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LIFE OF LORD FALKLAND.

CHAPTER I.

Birth and Parentage of Lord Falkland · His Education

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· He chal

lenges Sir F. Willoughby, and is committed to the Fleet . His Marriage - His Residence and Society at Great Tew He joins the King's Army in the North- Failure of the Expedition, and its Causes.

LUCIUS CAREY was born at Burford, in Oxfordshire, about the year 1610. He was the eldest son of Sir Henry Carey, of Berkhampstead and Aldenham, in Herts, and of Elizabeth, daughter and sole heir of Sir Lawrence Tanfield, Chief Baron of the Exchequer. Sir Henry was raised to the peerage of Scotland, November 19th, 1620, by the title of Viscount Falkland, and two years afterwards, being appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland, he removed his family to that country. Lucius commenced his academical education at Trinity College, Dublin, and, on his return to England, at about the age of 18 years, Lord Clarendon says that "he was not only master of the Latin tongue, and had "read all the poets and others of the best authors with "notable judgment for that age, but he understood and

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spake and writ French as if he had spent many years

"in France." After having quitted Trinity College he became a student at St. John's College, Oxford.

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Allusions are made in different works to a story of Sir L. Carey having been guilty in his youth of some particular act of levity, for which he had incurred the punishment of imprisonment. This story has been founded on the existence of a petition from Lord Falkland for the release of his son from the Fleet prison.* The petition is printed, without a date, in the collection called Cabala,' and affords no clue as to the nature of the offence. Wood, in his 'Athenæ Oxonienses,' speaks of Lucius as "a wild youth" when he went to Ireland with his father, whereas, in fact, he was then but a boy twelve years old; and so tempting is it to let imagination fill the gap when history is incomplete, that in the Biographia Britannica' and other biographical works3 this petition is given as a proof that some unseemly act of youthful indiscretion must have been committed by Sir Lucius. The idea of lively irregularities, such as would have brought upon him the penalty of imprisonment, seemed however to accord so ill with the character ascribed to Sir Lucius at this very period of his life as to throw a doubt on its accuracy. A more careful search into the MS. records of that time shows the nature of the offence to be alto

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Life, vol. i. p. 38. ed. 1761. 8vo.

2 See Appendix A.

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See Biographie Universelle,'' Lodge's Portraits,' &c. Chalmers speaks in his Biographical Dictionary of this petition as being addressed to James I. instead of Charles I.; and though he alludes to Sir Lucius being thrown into prison for challenging Sir F. Willoughby, he neither gives his authority nor the cause of the quarrel.

gether different from that which was assumed, and proves that the cause of Sir Lucius's confinement was his treating too seriously, though not perhaps, according to the temper of those times, unbecomingly, what he regarded as an usurpation of his rights by another, and a slight put upon him by the King.

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Sir Lucius was deprived of a company of which he had the command, that it might be conferred on Sir Francis Willoughby.' He considered this an act for which Sir F. Willoughby was bound to "give him satisfaction. with his sworde." Sir F. Willoughby denied having wished that it should be the company of Sir Lucius that was transferred to him; but it appears that Sir Lucius was not satisfied with this reply, and persevered in his intention to hold Sir Francis responsible either for his own act or for that of the King.3

Temporary imprisonment of one or both of the parties for the purpose of preventing a duel was not then uncommon; but it seems that Sir Lucius was also threatened with the Star Chamber, a circumstance which raises a presumption that the King resented this act of indirect insubordination to his will.

An order from the Privy Council is registered for the imprisonment of Sir Lucius Carey on the 17th of January, 1629-30, and, on the 27th, a warrant for his

Sir F. Willoughby thus speaks of the circumstance in a letter to Lord Dorchester, dated Jan. 1, 1629-30 :-" From my Lord Falkland I must not looke for much favour, by reason his son's company is conferred uppon me, as I am lately informed, which was no ackte of mine, neyther ought my lord to blame me for it." Vide Appendix B 1.

2 Vide Appendix B 2.

* Vide Appendix B 3, original letters that passed between Sir F. Willoughby and Sir L. Carey.

liberation.'

Whether this deprivation of his company was solely for the advantage of Sir Francis Willoughby, or intended by the King as a slight on Lord Falkland, then recalled from his government in Ireland, there is no proof; but though, by the tone of the petition and the entries in Lord Falkland's journal,3 it would seem that he was too good a courtier to resent the King's conduct to his son, yet it was an exercise of power, wanton, at least, if not vindictive, which was calculated to make a deep impression on the mind of a highspirited youth nineteen or twenty years old.

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The Chief Baron Tanfield had so settled his estate upon his grandson Lucius, that it descended to him direct on the death of his maternal grandmother, Lady Tanfield; and at nineteen years of age he found himself in possession" of two very good houses very well "furnished (worth above 2000l. per annum), in a most "pleasant country, and the two most pleasant places "in that country." Soon after his inheritance of these estates, Sir Lucius incurred the deep displeasure of his father by his marriage with the daughter of Sir Richard Morrison." To this young lady he was pas

1 Vide Appendix C.

2

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It appears that it was not without difficulty that Lord Falkland obtained for his son the tardy payment of arrears due to him and his company. Vide Appendix D.

Vide Appendix E.

Clarendon's 'Life,' p. 38.

He died in May, 1625.

• Of Tooley Park, Leicestershire. Her brother, Sir Henry Morrison, who had been the chosen friend of Sir Lucius, died shortly before the marriage. Their friendship was celebrated by Ben Jonson in an ode entitled Ode Pindaric to the Memory and Friendship of that immortal Pair Sir Lucius Carey and Sir H. Morrison :'

"And

sionately attached, but her portion was inconsiderable. Lord Falkland "had hoped," says Lord Clarendon, "to repair his own broken fortune and desperate hopes "in Court by some advantageous marriage of his son, "about which it is conjectured he was then in treaty;" and his anger at the defeat of these intentions seems to

"And shine as you exalted are,

Two names of friendship, but one star;

Of hearts the union, and those not by chance
Made, or indenture, or leased out t' advance
The profits for a time;

No pleasures vain did chime,

Of rhymes, or riots, at your feasts,
Orgies of drink, or feign'd protests;

But simple love of greatness and of good,

That knits brave minds and manners more than blood.

"This made you first to know the why

You liked, then after to apply

That liking; and approach so one the t'other,

Till either grew a portion of the other :

Each styled by his end,

The copy of his friend,

You lived to be the great surnames

And titles by which all made claims

Unto the virtue. Nothing perfect done

But as a Carey or a Morrison.

"And such a force the fair example had,

As they that saw

The good, and durst not practise it, were glad

That such a law

Was left yet to mankind,

Where they might read and find

Friendship indeed was written not in words;

And with the heart, not pen,

Of two so early men,

Whose lives her rolls were and records;

Who, ere the first down bloomed on the chin,

Had sow'd these fruits and got the harvest in."

BEN JONSON, Ode Pindaric. Works, vol. ix. p. 9.

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