and receive instructions, and that 
another serious attempt was being made to re- 
vive the London Company. The burgesses 
agreed at once to bear the expense of the jour- 
ney if the governor would act as their agent and 
present their "grievances,"* but in the enthu- 
siasm of new loyalty they little dreamed that 
they had more than conventional g^^rievances, 
least of all that his sacred majesty had in store 
for them a reckless grant of the entire colony 
to court favorites and the rigorous enforcement 
of that navigation law which had been their 
cause of discontent with the Commonwealth. 
Berkeley sailed at the end of April, leaving Col- 

^ fF. & M. Quar,, i, 195. 

^ Heoing, ii, 9. He had been recommissioned by Charles II on 
July 31, 1660. (Cal. State Papers, Am, & W, I.) 

3 Hening, ii, 17. It was during this visit to London that Berkeley 
had the satisfaction of seeing enacted on the stage that child of 
his youth the tragi-comedy The Lost Lady. It may still be read 
in the first (1744) edition of Dodsle/s Old Plays, but it was 
omitted from the subsequent editions. For Berkeley before he 
came to Virginia, see Wood, A then. Oxon., iii, iiii. 

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i^ 



onel Francis Moryson as his deputy during the 
eighteen months of his absence. Meanwhile the 
assembly had adjourned, having first appointed 
January 30, the anniversary of the execution of 
Charles I, to be "annually solemnized with fast- 
ing and prayers" as a penance for the capitula- 
tion to the Commonwealth, and Charles IPs 
birthday. May 29, to be kept "as an holy day" 
in testimony of their thankfulness at his restora- 
tion. They made also the first provision for "a 
colledge and free school,"^ and adopted the fol- 
lowing resolution,* which is evidence of the 
place Miles Gary had now taken in public life, 
viz. : 

Whereas the addresses to his most sacred majesty cannot 
conveniently be finished at present, and Whereas there is 
a necessity of a committee to meete in September to joine 
with the govemour and councill for the proportioning the 
levy, receiving the missives from England and returning 
answers unless the case requires the meeting of the Assembly. 



^ Hening, ii, 25, 30, 37, 56. This was the germ of William and 
Mary College, of which Miles Gary's son was one of the founders, 
and with which his descendants have ever since been associated 
in almost unbroken line. It is of interest that he sat in the 
assembly which declared the necessity and the intention of the 
colony to meet it; doubtless also he was, with Berkeley, one of the 
original subscribers. General Henry A. Wise, Seven Decades of 
the Union (1S73), Appendix, argued ingeniously that a "college"' 
was actually established under the legislation of 1661, but his 
argument has not carried conviction. See Adams, The College of 
William and Mary (Bureau of Education, 1887), 14. 

> Hening, ii, 31. Perhaps the precedent for this delegation was 
the committee of the "Lords of the Articles" in the Scotch Parlia- 
ment, then (1662) still functioning. We have to go back to the 
time of Richard II to find a precedent in England. 



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Bcc itt enacted that Mr. Henry Soane, Speaker of this 
present Assembly, Nathaniel Bacon» Esq., Coll. Miles Cary, 
Major Nicholas Hill, Capt. Robert EUyson, Capt. George 
Jordan, Mr. Walter Chiles, or any four of them, be em- 
powered by this assembly to receive the Conmiands of the 
right honourable Sir William Berkeley and to act in the 
premises according as occasion shall require, at such time 
as the governor shall appoint. 

The next session, convened March 23, 1662, in 
the absence of Berkeley, was occupied largely 
with the enactment of the first revisal of the laws 
of Virginia,^ but at its close the "publique com- 
mittee" was reorganized and continued as fol- 
lows :^ 

Bee it enacted that the Committee appointed by the ffirst 
session of this Assembly be continued with the like power 
granted them and that Captain Robert W3mn, Speaker, and 
Major Edward Griffith be added in the roome of the hon- 
ourable Nathaniel Bacon, Esq., now of the Councell, and 
Mr. Henry Soane, then Speaker, now deceased. 

At the session held in December, 1662, after 
the return of Berkeley to the colony, the assem- 
bly devoted itself to carrying out the instructions 
of the king which the governor had brought back 

^ This revisal was compiled by Francis Moryson and Henry 
Randolph (Hening, ii, 34), and takes up 105 pages in Hening. It 
was sent to Berkeley in England with the request that he procure 
the king's confirmation of it and then have it printed. This was 
done in London in 1662 as La*ws of Virginia now in Force, with a 
dedication by Moryson to Berkeley, saluting him as the author of 
all the best of them. Because of the unprecedented dignity of 
print this revisal was long referred to as the printed laws, 

* Hening, ii, 147. 

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with him, including the famous and futile one 
for "cohabitation" and the building of a town. 
The act,^ which made provision for the building 
of thirty-two brick houses "at James Citty,"* 
shows perhaps an evidence of Miles Gary's alert- 
ness in the interest of his Warwick constituents, 
if not merely his own interest, in the limitation 
of a requirement of compulsory loading and un- 
loading of ships at Jamestown, to the plantations 
"above Mulberry Island." 

^ Hening, ii, 172. 

* Miles Car/s "housing" at Jamestonon: Each of the seventeen 
counties was required to build one of the houses, but in 1665 the 
result was only a "poore assay of building ffower or fiive houses.'* 
(Neill, Virginia Carolorum, 310.) Berkeley was persistent, how- 
ever, and apparently expected the members of the council to show 
their loyalty by setting an example in building. When he joined 
the council. Miles Gary, with his colleagues Colonel Thomas 
Swann and Secretary Ludwell, prepared to do this, and to that 
end the three of them acquired the site of the "old state house" 
and its adjoining buildings, then in ruins. This historic bit of 
ground in the "New Townc" on the river-front to the cast of the 
ruined church tower which still stands, had been the residence of 
Harvey and the scene of his "thrusting out" ; it was sold by him in 
1 641 to the colony and thereafter presented to Berkeley. (Hening, 
i, 267; Yonge, The Site of Old James Tovme, Va, Mag., xi, 257, 
expanded and published as a book, 1907.) It then consisted of two 
adjoining houses, to which Berkeley added a third on the west, 
where he resided, the middle house being the "court house*' or place 
of meeting of the council and the assembly. There is a picture of 
the block restored in Tyler, Cradle of the Republic, 167, and a plan 
of the foundations in Yonge (1907), 87. In 1651, wheo he retired to 
Green Spring, Berkeley .conveyed "the westernmost of the three 
brick houses, which I there built," to Richard Bennet, his successor 
as governor. (Hening, i, 407.) These buildings were later de- 
stroyed by fire and for at least twenty years lay in ruins. About 
1667 Henry Randolph acquired the three adjoining ruins, apparently 
for account of Colonel Miles Gary, Golonel Thomas Swann, and 
Secretary Ludwell, who may have contemplated building adjoining 
houses on them, for in his will Gary directs his executors to sell "the 

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There is no further record of Miles Cary in 
the assembly. While he continued a member of 
this colonial "Long Parliament," which was 
continued by prorogation for years, he was not 
in attendance at the session of September, 1663, 
Warwick being represented by his colleague 
Major Edward Griffith alone.^ We may assume 
that he was absent in England, perhaps to settle 
the estate of his father, who was then lately dead. 
If so, he was absent from Virginia and his duty 
as a colonel of militia during the anxious and 
exciting September 13, 1663, when the plot of 
the discontented redemptioners and nonconform- 
ists, under the leadership of some old Cromwel- 
lian soldiers, so nearly anticipated the troubles 
of Bacon's rebellion.^ 

houseing at Towne (which I bought of Mr. Randolph and have paid 
him for, as by his receipt it may appear)." The title was not 
perfected, however, until 1671, for in 1670 Berkeley conveyed to 
Randolph the lot he had originally sold to Bennet, and on April 
7, 1671, Randolph conveyed the three parcels, viz.: the middle or 
old State-house site, to "Nathaniel Bacon and the [other] executors 
of Colo. Miles Cary, deceased," the western lot to Colonel Thomas 
Swann, and the eastern lot to Secretary Ludwell. (Conway Robin- 
son, Notes from the Council Records, Va. Mag,, viii, 408.) 

* Hening, ii, 197 ; Stanard, CoL Va. Reg,, 77. 

2 The servants' plot of 1663. Little is known of this plot beyond 
what Beverley records (History, i, 59), what we find in Hening, 
and the depositions preserved in Va. Mag,, xv, 38. Charles Camp- 
bell (History of Va,, 263) has a brief account of the affair, which 
was the inspiration of Miss Mary Johnston's novel Prisoners of 
Hope, The trouble originated in Gloucester among some indented 
servants who are said to have been old Cromwellian soldiers. It 
was testified that their plan was to seize arms, march to the 
governor, and demand their freedom: if denied, to march away 
to some mysterious island. At the last moment Berkenhead, a 

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Miles Cary was advanced to be a member of 
the council of state some time before June 21, 
1665.^ This service began almost coincidentally 
with Charles II's formal declaration of war 
against the Dutch, in that last phase of the com- 
mercial rivalry between the two nations which 
resulted at the end of the century in the English 
world supremacy in the carrying trade, that 
has persisted ever since.* The second Dutch war 
(1663-1667) with which we now have to do 

servant of Mr. Smith of Purton, gave warning: for which he was 
pardoned and rewarded. (Hening, ii, 204.) Berkeley seems to 
have shown his usual energy; but after the danger was over he 
asked for a standing body-guard {ibid., 200), and the anxiety of 
the planters was shown by the enactment that September 13 should 
always be kept as a day of thanksgiving {ilnd,f 191). It must 
then have been a more serious and wide-spread conspiracy than 
is indicated by the depositions. 

1 Mr. Conway Robinson's transcripts from the General Court 
Book, 1664-1670 {Fa, Mag., v, 33), show that Miles Cary sat as 
a member of the council on June ai and October 19, .1665, March 
2% and 39 and July 10, 1666. In the Journal of the House of 
Burgesses for November 7, 1666 (Randolph MS., Fa. Mag., xvii, 
240; and Mcllwaine, Journals, 1659/60-1693, p. 40), he appears 
as sitting that day also. In his two patents of October 20, 1665, 
he is styled with all the pomp of the period: "Colo Miles Cary, 
Esquire, Counsellor of State.'' 

There is no body of modem public officers which can be com- 
pared to the colonial council in Virginia at once for political 
power and opportunity for private profit in its individual mem- 
bers. The sixteen councillors were the great men of the colony. 
Not only was the council the governor's cabinet, but the upper 
house of the assembly, and, with the governor, the court of last 
resort of the colony. The members were individually exempt 
from taxation and carefully kept among themselves all the offices 
of trust and profit, like the collectorships, which they could con- 
tain. After Bacon's rebellion there was great complaint against 
their exactions and selfishness during and after the period of Miles 
Gary's membership. (See Bruce, Inst. Hist., ii, 358.) 

2 Mahan, Influence of Sea Po*iver, 223. 

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was inglorious enough to England's arms, but 
contributed the solid fact, so important to Amer- 
ica, of the capture of New York and the uninter- 
rupted control of the north Atlantic coast by 
English-speaking peoples. War with the Dutch, 
while popular with English merchants, did not 
evoke any enthusiastic response in Virginia: 
there it served merely as an application of the 
rigor of the hated navigation laws, an unwelcome 
break in the cordial relations which during the 
Commonwealth Virginia had established with 
Dutch merchants and shipmasters, and, worst of 
all, loss and destruction of property by Dutch 
privateers/ 

On January 27, 1665, the king had instructed 
Berkeley, "out of his princely care for the pres- 
ervation of all other his dominions," to put 
Virginia "into the best posture of defense he pos- 
sibly could against the enemies aforesaid.'* 
These instructions reached Berkeley on June 3, 
whereupon he called the council into session on 
June 20 and mustered the militia. Though re- 
luctant, Virginia was loyal and obedient. All 
agreed that it would be futile to repair the fort 
at Point Comfort:^ "we conceive it to be," said 

^ Robinson transcripts, Va, Mag., v, 25. 

'The present Fortress Monroe has a pedigree as old as Vir- 
ginia. When Don Diego de Molina came into the Virginia capes 
in June, 161 1, to spy out what the English were doing there, he 
found ^'a ship lying at anchor close to a point where there was an 
earthwork, like trenches," and a fort consisting "of stockades and 
posts without stone or brick, and containing 7 pieces of artillery," 

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the council, "of no defence at all because ships 
cannot haul on shore but they will be exposed 
to the violence of all the winds of three quarters 
of the Compass, and the place so remote from all 
assistance that it cannot be defended but by a 
constant garrison in full pay to the almost in- 
supportable charge of the country."^ It was 
accordingly determined to build a new fort at 

with a garrisoD of forty "fit to carry arms." (Brown, Genesis, i, 
511.) This was the first fort at Point Comfort. It was called 
Algernoune, in honor of George Percy, until he left Virginia. 
(Brown, First Republic, 190.)- The site had been selected, despite 
inconveniences, because it commanded the narrow channel. Under 
instigation of Governor Harvey the assembly undertook to build 
an adequate fort on this site in 1630 (Hening, i, 150), and '^worthy 
captain Matthews" was the contractor. It was provided that this 
fort should be kept in ammunition by castle duties and should be 
the immigration station for the colony. Francis Pott, Francis 
Hook, and Christopher Wormeley were successively the com- 
mandants, but the fort fell into decay, and when Captain Richard 
Moryson arrived in 1659 with a conunission from the king to take 
over the command (see ante, p. 427), Governor Harvey reported 
that he found only sixteen pounds of powder in the magazine. 
Doubtless the physical condition of the fortifications was not much 
more inspiring: at all events, in 1640 provision was made, under 
the stimulus of the presence of an officer with a royal commission, 
"to build a new fort at Point Comfort." (Hening, i, 226.) Richard 
Moryson died in 1648 and his brother Francis, afterwards to play 
so large a part in Virginia history, succeeded to the command 
after his arrival in the colony with Colonel Norwood in 1649: 
provision was made in the articles of capitulation of 1651 for re- 
imbursement to him of the cost of the house he had built "in 
fforte Island." (Hening, i, 360.) During the peaceful days of 
the Commonwealth the fort again fell into decay: when Francis 
Moryson resumed command after the Restoration (Hening, ii, 134), 
it was a mere station for regulating commerce, and the ship- 
masters objected to paying castle duties because the fort was 
incapable of affording them protection. (British Colonial Papers, 
xvi. No. 93.) Such was still the situation at the outbreak of the 
second Dutch war in 1665. "It hath been a Castle only in the 
Ayre this 30 yearcs," said Moryson (Virginia Carolorum, 312). 
1 Robinson transcripts, Fa, Mag,, v, 27. 

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Jamestown and transfer to it the ordnance then 
at Point Comfort. The council thereupon 
ordered:* 

Whereas it is by this Board thought fit for the better 
security both of the Ships and Country that all the ordnance 
now lying at Point Comfort be weighed and loaden on 
board sloops and brought up to James City, it is therefore 
ordered that Col. Miles Cary be empowered to agree with 
the masters of some ships now riding in James River to do 
the same, and to assure them that what he shall agree with 
them for shall be certainly paid the next year out of the 
two shillings p*" Hogshead, and the said Col. Cary is hereby 
further empowered either to hire or press sloops and men 
for the bringing the said guns to town as aforesaid, and what 
he shall agree with them for shall be paid out of the public 
money or tobacco next year. 

When the assembly met the following October 
it was enacted^ that a fort should be built "where 
the right honourable the governor shall thinke 
most convenient," but as the work was entrusted 
to Captain William Bassett and "the trayned 
bands in James Citty and Surry Counties," it is 
evident that Jamestown was to be the site. 

When news of this action reached England it 
was deemed unsatisfactory. Writing from Ox- 
ford November 4, 1665, the king sent Berkeley 
"a more positive command," with a specification 
that the fort should be built "in the mouth of 



* Fa. Mag,, v, aa. 
2 Hening, ii, aao. 



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HiiiflU g BDljjlin <^^ 



James River." ^ Although the council "in all 
humility" supposed that this command had been 
"obtained by the misinformation of some per- 
sons whose particular interest carried them 
against the more publick concernments of this 
country and the merchants trading hither,"* 
they yielded. On June 29, 1666,* the ordnance 
was ordered back from Jamestown to Point 
Comfort, the duty of providing the labor to 
build the fort was transferred from James City 
and Surry County to the counties of Warwick, 
Elizabeth City, and lower and upper Norfolk, 
"and lastly because we judge this business to be 
too remote for Capt. William Bassett to effect, it 
is ordered that Mr. Thomas Cary do take the 
same into his care and conduct, with full power 
to press Carts and oxen or any other necessaries 
for the performance of the said work, and the 
masters or owners of the said carts, oxen or other 
necessarys to be paid by the Country at reason- 
able rates; and Col. Miles Cary is hereby de- 
sired to advise and assist his son in the perform- 
ance of the same; and that the said Thomas Cary 

1 Robinson transcripts, Va, Mag., v, 27. 

3 This was in response to the demands of the merchants who 
traded elsewhere than in the James River : they did not want to have 
to go up to Jamestown, and urged that Point Comfort was the site 
most conveniently accessible for all the rivers. The Bristol shipmas- 
ters apparently took the lead in this, and the insinuation of the coun- 
cil which we have quoted was directed against them, as appears from 
Ludlow^s despatches after the Dutch raid. Perhaps the Bristol in- 
terest may also explain why the Carys were put in charge of the work. 

3 Ibid,, 28. 

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j f^ ■■— Mi% wiaiii a ua»i 



have for his care and pains in the said work the 
same reward which was ordered to Capt. Wil- 
liam Bassett in case he had done the same."^ 

Despite these preparations and obedient inten- 
tions, the fort was not built During the ensuing 
summer material was collected and the work was 
started, but when the assembly met again in 
October and it appeared that the cost had already 
been 60,000 pounds of tobacco, with at least as 
much more in prospect, the burgesses were ap- 
palled, not only because the country was groan- 
ing under economic depression, but because they 
were persuaded of the uselessness of the work. 
On November 7, 1666, they adopted a resolu- 
tion* "that the Right Honourable Governor be 
desired to represent to his most Sacred Majesty 
that the Country having already been at the 
Charge of near 100,000 1. of Tobacco towards 
erecting a fort at Point Comfort, Do find by sev- 
eral Inconveniences in the Situation of that place 
that it is almost impossible to bring the said fort 
to any perfection, and therefore in the Name of 
theWhole Country humbly do implore to Excuse 
us from further prosecuting the said Work." 

Berkeley was in entire agreement. On the 
following day he replied: "This I will most 
willingly do,"^ and work on the fort was sus- 

* Fa, Mag,, v, 27. 

2 Fa, Mag,, xvii, 245; and McIlwaiDc, Journals, 1659/60-1693, 42. 

^ Berkeley took advantage of this situation to press the assembly 

to comply with a request made by the Council for Plantations on 

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^ ^ fc umwftu 



pended.^ Thomas Cary, who, as appears from 
his father's will, had not reached his majority 
at this time, seems to have performed the un- 
grateful but responsible duty put on him to the 
satisfaction of public opinion: at all events, he 
was voted a gratification of £20 sterling "for his 
pains and care in the premises," and in the 
resolution was described as captain where six 
months before he had been simply "Mr."^ 

its orgiDizatioD in 1661 that Virginia support a resident agent in 
England. Francis Moryson was at once despatched in that capac- 
ity and was at his post in London at the time of the Dutch raid in 
the next June, as appears from LudwelPs despatches at the time. 

