LEAVES F.ROM A FAMILY TREE
By EDGAR LAMBART-
PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION BY >MESSRS. HATCHARD, 187 PICCADILLY, LONDON, W
1902
LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE
INSCRIBED TO
RUDOLPH, 10TH EARL OF CAVAN
MY FAMILY AND
KINSFOLK
LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE.
CHAPTER I.
OST people, I fear, look on genealogy and everything con M nected with it as mere profitless stirring of dry bones. The general democratic spirit of the age, which effects more or less consciously all classes, has taught us to consider ·nothing more ridiculous than undue pride of ancestry, or, at least, any manifestation o( it. We take people as we find them, and are more concerned as to what they are (especially if they have money) than as to whence they came. It is certain that no one is neces -sarily the better for the possession of a long line of ancestors, though he may be much the worse for them. We need not worship our ancestors like the Ohinese, nor ought we to despise them, for science teaches us that they certainly to some extent made us what we are. There is surely a happy mean. Let us try to pardon them their lost opportunities in omitting to invest in London property or to found co-operative stores, and be 1 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE grateful if they did not bequeath to us hereditary insanity or con :ftrmed mo1·al obliquity. To return to the question of the dryness of the subject, it surely depends very much on how it is presented to us. Remember how terribly dry history of any kind seemed to us in our school days, and yet most of us have lived to own the charm of history as presented to us by Macaulay, or Froude, or Green. If we take genealogy not merely as a, dry record of births, and deaths, and marriages, but as a tracing of the footprints on the sands of time left by the particular family from which we come, we shall find it not without interest. We find curious sidelights on the general history of the nation, and many interesting problems present themselves to the amateur student of physiology and heredity. We ask ourselves why this family waxed great and prospered from generation to generation; why that one rose suddenly to eminence only in a, short time to drop back into obscurity ; why yet another continued to exist at the same social level from century to century. Some families, if they escaped the melodramatic curse of plun dered Churchmen or injured retainers, seem to have incurred somehow the curse of Reuben, 'unstable as water, thou shalt not excel,' and to have transmitted it to their descendants in per petuity. It seems true of family life, as of all life in nature, that birth is but the starting point of decay. Only in rare instances, by wise grafting or perhaps by vigorous prnning, the law of survival of the fittest has been enabled to give the family perpetual youth. What I offer here is in no sense a family history. Want of time, of literary ability and practice, and, I fear, a disinclination to face the necessary drudgery of research, unfit me for such a 2 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE task. But I have long felt an interest in the narrower aspect of things historical and . genealogical, and some curiosity about problems of heredity, and it has been a pleasure and amuse ment to ransack the more accessible corners of Time's storehouse ·for dry leaves from our family tree. I here try my 'prentice hand at making an herbari1un of them (how warily must one walk to avoid mixed metaphors!), which I hope may interest my kinsfolk. Rather regretfully I have to own that in my researches into a family history of (perhaps) eight hundred years, I have found not many ' great ones after the :flesh.' Few deep 'footprints on the sand·s of time ' have our many hundred fore fathers left. ·Only with difficulty can one follow their trail through the centuries. Not even the tragic glories of the scaffold have they bequeathed to us their descend- ants. No masked executioner, quoad sciam, has ever held qp the dripping head of a ~ Lambart to the gaping crowd as that of a traitor. No religious obstinacy brought »uss oF aENTLEKAN, UIIP. EDwABD n. us to the stake under Mary or Elizabeth. We have been spared the conspicuous infamy of furnishing a regicide, though, as you will see, we were very near it. On the other hand, I cannot :find that any Lam.hart has been hanged for robbing a church or sheep-stealing, nor have they as a habit made love to their neighbours' wives. These are precious negative virtues, which we should appreciate and imitate in our generation. Lastly, there is no reason that I can find why we 3 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE should not maintain, by reaso11ing uom the particular to the general, that in all ages the family has produced fair women and brave men. Not the least of the difficulties I have met with in collecting material for this little book is the fact that for several hundred years within the Jirnits of certain history that is our fami1y has · had no settled or central home. No hoary old church owes half the dimness of its aisles to crowded monuments and tombs of long forgotten Lamharts. No grey ancestral hall sacred to a thousand memories has, as a home of the race, endured the storms of time, the battering and bombarding of Oavalier or Roundhead. Houses we have bought and built, as other men, -no doubt, but seldom do we seem to have held them long enough for the ivy to hide the mortar, or the lichen to grow grey on the stones. · Scattered far
and. wide are the graves of. the household in every generation. Not an acre of the lands we held in the northern counties, nor, I think, of the numerous properties acquired in the sixteenth and 11eventeenth centuries in Ireland remains in the hands of any one belonging to, or_ connected with, the family. And here in this chapter I would say something of what has struck me in my researches as to the singular faculty of the fami]y _for being, to use a modern expression, ' out of it ' at psychological moments of importance. There is no reason to doubt, if no certain record to confirm the matter, that we drew the long bow or co11ched a, spear at Ore9y and .Agincourt. It is certain that some Lambe.rt heads must have been broken in the Wars of the Roses, since the Vicar of Bray himself could hardly have kept out of the trouble in those times. But till stout Sir Oliver comes on the scene I can trace no La.mbart prominently connected with historical events. We bore the Royal Oornmission in various regiments almost in every generation since 4: LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE the formation of a standing Army. A Lamba.rt _circ11mnavi2ated the globe with .Anson, another tumbled into the surf from the boats at .Alexandria in all the bravery of scarlet ooatee and buckskins; but I think I am correct in saying that no Lambart carried colours or led a :regiment under Marlborough in his glorious campaigns, climbed the heights of Abra.ham with Wolfe, fought rebels and red-skins in the W a.r of Independence, followed Wellington from Lisbon to Paris, nor stood among the trampled corn of Waterloo. The Eastern sages delight to trace in subtle metaphysics ~f cause and effect how the :flight of a butterfl.y may affect the fate of an empire. How many pages of our fa,~ily history, now lost beyond ·recovery-stories of family intrigues and quarrels, perhaps of misused talents and wasted opportunities-should we require to search to understand the riddle of this singular inappositeness· through so many years P
EVOLIJTION OF UND'OBJI : CAVALBY SOLDIBB, DELAn, 1599. 5 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE
CHAPTER II.
THE most far-reaching version of the family pedigree extends back to Charlemagne, with a mysterious reference to the descent · of that great monarch from a celebrated warrior__ of the. Mede~~-J. I think it hardly necessary to attempt to follow the roots of the family tree so far underground as this : it would land us in Old Testament history. Oharlemagne is a fine, conspicuous starting point, and his name is still preserved in the family. The descent ft-om Charlemagne is in the female line, and for the benefit of those who may not be acquainted with it I give the following ' extract of the root,' if I may so call it :- One Lambart, Lambert, or Lambarde (for the name, like most others in early history, had no fixed form), Count of Mons and Louvaine, married the daughter and heiress of Oharles Duke of Louvaine, son of Louis· King of France, he hims_elf being descended, through his mother, from Oha.rles the Bold of France. Their third son, Rodolph, settled in Normandy on an estate belonging to his mother. From the eldest son descended all the Duk~~ of Br~bant, and from the second son the Italian family of Lambertini and the French Oomtes de St. Bruys...... This part of the pedigree is recorded in the Archives of Brabant, and is further confirmed by the claim of common descent with our own family, made in the eighteenth century by Pope Benedict XIV., who was a Lambertini. .As family records were accurately kept in ltaly from a much earlier date than in England, this is, I think, a creditable voucher. 6 .LEAVES FROM A. FAMILY TREE Rodolph's son, also Rodolph by name, crossed to England in the time of the Conqueror. I say in the time of, for the name does not appear in the roll of Battle Abbey, which, I suppose, is an accurate record of all the men of note who fought at Hastings. ·But we may fairly assume that, the Conqueror's line of communi cations being kept open by his fleet, many other Normans followed quickly after him to get their share of the plunder of England, and it may well be that Rodolph was one of them. He seems to have secured lands and revenues in Lincolnshire, since he and his descendants are recorded to have made donations to the .Abbey of Oroyland in that county. His 2randson, William. married a grand~_dmig_hte:r (?) of the Conqueror himse)f, a daughter of the Earl of Warren and Surrey. I have inserted the query because the lady, Gundreda by name, has been the· subject of much controversy among learned historians, and it is very doubtful if she was a daughter of William the Oonqueror, or even of Matilda -or Maud, his Queen, by a former marriage. The charters of Lewes Priory, on which the belief was based, have been found to be very untrustworthy. Whoever she was, Gundreda married William de Warrenne, first Earl of Surrey, and between them they established the Priory of Lewes, and were both buried within its walls. The Priory was. very completely and laboriously demolished by Thomas Lord Cromwell, to whom it passed at the time of the dissolution of religions houses, and the black marble slab which covered the tomb of William and Gundreda. was removed either then or later to Isfield Church, .seven miles off, and-used to cover the remains of one of the Shi.J'ley family. There it was discovered in 1775, and reJ)loved to Southover I Ohurch, in the neighbourhood of its origin&,Jt· site. Seventy years later, the cists or coffers containing the actual remains of the Norman Earl and his· wife were found accidentally 7 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE in the course of railway excavations, and now tombstone and remains are once more brought together in holy ground. Earl W arrenne, it is said, ·had rather fallen to pieces, but Gnndreda was nearly complete, and it may be of interest to us to know that our reputed ancestress was a tall and stately dame or :five fe·et eight inches. The marriage of William de Lambs.rt with their daughter proves that he was a man of standing, for mesalUances must have been rare in those days of domestic absolutism. The inscription on G~dreda's tombstone, by-the-by, is a, curi ously difficult piece of Latin : ' Stirps Gundrada Ducmn decus evi nobile germen : Intulit ecclesiis Anglorum baJsama mornm.: Martha fnit miseris fuit ex pietate Maria: Pars obiit Marthm Superest pars magna Marim: 0 pie Panora.ti testis pietatis et equi. Te facit heredem tu clemens suscipe Matrem : Sexta Kalendarnm Junii ·1ux obvia carnis Fregit .Alabastrnm.' Literally translated: ' Gundrada, the issue of a race of Dukes, the ornament of her age, a noble scion, brought into the Ohurches of the English the balsams of her moral virtues. A Martha she was to the distres~ed : for piety a Mary. Martha's part has gone its course, Mary's great part survives. 0 pious Pancras, witness of her piety ·and equity, you she makes her heir; do you, meek man, sustain your mother. That adverse morn, the sixth before the day of the caJends of June, broke in pieces the sweet-scented alabaster Vessel of the Flesh.'-(By the Rev. J. Scobell, Rector of Skotooer, 1845). I come next to the historica.l record of a stout knight, Henri de Lambert or Lam.hart, son of William, who was standard-bearer to Henry II., and fought a duel either ·as the King's champion or on his own account with a, Scottish Knight, Sir Alexander of Olyford, before the King of Scotland. The result of the encounter 8 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE is not recorded, but Sir Henry was evidently not seriously injured, for he lived ·to marry .Alice, the only daughter of the Earl of Essex, and with her got property in _York and S~ip~~n. He made himself a persmw, grata to the Ohurcn, probable by liberal ' fire insurances ' after the fashion of the times, and received a bene diction on parchment from the Bishop of Lincoln in llfj4. This curious document, with the original seals, was in existence in the eighteenth century, in the hands of Mr. Lambart, of Painstown, now represented by the Beau Pare branch. · The pedigree traces the continuous descent of the family from Sir Henry through the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, .but I do not find anything worthy of note except the knighting of a son of the house in almost every generation down to the reign of Henry IV., and their intermarriages with the families of Wake, Oressy, and Olliford. In the time of Henry IV. two diverging branches were re11nited by the marriage of Henry of the S~ntop branch with his third cousin, Isobel of Preston. The branch from which we descend was seated at Long Preston, in Lancashire, in the time of Henry V. and VI. in the person of John Lambert, a country squire of no great estate, but esteemed of good descent among his neighbours. He married Elizabeth Whitacre, and had six sons, the second of whom was ancestor to General John Lambert of the Oivil War, and the third was our own progenitor. One of his great-grand sons through his second son, Thomas, John Lambert of Winters willhaJI, in Skipton, married one Margaret Oa.rr or Kerr. A few years ago, a brother-in-law of mine (himself a Kerr) happened to visit Pinchbeck Ohurch, in Lincolnshire, and there found a very .curious and interesting brass recording this very m~a,ge. The translation of the Latin inscription runs as follows :- ' Why build a sepulchra ! Virtue shines forth even after death! 9 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE This Margaret was the wife ·of John Lam.ha.rt, illustrious in her own descent from OaIT,· illustrious in her husband. These armorial signs show from what ancestors he was sprung, and to what ancestors she traces her race and her line as well. She lived four years after eighty, unstained in character, and endowed with- talent, :firm in faith. Him, when Obrist had completed fifteen. centuries, a hot June of the eighth year carried off. 1608.' · In an old history of Lincolnshire churches a full description of this brass is given. In addition to this- inscription and a kneeling figure of Margaret Oarr there ·are a large number of coats-of-arms, giving a complete record of the intermarriages of the family (as recorded in the pedi gree) back to the eleventh century. The son of this marriage married a daughter of the house of Dymoke of Scrivelsby, hereditary Ohampions of England. · · · Another great-grandson of John of Preston turned his atten tion to trade, as we are told many younger sons of good family did in those days, and was sufficiently successful as a grocer to be elected an Alderman and Sheriff of the City of London. He lies buried in Bow · Church. He married a daughter of one Andrews of Laverstoke, in Hants, and had eighteen children. Truly a Lambert to be proud of! both for his successful wisdom in de voting himself to money-getting instead of · the more fashionable occupation of breaking heads, and for his prodigious record as a father. I wonder if among the forgotten lumber of the Oity archives there exists a portrait of the worthy Alderman and Sheriff in his robes of office? I wonder, too, how many of the thousands of Lamberts who help to populate the British Empire to-day spring from his loins through those ·eighteen children ? To return to John of Preston. · I must here insert a curious sidelight on the social history of the Tudor period which I have 10 BHA'S$ IX PIXC'llBE('K cnrneu, LIX('S.
LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE found in. an old book, Whitaker's 18 I,EAVES. . FROM. A FAMILY TREE CHAPTER III. R1a:e:AB'O, third son of John Lambert, of Long Preston ('temp. Henry VI.), married a Mistress Burton, and with her got la.lids at OarshaJton, in S111Tey, on which· he settled, having, probably, no . . patrimony in the ancestral estate. His only son, Walter, married a daughter of Sir John Gainsford, and had four sons, one of ·whom, it is recorded, was killed at the Siege of ·Boulogne. The third son, another Walter, m~ed a, daughter of Sir Oliver Wallop, and secondly, a daughter· of Sir William Powlett, or Paulet, two famiJies that are still of note in the land. To Walter was born a, son, Oliver, who grew up to be a very valiant :fighting-man. In the 'Annals or the Historie of the ~ost Renowned and Victorious ·Princesse Elizabeth, late Queen of England,' written in Latin by the learned Mr. Willi&m Camden, h~ is honourably mentioned thus : ' To which end God also raised up unto Her valiant souldiers, courageous Oapta.ines and Commanders, both by sea and land. Amongst which Ranke I cannot ·without injury to their merits but mention· ·some of our ·owne colll'.ltrymen, who in these remarkable times have for the honour of their Qneene (the most glorious that ever reigned) and the fame of the English nation (never -more renowned than under her most happy reigne) 11ome of them encompassed the world, some adventured their lives, and spent their blondes in fights at sea., in battails by land, in defence of Forts, in assaults of Townes, in the mouth of the cannon. In whose number were those most noble Earles of Omnberland, Essex, Nottingham, ..•. the Ma.rs-like brethren the Norrises, Sir 14 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE Philip Sidney, . ~ .. Sir Oliver Lambert, afterwards Lord Lambert, . . . • and many others whose valour and virtues deserve to be recorded to posterity by ·a more learned writer.' He first went to Ireland in 1580 as a. volunteer under Sir John Norris, ·-and served against the Scots in 0landeboye, and there, falling into the hands of the enemy, he was. so sorely wounded· that, besides the loss of some limbs, deztro 811,0Ciso poplite, it itr quaintly· record~d- of him 'that he hardly was saved with· life.' Oliver, or what remained of him,· was sent to Englan4. with dis patches by his uncle, Sir Henry Wallop, and Ml(fftl,YXafterwarda again joined Sir John Norris in the Netherlands, where he served for seven long years with great distinction, till he was again severely wounded at the siege of Steenwyck in 1592. . Four · years later, as a tried and experienced soldier, he followed Essex in his wild expedition to singe the King · of Spain~s beard at Oadiz, and soon after landing was appointed to be what we should now call Quarte:rmaster-General to the Forces. He earned the- honour of knighthood from Essex, who, indeed, distributed it with such a lavish hand as to give rise to the doggrel rhyme which asserts that ' a knight of 0aJes, a gentleman of Wales, and a laird of the north countree,' could all be bought up by a citizen · of London. If the 'Honours Gazette ' of Essex erred on the side of liberality, we may perhaps compare it with another recent one, and reflect that in both cases probably some of the recipients at least deserved what they got. At any rate, stout Sir Oliver may be said to have fairly earned the accolade. Essex and his warriors seem to have looted very freely at Oadiz, and the keen-eyed Elizabeth was by no means satisfied with the spoils accounted for officially as a return for her unwilling ex penditure on the expedition. A. statement was .called · for of the •private gains of the principal officers; and Sir Oliver comes in -a lo LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE bad fifth on the list. with 6501. only. as against 30001., the top figure. As he . must have had exceptional opportunities in his capacity of Quartermaster-General, it is probable that he stretched his con science a little. in his calculations. It does not appear that the officers were actually made to disgorge their plunder. The authority I have been quoting, by-the-by, gives the name Sir Oliver Lambart in every reference to birn11 When the Irish troubles of Elizabeth's reign grew to a head, and the favourite Essex was sent to deal with them,i' Sir Oliver . went too as a, captain in Sir Charles Percy's regiment. In the north and west of Ireland the war must have come to resemble in many ways the later phases of the South African campaign, and Sir Oliver, who soon rose to independent command, seems to have had to deal with an Irish De Wet, one Owny Mac -Ro:ry O'More, whom on one occasion he defeated with a loss of .. thirty-six ~ed and seventy-five wounded. We may confidently assume that most of the seventy-five 'died of wounds' shortly afterwards. Sir Oliver seems to have been a, really skilful soldier, and to have understood 'the influence of sea power ' on land fighting, for he built the fort at Gal~a.y in 1602, and so secured his sea base for supplies. Eliza~eth gave him a ' war _gratuity of lOOl. (equal to lOOOl. of our day), to be raised from sequestrated estates, and a grant of certain houses in County O~van. She was probably influenced in this liberality-so much against her recorded instincts by the reflection that she was not likely to get much out of the property herself for some time, and it did not entail any disbursement of cash on her part~ Sir Oliver's good service w~nt on into the reign of James I., by whom he was made a Privy Councillor for Ireland, .and chosen as one of the Undertakers for the settlement of Ulster, with a gran~ -0f 8000 acres of land. On this property he built ' a large, strong 16 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE Bawne and a stone house ; ' and again, ' a Bawne of lime and stone, 200 feet square, 14 feet high, and a deep moate about it with two flankers.' I have been able to collect some interesting and rather amnsing details of Sir Oliver's Irish career, which give one a very good idea of the sort of man he was. He was constantly employed as a confidential messenger be tween the Lord Deputy and his Irish Council and the 0allinet in London, 'because albeit he is not the best orator, he is well acquainted ~with the country and condition of the people, having long travelled and bled in the business here when it was at the worst.' He was certainly not afraid of responsibility, and his high handed way of doing things made him some enemies. Sir Geo:ffery Fenton writes to Lord Salisbury (1607) : ' By letter of the 9th instant, gave him notice of the going away of the two fugitive Earls (Tyrone and Tyrconnel,, with his hllDlble conceit of their bad purposes and his own poor advice. . . . . The packet being already made up . . . . he sent it by a merchant of London, enclosed within a letter to the postmaster of Chester, directing him to send it by the running post. But Sir Oliver Lambert, out of a strange and insolent presumption, took his letter from the merchant and opened it. . . . . Complains bitterly of the wrong, and leaves the censuring of it to the King, being without example here since he first served in this Kingdom.' ~e does not seem to have got into trouble over this, for in November the Lords of the Council send him back to Ireland with the remark to the Lord Deputy 'that they do not recommend him to one who so well knows his merits, further than to say that he has diligently attended to the business he came for, and bears with him marks of the King's favour, which increase his state and fortune.' 17 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE The Government were particularly anxious 'to g.et a good case against Tyrconnel and Tyrone, and Sir Oliver seems to have been not too particular in the means he employed to carry out their wishes. Tyrconnel, in detailing his wrongs to the King, writes:- ' .Also a gentleman, named Donagh O'Brien, who had some time followed the Earl, was committed to prison, out of which he made an escape; and afterwards Sir Oliver Lambarde (sic) sent a pro tection to him, and he being come before the Lord Deputy and the said Sir Oliver into a private chamber, Sir Oliver told him that he should not only have his pardon but large rewards, if he would charge the Earl with treason.' The next year, in going to view the Castle of Birt, 'whicli stood out in defiance of their forces, he received a hurt with a bullet in the right shoulder,' and my Lords of the Council in London ' are sorry ·-:- to hear of Sir Oliver's hurt, which is only one more ·mark of his. good service, and are glad to hear it is no worse.'· At this time he was in receipt of a pension of 48. a day besides his pay, and the upkeep of fifty horse and one hundred foot, which in those days meant very pretty pickings. I also find that he got paid a travelling claim 'for his attendance in England touching the affairs of Ireland, of 1331. 6s. Bd., which sounds very handsome indeed. The surrender of rebels was not made so easy in those days as it is now in South Africa, and a good deal of ' squeezing' went on, in which, I fear, Sir Oliver took a hand. The Earl of Thomond (to Salisbury) prays his help to ease them of this 'racking for con cea1ment' (of arms). 'Sir Oliver Lambert is now in Oonnaught. attending the escheator for this purpose, having got notice of some escheated lands, which lie fit for his manor of Olann-1-Banne. Ir he have forgotten how Sir Oliver came by that land, it was thus:. Hugh O'Oonnor, being ..•. condemned of treason ...• by media-- 18 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE .tion of his friends, was reprieved and afterwards pardoned, and his lands passed to himself for twenty-one years.. ~ .. But Sir Oliver, under pretence of commiseration to Hugh O'Connor, found means that his attainder was judged nothing because. the clerk had for gotten to enter judgment ; and when he had gone so far he got the land from Sir Hugh for himself and enjoys it to this day. In his (Thomond's) opinion another man were :fitter to· have done this than a councillor.' This letter is dryly endorsed, 'Oornmission for concealment determined.' On one occasion Sir Oliver seems to have played the part of an injudicious friend in the matter of getting a peerage for Ohichester who writes to Salisbury: ' Foreseeing what has now come to pass, he charged him not to speak of that matter unless it were :first propounded to him ; but, if he so affected honour for himself and friends as ·to forget what was said to him, he prayed him of all love not to name him (Chichester), otherwise he would disclaim it and oppose it what he might. Solemnly declares that he had no other speech with him than this on the matter. Doubts not that Sir Oliver Lambert's interference proceeded from well-wishing towards him, but is heartily sorry that his error in the handling of it hath brought him with him upon the stage of laughter and disgrace . r • • • though honour is the reward of virtue, yet virtue and honour have need of wealth and living to support and grace it, both which he wants, being a younger brother, who hath made his fortune, by the . King's favour and his Lordship's furtherance, 11ufficient only to support the calling and degree of a poor gentleman, with which he rests well satisfied.' In 1610 Ohichester reports to the Council, ' Sir Oliver Lambert has made a fair and strong building upon as thievish and disordered a border as any in Leinster, which is a great comfort to the good and a great disheartening to the bad neighbours of those parts.' 19 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE I do not quite understand the meaning of the following report by Chichester to Oarew, Master of the Ordnance in England (1611) .: 'There was a base foolish libel cast abroad, whereof one was brought to him by the Mayor. The words that passed between the Master of the Ordnance, Sir Oliver St. John and Sir Oliver Lambert called him (Lambert) to answer them on horseback with st1ch weapons as he could wield, which were desperate enough. Heard not of it till Sir Oliver St. John had gone into Oonnaught, and will now do his best to prevent what they intended.' .Apparently the two Sir Olivers had had words, but the challenge, ' with what weapons he could wield,' is very obscure. Perhaps it refers to our Sir Oliver's being partly disabled by the ' deztro s,ucciso poplite ' and his many other wounds. I note in this year that Sir Oliver got two thousand acre& assigned to him at a r~nt to the Orown of 161. only. In 1613 the King ordered a Parliament to be assembled in Dublin, and Sir Oliver took it into his head that he would like to be a member, and member for the county of Oavan. If the petition of the burgesses for the town and county to the King is to be believed, Sir Oliver secured his election and that of his nominees rather by personal influence than by persuasive oratory! 'Oaptain Oollom (011lme) bringing a mandate from~ the High Sheriff, caused the sovereigns and portreeves of Cavan to assemble themselves for choosing their burgesses for Parliament, and dealt publicly that himself and George Seaton, Secreta1·y to the Deputy, should be chosen, which the townsmen refused, preferring Walter and Thomas Brady. Within four or five days Sir Oliver Lambert committed one Walter Brady to prison, and threatened that he would take his castle from him ..... And one George Brady, seeing one O'Reilly give his voice as one of the town, said to Sir Oliver that Reilly was no dwelling-man there. Sir Oliver then 20 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY ~fREE asked Brady if he would give his vote for Cullum and Sexton, who answered ·that he would not, whereupon the said Oliver with a· truncheon struck him on the head and broke it rather danger ously (!) • • • • Yet in conclusion Walter and Thomas Brady were chosen by all the inhabitants except a very few of the poorest, and yet the Sheriff of the town and High Sheriff of the county returned the said Cullum and Sexton.' Sir Oliver had certainly very great local influence ! His own election for the county reads even more curiously in the said petition. The Sheriff in this case announced the Monday following the date of the receipt of the writ as the day for the election, but the very same day went with four others into a corner of the courthouse, and would have had an election by these few alone. But the gentle men and ·freeholders hearing of it did instantly appear, and went together a little beside, and elected Walter Talbot and Rioha.rd Tyrrell by a large majority. Nevertheless, the Sheriff returned one John Fish and Sir Oliver Lambert, ' who has no residence in the county.' It is only fair to our worthy ancestor to record that the Oom missioners selected to report on these matters put a different complexion on the facts . .They reported that in the matter of the county election it was held on the proper day in the proper place, neither of which happened to suit the petitioners, who went off and had an election of their own. Meanwhile Sir Oliver had been elected in the right place at the right time by his party. Nothing could be clearer or more regular. In the matter of the borough election and the 'rather danger ously ' broken head, they report that Sir Oliver with a little walking stick, not at all a truncheon, did strike George Brady on the head for using towards him some rude behaviour and giving him some 21 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE unfitting speeches, which is all the force that is proved_ to have been committed on that election, but his head was not broken. We want the pen of Charles Lever to do justice to these elec tioneering episodes, which seem to me curiously out of place in 1613. Surely they belong rather to the end of the se¥entaenth century. Times a.re changed indeed in old Ireland. Fancy a myrmidon of the 0astle, the secretary of the Viceroy himself, going down to the west in these days, and declaring himself duly elected ! Fancy, too, any :freeholder objecting to a broken head at an Irish election ! In 1614: Sir Oliver ·was sent with a 'small diminutive of an army'· to redeem the Castle of Ila in Dumbartonshire, which the MacdonaJds had taken wrongful possession of. The Lord Deputy was ordered to send six pieces of cannon, but ' every man here thinks that so vast a quantity of cannon should not have been assigned for such an expedition,' so the Lord Deputy and 0ouncil 'took such a course herein as they thought more ftt,' and sent o:ff Sir Oliver with only two cannon and a cnlverin. However, he took the castle successfully. With this I must- end my extracts from his military. -career, with some regret, for -he is, I think, an interesting as well as an important :figtire in our family history. .Altogether what with grants from the Orown and what he picked ~p himself Sir Oliver a.cc11mulated a very pretty fortune. Among other what we may call speculative investments I find it recorded in the History of Hampshire (with which county he had become connected by the Pa.ulet and Wallop marriages) that he leased the revenues of St. Mary's, Southampton. From the detailed list of his properties, compiled for testamentary purposes at his death, I calculated that he was worth in money of those times nearly 50001. a year, which represents at least 10,0001. or 12,0001. nowadays. 22 .LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE -Not a bad fortune for the son of a younger son to carve: out with his sword even in those adventurous days. · In 1617 in recognition of his long and varied service Sir Oliver Lam bart received from J a.mes I. an Irish peerage, and became Lord Lambert, Baron of Oava.n. . He married a daughter of Sir William Fleetwood of Oarrington Manor, Beds, by whom he had several children. ·He died in 1618, and was buried in Westminster .Abbey, where not many years ago the centaur crest on his tombstone was still decipherable in the north· aisle. The preamble of the grant of peerage in legal and so~ewhat barbarous Latin is quaint reading, and this is the interpretation _. thereof:- ' Men eminent for their military talents having in every State been always thought worthy of the honour of distinguished rank and splendid titles because they are the support of their country in time of war, and its ornament in time of peace ; ·' And our beloved and faithful counsellor, Oliver Lambert, Knight, having been engaged in arms from his early youth, and having given the first proofs of his skill in this ·profession against the rebels in Ireland, though in this war he was severely wounded in the right knee, yet not deterred from the profession of arms, but retaining his uncon quered mind he afterwards went into the Netherlands with the Earl of Essex, Governor-General of the United Provinces, and was appointed Governor of the famous City of Doesburgh in Gueldria, and afterwards by an assault in the •night he took the strong town of Anhalt, and in recapturing the very beautiful city of Daventer by exposing himself to many dangers he acquired great : glory, as well as many wounds, so that he was always eminently favoured and·· distinguished by the States Generals of the said• provinces. .At length being called back to England he served under 23 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE the illustrous Earl of Essex and 0ha.rles Howard Earl of Effingham, High .Admiral of England, in the Oadiz expedition as camp-master, and having there also distinguished himself at the taking of that rich eity deserved the honour of knighthood then confeITed on him. And _after this on his return again into this our Kingdom of Ireland, a numerous and powerful army being raised to crush the rebellion of that profliilate traitor the Earl of Tvr~~, in that army he served first as Sergemt-Major General, then as Chief MareschaJ, and at last was made Governor of the extensive province of 0onnaught, in all which honourable Trusts and· Stations he gave the strongest proofs of singular diligence, prudence, and fortitude, and after this, the said rebellion being suppressed and universe.I tranquillity restored, being now admitted into our Privy 0ouncil in this Kingdom, he greatly forwarded the Plantation of meter, which we had much at heart. And being sent with others against the inhuman rebel, O'Dogherty, who attempted toi defeat the said Plantation, in that expedition he again bravely shed his blood. 