Claim of Thomas Cavendish.
When there are only two claimants upon any property, if the pretensions of one can be shown to be groundless, those of the other seem to be established as a necessary consequence. But here we have a third party. Beside Sir William and his elder brother George, a claimant has been found in aThomasCavendish. In the account of Wolsey given in the Athenæ[33], Wood calls the author by this name: and Dodd, a Catholic divine, who published a Church History of England in 3 vols. folio, (Brussels, 1737.) in a list of historians and manuscripts used in the preparation of his work, enumerates “CavendishThomas, Life of Cardinal Wolsey, Lond. 1590.” It is very probable that Dodd may have contented himself with copying the name of this author from the Athenæ, a book he used: and it is with the utmost deference, and the highest possible respect, for the wonderful industry and the extraordinary exactness of the Oxford antiquary, I would intimate my opinion that, in this instance, he has been misled. To subject the pretensions ofThomasCavendish to such a scrutiny as that towhich those of Sir William have been brought is quite out of the question: for neither Wood nor Dodd have thrown any light whatever on his history or character. He appears before us like Homer,nomen, et præterea nihil. There was a person of both his names, of the Grimstone family, a noted navigator, and an author in the days of Queen Elizabeth; but he lived much too late to have ever formed a part of the household of Cardinal Wolsey.
We must now state the evidence in favour of George Cavendish. The reader will judge for himself whether the testimony of Anthony Wood, and that of the Catholic church-historian, supposing them to be distinct and independent testimonies, is sufficient to outweigh what is to be advanced in support of George Cavendish’s claim. We shall first state on what grounds the work is attributed to a Cavendish whose name was George; and secondly, the reasons we have for believing that he was the George Cavendish of Glemsford in Suffolk, to whom my Lord Herbert ascribes the work.
That the writer’s name was George.
On the former point the evidence is wholly external. It lies in a small compass; but it is of great weight. It consists in the testimony of all the ancient manuscripts which bear any title of an even datewith themselves[34]: and in that of the learned herald and antiquary Francis Thinne, a contemporary of the author’s, who, in the list of writers of English history which he subjoined to Hollinshead’s Chronicle, mentions “George Cavendish, Gentleman Vsher vnto Cardinal Woolseie, whose life he did write.”
Four circumstances of the author’s condition discovered in the work.
Now to our second point. Four circumstances of the author’s situation are discovered to us in the work itself: viz. that his life was extended through the reigns of Henry VIII. Edward VI. and Queen Mary; that while he was in the Cardinal’s service he was a married man, and had a family: that he was in but moderate circumstances when he composed this memoir; and that he retained a zeal for theold professionof religion. If we find these circumstances concurring in a George Cavendish, it is probable we have found the person for whom we are in search.
Scanty as is the information afforded us concerning a simple esquire of the days of the Tudors, it will probably be made apparent that these circumstances do concur in the person to whom my Lord Herbert ascribes the work. Men of little celebrity in their lives, and whose track through the world cannot be discovered by the light of history, are sometimes found attaining a faint and obscure “life after death” in the herald’s visitation books and the labours of the scrivener. Those rolls of immortality are open to every man. They transmit to a remote posterity the worthless and the silly with as much certainty as the name of one who was instinct with the fire of genius, and whom a noble ambition to be good and great distinguished from the common herd of men. It is in these rolls only that the name of George Cavendish of Glemsford is come down to us: he forms a link in the pedigree: he is a medium in the transmission of manorial property.
Obscurity of George Cavendish a presumption in his favour.
But this very obscurity creates a presumption in favour of his claim. What employment that should raise him into notice would be offered in the days of Henry and Edward to the faithful and affectionate attendant upon a character so unpopular among the great as the haughty, low-born Wolsey? What should have placed his name uponpublic record who did not, like Cromwell and some other of Wolsey’s domestics, “find himself a way out of his master’s wreck to rise in” by throwing himself upon the court, but retired, as Cavendish at the conclusion of the Memoirs tells us he did, to his own estate in the country, with his wages, a small gratuity, and a present of six of the Cardinal’s horses to convey his furniture? That, living at a distance from the court, he should have been overlooked on the change of the times, cannot be surprising: he was only one among many who would have equal claims upon Mary and her ministry. Had she lived indeed till his work had been published, we might then reasonably have expected to have seen a man of so much virtue, and talent, and religious zeal, drawn from his obscurity, and his name might have been as well known to our history as that of his brother the reformist. But Mary died too soon for his hopes and those of many others of his party, though not too soon for the interests of religion and humanity. All expectation of seeing the admirer and apologist of Wolsey emerge from his obscurity must end with the accession of the protestant princess Elizabeth.