^ The seventeenth century was not fated to see an eflFective fort 
at Point Comfort. In the terrific storm which devastated Virginia 
in the August following the Dutch raid, the climax of the colonial 
annus mirabilis, the waves "carryed all the foundations of the 
fort at Point Comfort into the River, and most of our timber 
which was very chargably brought thither to perfect it." (See 
LudwelPs graphic despatch to Berkeley, November, 1667, P.R.O. 
Co. i-ai, quoted by Wertenbaker, 132.) When the assembly met 
in September, Berkeley, despite his mortification, was still stubborn 
in his objections to Point Comfort. The assembly rehearsed these 
objections once more at length (Hening, ii, 355), but compromised 
with the shipmasters and made provision for five forts in the 
several rivers James, Nansemond, York, Rappahannock, and Poto- 
mac. These were built, and that at Nansemond served as a suffi- 
cient refuge for a part of the tobacco fleet during the second 
Dutch raid in 1673; but Colonel JeflFreys found them all in decay 
after • Bacon's rebellion. They bore eloquent testimony not only 
to the poor quality of early Virginia brick, but to the stubborn 
insistence of the colony that if the Royal government wished 
English merchants to have the benefit of navigation laws then it 
should assume the cost of all military protection of Virginia 
trade. The taxes levied for the construction of these forts was one 
of the grievances which lay back of Bacon's rebellion in 1676. 
See the discussion of the question of the forts in Osgood, American 
Colonies, iii, 258, and of the military system of the colony generally 
in Bruce, Inst. HisU, ii, 3 et seq, 

^ Fa. Mag., xvii, 246; and Mcllwaine, Journals, 1659/60-1693, 
43. At the current depressed price of tobacco, Ludwell says a 

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^^ 



Although the king apparently allowed the 
matter to drop, the governor and the assembly 
soon had bitter reason to repent their mutual 
complaisance, for after the disaster of the fol- 
lowing year the shipowners naturally complained 
that if the fort had been built the Dutch could 
not have accomplished their easy and insulting 
conquest of the merchant fleet 

What happened was dramatic enough. In re- 
sponse to the insistent demand of the shipowners 
for some protection, the English government sent 
over the first Virginia guard-ship. The frigate 
Elizabeth, Captain Lightfoot, reached Virginia 
about the first of May, 1667, after a disastrous 
voyage, and put into Newport News to refit. 
There she was on June 5 in charge of a boatswain, 
leaking and lacking a mast, and so a mere hulk 
unfit for military service. Not only had much 
of her ordnance and stores been sent ashore, but 
most of her crew and all of her oflSicers were 
ashore as well, "in several places, busily em- 
ployed for her speedier fitting out to the Capes," 
as Berkeley testified later.^ Four days before, the 

halfpenny a pound, £20 was more than equivalent to the fee of 
10,000 pounds of tobacco promised Captain Bassett. 

^ No modern historian of this incident has failed to repeat the 
contemporary gossip on the authority of an "affidavit of the mer- 
chant of the Handmaid lately arrived from Virginia'' (Cat, State 
Papers, Colonial, 1661-1668, No. 1507, p. 474). "That Captain 
Lightfoot of his Majesty ship Elizabeth had a day's notice of the 
four Dutch ships coming into James River. Had he gone to the 
assistance of Captain Conway, who fought them six hours, the 
enemy's ships might have been taken, but he went to a wedding 
with a wench he took over from England." 

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i« 



Dutch admiral Abraham Crimson, returning 
from an expedition of reprisal against the Eng- 
lish colonies in the West Indies/ made his way 
within the Virginia capes with four men-of-war 
and a dogger boat already loaded down with 
booty. On June 5 he stood up to Newport News 
and there, without resistance, captured the help- 
less Elizabeth. Later he burned her and several 
merchant ships, and sailed away with thirteen 
tobacco ships as prizes. The tale of this dis- 
grace is told in poignant despatches, by the gov- 
ernor and council, and, less formally, by Secre- 
tary Ludwell, which we give at length:^ 

[Secretary LudwelP to the Lord Arlington^] 
Right Honorblc 

I hope long ere this Coll. Moryson has done mee right in 
the delivery of my two letters addressed to your Lord*P wch 
were to give you my most humble thanks for your favors and 
to prsent you wth such a description of this Governmt as the 



^ Considering the consequences to Miles Gary of Crimson's raid 
on Virginia, it is of curious interest to note that the Dutchman 
was engaged in reprisal for the plunder, in 1665, of the Dutch 
colony of St. Eustatius by an English expedition from Jamaica 
commanded by Colonel Theodore Cary, a brother of Sir Henry 
Gary of Gockington. See ante, p. 278. 

^ State Papers, Colonial, Nos. 1505, 1506, and 1508, transcribed 
in Winder, Abstracts, MS. Va. State Library, i, aia, 32a, 340. They 
are also printed in Va, Mag., iv, 229. These despatches are valu- 
able not only for the story of the Dutch raid, but as a contem- 
porary mirror of the causes of Bacon's rebellion nine years later. 

^ The official report consists of three parts, two despatches from 
Ludwell to Lord Arlington and Lord Berkeley, with one of which 
was enclosed a formal statement signed by the governor, secretary, 

^ See note^ on page 635, 



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MtoiKa W ilyJ i n « i ^^ 



condicon I was then in would permit me to wright. I have 
since used my best endeavors to procure your honour a mapp 
of this unhappy Country & am att last promised one from 
Maryland, but how' long it may be before I may have it I 
cannot say.^ I have since written to your Lord*P by Capt. 
Groom & Capt. Gillam the first to give your Lordsp an 
accot of the then state of ye Country and the last to inform 
yor Honour of the time the fleet in these Colonies was to 
sayle from hense & where they would waight for a Convoy 
into safety, but my Lord I never had so much occasion to 
wright nor was I ever so unfitt for it being almost distracted 

and elevcD councillors. Only one of these despatches is dated, June 
24, 1667, but it is apparent that they were all written at the same 
time. 

Thomas Ludwell of Richneck, in James City County, was secre- 
tary of state in Virginia from i66x to 1678. Miles Cary made 
him an overseer of his will with the elder Colonel Nathaniel 
Bacon, Major Edward Griffith, and William Beaty, calling them 
his "well beloved friends." He is to be distinguished from his 
brother Philip Ludwell, who was his deputy as secretary (W. & 
M, Quar,, x, 172) and later governor of Carolina. This first 
Philip Ludwell married the widow of Sir William Berkeley, and 
his son, the second Philip, of Green Spring, was of the council 
in 1702, as was his son, the third Philip, in 175a. (Stanard, 
Colonial Virginia Register, 44, 49.) 

^Clarendon's enemy Sir Harry Bennet (1618-1685) became sec- 
retary of state in England in 1663, &nd was then made a peer as 
Baron Arlington. (See Clarendon's amusing story of the selection 
of the title, Life, ii, 358.) Later, in 1672, he was promoted to be 
Earl of Arlington at the same time that Charles II gave to him 
and Lord Culpeper that grant of the entire colony of Virginia 
which protracted local controversy until after the American Revo- 
lution, when the Fairfax title to the Northern Neck was finally 
expropriated. 

^ The map so promised was undoubtedly that notable map of 
Virginia and Maryland for making which Lord Baltimore granted 
to Augustine Herrman his Bohemia Manor at the Head of Elk 
in Maryland. Herrman began his work in 1660, and the com- 
pleted map, which purports to show the territory of the two 
colonies "as it is Planted and Inhabited this present year 1670," 
was engraved by Faithorne and published in London in 1673. 
(Phillips, A Rare Map of Virginia and Maryland, 191 1.) 



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^^ 



wth grief for the misfortune faU'ii on us by an attempt made 
by the dutch in fower men of warr of 33, 34, 24 & 18 
gunns and a Doggeboate of 8 gunns who on the first of 
June took a ship of London of 20 gunns bound from Tangier 
hither. Conaway the Master fought them all 2 hours killed 
them 7 & wounded 12 men, but being wounded himself and 
oppressed wth men he yielded about 5 or 6 leagues wthout 
the Cape, that day they took a shallop bound from hence to 
Cape fere by whose men they informed themselves of the 
condition of the merchant ships in this Country that there 
were about 20 sayle of them riding in the mouth of James 
River & that 3 leagues above them there lay one of the Kings 
shipps of 46 gunns, but unable to keep the sea for want of. 
a mast and being leaky and short of provisions, upon wch 
advice they anchored under the Cape & lay still Sunday & 
Monday to fitt theire dogger & the shallop they had taken 
for fire vessells to burne the frigatt, wch being donne they 
weighed the 4th day and stood into the Bay when they 
anchored again till the 5th in the morning when wth a 
fayre easterly wind and English colours they came up to 
the Mercht shipps, and having many English Scotts & Irish 
on board they hayled them in English and sang theire 
soundings in English, but many of the Marcht shipps too 
late suspecting them let slip theire cables and stood up wth 
them to the frigat upon wch whilst 2 of them fires theire 
broad sides and wthout any resistance made themselves 
masters of her, there not being above 30 men in her wthout 
an officer who were all as the Capt. says on the shore very 
busily employed on the frigatts severall occasions for the 
speedier puting her in a condicion to go of to the Cape, the 
other dutch shipps chased and tooke most of the Mercht 
shipps, wch misfortune is the more grievous because the gunns 
&c. being on board the frigat not above 5 days before she 
was lost and then see her in such a forwardnesse as we 
believe by the loth she would have been reddy for her & 

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U fit " n i% ij[i3IM li fauJ>nn ■■■ « ■■ » ■■■■■■■■■■■ ^^ 

our defense. I am not seaman enough to judge whether 
shee might have been sooner fitted, shee being but just a 
month in the country before she was taken, and had been 
at first brought higher in the River had not the place shee 
rode in been the most convenient for taking in her new 
mast and nearer her station for our defense wch was that 
she was designed for; undoubtedly several of the mercht 
men might have saved themselves by running into Eliz: 
River or Nancemond where we had many shipps wthin 3 
leagues of the enemy who durst not engage them in those 
small rivers; the dutch being thus posses'd of the frigatt & 
mercht shipps about 24 houres they burnt 5 or 6 of them, 
and the frigatt either because they found her out of repayre 
or for want of her sayles (wch is most probable) hers being 
all on shore to be mended where they durst not goc to fetch 
them, they tooke none of her gunns, nor little ells out of her, 
and soe to our unspeakable grief the King lost his shipp, 
and wee the security wee hoped from her. I confesse I 
was extreamly Joyd at the news that his Matic was gra- 
ciously pleased to command one of his shipps hither, but 
when I saw the condition shee came in I heartily wished 
her safe att home againe, soe unfortunate are wee often in 
our desires that what wee hope for us as our cheifest good 
procures our greatest harme, pauci dignosciere vera bona, 
for had not this frigatt come in so bruised & maimed by 
storms she had undoubtedly prevented all our losse, for then 
those enemies shipps would never have adventured upon us 
defended by a shipp of that countenance especially they 
being all loaden wth spoyle taken in the West Indies that 
they could not long have prevented either sinking or yield- 
ing, or had not the masters of those shipps wch were taken 
wth her been too confident of her protection they would un- 
doubtedly have applyed themselves to the Govnr who would 
have commanded them all to James towne, where the enemy 
would have had too hard a task to fetch them off; having 

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thus farr related our misfortunes I shall wth yor Honors 
favor informe you what wee did and would have done for 
our reparation both in losse of reputacion wch was that upon 
the first advice wch the Govor received of this unhappy 
accident he presently sent for me and I soon waighted on 
him and upon a short consultacon we resolved to mann out 
a fleet from Yorke river being nearest to the enemy & 
hasten to them & fight them, in order whereunto I went 
to Yorke, had all the masters before mee, showed them the 
Govor orders & resolves and required their speedy answer, 
wch was not possitively negative but soe full of difficulties 
that I plainly saw they would doe nothing unlesse the 
Govnr was present (who was then busy at James towne 
giving orders for the defense of that place & the shipps att 
& above it). I therefore presently advertised him that 
(though before my comeing to Yorke the masters were soe 
forward as to want nothing but his orders to goe & fight 
the dutch) yet when they saw it would come to earnest they 
grew very cold, upon wch advice he came the next morning 
to them (whither were alreddy drawn fowre regiments of 
foot reddy to embarque for that service) required their 
assistance in that necessity to wch they replyd that they could 
not answer it to theire merchts and owners if they volim- 
tarily brou^t theire shipps & goods into hazard, and there- 
fore desired they might be pressed into the Kings service and 
have security given them for all damages they might receave 
from the enemy, whereupon the Govni" commanded an 
officer pr'sently to put the broad arrow upon the masts of 
9 better shipps than any the enemy had (except the first 
prize conaway) and had them appraysed by the masters 
themselves and obliged his Matie and himself in the same of 
ye appraysement to save them theire owners & merchts 
harmeless, secured the seamen of provision if they were 
maimed and promised them all the plunder, upon this (wch 

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oft iii^ ii i Mti i i iiii' ^ 

I am confident they hoped & believed would never be 
graunted) they went to clearing their shipps and wee in the 
mean time ordered three shipps more in James river of 36, 
22 & 20 gunns and in them & shallops to attend them above 
six hundred men to be reddy for our assistance ; wee pressed 
all seamen (then out of service) to serve in the Yorke fleet 
except the frigatts men who wth theire Capt. very reddily 
offered themselves, and * * of them and souldiers reddy 
to put on board above a thousand besides theire * * own, 
and took all the ordnance out of those shipps wch were to 
stay and put them into that fleet and that wch would have 
been theire greatest incitement to this brave actcon was that 
the Govnr (agt the prayers & protestations of as many of 
the Councill as were present) resolved to lead them to 
victory and accordingly went on board the Admirall ac- 
companied by myself & 4 more of the Councell and above 
40 Gentl, and all this to fight wth 5 enemy shipps manned 
wth but 400 men and boys and many of them sick, but my 
Lord howeasy soever the victory seemed by reason of our 
advantages both of shipps and men, yet cowardly feare being 
never secure where there appears the least danger, was I 
belicVc the only why. In three days (doe what wee could) 
wee were not able to get our fleet out, but every hower 
new difficulties objected, and when they saw the govnr stopd 
at nothing that might satisfie them they in vain endeavored 
to discourage our souldiers who expressed as much cheer- 
fullness * & Countries service and as much affection to 
theire Genii as ever men did, and thus by delayes the enemy 
after six days stay in James River sayled of wth three prizes 
and wthout a blow, to the shame of our seamen ; the enemy 
wanted water and made severall attempts upon the shore 
for it, but were not suffered to take any nor ought else from 
the land, and here it was my Lord, that our unhappy con- 
dicion appeared to the Govnr & me armed wth our owne 

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i M%uaai g iauj>irii Bi^ 



terrible apprehensions of his Matics, yor Lordshs, and all 
the greate Ministers displeasures of wch wee were not too 
sensible whikt they were allayed by our hopes of revenge on 
the enemy, and our beliefe that we held a certaine and brave 
victory in our hands did as it were, assure us of a pardon 
for our misfortune wch is all wee can, and humbly hope his 
Matic & your Lordp will excuse us of, for though it be 
certaine that losses of this nature are more easily prVented 
then repaired, yet doe we unhappily find from our late ex- 
perience that it was not in our power to doe whilst we met 
wth such concurrent accidents to prVent our endeavors after 
wee had donn all wee could for our security, by represent- 
ing our condition att home and using all diligence in our 
power here, both in the one & the other, in the prevention 
or reparacon of our losse, but because wee doubt not but 
that the owners and masters of the shipps best to excuse 
theire neglects will load this governmt wth reproachfull ac- 
cusations wee shall humbly begg that they may not be be- 
lieved, nor wee condemned, but according to the meritts of 
our cause first well examined; as many of theire objections 
as I have yet heard I shall answere, first they say that if a 
fort had been built at Poynt Comfort, it had prevented- this 
mischeife, to wch I say that if it had been built there it 
would not in likelihood have done it, because that shipps 
wth English colours and English speech to in a time when 
wee daily expected shipps in from the sea, and from all 
parts of the bay might have dcceaved any officer of a fort, 
as well as they did so many masters of shipps and being once 
passed might have donn all the mischeife they did wth the 
only hazard of being shot at coming out wch by English 
experience (who have beaten down castles wth theire shipps) 
is a matter of noe great difficulty; it was mine opinion in 
my last yeares letter and soe it is still, the whole countries 
as well as mine that a fort is no certain security to shipps 

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^^ 



but where either they can hall on shore under it or the dif- 
ficulty of the channel shall give those in it time to fire theire 
gunns often upon an enemy before he can passe, and if this 
be graunted, and that place having neither of those ad- 
vantages, then I humbly hope it will be by his Matic and 
his most honobic councell thought more reasonably that a 
few shipps trading into the lower parts of James river or 
other shipps comeing thither for company should be at the 
trouble of comeing up toe the towne, then that this country 
(pressed at theire backs wth the Indians and in theire bowells 
wth poverty brought on them by the hard dealing of those 
whom they are bound to defend and invaded by the dutch) 
should wth allmost insuperable difficulties and charges build 
and defend a fort in a place wch can be of no certain security 
to them ; however that it may appeare, wee would willingly 
doe all wee can. It is ordered that 8 gunns be mounted 
there in an open battery till we can secure it round wth 
what speed wee can, but wth this humble desire that all 
shipps comeing into James River may be ordered to ride 
at James towne where wee can only wth reason pr'mise 
them security ; but my lord supposing that James river were 
soe fortyfied as an enemy could not come into it, this were 
no security for those many & distant parts of this Q)lony 
wch are not in our power to fortyfy, and if they were, wee 
had in this country but 14 gunns, and many of them very 
small and believed unserviceable by being much scald and 
honeycombed, till his Matic was pleased to send us ten wch 
were as soon mounted as received att towne where wee in- 
tend to mount 12 more, being very unfortunately supplyed 
wth gunns & shot out of the last f rigatt ; and if those parts 
shall be left open, either the shipps tradeing thither must 
be forced to ride in James River, wch will make the freight 
of all the remoter tobs so deare that at the rate it now beares 
in the world will not repay it, and thereby that part of the 

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country will be left wthout supplyes, and the King will 
loose his customes yt if they shall still be suffered to trade 
in unfortyfyed places wee must (so long as the ware shall 
last) be every yeare exposed to the like losse, both in shipps 
and reputation. These difficulties, my lord, are only in the 
defence of shipps, for wee place not our security in forts, 
nor doe wee feare much for ourselves whom they cannot 
injure but on land, and if it comes to that wee shall un- 
doubtedly make them buy whatever they get from us at too 
deare a rate to sell it again to any profit, nor doe I know 
any pr'sent way of removing these difficulties but by guard- 
ing our coasts from such hostile attempts, but his matie (to 
our extreme grief e) hath had such ill successe in his first 
designe of that nature that wee are afraid (how considerable 
soever the customs of the country may be) he will noe more 
assist us wth any of his shipps, nor doe wee desire it, but 
doe most humbly submit ourselves and condicon to his 
princely consideracon, and to the determination of the most 
honoble Privy Councell; my Lord I understand by Coll. 
Moryson that the import of 2« P hogshd is in danger of 
being taken from us. I have herewth sent your lordp an 
acct of it, and doe hope you will think it well bestowed. 
I am sure, lett those who speake ag* it pretend what they 
will, it is wee pay it and not they, for whatever is layed 
upon tobo they secure themselves of our necessities to save 
themselves, and upon pretense of such import doe advance 
much more upon the price of theire goods & frei^t then 
they pay, yet I could wish there were another shilling layd 
upon it and that to be wholly employed in fortyfycations, 
wch would be a tax of wch the people would be less sensible 
then when it goes from them in Tobo. The next thing the 
BristoU men say is that they offered to build the fort at 
poynt comfort at theire own charge, wch is a very malitious 
untruth, for soe farr are they and all others from helping 

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us that upon our proposal! to the Yorkc masters that if they 
would carry 12 guns to that river wee would mount them 
for theirc defence, they demurred to it. Major Gcnll 
Bennet (neer whose province this mischief e fell) behaved 
himself very bravely in the defence of the shore, and the 
shipps wthln his two parts of wch none miscarried.^ My 
lord should I say all I can on this sad subject I should 
extend this beyond the bounds of a letter, wch is but too long 
allreddy. I shall therefore say noe more att present, but 
most humbly beg your Lordp* protection in this distresse, 
wch I durst not doe did I not know innocent of all crimes 
but misfortune, wch is not in the power of any vertue or 
prudence att all times to prevent, and if I have but the 
good fortune to appeare soe to your honour I shall not dis- 
paire (from my former experience of your goodness) of 
liveing still in your favour wch is all the happiness I wish 
for in this world, and in returne of it shall forever pray 
that you may be as happy here as your owne wishes can 
make you, and eternally soe hereafter. 

I am Right Honohle yo'r Honors most humble and most 
obedt servant. 

Tho: Ludwell. 
(Endorsed) June 24, 1667. 



^ Richard Bennet of Nansemond came to Virginia as nephew of 
an important London merchant who was interested in the Vir- 
ginia Company. He was burgess for Warrascoyack (Isle of Wight 
County) as early as 1629, and of the council in 1639. Being a 
Puritan in the midst of the Puritan settlement of the Nansemond 
neighborhood, he adhered to the Commonwealth and was one of 
the commissioners appointed to take over the colony in 165 1: he 
was then elected governor and served as such until 1655. After 
the Restoration he acquiesced in the recall of Berkeley and re- 
mained until his death in 167$ a member of the council and 
major-general commanding the militia on the south side of the 
James. (Neill, Virginia Carolorum, 224, 353, 383.) Richard 
Bennet was perhaps a kinsman of Lord Arlington, which would 
induce the courtierlike Ludwell to make special mention of him in 
this despatch. 



