Volume 2 — THE KILLIGREWS; (continued 2)

We have thus completed, so far as seemed desirable, our sketches of all the sons and grandsons of Sir Robert Killigrew of Hanworth, except that of his fifth son, Henry; to him and to his career and progeny we now turn. He was born at Hanworth the year after his brother Tom, viz. in 1612; and was at first educated, as Wood tells us, by that celebrated schoolmaster, Farnaby, at St. Giles's, Cripplegate. Thence he went to Christ Church, Oxford, when sixteen years of age, and at that University obtained his degrees of M.A. in 1638, and D.D. four years afterwards. Of his Latinity when at college, the following example, amongst others, has been preserved:—

ΠΡΟΤΈΛΕΙΑ.

ANGLO-BATAVA.

He, too, received a Court appointment, and was Preceptor to James II. and a Chaplain to the King's Army and to the Duke of York. In 1660, he was made Prebendary of the Twelfth Stall at Westminster, and about the same time Rector of Wheathampsted, where are some of the family tombs. But it was not until 1667, when he was between fifty and sixty years of age, that he obtained the post in connexion with which his name is most generally known-that of 'Master of the Savoy and Almoner to His Royal Highness.'

Whilst still a youngster of seventeen, he wrote a tragedy which he called 'The Conspiracy,' intended for performance at the celebration of the 'Nuptialls of the Lord Charles Herbert and the Lady Villers.' It was played at the Blackfriars Theatre in 1638, and was received with great applause—obtaining high praise from 'rare Ben Jonson' himself. One critic, indeed, objected that the sentiments expressed by the hero of the piece, Cleander, were far beyond his age—seventeen—until he was reminded that that was the age of the author himself. Here is a specimen of the youthful writer's powers:

'(The Rightful Heir to the Crown kept from his inheritance: an angel sings to him sleeping.)

'SONG.

The play appears to have been printed without the writer's consent, in 1638, in an imperfect form; but it was not until fifteen years afterwards that he published an amended copy of it under the title of 'Pallantus and Eudora.' He also wrote another play, 'The Tyrant King of Crete,' which was never acted. Many of his sermons too were printed; one of them, Pepys—who seems to have gone almost everywhere, and heard almost everything—listened to in 1663: 'At Chapel I had room in the Privy Seale pewe with other gentlemen;' but he has left no record of the impression produced. Probably, therefore, it was not very deep or lasting; and, in fact, the sermons have no special excellence: yet there is something true and pathetic in this saying: 'Misery lays stronger bonds of love than Nature; and they are more than one, whom the same misfortune joined together, than to whom the same womb gave life.'

The Rev. W. J. Loftie, in his 'History of the Savoy,' tells us that Henry Killigrew succeeded Sheldon as Master, and that he was no more careful and economic in the management of the decaying establishment than was his predecessor; yet King William III.'s Commissioners tell a somewhat different story, and describe him as 'a man of generous and public spirit, as his expenses in the Chapel of the said Hospital, and of King Henry VII. at Westminster, who was the founder of the said Hospital, do sufficiently testify.'

In the Savoy itself Henry Killigrew lived, paying £1 a year for his lodgings. No pleasant neighbourhood was that 'Sanctuary'[89] which Macaulay thus describes:

'The Savoy was another place of the same kind as Whitefriars; smaller indeed, and less renowned, but inhabited by a not less lawless population. An unfortunate tailor, who ventured to go thither for the purpose of demanding payment for a debt, was set upon by the whole mob of cheats, ruffians, and courtezans. He offered to give a full discharge to his debtor, and a treat to the rabble, but in vain. He had violated their "franchises," and this crime was not to be pardoned. He was knocked down, stripped, tarred, and feathered. A rope was tied round his waist. He was dragged naked up and down the street amidst yells of "A bailiff! a bailiff!" Finally he was compelled to kneel down, and curse his father and mother—and then "to limp home without a rag upon him."'

The Master of the Savoy married twice, it is said; but I have failed to trace the maiden name of either of his wives. It would have been interesting to know who the first was, especially; for she was the mother of the fairest and brightest of all the Killigrews—Mistress Anne. The second wife continued to live in the Savoy after her husband's death, which took place the 14th March, 1699.

He had two sons and two daughters. The sons, both of whom were sailors, were Henry and James; and the daughters, Elizabeth and the incomparable ANNE. Clutterbuck, in his 'History of Hertfordshire,' says that Elizabeth married Dr. J. Lambe, Dean of Ely, who succeeded to the Rectory of Wheathampstead; and that they had five sons and five daughters. Her epitaph records that she was 'a most intirely beloved wife,' and that 'to menc̄on some of her virtues only (though very great ones) would lessen her character, who was a most eminent example of all those virtues whatsoever that adorn her sex.'