What is known of George Cavendish of Glemsford.
It is therefore not surprising, and on the whole rather favourable to our argument, that nearly all which can nowbe collected of George Cavendish of Glemsford is contained in the following passage extracted from certain “Notices of the manor of Cavendish in Suffolk, and of the Cavendish family while possessed of that manor,” which was communicated to the Society of Antiquaries by Thomas Ruggles, Esq., the owner of the said manor[35]. Cavendish, it will be recollected, is a manor adjoining to Glemsford, and which belonged to the same parties.
George Cavendish is stated to be the eldest son of Thomas Cavendish, Esq. who was clerk of the pipe in the Exchequer. He "was in possession of the manor of Cavendish Overhall, and had two sons; William was the eldest, to whom, in the fourth year of Philip and Mary, 1558, he granted by deed enrolled in Chancery this manor in fee, on the said William, releasing to his father one annual payment of twenty marks, and covenanting to pay him yearly for life, at the site of the mansion-house of Spains-hall, in the parish of Finchingfield, in the county of Essex, forty pounds, at the four usual quarterly days of payment. When George Cavendishe died is uncertain: but it is apprehended in 1561 or 1562.
“William Cavendishe his son was in possession of the manor in the fourth year of Elizabeth.”... “He was succeeded in this estate by his son William Cavendysh of London, mercer, who, by that description, and reciting himself to be the son of William Cavendishe, gentleman, deceased, by deed dated the 25th of July, in the eleventh year of the reign of Elizabeth, 1569, released all his right and title to this estate, and to other lands lying in different parishes, to William Downes of Sudbury, in Suffolk, Esq.”
His fortune decayed.
This detail plainly intimates that decay of the consequence and circumstances of a family which we might expect from the complaints in the Memoirs of Wolsey, of the unequal dealings of fortune, and of the little reward all the writer’s “painfull diligence” had received. We see George Cavendish, for a small annual payment in money, giving up the ancient inheritance of his family, a manorcalled after his own name: and only eleven years after, that very estate passed to strangers to the name and blood of the Cavendishes by his grandson and next heir, who was engaged in trade in the city of London. We find also what we have the|Married before 1526.|concurrent testimony of the heralds of that time to prove, that this George Cavendish was married, and the father of sons: but on a closer inspection we find more than this: we discover that he must have been married as early as 1526, when we first find the biographer of Wolsey a member of the Cardinal’s household[36]. William Cavendish, the younger, grandson to George Cavendish, must have been of full age before he could convey the estate of his forefathers. He was born therefore as early as 1548. If from this we take a presumed age of his father at the time of his birth, we shall arrive at this conclusion, that George Cavendish the grandfather was a family-man at least as early as 1526.
A Catholic.
To another point, namely, the religious profession of this Suffolk gentleman, our proof, it must be allowed, is not so decisive. I rely however, with some confidence, upon this fact, for which we are indebted to the heralds, thathe was nearly allied to Sir Thomas More, the idol of the Catholic party in his own time, and the object of just respect with good men in all times, Margery his wife being a daughter of William Kemp of Spains-hall in Essex, Esq. by Mary Colt his wife, sister to Jane, first wife of the Chancellor[37]. Indeed it seems as if the Kemps, in whose house the latter days of thisGeorge Cavendish were spent, were of the old profession. The extraordinary penance to which one of this family subjected himself savours strongly of habits and opinions generated by the|Lived in the three reigns.|Roman Catholic system. It is perhaps unnecessary, in the last place, to remind the reader, that what Mr. Ruggles has discovered to us of the owner of Cavendish shows that his life was extended through the reigns of the second, third, and fourth monarchs of the house of Tudor: now the family pedigrees present us with no other George Cavendish of whom this is the truth. And here the case is closed.