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I nfciiiMiij ifa^Mfc^M %^ 



[Secretary Ludwell to the Lord Berkeley^] 

Virga June 24, 1667. 
Right Honobic 

My last by Capt. Gillam commandr of the Colchester 
catch was to pay you my acknouledgements for your many 
obliging favors and to informe your honour of the time the 
fleet in these parts would sayle, and where they would ex- 
pect a convoy from his matic to carry them into safety, but 
my Lord, that letter was not long gon from hence when 
the dutch wth 5 men of warr fell in upon us and by taking 
and burning the King's frigatt and about 20 sayle of mercht 
shipps (of wch they carried away about 13 and burnt the 
rest), have given me but too sad an occasion of wrighting 
this and too much greife & distraccon to wright anything 
as I ought. I shall therefore (wth yor Lops pardon) referr 
you to our declaration for ye p'ticulars of our misfortune 
and most humbly beseech your Lordp upon a serious peru- 
seall of it, to believe that there is not an untruth in it, and 
then I doubt not but you will conclude us only unhappy, 
and for the Gover" sake (whose pr'sent condicon is the 
saddest that ever I saw, and would I beleive moove his 
enemys to compassion were they present), I humbly hope 

^ Sir John Berkeley, first Baron Berkeley of Stratton, was the 
fifth son of Sir Maurice Berkeley of Bniton, co. Somerset, and 
so the younger brother of the governor of Virginia. He had 
distinguished himself as a soldier in the civil wars in the capture 
and defense of Exeter, accompanied Charles II during his exile, 
and was made a peer during that period. After the Restoration 
he became a member of the privy council and was the steadfast 
friend at court of the administration of his older brother in Vir- 
ginia. On his deathbed Sir William charged Lord Berkeley to 
defend his reputation, ' which the younger brother did loyally and 
vigorously when the report of the commissioners Sir John Berry 
and Colonel Francis Moryson was before the privy council in 
1677. He told Berry "with an angry voice and a Berkelean look 
. . . that he and Moryson had murdered his brother." (Neill, 
Virginia Carolorum, 379.) See also his formal Justification in 
Burk, History of Virginia, ii, 259. 

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your honuor will endeavor to give the King & the Councell 
the same impression of us; my lord for all other complaints 
ye merchts & seamen shall make agt us will be false & mali- 
tious; only these two poynts will seem to touch us wth 
likelyhood of a fault (viz.) the not building a fort at poynt 
comfort and the losse of the King's shipp. For the first, it 
is still the concurrent opinion of the whole country and of 
many of the most judicious seamen that it cannot hinder 
shipps from comeing into James river unlesse it were so 
great and apparrell'd wth so many gunns as neither our 
meanes nor abilities could comply wth, for the foundation 
will beare neither brick nor stone unless it were first well 
piled wch to doe wee have neither the skill nor instnmients, 
and for building wth timber, your hounor will find in our 
declaration (wch I herewith send you) the charge wee have 
allreddy been att to bring a little of it in place, nor had wee 
(till his matie was pleased to send us ten) above 14 gunns 
8 of wch are very small and some of them and the rest of 
the biggest so skald and honeycombed that its doubted upon 
trial they will breake, wth wch if our LordsP shall please to 
consider the extreame poverty of ye country unable to 
supply theire owne necessities and to pay such taxes as may 
be equall to such fortifications and the deffence of them, 
you will (I doubt not) beleeve us in great distressc, and 
that you may the better judge of our abilities be please to 
consider our pr'send condicon, where twelve hundfd pounds 
of tobo is the medium of men's yearely cropps and a halfe 
peny ^ £ is certainly the full medium of the price Given 
for it, wch is finely skilt (cut?) : out of wch when those taxes 
and all others necessary for ye support of ye Governnat shall 
be deducted a very little will remain to a poor man who 
hath perhaps a wife and children to cloath and other neces- 
saries to buy, and truly soe much too little that I Can 
attribute it to nothing but the great mercy of God, theire 
loyalty to the King and theire affections to the Goverr (wch 

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are extraordinary) that keeps them from mutiny and con- 
fusion, nor will the merchta here nor masters of shipps con- 
tribute anything to theire owne deffence, supposing they 
have sufficiently acquitted themselves in that po3mt by pasring 
Castle duties, wch as Coll. Morsrson can well inform you, 
never amounted to above 300I a yeare and many yeares to 
much lesse, wch will goe but a little way towards building 
and defending forts to wch that your lordp may give the 
more creditt, I will assure you that the Assembly ord'red 
the Govrr a guard of 20 foot and allowed them 2cxx>l of 
tobo each man yearly to wch the Goverr added out of his 
owne estate 1000 and theire taxes, dyet and lodging, all 
wch was not encouragement enough to make the guard ever 
yet exceed ten who voluntarily offered themselves. What 
charge then I beseech you will a garison at poynt comfort 
bee wch can not be lesse then 40 besides officers ; a place soe 
barren that theire labour upon it will not produce them 
bred nor is there any good water upon thiis land, nor is it 
of any certaine defence for James River, or any att all to 
the rest of the rivers in the country where wee must be every 
yeare exposed to the like hazard of loss of shipps and repu- 
tation; now my lord for the uphappy losse of the frigatt 
I hope it will appeare (even by our pr'scnt misfortune) 
that the sending one or two for the guarding our coast was 
necessarie, but that this wch is here unfortunately lost should 
come in like a wreck noe man could fore see nor I believe 
prVent. The truth is had shce been brought higher up the 
river she had been saved, but then shee had rode soe incon- 
venient for her mast and other necessaries as in likelihood 
shee would not have been reddy to sayle wth the fleet, soe 
farr was shee from being able to lye of att the cape to guard 
the whole country wch was that the King designed and wee 
desired her for, and was the reason shee lay below for the 
speedier dispatch which shews us the weaknesse of human 
wisdome for whikt wee ... a shipp or 2 of the King 

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■^^awfcirfiii ^^ 



for our security as placing our surest defence in force of 
that nature, it pleased God to send that in (wch was de- 
signed for us) so bruised and disabled by storms as not to 
afford us that protection wee hoped from it, and whilst wee 
layd her in a place most convenient for her speedier repayre 
wee lost her and near 20 more, who had not been soe much 
in an enemy's way but upon confidence of the frigatt's pro- 
tection, and yet soe negligent were the masters as to anchor 
theire shipps at least 3 leagues below her when they * 
to have been as f arr above her, and then though shee had been 
lost they had been all saved by running up James river to 
ye towne where wee had planted those gunns the King sent 
us; my lord I shall say noe more of our Genii misfortune 
wch yet may be much increased if the King in his displeasure 
shall incline his eare to those who (taking this advantage 
of our unhappiness) may by proposing fortifications and 
other defence att theire owne charge obtaine of his mati« 
either a propriety over us or reduce us under a company (a 
condicion very contrary to the wishes and affections of this 
country), to wch they are the more exposed whilst the 
Goverr greeved for theires & his owne misfortune and im- 
patient of this first cheque to the happy course of his gov- 
ernment, is resolved (against all oure entreaties and wth 
the hazard of his reputation wch must suffer much in this 
conjecture) to solicite the King by your lordp and my lord 
Arlington, to displace him, and (by sending in, another 
Goverr) to provide for the future better governmt of this 
place, to prVent wch misfortune I have by the command of 
the Councell sent your lordp a letter under all our hands 
directed to the King and doe in theire name most humbly 
beseech you to deliver it, and to enforce ours wth your owne 
peticon for continuance amongst & over us, for wch you 
will not only receive the reward wch good actions are in 
themselves but will forever engage all our prayers & vows 
for your happinesse & prosperity. I doe therefore againe 

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jffamm^mammmmmmi^ta^ 



most humbly beseech you to consider that designc of his as 
an effort of his passion wch deprives- him of the due con- 
sideration of what he owes to his owne fortune and reputa- 
tion and to the future happinesse and welfare of this poor 
country; and now my lord I think it time (wth your 
hounor's patience) to say something for myself c because I 
cannot but justly feare (since I wrote last yeare agt a fort 
at poynt comfort and for a frigat) that our present mis- 
fortune will have a more then ordinary influence upon me 
for the prevention whereof I can only say that what then was 
the truth of mine opinion and is still not only mine but the 
whole countries, and consequently can (at the most) be but 
argued guilty of erring wth them, wch yet I hope will not be 
soe understood when our reasons are considered, yet my lord 
how innocent soever I may bee, I would most humbly beg 
your protection had I any meritts to warrant my peticon but 
such as the poor beggar who asks an almes, but since it 
was your goodness wch placed me here (hoping I have done 
nothing wch may cause your repentance of that favor) I 
will not dispaire of the same goodness to protect me agt 
the attempts of such enemies as in this publique employ I 
may have unwittingly have made, but if I be so unfortune 
as to find noe harbour in this storme and consequently shall 
make shipwreck of my fortunes, I will practice Seneca good 
lesson Dum fort una manet laudo manentem sed si quatit 
seleves pennas resigno qua dedit et mea ne virtute involvo} 
though I may be deprived of my place and reputacon yet 
nothing shall rob me of my loyalty to my prince, mine in- 

1 So Ludwell is recorded in the Winder transcript, we hope 
with injustice. The hackneyed source of his noble sentiment is, 
of course, Horace Odes, iii, 29. 
"Fortuna . . . 

Laudo manentem: si celeres quatit 
Pennas, resigno quae dedit et mea 
Virtute me involvo probamque 
Pauperiem sine dote quaero." 

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nocency nor the resolution of praying for your lordps con- 
tinual! happiness and prosperity, as being by infinite obli- 
gations, 

Right Hono'ble, yor honors most humble and obedt 
servant, 

Tho: Ludwell. 

[The Governor and Council of Virginia 
to the King in Council] 

To the kings most sacred Matie and ye Lords of his most 
honll Privy Councell. 

The Governor and Councell of his Matic« Colony of 
Virga. In all humility present. 

That foure states men of warr of Holland of thirty-eight, 
Thirty-foure, twenty-foure and eighteen gunns and a dogger 
Boate of ei^t gunns under ye conunand of Abraham Crim- 
son their Admirall, some time in May last intending an 
Invasion upon this country. Did on their Voiagc heither 
take a shallop bound from hence to Cape-fere, by whose men 
they informed themselves of the condicon and posture of ye 
Marchants shipps here, and that there was one of yor Matics 
shipps of forty-six gunns lay at anchor at Nuporte Nuse in 
James River, But so disabled in her mast, and Leaky in her 
Hull, as that she could not keep the sea ; upon which advice 
they stood in and on Saturday ye first of June, attacqued a 
shipp of London bound from Tangeer hither. The master 
Robert Conaway fought them very well two howers, but at 
last being wounded himself and overpowered with men, was 
taken by them neare our Capes, where they anchored Sun- 
day & Munday to fitt their dogger-Boate and ye Shallop 
they had taken for firing the frigatt, and on Tusday ye 
fourth, they stood into the Bay and anchored againe till 
Wednesday morning, when they weighed and wth a faire 
Easterly winde stood into James River with English Collors 

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and passed by about twenty sayle of Marchant shipps (who 
lay there expecting ye rest of the Fleete and ready to sayle 
on the 24th according to yor Maties comand) hayled them 
in English & sang theire soundings in ye same language and 
sayling directly up to the frigatt wch lay about three leagues 
above, upon which they passed three broadsides & boarding 
her without any resistance, became masters of her, the Cap- 
taine & the rest of the officers wth all her men except about 
thirty (who were on Board wth the Boatswaine fitting the 
rigging) being on shore in severall places, busily employed 
for her speedier fitting out to the Capes, wch we beleeve 
would have beene effected in foure or five daies, and soe to 
our unspeakeable griefe yor Matie lost yor shipp and wee the 
defence we expected from her. Immediately upon wch mis- 
fortune the Dutch made themselves masters of all those 
Mercht shipps lying below them, who were in soe strange a 
security, that though many of them had winde & time enough 
to have run into Elizabeth River for safety yet none of them 
did it, but all became a prey to the enemy, and hence ariseth 
the cause of our grief & feare of your Maties & your most 
Honble Councells displeasure for suffering a loss wch though 
it was not in oure power to prevent, wee had undoubtedly 
repaired had the seamen Complied with the courage and 
chearfuUness of the Planters, of whome wee had in James 
River and in Yorke above twelve hundred ready to embarque 
on twelve shipps, pressed for the speedy engagement of the 
enemie, but except Capt Lightfoote, who very passionately 
resolved to hazard himself in the Admirall wth the Governor, 
and the rest of his Company in severall shipps, and very 
'cheerfully and voluntarily offered themselves to serve yor 
Matie, & some few of the Yorke Masters, so cowardly un* 
willing were the rest of the seamen, that neither the glory 
of the action nor the profitt of it, nor the Governors resolu- 
tion of leading them (though against the opinion & desires 
of the Councell) nor the Company of many of the Councell 

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& other Gentlemen of the Country, nor security given them 
for all damages which they should receive in theire p'sons 
shipps or goods, nor the certainty of the enemies weakness, 
being in all his fleete not above foure hundred men & boys, 
& many of them sick, of wch wee were informed by some 
Planters taken and set ashoare againe, could induce them to 
serve yor Matic & the Country in that service, wch yet they 
did not positively deny; but used such delayes, that in foure 
daies time with all our diligence, wee could not get those in 
Yorke (wch were nine good shipps) so ready as Gilbert in 
James River was in ten houres, and so to our grief and their 
shame the enemy after five daies stay in James River, sailed 
off wth his prizes without a blow, having first burnt five or 
six of them, wanting men to sayle them, & wth them the 
frigatt whose want of repaire or sayles (hers being all on 
shoare to be mended & they not daring to fetch them) wee 
suppose to be the reason why they burnt her, of whose gunns 
wee shall save two of Brass and about twenty-seven of iron 
& some shott; their want of water caused them to make 
severall attempts upon the shoare where they met with such 
opposition as not to be able to get any or anything els of a 
farthing value, so much easier is it for us to guard the shoare 
then the shipps. But because many of the seamen doe say that 
had the Forte been built at Poynt Comfort on ye Rivers 
mouth, this mischeif had been prevented, wee have thought 
it our duty to give yor Matic & Yor most honblc Councell 
our reasons against that plan, and for a Forte at James toune 
wch wee hope will be soe satisfactory as to obtaine yor 
Gracious pardon for our not reposing our confidence in that 
place, nor daring to promise a security to the shipps riding 
under ye protection of it when fortified, as well as our means 
& abilities can doe it, ffor wee humbly hope yt it will be 
granted that a forte cannot certainly prevent the passing of 
enemies shipps by it, unless they are first hindered by the dif- 
ficulty of the channel and forced to sayle on severall courses 

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and nearer the forte, wch by that means may have time to play 
on them and possibly to sinke them, of all wch advantages 
this place has only one, wch is that a shipp must come within 
shott, but with a winde & a Tide may soon be out of it 
againe. Then wee humbly conceive that a Forte can be noe 
undoubted security to shipps. But where they may (by 
hailing on shoare under it) give an enemy difficulty to haull 
them off againe, and consequently the forte time to ply its 
gunns on them for their prevention, wch in this place cannot 
bee don, secure from windes and shelves & at James Towne 
may, where wee cannot only laye then with ^the shoare, but 
can in much Icsse time then an enemy can possibly come to it, 
being five or six hundred men to man both them and the 
Forte agst any such attempt, wch advantage the other place 
denies us, being too neare the sea, and in a pt of the country 
so thinly Inhabited that wee must either be at an insup- 
portable charge to maintaine a constant Garrison equali to 
such hazards or mus have more time to bring men thither 
then their safety, who shall ride there, can reasonably give us, 
nor doth it afford either provisions or water wthin any con- 
venient distance, and is all the summer time so infested wth 
musgetos & other troublesome flyes, that it will be impossible 
for men to live there, nor hath it that convenience for load- 
ing of shipps wch James towne hath, wch is near the middle 
of the River, & lyes equally convenient to both the extreames, 
& hath great commodity either of Brick, Turf or Mudd to 
fortifie wth all, where as on the other place being of a very 
loose sandy foundacon there is no possibility of building wth 
anything but Timber, wch must be brought thither at an 
excessive charge as wee have already found by experience, 
It costing us above sixty thousand pounds of, Tobacco the 
last year to bring not half enough to build a forte for fourc- 
teene gunns, wch were all wee had until yor matic graciously 
pleased to send us ten more, & of those foureteene wee feare 

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many will prove unserviceable being much scaled & Hony- 
combd by lying above thirty years in the salt-sands, wee 
have many reasons more for the one & against the other 
place, but shall at present wth yor maties & yor most Honblc 
Councellors p'mission, least wee seame too troublesome. And 
since yor maties command is in Gcnll tearmes to doe our ut- 
most for the defence of those shipps which Trade to Virga, 
wee doe most humbly beseech yor matic & yor most Honblc 
G>uncell to consider this G>untry as a place flatt and open, 
full of great Rivers, and then wee doubt not but you will 
Graciously conclude in our favour, that though James River 
were soe fortified as an enemy could not come into it, yet this 
were no security to the Rivers of Yorke, Rappahannock 
Pianketanke, Wicomico & Potomack nor the two Ports on 
the Eastern side of the Bay, into every of wch places there 
are neare as many shipps brought as into James River, & 
into some of them more, at least of more considerable bur- 
dens, so that (whilst we are unable to fortify all of those 
places) if the shipps shall be forced all to ride in James 
River then this inconvenience will arise to ye Inhabitance of 
those more northerly pts, that if they come (for their sup- 
plies to lay out their tobacco) in James River the marnt 
will not deale with them, because theire pay lyes so farr 
from him, or if he doth it must certainly be at a very low 
rate, since he ordinarily allows not much above a farthing 
for yt wch ye Planter brings to his doore. And if there shall 
be any amongst us who may be able to shipp his tobacco on 
his owne acct it must be at such a rate, as ye tobacco will 
never repaye him, since they are already enforced to pay 
from twelve pounds to seaventeene pounds ^ tunn fraight, 
v^rch usually was but at seaven pound, & consequently ye 
trade of those remoter pts wil be wholly lost, yor matic will 
loose yor customes, and yor poore subjects be left without 
supplies, nor can wee propose any remedy for these difficul- 

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tics but opposing men of warr to or enemies, wch wee are 
but too much afraid yor matic (from ye late unhappy suc- 
cesse of yor first designe of that nature) will not be inclined 
to doe, nor dare wee again solicit you to it, but leaving 
our present condition to yor Princely consideration shall 
humbly begg yor matics & yor most Honblc Councells pa- 
tience, whilst wee returne to say something in our defence 
against ye complaint which may be made against us by those 
who have lost their shipps and goods io this most unfortu- 
nate attempt, many of wch were shipps Trading into the 
Northerne pts of this Colony, and voluntarily, & wthout 
any order from this government, quitted the place where 
they loaded & brought themselves to an anchor where they 
were taken, nor did any of the masters ever apply them- 
selves to ye Governor for his orders to put themselves into 
places of more security, nor was it possible for the Frigett 
to secure them because they roade three leagues nearer the 
sea than Shee, and many of them weighed their anchors & 
stood up to her, with the Dutchman, & thereby rather helped 
to betray her, then to give her any advise of the approaching 
danger, nor did any of them keep a Boate off to sea, wch by 
Conaways fight wth ye enemy might have advised them in 
time to have avoided all ye misfortune fallen on them & us, 
wch (wee humbly hope) will be sufficient to lay the blame 
of their losse wholy to their owne neglect, & if wee shall be 
so unhappy as to find yor matie displeased yt yor shipp was 
suffered to ride in a place so exposed to ye danger of an 
enemy, wee most humbly beseech you to consider yt the 
reason of it was for the convenience of taking in a new main 
mast, & the speedier being fitted for the Guard of our 
Coasts, & such forwardness was shee in that wee are very 
confident foure or five daies would have put her to sea and 
would have prVented all our misfortune of wch wee shall 
say noe more at present. But because we know yor maties 

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justice doth expect from us only what is possible for us to 
doc & not what the necessity of our condition requires, wee 
doe in all humility beseech yor matic to consider us as a 
people pressed at our backes wth Indians, in our bowells wth 
our servants & poverty (brought on us by the hard dealing 
of those whome wee are bound to defend) and invaded from 
wthout by the Dutch, & consequently not able to fortifie all 
those places where shipps use to Trade in this country & 
the more unable because wee are not only deprived of the 
time wee had designed for that worke by the Lod Baltimore^ 
making void of the cessation from planting,^ but robbed of 
all future hopes of the advancement of our Commodity ; and 
upon the sume of all that we have here pr'sented, wee doe 
most humbly pray yor matic & yor Honbic Counccll to con- 
sider yt though it be much in or power to keepe ourselves 
innocent from sinnes & vices, yet from misfortunes noe virtue, 
no prudence can alwaies secure us, and may God & yor 
maties Clemency incline you to look on us as only unfor- 
tunate and to receive us into your Princely favour and pro- 
tection, and for a reward of soe much goodness, God soe 
blesse you as that you may manage this Warr wth Victory 
over all yor enemies, and end it with Triumph and Peace, 

^ One of the causes of economic distress in Virginia after the 
Restoration was the fall in the price of tobacco. It was proposed 
to remedy this by a cessation of planting, but to be effective the 
co-operation of Maryland and Carolina was necessary. Various 
conferences were held on the subject by ambassadors of the three 
colonies, and a general agreement was reached in 1663 (see Hen- 
ing, ii, 200), but by reason of doubt of the good faith of the 
Carolina planters, Maryland held back. In the summer of 1666 
a new treaty was negotiated between Virginia and Maryland 
(Hening, ii, 229, and Mcllwaine, Journals, 1659-1693, 36), but it 
appears that subsequently Lord Baltimore interposed a veto on 
behalf of Maryland, whereupon, in the spring of 1667, the governor 
and council of Virginia protested to the king in council (CaL 
State Papers, Colonial, 1 661-1668, No. 1509, p. 475), and the 
present reference is to that protest. 