Henry, the elder son, appears to have been, on the whole, a successful man in his profession; he entered the navy in 1666, and for the next twenty years sailed in almost as many different ships; he was made Vice-Admiral of the Blue in 1689, and finally was created a Lord of the Admiralty under King William III. He died at his seat at St. Albans (for which place he had been elected M.P.) on the 9th November, 1712, eighteen years after his retirement from the Admiralty. Many MS. letters by him are in the Bodleian Library, and at All Souls' College, Oxford. In the British Museum is preserved a broadside entitled—

'Good News from the English Fleet:

being an Account of a great and bloody Engagement which happened yesterday between Their Majesties' Fleet commanded by Admiral Killigrew, and the French Fleet near the Beachy—with a particular account of the Taking Six of their Ships, and Sinking Three.'

It was printed 17th September, 1690; on which date the final result was not known, but enough had been learnt to describe the engagement as a victory; the battle was fought three leagues off the shore, and lasted from 10 a.m. till night.

Macaulay does not refer to this exploit; but, writing of the year 1693, he tells us that 'Killigrew and Delaval were Tories, and that the Whigs carried a vote of censure upon the Government in consequence of the late naval miscarriages, but failed to fix it on Killigrew and Delaval themselves, the Admirals.' The facts seem to have been that Killigrew and Delaval were appointed to convoy seventy ships of the line and thirty smaller vessels—the richly-freighted Smyrna fleet—past Brest to the Mediterranean; Rooke was to take them on afterwards. But the French fleet lay in wait for them near Gibraltar, and Rooke fell into the trap, with dire results. Macaulay thinks that Killigrew and Delaval ought to have been sharper, and not to have returned to England so soon. On hearing of the news in England, many of the merchants went away from the Royal Exchange 'pale as death.' There is, however, in the British Museum a rare ballad which somewhat conflicts with Macaulay's views, and I am tempted to refer to it, without being able to reconcile the discrepancy. It is entitled—

'The Seamen's Victory, or Admiral Killigrew's glorious conquest over the French Fleet, in the Streights, as they were coming from Thoulon towards Brest. With the manner of Taking Three of their French Men of War, and sinking Two more; although the French Admiral vainly boasted he would recover Brest or Paradice, yet he shamefully run from the English Fleet. (To the Tune of The Spinning Wheel.)'

The ballad is illustrated with rough wood-cuts, three of which represent ships, and a fourth, it is to be presumed, the Admiral himself. It begins thus:

The defeat of the attempt made by the Toulon fleet to join that at Brest is then described, in the same rude sort of lines eminently adapted for the roystering choristers who frequent seaside taverns; and the poet thus continues:

And the ballad concludes with the hope—

Possibly it refers to an episode of the fight which may have escaped the notice of the illustrious historian. This much, however, is certain, that the exploits of the British Admiral were caricatured in a street play, probably got up for political purposes.

Admiral Killigrew has been described in the following terms by one G. Wood, his clerk, who sailed with him to the Mediterranean:

'A young man in the flower of his age but a man of great experience and to add to his experience he's a man of undaunted Courage Prudence and Conduct, making it his study in all his actions to doe nothing (though never so much to his own advantage) but that which is truely honorable and altogeither tending to the honor and advantage of his King and Country. Hee likewise carry'd his com̄and w^th so much gravity and wisdome that he was both belov'd and fear'd by all y^e squadⁿ from y^e highest to y^e lowest; and for his Prudence and Dilligence in managing of his Ma^tie's affairs.... I might inlarge much more and speak nothing but truth of this hono^ble comand^s yett fear I should be look't upon as a flatterer by those y^t knows him not.'

Whilst serving in the Mediterranean, in chase of a Salletine frigate, he was severely wounded by the bursting of a gun in his own ship, the splinters breaking both bones of his right leg, and frightfully wounding his head.

I have been unable to ascertain whom Admiral Henry married; but he had a son who bore the same name as himself, and who settled at St. Julian's in Hertfordshire. I think it must have been he who was a Major in Lord Strafford's Royal Regiment of Dragoons, the composition of which corps and the pay of its members are set forth in the Add^l. MSS. 22,231 in the British Museum. It would, however, be uninteresting to trace farther the descent of this branch of the family.

James, the younger brother, when only twenty-one years of age, and unmarried, was killed in a sea engagement off Leghorn, in January 1694/5, on board the Plymouth; like Nelson, 'in the arms of victory.'[90] His ship was a fast sailer, and outstripped her companions, so that when Captain James Killigrew came up with the French he had to engage two ships at once, both bigger than his own, one of which, however, he sunk, and the other he took. He sustained the unequal combat, it is said, for four hours. Besides losing his own life, fifty of his men were killed and wounded when the remainder of the British ships at length came up to his assistance. 'Characters like his need no encomium,' observes Charnock. Some accounts attribute cowardice to his comrades on this occasion.

