Selected quad for the lemma: land_n
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A70678
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Some notes concerning the life of Edward Lord North, Baron of Kirtling, 1658 by Sir Dudley North Lord North.
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North, Dudley North, Baron, 1602-1677.
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1682
(1682)
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Wing N1286A; ESTC R678
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21,672
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50
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year of our Lord 1496 as near as we can conjecture and during the reign of King Henry the 7th This Roger was of the Family of the Norths of Walkeringam in the County of Nottingham which Norths had preserved a small Fortune in that County and place for many Generations without any considerable encrease or diminution living always in the quality of private Gentlemen untill the days of the said Edward Lord North and many years after till the chief of that Race by a Shreivalty cast upon him with many chargeable suits in Law and by the prodigality of his eldest Son who unhappily had taken upon him the honour of Knighthood was enforced to part with so much Land as it caused his Heirs to fall out with the Mansion house and sell it to the Perpoints who at this time are owners of it The affection of Edward Lord North to his Kindred of Walkeringam was always very great and so was his care of them in their prime concernments and especially of Edward North their Chief in that age for in settling the greatest part of his estate by way of Entail he preferred this Edward and his Posterity before the House of Worcester and all other Descendents of his own Daughters whose Issue was sufficiently numerous This Roger as hath been intimated being a Citizen of London never attained to any eminency of Estate yet was he not so straitned in his fortune but that he could and did afford to his Son a costly way of breeding training him up at the Inns of Court in the study of the Law Like a good and wise Parent discerning in his Child a capacity too large to exercise it self in his own narrow course of Mercery he found out for him though not without some inconvenience to himself a way of greater extent and activity which it pleased God very highly to bless as shall appear in the sequel of this narration From the little that is known of what he did in the prime of his years we may conclude and not unfitly that being of an industrious nature he spent his time at first about the laying of a foundation in the way of his profession by Study and that afterwards having gained abilities he sought to render himself and his parts known by applying himself to a fair and moderate practice of the Law in a plausible way in which he made so fair a progress as it appears that he came to be of Council for the City of London and had a yearly Fee for that service though it be not known at what time of his age he came to be so The first publick employment of his that we have evidence for is this his having the Clerkship of Parliament by grant from King Henry the 8th in the year 1530 which it seems in those days was an office of much more respect than now it is for he had it first by Patent jointly with Sir Bryan Tuke and then wholly to himself and it was afterwards enjoyed by Sir William Pagett then Secretary of State and so it came to Sir John Mason and others But had the place been of meaner condition he had wisedom sufficient to instruct him that it is better for those who have their fortunes to make to play at small game than to sit out About this time as by all other fair ways so in that of Marriage he sought his advancement and espoused himself to his first Wife who being a Widow and having had two Husbands brought him such an increase as not long after he purchased his Manor of Kirtling This was about the 33d year of his age which sheweth that he was not hasty in parting with his liberty for he well knew the want of that to be one of the chief remoras to young men as to their applications in the way of preferment otherwise and therefore when he came to sell himself he suffered not his affections to over-rule his judgment but made such a choice as to be sure in some measure that the advantages of his Wifes estate should not be overballanced by any natural indispositions or ill dispositions adhering to or inherent in her person And not many years after this his Sun began to ascend very fast towards its Zenith for the King having taken a resolution to shake off the Papal yoke he drew to his service from all parts the most able and active spirits and among others this worthy person so as in the year 1536 he became one of the King's Sergeants at Law for so we find him styled by the King himself in a grant then made to him And now the dissolution of Monasteries being enacted by Parliament and the Court of Augmentations being erected for the ordering of that new accession to the Crown it pleased the King about the year 1540 to confer upon him the office of Treasurership of that Court which he enjoyed about four years and during that time in the year 1542 by the name of Sir Edward North for he had received the honour of Knighthood he was High Sheriff of the Counties of Cambridge and Huntingdon and also elected to serve in Parliament as Knight of the Shire for Cambridge-shire which two employments did rarely concur in one and the same person And afterwards in the year 1544 he first became Chancellour of the Augmentations joyntly with Sir Richard Rich afterwards Lord Rich and Chancellour of England and within a few months following sole Chancellour of that Court by resignation of the said Sir Richard Rich unto him and so he enjoyed that great office alone about four years in which time as we suppose he might well have raised his fortunes double to the proportion he left to his Family if he had not been a person of very great integrity But though his particular actions in the managing of that great trust were sincere and so not much obnoxious to detraction yet his acting in an affair so highly offensive to the Roman Catholick party exposed him to the censure of some of his own posterity of that profession for upon some declinations in the house which he had raised they have not forborn to impute the diminutions to that only cause as a crime that had been the destruction of many Families so raised and would be the Catastrophe of his I conceive this to savour too much of temerity if it be not injurious but I intend not to undertake the vindication of this and other States in their power of setting out at the first or giving continuance to a fit proportion for the maintenance of those either single persons or Fraternities which are set apart for external service in the way of Religion which power was not a thing altogether new in those times as may appear by the Statute of Mortmayne whereby dedications in the way of Piety were much prevented and why may not a State finding the excess very prejudicial to the whole Nation who may challenge a higher charity than any part whatsoever as