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Mi 



wch we heartily pray may never depart from you till you 
arc possest of that everlasting glory and happiness which noe 
time nor accident can robb you oflE. 
Yor maties most humble and 

most loyall servants and subjects. 

Will: Berkeley, 
Tho: Ludwell, 
Robt. Smith, 
Tho: Swann, 
Thomas Steggc, 
Edward Carter, 
Theodo: Bland, 
Ri: Bennett, 
Ab: Wood, 
Nathaniel Bacon, 
John Carter, 
Geo: Reade, 
Augustine Warner. 

In the midst of this excitement Miles Cary 
died, in his forty-fifth year. There is no intima- 
tion of any previous illness: indeed, he is re- 
corded in the performance of his official duty 
in the council late in the spring of 1667.^ Yet 
on June 9 he made his elaborate will,* and the 

^ His last recorded ofBcial act was to sign, as one of the council, 
the protest to the king against Lord Baltimore's veto of the treaty 
between Virginia and Maryland for a cessation of planting to- 
bacco. 

2 The survival of this will illustrates the vicissitudes of genea- 
logical work among Virginia families. Dated June 9, 1667, the 
day before Miles Cary died, as recorded on his tombstone, it was 
proved in Warwick Court June 21, and on June 29 was recorded 
in Warwick County Records, Book A, p. 448, followed by an in- 
ventory of the estate at p. 471. During the first discussion in 
1843 of the fabulous "Gary's Rents" estate (see The Virginia 

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■ ^liO MB Sfc^u ^ n i *^ 



next day he died.* In 1707 there was a well 
authenticated tradition that he was "shott by the 
Dutch," ^ which finds support in the fact that he 
made a will bne day, "being of sound and perfect 
memory," and died the next, as a wounded man 
might. If it was his fate to fall in action we can 
find opportunity for it in the official despatches 

Carys) Governor Littleton Waller Tazewell and the Hon. Ben- 
jamin Watkins Leigh both advised Mrs. Virginia Gary to have the 
records of Warwick searched for the will of Miles Gary. Mr. 
Robert Garter Nicholas accordingly wrote to the clerk of War- 
wick, then William Robertson, who replied under date of April 
II, 1844: "In an examination of some of the most ancient records 
here some year or two ago ... I found a will of a Miles Gary 
admitted to probate, I think, some time in 1664. I know it was 
within ten years of that time. . . . These old records have no 
index and are in a tattered, decaying condition, and besides the 
character of the writing is such as to render them almost illegible. 
Their examination, therefore, is attended with much labour and 
difficulty." There the matter was allowed to rest. When the 
discussion was revived in 1851, Mr. Guilford Dudley Eggleston, 
of Indiana, a descendant of William Gary, the youngest son of the 
immigrant, went to Warwick, studied the records, and, despite the 
physical difficulties, secured an exemplified copy of Miles Gary's 
will (but not of the inventory). The record book containing the 
will was sent to Richmond with the other Warwick records and 
there destroyed in April, 1865. In July, 1868, the late Gaptain 
Wilson Miles Gary of Baltimore made a pious pilgrimage to 
Warwick for information about his ancestors when he learned of 
the destruction of the county records. The clerk of the court, Mr. 
William B. Jones ("Hellcat Billy Jones," as he was affectionately 
known), remembered, however, that "some ten years before the 
war" he had made a copy of Miles Gary's will "for a gentleman 
in the West." After persistent search and correspondence Gaptain 
Gary identified Mr. Eggleston as the one who had preserved the 
will and the M. I., and secured from him the copy now perns me, 
which is reproduced in The Virginia Carys. 

^ As shown by his M. I., post, p. 661. 

2 Robert Garey, seventh Baron Hunsdon, died in September, 
1702, unmarried. The peerage was claimed by, and ultimately 
confirmed to, William Ferdinand Garey, grandson of an uncle of 
the seventh Lord Hunsdon. This family had lived for three gen- 

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in the statement that between "Wednesday morn- 
ing, when they weighed and w* a faire Easterly 
winde stood into James River," until Crimson 
"after five daies stay in James River sailed off 
w^*» his prizes, their want of water caused them 
to make several attempts upon the shoare where 
they met with such opposition as not to be able 
to get any or anything els of a farthing value, 
so much easier is it for us to guard the shoare 
than the shipps." 

erationt in Holland, and became thoroughly Dutch. Their pedi- 
gree was in tome confusion, and Dr. Brian Fairfax (1633-1711), 
brother of Henry fourth Lord Fairfax, who had married a Carey 
of the Huntdon family (see ante, p. 373), objected to the Dutch- 
man's claim on the ground that he understood there were living in 
Virginia male descendants of a brother or brothers of the seventh 
Lord Hunsdon. The Dutchman thereupon employed the herald 
Peter Le Neve (1661-1729) to prove his pedigree and eliminate 
Dr. Fairfax's suggestion. Le Neve made a thorough investigation, 
as appears from his notes which survive. (Harleian MS. 6694, 
transcribed in fV, A/. Cary Notes,) The committee of the House 
of Lords said: "Peter Le Neve hath been with Collonell Nicholson 
and several of the name of Cary, merchants trading to the West 
Indies, some of them born there, but cannot hear of any such 
persons." Le Neve's bill to the Dutchman gives the following 
items: 

"15th Jan. 1707, Coach hire into City to inquire 

after the Carys of Virginia, 2/6 

1 6th Jan. " More coach hire on that account 

(and to the Tower), 1/6" 

He apparently interviewed Colonel Francis Nicholson (lieutenant- 
governor of Virginia 1 690-1 692 and again 1 698-1 705), and the 
merchants Thomas Cary of Putney who had been bom in Virginia, 
and Robert Cary, Sr., who traded there. (See post, pp. 6S3, 700.) 
He also found trace of Captain Nathaniel Cary of Charlestown, 
MaM. (see ante, p. 561), as having been in London in 1704, "fre- 
quenting the New Engd Coffee House behind the Exchange," and 
actually met his nephew Captain Samuel Cary, of Charlestown, of 
whom he noted "have talked with him." 

From such sources of information Le Neve constructed a tenta- 

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jfn mmm^^l%fa[iSamiMB^^\ 



To this we may add from the despatches the 
further fact that the entire militia of the colony 
were mustered and under arms and that the 
Dutch were anchored off Newport News. As 
Miles Cary commanded the militia of War- 
wick, he would be the officer to whom would fall 
the duty of repelling the attempts of the Dutch 
to land for water in the vicinity of Newport 
News, as it was of Major-General Richard 
Bennet on the opposite side of the river. It is 

tive pedigree of the Carys of Virginia and Charlestown, Mass., 
which, while erroneous in detail, was in the main correct: it 
served to persuade not only Dr. Fairfax but the committee of the 
House of Lords that "it is only a false report . . . that there are 
issue male living of one of the last Lord's brothers in Virginia, or 
some other part of the West Indies." 

Lc Neve*s pedigree shows "... Cary, of Virginia, shott by the 
Dutch about 35 years since," and as his son "Coll. Miles Cary of 
York County on Yorke River in Virginia, a N avail Oflker, living in 
1704, married daughter of Coll. Wm. Wilson of Kikatan in James 
River, Virginia." 

As this pedigree was compiled in 1707, the estimate of the death 
of Miles Cary, the immigrant, as "about 35 years since" would 
bring us back to 1673, when the Dutch made their second foray 
into Virginia waters, and indicates a mere confusion of the two 
adventures. How then did Le Neve get this information? It 
may have been derived from Colonel Nicholson, or from Thomas 
Cary of Putney, but the very confusion of the dates in respect of 
the Dutch raids seems to indicate some one who did not know as 
much about Virginia as both of them did and to point to Captain 
Samuel Cary as the most likely source. He might well have had 
as definite information in the premises as is shown in Le Neve's 
pedigree. In 1692 his uncle Captain Nathaniel Cary and his wife 
took refuge from the witch delusion in New York, where Governor 
Fletcher "was very courteous to us": they did not return to Massa- 
chusetts until 1699. (Ante, p. 559.) In 1693 Miles Cary II was 
in New York for conference with Governor Fletcher. (See The 
Virginia Carys.) These kinsmen must then have met in New York 
in 1693 and exchanged family facts: the greater definiteness of Le 
Neve's information about Miles Cary II gives weight to this theory. 

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then not impossible that in such an obscure duty 
he received a mortal wound.^ 

He was buried, after the Virginia fashion, 
near his house in Warwick. A brick tomb was 
erected over the grave, on which his family 
placed a heavy ironstone slab, carved in, and im- 
ported from, England, bearing the following in- 
scription:^ 

^ What militates against this assumption, but is not conclusive, 
is the fact that neither Berkeley nor Ludwell mentions it in the 
despatches. The death in action of *'Col. Miles Gary, Esq., Coun- 
sellor of State,'' would have been good coloring-matter for the 
despatch, if only to show the vigor of the defense, for Ludwell 
does mention Major-Genera 1 Bennet, who commanded south of the 
James. We might expect also some human expression of regret 
from Ludwell, even in an official despatch, because he would not 
only be writing of an official colleague but of a "beloved friend" 
who had named him one of the overseers of his will. The whole 
question must remain in obscurity until the time when, and if, 
some private news-letter of the day may turn up to solve it 

2 With his letter to Robert Carter Nicholas of April ii, 1844, 
hereinbefore quoted (see ante, p. 657, note), William Robert- 
son, clerk of Warwick, enclosed a copy (now penes me) which 
he had made of this inscription, adding: "There is a distinct im- 
pression on the Tomb of a Coat of Armes, but I understand nothing 
of Heraldry, and therefore could not decypher it." When, in 
185 1, Mr. Guilford Dudley Eggleston visited the spot the tomb was 
already in decay. He says in his notes (transcribed in /F. M. 
Gary Notes) : "I found an old tombstone in a very dilapidated con- 
dition. It was broken in Bve pieces. After cleaning it and rubbing 
it with soft brick, propping it together, I succeeded in getting 
from it a copy of the Coat of Arms and the epitaph." Of this 
inscription he secured a certificate (now penes me) by the clerk 
of Warwick, then William B. Jones. In 1868 Captain Wilson 
Miles Gary visited the spot and in turn succeeded in getting to- 
gether the fragments of the stone, then scattered anew by Union 
soldiers who had camped on the spot, and before he had seen 
either Mr. Robertson's or Mr. Eggleston's transcripts made a 
complete copy of the inscription, which confirmed them both. Gap- 
tain Gary made the following note of local color: "At the foot of 
a giant walnut . . . and in the deep shade of a bower formed by 

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[ARMS] 
Here lyeth the Body of Miles Gary, Esqr. 
only son of John Gary & Alice his wife, 
daughter of Henry Hobson, of the City of 
Bristoll, Alderman: he was born in ye said Gitty 
and departed this life the lOth day of June, 1667, 
about the 47th year of his Age, leaving four 
sons and three daughter?, viz: Thomas, 
Anne, Henry, Bridgett, Elizabeth, 
Miles & William.^ 

As appears from his tombstone, Miles Gary 
left four sons and three daughters. To the 
daughters he bequeathed the proceeds of the 
sale of his two houses in Bristol with equal shares 
of his personal estate.^ The eldest, Anne, ap- 

the festoons of a mighty grape vine that embraces in its snake 
like fold the entire grave, lies the tomb of Col. Miles Gary. The 
ponderous iron stone slab lying above the debris of old English 
brick is some six feet by three, and, though broken by vandals, 
still bears to his descendants of the eighth generation the inscrip- 
tion traced by the piety of the first more than two hundred years 
ago. Elegantly sculptured in has relief within a circle garnished 
with graceful mantlings is the Coat of Arms, a shield bearing on a 
bend sable three roses of the field surmounted by a helmet upon which 
stands the crest, a swan with wings raised in the attitude of attack.'* 

1 It will be noted that whoever was responsible for the inscrip- 
tion made, as so often happens in such cases, two mistakes. Miles 
Cary was not the only son of John Cary, though at the time of 
his death he may have been the only surviving son. Furthermore, 
he did not die "about the 47th year of his age,'' but in his forty- 
fifth year, having been baptized January 22, 1622, O.S., as appears 
from the parish register of All Saints Church in Bristol. 

2 By deed dated April 11, 1670, the three daughters joined in an 
assignment of their interest in the Bristol houses to Captain 
William Bassett, who had recently married one of them. (See 
Conway Robinson's note of General Court Will Book, ii, 3, in 
Fa, Mag,, viii, 244; and William Bassett's will, in Keith, Ancestry 
of Benjamin Harrison, 27.) 

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parently never married; the second, Bridget, 
became the wife and soon the widow of Captain 
William Bassett,^ of New Kent County; and the 
youngest, Elizabeth, married her neighbor 
Emanuel Wills,* of Mulberry Island. 

Miles Cary divided his real estate in Virginia 
between his four sons, under a system of cross 
entails, and thereby founded four families to 
perpetuate his name. His plan was eminently 
successful, for, despite variations of fortune, 
his issue have multiplied greatly, and two hun- 
dred and fifty years after his death, in the 
ninth and tenth generations, are still representa- 

^ Captain William Bassett in his will leaves to a sister "all my 
interest in a house in New {jest of the word illegibtej >n ^* ^''^ 
of Wight, in which my mother now lives, near the town gate/' 
From this he is identified (Keith, Ancestry of Benjamin Harrison) 
as a son of William Bassett "of Newport, yeoman," whose estate 
was administered by his widow in 1647. He was a captain in 
Sir Bryce Cochran's regiment, in Cromwell's expedition of 1658 
against Dunkirk. At Dunkirk in 1661 he met Colonel Henry Nor- 
wood, the Cavalier treasurer of ' Virginia, who advised him to 
establish himself in Virginia, which he proceeded to do. He ap- 
parently married Bridget Cary in 1669, for in 1670 his son was 
born and he was appointed guardian for her brother William 
on the resignation of William Beaty, who then "intends for Eng- 
land." (Entry October 18, 1670, in MS. Book of General Court 
Judgments and Orders, 1670-1676, Va. Hist. Soc Library.) After 
a brief married life Captain Bassett died in 1671 (see his will 
in Keith, ibid., mentioning the two houses in Bristol), leaving his 
young wife with a son, the second William Bassett, "of Eltham," 
who became a burgess for New Kent in 1693, and in 1703 was of 
the council. A granddaughter of this second William Bassett was 
the wife of Benjamin Harrison, signer of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, and a great-granddaughter was the wife of George 
Augustine Washington, nephew of the first President. 

2 Her son Miles Wills was burgess for Warwick in 17 14. and 
sheriff in 1722 and 1723. The Wills family has persisted in Vir- 
ginia. (See fV. & M, Quar,, xxiv, 20a) 

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tive Virginians^ holding up their heads with a 
certain fine and proud sensitiveness which is 
their common characteristic, and maintaining 
the tradition of liberal education which, prac- 
tically without interruption, identified their 
name with William and Mary College from its 
foundation to the inauguration of the Uni- 
versity of Virginia. By the ramifications of in- 
termarriage during the eighteenth century they 
wove themselves closely into the fabric of 
"Virginia cousins," so that their "connection" 
is of the widest. In doing so each of the immi- 
grant's four Virginia-born sons contributed in 
his progeny successive representatives in the 
government of the Commonwealth so long as it 
retained its colonial flavor,^ but each of their 
four families developed a different inherited 

^ While they arc to-day, as they were two centuries ago, char- 
acteristically tidewater Virginians (or tuckahoes) and never were 
pioneers, they have not been altogether sitfast, but have made their 
contribution to the westward expansion of the United States. 
Colonies of the name and blood of this family may now be found 
flourishing in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Kansas, as well as in 
Florida, Maryland, and New York. 

2 The experience of this family and others of their kind in the 
two innovations of government which they have experienced is not 
lacking in moral tragedy. In the American Revolution they unani- 
mously espoused the popular cause which prevailed, but thereby 
accomplished under the spur of radical leadership a passionate 
self-sacrifice of the special privileges they had inherited. In that 
later progressively radical revolution which actuated the war be- 
tween the States, again unanimously they stood and fought, this 
time for their own class and interests, only to make new sacrifice 
with the added bitterness of the failure of their party. In neither 
instance did they repine: their descendants know the catharsis, 
but they have never resumed the tradition of public life. 

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propensity, which gives interest to the study of 
their intricate genealogy. 

Thus the eldest son, Major* Thomas Cary^ of 
Windmill Point, was the progenitor of a line of 
planters, merchants, and local magistrates, which 

^ Though, after the Virginia fashion, most of the Virginia 
Carys, through service in the militia, have been known by military 
titles, none of them was ever conspicuously distinguished as a 
soldier: their highest usefulness has been in the council-chamber. 
Nevertheless, in every war of Virginia and the United States they 
have seen active and meritorious service under arms. In the 
Civil War of 1861-65 practically all of them (actually eighteen) 
of that generation were "out** as regimental officers of the Con- 
federate army. Most recently, in the war against Germany, one 
of them gave his life for the honor of Virginia in the same spirit 
which actuated his immigrant ancestor to a similar fate. 

^Colonel Thomas Gary, the North Carolina "Rebel" of 1711, 
The late Captain Wilson Miles Cary, of Baltimore, long flirted 
with the expectation that he might be able to identify Major 
Thomas Cary, the eldest son of the immigrant Miles Cary of 
Virginia, with the Colonel Thomas Cary who, in 171 1, "supported 
by the interest of the Quakers and assisted by a Rabble of loose 
and profligate persons, turned out the President and most of the 
Council and assumed on himself the Government" of North Caro- 
lina, until Governor Spotswood of Virginia interfered, fearing a 
repetition of Bacon's rebellion in the adjoining province, or of the 
more recent overthrow of government in Antigua. (See Spots- 
wood's despatch to Lord Dartmouth of July 15, 171 1, in Spotsvfood 
Papers, Va. Hist Soc Publications, 1882, 81.) 

The possibility of that identification lay in the fact that two 
sons of this Thomas Cary of Warwick are known to have con- 
sorted for a time with the Quakers, while after 1682 there is no 
surviving evidence of any public activity in Virginia by this 
Thomas himself as there is of his younger brothers. Weighing 
heavily against it was Mr. G. D. Eggleston's note, made in 185 1 
from the then extant Warwick records, of the will of a Thomas 
Cary proved in Warwick in 1708, which was undoubtedly that 
of the son of our immigrant While in England in 1907 Captain 
Cary finally satisfied himself that the Colonel Thomas Cary of 
North Carolina had no immediate relation to the Virginia family, 
but was one of the Carys of Cheping Wycombe, co. Bucks. (See 
ante, p. 522.) As the pedigree of this family constructed in 
H, & G., vi, 32, does not pursue the eldest line to which the 

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produced seven clerks and two sheriffs of War- 
wick County in five successive generations. In 
the American Revolution they were represented 
by Judge Richard Gary and his brother, Colonel 
John of Back River ; the former became later a 

"rebel" belonged, it seems worth while here to preserve the 
genealogical evidence collected in the /T. Af. Cary Notes, 

This pedigree begins with the Walter Cary (1550?-^©//, 1627), 
"of Wickham," co. Bucks, the Oxford physician whose books we 
have enumerated. He is assumed by Mr. Nichols to be the father 
of the three brothers: (i) the Walter who was denounced by the 
heralds in 1634 as "no gent"; (ii) Sir Thomas of Port Lester, co. 
Meath, Ireland, the father of Patrick (see p. 470) ; and (iii) 
Rowland, of Everton, co. Beds., for all of whom and their de- 
scendants the evidence is ample. 