'Last of all when a body of treacherous rebels in our Kingdom of Scotland had seized upon the 0astle of Donoghbeg in the Island of Isla he took and sacked the castle, though it had ·till then been looked upon as impregnable, and put us a.gain into foll possession of it. Having then taken all these services into our gracious consideration we think our counsellor and commander (and no prince in Europe can boast of an abler one) worthy of being advanced to a higher degree of dignity.' I think that such a record of service in these days would have earned a peerage of the United Kingdom, a handsome,gratuity, and a perfect necklace of medals, stars, and other decorations. But the ~ding of any Irish coronet, howeve~ ancient or bravely won, seems to-day in public estimation to be tarnished by the infamy of the Union peerages, and to be held in no consideration at all com- 24 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE pared with the very latest elevation from the ranks of the plutocracy. And here I would turn aside for a, little to offer subject matter for 11ioralising to the descendants of Oliver Lambe.rt, first Lord Lambart of 0avan. Of another race, seated at another Preston, there came to exist in Sir Oliver's generation, one Richard Boyle, destined like him to win name and fortune in the troubled land· of Erin. Like Sir Oliver he took with him across St. George's 0hannel little but his sword (I ought perhaps to mention that he himself specifies in addition, two good suits, with cloaks, and 301. in money). Like him he won, as reward for service in the Irish wars, broad Irish lands and an Irish title, the latter, so evenly did they advance in fortune, just one year before Sir Oliver won his barony. Our ancestor died a twelvemonth afterwards, but for Richard Boyle the EVOLlJTION OP V.SD'OBII : OFFICEB, TBKP. ELIZA.BETH. Fates spun out :fifteen more years of life. I have often wondered whether those :fifteen years made all the di:fference in the fortunes of the two fa,mi1ies. Would Sir Oliver, had he lived as long, so profitably have improved his hardly-won estates in the north as to rival in wealth his great contemporary in the south, have placed coronets on the heads of all his children, and so firmly laid the foundations of his house as to survive the storms of the great Civil War so 25 B LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE near at hand P Oertain it is that the family which springs from. the great Earl of Cork in all its numerous branches has flo~shed exceedingly ever since. Would we could say the same of the house of Lambe.rt! .As far as we can gather from history they were men of much the same calibre, and they certainly commenced their careers on singularly even terms. Though he lived to be known as ' the great Earl of Oork ' Richard Boyle owed his fame not,. I think, to great talents either as a statesman or a soldier, but rather to the results of his great shrewdness in the management. of his private and family concerns. To those who care to learn in detail the story of Richard Boyle, how he made name and fortune, how he ennobled his sons, and gave his daughters in marriage to peers and sons of peers,. how he kept open house for them all ai1d patiently paid their debt still he himself paid the debt of nature in a good old age, I recommend a very fascinating book, which, under the title of MOJr/1, OO'IJ/11,tess of Warwick, records the life of the most charming· and wilful of his daughters. 26 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE OBAPTER IV. IN touching on the story of the other celebrated man who bore the family name (perhaps the greatest of all, as he is a prominent person in the history of his time) we turn aside from the direct line of our own descent, for John Lambert, of the great Civil War, was no ancestor of ours. He was a greait-~dson, like Sit Otive.r, of John -me llffl-VeBer, though an elder son; in fact, in bis day he represented the eldest surviving br~ch. Many and varied were the motives that actuated the men of that troubled time in their choice of sides, and we can only guess what made John Lambert, a well-to-do gentleman of long descent, take arms against his King. The learned Whitaker suggests, and the idea is as good as another, that he was moved thereto, in the first instance, by the unjust treatment by the King, instigated by Archbishop Laud, of the family of Assheton (to whom John Lambert was related through his marriage with a Lister) in some matters of Ohurch property acquired by them at the time of the spoliation of religious houses in the reign of Henry VIII. He was born in 1619 at Calton Hall in Yorkshire, and studied at the Inns of Oourt, though he never took up law as a profession. He was already married (to a daughter of Sir William Lister*) when the Oivil War broke out. He commenced his military career as * He married a maid-widow, for his wife had previously been married privately in an alley of her father's garden to WiJ1iam Nowell, who was drowned on his way back from this clandestine wedding. 27 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE a captain of horse under Fairfax, and fought ,vith distinguished . bravery at Marston Moor. In 1647, after the great quarrel between the Parliament and its army, he was made Major-General in chief command in the Northern districts, where he suppressed a mutiny among the troops, and effectually quieted the Borde1· country. His military career is too long a story to find a place among a mere. collection of 'leaves from a family tree,' but he seems to have been a born cavalry leader, and his brilliant dash across the hills on. to the flank and rear of the Scotch .Army of Hamilton in its march southwards from Preston is an example of sound cavalcy tactics that deserves to be better known to soldiers than it probably is. Luckily for hi~ in after years, and for the credit of the name, he was away in the North besieging P~ntefract when the tragedy of the King's trial and death took place; but from what is known of his character and opinions it is certain that he would never have consented to such extreme measures. In 1652 General John was very nearly being brought into co;ntact with his Irish kinsmen, for he was appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland. It is written that ' he accepted the office with pleasure, but his magnifi~ent preparations offended the Oommons, who limited his office to six months,' whereupon he resigned in a huff, without having crossed St. George's Channel. He took a prominent part in the following year in placing supreme power in the hands of Cromwell as Lord Protector, and accepted a peerage at his hands. He was therefore, though under a doubtful title, the only lja,mbert who ever sat in the English Upper House. Thus far, through all the storms and dissensions of the time, he had been right-hand man and firm friend to the uncrowned king, but when the great Oliver proposed to go a step further and accept the crown itself, John Lambert endeavoured to dissuade and then opposed him to the extent of a quarrel that ended finally 28 Ln:CT:J•;x AXT-(; EXER..\L .Jo II X L..\)IB/irr. TE)IP. THE WAH. £. LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE their long and tried friendship. He retired to his house at Wim bledon on a handsome pension of 20001. a year till after Oromwell's death. Two years later, under Richard Oromwell, he emerged into public life again, both as a politician and a soldier ; but in writing of this really great man I have already been tempted too far into the domain of national history, and must be resolutely brief in touching on the rest of his public c&?eer. How he was cashiered by one makeshift Parliament-how he retaliated in the style of Cromwell himself by locking the Members out of the House how he ~as reappointed a Major-General and sent to bring Monk to terms in the North-how the army, which had once adored him and begged to be led by him at Dunb·ar, deserted him wholesale how he was sent to the Tower, escaped, was recaptured, and narrowly escaped with his life on a charge of high treason at the Restoration -is all recorded in the history of the time, which .we all ought to know, but have probably most of us forgotten. He was exiled to Guernsey, where he occupied himself in his favourite pursuit of gardening till he died, an old and forgotten man, in 1694. * His estates had been forfeited and given to Lord Fauconberg, who gave them back to him, and they passed to his son, who was,. by the way, a painter of portraits of no mean ability. In the course of a generation or two his descendants in the male line died out, and the estates passed, through a daughter, to the family of Middleton in N orth11m berland, who, I believe, still hold them. That his pretensions to succeed Cromwell in the supreme power were well founded· there is no doubt. The army, all factions in Parlia ment, and the country generally looked on 'honest John Lambert,' as Cromwell always called hi1n, as second only in influence and ability * I have since found that General Lambert died, not in Guernsey, but in Stonehouse Fort, at Plymouth, to which he had been removed. 29 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE to the Great Protector himself. The Royalist party, in their negotia tions for the Restoration, thought so much of his inftnence that they offered him the bribe of a Royal marriage for his daughter, first to James Duke of York, and then to Oha.rles himself. 'No foreign aid,' writes Lord Hatton, 'will be so cheap nor leave our master so much at liberty as this way•. The race is a very good gentleman's family, a.nd kings have before condescended to gentle women and subjects. The lady is pretty, of an extraordinary sweet ness of disposition, and very virtuously and ingenuously disposed; the father is a person, set apart his unhappy engagement, of very great parts and very noble inclinations.' The lady, after thus missing the chance of a Royal orownt afterwards married Serjeant John Hook, Ohief Justice of Ohester. This episode of fa,rni1y history surely opens a wide field of hist9rical speculation. How different might have been the fate of the Stuart faroiJy and of the English monarchy had Mary t,amberlt daughter of a fruitful race, worn the crown of Queen Consort instead of the withered Catharine of Braganza ! .A mighty bribe indeed was that offered to General John, and that he refused it says much for his principles if less for his worldly wisdom. In the Okr(J'll,icles of Craven there is a print from a picture of the great Parliamentary General· which well accords with the following summary of his character, written by Mr. Oornish of Eton College. 'Lambert would have left a better name in history had he been a cavalier. His general ardour and excitable nature, easily raised and easily depressed, was more akin to the Royalist than the Puritan spirit. Vain, and sometimes overbearing as well as am bitious, he believed that Oromwell could not stand without him, and when Cromwell was dead, he imagined himself equal to succeed him, and thought that the first place was his by right. Yet his 30 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE ambition was less selfish than that of Monk. Lambert is accused, of no ill faith, no want of generosity, no cold and calculating policy. Lambert was not merely a soldier. He was an able writer and speaker and an accomplished negotiator,. and took pleasure in quiet and domestic pursuits. He learned his Jove of gardening from Lord Fairfax, who was also his master in the art of war. He painted flowers besides cultivating them, and incurred the blame of Mrs. Hutchinson by dressing the flowers in his garden and wo.rking at the needle with his wife and maids. He made no special profession of religion, but no imputation is cast on his moral character by his detractors. It has been said that he became a Roman Catholic before his death.' · Peace to his ashes ! If he was riot a great man, he was no small one in a time of great men and great perplexity, and I think we cannot afford to disown him .. SIGKATVBB 01' IIUOB-GDBBAL 10:&1' LAJIBBBT. 31 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE CHAPTER V. THE star of the family fortunes, which after so many hundred years of obscurity rose to its zenith in the lifetime of Sir Oliver, was destined very soon to decline with equal rapidity. Sir Oliver, who married Hester Fleetwood of Bedfordshire, left two sons, of whom the younger, Sir Oarey or Cary, lived at Olons birne, in Roscommon, and died unmarried in 1627. Charles,. the elder, born in 1600, was educated at Cambridge, and seems to have been a worthy son of his more fortunate father. .As part of a scheme for. the settlement of Leinster, he received a grant of some 1300 acres in Westmeath and King's County, probable more valuable as being nearer to the Pale, and therefore better protected than his father's estates in the north. Besides his seat in the Irish House of Lords, where he frequently spoke, he made use of the privilege of an Irish peer to sit for a constituency in the English House of Commons. He represented Bossiney, in Comwall, but I have been quite unable to trace his connection with that county, which must in those days have been mtima Thule to most Englishmen. It is true that he married a daughter of a Cornish nobleman, Richard Lord Robartes, but I cannot discriminate between cause and effect in the matter. His connection with English politics was brief, and after his appointment to the Lord Lieutenancy of County Oavan in 1627 he seems to have lived entirely in Ireland. On the outbreak of the Civil War, the Irish naturally broke out into rebellion with no particular interest in either king or Parlia ment. Then, as ever, they were ' agin the Government.' 32 TII J-; BOY~ E .:\T BEs\ l" P..\lt<'. '1' ff(~ no Y XI~ .A '.L' l rn.:\ U .PA It C. LEAVES FROM A. FA.MIL Y TREE Cavan's estates, with many others, were soon laid waste by them, but he cheerfully raised a regiment of 1000 foot, and took the field against his father's old enemies. He seems to have been a fairly successful comn1ander, though he was present with Ormonde · ·at the ' regrettable incident' of Kilsaghlan in 1643. He was made Military Governor of Dublin for the King, and in that capacity earned unpopularity with the soldiery, who inclined to the Parlia mentary side across the water, and with the civil authorities, who found him somewhat high-handed and disregardful of common law in a troubled time. The King he had served faithfully rewarded him in the only manner open to a monarch who had lost control of the public purse, and made him Earl of Cavan and Viscount Kilcoursie. I can :find no trace of the meaning of the second title, but presumably it was taken from one of the family estates in the north. There is a Oastle Kilcoursie at this day, and I believe the owner, a gallant Hibernian offi.ce1·, was much exercised at what he considered the 'unauthorised' use of the name by the present head of the family whom he met as Viscount Kilcoursie ! Lord Oavan emerged from the long Oivil War a ·r11ined-or at least greatly impoverished-man, and for the la.st few years of his life was in receipt of a small pension from the Government. He died a month after the Restoration, too soon happily, for him to ex perience, like so many other loyal and gallant gentlemen, the ingratitude of a Stuart King. He left five sons, but three died without issue, and the family for 150 years subs~qnently continued in two well-defined branches, the elder carrying the title and the younger firmly established in Ireland, now for many years past at beautiful Beau Pa.re on the Boyne. The superfluous twigs in that long period dropped off and died with laudable dispatch. I can sweep together hardly any leaves from the family .tree in 33 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE that century and a half, and some of the few I have collected are perhaps better burnt than preserved. A dark cloud overshadow& the elder branch for several generations ; there are records of a wicked uncle, a long and Interrupted lawsuit, and much family dis sension, but it seems to me a pity to bring them to- light after so many years. Who can tell the rights and wrongs of the story, and.. what good would it do any of.us now living to· know? Mary Lambert, we know~ did not marry Oharles II., but one Oliver Lambart married one of his ·many daughters with the bar sinister, and a daughter of this marriage would have given ~ome of us the doubtful benefit_ of Stuart blood and a semi-royal descent if she had been fruitful, but she died childless. Her mother (the scandal ia- . . too old to hurt anybody) seems to have inherited her Royal father's. somewhat lax ideas of morality, for she bore a son to the Duke J-twe. . ~· 9f Buckingham~ and apparently fathered him on Oliver, for he took the family arms, but he inherited by will the whole fortune of his. real father. Richard, the fourth Earl, served in the army, but though he was made a Privy Oouncillor, I cannot find that he did much as a soldier.. In 1691 he was given (as Lord Lam.hart, his elder brother having· died) a commission at eighteen in King William's army, and served in Spain, Portugal, and the West Indies, where he married the daughter of the Governor of Barbadoes. · He was Lieut.-Oolonel of Fielding's Regiment, and I suppose born on the Dutch establish ment, as it is recorded that in 1715 he was, upon the recom- mendation of the House of Peers (what on earth had they to d«> with it ?), transferred to the English e·stablishment as Lieut.- Oolonel of Dormer's Regiment, now I think the Somersetshire· Light Infantry or old 18th. He was also apparently a Lieut.- Oolonel of Guards, but these things remain a mystery to me after some search. 34 RICH.A.RD, VISCOU~'"T KILCOURSIE. AFTERWARDS SIXTH EARL OF CA.YAX. RICHARD, SIXTH EARL OF C..lYAX, LIEL"TEXAXT-GEXER• .\L. .,1/f.',::. ~ f -~ . : ~ : ... ELIZABETH DAYIES, CO"CSTESS Ol' CA YAS. LEAVES FROM A F A.MILY TREE His wife seems to have been a brilliant woman, as became a niece of witty Dick Steele. They lived at Lambarton House and were both buried at Maryborough. Of Ford the fifth Earl there is nothing to relate save that he was the father of a most 11nha,ppy lady. Gertrude his second daughter, married Michael Oumrie of Stac11mrie, who was created a baronet in 1776. The story goes that, being of an intensely jealous disposition he shut his wife up in one room of a lonely house . of his and allowed no one to see her. From her own choice or in accord &nce with a whim of her tyrannical lord she dressed always in . . white, and I believe her story formed the basis of Wilkie Colline's novel, The Woman in White, though there is no origina.1 for the sleek and creepy Count F~sco in her case. She was, I think, ~eventua.lly rescued _by her family. On the death of Ford, fifth Earl,· the title passed for the first time out of the direct line of desc~nt (as he left no son) and fell to Richard, son of Henry the elder brother of Oliver above mentioned. Richard married _as his first _wife his_ first cons~, Sophia, granddaughter of Charles II., but as I have sai~ she had no children, which, all things considered, is not perhaps to be regretted. I have been unable to trace the name of the ladv's mother, but she must have h~ many half Bietel's and IH'ot.b:el's I Richard served in the OMdstf!e&IH Guards and rose to the rank of Lieut.-Genera.I, b&t I .le ao~ think 1te saw &af active &&.P; ice. His chief claim to family regard at any rate is that he was the father of a very pretty daughter. His second son died .as a baby of inoculation, or as we should call it, vaccination. T,EA. VES FROM A. FA.MIL Y TREE 0HAPTER VI. IT may be of some interest to insert here the result of my investigations as to the spelling of our name. I have been quite unable to fix definitely the period at which it finally assttmed its present form. In these ' leaves ' I have spelt it as I have found it written at the period to which I refer. Every student of genealogy knows that in early times the names of even the most prominent men had no fixed form, often vaging in the course of a single doc11ment, and it is certain that ours was no exception. Originally, no doubt, in the broad dialect of the Low Countries it would have been Lambart, or even Lam barde ; Lambert again in the quicker Norman French, and, as we have seen, Italianised into Lambertini. I find it spelt de Lambe.rt in the reign of Henry II., but at Long Preston and Carlton generally Lambert. I do not find the a again till Henry VIIl.'s reign, when it is recorded of that spoliating monarch that ' His Grace gaf to John Lamba.rt by his l'ces pat'ts dated (iv. die Martii anno xxi.) Regni suo (1530) the Manor of Malham.' Some pious hand at a later date (possibly one of the the despoiled monks) has added after the King's name ' Whose soul God pardon ' ; and indeed few English monarchs required Divine pardon more ! In an original parchment, which I have seen, written in legal characters : ' Thomas Clifford sells to John Lambart one messuage and two oxgangs of land in West Marton.' Dated 1512. 36 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE Here the a is distinct throughout. This refers undoubtedly to John Lambart, whom Whittaker calls the scrivener. Sir Oliver always wrote his name Lamberf.-at least so it appears in letters extant from him to the Lord Deputy of Ireland-...i . but in the many references to him in the State papers of the time it is often spelt Lambarde, and more than once Lambart. IDster King of .Arms informs me that in the original entry in his office the 1·ecord runs: 'Sir Oliver Lambert, Knight, created Lord Lam bert, Baron of Cavan, by the Right Honourable Sir Oliver St. John, Vis count Grandison of Lym.erick, the Lord Deputy of Ireland, being the xxiiird of February, 1617, the patent dated the xviith of the same month.' But the note of the patent in the Liber X'II/Mrum gives it as Lambart. I do not know if the original patent of the 1617 barony itself still exists f that of the aus OP oLIVBR, PDIIIT r.oBD LAJDIABT. • 1, 7, 9. Lambart of Yorks. 4. Danby. earldom was lost in the confusions of 2. Lambart of Lines. 5. Cressy. 3. Whitacre. 