WILLIAM FIELDING, FIRST EARL OF DENBIGH. THE HE subject of this memoir was more distinguished by his death than by his life; more by his domestic virtues than his public character. He was the heir male of a private family, the main importance of which seems to have been founded on its station in the first class of English gentry; on extensive territorial possessions; and, on an alledged descent from the ancient Counts of Hapsburg, whose House has given so many Sovereigns to Europe. An alliance with the family of one whom the unreasonable favour of two Monarchs, and the excess of his own ambition, afterwards rendered for a time the most powerful subject in England, drew this gentleman from his respectable retirement, and placed him in employments which he executed at least with perfect fidelity, and in the possession of dignities which at least he never disgraced. He was the eldest of the three sons of Basil Fielding, of Newnham Paddox in the county of Warwick, by Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Walter Aston, of Tixall, in Staffordshire, and married, at an early age, Mary, daughter, by a second marriage, of Sir George Villiers, of Brokesby, in Leicestershire, a neighbouring country gentleman, the prospects and expectations of whose family were then not more extensive than those of his own. George, however, the fourth of her five brothers, at that time a child, was destined to an almost unparalleled splendor of exaltation. He became, several years after, the mighty Duke of Buckingham, and nearly the sole dispenser of royal favours, which, with the most prodigal hand, he lavished on all his kindred and alliances. His brother in law, Fielding, of whom we know nothing previously to that period but that he had been knighted at Belvoir Castle by James, when that Prince was on his way from Scotland to mount the English throne, and soon after appointed Custos Rotulorum of Warwickshire, was, on the thirteenth of December, 1620, created Viscount Fielding of Newnham Paddox; in the following year appointed Master of the Great Wardrobe; and on the fourteenth of September, 1622, was advanced to the Earldom of Denbigh. His Patent for that dignity records a curious proof of Buckingham's overweening haughtiness, for his marriage with the favourite's sister is specifically assigned as one of the reasons for conferring it on him, and indeed the others are little more than customary matters of form. The terms in question are "Ob generis claritatem, et nuptias admodum honorandas, sed præcipue ob eximiam virtutem, et erga nos et coronam nostram fidem." He was admitted into the very small party which attended Prince Charles on his sudden and secret journey into Spain in 1623, and was soon after his return invested with a considerable naval command by Buckingham, who, among his splendid appointments, held that of High Admiral of England. On this part of Denbigh's story little satisfactory information is to be obtained, and it may be clearly inferred that his services were at the best unimportant. Dugdale, in his History of Warwickshire, simply informs us that " he was Admiral at sea in several expeditions ;" and Whitelocke, in his "Memorials" for the year 1626, has this curious passage-" about this time the Earl of Denbigh had one hundred sail of ships under his command in our seas, but his Excellency, having no command to fight, suffered divers English vessels to be taken away by our enemies in his view, without rescue by their countrymen :" and again, under the year 1628," the fleet under command of the Earl of Denbigh sailed to Rochelle, and, finding there some French ships, would not assault them, though fewer and weaker than themselves by many degrees; but, after shewing themselves only, |