Thus the second Walter ("no gent") made a will (P.C.C. 
Boviyer, 154) in 1651, describing himself as '^he elder, of parish 
Cheping Wycombe, co. Bucks, gent.," which indicates that he per- 
sisted in his defiance of the heralds. He names hit son Walter 
and son-in-law John Humphre3r8. This third Walter in turn left 
a will (P.C.C. Duke, 142) dated 1671, naming his wife Anne, an 
infant son Thomas, for whose maintenance at Oxford he makes 
provision, and several daughters. One of the overseers of this 
will is his ^'brother" John Humphreys. Two years later, in 1673, 
Anne Cary "of Wickham, Bucks, widow, about 35," marries a 
widower, John Archdale, "of the same, about 27 years." (Foster, 
London Marriages,) He was grandson of Richard Archdale, 
London merchant, who in 1604 had bought the estate of Cheping 
Wycombe, co. Bucks. (See S. B. Weeks, Southern Quakers and 
Slavery, 1896, chap. iv. The Archdale pedigree from the Visita- 
tion of London, 1633-4, ^nd the will of Richard Archdale are in 
Waters, Gleanings, i, 319.) In 1681 John Archdale bought out 
the interest of the deceased Lord Berkeley of Stratton, and in the 
name of his infant son Thomas became one of the proprietaries 
of the colony of Carolina. He went out to the colony in 1694 as 
governor and afterwards was returned M. P. for Cheping 
Wycombe. He was a "pious and intelligent Quaker" (Diet, Nat, 
Biog,, Supplement, i, 56), and we find in the Quaker records 
(Publications Gen, Soc, of Pa., ii. No. i) a certificate of the 
marriage, August 12, 1688, of "Emanuel Low, cit. and Fishmonger 
of London . . . and Anne Archdale of Cheping Wycombe in co. 
of Bucks, Spinster, one of the dau^ of John Archdale of Cheping 
Wycombe afs. Gent, k of Eliz. his deed wife." One of the sub- 

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member of the first court of appeals of the new 
Commonwealth, so capping the century of service 
of his family in the judicial system of Virginia. 
Two branches of the Back River family now hold 
high place in the business world of Richmond. 
The second son, Henry Cary of "the Forest," 
and his son of the same name were professional 
architects and builders who constructed a num- 
ber of the "colonial" churches and other public 
buildings which still stand to testify the honesty, 
skill, and good taste of their work, as well as 
historical structures, such as the capitol and 
governor's palace at Williamsburg, which have 
disappeared. This line alone developed and 
evinced a measure of the commercial instinct 
which was a right inheritance from their Bristol 
forebears, and prospered progressively more by 

scribing witnesses to this marriage certificate was Thomas Gary. 
Emanuel Low is later found among Thomas Car/s **rabble" of 
associates in North Carolina. (See Spotswood's proclamation of 
July 24, 171 1, in Colonial Records of N, C, i, 776.) In 1705 
Archdale writes that he has a daughter in North Carolina, a 
sister's son in South Carolina, and "my wife hath also a son 
there who principally on my acc^ is gou*" of ye North." (Weeks, 
Southern Quakers, 60.) 

It seems clear, then, that when in 1695 a Thomas Cary became 
secretary of the council of South Carolina, in 1697 receiver-general 
of the province on behalf of the Proprietors, and in 1705 a half- 
governor of North Carolina, he was the son of Walter Cary of 
Bucks, went out under the patronage of his stepfather John Arch- 
dale, and, though not himself of the faith, had a family affiliation 
with the Quakers, which would account for his subsequent hold 
on that sect in North Carolina. 

Spotswood gave Thomas Cary a bad reputation in history, 
which has been bruited by Hawks, by Doyle, and by Osgood, but 
study of other contemporary documents besides Spotswood's des- 
patches has cleared him of the worst of the charges, that, of 

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their own efforts than by the unearned increment. 
They flowered and died in the fourth generation 
in the person of Colonel Archibald Gary of 
Ampthill, a Revolutionary patriot whose polit- 
ical participation in the founding of the United 
States achieved for him in the new democratic 
tradition the name which is now best known of 
all his Virginia kin. Not the least interesting 
and characteristic fact about him is that despite 
his lifelong political preoccupations, he carried 
on the industrial bent of his father and grand- 
father in his Falling Creek iron furnace and 
other manufacturing ventures; he was also a 
large and (like his father) a somewhat specula- 
tive landholder. Through Archibald Cary's 
daughters the blood of this line has been spread 
far and wide by the Randolphs, Pages, Harri- 
sons, Bells, Langhornes, and other representa- 

inciting the massacre by the Tuscarora Indians, and he is now 
in a fair way to be rated an heroic champion of "popular*' rights 
against the sinister powers of episcopacy and privilege. (Saunders, 
in Colonial Records of N. C, I, xxvii ; and Raper, North Carolina, 
1904, 14.) 

So is history made atid remade! Whatever he may have been, 
when sent to England for trial on the charges of "rebellion" pre- 
ferred by Governors Hyde and Spotswood, Thomas Gary was 
promptly released: he returned to North Carolina in the spring 
of 17 1 3 with a safe-conduct from the Lords Proprietors, and there 
he died in 171S {Colonial Records of N. C, ii, 46, 53, 56, 308), 
leaving a son John, who was living in the colony in 1725. (N. C. 
Hist, & Gen, Reg,, iii, 426.) It is possible (but not yet proved) 
that the otherwise unidentified family of Carys, several of whom 
were named Joseph, who are found later in North Carolina and in 
Princess Anne, Surry, and Isle of Wight counties, Virginia (see 
The Virginia Carys, 157; N, C, Hist, & Gen, Reg,, i, 182), were 
of the kin of Thomas Gary "the rebel." 

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tive Virginia families; and is shared also by the 
Boston Coolidges and the Richneck Carys. 

The third son, Colonel Miles Gary of Rich- 
neck, was the first of a line of land-acquisitive 
holders of high and lucrative provincial office, 
three generations of them being, among other 
things, naval officers in the revenue service in 
succession to the immigrant. By virtue of his 
own parts and industry, founded on the advan- 
tage of education in England (unique among the 
immigrant's sons) and a fortunate marriage, this 
second Colonel Miles established his family at 
the beginning of the eighteenth century in a 
position of assured wealth and economic leisure, 
which enabled them to cultivate the elegancies 
of life and so gave them, in the aristocratic devel- 
opment of the colony and throughout the re- 
mainder of the colonial period, the social con- 
sequence of the group since colloquially known 
as the "F.F.V.'s" (or "First Families of Vir- 
ginia"), a tradition which survived the loss of 
their broad inherited acres in the post-Revolu- 
tionary economic distress of the slave-owning 
planter class. Their representatives, become 
once more workers, have now for several genera- 
tions been residents not only of Richmond, but 
of Maryland and New York, in all of which 
communities they have taken place as leaders in 
conservative citizenship, in education, at the 
bar, and in literature. 

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The fourth son, William Gary of "Skiffs 
Creek," while himself a busy magistrate and 
several times a burgess, produced descendants 
of his name who have always been highly re- 
spected but uniformly of a less stirring disposi- 
tion than their kinsmen: their main stem repre- 
sentatives have lived as planters and farmers in 
Prince Edward County, where they are still 
seated on land which, practically, represents 
their inheritance from the immigrant. William 
Cary's blood has, however, been widely dis- 
tributed by the fertile J acquelin- Ambler family; 
and in the nineteenth century his far transplanted 
Eggleston descendants earned a solid literary 
distinction. 

We have traced each of these four lines else- 
where in genealogical detail.* 

* Sec The Virginia Carys, 191 9. 



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Part Four 
GARY IN LONDON 



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"the Crowning City, 
Whose antiquity is of ancient days, 
Whose feet carried her afar off to sojourn, 
Whose merchants are princes. 
Whose traffickers are the honourable of the earth." 

Isaiah, xxiii. 

'There is no place in the town which I so much love to frequent 
as the Royal Exchange. It gives me a secret satisfaction, and in 
some measure gratifies my vanity, as I am an Englishman, to see 
so rich an assembly of countrjrmen and foreigners, consulting to- 
gether upon the private business of mankind, and making this 
metropolis a kind of emporium for the whole earth. I must con- 
fess I look upon high-change to be a great council, in which all 
considerable nations have their representatives. Factors in the 
trading world are what ambassadors are in the politic world: they 
negotiate affairs, conclude treaties.^' 

The Spectator, No. 69, 171 1. 



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THE FRUITS OF EARLY INDUSTRY AND OECONEMY 



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Chapter Twenty-two 

'WHOSE MERCHANTS ARE PRINCES' 

Cromwell did much to revive the political pres- 
tige of England abroad, but it is now recognized 
that he was not a constructive statesman/ and 
the evidence is that foreign trade, which has al- 
ways been so large an element in England's 
national greatness, was at a standstill during the 
Protectorate.^ The Dutch held the field. It 
would seem, then, that the claim of historians of 
the school of Ranke and Gardiner, that Crom- 
well re-established English commerce after the 
ruin of the civil wars, is distorted. It is more 
likely that that phenomenon may be related 
(like the blessing of the introduction of port 
wine, sherry, and madeira into English civiliza- 
tion!) primarily to Charles II's Portuguese mar- 
riage and new Spanish treaty. That combina- 
tion certainly opened up to English merchants 
the greatest opportunity of overseas trade they 

* Cf, Morley, Cromwell, 497, with Frederic Harrison, Oliver 
Cromwell, 219. 

* State Papers, Domestic, 1651, xvi, 139. 

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had ever known/ or were to know until after the 
Peace of Utrecht, and was the herald of the ex- 
uberant national "prosperity of which the an- 
nals of human affairs had furnished no ex- 
ample" which the Whigs were complaisantly to 
attribute to their politics. Charles II's govern- 
ment contributed to this. in no small measure. 
The navigation law, ingrain of the mercantile 
system ; the planting of colonies ; the very wars 
with the Dutch, which it is now the fashion to 
denounce as sordid and contemptible, were, 
measured by their results, the realization of 
Bacon's national policy of "consideration of 
power." 

The Restoration was in truth a golden age of 
the English overseas merchant. The State 
papers reveal how he was consulted by states- 
men, how his veto of a project was heeded.^ As 
to him, if not as to the colonists whom he un- 
doubtedly exploited in the professed interest of 
the nation, the Restoration government acted on 
the principle that trade, and with it the wealth of 
a nation, grows in proportion as it is exempt from 
repressive "uplifting" regulation. We think of 
Charles II himself mostly with reference to his 
dissolute court, but it is a fact that he took a 
keen interest and, indeed, several personal ven- 

1 Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, ii, 
193. 

2 The facts are impressively marshaled in Flippen, The Royal 
Government in Virginia, Harvard University, 1919. 



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■ft^ 



tures, in foreign trade. The example was not 
lost on the court and spread thence to the gentry 
generally. When they did not themselves take 
part, as many of them did, they showed a new 
respect for the merchant in social intercourse 
and industriously married his daughters. A 
single statistic will serve to illustrate the result 
of this national support of trade. In the reign 
of Charles II the exports of England doubled, 
from two to four millions : they did not double 
again until 1740.^ The English merchants were 
thus made to appreciate, by the test of their bal- 
ance-sheets, what the Restoration meant to them, 
and they testified to it by the inscription on the 
statue they erected to Charles II in the Royal 
Exchange. It is significant that the only other 
sovereigns so honored are Queen Elizabeth and 
Queen Victoria. 

Men flocked to London from all parts of 
England during this period, to seek a share in 
these new opportunities of making one's fortune, 
for now more than ever commercial life centered 
in London, as Isaiah saw it crowding on Tyre, as 
"the crowning city." Among them were Carys 
from all the families whose fortunes we have 
traced. There in an old-world but fast chang- 
ing society, which is mirrored for us in Macau- 

1 For a succinct and lucid discussion of the astonishing revival 
of national industry and commerce in England after the Restora- 
tion, see a book now deemed out of date, Knight's Pictorial History 
of England, viii, ch. 4. 

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lay's hard and brilliant pages/ they met and 
mingled, until we have the spectacle, unprece- 
dented before or since, of no less than seven 
recognizable families of Carys in business as 
contemporary London merchants, most of whom 
achieved fortune and an important status in the 
world. These families have another character- 
istic in common, that, as if exhausted by their 
efforts in the counting-house, they soon became 
extinct: so that the merchants who in the last 
years of the seventeenth century made the name 
Cary to be respected in commerce wherever the 
British flag flew, are become mere dim tradi- 
tions attached to some heirloom of the days of 
their greatness, which has descended in a female 
line with the remnants of the fortunes they built. 
Those Carys who migrated to London to this 
destiny were by no means the first of their name 
who had so adventured. There are traces of the 
name in trade in London during the sixteenth 
and even in the fifteenth century, but we are able 
to identify few of them: none rose to signifi- 
cance.^ 

^ History of England, ch. iii. An explicit and intimate view of 
everyday life among the merchants at this time, which has the 
advantage of differing from Macaulay in politics, is the contem- 
porary life of the Turkey merchant Sir Dudley North, in the Li<ves 
of the Norths, 

2 The records of Wills of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury 
now at Somerset House reveal a cloud of Carys in London from 
the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. They are all arrayed and 
most of them calendared in the MS. fT, M, Cary Notes, as by- 
products of two years of professional work among the records. 

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It is, then, an interesting evidence of national 
commercial and industrial development to ob- 
serve the difference in the occupation and en- 
vironment of those of whom we are now to treat 
as compared with the earlier emigrants, for 
example that scion of the Bristol tree, William 
Gary, "citizen and cloth-maker," of London, 
who died in 1572.^ He had made the same 
effort doubtless with the same natural equip- 
ment a century before. One is an artizan, at 
most, as we have conjectured, a representative 
and forwarding agent for his family at Black- 
well Hall, living and working out largely with 
his hands a narrow existence, the others wealthy 
magistrates, trading to the ends of the earth, 
sitting on boards of directors, living luxuriously 
in suburban villas, and driving up ponderously 
in their coaches to their comfortable counting 
houses in the city.^ 

THE ST. DUNSTAN'S FAMILY 

The first of these cadets who so became a mer- 
chant prince was RICHARD Cary (1649-1726), 
the second son of Shershaw Cary of Bristol who 

These Carys belong to every class of the community, many of them 
of the humblest— sailors and small shopkeepers. Undoubtedly 
among those who have not been identified are kin to all the 
branches of the Devon Carys. 

^ See ante, p. 515. 

2 Cf. George Morland's print The Fruits of Early Industry and 
Oeconemy, which illustrates the type of merchant of whom we 
write, at a period a century later. 

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had died at Lisbon. Our earliest record^ finds 
him in 1678 en route northward from Barbadoes 
to Antigua, where, and in Nevis, he established 
himself as a sugar planter and by 1690 had be- 
come one of the commissioners for the govern- 
ment of the Leeward Islands.^ Before 1699 he 
removed to London and was there engaged in a 
large way of business as a sugar merchant In 
that year he joined his older brother John, the 
Bristol publicist, in the application to the 
Heralds' College which resulted in a confirma- 
tion of the right of the Bristol Carys to bear 
the arms of Cary of Devon. The record of that 
transaction* gives us the main genealogical facts 
about him. Later, in 171 2, he became a direc- 
tor of the Bank of England, then newly founded, 
and a deputy lieutenant for Middlesex. He 
lived in the parish of St. Dunstan's in the East,* 

1 Hotten, Original Lists of Emigrants, 357. 

« Cal. State Papers, Colonial, Am, & W, L, 1689-92, 345. There 
are references to him in relation to the government of the Leeward 
Islands in succeeding volumes of the colonial papers as late as 
1700, but in 1697 he appears before the Board of Trade and Planta- 
tions in London, and it was perhaps then that he transferred his 
residence from the West Indies. 

•See The Virginia Carys, 

^ Describing his son and his wife for the purpose of administra- 
tion of their estates, he called them both "late of St Dunstans in 
East" (P.C.C. Admon, Act Book, 1715 and 1716), and by his own 
will, although describing himself simply as "of London, Esquire," 
he leaves a legacy to the poor of St Dunstan's in the East We 
may assume, then, that he lived in the vicinity of Tower Street, 
back of the modern Custom House and of Billingsgate market. 

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but he had a villa in Kensington. His will^ 
shows that he was a stockholder in the East 
India and the South Sea companies. He had 
married Jane, daughter of Joseph Wright, of 
London, and by her had two sons and two 
daughters. His sons both died before him, un- 
married. The eldest, Richard (1685-1715), 
was captain of a company of foot in Colonel 
Alexander's regiment,^ and died at Kensington. 
The younger, Joseph (1688-1705), died and 
was buried on the Antigua plantation.* The 
two daughters married Hertfordshire squires. 
Jane was the wife of Henry Long, of Totteridge, 
high sheriff in 171 5. The youngest and last sur- 
vivor of the family, Martha, wife of Robert 
Elwes of Throcking, inherited her father's large 
estate. Her son Cary Elwes (1718-1782) was 
the ancestor of a line of country gentlemen who 
prefixed Cary to their surname and have per- 
sisted until the present day, their chief seat be- 
ing now Great Billing, co. Northants.* 

"The church of St. Dunstone," says Stow, "is called in the east for 
difference from one other oip the same name in the west: it is a 
fair and large church of an ancient building and within a large 
churchyard: it hath a great parish of many rich merchants and 
other occupiers of divers trades, namely: salters and ironmongers/' 

1 It is dated May 13, 1721, and was proved February 3, 1726. 
(P.C.C. Fair ant, 32.) See also the references to him in Musgrave's 
Obituaries for 1727. {HarL Soc. Pubs,) 

2P.C.C. Admon, Act Book, 1715. 

^ Cary-Elwcs pedigree in W. M, Cary Notes, 

^ Burke, Landed Gentry, 1914. 

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THE PUTNEY FAMILY 
Contemporary with Richard Cary, the West 
India merchant, was his kinsman who joined 
him in the application to the Heralds' College, 
John Cary (1645-1701) of Putney, an East 
India merchant. From the pedigree which he 
filed in the Heralds' College we identify him as 
a grandson of John Cary of Bristol, "draper." ^ 
His father was a shadowy person, recorded only 
as Thomas Cary (b. 1613), who married "Su- 
sanna Limberry^ of Dartmouth, co. Devon," 
and left two sons and a daughter. Before 1663 
these sons emigrated to the colonies, being then 
mere lads, and one of them, Timothy, "died be- 
yond seas.'" The other, John, established him- 
self for a time in Virginia, but was destined to 

' Sec ante, p. 537. 

2 It is probable that her son, John Cary, owed not only his 
impulse to Virginia but his subsequent opportunity in London to 
the Limbereys. John Limberey was, with Povey and Noel, a leader 
in the group of merchants who had established trade relations in 
Jamaica immediately after the English conquest of that island and 
in 1656 petitioned Cromwell for a charter for a West India Com- 
pany, outlining plans of imperial colonial policy which were subse- 
quently largely adopted by the government of Charles II. On the 
Restoration, Fovey, Noel, and Limberey were all included in the 
Council for Foreign Plantations, under Clarendon. (See Osgood, 
' The American Colonies in the XV II Century, iii, 141, 145, 150, 
206; Callaghan, Documents , , . of New York, iii, 33; Andrews, 
British Committees, etc., 1622-1675, 68.) 

^ Heralds' College pedigree of 1701. It does not appear to what 
colony Timothy went; perhaps it was Jamaica, in which the 
Limbereys were interested, or perhaps it was to Virginia with his 
elder brother. 

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jf^ i M^iia M ifcjv^ i 



return to England and become a London mer- 
chant He left a definite record in Virginia. 
On February 23, 1663, he patented lands in Ac- 
comac/ but subsequently transferred to Surry, 
for there on June 15, 1665, ^^ married Jane, 
daughter of "John Floud of Virginia, Gent," 
and there on February 22, 1667, his eldest son, 
Thomas, was "born in Virginia."^ He had 
meanwhile, in 1666, acquired his deceased 
father-in-law's house,^ and appears otherwise on 
the records during the two following years.* In 
1 671 he returned to England.*^ In London, 

* Va, Land Records, v, 218. 