6 and 8. Pickering. the Oivil War. In the A.mials of the Four Masters, written in Erse, the name is spelt Lambe1·t, and again in Hibernia Pacoata, where Sir Oliver is referred to as Ohief Staff' Officer to Essex in the south of Ireland. A house was built by either Sir Oliver or his son, the first Earl of Cavan (I think the latter) in Queen's County, which seems always to have been called Lambartstown or Lambartown. An old peerage of 1790 deliberately describes the name and titles of the seventh Earl as Richard Lambart, Earl and Baron of Oavan, Viscount Kilcoursy, and Lord Lambert, which looks as if 37 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE the c;,riginal patent had been in the name of Lambert. There can, indeed, be little doubt of this, for, as Sir .Oliver certainly spelt his name Lambert, there could have been no reason why his title should have been spelt differently. I think the a must have been ftnaJly adopted-not improbably· with deliberate intent as a distinguishing mark-soon -after the middle of the seventeenth century, for Charles, who died before succeeding, in 1689, and Gilbert, who died in 1737, also before his father, were both buried as Lords Lambart. This is all the evidence I can offer on this subject. It·is, perhaps, pleasant to have a distinctive name, but it is possible to grow weary of s~ggling for it aJl one's life, and I have some times wished that the ·sept had never emerged from the clan ! As regards armorial bearings, with some trepidation (for I know very little of this mysterious science) I offer the few notes I have put together. LAXB&BT •mm, HNt , _ The three eiBqlWf9ilo, or narcissi, I Harl8iM,, Jf88. ,. .. - , - -were undoubtedly· the arms of Brabant, ·a11cl tltey were ttSed by the fa111ily as far baek as 1394. I venture to suggest that they had been revived when heraldry .became more of an exact science, for I read in Barnard's Companion to English History 'that at the time of the Conquest and up to the first Crusaders the ornamentation of shields was of the simplest kind, being, in fact, in its earliest forms, a mere painting, in a, different colour to the body of the shield of the strengthening bars or braces. The representation of figures on the shield was a 38 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE custom that came in later, and was a natural elaboration of the original practic~.' However, it is reasonable enough to suppose that the @inqaefei.ls were adopted as an assertion of the family claim of descent from the Counts of Brabant, whether it is well founded or not. I give opposite a representation of the arms in use by the family hi 1394, from the Harleian Manuscripts. The three lambs were, no doubt, what is called ' canting heraldry,' a reference to the first syllable of· the name. Whitaker, in his Cltro1i.ele'B of Orave1i, suggests that the name is derived from 'Lambhirde,' · because he finds record of one, 'Peter the Lambhirde,' or Lamb-herd, among the servitors of Bolton Abbey at an early date. This seems to me alto gether improbable, for the name, in its various forms. was well known. in England, Normandy, and France in the days of the Angevin kings, and there is no necessity for so far-fetched ,,JIB ol' ioBN LUlBBB'.l' ol' cABSBAL'l'Os, MABSJUL OF TJIB BALL m .T.AMICS I. an interpretation of its meaning. The three lambs, I notice, are still preserved in the arms of various existing families of Lamberts. I cannot trace when they were dropped from ours. General John used the three cinquefoila quartered with the lambs and the che4Y and chevron of Lambart "' of 1,incolnsJrlre~ ~ illastration. The crest ·-M 1394- is very curious, for it represents a female centaur holdinK a. peaceful flower instead of the warlike bow. The emqaefoils do not seem to have been preserved as arms in what was reputed to be the French branch (see Chapter I.) of 89 . LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE the 0omtes de Ste. Bruys or Brys, which :flourished exceedingly down to the French Revolution in several branches, all of noble rank. I give a representation of the arms of the Italian branch of · Lambertini, from which came Pope Benedict XIV., and they, again, are completely different; but Dugdale, that great old authority on matters heraldic, says that, in the palmy days of heraldry, it was quite usual for a family to change their arms on bein2 ennobled. The persistent use of the 8i11¥J1,eil1 for so many hun dred years in all the English branches of our family is very remarkable and in teresting. The family of Lambert of Garrett's · Hall, Banstead, in Surrey, which claim, to have been settled there since the reign of Edward I., originally quartered the three lambs, which are shown in the arms I+~ -/i;;r-s of our family in ,....1394 (see above). Among their ancestors is a John Lambert of ABMS OF LAVBERTINI FAMILY, 0arshalton, temp. Elizabeth. I have said POPE BENEDICT XIV. that Sir Oliver's grandfather from Long Preston settled at 0arshalton, and the connection is curious. I suggest that possibly the widely separated branches knew of each other's existence, and that Walter Lamhart was on a visit to his distant kinsfolk when he met and married Mistress Burton, but this is mere speculation. I would here apologise for the disjointed manner of my writing, but since I first began my essay at family history, stray leaves have eome into my hands in no regular sequence from various sources, and from want of method and a. disinclination to rewrite, I have 40 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE made use of them generally as they came to hand. With this apology I hark back to the brass at Pinchbeck Church, which I have treated in a somewhat meagre manner. There are no less than twenty-seven coats-of-arms depicted · -0n it, and I am indebted to Lieut.-Oolonel Lambe.rt Bouwens ·for their interpretation, which I hope it will not be tedious to detail. I • .Arms of William the Conqueror. (This is based on what is now accepted by historians as a proved error, that the wife of the Earl of Fitzwarren was ·a daughter of the Conqueror). II. Arms of Lord Fitzwarren and his wife, Gundreda. III. Arms of Hugh FitzLambart and of his wife, Matilda, daughter of Peter de Ros. IV. Arms of Lord Fitzwarren. V. Arms of Sir William de Lambart and his wife, the daughter -0f Lord Fitzwarren. VI• .Arms of Henry de Lambart and his wife, Alicia, daughter -0f Mandeville, Earl of Essex. VII. Arms of John Lambe.rt. Not impaled, as his wife's nanie is not known. VIII. .Arms of Thomas Lambart, Sheriff of London. Wife's name. unknown. IX. Arms of John Lambart of Skipton, Knight, and his wife, a Olapham. X. .Arms of Thomas Lam.hart of Skipton. Wife not known. XI. .Arms of William Lambe.rt and his wife, a Cressy. XII. .Arms of Henry Lamba.rt of Lincolnshire and his wife, -co-heiress of John Lambart of Long Preston. N.B.-This is a new coat, probably a fresh grant. XIII. .Arms of Henry Lam.hart of Skipton and his wife, Maud de Vere, quartering Lam.hart a.nd Pickering. '1 Q LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE XIV. Arms of .Allayne Lam.hart. Wife unknown. XV. Arms of Geoffrey Lambart of Long Preston and his wife,. a Clifford. XVf. Arms of John Lam.hart, 1420 A.n., and his wife, a Whitacre (see Chapter II.). She quarters Danby. XVII. Arms of a son of John Lam.hart of Long Preston, ancestor of General John. XVIII., XIX., and XX.. His son, grandson, and great-grandson (vide Chapter II., with which this agrees). XXI~ to XXV. Arms of Oar (see. translation of inscription). XXVI. Arms of Lam.hart, son of XX., and of his wife, daughter ofXXV. xx VII. is an imitation of the foreign ' seize quartiers,' which Colonel Bouwens thinks is distinct from the system of English ·-=· heraldry. The date of this interesting brass is, a~ I have said, 1608, at which time Winterswill Hall, Skipton, was the principal residence of the family in Yorkshire, and it is not very clear to me why the brass was put up at Pinchbeck, in Lincolnshire, unless John, the husband, was a younger son, and inherited part of the estates oi the Lincolnshire branch. Ooncerning this branch I know very little more than I have said in Chapter II., and till I heard of the brass had supposed that; the family had moved entirely to Yorkshire in the twelfth century.. .A. .J1t .- •- I I find records of them in the MHM'f I of l,1royland Abbey about- 1300, but at no later date in that -county, though hundreds of names of benefactors, beneficiaries (and witnesses) to abbeys a.re given in the book. Of the Carr family, from which Margaret came, the pedigree is carried no higher than the fifteenth century in the herald's visitation. of 1666. 42 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE The arms are there recorded as ' mullets ' instead of ' estoiles ' .as on the brass. John Carr, of Sleaford, served as High Sheriff for Lincolnshire in 1566, and Robert Oarr, junior, in 1581. The last of the family married the Hon. John Harvey, who was made Earl of Bristol 1714:, and the estates, I believe, remained in ·that fami1y. The lady's arms on the brass empale the following families~ .arms :-Dymoke, Kilpeck, Ludlow, Marmion, Ebden, Rye, Welles~ Watterton, Eugaine, TaJboys, Burdon, Fitzsmyth, Umfraville, Kyme~ and Sparrow. The family motto, though sufficiently euphonious, is surely vel'l bad Latin, and cannot possibly be tr~slated as in the Peerage " Prepared on every side.' If experience of every kind of misfortunt ·teaches a family to be prepared on every side, the motto (if rea.c .as a .prayer with the addition of ' sim ') may be said to have bee1 _granted, or were the misfortunes due to forgetfulness of the motto 1 I have recorded how the estates which the family accumnlatec and held so long on the bleak hillsides and in the sheltered dale1 -0f Oraven in the Percy fee, passed long ago into other hands, anc their memorial has perished with them out of that country-sid .almost entirely. Long Preston Ohurch, where Thomas Knoll did penance for th• -death of Henry Lambert, still stands in that out-of-the-way village partly, no doubt, the original b~ding, but it has been restored an< greatly enlarged, the vau.It·s -below closed down for ever, the pave, ment renewed, and not a trace 01 the n~e of Lambert remain, ~on gravestone or memoriaJ brass. None of these .are older thai the eighteenth century, in fact, and the little. graveyard contain1 principally grassy nameless mounds, where ' the rude forefathers o: the hamlet ' sleep. Some of the houses are old enough to hav- '8 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TF.EE sheltered our forefathers, but none of them are important enough to have any history beyond that recorded in the memory of ' the: oldest inhabitant.' Four· hundred years is a great space of time when we come to think of it, and not many houses made by h11D1an hands last so long in their original form. Yet Ayredale and Wharfedale are places of very ancient tra ~tion, and many of the sturdy dalesmen have held their lands from long before · the Conquest, and in spite of bad times and agricultural depression, the land-hunger seems as strong in them as ever. Seven miles south of Long Preston, on a wind-swept knoll, looking down on the little river that gives its name to .AyredaJe, stands all that remains of Oalton Hall, where the shrewd John Lam.hart established himself in the centre of his spoils of the monastic houses, and a very fine property he looked out on, for he· gathered to himself practically all the lands in this extensive· parish. That he was of a somewhat rapacious nature is shown in a quaint old parchment still extant, in which Lord Oli:fford of the time grants to some one, whose name I have forgotten to note,. protection against John Lambart, of Oalton. Here was born General John Lambert (John seems to have been a favourite family name), and here he often came on errands of peace and war in his long career. The old house seems to have been almost entirely destroyed by fire in the last century, and there now remains only an unpre tentious farmhouse, disfigured by two ugly bow-windows, but its original extent can still be traced by the foundations of the old walls, and it must have been of considerable size. In the garden is the pedestal of an old sundial, still bearing the initials, J. L., and a date in the seventeenth century. For some reason or other most of the family seem to have been buried at Skipton, about " . /1" j . : / ,., •f t ' ~ t LONG PJUJS'l'ON OHUJtCJII. LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE seven miles away, as in the unusua.lly well-preserved registers of that church are numberless entries of births, deaths, and marriages in the family from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the end of the seventeenth. I cannot help thinking that Winterswell Ha.11, in Skipton, was the principal residence of the fami1y. This house was partly demolished when the canal was brought into Skipton, and the winter well, or spring, that gave it its name was, no doubt, absorbed by the canal, but part of the house is, I believe, still standing. . . Our own direct ancestor, I think,. came south from Long Preston before Oalton and Winterswell Ha.11 were established as family possessions, and, as I have shown above, the two branches seem speedily to have lost sight of each other, since Frances Lamb.ert, the General's grand-daughter, thought herself the last of the race. I think this is a matter of regret to us, for nothing is more true in family history than the old saying, 'united we stand, divided we fa.11.' Herein seems to me to lie the secret of the prosperity and strength of the great historic houses, in- which the main stem has ever nourished and sheltered its offspring till they bore leaves and brought forth fruit in due season. Winterswell Ha.11, in Skipton, seems to have been a house of some pretensions in the middle of Henry VIIl.'s reign, for it is described in an old rental as containing:- ' The tower, the grete parlor and chamb' ov' it, the study chamber and parlor or study under it.' In the same inventory John Lambert, the son, mentions a burgage held by ' Alicia Midilbroke vidua. qum fuit nutrix mea a cunabulis,' for which, as Whitaker remarks, ' he did not fail to charge her four shillings a year.' LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE OHAPTER VII. OoVTN& down to later times, family papers still existing, even in a family so singularly careless in preserving them as ours seems to have been, give me material for what I may call ' Tales of my Grandfather ' and his family, which have a certain interest, as they touch on the old wars and the old social life of his time. He was a Guardsman (in the Coldstream) and rose to be a General-not a great one. He saw a, -lot- of :fighting in Flanders, -~- where he learnt to ' swear horribly ' (if he was not maligned by those of my ·time who remembered him), and in Egypt, and then, I take it, with many others, was 'ridden off' by the young Sepoy General, .Arthur Wellesley, who had really studied his profession and introduced new discipline and new methods of :fighting, not before they were sorely needed in the British Army. Richard Lord Cavan :first saw service in the campaign in the Netherlands and the north of France, where the Guards formed part of the contingent under the Duke of York, which was sent by the English Government to assist the Allies in their operations against revo lntiona.ry France. He was then thirty yea.rs old, a, Lieut.-Oolonel in the Guards, and the father of several children, as he had married his first wife, Honore, Gould, when he was only nineteen. I find several references to him at the time in some recently published letters of on artillery officer to his wife from the seat of war. It is pleasant to read that the brigade of Guards already had 46 RICHARD, SEYE~TH EARL OF ('AYAS, G.C.H., LIEl"TE~AXT-GEXERAL LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE the reputation with the other arms, which they have kept up ever since, of being the best of good fellows and comrades-in-arms on service, always doing more than their share of work, and making things pleasant for everybody they met. My brother gunner, Major Jesse Wright, writes from Orig, near ·Tournay, in May, 1793: 'When you wiite, send your letters to the orderly-room of the Ooldstream Guards. .The officers of the regiment are by far the best, and have been particularly civil to me. If it were not for Lord Cavan, I would never have got money; he is the best fellow I ever knew. I can never repay his kindness nor that of the Marquess of Huntley, of the 3rd Regiment, or indeed many others of all three regiments of Guards.' The fighting in this campaign was very severe at times, and the Ooldstream Guards had their full share. At the wood of St. Arnant, Wright says : 'The Coldstream advanced into the wood and drove the enemy before them, but in going forward they became exposed to the ftre of a battery, and suffered from it very much, losing eighty men killed and wounded.' The effect of artillery fire was not only ' moral ' in those days at any rate! Wright seems to have habitually looked on the Guardsman as his banker, I suppose for public money only, as he writes again in July: ' I have paid most of the officers for their bat and forage, and it is only from Lord Cavan, who s11pplies me with a hundred pounds at a time, that I can get any money.' .At the siege of V alenciennes, in the same month, Lord Oavan had a narrow escape. 'Poor Lord Oavan was wounded yesterday in the head with a large black :flint stone that was driven out of the ground either by a shot or shell. He lost a great deal of blood, but they say is in a fair way of recovery. I am exceedingly sorry for any misfortune 47 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE ·that may happen to him, he is so good a fellow, and has been so particularly civil to me and every artillery oftlcer.' · The army went into winter quarters after the fashion of that time at and about Ghent. Wright's letter at the time on the subject of his wife's proposal to join him is very amusing, and I gather from it that office~s took as opposite views as to the advisability or otherwise of such a step as they have iii the late war. The gunner had very strong opinions on the subject, at any rate. 'Yours of the 15th came to hand this mo:rning. As to the foolish scheme of yours of your coming out here with both the infants at the most for two or three months, I think it would never do for hun~eds of reasons. One of them is that no lady will be admitted to be billeted (a touch of Lord Kitchener about this. E. L.); another, if it is possible to get a tolerable lodging in this eursed town, there is none to be had under seven or eight guineas a month; and as to what Wilson said, that there were several :officers' wives coming out, I know of none that will be so foolish except Lady Cavan, whose husband is paymaster to two of the regi- .ments of Guards, and he cannot possibly get leave for above a week, which he is to do and go to Dover to fetch her over. This man has at lea.st 10001. a year, and has five or six children, all of whom are to be left at home.' Ten days later he writes again in the same strain. 'Yours of the 26th is this moment before me, and, as I told you before, your coming out here will not do at all; there are no ladies coming here that I know of except Lady Oavan, and there is no house for her to go into. That best-tempered of all fellows, her husband, dined with me yesterday, and he requested that I would this day go all over the town to look for a house for him, 48 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE but there are none to be had ; and even if there were, your ridiculous scheme of coming here with two young infants (both of which lt is a hundred to one will be lost) will never do.' Perhaps it would have been better if the gallant gunner had yielded to his wife's entreaties, for he never saw her again, being killed by a cannon-ball at Tournay the following '.sprmg• • .A few years afterwards Cavan rose to General's rank, and commanded a brigade in Ireland during the '98, when he received the -surrender of part of the abortive French ex peditions. He served before Cadiz in 1800, and went on the following spring in command of a brigade (2nd Queen's 5oth and 79th Highlanders) in .A.bercrombie's army to Egypt. The order for the disembarkation of that army (which was really a most dashing exploit, .-an almost unique example of the landing of an army in broad daylight in face of an en~ trenched enemy) are well worth reading as models of forethought, clearness, and concise- · ..J ness. BV0L1mo• op UND'OBJI : sotml 1901 There is a touch of Lord K. of K. about oDicn., Al'BICA, • this, for instance : - ' It is necessary that officers should bring on :shore, in the first instance, such articles only as they · can carry themselves. Officers' servants are, on all occasions of service, to be _present under arms with the corps to which they belong, and not ·to carry 'IIUWB than ~y other soldier.' In the changes consequent on the death of Abercrombie after the battle of Alexandria, Cavan succeeded to the Guards' Brigade, vioe Ludlow, who got a division, and later in the year was appointed 49 H LEAVES FROM A FAMILY· TREE -to· the command of the whole force left in Egypt as an army or ,occupation. The Sultan made him a Knight of. the Orescent, and he was one of only six British officers, including the immortal Nelson, who received the diamond aigrette of the order. Tradition 1n · the family (which I cannot verify) is that the Grand Turk als~ made him a handsome present of one of· · the so-called 'Oleopatra's Needles,' but as it was imbedded in the sand and of little value save as a curiosity, Oavan, instead · of ~t least engraving on it his coronet. and initials ! with better taste contented himself with placing on it a somewhat. lengthy inscription describing 'the anni hilation of ·the ambitious French designs,. and the rescue of Egypt from their dominion by the British Army,' &c., and leaving it where it had lain for centuries. The Egyptian Campaign was Oavan's last service in the field, though he com • . (. . . manded in the Eastern district at home: . . -~'!\- during the invasion alarms. of 1803--04:,. :evoLtJTio:s: .. o:r-u:tm'OBI[: and as Lieut.-General commanded in the 1901 auilDSIWi, soum AFmoA, • Isle· of Wight in the year of Trafalgar. He: afterwards (or at the same time ?) filled the honorary appoint ment of Governor of Oalshot, and was not altogether satisfied with it, -if I have rightly interpreted this letter, in which the key-word is illegible, to him from that genial, but incapable and somewhat. unprincipled Oommander-in-Ohief, Frederick, Duke of York :- ' Horse Guards, Sept. 8th, 1819. 'DEAR OAVAN,-1 have many excuses to make to you for not. having answered your two letters, but having unfortunately locked 50 ... := •.;~ .,.:~ !_ ;{·.:.~✓•· •. --~-:~\~ti·(}\·.·{ .. .. ,. .,..•_-...... ~ . .. .. ,,._ ; .(·•:t;.~- }->.>,.. --•. :~~A- t:r:~-i-. _- .. ,_-t .· _..,,.:-;. ~-~{ :·:.~ . . . VISCOUXT KILCOURSIE AND THE BOX. EDWARD LAMBART, SONS OF THE SEVEXTH EARL OF CAVAN. LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE them up in one of my boxes, it was not till this morning that I put my hand upon them, and now lose no time in· assuring you that I shall have great pleasure in promoting your [ ] per 0alshot to a, better government, should a ~avonrable opport11nity offer. Many thanks also for your kind offer to come to yon at Eaglehurst, should I join the Princes in the-- course of the month at Cowes-that I shall have great pleasure in accepting, but I am afraid that, even _if _I do join the Prince, lt will be __for S() few days that I shall not be able to avail myself of it.