Cornish Characters and Strange Events

"Your Majesty and the Pope," replied the audacious jester.

The first wife of Thomas Killigrew was Cecilia, a daughter of Sir John Crofts, of Saxham, in Suffolk, and he was married to her on June 29th, 1636.

The weather on the wedding day was rude and boisterous, which gave rise to some lines by Thomas Carew: —

"Such should this day be; so the sun should hide
His bashful face, and let the conquering bride
Without a rivall shine, whilst he forbears
To mingle his unequall beams with hers;

Or if sometime he glance his squinting eye
Between the parting clouds, 'tis but to spye,
Not emulate her glories; so comes drest
In vayles, but as a masquer to the feast."

She brought her husband a fortune of £10,000, and a son and heir, Henry, born in April, 1637. She was buried the 5th January, 1638, in Westminster Abbey. Tom married again, when in exile, at the Hague, and his second wife was Charlotte, daughter of John van Hesse, a Dutch woman. The marriage took place 26th January, 1655, and by her he had three sons, Robert, Charles, and Thomas.

At length came the recall of Charles to England, and Tom Killigrew accompanied him in the same vessel, very lighthearted, and expectant of great things. Pepys had gone over to meet the King, and he says, May 24th, 1660: "Walking upon the decks, were persons of honour all the afternoon, among others Thomas Killigrew, a merry droll, but a gentleman of great esteem with the King, who told us many merry stories." Among them one Pepys quotes, which is profane.

Thomas Killigrew was appointed Groom of the Bedchamber, with a salary of £400 per annum, which he augmented by receiving bribes from those who were solicitous to obtain posts under the Crown, and to use his influence with the King to get them.

He had now an opportunity of producing on the London stage the plays that he had composed whilst abroad. Of these there were eight, comedies and tragi-comedies, all borrowed, none exhibiting any genuine wit, but steeped in ordure. One, The Parson's Wedding, borrowed from The Antiquary, by Shakerly Marmion, and Raw Alley, by Lord Barrey, was actually to be performed wholly by women. It has been well said by Mr. Tregellas: "We find ourselves indeed 'surrounded by foreheads of bronze, hearts like the nether millstone, and tongues set on fire of hell.' I must add that they have scarcely a sparkle of that witty wickedness which one meets with in the writings of Sir Charles Sedley."

All Killigrew's plays were printed in folio in 1644. Pepys did not see much merit in them. Of The Parson's Wedding he says: "Luellin tells me what an obscene, loose play this is, that is acted by nothing but women, at the King's House." Of Claracilla, "a poor play." Of Love at First Sight, "I find the play to be a poor thing, and so I perceive every body else do." Nor did he think much of Killigrew's conversation. He described it as "poor and frothy."

In The Companion to the Playhouse, 1764, there are some stories told of Killigrew.

"After the Restoration he continued in high favour with the King, and had frequently access to him when he was denied to the first peers of the realm; and being a man of great wit and liveliness of parts, and having from his long intimacy with that monarch, and being continually about his person during his troubles, acquired a freedom of familiarity with him, which even the pomp of Majesty afterwards could not check in him, he sometimes, by way of jest, which King Charles was ever fond of, if genuine, even tho' himself was the object of the satire, would adventure bold truths which scarcely any one beside would have dared even to hint to. One story in particular is related of him, which, if true, is a strong proof of the great lengths he would sometimes proceed in his freedoms of this kind, which is as follows: When the King's unbounded passion for women had given his mistress such an ascendancy over him, that, like the effeminate Persian monarch, he was fitter to have handled a distaff than to wield a sceptre, and for the conversation of his concubines utterly neglected the most important affairs of state, Mr. Killigrew went to pay his Majesty a visit in his private apartments, habited like a pilgrim who was bent on a long journey. The King, surprised at the oddity of his appearance, immediately asked him what was the meaning of it, and whither he was going. 'To Hell,' bluntly replied the man. 'Prithee,' said the King, 'what can your errand be to that place?' 'To fetch back Oliver Cromwell,' rejoined he, 'that he may take some care of the affairs of England, for his successor takes none at all.'"

This was not the only time that Killigrew gave good counsel to the King. Pepys says: "Mr. Pierce did tell me as a great truth, as being told by Mr. Cowley, who was by, and heard it, that Tom Killigrew should publicly tell the King that his matters were coming into a very ill state, and that yet there was a way to help all. Says he: 'There is a good, honest, able man, that I could name, that, if your Majesty would employ, and command to see all things well executed, all things would soon be mended; and this one is Charles Stuart, who now spends his time in employing his lips about the Court, and hath no other employment, but if you would give him this employment, he were the fittest man in the world to perform it.' This, he says, is most true; but the King do not profit by any of this, but lays it aside, and remembers nothing, but to his pleasures again."

On another occasion Killigrew is said to have placed under the candlestick where Charles II supped, five small papers, on each of which he had written the word all. The King on seeing them, asked what he meant by these five words. "If your Majesty will grant my pardon, I will tell you," was his reply. Pardon being promised, Killigrew said: "The first ALL signified that the country had sent all it could to the exchequer; the second, that the City had lent all it could and would; the third, that the Court had spent all; the fourth, that if we did not mend all; the fifth would be the worse for all."