2 Heralds' College pedigree of 1701. 

^ Surry Deed Book, i, 350, which describes him as "John Gary, 
who marryed Jane, ye dau. of sd. Coll. John Floud." Colonel John 
Flood was a man of importance in the early years of the colony 
of Virginia. Between 1630 and 1656 he was six times a burgess 
for Flower dieu Hundred and the boroughs on the south side of 
the James. (Stanard, Colonial Virginia Register, 55, et seq.) He 
had maintained relations with the Indians and learned their lan- 
guage; in 1659 he had recently died, having "long and faithfully 
served the Country in the office of an interpreter," when his son, 
Thomas Flood, succeeded him in that office. (Hening, i, 521.) 
For Thomas Flood's descendants see fF. & M. Quar., xvi, 225. 
Colonel John Flood married as his second wife Fortune Jordan, 
sister of Colonel George Jordan of Surry, who was attorney- 
general of the colony in 1670 (see fF. & M, Quar,, vii, 232), 
which accounts for the fact that Colonel Jordan describes John 
Cary as one of his "nere relacions." (Surry, O.B., i, 30.) 

* See IV, & M. Quar,, vii, 225, 232; viii, 163; and Stanard, 
Some Emigrants to Virginia, 20. 

^ He had patented lands in Surry as late as December 27, 1667 
(Va. Land Records, vi, 269), and in an instrument dated that same 
month (Surry Deed Book, i, 355), describing himself as "now of 
Surry County in Virg>, being by God's grace intended to ship 
myselfe for England," constitutes his "trusty and loveing friend 

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^^ 



on April 22, 1672, he married his second wife, 
Mary Cox, describing himself in the marriage 
license^ as "of St. Bennets, Finksbury, citizen 
and Salter." ^ During the ensuing twenty-eight 
years he prospered greatly, maintaining a trade 
with Virginia,' but towards the end of his life 
broadening out to the East Indies: in the Her- 
alds' College pedigree of 1700 he describes 
himself as at that time "one of the directors of 
the English Company trading to the East In- 
dies." He had meanwhile become a magistrate, 
describing himself in the pedigree also as "in 
the commission of the Lieutenancy of London." 

Mr. Benjamin Harrison" his attorney to settle his affairs in Virginia. 
He took to England with him not only his son Thomas, but his 
young brother-in-law and ward Thomas Flood, binding himself as 
to the latter (Surry Deed Book, i, 403; see also fF. & M, Quar,, vi, 
173) "to take him to Engd., educate and keep him and pay him his 
dues . . . according to the will of Coll. John Flood." This Walter 
Flood returned to Virginia in due course and there died in 1722. 
(See his will, Surry fFill Book, vi, 422, and fF, & M, Quar,, xvi, aa6.) 
John Gary served in 1691 on the committee in London for 
William and Mary College (IF. & M, Quar., vii, 164), and subse- 
quently sent a piece of plate to the parish church of Surry, which 
is still preserved at Brandon, where also is maintained a tradition 
that the wife of Nathaniel Harrison of Wakefield was a daughter 
of John Gary and Jane Flood. (See The Virginia Carys, 155; 
and Keith, Ancestry of Benjamin Harrison, 48.) 

1 Foster, London Marriages, 

2 The Salters were the eleventh in rank of the livery companies 
of London. (Stow, Survey of London, Everyman's ed., 477.) The 
members originally dealt in salt for the curing of fish, but in the 
seventeenth century were the importers and wholesalers of tobacco 
and other bulky commodities. 

* He is given as one of the twenty-four English merchants who, 
in the later years of the seventeenth century, furnished the greater 
portion of the supplies imported into Virginia. {McDonald Papers, 
Virginia State Library, vii, 251.) 

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ROEHAMPTON HOUSE, PUTNEY 

SEAT OF THOMAS GARY, VIRGINIA MERCHANT 
1667-I716 



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jf^* 



He was buried at Putney in 1701.^ Though he 
left seven sons, his name did not persist beyond 
the next generation. 

The eldest Thomas Gary (1667-1716), the 
Virginian, had gone to England with his father 
and succeeded to his business. He rebuilt his 
father's house at Putney, called Roehampton, 
and made a notable residence of it.^ His wilP 
shows that he died prematurely, still expecting 
issue by his wife, Esther Hudson. Of the six 
sons by John Gary's second marriage, the first 
three were all merchants and apparently en- 
gaged in the Scandinavian trade. Thus the eld- 
est, Gallow, died at Hull in 1717,^ and the sec- 
ond, John, at Stockholm in the same year.^ 
• 

^ Lysons (Environs of London, 411) describes his tomb. See 
also his will, dated May 18, 1699, and proved May 13, 1701 
(P.C.C. Dyer, 58), with its bequests of plate, jewels, pictures, 
coaches and horses, and large legacies to his wife and children. 

2 Colin Campbell (Vitruvius Britannicus, 1717-25, i, 6), com- 
menting on his two plates of Roehampton House, says: "This is 
the seat of Thomas Gary, Esq., in Surrey, in a most agreeable 
situation: the Apartments are well disposed for State and Con- 
veniency. The Salon is very Noble and has an excellent ceiling 
(the Feasts of the Gods) by Mr. Thornhill. But above all the 
Humanity and Liberality of the Master deserves to be transmitted 
to Posterity. The design was given by Mr. Archer Anno 1710.'* 
Roehampton afterwards became the residence of Keppel, second 
Earl of Albemarle, who was governor of Virginia from 1737 to 
1754, though never in the colony, his deputies being Gooch and 
Dinwiddie. (See Manning, History of Surry, ii, 290.) 

3 Jt was dated May 26, and proved June 4, 17 16. P.C.C. Fox, 188. 

* See P.C.C. Admon, Act Book, 1717, and his widow's will, 
proved 1718, P.C.C. Tenison, 234. Callow Gary was named after 
his mother's stepfather, Robert Callow. See his father's marriage 
license in Foster, London Marriages. 

5 See P.CC. Admon. Act Book, 1717. 

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The third, Richard, had already died, un- 
married, in 1707.^ The fifth, Robert, entered 
the army. His half-brother Thomas had left 
him a legacy of £2000 to buy a commission, and 
we find that he became in time a captain in the 
crack regiment of Household Cavalry known 
as "The Blues," ^ but apparently he fell into 
ill health and ultimately in 1733 died and was 
buried at Bath.^ The youngest, Peter, died, un- 
married, in 1739, a factor in the service of the 
East India Company at Fort Marlborough on 
the coast of Sumatra.^ The fourth, William, 
survived all his brothers, and, as none of them 
left a son, was the last of his name of the Putney 
line. He was apparently unmarried and the 
black sheep of the family, ultimately disappear- 
ing beyond sea, doubtless in the East Indies, 
"where there ain't no ten commandments."* 

Several of the daughters of John Cary of Put- 

1 Sec his will, P.C.C. Foley, 137. 

* Sec Gentleman's Magazine, 1734, 107. 

« Sec the M. I. in the Church of All Saints, Weston, Bath, re- 
cording the death of "Robert Gary, Esq., February a, 1733, aged 
47,'' in Collinson, History of Somerset, i, 163; also his will, P.C.C. 
Ockham, 27. He had married Louise Van Sittart of the Dutch 
family of merchants long resident in Dantzic, Poland, and after- 
wards in England. See her will, P.C.C. Strahan, 174. 

* See his two wills, P.C.C. Henchman, 229. 

° His brother Peter had named him as his executor in his first 
will, made in 1735, referring to him as then absent from England. 
By his second and last will, made in 1738, he names another 
executor and leaves an income to William in trust. The spinster 
sister, Mary, who died at Windsor in 1738, refers to William in 
her will (P.C.C. Broadripp, 210) as "my unhappy brother." 

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ney, like the daughters of his kinsman Richard 
of St. Dunstan's, married country gentlemen. 
One was the wife of Sir Charles Eyre, another 
of Colonel John West of Bury St. Edmunds, 
another of Richard Mounteney, an officer of the 
custom-house who succeeded to Roehampton 
House after the death of Thomas Cary.^ 

THE COLEMAN STREET FAMILY 

Contemporary also with Richard and John 
Cary, but of a generation ahead of them, were 
their kinsmen the descendants of the first Chris- 
topher Cary of Bristol.* 

His second son, William Cary (i593?-i664), 
had migrated to London during the Common- 
wealth, and when he died described himself in 
his wilP as "citizen and haberdasher" living in 
Coleman Street. He apparently prospered de- 
cently, if by no means after the fashion of his 
kinsmen we have described, though the Virginia 
records show that he too carried on an export 
trade. He left among other things to his eldest 
son, William Cary of London, "silkman," three 

1 Id LysoDs, Environs of London, 413, is given a neat Latin 
epitaph on the widow of John Gary of Putney, from a portrait 
monument in Putney Church. Lysons says it was composed by her 
"son-in-law, the editor of Demosthenes." The epitaph may have 
been composed by the son-in-law, but it was her grandson, another 
Richard Mounteney (1707-1768), born at Roehampton, who was 
the editor of Demosthenes and an Irish judge. (See Diet, Nat. 
Biog., xiii, 1107.) 



2 See ante, p. 518. 
8 P.C.C. Hyde, 12. 



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houses on the "Key of Bristol," which he had 
inherited from his father. Of this last William 
Gary we have no final record and no dates.^ He 
had two younger brothers. Richard died in Bar- 
badoes in 1685, describing himself as "mer- 
chant"; his wilP shows that he left no issue, but 
names his brothers and sister. The other brother, 
Samuel, is described in his father's and brother 
Richard's wills as "merchant, of London." In 
1689 he, too, died without issue, "late of the 
parish of St. Anne Blackfryers, London, bach- 
elor."« 

So was extinguished, so far as the record. in 
England shows, the line of Christopher Gary of 
Bristol. 

THE HACKNEY FAMILY 

Another merchant, contemporary in London of 
the St. Dunstan's and Putney Garys, and an im- 
portant one, was NICHOLAS GARY (i65o?-i697) 
of Hackney. He was a son of "Nicholas Gary, 
of St. Andrews, Holborn, doctor of medicine."* 

1 Sec query as to his identification with the William Cary who 
appears in the records of Middlesex County, Virginia, from 1696 
to 170a, in The Virginia Carys, 144. 

2 P.C.C. Canrt, 96. 

3P.C.C. Admon, Act Book, 1689. The administratrix was the 
sister Demaris Beriffe; so it is probable that the older brother, 
William Cary, "silkman," was beyond seas if he was not dead. 

^This appears from the entry of the admission of the doctor's 
third son, Benjamin Cary, to Gray's Inn on July 30, 1674 (Foster, 
Admissions to Gray's Inn), who, by his own will (1702, P.C.C 
Degg, 48) and that of Nicholas Cary, goldsmith (1697, P.C.C. 

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Digiti 



j^ dfl M ilUJiir %|i , 



He may have been of immediate kin to the Bris- 
tol Carys^ or sprung from the Guernsey Carys,* 
though more probably derived from the Chep- 

Pyne, 90), is shown to have been the goldsmith's youngest brother. 
Their father, the "doctor of medicine/' was apparently educated 
at Benet College, Cambridge, where a "Nicholas Carey'' is en- 
rolled in 1644. It is perhaps significant that a few years earlier, 
1637, Walter Cary of Everton (i 617-1682), of the Cheping 
Wycombe family, had been at Clare Hall, Cambridge. (Joseph 
Foster's MS. notes for an unpublished Alumni Cantab, seen 1907 
by Captain W. M. Cary in the possession of Canon Wordsworth 
of Marlborough, Wilts.) 

1 According to the parish register of St. Nicholas' Church, Bris- 
tol, Richard Cary, "the elder," had two sons named Nicholas, evi- 
dently after their maternal grandfather, Nicholas Shershaw of 
Abergavenny, one baptized February 16, 161 1 (0.8.), and buried 
ten days later, and the other baptized January 29, 1612 (0.8.). 
The parish register does not record the death of the second 
Nicholas, and his date would permit him to have been the 1674 
London "doctor of medicine" of the same name. Against this 
identification is the fact that the Heralds' College pedigree of 
1700, in reciting the children of Richard Cary, "the elder," of 
Bristol, gives only one Nicholas, without date, recording that he 
"died young," styled Shershaw Cary "eldest son," and makes no 
reference whatever to Nicholas Cary, goldsmith, who was the 
contemporary of the Richard Cary the West India merchant who 
filed the pedigree of 1700. The pedigree of 1700 was, however, 
prepared for a special purpose and does not purport to be com- 
plete: there are proven omissions in it in respect of other lines 
than that of the Richard Cary who files it. Nicholas Cary, gold- 
smith, might have declined to participate in the expense of estab- 
lishing the right to use the arms of Cary of Devon, and so was 
deliberately omitted from Richard Car/s pedigree: this might also 
be a reason for ignoring entirely the second Nicholas among the 
children of Richard Cary "the elder," unless the first infant 
Nicholas had been forgotten except by the parish register, and the 
second had "died young." All of this is mere conjecture and 
hypothesis: the designation of Shershaw Cary as "eldest son" in 
the pedigree of 1700 is probably conclusive against the identification. 

^This conjecture is based on the wills at Somerset House, which 
show Carys in trad^ in London and Southampton apparently de- 
rived from Guernsey and bearing the Guernsey names Nicholas 
and Peter. Again, in 1592 there died at Poole in Dorset one 
Nicholas Curye (P.C.C. Neville, 2), a shipowner, who had a 

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^ II ■lli rt i ilMMiim i il i 



ing Wycombe family^; but in any event his de- 
scendants used the Devon arms.^ 

This Nicholas Gary was a goldsmith in the 
days before the Bank of England was established 
to free the commercial world of England of its 
previous thraldom to that gild.^ He must have 
been as successful as any, for in 1685 we find 
him buying in the large estate of Upcerne in 

brother Peter, who may be a clew to the interest of the Hackney 
goldsmith in Dorset. 

The Guernsey Carys have been continuously *^ jurats of the 
Royal Court," or locally governing magistrates of that island, at 
least since 1527, which is the date of the earliest extant official 
list (Duncan, History of Guernsey, 1841, 573), and have main- 
tained a tradition of a Devon derivation but without specification. 
From their dates it may be conjectured that they sprang from one 
of the Chief Baron's younger sons. They have intermarried with 
the ancient Norman families of the Channel Islands, and in their 
earlier generations were frequently named Nicholas and Peter. 
They now spell their surname Carey. One of them. General 
George Jackson Carey (1822-1872), distinguished himself in the 
Maori war in New Zealand. His nephew, Captain Jahleel Brenton 
Carey, was the unfortunate young officer who was in charge of 
the Prince Imperial when he was slain by the Zulus in 1879. A 
contemporary representative is Victor Gosselin Carey, Esq., advo- 
cate of the Royal Court and receiver-general of the island. (Sec 
JVho*s Who,) For the family generally see Burke, Landed Gentry 
(1914), j.v. Carey of Rozel. 

^ This attribution proceeds, like the others, on conjecture, but is 
based on the pregnant facts that prior to Nicholas Cary, "doctor 
of medicine," we find in the Wycombe family two Nicholas Carys 
who were citizens of London, and also the precedent of one or 
more (probably two) physicians. For the Wycombe Carys gen- 
erally, see ante, p. 522. 

2 C/. Nicholl, Leicestershire, lii, 1021. 

3 The goldsmiths began to receive deposits of money and valu- 
ables during the civil wars, when their previous trade in plate 
had languished and there was a general sense of insecurity, a 
combination of circumstances which brought about a sudden change 
in their economic status; but it was the modification, for which 
Calvin was responsible, of the literal Puritan opinion against 

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Dorset,^ which enabled him to seat his descend- 
ants as country gentlemen and himself to sit in 
Parliament, from 1695 ^^^^^ his death, as a bur- 
gess for Bridport, Dorset.* He died still a young 
man,* leaving a will^ in which he described 
himself as still of Hackney, entailed Upcerne 
upon his son Nicholas and his descendants, and 
otherwise disposed of a large estate. 

From this first Nicholas Cary of Hackney 
descended his son Nicholas (1681-1720?), who 
was baptized at St. John's at Hackney,** but 
established himself at Upcerne after his father's 
death, where he became sheriff of Dorset in 

"usury" that accomplished their transformation from tradesmen 
to private bankers. In this capacity for a time they prospered 
greatly, but seem ultimately to have abused their opportunity, for 
as bankers they fell into disrepute. For a picture of them at their 
first appearance as bankers see Lives of the Norths, ed. Jessop, 
», 175- 

^ Hutchins, History of Dorset, iv, 157. "The parish of Upcerne 
contains about 11,000 acres. The manor continued in the family 
of Mellors of Luttle Brcdy until 168$, when it was sold in pay- 
ment for debts by Edward Mellor, Esq., to Nicholas Cary of 
Hackney, Middlesex, who is therein described as 'citizen and 
goldsmith of London,' the consideration price being £11,000 and 
I20 broad pieces of gold." 

^Return of Members of Parliament, 1879. 

3 His brother Benjamin was bom in 1653, as shown by his ad- 
mission to Gray's Inn. We assign the conjectural birth date of 
1650 to the older brother. 

* P.C.C. Pyne, 90. He names his brothers Philip and Benjamin, 
the barrister, and the children of "my late brother Christopher." 
This Christopher (1658-1692) had married Margaret Lenthall at 
St. Mary Magdalen, Old Fish Street, London, in 1682, describing 
himself as then "of Hackney, bachelor, 24" (Foster, Marriage 
Licenses) f and died at Barbadoes commanding the merchant ship 
Elizabeth and Susan, (P.C.C. Admon, Act Book, 1692.) 

5 Parish register in W, M, Cary Notes, 

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■%aJ0WByjni ^^ 



1715.^ He died after 1719,^ for his son was born 
in that year. 

This second Nicholas left as his successor at 
Upcerne a third Nicholas (1719-1761), who 
married the heiress of the family of Strode, long 
seated in the vicinity of Upcerne, and died at 
forty-two,* leaving a son, Nicholas Strode Gary 
(1760-1784), who served as a subaltern in the 
army and died unmarried at the age of twenty- 
four, when Upcerne passed to the heirs of 
Strode,* his mother's people, and the male line 
of the Hackney family came to an end. 

THE CHISWICK FAMILY 

Contemporary with the other London mer- 
chants we have mentioned was the family of 
John Gary (1604-1702) of Ditchley, co. 
Oxon, who were, comparatively recently, derived 
from Devon. We have seen that one of the 
younger sons of Thomas Gary of Gockington, 
father of the Lord Deputy, was that John Gary 
(1552-1622?) who is called on the Visitation 
pedigrees "of Dudley," because he left Devon 
and for some time resided at Dudley Gastle in 
Staffordshire as "Ranger of the Ghace of Pens- 

1 Hutchins, History of Dorset, iv, 158. 

* We cannot find his will or otherwise establish the exact date of 
his death. But see the will (P.C.C. Aston, 47) of his spinster sister 
Jane, who continued to reside at Hackney and died there in 17 13. 

s He is buried at Upcerne Church. See the M. I. in Hutchins, 
History of Dorset, iv, 158. See also his will, P.C.C. Cheslyn, 311. 

* Hutchins, loc. cit, 

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Plate VIII 
THE MOUSHALL CARYS 



XIII 



XIV 



XV 



XVI 



XVII 



John i 552-1 622? 

of Dudley, Moushall, and 

Cockington 

Sec Plate III 



Thomas i577?-i644 
fourth son, of Moushall 



John 1604-1702 
of Ditchley, esq. 



Francis Henry 
1642-1712 
a clergyman 

John 1643-1676 

a Turkey merchant 

o,s.p, 

Charles i 645-1 677 

of London, "grocer" 

o,s.p, 

Thomas 1647-1694 

of Chiswick, "mercer" 

o.s.p, 

Richard 1650?-! 707 

of Chiswick, sometime 

"fishmonger" 



Richard 1698-1761 
of Wilcot, esq. 
o,i,p. 



XVIII 



Edward i 608-1 664 
of Moushall 



Thomas, Sr. 

liv. 1702, dead 17 19 



Thomas, Jr. 

"the watchmaker" 

liv. 1702 and 17 19, unm., 

John ob, 1789 

of Banbury, "steel drill 

maker" 



Joseph, steel drill maker, 
Thomas, 

Edward^ innkeeper at Ban- 
bury, 
Richard^ 

all living 1778 and 1789 
of Birmingham, co. War- 
wick, and Banbury, co. 
Oxon. 