~.A~eu, de~ Oavan, and believe me, ever yours most sincerely, 'FREDERICK.' The opportunity never offered apparently, for Lord_ Cav~~-- died Governor of Calshot some eighteen- ye.a.rs later...... His eldest sister, Lady_ Elizabeth~- was. a very pretty girl, as, her miniature shows, and her beauty inspired more than one of her admirers to expr~ss their feelings in ·verse. Here is a sample :- THE TEARS OF SOUTBAMPTON. ON THE DEPARTURE OF THE LOVELY Al.~ AlC1.&.BLE LADY ELIZAB13lTH T,AXBART, OCTOBER 20TH, 1790. '.As in those regions near the Arctic Pole, When night commands her circling car to roll, And sheds a horrid darkness half the year, Zembla's pale Sons in trembling crowds appear From hill to hill they fly in wild dismay · To view the setting sun, and catch each parting ray, Till Nature's pleasing face in clouds is lost, .And Ocean's deepest caves are chained with frost So, when from South'ton on that fatal day The lovely Lam.ha.rt bent her destined way, 51- LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE ·Full many a tear was seen on Friendship's cheek, And Silence spoke what words can never speak. Oh I where on Earth can we such Beauty find, Or where such Virtues as adorn her mind P See, Hope, with eyes dejected, folds her arms, And mourns the absence of Eliza's charms ; Each Oaptive Slave a death-like horror feels, And Love with anguish turns her parting wheels. A greater loss than Zembla's we deplore, Our Sun, alas I is se~to rise no rrwre.' · And here is another, ·a more successful effort, as I think:- ' Aspiring artist, would'st thou trace The fairest forin, the sweetest face ? W ould'st thou pr~sume, with all thy skill, To make the Canvas charm at will? Then, daring Painter, take from me A theme thou canst not paint and see. Thy choicest colours, come ! prepare ! And every beauty draw with care ! Oease ! cease ! the task is far too much, Such charms thy pencil cannot touch! Unless thy fancy, bright. and warm, Has power to paint an angel's form, A Lambart, ah! forbear to draw, Whose portrait lives without a flaw.' With these last leaves, surely better suited to a pot-pourri bowl, I would close my herbarium. They are over one hundred yea.rs old it is true, but yet living memories go far back towards their times, and what other leaves there are to be gathered seem 52 .;·;. r ::. '••·.:. ...... w •• \. .::·· .. ~:_;~:<-_:- .•.· -~·=. :.. :· ·' .•: ; . . ::,:.. ,: ~:~_i.:..~ ; _:::::~):!~ ·,;~i . ·-·-...-~ . ., ..• ,.-. ,•:._.- L.-~DY ELIZABl~TII LA:\IB.\RT. LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE hardly withered enough to be interesting. Looking at my work a,s reproduced in large print, it seems to me a very small collection . to -have made of leaves from so ancient a tree, and yet I think I have put together everything that can be called interesting that I have been able to find. A family history would be much more bulky, but it would be very dry reading I fear, unless written by a pen of power to make dry bones _live. Somewhere perhaps, in out-of-the-way corners, there may exist treasures of old letters and cµaries written by long-forgotten Lambe.rte, which would enable us to realise what manner of men they were and how they lived. Somewhere, too, there must be portraits of our ancestors, for in old days, before photography was dreamed of, and when there were · hundreds of limners, good, bad, and indifferent, every country house was furnished with family portraits. We may be sure that shrewd John of Long Preston sat for his in his robes of office as Vice Chancellor of Lancaster. Stout Sir Oliver, too, with his stiff' knee, lived once on canvas, I am sure, in jack-pot helmet, puffed sleeves, and baggy breeches, leaning on the long sword he wore at Cadiz and Anhault. Where are they all, these pictures we should so much like to see ? Turned into signboards, perhaps, or, worse still, sold in W ardour Street to furnish anc~stors to another race t ' To such base uses must we come, Horatio ! ' Alas ! that the price of portraits in oils in these present days will iµ.&ke them even rarer legacies to our descendants. They will have to rely on photographs, more or less faded, for the~ idea of us. One may be devoid of vanity and yet shudder at the idea, for surely the worst painting is a more pleasing presentment when ripened by time than the best photograph. This, my poor sketch of family history, has been written and is printed for private circulation only within the rather narrow circle of my relatives and kinsfolk ; but it may possibly fall into the 53 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE bi,llds of other Lamba.rts or Lamberts unknown to me, who claim descent from the same stock, in whose possession there may be a. greater store of family records than I have been able to lay hands on. To such I would express the hope that my Leaves, such as they are, may be of interest as a supplement to their own. Who can tell what branches this old tree of ours, so barren of valuable fruit in the long past, may yet put forth in days to come? There is always a dearth of great and able men to serve the State, and the competition is very open. We have not produced many idiots, and I .have even_ heard of Lamharts who were reputed clever. Might not a little more ambition, a little more prudence, and a little more wealth produce a Lamha.rt-not a Lambert-who would impress the important vowel on the national mind, and print it in the national history? With this modest hope I close my book. Stet f ort'U/11,0, domus. LEAVES. FROM A FAMILY TREE . POSTSORIPTUM. Smc,~ the above was written I have, thro1l-&'h the kindness of Mr. F. Heygate Lambert, of the Banstead .family, obtained ~Jlle other 'neaves,' which, I think, are of interest, so I am adding them in the form of a postscriptiun. From a pedigree in his possession it appears that the Surrey branches of the family,_ who have been established there since the reign of Edward I., ~ascend from Richard Lambart, great-grandson of Henry,· the standard-bearer to Henry 11 They have kept the same arms and the centaur crest in its vario11S forms, of which the oldest one seems to be the female centaur. I am confirmed in my idea that the connection between the YorksbirP. and Surrey branches was always known and kept up, and that Walter Lam.hart, grandfather of Sir Oliver, went south to his distant kinsfolk early in the sixteenth century, since there is a marriage connection with them through the Gaynsfords. I have also discovered that at least one Lam.hart had the doubtful distinction of perishing on the scaffold, for Robert, of Owlton, was beheaded at Durham in 1570 for his share in the rebellion of the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland. · From the same source I have obtained much con:6rmation of the earlier part of the pedigree, in the shape of the ipsissima 1Jerba of many of the family charters, of which forty-two are now in the possession · of the Middletons, of Belsay, Northumberland, direct descendants of General John Lambert's grand-daughter. It is quite evident that Whitaker, when he cast aspersions on the genuineness of the pedigree in his Onronicle& of Ora1Jen, could not have been aware of the existence of these charters. Very interesting in this connection is the following translation of one relating to the duel between Henry, the standard-bearer, and Alexander, of Olyford, to which I have previously referred:- ' William, King of Scotland, to all the faithful in the Church of Christ, greeting. Know all men to whom these letters come that in the year of our Lord 1167, in my _presence and that of the venerable holy men and laity at Stryvelyn, the following settlement was made between Henry de Lamhart, Ambassador of England, and Alexander of Oliford, Knight, whom Henry, King of England, wholly referred to judgment to be made by me in the cause of the duel granted to them by the Marshall of England on account of certain accusations made by one against the other, and . . . . that each should come before me armed and ready for the combat, and that by my persuasion the whole accusation, which the one made against the other, should. be laid aside and put out of their hearts, and the honour of each sha11 be saved, and they shall join their right hands and swear on the Holy Gospels to be true friends for evermore, saving their 55 LEAVES FROM A FAMILY TREE duty to their sovereigns. And all this was done in my presence. Witness, Ingelram11S, Bishop of Glasgow; Nicholas the Chancellor,' &c. The following is one of the early ':fire insurances ' of the family, made with the Abbey of Oroyland :- ' Universis sanctAe matris ecclesim filiis ad quos presens scriptum pervenerit Hugo fllius Radulphi de Lambert salutem in Domino sempiternam. Notandum sit vobis me ~edisse et eoncessisse Deo et Sanct,o Guthlaco de Oroyland et monachis ibiden Deo servientiD11S quos medios alis ex salinis meis in Weston singulis percipiendis ad festum sancti Bartholemes sine dilatione in perpetuam elemosinam pro salute animm mem. et patris et matris mem et omnimn anticessormn meorum. His testious,' &c. The whole of the forty-two charters referred to above are attested by Garter, Olarencieux, Norroy, and Somerset Heralds and Kings-of-Arms, as follows:- ' I, Wi1Uam Segar Garter, first officer of the illustrious order, and Chief King of English .Arms, have seen and confum this ancient genealogy of the :Knightly family of Lamhert.' ' I, William Camden Olarencieux, King-of-Arms, have seen with my own eyes the proofs and ancient charters by which this genealogy is authoritatively proved, which I cannot but testify to and confum by the signature of my own hand.' 'I, Richard St. George Nonoy, King-of-Arms, have both seen and read the authentic dOC11D1enta, with the seals appended, of this :fa.miJy, and of the D8rn~ of Lambert, in sign and ~tt.estation of which I have attached my signature.' - ' I, Somerset, Herald, to this genealogy of the ancient family of the Lam berts and the specified proofs thereof, bear witness as most truly proved.' Such an amount of expert testimony is hard to gainsay, and should be most comforting t.o any one of the race who cares for these things. E. L. FAMILY;' GRAVES IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. Oliver, 1st Lord· Lambart, was buried in the Abbey on the 10th June, 1618, according to the Registers. His name is spelt " Lambert " in them and there is little doubt that he himself always spelt it in that way. The entry reads" The. Lord Oliver Lambert" as if he had been the younger son of a Marquis or Duke. The tomb was" in the Monuments" but has apparently been displaced by others in that crowded Walhalla for no trace of it remains. The grave to which I referred in writing of him in an earlier chapter, in the North Transept, is, I find, that of his great-great-grandson, Oliver Lambart, fourth son of Charles 3rd Earl of Cavan, by his wife Castilina Gilbert. He was buried in the North Transept on the 23rd April, 1738. His wife Franc.~s. was a lady with a somewhat remarkable history. A reputed daughter of Charles II., her mother seems to have belonged to a branch of the Herbert family since she bore that name and the Herbert arms are shewn impaled on her husband's tombstone. Before her marriage with Oliver Lambart she formed an illicit connection with John Sheffield, Earl of Musgrave, and first Duke-·of Buck inghamshire, and bore him three children, a son and two daughters. The son, Charles· Herbert, after the Duke's death, assumed the name of Sheffield, and was the ances tor of the present baronet of that name. The Duke seems to have been much attached to his illegitimate children as he left the whole of his estates to Charles and provided handsomely in his will for the two daughters, Sophia and ·Charlotte. Mrs. Lambart had two legitimate daughters by her husband, one of whom also riamed Sophia, marri ed as his first wife her first cousin, Richard Lambart, afterwards 6th Earl of Cavan, but had no children. She was buried in. the North Cross May 18th, 1749. Her mother, Frances Lambart, was buried in _the same part of the Abbey January 11th, 1751. The other daughter, Castilina Ann died an old maid of 50 in 1758, and was buried November 4th in the North Cross.. Apparently she had no great love for her cousin and brother-in-law, Richard, for in her will she leaves him" Colonel Lambart of the Guards~half-a-crown when called for! To her illegitimate half-brother, Sir Charles Sheffield, Bart., she left her mother's diamond ring and the rest of her estate in trust to pay £2 THE CLAIM TO THE . EARLDOM. As is generally noted in the older Peerages of Ireland, the patent bestowing the titles of Earl of Cavan ~d Viscqunt Kilcoursie was never actually issued, or at any rate was never registered in the Rolls Office in Dublin, doubtless " owing to the confusions of the tim..e." Nevertheless, as long as the Irish House of Lords existed, the successive holders of the title took their seats without opposition. After the passing of the Act of Union in 1800 the privileges of such Irish Peers as were not also hold ers of English peerages, became limited to the shadowy one of voting at the election of the 28 Representa tive Peers of Ireland. Richard, 7th Earl, though he had taken his seat in the Irish House in 1786, and frequently taken part in its debates, did not apparently assert his claim to vote at these elections, and it was first put forward by his grandson and successor Frederick 8th Earl, on his succession to the title ~n 1837. The petition was heard before the Committee of Privileges of the House of Lords in 1838, and the claim admitted. The only real question the Committee had to decide was the rank in which the claimant was entitled to vote as the original patent of the Barony was and is extant, and is duly recorded in the Patent Roll of Ire land. The minutes of the evidence produced have accidentally been preserved in the possession of the family, and are generally of little interest. They prove that no such documents as are generally kept with care in the muniment rooms of ancient families, were to be found after diligent search in the possession of the claimant or his lawyers. Some , difficulty was experienced even in proving clearly the deaths of other possible claimants to the title of the -~~ame generation. The principal evidence in the matter of the creation of the Earldom itself was cl copy of the original letter of Charles 1st from the Patent Roll of Ireland, which is perhaps of sufficient interest to be recorded here. It is dated from " Our Court at Newcastle, the 14th day of January in the two and twentieth year of Our reign." · And is addressed to " Our right trusty and right entirely beloved Cousin and Councillor James Marques of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant General of our Realm of Ireland and to all other our Lieuten ant Deputies and Lord Justices or other Chief Governors of that our realme which hereafter shall be and to our Lord Chancellor for the time being or which hereafter shall be " and is as follows- CHARLES R. Right Trusty and right entirely beloved Cousin and Councillor wee greete you well? Wee having had experience of the good affections of Our trustie and well beloved Servant Charles Lord· Lambert Baron of Cavan in that Our Kingdo1n and one of Our Privy Council there unto Our Service. And having taken in to Our consideration the manie acceptable services Pformed by him unto lJs have thought fitt in testimonie of the favor we bear him and of Our gratious acceptation of those his faithfull endeavour in Our service to confer upon him as a marke of Our favour and good acceptance thereof the state dignity title and state of Earle of the County Cavan and of Viscount of Kilcoursie in Our County commonly called King's County in that Our Kingdome and doe therefore by these Our ltres will and require you according to this Our gratious pleasure by advice of some of Our learned Counsell there to make and create him the said Lord Lambert by effectual Ltres Pattent under the Great Seal of that Our Kingdome Earle of the Countie of Cavan and Vis count of Kilcoursie .... to have and to hold the said title honor and dignity .... with like creation mon ies as hath been heretofore usually granted in that Our Kingdome in like cases and the title honour and dig nity of Lord Viscount of Kilcoursie as aforesaid to the said Charles Lord Lambert and the heirs males of his baddie begotten and hereafter to bee begotten with all rights privileges ana pre-eminences and immunities of an Earle and Viscount of that Our Kingdome in as lardge and ample manner to all intents and purposes as anne other Earle and Viscount in that our Kingdome holds and enjoys the same and for your soe doing these Our Ltres shall be your sufficient warrant given at Our Court at New Castle the fourteenth day of Janu ary in the two and twentieth year of Our Reign: It is worth noticing that, ~t that period at any rate, Peers of Ireland were not addressed as "trustie and \\-·ell-beloved" Cousins of the Sovereign. 111 A FAMILY LAWSUIT. On page 34 of the " Leaves" I have referred to a family lawsuit affecting the fortunes of the elder branch, but I abstained from giving any particulars for fear of giving offence to the descendants of the younger branch should my book come into their hands. But the story relates to transactions that too~ place very long ago, and the papers at my disposal only give one side of the question. I do not think there ·can be any harm in inserting it then in this appendix-and the story certainly is not uninteresting in itself. It is told in detail, at least one side of it, in the following copy of the case drawn up for Counsel's opinion by Richard 6th Earl of Cavan, probably about I 77 5. " Charles 1st Earl of Cavan had four sons and three daughters. By his will he entailed his estate on his eldest son, Richard, making besides distinct provision for all his younger children. He directed that such provision and other encumbrance should be discharged and paid out of the yearly produce of his estate, but finding his eldest son Richard to be of a dissipated disposition, and fearing that were he to come into im m.ediate possession of such estate upon his death, he Richard, would by his extravagances, either render him self unable, or neglect to pay and discharge the said encumbrances, he Charles in order to guard against such a consequence did devise his estate in trust to his 2nd son, Oliver Lambart, till such time as all the above debts and encumbrances were paid and discharged, and thereon and not before he Oliver was to deliv~r possession to his said elder brother Richard. Note, the said Charles made this will the I 5th February, 1659, and the year following 166o he died. Richard, who succeeded his father, married Rose, daughter of Sir James Ware in the year I 648, and by her had in I 649 an only son and child, Charles, and about two months after his birth his mother died and_ was buried in St Werburgh's Church, Dublin. Richard some few years afterwards, married for his 2nd wife Elizabeth Derenzie, and finding himself by his father's will left entirely dependent on his younger brother Oliver for a maintenance, and being by that means much distressed in his circumstances, his said brother not allowing him enough to support himself and his family, his reflections upon his melancholy situation and dis tressed condition worked so much upon his mind, that, about the year I 67 4, he- was deemed to be insane and soon after was returned a lunatic, and the custody of .him was committed to his wife Elizabeth, who died herself about the year 1680, and afterwards he was committed to the care and custody of several other persons to the year I 6go when he died. Charles, his only child who succeeded him, married Castiliana Gilbert in or about the year 1670, and some few years after having a family of children to maintain, was, like his father then living, through the in justice of his uncle Oliver, extremely distressed in his circumstances, as appears by his letters to different people. His wants in consequence became so pressing and urgent as obliged him for the sake of immediate relief, to sell to a variety of people and a Mr. Pole at different times, the reversion of his estate on the death of his father. Notwithstanding his incapacity to sell such reversion which could at the most be only for his own life, since he was only tenant for life, being" jn esse" at the time the entail was made, these several people did venture to buy from him but for very trifling sums of money, seeing they would be no great los ers by their purchases, though they should afterwards be deemed invalid and obliged to return the lands they had so bought, and of which they now unjustly remain in possession. In 1690 he commenced (at his father's death) several suits at law against his uncle Oliver Lambart, the said Mr. Pole and others, ·under the denomination of Fraudulent Purchases, as appears by the list of his pap ers, but being then and continuing still in great poverty, his lawsuits went slowly on to t_he year 1704, when he died His eldest son, Richard, who succeeded him, renewed his father's suits, but being also in want of money he could not proceed with any effect and therefore came to a compromise only with Charles, son to the above Oliver, in the year 1710, by the award of Lord Chancellor Freeman, and in consequence a deed was drawn between them and executed, and in the year 1741, he Richard., also died. . lV His only son Ford, the late Earl, who succeeded him, being frequently importuned by his relations and friends, to prosecute the recovery of his grand-father Charles' estate, always answered that he was so poor, he could not afford to do it, and besides he had no son to succeed h{m and therefore he chose to avoid the trouble, and left that business, as he