HENRY DANVERS,

EARL OF DANBY,

THE first and last of his family who held that dignity, seems to have owed his elevation as much to its great wealth, and to the splendour of his descent, both on the side of his father and mother, as to any distinguished personal merits. He was the second son of Sir John Danvers, of Dantsey, in Wilts, maternally of very noble blood, by Elizabeth, daughter and coheir of John, ninth and last Lord Latimer of the Nevilles, and was born on the twenty-eighth of June, 1573.

Our notices of the story of his life are few and desultory. We are told that he was early engaged in military service in the Netherlands as a volunteer under Prince Maurice, who appointed him, at the age of eighteen, to the command of a company of infantry; and that he was, three years after, with higher rank, in the armies of France, in which he served with such gallantry that he was honoured with knighthood in the field by the hand of Henry the fourth. How long he remained abroad is uncertain, but we find him in 1597 commanding "a large ship" in the expedition of that year to the coast of Spain, under the Admiral Earl of Nottingham, who is said to have reputed him "one of the best captains in his fleet." In this voyage he acquired, probably through a medium of interest which will presently be mentioned, the patronage of Essex, who commanded the troops, and who, soon after his return, was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, where Danvers was immediately placed by him in the stations of

Lieutenant General of the Horse, and Sergeant Major of the whole army in that island. Between his elder brother, Sir Charles Danvers, and Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, the bosom friend of Essex, and his companion in the military service just now spoken of, the most cordial attachment subsisted, and was in the end fatal to Sir Charles, for it drew him into Essex's wild insurrection in 1601. He suffered on the scaffold soon after the execution of that nobleman, having vainly offered ten thousand pounds, and submission to perpetual imprisonment, as the price for his life, and the subject of this memoir succeeded to the doubtful prospect of an inheritance sullied by crime and blood, and held by no better tenure than the precarious forbearance of claim to the penalties of an attainder.

He was however soon relieved from this melancholy suspense. His father had lately died, and James, on the twenty-first of July, 1603, four months after his accession, advanced him to the dignity of a Baron, by the title of Lord Danvers of Dantsey, and in 1606 he was restored in blood by act of Parliament. We meet with him frequently as a partaker in the ceremonies and festivals of the Court in this reign, and occasionally in its quarrels. Mr. Chamberlaine, in a letter of news to Sir Dudley Carleton, of the ninth of September, 1613, having spoken of some other discords there, adds" but there is more danger 'twixt the Earl of Rutland and the Lord Danvers, though I heard yesterday it was already, or upon the point of, compounding;" and other such instances occur, not worth particularising. James, probably soon after he succeeded to the crown, conferred on him the office of Lord President of the province of Munster; and in 1621 appointed him, by patent, Governor of the island of Guernsey for life.

Charles, in the first year of his reign, called him to the Privy Council; on the fifth of February, created him Earl of Danby; and presently after gave him the Garter. We almost entirely lose sight of him from this period. His health decayed, and he suffered severely from some of the many wounds which he had received in early life. He retired to his seat of Cornbury park in Oxfordshire,

in improving and decorating which he passed several of the latter years of his life; but he is most honourably and lastingly commemorated by a munificent public foundation in its neighbourhood, the Physic Garden in Oxford; which, says Dugdale, in his Baronage, "he encompassed with a strong wall of perfect. ashler stone, and a beautiful gate, the charge whereof amounted to little less than five thousand pounds, and caused this inscription to be placed above the entrance thereinto-Gloria Dei Opt. Max. Honori Caroli Regis. In usum Acad. et Reipub. Henricus Comes Danby, d. d. MDCXXXII." He died at Cornbury, on the twentieth of January, 1643, and was buried with his ancestors in the chancel of the church at Dantsey, under a superb monument of white marble, with a long inscription, to which are subjoined these lines, from a pen capable of far better things, in which an obscure conceit is conveyed in language yet more obscure

"Sacred Marble, safely keep

His dust, who under thee must sleep,
Until the years again restore

Their dead, and time shall be no more.
Meanwhile, if He which all things wears

Does ruin thee; or if thy tears

Are shed for him dissolve thy frame,

Thou art requited, for his fame,

His virtue, and his worth, shall be

Another monument for thee.

G. HERBERT."

To a story so barren of circumstance, I will make little apology for adding two original letters written by this nobleman, the one in his youth, the other when an old man. From such documents, however insignificant the subjects, we seldom fail to obtain some traits of the character of the writer. The first, from the Cotton MSS. is attached to a narrative, to which it refers, of an action in Ireland between the English army and that of the Earl of Tyrone, in which Danvers appears to have fought gallantly. The letter

is addressed" to the right wor. my very lovinge cosen, Mr. Ate esquier," and the whole is endorsed "Touching the Fight at Kinsale."

"SR,

"Now in hast, and never no good pen man, I have sent you my boolt," (arrow) "wch you must piece and fether. The unfitt, or improbable, you must blott out or reconcile, as I have omitted many circumstances oposite to other relations. The Englishe you must amend in all. And then, if of on line you can make use, I shall thinke I shall thinke my laboure well bestowed; though I will rather referr you to the cross in the margent, correspondent wt the cross in the line, then wright it out this night againe for a million; having bine, till w'in this hower, ever in companye, as Sir Oliver St. John can wittnes, who will be wt you to morrow morninge. You have practised many ill handes, and, whether you can or can not reade it y' selfe, I praye lett no bodye els. Commend me to my cosen, and beleeve I doe desire to be esteemed

"Yr very assured lovinge cosen and frend, "H. DANVERS.

"Somersett House,
this Sounday night, late."

The second letter, from the Sidney Papers, is to Dorothy Percy, Countess of Leicester, and relates to her daughter, married soon after to Henry Spencer Earl of Sunderland.

"MADAM,

"If my Lord and you be not otherwayse ingaged for the marriadge of my Lady Dorathye, I have commission to tender the mach of my Lord Loveles, now newly out of his mother's wardship, and presently possessed of land and welth innough, even in the primest partes of this kingdom; whereunto may be well added his own affection exprest to the person and fame of that fayre lady, your daughter, meretinge, in my opinion, boeth regard and valew; for, although peradventure his breedinge hath