Some of them probably left 
issue 



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nett, Co. Staff, of Edward Lord Dudley"; but 
most of his life he lived at Moushall in the same 
shire.^ In this modest abode he established his 
third son Thomas (i52o?-i644), who in turn 
was succeeded at Moushall by a younger son 
Edward. The eldest son of this Thomas was 
that other John Gary, with whose sons we are 
now concerned. He had transferred himself to 
Oxfordshire and is styled "of Ditchley" at the 
Visitation of Staffordshire of 1664, ^s also in the 
Spelsbury parish register prior to that date, but 
in his will* describes himself "of the Burrough 
of New Woodstock, co. Oxon, gent." 

These Carys had not prospered; apparently 
they had failed in the first duty of country gen- 
tlemen who would maintain their line, namely, 
to marry an heiress in at least every other gene- 
ration. When the civil wars came they were 
unable to withstand the shock, and though John 
Gary of Ditchley maintained his own status 
throughout his extraordinarily long life of 
ninety-eight years,^ all his sons but one (who 
was a clergyman) went up to London to repair 
the family fortunes in trade. Of the four broth- 

^ See ante, p. 261. The subsequent pedigree of this family in 
Staffordshire and Oxfordshire, headed Cary of Moushall and 
certified by John Cary "of Ditchley," is included in the Visitation 
of Staffordshire of 1664. (William Salt Society Publications, 
1885, V, pt. 2y p. 7a.) 

2 P.C.C. Hem, ia8. 

3 He was born in the second year of James I and lived down to 
the beginning of the reign of Queen Anne. 

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ers so engaged during the last half of the seven- 
teenth century, John (1643-1676) was, like 
Tristram Shandy's father, a Turkey merchant, 
and died unmarried at Smyrna;* another, 
Charles (1645-1677), describes himself in his 
wilP as a bachelor of "Stowe-with-nine- 
churches, co. Northants and late of London, 
grocer." The third, Thomas (1647-1694), be- 
came "of St. Michael le Queme, London, citizen 
and mercer,"* and prospered, so that before the 
end of his life he had, after the fashion of rich 
merchants, established himself in a suburban 
villa, at Chiswick, and dying without surviving 
issue left by will^ a large estate to his younger 
brother, the Benjamin of the family. This Rich- 
ard Gary (1661-1707) had been "citizen and 
fishmonger,"^ but after inheriting his brother's 
estate he retired to Chiswick, sent his eldest son 
to Oxford and to the Middle Temple to study 
law,® and when he died described himself in his 
wilF as "of Chiswick, Co. Middlesex, gent."® 

iScc hiB will, P.CC. Bence, 109. 

2 P.CC. Reeves, 23. 

8 Sec the record of his two marriages in 1674 and 1679 >" Foster, 
London Marriages, 

* P.CC. Box, 151. See also the will of his widow Elizabeth Gary, 
who died in 1695, BonJ, 135. 

^ See his marriage license in 1686 in Foster, London Marriages, 

®This Thomas Gary, apparently a youth of promise, died much 
lamented in 1710 at the age of seventeen, and was buried at 
Ghiswick. (See Lysons, Environs of London, 204.) 

7 P.CC Foley, 222. 

8 He is buried with his brother Thomas in Chiswick Church. 

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The surviving son of this Richard was another 
Richard (1698-1761), who on the accumulation 
of a generation of trade reverted to his ancestors' 
status, and, although he succeeded also to the 
Chiswick property, described himself in his 
wilH as "of Wilcott, co. Oxford, Esquire." He 
died without issue. The Chiswick line failed 
with him, but the commercial tradition which 
it had established persisted in another branch of 
their immediate kin. Becoming manufacturers 
in metals rather than merchants of raw mate- 
rials, they illustrate the industrial development 
of England from the seventeenth to the eigh- 
teenth century. The significant fact is that these 
Carys repeated, under the test of recent and 
provable records, the experience of the descend- 
ants of the more remote cadet of Gary of Devon 
who founded Gary of Bristol. 

The persistence of Cary of MoushalL 

We have noted that a younger brother of John Cary "of 
Ditchley" succeeded to MoushalL This Edward Cary was 
hving at Moushall, atat 56, at the Visitation of StafiFord- 
shireof 1664, and was buried at King's Swynford,co. Stafford. 
He left children Thomas, John, Anne, Mary, and Elizabeth, 
who are named in the will of their uncle John Cary of 
Ditchley (P.C.C. Hem, 128), in those of his sons the mer- 
chants supra, and in that of their spinster sister Mary 
(1719, P.C.C. Browning, 102). Of the sons, the eldest, 

Sec the reference to the monument in his son's will (Cheslyn, 85), 
and Lysons, Environs of London, 204. 
1 P.C.C. Cheslyn, 85. 

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^ "" ^ 



Thomas, apparently alone left issue: they arc named in the 
will of their aunt Mary, viz. : Thomas, Jr. (styled in the 
will of his great-uncle John of Ditchley, "the watchmaker")* 
to whom, his aunt Mary said, Moushall "belongs by inherit- 
ance," John and "his three children," Charles and Elizabeth, 
who married James Stafford, and had got possession of 
Moushall, which her aunt exhorted her to surrender to her 
eldest brother. In the next generation we find the "three 
children" of John, viz.: John, Jr., "steel drill maker of 
Banbury," co. Oxon, who left a will (1789, P.C.C. 
Macham, 240), Mary and Sarah. If Elizabeth Stafford 
had done injustice to her brother, her son Cary Stafford "of 
London, glass manufacturer," apparently made it good. He 
died unmarried in 1778, leaving a will (P.C.C. Hay, 416) 
with substantial legacies to his cousin John of Banbury and 
his sons Joseph, Thomas, Edward, and Richard, who it 
appeared were then in business as manufacturers in Birm- 
ingham. With them our record of the Moushall Carys 
terminates. 

THE HAMPSTEAD FAMILY 

Another, and in this instance a direct, migration 
of the Devon Carys to London to engage in 
trade appears in the family of James Cary 
(1622-1694) of Hampstead, a Virginia mer- 
chant and the first of three generations in that 
trade who sold tobacco on commission for the 
Virginia planters and purchased for them in 
England those supplies from a "Fashionable sett 
of Desert Glasses" or "2 wild beasts, not to ex- 
ceed 12 inches in height nor 18 in length," to a 
"chariot in the newest taste, handsome, genteel 

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Plate IX 

THE BIDEFORD AND HAMPSTEAD 
CARYS 



XII 



XIII 



XIV 



XV 



Robert 15 13-1586 
of Clovelly, M.P. 
See Plate II 



James i55o?-i632 
fifth son, of 
Bideford, merchant 



James 1597-1635 

of Bideford and Alwington, 

merchant 



James 1622-1694 
of London, "salter" 



Francis i 629-1 680 

of Exeter, o,s.p. 

"A Voyage to Virginia" 



XVI 



XVII 



Oswald i66o?-i69i 
of Middlesex County, 
Virginia, o.s.p.m. 



I 

Robert i 685-1 751 
of Hampstead 
"Virginia merchant" 



Robert i 730-1 777 
of Hampstead 
"Virginia merchant" 
o.s,p.m. 



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■%yg M i}ij i j>^n ^% ^ 



and light," and so contributed to that English 
flavor in Virginia colonial life which is its racy 
characteristic.^ 

No evidence has yet come to light definitely 
to identify the origin of this James, but the tra- 
dition of his descendants is clear that he was a 
scion from the Devon tree,^ and it seems likely 

^ See the letters which Colonel George Washington wrote to 
Messrs. Robert Cary & Co. beginning May i, 1759, immediately 
on his taking over the management of the Custis estate after his 
marriage, particularly the lists of supplies he ordered to be sent 
him, and the manly letter of August 10, 1764, explaining why he 
was in arrears to Cary & Co. (Ford, Writings of Washington, 
ii, 126 et seq. ; and compare an illuminating paper by John Spencer 
Bassett, The Relations betiveen the Virginia Planter and the Lon- 
don Merchant, Report of Am. Hist. Asso., 1901, i, 553.) On the 
other hand, but few papers coming out of the counting-house of 
Cary & Co. have survived in the Virginia records, and those of 
the most formal character. Their letter-books during three gener- 
ations would make a rich contribution to the meagre material for 
the history of colonial Virginia planters. 

2 Thus, in the Herald and Genealogist, iv, 391, the Rev. 
Charles J. Robinson says: "The family of Wcckcs resident in co. 
Sussex claim to be descended from the ennobled Carys through the 
Hamptons. The Rev. William Hampton, rector of Worth, co. 
Sussex, married 1688 Elizabeth, daughter of James and Anne Cary, 
who was bom at Aston, co. Oxon, in 1669.*' This Hampton 
marriage appears in the will (F.C.C. Box, 243) of James of 
Hampstead, and in the Hampton pedigree in Nicholls, Coll, Topo, 
et Gen,, vi, 294. Again, Lewis E. V. Turner, of London, a de- 
scendant of James Cary through his grandson Robert, the last 
Virginia merchant of the line, who married in 1890 a daughter 
of Gouvemeur Morris of New York, whose mother and grand- 
mother were both Virginia Carys, has rehearsed to the present 
editor the same tradition derived from his grandmother. Such a 
tradition constantly maintained in a family for two hundred years 
is not to be disregarded; especially when backed up by the un- 
interrupted use of the Devon arms, of which there are several 
surviving evidences. It is clear, however, that James Cary was 
not descended from the "ennobled" Carys. If he had been of the 
Hunsdon family, of which anything seems possible, his son Robert, 
a man of importance at the time Le Neve was searching for heirs 

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lllllh^llSMBSfe^MlMMM 9j^ 



from the iterated reproduction of the Clovelly 
name Robert among those descendants that he 
came of that household. This assumption finds 
a warrant in the fact that a cadet line of the 
Clovelly family had been engaged in trade at 
Bideford for two generations when in 1622 they 
baptized a son James, otherwise unaccounted 
for, who fits into the known facts relating to 
our Virginia merchant.^ Robert Gary, son of 
the last marriage of the Compostela pilgrim, 
who inherited Clovelly, left among his other 
children^ a fifth son, James, who appears on the 
1620 Visitation pedigree with his second wife, 
Catherine, daughter of George Basset of Tehidy. 
He was living at Bideford in 1584, when he 
there baptized a son, Robert, by his first wife, 
Mary Prouse, and there he was himself buried 
in September, 1632. He was a merchant trad- 
ing on the Newfoundland cod fisheries, a magis- 
trate and the chief man of his town, with whom 
the secretary of state corresponded, as appears 
from the references to him in the contemporary 

to the Hunsdon peerage, is not likely to have been overlooked: 
on the other hand, the Falkland pedigree may be said to be proof 
against further intrusion. 

James Car/s second marriage in Oxfordshire naturally sug- 
gests that he was, like the Chiswick family, one of the numerous 
descendants of John Gary "of Dudley*' who found their way into 
Oxfordshire; but Captain W. M. Caiys diligent tests of the Spels- 
bury and other Oxon parish registers definitely eliminated him 
from among them. 

1 But see ante, p. 381, as to the contemporary James Gary of the 
Gockington family. 

2 See ante, p. 182. 

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tS0^ 



state papers.* His fourth, but apparently eldest 
surviving, son James was baptized at Bideford, 
February lo, 1597/8, and in November, 1615, 
married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Gren- 
ville of Aldercombe. His first two children 
were baptized at Bideford, but, though he con- 
tinued to do business at Bideford, in 1617 he 
moved his residence to Alwington, a village not 
far distant, where was established the family of 
his father's youngest brother Francis. There 
were baptized his sons Timothy (1618), James 
(1622), whom we here identify as the founder 
of the Hampstead family, John (1626), Francis 
( 1629) , and a daughter Julian ( 1624) ; and there 
Jamesi^ was himself buried in 1635. The 
Devon record of this family goes no further.^ 
Younger sons of younger sons, Royalist in their 
breeding, depending upon commerce for their 
livelihood, it is evident that they fell on parlous 
times under the Commonwealth, and we might 
expect to find some among them emigrating. 
It seems quite clear that Francis did so in 1649,^ 

1 Cf. Granville, History of Bideford. 

2 This extension of the Visitation of 1620 from the parish regis- 
ters is the achievement of Colonel Vivian (157, 158). What 
patient work it represents is evident from the previous failure 
of Mr. Robert Dymond in the same field, as evidenced by his MS. 
notes now penes me. 

* Francis Gary, son of James of Bideford and Alwington, born 
in 1629, was twenty years of age in 1649. In August of that year 
three Cavaliers, Colonel Henry Norwood, Major Francis Mory- 
son, and Major Richard Fox, met in London in pursuance of a 
previous engagement "in order to full accomplishment of our 
purpose to seek our fortunes in Virginia." (See Colonel Nor- 

[1697:1 



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and it is possible that James either followed or 
preceded him, for when we have our first certain 
glimpse of the Virginia merchant in 1659, after 
he was established as a "citizen and Salter" in 
London, it is in relation to Virginia under cir- 
cumstances which suggest that if he had not been 
in the colony he had through his first wife close 
family associations there, and we know that his 
son by that wife made his career in Virginia.* 
At all events we find James Gary busy with 

wood's narrative, A Voyage to Virginia, in Force Tracts, vol. iii.) 
They sailed on the ship The Virginia Merchant, and after a 
disastrous voyage were cast away on one of the islands in 
Chincoteague Bay on the eastern shore of Maryland. In describ- 
ing their proceedings in this plight, Colonel Norwood says: 
"Amongst the rest a young gentleman, Mr. Francis Gary by name, 
was very helpful to me in the fatigue and active part of this 
undertaking. He was strong and healthy and was very ready 
for any employment I could put upon hioL He came recommended 
to me by Sir Edward Thurlan, his genius leading him rather to a 
planter's life abroad than to any course his friends could propose 
to him in England: and this rough entrance was like to let him 
know the worst at first." Colonel Norwood later refers to him as 
"my cousin," but does not say what became of him when the 
survivors of the party at last made their way to the Virginia 
settlements. If, as seems likely, this adventurer was identical 
with the Francis of the Alwington family, he seems to have re- 
turned promptly to England, for there is no further record of 
him in Virginia, and Colonel Vivian has shown (157) that he 
married Gertrude Meech at Hartland on August 30, 1653. He 
was probably the Francis Gary who died at Exeter in 1680 leaving 
a will proved in the bishop's registry. 

iSee the will (P.C.G. Pell, 450), dated June 35, 1659, of Luke 
Johnson "of Virginia, planter," appointing James Gary, "citizen 
and Salter," one of the executors and leaving a legacy to James 
Gary's (first) wife Elizabeth. This suggests that she was of kin to 
Johnson; the more because we find James Gary associated with 
James Johnson "of St. Sepulchers, London, Gent." in another Vir- 
ginia will of 1675. (See Va. Mag., xi, 366, 78.) 

For James's son, Gaptain Oswald Gary of Middlesex Gounty, 
Virginia, see The Virginia Carys, 143. 

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Virginia affairs during the rest of his life: per- 
haps the most interesting scrap of our informa- 
' tion in that respect is that in 1682 he prosecuted 
in England, for some of his Virginia correspond- 
ents, a claim against Sir William Berkeley for 
unjust exactions upon them during Bacon's re- 
bellion.^ 

In 1664 James Gary, then describing himself 
as "of St. Margt & Moses, London, salter, wid^" 
* married a second wife, Anne Dabson, daughter 
of Robert Dabson, "of Aston, co. Oxon, gent.,"* 
by whom he had several children, including a 
son James, who took his portion and went forth 
from the paternal mansion,^ and the youngest, 
who carried on the business in London. His 
will* mentions all these children of the second 
marriage and leaves a legacy to the "daughter 
of my late sonne Oswell Gary, deceased," so 
designating Gaptain Oswald Gary of Virginia. 
He directs that he be buried beside his pew in 
St Austin's Ghurch, Watling Street, near which 
he dwelt. The youngest son, Robert Gary 
(1685?-! 751), was still living in Watling Street 

^ fT, & M. Quar., ix, 45. See also Bruce, Economic History of 
Firginia, ii, 324. 

2 Sec the marriage license, September 27, 1664 (Foster, London 
Marriages), and Anne (Dabson) Gary's will, proved March 19, 
1705, P.C.C. Goe, 157. 

3 He died without issue in 1726. See his will, P.C.C. Plymouth, 
178, and the conjecture as to his having been in Virginia in The 
Firginia Carys, 149. 

^ It is dated October 25, 1694, and proved December 20 of the 
same year. (P.C.C. Box, 243.) 

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iMi^iiiflMf iatuigii ii w i ^^ 



in 1701/ doubtless over his counting-house, in 
accordance with the ancient city practice. There 
he carried on his inherited Virginia trade under 
the firm "Robert Gary & Co.," by which it was 
to be known until the American Revolution. He 
was the London representative of the Virginia 
Indian Company in 1716, and in 1732 had an in- 
terest in Governor Spotswood's ironworks.^ Fall- 
ing in with the growth of luxury in the mer- 
cantile classes which came with increased pros- 
perity, he established at Hampstead a country 
house to which he refers in his will with evident 
affection as well as in the direction that he be 
buried at Hampstead. He married, first, Eliza- 
beth Hele,® but had children only by his second 
wife. Amy Braithwaite,* his son and successor 

1 See the will of William Aylward, "late of Virginia, merchant/' 
P.C.C. PoUy, 24, calendared in Fa. Mag,, xi, 151. 

* See Colonel William Byrd, Progress to the Mines (ed. Bassett), 
378, and Brock, Spotsivood Papers, i, p. xiii; ii, 144. 

* See the marriage license, November 12, 1719, in Foster, London 
Marriages, 

^ Her death is noted in London Magazine, 1769, p. 592. (See 
her will, proved October 27, 1769, P.CC. Bogg, 337.) The identifi- 
cation of her family name as Braithwaite is conjectural, resting 
upon the existence of a china plate (now in possession of Mr. 
Hugh Cary-Askew of London as an heirloom of the family since 
the time of Robert Gary, Sr.), showing an impalement of the 
arms of Gary and Braithwaite, and the fact that Robert Gary 
and his wife are buried with William Yerbury, who declares 
himself in his will (P.G.G. Henchman, 205) to be a cousin of 
Braithwaite. In his will Robert Gary, Sr., refers to '*my wife's 
mother Mrs. Shaban." She had married Vincent Ghabane of 
Hammersmith for a second husband. (See his will, proved 1721, 
P.G.G. Buckingham, 126.) 

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and a daughter. By his will* he disposed of a 
large estate and made particular provision for 
his partners to carry on his Virginia trade until 
his son should be old enough to take over the 
business. He was buried at Hampstead parish 
church.^ This son, a second Robert Gary (1730- 
1777), carried on until his death the business as 
a Virginia merchant, and was the correspond- 
ent, among others, of George Washington and 

1 It is dated July 24, 1751, and proved November 18 of the 
same year. (P.C.C. I Busby, $02.) He died October 23, 1751, as 
was noted in the London Magazine, 1751, p. 477. 

^ The M. I. noted in Lysons, Environs of London, 538, was redis- 
covered and redeciphered in 1906 by Captain W. M. Gary. His 
Notes record: "Sunday, April 29, 1906, wheeled out to Hampstead 
parish church at 11-12 A.M. and staid until $ p.m. endeavoring 
to clean and decipher the very faint time worn inscription on a 
handsome altar tomb monument, at the left of the western portal, 
in the church yard. . . . After much rubbing and washing in the 
hail showers that from time to time moistened the overlaying 
mould, I managed to bring to light almost every word and figure 
of the wholly engraven roof slab, as follows: *In a Vault under 
this Tomb lieth Interred the body of Mr. William Hart, Late 
Citizen and Mercer of London, who departed this life the of 
January, 1717, aged • . Also the Body of Mr. John Hart, 
Father of the above said William Hart, Citizen and Mercer of 
London, who died the 3d of July, 1707, in the 61 year of His age. 
And the Body of Mrs. Rebecca Hart, Daughter of the above said 
John Hart, who died the of March, 17 . And the body 

of William Yerbury, Esq., who died September the , 1739, 

aged 68. Also Robert Carey, Esq., merchant of London, who died 
October 23, 1751, aged 76. Mrs. Amy Cary, Relict of Robert 
Gary, Esq., Died October 23, 1769, aged 69.' " 

The connection of Robert Gary, Sr., with the Harts does not 
appear, but it seems probable they were of the Braithwaite kin. 
The will (P.G.C. Henchman, 205) of the William Yerbury who 
is named on the tomb calls Robert Gary "my good friend" and 
creates him executor. It mentions also "my cousin Mary Braith- 
waite," so he at least was apparently kin to Robert Gary's 
second wife. 