Genealogy.
It has been thought proper to annex the following genealogical table, which exhibits the relationship subsisting among the several members of the house of Cavendish whose names have been mentioned in the preceding treatise.
Thomas Cavendish, Clerk of the Pipe. Will dated 13th April, 1523. Died next year.Alice, daughter and heir of John Smith of Padbrook-hall, co. Suff.George, of Glemsford and Cavendish, Esq. eldest son and heir, Gentleman usher to Cardinal Wolsey, and writer of his life. Born about 1500. Died about 1561 or 1562.Margery, daughter of Wm. Kemp, of Spains-hall, Essex, niece to Sir Thos. More.Sir William, of North Awbrey, and Chatsworth, Knt. Auditor of the Court of Augmentations, &c. Under age 1523. Died 1557.Elizabeth, third wife, daughter of John Hardwick, of Hardwick, co. Derby, Esq. widow of Robert Barlow, of Barlow, in the same county. She survived Cavendish, and married Sir Wm. St. Lowe, and George 6th Earl of Shrewsbury.William, gent. Owner of the manor of Cavendish 1562.1. Henry of Tutburys. p.1. Frances, Wife of Sir Henry Pierrepoint.William, of London, mercer. Sold Cavendish 1569.2. William, created Earl of Devonshire 16 Jac. I. 1618.2. Elizabeth, Wife of Charles Stuart, Earl of Lenox.3. Sir Charles of Welbeck, father of William Duke of Newcastle.3. Mary, Wife of Gilbert Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury.
Origin of the mistaken appropriation of this work.
Supposing that the reader is convinced by the preceding evidence and arguments, that this work could not be the production of Sir William Cavendish, and that he was not the faithful attendant upon Cardinal Wolsey, I shall give him credit for a degree of curiosity to know how it happened that a story so far from the truth gained possession of the public mind, and established itself in so many works of acknowledged authority. That desire I shall be able to gratify, and will detain him but a little while longer, when the disclosure has been made of a process by which error has grown up to the exclusion of truth, in which it will be allowed that there is something of curiosity and interest. Error, like rumour, often appearsparva metu primo, but, like her also,vires acquirit eundo. So it has been in the present instance. What was at first advanced with all the due modesty of probability and conjecture, was repeated by another person as something nearer to certain truth: soon every thing which intimated that it was only conjecture became laid aside, and it appeared with the broad bold front in which we now behold it.
Kennet.
The father of this misconception was no other than Dr. White Kennet. In 1708, being then only Archdeacon of Huntingdon, this eloquent divine published a sermon which he had delivered in the great church at Derby, at the funeral of William the first Duke of Devonshire. Along with it he gave to the world Memoirs of the Family of Cavendish, in which nothing was omitted that, in his opinion, mighttend to set off his subject to the best advantage. He lauds even the Countess of Shrewsbury, and this at a time when he was called to contemplate the virtues and all womanly perfections of Christian Countess of Devonshire. It was not to be expected that he should forget the disinterested attendant upon Wolsey, and the ingenious memorialist of that great man’s rise and fall; whose work had then recently been given to the public in a third edition. After reciting from it some particulars of Cavendish’s attendance upon the Cardinal, and especially noticing his faithful adherence to him when others of his domestics had fled to find a sun not so near its setting, he concludes in these words: “To give a more lasting testimony of his gratitude to the Cardinal, he drew up a fair account of his life and death, of which the oldest copy is in the hands of the noble family of Pierrepoint, into which the author’s daughter was married: forwithout express authority we may gather from circumstances, that this very writer was the head of the present family; the same person with the immediate founder of the present noble family, William Cavendish of Chatsworth, com. Derb. Esq.” p. 63.
Collins.