well anihilate such gifts already made as prevent them for Dedication seemeth to consist rather in the declared intention of the giver than in the approbation of Governours either Ecclesiastical or Temporal Neither shall I define how little subjects are blamable for executing the decrees of their supreme Magistracy though unjust or seeming irreligious albeit it were an obstruction scarcely recoverable in a State if subordinate Ministers should be obliged to dispute the rectitude or obliquity of every decree But certainly it can be no other than a high presumption to apply the judgments of the Almighty with too much strictness to such and such a particular cause for as the judgments are evident and exposed to the view of all so their grounds lie concealed in the clouds and darkness which are said to encompass the Deity and many times those who are crushed under a punishment do no more exceed their fellows in guiltiness than they in the Gospel on whom the Tower of Siloah fell But to leave this digression Sir Edward North now stood so high in the favour of his Prince as he put him into the roll of Privy-Counsellours and made frequent grants of Land as a testimony of his favour and of the good acceptance of the services done by him These were great encouragements and could not but carry with them as great a satisfaction to the receiver but it was so usual with this King to throw down those whom he had raised as it made his great ones Stare sempre in cervello as the Italians term it or to be watchfull carrying still in their minds the instability of the ground whereon they stood And to give some tast how dangerous a Master he served and how apprehensive he was of a change in the way of displeasure I shall here insert a relation which came to me though not immediately from one who being himself an Attendant in his Bed-chamber then when the matter passed was an eye and ear Witness of it and this it is That once early in the morning there came from the King to Charterhouse then the Mansion house of Sir Edward North a Messenger known to be no friend of his to command his immediate repair to Court which message was also delivered with some harshness This was so terrible in the suddainness and other circumstances as he observed his Master to tremble at the delivery of it who yet finding it dangerous to use the least delay hasted thither and was admitted speedily to the King's presence with this his Servant attending on him The King was then walking and continued doing so with great earnestness and ever now and then cast an angry eye upon him which was received with a very still and sober carriage At last the King brake out into these words We are informed that you have cheated us of certain Lands in Middlesex whereunto having received no other than a plain and humble negation after some little space he replyed How was it then did We give those Lands to you whereunto Sir Edward answered yes Sir Your Majesty was pleased so to doe Whereupon having paused a little the King put on a milder countenance and called him to a Cupboard conferring privately with him a long time whereby said this Servant I saw that the King could not spare my Master's service as yet but whether or no the cause lay in the King's occasions or in the other's humble behaviour and answers it must be left to judgment for as Solomon saith A soft answer turneth away wrath But to pursue the Series of our discourse King Henry after a long and strange prosperity in all his undertakings which were extraordinary and full of hazard came to breath his last in the year of Grace 1546 and as a full and final testimony of his confidence in the integrity of Sir Edward North he constituted him one of his Executors leaving unto divers others of his Council persons of more eminent condition the title of Overseers of his Testament a character of higher honour but of lest trust And seeing that this King was so great a benefactour to the person who is the occasion of this tractate I shall adventure to borrow so much time of the Reader as to say thus much more of him I know that many things are laid to his charge as that he was burthensom to his Subjects and yet a waster That he was Sanguinary and Voluptuous almost to the height As I will not go about to absolve him concerning these so I shall leave it to others who may conceive themselves more proper for it to set him out in such colours but thus much I shall take upon me to say on his behalf That he was endued with very great and royal abilities and that of all the governours of our Nation he is the only Prince meriting to be styled Arbiter of the most important affairs of Christendom or the Ballancer as Guicchiardin calls him and this he did by assistance constantly but variously given in the Wars between Charles the 5th Emperour of Germany and Francis the first of France still supporting the weaker and opposing the stronger by which means he kept those Princes still in play one against the other and so established his own security and in that respect was very fitly honoured with this Motto Cui adhereo praeest And I think that the bitterest of his enemies must give him this testimony That he was no less bountifull in his Rewards than severe in his Punishments that he maintained the honour of the Nation with Foreign Princes in point of power and that he carried on the worst of his actions relating to the publick with a concurrence of his Parliaments which howsoever his heart was disposed yet sheweth a very great dexterity of Brain But that which leaveth him the greatest glory is this That he laid the ground-work of a Reformation in the Church of England which afterwards grew to that perfection as justly to be deemed by judicious persons the best tempered of any in the Christian World And now upon his death the Scene is wholly changed for in stead of an active King who for the most part governed his own affairs the Crown is fallen to a Prince who by reason of his Nonage being not able to govern himself and much less two so potent Nations falleth under the tuition of his Servants whose nature is such as they seldom fail to be guided by their own ambition rather than the improvement of their Master's interests And this renders the providence of God the more conspicuous for in this King's days the Reformation of the Church was exalted almost to the height and in a way of more Purity than before for King Henry seemed rather to seek the abolition of Papal authority which so far restrained his Regal power than any other change in the Articles of the then received Faith but during the reign of King Edward there was an aim at the establishment of Truth even in