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Jf^ 



Thomas Jefferson. He married first a daughter 
of Dr. Robert Smith of Combe Hay, co. Somer- 
set,^ by whom he had two daughters,* and, sec- 
ond, in 1773, Susanna Yorke of Hampstead.' By 
his second wife he had another daughter, 
through whom his tradition has persisted.* 

He died in 1777, in his forty-eighth year,** at 
a time doubtless of no little business anxiety; 
the American Revolution had brought to an end 
the trade which, under the protection of the 
navigation laws, had been lucrative in steadily 
increasing ratio to his grandfather, his father, 
and until recently to him.^ We can have little 

^ See Collinson, History of Somerset, iii, 336. 

* See the reference to his first wife in his will. Of her two 
daughters one died a spinster, the other married Adam Askew, 
but left no issue. 

^ Gentleman's Magazine, 1773. 

^ She was Lucy Elizabeth Gary, an infant at the time of her 
father's death, when his will was contested in her behalf. She 
ultimately married a nephew of her half-sister's husband, the 
son of Dr. Anthony Askew, by profession a physician, but more 
celebrated as a classical scholar and book collector. (See Diet, 
Nat. Biog,, i, 664.) From this marriage ("Thomas Askew, Esq., 
of the New Romney Light Dragoons, to Miss Lucy Elizabeth Gary 
of Wimpole Street," says the Gentleman's Magazine for 1796) are 
descended the families of Gary-Askew and Turner of London, 
referred to ante, pp. 695, 700. 

^ "Died vi April, 1777, aged 47 years'* is the M. L on the altar 
tomb in Hampstead Churchyard, similar in design to that of the 
Harts under which his father was buried. (IT. M. Gary Notes,) 
The second Robert Gary's will is dated November a6, 1773: by 
reason of the contest it was not proved until April 3, 1779. (P.G.G. 
IV ar bur ton, 146.) 

® For a discussion of the development of England's trade with 
her colony of Virginia and of the merchants engaged in it, see 
Bruce, Economic History, ch. xv and xvL 

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doubt of his political sentiments at the time: 
like other Englishmen of his class who had bat- 
tened^ on the mercantile system in relation to the 
colonies and had had opportunity to learn at 
first hand the character and strength which the 
colonists had developed, he favored the prac- 
tical adjustment which was so long possible and 
did not stand on the punctilio of political form 
which controlled his obstinate sovereign.* 

He described himself in his will as "of Hamp- 
stead, Co. Middlesex, Esquire," and, like his 
father, took pride in the comfortable country 
seat on the Thames near the pleasant village of 
Hammersmith, which was his inherited pied a 
terre. The place has since been swallowed up 

^ Cf, William Byrd (A Progress to the Mines, 1732) : "And then 
our good Friends, the Merchants, load it with so many charges 
that they run away with great part of the profit themselves. Just 
like the Bald Eagle, which, after the Fishing Hawk has been at 
great pains to catch a Fish, pounces upon and takes it from him." 
(See also Sioussat, Virginia and the English Commercial System 
l7^o^l73S' Report Am. Hist. Asso., 1905, i, 75*) 

«Sir George Otto Trevelyan {The American Revolution, iii, 
ch. 25) has an illuminating discussion of the political sentiment 
of the city of London towards the colonies at this time. It was 
preponderantly against the war, not from any idealistic sympathy 
but from injured self-interest and business judgment of the out- 
come of the war. "In 1775 the hostilities in Massachusetts found 
city opinion sullen and recalcitrant: and that state of mind rapidly 
developed into angry and determined opposition. . . . The silent 
testimony of the Stocks, those authentic witnesses who never boast 
and never flatter, unanswerably proves that the City of London 
at no time shared with the Court and the Cabinet in the delusion 
that the colonies could be subdued by arms." 

See also Samuel Curwen's Journal for August, 1776, for evi- 
dences of the state of mind of English merchants and manu- 
facturers in the face of their loss of American trade. 

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in the westward growth of London, but Robert 
Gary's name long remained on a characteristic 
English monument near its site.^ 

THE ST. FAITH'S FAMILY 

There was another family of London merchants 
in this generation, of humbler circumstances at 
the time than those we have described, but which 
has since produced that Gary who has distin- 
guished the name more than any, except the sec- 
ond Lord Falkland. We do not know what was 
their immediate origin.^ We find in 171 1 a will 
of one William Gary, "of Whitechapel, co. 
Middlesex, carman,"* who, dying without chil- 
dren, disposed of several "car roomes" or li- 
censed street stands for public trucks, among the 
children of his brother John Gary, namely: 
Mordccai, John, Elizabeth, Jane, and William. 
The name Mordecai is our clew to the identi- 
fication of these brothers John and William, citi- 

1 Faulkner, History and Antiquities of Hammersmith (1839), 
266. "Aogel Lane leads to the Bridge Road and the water tide. 
On a square stone in this lane is this inscription: *This road is the 
property of Robert Gary, Esq.' Above are the arms now nearly 
defaced: Arg. on a bend sa. 3 roses of the field, for Cary. ... At 
the southern extremity of this lane is a stone set into the wall 
with this inscription: *Adam and John Askew late Robert Gary.'" 

2 The fact that Mordecai Gary went to Ireland in 1731 as part 
of and established his career under the vice-royal administration 
of the Duke of Dorset, in which Walter Gary of Everton was the 
chief secretary, may have been merely a coincidence or it may 
indicate that the St Faith's family were akin to the Gheping 
Wycombe Garys. (See ante, p. 522.) 

3 P.G.G. Young, 163. 

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I fciaJMliu^Mfc— ■ ii^Hl 



zens of London, as the father and uncle of Mor- 
decai Gary (1687-1751), who was baptized at 
St Faith's Church, in the Crypt of St. Paul's, 
August 15, 1687, as the son of John Cary, citi- 
zen, of the Company of Cooks,^ and Jane, his 
wife. He was admitted to Christ Hospital, from 
St. Faith's, in 1695, matriculated at Trinity Col- 
lege, Cambridge, as a subsizar, and accompa- 
nied the first Duke of Dorset to Ireland in 
173 1 as chaplain to the lord lieutenant: there 
promptly he became Bishop of Clonfert and, in 
^735) of Killala, the see in which he died.^ His 
son Henry Cary (i7i5?-i769) was educated at 
Trinity College, Dublin, and entered the Irish 
Church, serving as Archdeacon of Killala while 
and after his father was bishop and until his 
own death. He had several children by two 
wives. One of them, William Cary (1740?- 
1837?), for some time a captain in the army, but 
afterwards during a long life a country gentle- 
man of Cannock in Staffordshire, was stationed 
at Gibraltar in 1772, when and where was born 

1 Stow (Survey of London) tays: "Under the choir of Paules 
also wat a parish church of St Faith, commonly called St. Faith 
under PauPs, which served for the stationers and others dwelling 
in Faules churchyard, Paternoster row and the places near ad- 
joining.*' One will recall the use Ainsworth made of St. Faiths in 
his grisly novel Old St. Pauls, Perhaps this John Cary kept one of 
the coffee-houses in the churchyard which were afterwards so 
famous as places of resort for the clergy and literati, znd by such 
association his son Mordecai was stimulated to seek the education 
which made his career. 

2 He is buried at Killala. His will is in P.C.D. liber 1751. 

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his son, Henry Francis Gary (1772-1844), the 
translator of Dante, who lived in Hogarth's 
house at Chiswick and is buried in Westminster 
Abbey beside Dr. Samuel Johnson.^ 

Other Carys in London 

Among the numerous Carys whose temporal affairs crowd 
the records of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury during 
and after the eighteenth century, but who cannot be identi- 
fied with any of the families of which we have treated, 
several made their names known in London by residence 
and achievement for good or evil, and so have found their 
ways into the biographical dictionaries. We enumerate them 
here for the purpose of elimination. 

Henry Carey (d. 1743), song writer, author of "Sally 
in Our Alley," and, by his son's claim, of "God Save the 
King," is reputed to have been the son of a schoolmistress 
named Carey, by George Savile, the famous Marquis of 
Halifax. His son, 

Ge(H(GE Savile Carey (i 743-1807), also a song writer, 
was an unsuccessful actor, whose daughter Anne, a strolling 
player, became the mother of one of the lights of the stage, 

Edmund Carey, alias Kean (1787-1833). 

William Cary (i 759-1 825) was a notable maker of 
philosophical instruments in London. 

Matthew Carey (i 760-1839), the Philadelphia pub- 
lisher, his brothers John (1756-1820), editor of school 
books, and William Paulet (i 759-1830), engraver and art 
critic, were sons of a prosperous baker in Dublin. 

WiLLL\M Carey (i 761-1834), the Indian missionary, 
whose "Life" by William Smith is a nonconformist classic, 

^ Sec Memoir of the Rev. Henry Francis Cary, by his son, Heory 
Cary, 1847. 

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was the son of a weaver in Northhamptonshire and himself 
began life as a village shoemaker. His biographer suggests 
that his family was derived from Ireland. 

John Cary (fl. 1798), mapmaker, was the author of a 
useful and popular itinerary of English roads which was 
reproduced in ten editions. 

David Carey (i 782-1 824), journalist and poet, was 
the son of a manufacturer at Arbroath in Scotland. 

James Carey (i 845-1 883), the Fenian and Irish in- 
former, was the son of a bricklayer of Kildare. 

Rosa Nouchette Carey (1840-1909), the novelist, was 
the daughter of a ship-broker in London. 



THE END 



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INDEX OF FAMILY NAMES 



Agassiz, 562 
Amherst, 475 
Andrews, 275 
Anthon, 477 
Archdale, 665 
Archdeacon, 34 
Arundell, 53 
Ashburnham, 264 
Askew, 702 

Bagge, 264 
Ball, 516 
Bamfylde, 183 
Bannister, 545 
Barker, 190 
Barrett, 401 
Barri, 40 

Basset t, 630, 662, 696 
Beauchamp, 16 
Beaufort, 130,305 
Beaumont, 31, 68 
Bennet, 635, 643 

Berkeley, 351, 362, 57 1 » 644 

Bertie, 405 

Bingley, 249, 254 

Blackhurst, 289 

Bland, 403 

Blanket, 499 

Blount, 227, 323 

Bodley, 517 

Bohun, 107, 118, 319, 350, 



393 



Boleyn, 316 
Bosun, 53, 174 
Bouchier, 135, 202, 217 

Boyle, 215, 377 
Braithwaite, 700 
Braose, 37 
Brewer, 286 
Brian, 50, 63, 67, 209 
Browne, 531 
Bury, 197 
Busby, 276 
Butler, 305, 317, 350 
Byron, 454, 476 

Callow, 683 

Cantiloupe, 37 

Canynges, 492 

Carevill, 15 

Carew, 28, 37, 151. 184, 191, 

200, 217, 397 
Carr, 37, 382, 502 
Carwithan, 20 
Gary, Kary, Carye, and 

Carey, 10 
Cary, Bishops of Exeter, 

105, 357 
Cary of Bridgewater, Mass., 

554 
Cary of Guernsey, 688 
Cary of Wycombe, 522 
Cavendish, 210, 315, 350 



1:7093 



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Chichester, 197, 217, 247, 

273 
Cifrewast, 49 
Clifford, 379 
Clive, 403 
, Cockington, 191 
Cokayne, 365, 367 
Coke, 330, 367 
Coker, 368 
Collins, 527 
Colston, 550 
Conyers, 356 
Coolidge, 295, 668 
Copplestone, 29 
Cordell, 199, 257 
Courtenay, 34, 37, 51, 67, 

70, 73, 107, 313 
Cranfield, 387 
Crewkem, 174 
Crompton, 401 
Cromwell, 384 

Dabson, 699 
Dacre, 340, 350 
Danvers, 235, 371 
Davies, 250 
Dee, 328 
Denny, 395 
Devereux, 5 1 , 22 1 , 25 1 
Deviock, 166 
Dillon, 474 
Donworthy, 16 
Drake, 168, 379 

Edgecombe, 9 
Elwes, 550, 679 
Eyre, 685 

Fairfax, 354, 373, 400, 527, 
658 



i^iriSHi9»rti 



Feilding, 388. 
Felton, 562 
Fitz Clarence, 477 
Fitzmartyn, 191 
Flemming, 360 
Flood, 681 

Foley, 351 

Fortescue, 135, 217, 356 

Frazier, 373 

Fulford, 124, 168, 266, 303 

Fulkeram, 151 

Gascoigne, 400 
Gerard, 333, 373 
Giffard, 174, 196, 209 
Gilbert, 207, 217 
Godolphin, 211 
Goodall, 518 
Goodrich, 294 
Gorges, 185 
Granville, 472 
Graves, 562 
Grenville, 200, 697 
Grosvenor, 387 

Hamilton (Clanbrassil), 

388 
Hamlyn, 190 
Hampton, 695 
Handcock, 188 
Hankeford, 30, loi, 119 
Harris, 188, 273 
Harrison, 295, 667, 682 
Hart, 701 
Harvey, 544 
Hawkins, 552, 554 
Hayes, 462 
Hele, 700 



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Helyar, 167 
Hereford, 538 
Herle, 151, 167 
Heveningham, 367 
Hobson, 500, 538 
Hoby, 356 
Hody, 151, 167 
Hogcnhove, 374 
Holford, 527 
Hoi ton, 516 
Holway, 50, 63, 209 
Home, 421 
Hoo, 316 
Howard, 317, 355 
Humphrey, 371 
Hungerford, 459 
Hyde, 364 

Inwen, 474 

Jermyn, 169 
Jemegan, 397 
Johnson, 698 
Juhel, 9 

Kean, 706 
KeUy,64 
Ker, 37 

Kingston, 314, 376 
Kirkham, 210 
KnoUys, 324 
Knyvct, 399, 404 

Lcke,40i,47i 
Limbercy, 680 
Lisle, 16 
Lokton, 81, 103 
Long, 679 
Longucville, 401, 424 



Lovel, 26, 27, 51, 365 
Lucas, 416, 471 
Ludwell, 635 
Lyttelton, 390 
Lytton, 461 

Mallock, 272 
Maltravers, 49 
MandevUle, 393 
Manners, 290, 401 
Mansell, 189 
Middleton, 388 
Milliton, 181 
Milton, 466 
Modyford, 280 
Molineux, 473 
Montagu, 517 
Montague, 50, 404 
Mordaunt, 355, 374, 390 
Morgan, 326 
Morrb, 365, 695 
Moryson, 234, 427, 459, 697 
Mounteney, 685 
Muttlebury, 32 

Naunton, 332 

Neville, 337, 37^, 400 

Newton, 367 

Norris, 313 

North, 404 

Norton, 262, 286, 336, 339 

Orchard, 120, 209 

Page, 297, 667 
Paget, 399 
Panston, 20, 31 
Passemer, 19 
Paulet, 122, 145 
Pelham, 365 



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Percy, 306, 337 
Peyton, 364 
Pipard, 15, 17 
Plantagenct, 119, 305» 
Plesyngton, 75, 83 
Pole, 31, 77, 78 
Pollard, 197, 210 
Pomcroy, 67, 263 

Raleigh, 217 
Randolph, 497, 667 
Reade, 479 
Red vers, 37 
Rich, 251, 252, 596 
Ridgeway, 217, 287 
Rodney, 165 
Rogers, 372 
Russell, 18, 183 

St. John, 367 
St. Leger, 197 
Savile, 375, 401, 706 
Scrope, 355, 387, 54i 
Seymour, 263 
Sheddon, 294 
Shershaw, 537 
Smith, 390, 702 
Southcott, 192, 195 
Spebnan, 388 
Spencer, 305, 359 
Stafford, 48, 31 9, 694 
Stanley, 370 
Stapeldon, 30 
Staunton, 174 
Stowell, 287 
Stretchley, 183 
Strode, 690 
Sturt, 527 
Sutton, 261 



Tanfield, 407 
Taylor, 594 
Throckmorton, 373 
473 Travanion, 381 
Trevit, 23 
Turner, 356, 702 

Uvedale, 372, 410, 421, 468, 
469 

Vanneck, 330 
Van Sittart, 684 
Vemey, 572 
Villiers, 472 

Waite, 279 
Waldin, 15, 1 7 
Waldo, 376 
Wallop, 217 
Walsingham, 199, 395 
Warren, 549 
Washington, 534, 695 
Weekes, 695 
Wells, 293 

Wentworth, 373, 4^7 
West, 325 
Wharton, 366, 386 
Widdrington, 381 
Willoughby, 404, 405 
Wilb, 662 
Windsor, 403 
Winwood, 516 
Wise, 273 
Wodehouse, 365 
Woodland, 191 
Wright, 677 
Wyndham, 189 

Zouche, 27 

1:7123 



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INDEX OF GARY HOUSEHOLDS 



Aldenham, 399, 400 
Alwington, 182, 697 
Antigua, 679 

Barbadoes, 278, 686 
Barnstaple, 36 
Bath, 684 
Beaulieu, 322 
Berkhampstead, 398, 402 
Berwick, 334, 357 
Bideford, 696 
Bigby, 550 
Birmingham, 694 
Bocland, 20 
Bradford, 192 
Bridgewater, 36, 554 
Bristol— 

The Back, 502 

The Key, 518 

RedcHff, 531, 540 

Stony Hill, 543 
Buckingham, 327 
Burford Priory, 407, 423 

Caldicott, 472 
Carisbrook Castle, 361 
Gary, 19, 61, 168, 304 
Castle Cary — 

Devon, 20, 23, 26, 47 

Somerset, 27 



Chilton Foliot, 150, 302 
Chiswick, 690 
Clovelly, 52, 148, 150, 173 
Cockington, 69, 115, 191, 

255 
Connisbrough Castle, 366 
Culham, 372 

Denham, 387 
Ditchley, 691 
Ditton, 322 
Downacary, 12, 20 
Dublin Castle, 243, 416 
Dudley, 261 
Dungarvon, 289 

Ehn, 35 
Evercreech, 27 
Everton, 525, 687 
Exeter, 182, 187, 698 

FoUaton, 124 
Fulford Magna, 124 
Fulham, 389 

Gotton, 27 

Great Torrington, 190 

Guernsey, 688 

Hackney, 686 
Halcsworth, 524 
Hammersmith, 703 



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Hampstead, 694 
Hcavitrec, 169 
Hinton St. George, 145 
Holland, 372, 377 
Holway, 63 
Hooke, 48 
Horden, 470 
Hunsdon, 330, 347, 393 
Hunslet, 400, 403 
Huntingfield, 330, 525 

Jamaica, 278 

Kari, 12 
Kegbear, 166 
Kensington, 678 
Killala, 705 

Ladford, 120, 167 
Launceston, 168 
Leppington, 387 
Livermead, 262 
London — 

Coleman Street, 685 

Finksbury, 682 

Great Bartholomew's, 402 

Grosvenor Street, 479 

Holborn, 686 

Paul's Wharf, 364 

St. Anne Blaclcfriars, 686 

St. Dunstans, 677 

St. Faiths, 704 

St. Giles, 275 

Somerset House, 350 

Watling Street, 134, 697 
Londonderry, 182 
Long Melford, 262 
Lynn, 524 



Marldon, 262, 288 

Massachusetts— 
Bridgcwater, 554 
Charlestown, 554 

Moor Park, 386 

Moushall, 262, 691, 693 

Nevis, 678 

Newhall, 322 

New Parke, 290 

Norham Castle, 363, 382 

Northaw, 470 

North Carolina, 280, 664 

Oxford, 36, 525 

Panston, 31 
Paris, 473 
Pleshy, 322, 393 
Poleworthy, West, 20 
Poole, 687 

Port Lester, 470, 665 
Portsmouth, 282 
Potters Bar, 183 
Putney, 680 

Redcastle, 182 
Rickmansworth, 386 
Rochford, 326 

St. Kitts, 562 
Scutterskelfe, 475 
Shobrook, 186 
Sidbury, 283 
Snettisham, 398, 4H 
Somerton, 33 



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M^riSHUhi^ 



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Stantor, 290 
Stanwell, 403 
Stavcrton, 192 
Sumatra, 684 

Tavistock, Honour of, 18 
Tew, 426, 429 
Thanct, 400 
Thremhall, 396 
Throcking, 679 
Tor Abbey, 285 
Torbrian, 51 
Totton, Honour of, 9 
Trcgony, 34 
TuUeslc, 20 

Upcary, 20, 44 
Upcernc, 688 



Virginia— 

Ampthill, 295, 667 
Gloucester, 544 
Middlesex, 686, 699 
Surry, 667, 681 
Warwick, 564 
Yorktown, 549 

Wansted, 322 
Waterford, 102 
Westminster, 471 
Wichmere, 388 
Wilcot, 693 
Wilton, 309 
Woodbridge, 524 
Writtell, 322 
Wycombe, 522 

Yarmouth, 524 



1:7153 



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