used to say, to his cousin-german, the present Ear~, to undertake, who was to succeed him. Query. What steps are proper for the present Earl to take to recover the family es tates ? ·or -if the long possession since the year 1704, defeat his claim or title ? or how far it will be necessary for him to obtain an English Act of Parliament in order to enable him to prosecute the recovery of the estate which his said grandfather had unjustly and without power, disposed of, to the prejudice of the present Earl." The estates which Oliver, the wicked uncle, obtained as described above, passed to his descendants, the Lam.harts of Beau Pare, but for the most part, have long since passed into other hands. Richard 6th Lord Cavan, seems, even in his day, to have been unsuccessful in tracing their boundaries as appears from the following letter to him signed by Lord Bective, father of the first Marquess of Head.fort. It does not appear in what capacity Cavan addressed himself to Lord Bective, but p~ob~bly as Lord Lieuten ant and Custos Rotulorum. My Lord. I devoted Five Hours Yesterday Morning in order to give you the information which you wished to get from my Books and am concerned to find that I have no maps of the King's County, Westmeath or Cavan and at the same time I must inform your Lordship that if I was fortunate enough to have had them, upon any litigated business they would not be admitted as a record though they would have great weight with a jury. inclosed I return your Lordship the list which you sent me that you may observe, it does not Particu larise the Barony and the Parish, which contains each denomination of Land,· but at large it takes notice of certain Denominations in Four different Ba.ronys in the King's County. The second information which your Lordship requires relative to an enquiry about the Denominations ·of Lands and their content in Westmeath, you never mention the Barony nor Parish in which those lands are. in Westmeath there are twelve Baronys viz. Moyashell and Magheredemon united, Rathconrath, Dernifoore, Kilkenny-west, Furtullagh, Farbill, Delvin, Corkerry, Moygoish, Clunlunan, Brawney Territ or Barony. & Your Lordship's Third Question is quite at large likewise; for unless Your Lordship can exactly point out the Barony and Parish denomination in each Barony Parish of Land the contents of which you wish to know, in each County, 'tis impossible to give you information. I am of opinion that Kilbeggan was not a forfeited Estate & for this reason, no Parish of Kilbeggan is taken notice of in the Book of dis tribution, consequently no information relative to that Denomination can be had from the Down Survey which only relates to Forfeited Estates. if your Lordship can furnish me with the Materials which I have mentioned, during my stay in Town I will give you all the information in the power of, my Lord your Lordship's most obedient and most humble servant Bective. V CHA.RLES I ST EARL OF CAVAN. I think that in.my 'Leaves' I did scant justice to the material furnished by Charles Lambart, 1st Earl of Cavan, concerning whom, I have since put together a considerable amount of information. It is very difficult to fix the date of his birth, but from known facts. connected with his father's career, I deduce 16oo as an approximate date. It will be remembered that in his lifetime the very large estates accumulated by his father, Oliver, for the most part were lost to the fa.i:nily and that he died a comparatively poor man. His money troubles seem to have began early, for in the " State Papers of Ireland, Domestic Series," is to be found the following reference to his affairs. " He mortgaged certain lands in Ireland to Sir Miles Fleetwood and Sir Oliver Luke, Knts., for the payment of some debts into which they had drawn him soon after he came of age. They sold the lands at great under-value, though Lord Lambart was still in possession and thereby got £3000 more than was due to them. By concealing the fact that they were dealing with Lord Lambart, they got a letter from, the King for the Lord Deputy in virtue of which Lord Lambart was dispossessed of all .his lands. Lord Lambart ap pealed to the Lord Deputy and got reinstated by him on October 29th, I 634, pending the settlement of a suit in Chancery. In accordance with the King's order, this was confirmed on January 28th, 1635, but nothing more was done except that Lord Lambart was made to pay £400 more than he expected. Lord Lambart cannot get justice done him. Luke and Fleetwood are endeavouring to evade his suit and to get leave to sell the rest of his ·lands and ruin him. They have petitioned the King to enable them to do so. Many of their pretensions are untrue.'' It is probable that this Sir Miles Fleetwood was an uncle or cousin of Charles Lambart's, as his mother was a daughter of Sir William Fleetwood. I imagine the proceedings eventually ended in Charles Lambart's favour, as in his high tide of politi cal favour with the all powerful Ormonde, there is no further reference to them. But this was not the only difficulty he had. jn obtaining.his dues, for in October, 1640, we find him petitioning the King again in the matter of his wife's dow!Y· He married Jane Robartes, daughter of a wealthy landowner in Cornwall, who was practically forced by Lord Strafford in the days of his power to purchase a title for the trifling sum of £10,000. " A case is depending in your Court of Delegates (for the affairs of Ireland) concerning a pretended will of the late Lord Robartes, petitioner's wife's father, on which all his hopes of any portion with his wife de pend The cause was begun 5 years ago and finished 2 years since. . . . . Among the judges delegated in the cause by your special direction are some persons of great honour, as the Earl Marshal, Lord Cottington and some others. Petitioner, fearing the cause may be so delayed that these judges may not be able to attend it, prays you to require them to sentence it this term or within a fortnight after the end of term." In 1628 Lord Lambart applies, quoting his father's signal services in Ireland, for one of the new com panies of foot then being raised for the Irish Army, and gets it in May of that year. This seems to point to his not being very prosperous at that time for such appointments were looked on and meant to be sources ot revenue, and he cannot actually have served with it as he ·sat in the English House of Commons in 1627 and 1628 for his father-in-law's borough of Bossiney in Cornwall. In connection with hi§, married life, though out of sequence as regards dates (1643) I may quote here from the State Papers (Domestic series) a letter of some interest It is from his brother Robert (a brother by the .way, who is never mentioned in any of the pedigr~es to be found in peerages). " I am heartily glad to hear of your safe arrival and assure you of your wife's to Charterhouse, though with some loss. . V1 Before she came to Alton she met 8 horsemen whJ examined their pockets for money and took all they could find, near £8. This Wq.S at Windmill Hill near Lurgashall (Ludgershall), but at Alton she was supplied by the old man, and a guard sent down to Charterhouse with her. Here is a great report of the fight* lately on Newbury Heath, but no certainty of the truth." Seal with arms. Who was the old man ? Possibly Thomas Lambart of Laverstroke, uncle to them both-but this is mere speculation. In 1641 began the great Irish rebellion not, as its leaders were careful to point out, against the authority of the King, but against the intolerable oppression they suffered under the Irish administration. It was dis tinctly in its origin a Catholic rebellion, fostered certainly by Rome and the Catholic powers of Europe, and the majority of the Catholic Anglo-Irish, both within and without the Pale, took the side of their native coreligionists. As in all Irish outbreaks there were terrible outrages and terrible reprisals. Charles I st, al ready at loggerheads with his Parliament, played fast and loose with the rebels, his most loyal subjects as they called themselves, and with his Irish Government. Later on, as the Civil War developed, the Irish Parliament and the Lords Justices themselves reflected the divisions between parties on the other side of St.. George's Channel, and the Irish rebellion became a valuable counter in the game. Charles Lamb-art at its commencement was one of the most prominent men in the Irish House of Lords, and was a frequent speaker in its Debates. He was appointed one of the Lords Justices in 1641, and be came one of the most active of their number. A staunch Protestant and loyalist, he is found always on the side of the wise and talented Ormonde, who valued him greatly though, as will appear later from my ex tracts from State Papers, there was sometimes evidently friction between them. He raised one of the new regiments for suppressing the rebellion, and its muster roll in December, 164r, is, I think, of some interest. COMPANIES. Natives (ie. Irish). 12 Captain Gee's •••..•....••...•..••...•.....•..••...••...... •..•.•.•••.•... 96 whereof noe Papists. 7 ,, Thomas Stuteville's ...... 100 ,, ,, ,, ,, George Smith ..•.••...... ••...... •...•.. 100 ,, ,, 13 " 6 ,, Edward Fisher ...... 100 ,, ,, ,, 30 ,, Farrell ....•.....•...... •...... •...... •••.•...... 52 Papists 5. 22 The Lord Docwra' s ...... " 45 " 5- 6 ,, ,, Lam.bert' s ...... I oo whereof noe Papists. 25 ,, Sir Thomas Wharton's ...... 100 Papists 6. There are many entries of payments to Lord Lambert for his regiment among others £44 7s. 4d. for himself, serjeant major (now Adjutant) Quartermaster Chaplain, Provost Marshal and Surgeon for 24 days. His own pay as Colonel appears to have been £ I a day. A certain Laurence Lambart appears as provost marshal at 6/8 a day, but I cannot find him in any pedigree, or again, one Josias Lam.hart, who was one of the Commissioners for raising taxes for the Army, in County Roscommon at this time. The latter's Christian name was a frequent one among the Lam.harts of Carlton and Skipton in the early 16th century, and would seem to be ai correlative proof of our descent from the Yorkshire House. The story of the Irish rebellion and the part Charles Lambart took in it, is far too long for anything like a full account in these notes, but the opening scenes are graphically described in the following extracts from·the State Papers. "From the Lords Justices to some of the prominent Catholic rebels- " Whereas we have received information that ...... and other Gentlemen of the County of Dublin with great numbers of men are assembled together at Swords and thereabouts within 6 miles of this city, for what intent we know not, but apparently to the ten_:or. of His Majesty's good subjects, and al- • This was no doubt the first battle of Newbury in the Civil War, in September, 1643, a drawn :fight. .. Vll though a construction might be made thereof to their disadvantage, yet we being willing to make an indul gent interpretation of their actions in regard of the. good opinion we have of the loyality of those Gentle .µien, who it seems are principals in that assembly, and conceiving there may be some mistaking in their en- terprise, we have chosen the rather hereby to charge the said ...... upon duties of allegiance to His Majesty immediately upon sight hereof to separate and not to unite any more in that manner without direction from us. And that the said . . . . and other principal persons of those who are so assembled . . . . . to appear before us to-morrow morning to show the cause of their assembly in that manner.. Whereof they may not fail at their extreme peril. Given at H.M.'s Castle of Dublin, December 1641. Ormone Ossory. Charles Lambert. Charles Coote. Robt Dillon (Lord Dillon). John Temple. But, as the historian says, " they were so far from rendering obedience to th~ commands they received that they kept the messenger in restraint a day and night threatening to hang him, and after, returned a per emptory scornful answer to their Lordships " ! " Whereupon the Lords thought it was high time to take some other course with them ,, and issued the following order. " F orasmuch as divers of the inhabitants of Clonta.rfe, Raheny and Kilbarrock have declared themselv es Rebels and having robbed and spoiled some His Majesty's good subjects, are now assembled there about in Armies, mustering and training of their rebellious multitudes to the terror and danger of H.M.'s good subjects as well at land as at sea, which their boldness is acted so as to put scorns and affronts upon this State and Government, they acting such depredations even before our faces and in our view as it were in despite of us ; It is therefore ordered that our very good Lord, The Earl of Ormonde and Ossory, Lt. Ge~eral of the Army do forthwith send out a party of soldiers of horse and foot to fall upon those Rebels at Clontarfe who in such disdainful manner stand to outface and dare us and to endeavour to cut them off as .well for punishment as terror to others and to burn and spoil the Rebels' houses and goods. sd Ormonde Ossory. Charles Lambart (and others). I should like here to call attention to two points, viz. I. Lords Lambart, Dillon, and other Barons and Viscounts habitually signed their Christian names be fore their titles but Ormonde who was an Earl, and others of like and higher rank, signed after the present custom. 2. Charles Lam.hart in 2 successive documents spelt his own name Lambert and Lam.hart. And in the many hundred State Papers bearing his signature, and referring to him, the same inconsistency prevails. The spelling of the original documents has been very carefully preserved in the printed copies of them so there can be no doubt about the matter. It seems curious that a man in his position should have remained in doubt as to his own name. After the death in action of the blood-thirsty Coote, Lord Lambert was made Governor of Dublin by the King's order much to the disgust of the Irish Parliamentary party among the Lords Justices who did all in ·their power to delay carrying out the order. Even after it was confirmed they continued for several years to put every kind of pressure on him to make him resign but doubtless for financial as well as political reasons, he clung to his post with commend able tenacity. In 1644 some friction had evidently arisen between him and Lord Ormonde who writes in October to Lord Digby with the King. Vlll " .The Lord Lam.ha.rt was lately pleased to make a proposition at the Comicell ·Board touching the maintenance of the Army in cases warre should ~e renewed but it depends uppon soe many contingencys and was soe uncertaine to say noe worse of it that it was not held worth a debate, yet it is sent that nothing that passes heere might be concealed from his Majestie." The breach between the two old allies was however soon healed for in March 1645 Ormonde writes in a very different strain to Digby. "I would most readyly receive Sir Faithfull Fortescue in the condition commanded by his Majestie but I find the Lord Lambert strangely altered, and soe usefull at Council that in· place of taking his government from him I must move your lordship for a letter to make him an earle with a blank for the place from whence. But it will suffice for the present if your lordship please to undertake to move his Majestie in it and lett me know as much by some letter I may shew him expressing good hope of prevailing and giving some reason · for the delay and if hee continue in the way bee is in, I shall humbly be of opinion it may reaJly be done. Digby'sanswerunder date of May 1645 was worded on the lines of Ormonde's suggestion, as an incent ive to further exertions on behalf of our ancestor. "Con<;earning my Lord Lambart, his Ma jestie is very glad to heere that he applies himselfe soe heartyly · and soe clearly to his service. Of which, his Majestie is soe sensible that having according to your excellen cy's desyre, moved him for an addition of honour unto his lordship, I find his Majestie soe · well inclined the.rein that I. am confident I should have sent you now the warrant to make him an earle but that there is a suspension for some tyme in matters of honours, for some reasons n.ot necessary to trouble you withall ; but if his lordship continue in his meriting course bee shall speedyly receive it." The letter '' making hiin an earle " was not sent till I 8 months later, when the unhappy King was prac tically a prisoner in the hands of his mercenary Scotch subjects. The last mention I find of Lord Lam.hart in the Ormonde papers as one of the Lords Justices is in June 1646, but no doubt he continued in office till after the King's execution when his friend and patron Ormonde, despairing of being of any further service to the Royal cause in, Ireland, handed over his powers and the government of Ireland to the Parliamentary Commissioners, and went abroad. I cannot trace any mention of him at the time when Oliver Cromwell came to regulate the affairs of Ire land with fire and sword, but at any rate he re~ained faithful to the Royalist cause. He died in I 66o, the year of the Restoration, and left a will which indirectly brought dire misfortune to his successors in the title, but this is another story " of which I give the outlines in another chapter. In course of my researches into the life of Charles Lambart, I came across much information concern ing Sir James Ware, whose daughter married the 2nd Earl. He was also one of the Lords Justices and took a prominent part in the correspondence and transactions between them and the King's government, being on one occasion chosen as one of the deputation ordered by the Council to proceed to London and inform the King of the true state of affairs in Ireland. LE'fTERS AND DESPATCHES OF S1R OLIVER LAMBAI~T FROM IRELAND. I THINK the following, extracted from the Calendar of State Papers, Ireland, in the Record Office, are of considerable interest as showing what sort of a man Sir Oliver. was . A typical Elizabethan soldier, an adventurer of good family, with little fortune but his sword, there is, I think, a rugged honesty of character to be observed in his letters in spite of his somewhat unscrupu lous methods, and a raciness of expression which at any rate relieves his writing from the charge of dullness, and would have made him an admirable war correspondent in our own day. His first despatch, which I do not give, is from Mr. Oliver Lambert to Lord Deputy Perrott in October, 1584. He has been betrayed into the hands of Shane O'Neill's sons, after being wounded in the leg. He seems to have been well treated by Hugh O'Neill, ,vhom he describes as "an honest, courteous, wise young man who speaketh English." The next despatch is dated sixteen years later, most of ,vhich had been passed by him in strenuous service in the Low Countries and in Spain. The favourite Essex, whose fortunes Sir Oliver had followed from Cadiz to Ireland, had taken the rash and co,vardly step, which was eventually to bring him to the scaffold, of leaving his unfortunate army to shift for itself, ,vhilst he rushed back to Court to re-establish his favour with the exasperated Queen. Lord Mountjoy, her first selection for the command of this Irish expedition, had succeeded the unstable favourite in 1600 and to him the stout old fighter Sir Oliver, making headway against the rebels in spite of countless difficulties, addresses himself. I have included among these lettters one not from Sir Oliver, but of which he is the subject, from one Captain Lionel Ghest, who has written himself down for posterity as a false-hearted, hypocritical knave. The correspondence shows that he did not gain much by his treachery, though Sir Oliver's little present of £500 may have had a counter-effect with Mr. Secretary Cecil . . IX 1600. April 22nd. The Togher.1 Sir Oliver Lambert to [the Lord Deputy Mountjoy]. "I came to the Togher on Tuesday, by twelve of the clock, where, as I formerly advertised your Lordship, I found the rebels entrenched in ten half moons. We all turned stern, and stripped ours.elves and entered on the right hand of the bog, having the wind to friend, with purpose to march on the rear of their trenches. As we approached them so, after several volleys they quitted their strength in great_ fear. In prosecuting them till we were possessed of the Togher and their trenches, we had no great fight. They lost dead 10 men, and ,ve but two, and a few hurt. We began to repair the _passage, always in some little skirmish, and finding the work tedious, and such as I could not finish by night, and pass to the fort, I defaced their trenches, and, about seven of the clock, I caused the vanguard to march towards our quarter, which the rebels perceiving, and having a new supply come to them, being at the first not above 400 men, with a good countenance and their best order, burst hard on our rear, as they drew from the bog. I was not willing to skirmish loosely, being their chief desire, but continued my course, which did em holden them so far that they followed us some distance from the bog. I proffered a charge or two with the horse, to small purpose. At last they quitted the bog with their battle, twenty score on hard ground. I commanded the rear to turn and charge home, and took the horse myself, and charged. Our wings being strong, and led by gallant fellows, came in roundly ; the battle by what chance I k~ow not, made a halt. The horsemen were somewhat to blame; if they had followed their leaders, we had done better [in -tke 1nargin :-' there was three or four overthrown with the horse; more had been, if more horse had come in], for they ran for the best game, and our wings paid them soundly, so that they-' trudched' away. What their loss was then, I know not it [sic]. Of both sides we burnt a great deal of powder; the ·rebels were no niggards of their store. This morning we were at the Togher by five of the clock, where we found them waiting our coming afresh, and with no great fight they left us the place, where we are now labouring hard to pass our