The editors of the Peerages, ever attentive to any disclosure that may add dignity to the noble families whose lives and actions are the subjects of their labours, were not unmindful of this discovery made by the learned Archdeacon. The book so popular in this country under the name of Collins’s Peerage was published by the industrious and highly respectable Arthur Collins, then a bookseller at the Black Boy in Fleet-street, in a single volume, in the year 1709. In the account of the Devonshire family no more is said of Sir William Cavendish than had been told by Dugdale, and than is the undoubted truth[38]. But when, in 1712, a new edition appeared, we find added to the account of Sir William Cavendish all that the Archdeacon had said of Mr. Cavendish, the attendant upon Wolsey: but with this remarkable difference, arising probably in nothing more blameworthy than inattention, that while Kennet had written “forwithoutexpress authority we may gather from circumstances, &c.” Collins says, “forwithexpress authority we may gather from circumstances, &c.[39]” A third edition appeared in 1715, in two volumes, in which no change is made in the Cavendish article[40]. In 1735 the Peerage had assumed a higher character, and appeared with the arms engraven on copper-plates, in four handsome octavo volumes. In this edition we find the whole article has been recomposed; and we no longer hear of thegathering from circumstances, or thewithorwithoutexpress authority; but the account of Sir William Cavendish’s connexion with the Cardinal is told with all regularity, dovetailed with authentic particulars of his life, forming a very compact and, seemingly, consistent story[41]. The only material change that has been introduced in the successive editions of a work which has been so often revised and reprinted, has arisen from the discovery made by some later editor, that my Lord Herbert had quoted the work as the production of a George Cavendish. The gentle editors were not however to be deprived of what tended in their opinion so much to the credit of the house of Cavendish, and rendered the account they had to give of its founder so much more satisfactory. Without ceremony, therefore, they immediately put down the quotation to the inaccuracy and inattention of that noble author.
The Biographia.
Having once gained an establishment in a work so highly esteemed and so widely dispersed, and carrying aprimâ facieappearance of truth, it is easy to see how theerror would extend itself, especially as in this country the number of persons is so small who attend to questions of this nature, and as the means of correcting it were not so obvious as since the publication of the “Ecclesiastical Biography.” But it assumed its most dangerous consequence by its introduction into the Biographia. The greatest blemish of that extremely valuable collection of English lives seems to be that its pages are too much loaded with stale genealogy taken from the commonest of our books. Wherever Collins afforded them information, the writers of that work have most gladly accepted of it, and have
“—————whisper’d whence they stoleTheir balmy sweets,”
“—————whisper’d whence they stoleTheir balmy sweets,”
“—————whisper’d whence they stoleTheir balmy sweets,”
“—————whisper’d whence they stole
Their balmy sweets,”
by using in many instances his own words. His facts they seem to have generally assumed as indubitable. In the present instance nothing more was done than to new-mould the account given of Sir William Cavendish in the later editions of the Peerage, and, by an unprofitable generalization of the language, to make his mixture of truth and fable more palatable to the taste of their readers.
Bragg the bookseller.
Poor Arthur Collins was not the only bookseller who took advantage of the learned archdeacon’s unfortunate conjecture. There was one Bragg, a printer, at the Blue Ballin Ave Maria Lane, a man of no very high character in his profession, who published in 1706 an edition of Cavendish’s Life of Wolsey, taken from the second edition by Dorman Newman, and with all the errors and omissions of that most unfaithful impression. Copies were remaining upon his shelves when Kennet’s sermon made its appearance. Rightly judging that this must cause inquiries to be made after a book, the production of one who was the progenitor of a person and family at that particular period, from a concurrence of circumstances, the subject of universal conversation, he cancelled the anonymous title-page of the remaining copies, and issued what he called a “Second Edition,” with a long Grub-street title beginning thus:
Sir William Cavendish’sMemoirs of the Life of Cardinal Wolsey,&c.
This has sometimes been mistaken for a really new edition of the work.
Editions of the work.
And having thus adverted to the different editions, it may not be improper to add a few words on the impressions which have been issued of this curious biographical fragment. Till Dr. Wordsworth favoured the public with his “Ecclesiastical Biography,” what we had was rather an abridgement than the genuine work. But even in its mutilatedform it was always popular, and the copies were marked at considerable prices in the booksellers’ catalogues.
The first edition, it is believed, is that in 4to, London, 1641, for William Sheeres, with the title “The Negotiations of Thomas Woolsey, the great Cardinall of England, &c. composed by one of his own Servants, being his Gentleman-Usher.” The second was in 12mo, London, 1667, for Dorman Newman, and is entitled “The Life and Death of Thomas Woolsey, Cardinal, &c. written by one of his own Servants, being his Gentleman-Usher.” The third is the one just mentioned in 8vo, London, 1706, for B. Bragg, and having for its title “The Memoirs of that great Favourite Cardinal Woolsey, &c.” It is supposed that it was first made public in order to provoke a comparison between Wolsey and the unpopular Archbishop Laud. These are the only editions known to the writer.
It is printed in the form of notes to Grove’s History of the Life and Times of Cardinal Wolsey[42], again in the Harleian Miscellany, andin the selection from that work. And last of all, it forms a most valuable part of the “Ecclesiastical Biography,” published by Dr. Wordsworth.
The supposed edition of 1590.
It must not however be concealed that mention has been made of a still earlier edition than any of those above described. Bishop Nicholson, in his English Historical Library[43], asserts that it was published at London in 4to, 1590; and in this he is followed by Dodd the Catholic historian. Nicholson’s authority is not very high in respect of bibliographical information; and there is great reason to believe that he has here described an edition to be found only in theBibliotheca absconditaof Sir Thomas Brown. This however is certain, that the commentators on Shakspeare are agreed, that though the labours of Cavendish must have been known in part to our great Dramatist, he has followed them so closely in many of his scenes, it could have been only by a perusal of them in manuscript, or by the ample quotations made from them in the pages of Hollinshead and Stowe. Mr. Malone indeed expressly affirms that they were not sent to the press before 1641. The earliest edition known to the editor of the Censura Literaria, whose intimate acquaintance with early English literature every one acknowledges, and whose attention has been peculiarly drawn to this work, was of that date. The catalogues, published and unpublished, of most of our principal libraries have been consulted, and no earlier edition than that of 1641 found in any one of them. No earlier edition than that is to be found in the Royal Library at Paris. It appears, therefore, on the whole, most probable that though there are undoubtedly black-letter stores, which the diligence of modern bibliomaniacs has not brought to light, no such edition exists, as that which the author of the English Historical Library tells us was published in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and during the height of the persecutions which she authorized against the Catholics. Under this persuasion the succeeding sheets have been composed.
It is possible that Bishop Nicholson may have been misled by another work on the same subject; The Aspiring, Triumph, and Fall of Wolsey, by Thomas Storer, Student of Christ Church. This appeared inquarto, 1599.
Conclusion.
The writer now lays down his penwith something like a persuasion that it will be allowed he has proved his two points,—that Sir William Cavendish of Chatsworth could not have been the author of the Life of Wolsey, and that we owe the work to his brother George Cavendish of Glemsford. The necessary inference also is, that the foundation of the present grandeur of the house of Cavendish was not laid, as is commonly understood, in an attendance upon Cardinal Wolsey, and in certain favourable circumstances connected with that service. The inquiry, even in all its bearings, like many other literary inquiries, cannot be considered as of very high importance. The writer will not however affect to insinuate that he considers it as of no consequence. In works so universally consulted as the Biographia and the Peerages, it is desirable that no errors of any magnitude should remain undetected and unexposed. Error begets error, and truth begets truth: nor can any one say how much larger in both cases may be the offspring than the sire. I do not indeed scruple to acknowledge, that, though not without a relish for inquiries which embrace objects of far greater magnitude, and a disposition justly to appreciate their value, I should be thankful to the man who should remove my uncertainty, as to whose countenance was concealed by theMasque de Fer, or would tell me whether Richard was the hunch-backed tyrant, and Harry “the nimble-footed mad-cap” exhibited by our great dramatist; whether Charles wrote the Εικων Βασιλικη, and Lady Packington “The whole Duty of Man.” Not that I would place this humble disquisition on a level with the inquiries which have been instituted and so learnedly conducted into these several questions. In one material point, however, even this disquisition may challenge an equality with them. There is a much nearer approach made tocertaintythan in the discussions of any of the abovementioned so much greater questions.
There are amongst readers of books some persons whose minds being every moment occupied in the contemplation of objects of the highest importance, look down with contempt upon the naturalist at hisleucophræ, the critic at his μεν and δε work, the astronomer at hisnebulæ, and the toiling antiquary at every thing. One word to these gentlemen before we part. To them may be recommended the words of a writer of our own day, a man of an enlarged and highly cultivated mind:—
“He who determines with certainty a single species of the minutest moss, or meanest insect, adds so far to the general stock of human knowledge, which is more than can be said of many a celebrated name. No one can tell of whatimportance that simple fact may be to future ages: and when we consider how many millions of our fellow-creatures pass through life without furnishing a single atom to augment that stock, we shall learn to think with more respect of those who do.”
THE END.
sometime Archbishop of Yorkeand Cardinal,
intituled Sanctæ Ceciliæ trans Tiberim,Presbiter Cardinalis, and L. Chancellor of England.
Written by
George Cavendish, sometime his Gentleman Usher.
——————This Cardinal,Though from an humble stock, undoubtedlyWas fashion’d to much honour from his cradle.He was a scholar, and a ripe, and good one;Exceeding wise, fair spoken, and persuading:Lofty, and sour, to them that lov’d him not,But, to those men that sought him, sweet as summer.And though he were unsatisfied in getting,(Which was a sin), yet in bestowing—He was most princely: Ever witness for himIpswich and Oxford! one of which fell with him,Unwilling to outlive the good that did it;The other, though unfinish’d, yet so famous,So excellent in art, and yet so rising,That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue.His overthrow heap’d happiness upon him;For then, and not till then, he felt himself,And found the blessedness of being little:And, to add greater honours to his ageThan man could give him, he died fearing God.Shakspeare.
——————This Cardinal,Though from an humble stock, undoubtedlyWas fashion’d to much honour from his cradle.He was a scholar, and a ripe, and good one;Exceeding wise, fair spoken, and persuading:Lofty, and sour, to them that lov’d him not,But, to those men that sought him, sweet as summer.And though he were unsatisfied in getting,(Which was a sin), yet in bestowing—He was most princely: Ever witness for himIpswich and Oxford! one of which fell with him,Unwilling to outlive the good that did it;The other, though unfinish’d, yet so famous,So excellent in art, and yet so rising,That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue.His overthrow heap’d happiness upon him;For then, and not till then, he felt himself,And found the blessedness of being little:And, to add greater honours to his ageThan man could give him, he died fearing God.Shakspeare.
——————This Cardinal,Though from an humble stock, undoubtedlyWas fashion’d to much honour from his cradle.He was a scholar, and a ripe, and good one;Exceeding wise, fair spoken, and persuading:Lofty, and sour, to them that lov’d him not,But, to those men that sought him, sweet as summer.And though he were unsatisfied in getting,(Which was a sin), yet in bestowing—He was most princely: Ever witness for himIpswich and Oxford! one of which fell with him,Unwilling to outlive the good that did it;The other, though unfinish’d, yet so famous,So excellent in art, and yet so rising,That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue.His overthrow heap’d happiness upon him;For then, and not till then, he felt himself,And found the blessedness of being little:And, to add greater honours to his ageThan man could give him, he died fearing God.
——————This Cardinal,
Though from an humble stock, undoubtedly
Was fashion’d to much honour from his cradle.
He was a scholar, and a ripe, and good one;
Exceeding wise, fair spoken, and persuading:
Lofty, and sour, to them that lov’d him not,
But, to those men that sought him, sweet as summer.
And though he were unsatisfied in getting,
(Which was a sin), yet in bestowing—
He was most princely: Ever witness for him
Ipswich and Oxford! one of which fell with him,
Unwilling to outlive the good that did it;
The other, though unfinish’d, yet so famous,
So excellent in art, and yet so rising,
That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue.
His overthrow heap’d happiness upon him;
For then, and not till then, he felt himself,
And found the blessedness of being little:
And, to add greater honours to his age
Than man could give him, he died fearing God.
Shakspeare.
CARDINAL WOLSEY.ENGRAVED BY E. SCRIVEN.AFTER THE ORIGINAL PICTURE.
CARDINAL WOLSEY.ENGRAVED BY E. SCRIVEN.AFTER THE ORIGINAL PICTURE.
London, Published Jany. 1, 1825, by Harding, Triphook & Lepard.]