ARTHUR CAPEL, CR. LORD CAPEL -BEHEADED MDCXLVIII. HE was a man in whom the malice of his enemies could discover very few faults, and whom his friends could not wish better accomplished; whom Cromwell's own character well described, and who indeed would never have been contented to have lived under that government. His memory, all men loved and reverenced, though few followed his example. He had always lived in a state of great plenty and general estimation, having a very noble fortune of his own by descent, and a fair addition to it by his marriage with an excellent wife,* a lady of very worthy extraction, of great virtue and beauty, by whom he had a numerous issue of both sexes, in which he took great joy and comfort: so that no man was more happy in all his domestic affairs; and he was so much the more happy, in that he thought himself most blessed in them. *Elizabeth, daughter and heir of Sir Charles Morison, knight and baronet. Her eldest son, Arthur, was created viscount Malden and earl of Essex. K And yet the king's honour was no sooner violated, and his just power invaded, than he threw all those blessings behind him; and having no other obligations to the crown, than those which his own honour and conscience suggested to him, he frankly engaged his person and his fortune from the beginning of the troubles, as many others did, in all actions and enterprizes of the greatest hazard and danger; and continued to the end, without ever making one false step, as few others did, though he had once, by the iniquity of a faction that then prevailed, an indignity put upon him that might have excused him for some res mission of his former warmth. But it made no other impression upon him than to be quiet and contented, whilst they would let him alone, and, with the same cheerfulness, to obey the first summons when he was called out; which was quickly after. In a word, he was a man, that whoever shall, after him, deserve best of the English nation, he can never think himself undervalued, when he shall hear, that his courage, virtue, and fidelity, are laid in the balance with, and compared to that of the lord Capel. III. 273.. |