carriage; for Captains I had none with me but Sir Harry Folliot, who, as ever, served gallantly. I was fain to use some voluntary officers, as Lieutenant Legg and Lieutenant Bruerton, Lieutenant Smith and Lieutenant Garrett; and all the officers of foot played their parts with great forwardness; and better foot no prince hath for their numbers. Our number exceeded not 700, the enemy above 800. William Brimigeom, with forty of his men, was very forward, and served well ; so did Mr. Darcy, and King, that ,vas lately released out of prison. Edward Brymigem gave us many helps. Unless the fort be able to relieve us with powder and bullets, we cannot stay to do any great hurt. We have but two barrels left. If your Lordship purpose the succour of the fort in Leix,2 it is time the provisions were at the Naas, and some victuals for ourselves. We had starved, if ,ve had not brought this small quantity with us, for here is nothing. Then I most humbly desire your Lordship to remember what force will be left when Sir Harry Warren's, Sir Thomas Lartie['s], and those of Ardee, are gone. Therefore I desire to hear from your Lordship by Friday night about the Black Ford. If I stay in the country, I will advertise your Lordship to-morrow. Thus desiring your lordship to pardon my bad scribbling, I humbly take my leave. "From the Togher, this 22nd of April." " Lysagh [' Liso '] sent to speak with me, and said Onie McRory would come with him. I took it to be but a flourish to serve us with Ony['s] force. I answered that, when I had done my business, if they came near me, I would speak with Lysagh, but have no doings with so treacherous a Jack as Ony.'' 1 About fifteen miles north of Droghec)a. 2 Probably Leixlip, near Naas, in Kildare. X From Sir Ed. Fitzgarrett's House. April 24th, 16oo. Sir Oliver Lambert to the Lord Deputy Mountjoy. "I finished the passage over the Togher for all the carriages by two of the clock on Wednesday, and, in my way to the fort, the rebels took the advantage of a small wood and 'shrobby' seated in a boggy ground, by which we were to pass. There they lay close with 400 shot; the rest of their forces to the greatest show sto·od on a hill fast by the same. We might have gone two musket shot wide of the place, but knowing they attended us there, being the way we never showed afore, and to honour Saint George's Feast the more, we forced their ambuscade, ,vhere I believe your Lordship shall hear was the best skirmish for an hour long that was in Ireland a good while ; want of powder parted us both. They conceal always their losses very much. All as yet that I can learn were killed of name at this last bickering was Mortogh, McOwen, O'Connor, Lysagh McMorrogh, and Garrett Oge's son. Threescore others killed in the place, and carried away on pikes, besides many slightly hurt. Of our side we lost neither officer nor gentleman of name. Ten were killed, and seventeen hurt. So that, since our first fight, ,ve have killed and hurt and made unserviceable 50 men [sz"c]. The rebels severed that night, and I hope will not come so strongly together a good while. · I camped at the fort· all night, of purpose to carry corn to the fort from Morrogh Oge's house. The fort afforded me no powder. I am drawn back to dispatch myself of the carriages and hurt men,1 and try my credit amongst the gentlemen hereabouts for some powder= who, I hope, amongst them will afford me four barrels, or [? near] to that quantity. And, unless I have this, [I] might order to the contrary2 from your Lordship. I will return through Sir John Tyr-rell's Pass, from whence your Lordship shall hear honestly of us. I have sent the Earl of Kildare's Lieutenant of his foot to Mullingar, to draw my Lord of Delvin's company and Francis Shane, where I may meet them in the country, and to bring all the powder they can get ,vith them. With God's leave and your Lordship's, I will ransack a great part of the country. If my munition will hold out, and that your Lordship do not recall me, the opportunity is good to plague them. Their borrowed forces by this time are retired. Onie McRory was there with all his force, 120 of Sir John Tyrrell's, i\'Dercy his men, Captain William Tyrrell with 100 from Ossory, and from all their neighbours' borders they missed not their best helps. Their strength, when ,ve met last, was 800 men, which did not so much as look on us at our return, and I think will not meet us again in haste. " I doubt not, if your Lordship do comfort them in Leix ,vith hope of a sho[ r ]t relief, there will be no danger of the place [Maryborough]. Victuals they have to serve their turn for a short time, and I cannot stay in these parts above four or five days at the most. "Sir Harry :F'olliott hath taken exceeding great pains, whose worth in this small business I couid not have missed,3 if your Lordship purpose anything with me. Sir John Tyrrell can send to me at all times, and I will never fail to the uttermost of my power to do your Lordship honour and service. -From Sir Edward Fitzgarrett's house, this 24 of April." Endorsed:-1600. Moun{j'oy has written on the back the following note to Cecil:-" Sir, I do send you these two letters [this and No. z32 above], because I can assure you it was a principal good service, and hath been heretofore counted the work of three tim€?s _ so many men ; and by this you may see that our men begin to forget to run away. MOUNTJOY." 1 i.e. have retired to get rid of my transport and wounded. 2 i.e. as an alternative (?) 3 i.e. I would not have him passed over (?) . XI June, 1600. Captain Lionel Ghest to [Sir Robert Cecil]. '' I am very sorry and not a little ashamed that I have hitherto neglected that native duty, which in a manner I reckon myself born to. In my childhood I was often admitted to read to your honourable mother and sister of Oxford,1 and afterwards being her scholar in the college of Westminster, and elected from thence to Christ Church in Oxford, having spent too many years with too little profit, misled ,vith the wandering error of youth, and a natural desire of novelties, I betook me to this thriftless occupation of the ,vars. '' When the Duke of Parma first drew his army into France, being then ~n Ostend, Lieutenant to the now Lord Deputy of Ireland, I dedicated my first services of worth ( as I thought I was bound) to your father, from whom I received, both before and after the performance thereof, divers letters both of encouragement and thanks. But the services, being brought to happy end and to his expectation, left me no other profit but the suspicion of an intelligencer2 to your house ; which opinion being scattered in the world by the cunning of Sir John Conway, then Governor there, I could hardly to this day shake from my shoulders. Howbeit, it is a course so contrary to my nature, as, to avoid the slander thereof, I have oftentimes since neglected both my private good, and also the public profit, in honest and necessary advertisements. And this silence I confess unto your Honour I had determined perpetually to entertain, had I not QY chance, in conference with so honourable a friend, been persuaded to discover unto your Honour a secret enemy of yours, ,vhose ability, though it be powerless to do you hurt, yet I think fit his good will should be known, the rather lest he should any further with ungrateful scorn abuse your benefits. Virtue was never without malice, nor worthy persons without malignant detractors. Amongst the rest . your Honour must be contented to have many ; but, amongst many, hath not any, who, with more virulence of his tongue, hath uttered towards you the venom of his heart than Sir Oliver Lambert, now Governor of Connaught. It were folly, and could not but be offensive, to repeat his odious and disgraceful speeches; but, to conclude all in one, the only whetstones he hath ever used to sharpen his wits upon, have been your Honour and the Lord Admiral. For the Lord Admiral, I have no knowledge at all of him ; but for yourself, as I thought I was bound for your mother's sake, whom I am bound to honour for ever, I often advised him, and, with as much force as I could, dissuaded him from that course. In the flood of Essex his fortunes, my labours therein were altogether folly, but his 3 estate not only declining in the end, but being grown desperate, at the last no alteration of his mind, but of his hopes, nor any eloquence of mine, but his own fears, make him begin to hearken to my counsels. Nevertheless, as commonly all men do ill what they do unwillingly, though it be well known he can both speak and write enough for himself, yet he could by no means frame himself to write to your Honour at all, as a thing unnatural and against his stomach, except I ,vould draw his first letter; which I did, and have, as I assure myself, yet at Dublin the copy thereof. And that it is not false, it may please you to conjecture by the contents thereof, which as far as I can remember, were to this effect: to excuse himself for not writing before, for that he lived under the Lord Marshal, to whom he thought all martial matters properly to belong, and hereafter to offer you all his services, with continual intelligence of all occurrents there, including his own grief that he thought himself put by the Marshalship of Ireland by your means, the increase whereof \Vas the greater, for that you had besto\ved it on a person ( which point he would needs insert), upon whose credit there was never State yet so desperate as to adventure an army. 1 Anne Cecil m. Robert Vere Earl of Oxford. 2 • 1.e. spy. .. ·J·. 1.• e. s·ir 01·1ver ' s• Xll "Your Honour's answer was, that though his excuse were insufficient, yet in respect of the good parts you heard to be in him, and the rather for a friend's sake of his who lived under you in office, you would be glad to do him good. For the Marshal, though you had some particular reasons to do for him, yet he was especially recommended to that place by the Lord Deputy ; and for intelligence from hence,1 though you thought it a tribute of your place, yet you desired it not from him or any other here, in respect of the honourable opinion you held of the Lord Deputy, from whom only you were desirous to understand all things. And so having with my counsels invested him as I thought in your good favour, I was glad that any way I had been an instrument to procure unto a man whom then I reckoned of very good worth, so honourable a patronage. But his intolerably ungrateful respects of your favours since make me alter my course and undertake this office, ,vhich of all other is most unnatural to me, which yet I do the rather for that it somewhat toucheth me in conscience that I have any way been a mean, how good so ever my meaning were, to prefer you one by whom you should be so much abused. For in truth, since he hath had the command of Connaught, he is become altogether intolerable and insupportable; and having attained that height of fortune whereat all h~s former hopes aimed, discovereth now carelessly those vices which he had so long and so carefully covered. The country he oppresseth with rapine, the soldier with injury, and all with discontent. Whosoever hath cows, either is, or is made, an enemy ; for reducing them to peace is a contrariety to his religion, as one that hath set up his resolution to live eternally by the spoil. The preys taken from the enemy he divideth like .tEsop his lion. The Queen's protections he sells, christened with a new name of tolerations, inserting so many new clauses and provisoes, as they must be twice or thrice bought, before they can be safe for the miserable buyer ; in brief, so carrying himself in all things, as though he not only bought the command of the province, but the whole province itself. i\nd indeed to his familiars, and even to my own face, to whom he knew it could not but be ungrateful, he sticketh not to say that he hath bought the place of your Honour, and that he hath tied you to him with a golden hook. And when I have often advised him to take heed of doing wrongs in the country, for fear of answering them hereafter, 'Tush,' quoth he, 'I must make up the money I give, and he must defend me that taketh it.' This scandalous report, that our State should make venal and set to sale places of so great command, in a time of so great danger, in my simple opinion I think unfit for the time. And as I faithfully believe he untruly layeth it upon your Honour, so I certainly know it is a most dishonest and ungrateful part of him to publish it, if it were true. Wherefore I have adventured to signify this much to your Honour, though with my own great danger. Not that I fear him, for ( I thank God above all His other mortal benefits for it) I am a free man, born in a free commonwealth, wherein there is an ordinary course of appeal from all subordinate ministers even to the highest throne of Majesty; but for that I dread to offend my Lord Deputy, ,vho1n I have so long followed, and whom above all living creatures, next my Prince, I am bound to love and honour. God, we see, loveth men, being the work of his own hands, though they be all evil; and good men love their own benefits, though sometimes ill placed, nature desiring to make perfect whatsoever she beginneth. And his Honour, deceived as myself and divers others have been ,vith an appearance of some virtues, and the cunning dissembling of his vices, having perhaps engaged himself and began to grace him,2 may peradventure take it ill that I should any way seek to overthrow what he ever intended to set up. But the irregular and exorbitant. course he taketh in all things will, I hope, shortly discover him in his own colours to his honourable eyes who, I know, then will detest him above all men living. For myself, my plain dealing with him in these matters, and my reducing of Rory O'Donnell, O'Connor Sligo, and Teig O'Rourke, to submit themselves and all their forces to my Lord Deputy, being left at Sligo with a small garrision of three companies of foot and twenty horse, after they had repulsed him and his whole army at the Curlew, coming thitherward, being a course altogether contrary to him that cannot abide t~ hear of an end of the wars, have turned his long love and sixteen years' acquaintance, wherein the world knoweth I have lived with him more familia~ly than any man, into a secret and inward hatred. And therefore I protest to your Honour, by the faith of 1 i.e. as for getting prh~ate information. 2 The personal pronouns here mean Cecil. a Christian soldier, that there is nothing on the earth I would more desire than to justify these matters before you face to face, and to make them good with the last drop of my blood, were it not for two causes ; the one, for fear of offending my Lord, whose love I am bound to respect more than my life ; the other for doubt of renewing the suspicion of an intelligencer, which I hate more than death. And so, hoping your Honour ,vill take care that my goodwill do me no hurt, I humbly take my leave, and will ever be ready to strain the uttermost of my ability to do you service." · XIV Athy. July 21st, 1600. Sir Oliver Lambert to the Lord Deputy Mountjoy. "The carriages in port failed me, so that I was forced to lose a day, lest these nimble troops should be idle. I made a countenance as far as the Blakford, and suddenly turned over the Barrow 1 by Rebane; and, on Saturday morning, fell into part of Phelim McFeagh's country, and Donnell Spainagh's, where, out of their fastness, we hunted I ,ooo cows and 500 garrans, and many more at our devotion, if I had been able to drive them, and fight too. By ten of the clock, their whole force were gathered, and fought with us till seven of the clock at night, that we_ came to our quarter, and kept us waking all night. We made them run where so ever we encountered. They gave one brave proffer, when, if the horse had seconded their leaders, I blush to say what we might have done. Our chiefs did excellently well. Sir Oliver St. John· hath tried his footmanship, who gallantly carried himself. Captain John Masterson must not be missed when your Lordship purposeth anything here. " I met with your Lordship's letters at my return to Athy, when I was dividing the prey amongst the soldiers who best deserved it. We killed twenty-six of the rebels, and many hurt; the soldiers got great spoil. To-morrow I will rest. A' Wednesday, God \Villing, I will victual the fort, and dwell in Leix till your Lordship send for me. Onie Mc Rory assulted Athy in my absence, to get the garrans. 2 The Earl of Kildare's company guarded the place, who gave Onie his payment, with the loss of six of his best men. His attempt was desperate, his force 400. He shot at our victuals. 3 He got twenty garrans and some churls, which he sent back, and bade them tell me that if I victualled the fort, he would give me leave to walk where I list in Leix ; all which I believe, and I hope your Lordship shall hear it."-Athy, 2 I July. [Postscript]-'' Our prey was milch cows; forty of the likeliest to be beef shall be sent to Kilmainham." 1 In Queen's Co. 2 Rough Irish ponies. 3 i.e. the live stock. x,· Dundalk. October 20th, 16oo. Sir Oliver Lambert to Sir Robert Cecil. Apologises for not having written before. Received the place of Marshal from the Earl of Essex, then Lord Deputy, and felt obliged to refer all his actions ,vholly to his Lordship. Afterwards, the Earl's" authority being restrained, myself for the most part retained in the remoted [sic] parts with the Earl of Ormonde, the slow progress and wary procee~ings of the Lords Justices, being doubtful to hazard Her Majesty's anny, was such as afforded me neither occasions to do, nor deeds worthy to write of. "Lastly, at my Lord Deputy's coming over, finding myself disgracefully (as I thought) turned out of that place,1 which I was sure I had not disgracefully exercised, I could not but hold long and doubtful disputation with myself whether, without touch of my reputation, I might except [sic; ? accept] the conditions I no\v hold. Then, suspecting that my actions have been depraved by ill offices, and myself through some malignant envy brought into mislike with your Honour (though the knowledge I }:lave of myself, and the strict and exact trial and examination whereunder I have forced all my actions to pass, will not suffer me to be over jealous of any hard opinion malice can beget in so honourable a mind), I persuaded myself to stay, and patiently i~ this giddy and turbulent time to undergo any burden my Lord Deputy would lay on me, to refuse no adventure with the hazard of my life, that might further Her Majesty's service, and do myself right. As upon these reasons I have submitted myself to this service, so, understanding withal from Mr. Fleet,vood, my father,2 of your Honour's late good opinion of me, I would also gladly dedicate both myself and my labours to your honourable patronage." _ . Begs to hear from Sir Robert, and will from time to time acquaint him with the counsels, courses, and effects of the service. Dundalk, 1600, October 20th. Signed. (Seal.) 1 Marshal of the army. 2 i.e. father-in-law. Sir Oliver married Hester Fleetwood. XVI February 7th, 1601. Trim. Sir Oliver Lambert to Sir Robert Cecil. "Your letter (sent me by my father1) gave life to my soul, that long groaned under the burden of disgrace, and the assurance of your honourable favour encourageth me to tell you frankly, I am able in my profession to do you service. In my affection, I will be ever true and faithful, and am none of those heretics your Honour speaks of; for, if my friend (your honest follower) had delivered a letter which I sent in due time, open for him to peruse, your Honour had understood me better long since; but it sorted not with his humour, and so [he] concealed it. ·: '' For that my Lord of Essex left me Marshal provisionally, I am loath to dispute. Sure I am I have the seal for it, with all authorities, as ample as ever any. For my Lord Deputy,2 I excuse him for giving way to his friend. He dealt honourably and plainly with me, and made me know how and by whom he was wrought against me. For the Marshal's place I am not now otherwise ambitious of it than shall stand with your best liking, though I bear the brunt of the business, but most humbly desire your Honour to be a mean to Her Majesty to think me worthy the government of Connaught, as a recompense for twenty two years' service, a place to rest my decayed limbs, when these wars shall be well qualified, and grow towards an end. My Lord Deputy giveth me leave to write thus much to your Honour, on condition never to leave him whilst he keepeth the field, nor seek to dwell in the province till the war be made there, \vhither it must run in the end. My Lord Deputy, I presume, thinketh me \vorthy a good turn, and I hope keeps not my careful endeavours to finish this war from your knowledge. Out of my small experience, I dare engage my gro\ving credit with your Honour, that safely, on my word, you may freely tell Her Majesty that this war hath no long life, if my Lord Deputy go for\vard as he intendeth, and you second him as he expecteth. "To conclude, if it shall please your Honour so much to bind me to you as to make me Governor of Connaught, which I doubt not but I shall sufficiently discharge, I will ever acknowledge so honourable a favour, and endeavour by all duty to make myself deserving it, and humbly desire your Honour to accept 5001., to be disposed of at your pleasure." 1 i.e. father-in-law. 2 Lord Mountjoy. .. * 2 X-Vll May 23rd, 16o6.1 Sir Oliver Lambert to the King. The castle of Donavegge is seated on high rocks, two stories high, reported to your Majesty to be infinite strong, the walls thirty foot thick. We found it otherwise ; eight foot in some places, less in others, only one comer fourteen foot, which we had no occasion to touch. Three days' battery with the ordnance we used was powerful enough to ruin the whole house, invincible without the cannon and famine. In my opinion it is fit to be razed. I wish no house or castle to be built in the island other than on plain fair ground, that the spade and pickaxe in the hands of soldiers may make their way into it. The toil and danger, besides the charges, is more than I have seen elsewhere, to land the cannon in these rocky parts ; of which I was in despair till it pleased God ~o shew us a harbour at hand unknown to the pilots to lodge your Majesty's ships in safety, and that Captain Button bestirred himself with his men and tackles to unship the artillery. The greatest enemy opposed us ,vas cold and perpetual storms, the time unseasonable till the 23rd of January, then the Lord gave us fair weather, which continued till ,ve gained the castle and embarked the cannon. Sir John Campbell your lieutenant for this service, is ,vell disposed. He deserves better attendance than the Highlanders if your Majesty expects any further service at his hands. They are obedient to no command, subject to no order, ravine [ravage] and spoil all where they come. Martial Ia,v is in no request amongst them ; and there is no way to govern armed multitudes long without it. If hereafter any of these Highlanders neglect your commands, as Ireland is at hand, so on my credit with you and ancient experience in Ireland, when these men flocked thither by thousands, four hundred of your ·soldiers in pay well armed, and one hundred such Irish, as with little charge we can bring, are able to suppress island after island, reckon what they will of their numbers. Your Majesty's ships will add a great countenance to such business, being well acquainted no,v ,vhere to harbour. This island of Ila is large, good land, pretty fishings, salmon taken in many places; as requisite to be civilized as commodious for good men to inhabit. When we saw the hills of Ireland, Kintyre, Jura, and all places within our view covered with snow, Ila ,vas clear. In value it is worth four of Ennishowen that you gave my Lord Deputy of Ireland. If the rest of the islands come anything near it in goodness, your revenue may be raised out of them forty or fifty thousand pounds a year, and those live ,vell that shall be your Majesty,s farmers. The Irish never readily answered your Majesty's laws till they \Vere disarmed, compelled to eat their own meat, and live by their own labors. These Highlanders have good and able bodies, easily made soldiers in another government, as yet more barbarous than the rudest that ever I saw in Ireland. Men of good justice seated among them, idle dependency banished, reformation follows. Your cannons have so well proclaimed your Royal power unto them that they ,vill hardly trust any stone walls again. As my words are weak to intimate to.so admirable an understanding matter of substance, so I crave pardon for what I have said. I further presume to tender the care and pains of Sir Thomas Phillips worthily performed in this service. Your Majesty have lost in the death of Captain Craifford a valiant and painful captain, by ,vhom I ,vas not a little assisted. The fortune of the war is not to be resisted. 1 Sir Oliver had been sent with '' a small diminutive of an army" against some Scotch rebels in Isla• ... XVlll Sir Oliver Lambert to Lord [Somerset]. Arrived the 14th December, in the sound that runs between Jura and Islay. Coming to anchor, the inhabitants of Jura assured him that Sir John Campbell, His Majesty's lieutenant for this service, after eight days' lodging in two small waste islands adjoining to Islay, returned home, dispersed his men, and that the castle of Dunnavegge ,vas yielded up to one Grymes, employed thither by the Lord Chancellor and Council of Scotland, with instructions to work the liberty of the pledges 1 and to make one of those traitors Constable of the Castle for His Majesty. Finding neither word nor letter left by Sir John Campbell to direct him to whom only his instruction directed him, thought it not amiss to write to those of the castle to know from them the truth of these reports. They answered that they held the house for His Majesty, if he doubted thereof he should send a servant of his own to read their warrant and take a copy of the same. Sent Captain Parkins, as well to inform him of. the offences and defences about the castle, as to peruse what they had to show for themselves. He returned with a copy of instructions sent herewith, 2 supposed to be given by the Lord Chan cellor to Grymes, signed with the hands of Agnus Ogge M'Donnell and Coll M'Donnell. Found in them neither phrase nor matter likely to fall from the pen of the Lord Chancellor or from the consent of so grave a councillor. In the time of this parley, a letter came from Sir John Campbell to entreat their stay and patience, that no sound sleep should close his eyes till he sa,v me. For the ease of the soldiers, landed them close by the shore of Jura, where they suffered no less cold and wet than Captain Button, with His Majesty's ship fast by, endured storms and imminent danger their anchors drawn home, their cables worn, and no six hours without a storm; the pilots from Scotland promised this harbour to be far better, and the best round about Ila. As from time to time Sir John Campbell advertised his speedy repair to them, ,vithheld through continual tempests, so with great patience His Majesty's ever ,villing commanders and obedient soldiers lightly esteeming the boisterous winds and snows, the worst of all ,veather ever heard of, attended from the 14th December till the 1st January, when Sir John Campbell arrived amongst them. After conference resolved to march the 9th January and invest the castle of Dunnavegge till the hoy \Vith the artillery and three other ships with provisions, with God's favour and good ,veather, might recover a harbour under the Isle of Tara. The 13th January the hoy, with the rest, arrived safe in the road afore said, upon assurance from the pilots that the Phrenix might securely ride in this road [sic]. Sent t,vo of the pilots to advise ,vith Captain Button hereof, ,vho took the first advantage of a fair morning and came to them, ,vithout whose careful presence and assistance of men and tackle he3 despaired to land the cannon. No pilot undertook to know a place to lay the hoy aground, from whence they might conveniently unship the cannons. By good hap found a corner to bring in the hoy, some\vhat subject to the sho~ of the castle. Captain Button no sooner laid forth his anchors than he ,vas encountered ,vith a long and mighty storm-in t,vo days and a half no ,vay able to come on shore. At his coming, cried out on the road the 1 i.e. to arrange the release of the hostages. 2 Not forthc::>ming. a • s· o1· · i.e. 1r .1ver. . XIX ground was foul, his main and best anchor broken, his cables spoiled, no hope to stay in safety there; so they resolved to hazard His Majesty's ship no longer, and to dismiss Captain Button. It pleased Almighty God the 23rd January to give them fair weather and Captain Button leisure to discover fast by a land-locked harbour called the Lordume, to his heart's content and all our comforts. The same day Capt. Button, with his own men, manned his long boat and another ship-boat, directing them to tow the hoy to the place appointed, whom the traitors neither spared nor harmed with their shot, which they plentifully poured in amongst them. From the 23rd January to the 30th of the same laboured to unship and draw the cannon, and on the soldiers' shoulders to carry all their provisions of timber, delve boards, powder, and bullets to their cold camp, half a mile almost from the place they landed. In drawing the cannon Capt. Crayford, a painful, a careful, and a worthy captain, unfortunately received a shot that brake the small of his leg all to shivers ; after five or six days he was dismembered, which he endured manfully, and died within two hours after; at the same time ,vith Capt. Crayford a Highlander was shot in the body, who lived not long,- and an English soldier in the shoulder, in hope of recovery. The last of January they finished their platform, and intrenched their soldiers in the next adjoining places to offend the castle. The 1st February they began to batter a tower in which the rebels held a guard over the port that enters the outward bawne. Then opened with the cannons a good part of the wall of the inward bawne, 30 feet high, raised for '":· a blind to cover the ,vhole front of the castle; this done the port of the castle lay open to their musket- eers that played not far off. Their next and best hopes ,vere, as soon as they could beat do,vn their fights above, and the spikes that most annoyed them, to lodge under the walls of the outward bawne, sheltered with such timber and provisions as we brought ,vith them for that purpose, and to work with the pickaxe to the castle, the rocky ground affording no earth to help them withal, rather than to spend their magazine of powder ( not exceeding a hundred barrels), too small a proportion to bring to the ground walls confidently warranted to be 30 feet thick. If the store of Ireland had afforded more powder he should not have ,vanted. Beating the spikes and battlements about the castle that most offended them with a few shots, he easily perceived the ,vall feasible enough to be battered ; then went roundly to ,vork against the stair case and the ,vall that hung over the ,vell, and continued the battery in that place till it ,vas dark that night. Early the 2nd Feb. plied the ordnance as the day before, in such sort that the \vall fell down apace. The traitors, about seven of the clock in the morning, sent forth a boy with a letter in a stick desiring conference ; the lieutenant himself consented that Aggnus Oge M'Donnell in person should come before them into the camp, ,vhich he did after long delay and parley with those that met him, refusing till this day to stir from under the guard of the castle, on their word and safe conduct, protesting that he and the rest were subjects and held the house for His Majesty and the Council of Scotland. And if they might see any warrant to deliver the house to Sir John Campbell they ,vould stay the same, with much other idle stuff and imagination infused into them by Grymes. Told Aggnus there was no plain way for him and the rest to walk in, but by humble and simple sub mission to His Majesty's mercy, or to deliver up Coll M'Donnell and so many more as shall equal the number of those of his party; he desired remission, for this he alleged he was not able nor willing to bring to pass. Then questioned whether he ,vere of power to deliver the house or no? He said, yes ! So they all might be remitted and not otherwise. Rebuked his folly, and bade him be packing. "Well, then,'' replied xx Aggnus, " If you both will stand for me to His 1\1:ajesty I will come away, and bring as many with me as will submit themselves to His Majesty's mercy.'' At this time did not perceive the ordnance had wrought so great effect as it afterward appeared, and· finding no· great substance in Aggnus other than Coll M'Donnell thrust into him, and willing to weaken the rest by drawing part from them, intended to do our best to His Majesty for Aggnus. He departed, promising a speedy return. In this parley the cannons were silent two hours and a half. When Aggnus came to the castle wall he sent for ,vhom out of the castle he pleased to advise with~ After a little counsel he returned the gentleman sent to conduct him, with answer that he would come no more on those conditions; two that accompanied him into the camp quitted him and sub1nitted themselves to his Majesty's mercy. His wife that stayed behind him was by the lieutenant presently sent into the castle. After this spared no powder, and in a sma11 time the places battered yielded such abundance of ruins and rubbidge [rubbish] that the inward bawne, the wells, and as high as the rock on which the bridge rest that they must pass in and out the castle, was choked up. Once more there came a letter from Aggnus to send gentlemen to confer with him, the lieutenant sent for him [Sir Oliver] when they agreed to leave his letter unanswered ; that his delays were hateful, and that he might come when he list on his humble and simple submission and as many as would follow him, but the battery should not cease. Mr. Archibald Campbell, lest the boy should forget his message, wrote thus much to Aggnus, and subscribed the same with his own hand. At his [Sir Oliver's] return to the battery, we plainly viewed men, women, and children running out of the castle and with great difficulty recovered the outward bawn. Whereupon he caused the pieces to be turned on the outward bawn to enlarge a breach begun the day before, intending the same night between seven and eight of the clock to lodge therein, and forced the bawne not possible to be defended with so few hands. Not long after, some hour before night, Aggnus Oge's wife, Colrs wife, and some others left the castle; after he showed himself to the _lieutenant, received word from the lieutenant to hold the ordnance till Aggnus, his nurses and children were come forth of the castle ; did so, and withal sent to the lieutenant to continue his former care to watch their coming forth by water with their boats. As the night before, Capt. Button in person with his long boat, to give the Highlanders example to do the like, rode to and fro all night long before the face of the castle. He returned word that he feared more the escape by land than by sea, the land being his [Sir Oliver's] charge to guard. In the interim of Agnus and his children's coming forth, Coll rigged up a boat. It was growing dark. He left the battery, ,villing them, after a volley or tv,o, to leave the pieces charged ready to shoot at all times into the bawne and rest for that night. No sooner came to his lodging, as his meat was going to the table, than Archibald Campbell from the lieutenant reported that Aggnus assured him, Coll with the rest were ready to submit themselves to his Majesty's mercy; and Coll himself demanded only this condition, to be carried to Edenburrough to answer for himself before the Council. He craved his [Sir Oliver's] opinion. Liked the notion well, wishing Mr. Archibald to return this answer to Coll, that he should remain where he was that night to avoid their own danger and confusion in issuing forth in the dark ; they should be safe from the artillery and other harm, reserving themselves in the inward bawne; that he would hold his first purpose as soon as he had supped, to lodge in the breach made in the outward bawn to prevent their passage both by sea and land. Before he could return to the lieutenant or send the messsage, Coll, with all his able men_, made a fair escape to the sea, neither daunted with the shot that come from the Highlanders, lodged on a rock fast before the arch out of which their boat was launched into the sea. So they did as carelessly, having no other way to save their lives, pass under a rock where our musketeers lay fortified and shot freely at them. . XXl Three boats well manned with Highlanders followed them. They could see them give fire on both sides. The rebels rowed themselves soon out of sight of them, and being clear of them stood back again, and landed some five miles from the castle in Ila. Sunk their boat and marched away to Grist for their safety; they are good men and able to do mischief before they shall be suppressed. The lieutenant has sent to hunt them about the Island. If Aggnus had meant honestly, the escape of these traitors had been· prevented. Leaves the executions done and intended to be done to Sir John Campbell's own relation. Has written in a blunt soldier's style to His Majesty some few observances during his abode in this place as he has expressed the truth in the same phrase. Begs his Lordship's recommendation to his .Majesty.-,-Camp of Dunavegge 7th February, 1614- .. XXll NoTEs. IN the church of Great Bookham, Surrey, there are several brasses commemorating Elizabeth Lambart, daughter of Walter Lambart of Carshalton, and aunt of Oliver. She married, about I 540, Sir Edmund Slyfield, head of an ancient Surrey family. One brass gives a very curious pedigree in the female line of Elizabeth (see my notes on pedigrees). Another describes her virtues and those of her husband in the poorest of doggerel rhymes. Of Slyfield Place in Surrey here Edmund Slyfield lies A stout Esquire who always set God's fear before his eyes. A Justice of the Peace he was from 6th King Edward's days And worthy for virtue's use did win deserved praise. He took Elizabeth to wyfe, a dame of famous race She of the Pawletts did descend and Capels in lyke case, Of Sydney's stock she was a branch and to the Gaynsfords nye, Dame Nature to the gentle Moy les did her tye. To Arundels, Whytes and Lamberts eke by these descents she was, And he with her and she with him their days in love did pass. In wedlock she to him brought forth 5 sons and daughters 2 \Vhich carefully they did instruct to serve the God of Heaven. He in the 24th year of Elizabeth our Queene, Whose virtues through the world do spring as laurel greene Of Surrey and of Sussex was High Sheriffe ordained indeed And to Her Grace of loyalty did daily yield the seed. He helpful to the poor was found, she fed them day by day: He justice daily ministered, pity did her swaye : Beloved he was of all the poor and she disdained of none : He bold of speech and in her lips no ill was ever found : He always thankful unto God, she pressed to spread his praise : He loved truth, she discord loathed: thus these 2 spent their days. But God the husband takes from wyfe, he dies in hope to live : She lives to die, but hopes that Christ her lasting life will give: And he has gone the way of death so she doth death expect : Yet have we hope both he and she shall be with God's elect. He 71, with 10 odd months, she 70 years hath spent: His time is past, her time draws on, no man can death prevent: He left this lyfe 13th Feb. 1590 and 33 Elizabeth's reigne. Whose virtues are here justly described As a pattern for their lyneage fit to be followed Vivit post fu:nera virtus. Their eldest son Henry caused this to be mayde In faithful performance of the Will of the dead. Walter Lambart, brother of the above Elizabeth and father of Sir Oliver, seems to have removed to the neighbourhood of Whitchurch, Hants, about the middle of the sixteenth century, for in 1575 he is recorded as holding with John Paulett and Henry Norris (see pedigrees) the manor of Ffreefolke there, and it is probable that Sir Oliver was a Hampshire man as his mother, Rose Wallop, also lived in that county. Walter's brQther Richard married a co heiress of a wealthy landowner, Richard Andrews ( see pedigrees) of Laverstoke, and inherited that property. XXlll The traditional inability of the family to keep its possessions seems to have been illustrated in this case also, for Richard's grandson in 1661 parted with the property to John Trot, Esq., from whom through various hands it passed to the present holders, the Portals, a Walloon family from the Netherlands-and the memory of the Lambarts perished out of the county. In St. James' Church, Wield, Han ts, is the following inscription. The Thomas Lambert referred to was the son of Richard, mentioned in the preceding note. Here lyeth Barbara Willys Wife of Thomas Willys Esq. eldest daughter of Thomas Lambert of Laverstoke in ye County of Southampton, Esq. which "fhomas Lambert was cousin german to Oliver Larde Lambert Baron of ye Cavan in Ireland. She was Neece to Margarye Wallop which lyeth here intombed. Ye said Barbara Willys died in child bedde ye 5th daye of ·Marche 1617, leaving one only Sonne Thomas Willys whoe was borne ye 26th day of Feby. 161 7 in ye 15th yeare of ye Raigne of King James. . XXIV PEDIGREES. THE following fragments of pedigrees of the family and ot~ers connected with it by marriage may, I think, be said to come up to the standard of reliability demanded by modern critics of genealogy. I give the authorities in the margin. As regards the Heralds' Visitations, it is generally accepted nowadays that the member of the family who presented the pedigree to the visiting Herald was a reliable authority as to his own grandfather's name. For earlier generations corroborative evidence is necessary. LAl\lBART. 1 John L.=Elizabeth \Vhitaker, 1 Alive in 1476. See of Long Preston; or \Vhitacre. Whitaker's Hist. of Craven; also Visitation b. ante 1450. of Yorks. r- , -, --r· 1 - - --- ,viniam. Christopher. John. Henry. Thomas. 2 S-::e Harleian MSS., 2 Richard L. : (?) Burton, dau. of Burton of Carshalton. 1561 and 1046 (Heralds' Visitatfons). 1 3 \Valter L. Margaret, dau. of Sir R. Gaynsford. 3 See Brasses in Gt. I Bookham Church ; also ,...... ,.---,------Pa tent of Peerage, Sir 1 1 I I ------, Oliver L. Roger ; d. s. p. · 3 Elizabeth=Sir E. Slyfield. 'fhomas. b. I 520; d. and coh.=Richard; d. 1567. m. 1540. . of Richard Sheriff of London. Andrewes. (ii.) Elizabeth , 4 Walter L.=(i.) Rose, dau. of Sir Oliver ,vallop. " Patent of Peerage. dau. of Sir George Powlett. i i I I 1-, Anne. Barbara. Elizabeth. Sir Oliver Lambart. BURTON. 5 Henry B.=Joan Ellingbrigge. 5 Harl. l\ISS., 1046. Visitation of Surrey. -I-:--I l:---e------1 - --·-.. ·l-----,1 Mary. Richard. Anne. Bridget. Dorothy. Nicholas=Wife unknown. Richard · Ada Han1pton. d. 1590. Clerk of Council to Ed. VI. XXV Visitations of I lants. \VALi.OP. Sir Oliver \Vallop=Bridget, dau. of Pigott of Beechhampstead. I ------I-- I Rose= Walter Lambart. Richard. \Villiam. Henry ::::c::iCatherine Giffard. Anne I Sir R. Powlett. Visitations o[ Hants. POWLETT. John=(ii.) \Vinifred Brydges. 2nd Marquis of \Vinchester. (i.) Elizabeth Capel. Sir George J dau. of Lord Windsor. Richard lElizabeth Cowdray. 2nd son. i I i .. . John j Catherine Andrewes. I (?) Benagre=Elizabeth=(ii.) Walter Lambart. Sir Richard= Anne \Vallop. ' \Villiam i '(? ?) Elizabethlsir Oliver St. John. See Brasses in MARGARET GAYNSFORD. Gt. Bookham Church. (Female line.) Margaret Gaynsford= \Valter Lam hart. was daughter of Sir R. Gaynsford=dau. of Sir W. Moyle. I I Sir \V. Moyle=dau. of Sir Thomas Arundel. Sir R. Gaynsford was son of Sir N. Gaynsford=Margaret Sydney. . XXVl