We have now nearly completed our task, and have come to the last of the Killigrews whose history is likely to be entertaining, or instructive. ANNE,

'quæ stabat ubique victrix forma, ingenio, religione,'

as her epitaph (now destroyed) in the chancel of St. John the Baptist, in the Savoy Chapel, once described her;[91] and most gratifying it is to close our account of the Killigrews with the story of this admirable woman.

She was born in 1660, in St. Martin's Lane; and, the Restoration not having then been effected, was (according to Cibber's 'Lives of the Poets') christened in a private chamber, the offices of the Common Prayer-book not being at that time publicly allowed. Early distinguished for her skill in poetry and in painting, and for her learning, taste, and purity of life, for her fame she is not indebted to that which alone would have been sufficient to perpetuate it—I mean Dryden's renowned ode. This, exaggerated as its terms may appear, is nevertheless said, by those who knew her, to be hardly too strongly expressed. Even the ascetic Anthony Wood wrote of her the well-known line,

'A Grace for beauty, and a Muse for wit;'

and he assures us that 'there is nothing spoken of her which she was not equal to, if not superior.' That she was an accomplished artist Dryden's verse records, and that this was a talent possessed by at least one of her ancestors we have seen in the account of Sir Henry Killigrew, the diplomatist; but I am not aware that any of her paintings remain to us; but Walpole saw her portrait by herself, and thought more highly of her painting than of her poetry. The portrait has been admirably engraved in mezzotint by Becket and by Blooteling. She painted James II. and his Queen, as well as several 'history-pieces,' landscapes, and still-life subjects, which Dryden mentions in the poem that Dr. Johnson pronounced 'the noblest ode that our language has produced.' I am aware that Warton somewhat differs from the great critic as to this; but it would be difficult to point to a finer English threnody; and, notwithstanding the probability of its being familiar, if not to all, yet to most of my readers, I venture to think that the reproduction here of such parts as particularly refer to Anne Killigrew may not be unacceptable. The noble strain thus opens:

Exaggerated language perhaps, but sincerely meant. And the master of the 'long-resounding line' concludes:

The allusion to the grief of her brother Henry, the Admiral, then at sea, is very fine:

Her skill as a painter he depicts in the following happy lines:

Dryden then alludes to her portraits of the royal family—and first of the King:

Of his Consort's likeness the poet gracefully observes:

And, with a grand hyperbole, the poem ends with the above prediction that at the last day the Poets shall first awake at the sound in mid-air of the golden trump:

'For they are covered with the lightest ground.'

Mistress Anne Killigrew, as the virgin poetess and paintress was called, after the fashion of the time, was, like so many others of her family, attached to the Court. She was Maid of Honour to the Duchess of York; and, even in those loose days, was unspotted by the contaminating influences amongst which she found herself. One other taint, however, she did not escape—the contagion of small-pox, of which horrible malady this 'cynosure' died at her father's prebendal house in the Cloister of Westminster Abbey, on the 16th June, 1685, in the twenty-fifth year of her age.[93]

To her 'Poems,' now a rare book—a thin quarto, which appeared shortly after her death—are prefixed Dryden's ode, and the mezzotint by Becket, after her portrait of herself. Sir Peter Lely also painted her likeness.

It has already been said that none of her paintings remain; but of her poetical powers we may still judge from the following extracts. They will, of course, fall somewhat flat after the lofty lines which have just been cited; yet I venture to think that they will be found worthy of perusal. At any rate, Dryden writes,

and they were at least considered at the time sufficiently good for the insinuation that they were not her own—a calumny to which the gentle Anne replied:

'UPON THE SAYING THAT MY VERSES WERE MADE BY ANOTHER.

The following lines also are, I venture to think, far from commonplace:

'AN ODE.

Notwithstanding her modesty, she was not without some confidence that her poetry would survive her, as it has, in fact, already done for two centuries; for thus she wrote her own epitaph:

a monument, perhaps, ære perennium, and which certainly remains longer than the marble cenotaph which was destroyed by the fire in the Savoy.[94]

Epitaphs, indeed, seem to have had a charm for her, as if she had a foreboding of her early death; and the following lines in praise of Mrs. Phillips may serve for a fair description of herself, and as a finish to these extracts from her compositions:

Perhaps too much has been said of the virtues and graces of this chaste and accomplished lady; but it must be remembered that women such as she were rare in the days in which she lived and wrote. Nor must we forget that we are far removed from the sphere of that personal influence, the attractions of which are so powerful, and which probably contributed in no small degree to the fame of this fair scion of the Killigrews.

It was written on her epitaph, according to Ballard:

Even at this distance of time, it is delightful to think that she left a wicked world and age before a single spot had dimmed the lustre of her widely admired, but unsullied, fame:

'Wearing the white flower of a blameless life.'

FOOTNOTES: