To another point, namely, the religious profession of this Suffolk gentleman, our proof, it must be allowed, is not so decisive. I rely however, with some confidence, upon this fact, for which we are indebted to the heralds, that he was nearly allied to Sir Thomas More, the idol of the Catholic party in his own time, and the object of just respect with good men in all times, Margery his wife being a daughter of William Kemp of Spains-hall in Essex, Esq. by Mary Colt his wife, sister to Jane, first wife of the Chancellor[37]. Indeed it seems as if the Kemps, in whose house the latter days of this George Cavendish were spent, were of the old profession. The extraordinary penance to which one of this family subjected himself savours strongly of habits and opinions generated by the |Lived in the three reigns.| Roman Catholic system. It is perhaps unnecessary, in the last place, to remind the reader, that what Mr. Ruggles has discovered to us of the owner of Cavendish shows that his life was extended through the reigns of the second, third, and fourth monarchs of the house of Tudor: now the family pedigrees present us with no other George Cavendish of whom this is the truth. And here the case is closed.
Genealogy.
It has been thought proper to annex the following genealogical table, which exhibits the relationship subsisting among the several members of the house of Cavendish whose names have been mentioned in the preceding treatise.
| Thomas Cavendish, Clerk of the Pipe. Will dated 13th April, 1523. Died next year. | Alice, daughter and heir of John Smith of Padbrook-hall, co. Suff. | ||||||||||||
| George, of Glemsford and Cavendish, Esq. eldest son and heir, Gentleman usher to Cardinal Wolsey, and writer of his life. Born about 1500. Died about 1561 or 1562. | Margery, daughter of Wm. Kemp, of Spains-hall, Essex, niece to Sir Thos. More. | Sir William, of North Awbrey, and Chatsworth, Knt. Auditor of the Court of Augmentations, &c. Under age 1523. Died 1557. | Elizabeth, third wife, daughter of John Hardwick, of Hardwick, co. Derby, Esq. widow of Robert Barlow, of Barlow, in the same county. She survived Cavendish, and married Sir Wm. St. Lowe, and George 6th Earl of Shrewsbury. | ||||||||||
| William, gent. Owner of the manor of Cavendish 1562. | |||||||||||||
| 1. Henry of Tutbury s. p. | 1. Frances, Wife of Sir Henry Pierrepoint. | ||||||||||||
| William, of London, mercer. Sold Cavendish 1569. | |||||||||||||
| 2. William, created Earl of Devonshire 16 Jac. I. 1618. | 2. Elizabeth, Wife of Charles Stuart, Earl of Lenox. | ||||||||||||
| 3. Sir Charles of Welbeck, father of William Duke of Newcastle. | 3. Mary, Wife of Gilbert Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury. | ||||||||||||
Origin of the mistaken appropriation of this work.
Supposing that the reader is convinced by the preceding evidence and arguments, that this work could not be the production of Sir William Cavendish, and that he was not the faithful attendant upon Cardinal Wolsey, I shall give him credit for a degree of curiosity to know how it happened that a story so far from the truth gained possession of the public mind, and established itself in so many works of acknowledged authority. That desire I shall be able to gratify, and will detain him but a little while longer, when the disclosure has been made of a process by which error has grown up to the exclusion of truth, in which it will be allowed that there is something of curiosity and interest. Error, like rumour, often appears parva metu primo, but, like her also, vires acquirit eundo. So it has been in the present instance. What was at first advanced with all the due modesty of probability and conjecture, was repeated by another person as something nearer to certain truth: soon every thing which intimated that it was only conjecture became laid aside, and it appeared with the broad bold front in which we now behold it.
Kennet.
The father of this misconception was no other than Dr. White Kennet. In 1708, being then only Archdeacon of Huntingdon, this eloquent divine published a sermon which he had delivered in the great church at Derby, at the funeral of William the first Duke of Devonshire. Along with it he gave to the world Memoirs of the Family of Cavendish, in which nothing was omitted that, in his opinion, might tend to set off his subject to the best advantage. He lauds even the Countess of Shrewsbury, and this at a time when he was called to contemplate the virtues and all womanly perfections of Christian Countess of Devonshire. It was not to be expected that he should forget the disinterested attendant upon Wolsey, and the ingenious memorialist of that great man’s rise and fall; whose work had then recently been given to the public in a third edition. After reciting from it some particulars of Cavendish’s attendance upon the Cardinal, and especially noticing his faithful adherence to him when others of his domestics had fled to find a sun not so near its setting, he concludes in these words: “To give a more lasting testimony of his gratitude to the Cardinal, he drew up a fair account of his life and death, of which the oldest copy is in the hands of the noble family of Pierrepoint, into which the author’s daughter was married: for without express authority we may gather from circumstances, that this very writer was the head of the present family; the same person with the immediate founder of the present noble family, William Cavendish of Chatsworth, com. Derb. Esq.” p. 63.
Collins.