This was afterwards adapted and turned upon the family of William of Orange: "That he was William Think-all; his queen Mary Take-all; Prince George of Denmark, George Drink-all; and Princess Anne, Anne Eat-all."

Although Thomas Killigrew went by the designation of the King's Jester, he held no official position as such.

"Mr. Cooling told us how the King, once speaking of the Duke of York's being mastered by his wife, said to some of the company, by that he would go no more abroad with this Tom Otter (a hen-pecked husband in Ben Jonson's Epicæne), meaning the Duke of York and his wife. Tom Killigrew, being by, said, 'Sir, pray which is the best, for a man to be a Tom Otter to his wife or to his mistress?' meaning the King's being so to my Lady Castlemaine."

Killigrew was engaged one morning with one of his own plays, which he took up in the window, whilst His Majesty was shaving. "Ah, Killigrew," asked the King, "what will you say at the Last Day in defence of the idle words in that book?" To which Tom replied, that he could give a better account of his "idle words," than the King would be able to give respecting his "idle promises and more idle patents, that had undone more than ever did his books."

"One more story is related of him, which is not barren of humour. King Charles's fondness for pleasure, to which he almost always made business give way, used frequently to delay affairs of consequence, from His Majesty's disappointing the Council of his presence when met for dispatch of business, which neglect gave great disgust and offence to many of those who were treated with this seeming disrespect. On one of these occasions the Duke of Lauderdale, who was naturally impetuous and turbulent, quitted the council-chamber in a violent passion, and, meeting Mr. Killigrew presently after, expressed himself on the occasion in very disrespectful terms of His Majesty. Killigrew begged His Grace to moderate his passion, and offered to lay him a wager of a hundred pounds that he himself would prevail on His Majesty to come to the council within half an hour. The Duke, surprised at the boldness of the assertion, and warmed by his resentment against the King, accepted the wager, on which Killigrew immediately went to the King, and without ceremony told him what had happened, adding these words: 'I knew that Your Majesty hated Lauderdale, though the necessity of your affairs compels you to carry an outward appearance of civility; now, if you choose to be rid of a man who is thus disagreeable to you, you need only go this once to council, for I know his covetous disposition so perfectly, that I am well persuaded, rather than pay this hundred pounds, he would hang himself out of the way, and never plague you more.'

"The King was so pleased with the archness of the observation, that he immediately replied, 'Well, then, Killigrew, I positively will go.' And kept his word accordingly."

Pepys has a good deal to say about Killigrew. He tells how Killigrew became enamoured of the stage when a boy. "He would go to the 'Red Bull,' and when the man cried to the boys, 'Who will go and be a devil, and he shall see the play for nothing?' then would he go in, and be a devil upon the stage, and so get to see plays."

2nd August, 1664. "To the King's playhouse, and there saw Bartholomew Fayre, which do still please me, and is, as it is acted, the best comedy in the world, I believe. I chanced to sit by Tom Killigrew, who tells me that he is setting up a nursery (for actors), that is, is going to build a house in Moorefields, wherein he will have common plays acted."

12th February, 1666-7. "With my Lord Bronnaker by coach to his house, there to hear some Italian musique, and there we met Tom Killigrew, Sir Robert Murray, and the Italian, Signor Baptista, who hath proposed a play in Italian for the Opera, which T. Killigrew do intend to have up."

Thomas Killigrew was nearly sixty years old when he narrowly escaped assassination in S. James's Park. He had been carrying on an intrigue with Lady Shrewsbury, but found a dangerous and more successful rival in the Duke of Buckingham. Whereupon in spite and revenge he poured over the lady a stream of foul and venomous satire. The result was that one evening, on his return from the Duke of York's, some ruffians, hired for the purpose, set upon Tom's chair, through which they passed their swords three times, wounding him in the arm. The assassins then fled, having killed his man, and believing they had killed Tom Killigrew.

He recovered from his wound, lived on thirteen or fourteen years longer, and was buried in Westminster Abbey on 19th March, 1682-3.

His son Thomas was a playwright, and his son Charles proprietor of "the Playhouse, Drury Lane."

The Killigrews have now passed, not individually only, but as a family off the stage of life, and are remembered only by their deeds, good and bad, as recorded in history. It was usually said of Tom Killigrew that when he attempted to write he was dull, whereas in conversation he was smart; and this was precisely the reverse of Cowley, who did not shine in conversation, but sparkled with his pen. In allusion to this Denham wrote: —

Had Cowley ne'er spoken, and Killigrew ne'er writ,
Combin'd in one, they'd make a matchless wit.

NICOLAS ROSCARROCK

Nicolas Roscarrock was the fifth son of Richard Roscarrock, of Roscarrock, in S. Endelion, by Isabell, daughter of Richard Trevenor. His grandmother was a Boscawen. His father during his lifetime had settled upon him the estates of Penhall, Carbura, and Newtown, in the parishes of S. Cleer and S. Germans.

He first studied at Exeter College, Oxford, and took his B.A. in 1568. Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, p. 299, tells us of "his industrious delight in matters of history and antiquity."

In 1577 Roscarrock was admitted student of the Inner Temple. In the same year was published by Richard Tottell The Worthies of Armorie … collected and gathered by John Bossewell, to which were prefixed ninety-four verses, entitled Cilenus, Censur of the Author of his High Court of Herehautry, by Nicolas Roscarrocke.

In the Inner Temple he seems to have been associated with Raleigh, for in 1576 appeared The Steepleglas, a satyre, and among commendatory verses are some signed "N. R." and the rest by "Walter Rawely of the Inner Temple."

In 1577 he was in Cornwall, where he suffered much annoyance because of his faith, as he refused to conform to the English liturgy, and maintained the Papal supremacy. It was in 1570 that Pope Pius V had issued a bull of excommunication against Elizabeth, deprived her of her title to the crown, and absolved her subjects from their oaths of allegiance. This violent and ill-judged proceeding at once converted all those who held by the Pope into suspected traitors; and measures were adopted against them, the more so as the Jesuits and their agents were more than suspected of forming plots for the assassination of the Queen.

Nicolas Roscarrock was accused at Launceston Assizes on September 16th, 1577, "for not going to church." He was in London later, and was an active member of the "Young Men's Club," 1579-81.

From the State Papers, 1547-50, we learn that two spies were employed by the Government to discover Nicolas Roscarrock. He had, however, probably fled to Douay, where a Roscarrock is entered in the Douay Diary as landing on September, 1580.

But he was again in England in 1581, when he was sent to the Tower, where by a refinement of cruelty he was placed in a cell adjoining that of a friend who had been racked, that the moans of the latter might intimidate Roscarrock into giving evidence of plots against the life of the Queen. On January 14th, 1581, Nicolas was himself tortured on the rack. He remained for five years in prison in the Tower, and in the Fleet again till 1594, in all fourteen years.

He was finally released, and went in 1607 north to Naworth to Lord William Howard, with whom he remained till his death, which took place in 1633 or 1634, when he had reached an advanced age.

Such in brief is the history of Nicolas Roscarrock.

Whilst he was at Naworth, he occupied himself in compiling a volume of the Lives of the English Saints.

The first part he wrote with his own hand, but as his sight failed, he was obliged to employ an amanuensis, who wrote very untidily and made strange havoc of many of the names, which he wrote phonetically from dictation. The MS. has undergone annotation by two hands: one was Roscarrock himself, who added in matters which reached him later; the other was Dom Gregory Hungate, a Benedictine.

As far as can be judged, the MS. was compiled between 1610 and 1625.[32 - Authorities for his life: Ormsby, The Household Books of Lord William Howard, Surtees Soc., 1878, pp. 506 et seq.; Gildew's Biographical Dictionary of English Catholics; Jesuits in Conflict, 1873, p. 206; the Douay Diaries, ed. Knox; Boase and Courtney's Bibliographia Cornubiensis; Notes and Queries, 5th series, IV, 402-4 (1875); Morris, Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers, 1st series, 1872, p. 95, 2nd series, 1875, pp. 33, 79-80; Challoner's Memoirs of Missionary Priests, p. 32; Dict. of National Biography, State Papers, etc.; an admirable and exhaustive Life in MS. by Rev. E. Nolan, Trinity College, Cambridge, in the University Library, Cambridge.]

After the dispersion of Lord William Howard's library, we do not know what became of the book till about 1700, when it formed a portion of a library bequeathed to Brent Eleigh parish, in Suffolk, by a certain Mr. Edward Colman, sometime of Trinity College, Cambridge. Here it seems to have undergone rough usage, and it was probably there that the MS. lost so many pages torn out. As it is, it consists of no fewer than 850 pages; folio 253 is missing, also some pages from the beginning and something like ninety at the end that have been torn out.

At the sale of the Brent Eleigh Library, the MS. was purchased by the University Library managers, Cambridge, and it is now in that library (Add. MS. 3041).

It is a thick volume, measuring 1 ft. by 8¼ in.

It possesses an Introduction, "How Saynts may be esteemed soe, Secondlye of their Commemorations and the trewest enfalliblest manner of discovering them, and what Course the Collector of this Alphebitt of Saints that he observed in this Collection." Then follows an article on the Canonizing of Saints, and another "Of the Course and Order which is to be observed in my Collection." Then ensues a Calendar, and this is followed by an alphabetical biographical notice of the saints to Simon Sudbury, where the rest is torn away.

Nicolas Roscarrock had recourse mainly to printed authorities, to Capgrave, Surius, Harpsfield, and to Whytford's Martyrologie. But he had also access to the MSS. of Edward Powell, a Welsh priest, who had a considerable collection of Welsh saintly pedigrees. With regard to the Cornish saints, he records current traditions of his time, that he had collected in his youth. But he had also a MS. Cornish life of S. Columba, to which Hals refers. Unhappily, he has not given us the original, only its substance. And he quotes from a Cornish hymn or ballad relative to S. Mabenna, but which to our great regret he does not give. Here and there he indulges in verses of his own composition in honour of the saints, but they are of no poetic merit.