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BOOK II

CHAPTER I

PARENTAGE, BIRTH, EDUCATION AND MARRIAGE

UCIUS CARY, the second Viscount Falkland, was born, according to the common tradition, commemorated by Anthony Wood, at the famous old Cotswold town of Burford, in North Oxfordshire,1 A similar tradition points to 1610 as the probable year of his birth, but neither as to place or time is there positive evidence. Like so many of the more distinguished of his contemporaries he came, on his father's side, of sound West-country stock, though in the late sixteenth century his grandfather migrated to Hertfordshire and established himself at Aldenham and Berkhamstead. Lucius was the eldest son of Sir Henry Cary, who was subsequently raised to the peerage as Viscount Falkland in the county of Fife, by his marriage with Elizabeth Tanfield. This first Viscount, of whom something must be said hereafter, was the eldest son of Sir Edward Cary, Knight of Aldenham, Herts, and of Catherine, the daughter of Sir Henry Knevet. The elder line of the Cary family remained faithful to the West

1" Whether this Lucius was born at Burford (as some think he was) the public register of that place, which commences about the beginning of the reign of King James I., takes no notice of it: however, that he was mostly nursed there by a wet and dry nurse, the ancients of that town, who remember their names, have some years since informed me" (Wood, Athena, ii., 566).

country, where it is still represented by the Carys of Torr Abbey, in the county of Devon.1

On his mother's side Lucius may be described as an Oxfordshire man, for the first Lady Falkland was the only daughter and heiress of Sir Lawrence Tanfield, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and Lord of Burford and Great Tew. Sir Lawrence's wife also had Oxfordshire connections. She was Elizabeth Symondes, daughter of Giles Symondes of Claye, Norfolk, and niece of Sir Henry Lee, K.G., of Ditchley, the famous ranger of Woodstock Park, who has been immortalised, by a convenient anachronism, in Sir Walter Scott's romance. The maternal grandparents of Falkland were at least distinct personalities, and as something of their personality descended to him a word must be said of them. Sir Lawrence Tanfield, the son of Robert Tanfield of Burford, was a successful lawyer. He entered the Inner Temple in 1569, rose rapidly to eminence in his profession, and was elected to the House of Commons for the borough of New Woodstock in 1584. He continued to sit for the borough in all the remaining Parliaments of the reign, and before the death of the Queen he had become a person of such consequence that James I. spent a night with him at Burford on his journey South in 1603. In the first Parliament of the new reign Tanfield represented the county of Oxford, but three years later was raised to the Bench, and in 1607 became Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer. Both Sir Lawrence Tanfield and his wife were unmistakably persons of strong character, though opinions differ as to the interpretation to be placed on various episodes in their several careers. The impression given by the documentary evidence in the House of Lords 2 is, in both cases, decidedly unpleasant.

1 The Carys, though long settled in Devonshire, were of Scotch extraction. Cf. Harl. 2043, B.M. Class. Cat., Biog., iii., f. 162.

2 Cf. Hist. MSS. Com., 3rd Report, 31-33 (House of Lords MSS.).

Lady Tanfield is roundly accused of having accepted bribes to influence her husband's decisions on the Bench, while, according to the same scandalous accuser, the Chief Baron himself was not inaccessible to similar inducements. Thus on 14th May, 1624, a petition was presented to the House of Lords by one Philip Smith, a prisoner in the Fleet, who asserted that in a case tried before the Chief Baron in which he was plaintiff, Lady Tanfield accepted £20 from him, and was promised another £20 "if Sir Lawrence would do justice". Sir Lawrence himself, however, received a piece of plate from the defendant in whose favour he gave judgment. In another case Lady Tanfield was said to have received £50 before the plaintiff could get a hearing. Smith further declared that he himself had been unjustly committed to prison by the Chief Baron for contempt of court. Sir Lawrence, on the other hand, filed an answer declaring the charges against his wife and himself to be "utterly untrue," and "the Lords Committees for Petitions" ordered "that this scandalous petition shall be rejected".

But whatever be the truth as to the corruptibility of Sir Lawrence Tanfield as a judge, it is clear that he made himself exceedingly unpopular among his humbler neighbours in North Oxfordshire. The rights of the case cannot now of course, be determined. It is more than possible that Tanfield merely incurred the odium so frequently attaching to a new man and an improving landlord. But it is obvious that he came to loggerheads with the old inhabitants. He appears to have bought the manor of Michael Tue (or Great Tew) in Oxfordshire about the year 1614. Ten years later we find the "poor oppressed inhabitants” petitioning the House of Lords against their Lord. They alleged that they had "time out of mind enjoyed right of pasture over Cowhill pasture, containing about three hundred