Let the reader turn to the ‘Biographia Britannica,’ and look out the article ‘Sir William Cavendish.’ He will find in either of the editions what follows in the words of Dr. Campbell, the original projector of that work, or rather of his friend Mr. Morant, the historian of Essex, for it does not appear that the later editors have either reconsidered the article, or added to it any thing material. Sir William Cavendish, we are told, “had a liberal education given him by his father, who settled upon him also certain lands in the county of Suffolk; but made a much better provision for him by procuring him to be admitted into the family of the great Cardinal Wolsey, upon whom he waited in quality of gentleman usher of his chamber.”——“As Mr. Cavendish was the Cardinal’s countryman, and the Cardinal had a great kindness for his father, he took him early into his confidence, and showed him upon all occasions very particular marks of kindness and respect[7]” Several extracts from the Life of Wolsey are then produced to show the honourable nature of this employment. Mr. Cavendish’s faithful adherence to Wolsey in his fall receives due encomium: and we are then favoured with a detail of Mr. Cavendish’s public services after the Cardinal’s death, his rich rewards, his knighthood, marriages, and issue, in which the writer of the article has followed Sir William Dugdale, and the Peerages. Towards the conclusion Cavendish is spoken of in his character of an author, a character which alone could entitle him to admission into that temple of British worthies. We are told that "he appears from his writings to have been a man of great honour and integrity, a good subject to his prince, a true lover of his country, and one who preserved to the last a very high reverence and esteem for his old master and first patron Cardinal Wolsey, whose life he wrote in the latter part of his own, and there gives him a very high character."——"This work of his remained long in manuscript, and the original some years ago was in the hands of the Duke of Kingston, supposed to be given by the author to his daughter, who married into that family. It had been seen and consulted by the Lord Herbert when he wrote his history of the Reign of King |To whom, Lord Herbert.| Henry VIII., but he was either unacquainted with our author’s Christian name, or mistook him for his elder brother George Cavendish of Glemsford in the county of Suffolk, Esq. for by that name his lordship calls him: but it appears plainly from what he says that the history he made use of was our author’s." p. 324.
Such is the reputation in which the Biographia Britannica is held in the world, and indeed not undeservedly, that most writers of English biography have recourse to it for information: and with its authority those among them are usually well satisfied, who neither value, nor are willing to undertake, the toilsome researches of the genealogist and the antiquary. Another such work, for an illustrious class of English worthies, is ‘The Peerage of England,’ begun by the respectable and ill rewarded Arthur Collins, and continued by successive editors with as much exactness as could reasonably have been expected. |To whom the Peerages.| The several editions of this work, from that of 1712, in one volume, to that of 1812, in nine, contain the same account of Sir William Cavendish’s attendance upon Wolsey, of his tried attachment to him, and of his lasting gratitude to the memory of his old master, displayed in writing apologetical memoirs of his life. At the very opening of the pages devoted to the Devonshire family, in the recent edition of this work, we are told that “the potent and illustrious family of Cavendish, of which, in the last century, two branches arrived at dukedoms, laid the foundation of their future greatness, first, on the share of abbey lands obtained at the dissolution of monasteries by Sir William Cavendish, who had been gentleman usher to Cardinal Wolsey, who died in 1557, and afterwards by the abilities, the rapacity, and the good fortune of Elizabeth his widow, who remarried George Earl of Shrewsbury, and died in 1607[8].” And afterwards, in the account of the said Sir William Cavendish, we are told nearly in the words used by Morant, that “to give a more lasting testimony of his gratitude to the Cardinal, he drew up a fair account of his life and death, which he wrote in the reign of Queen Mary: whereof the oldest copy is in the hands of the noble family of Pierrepoint, into which the author’s daughter was married. Lord Herbert of Cherbury, in the Life and Reign of King Henry VIII., quotes the manuscript in many places, but mentions George Cavendish to be the author of it; which, from divers circumstances, we may conclude to be a mistake. In the year 1641 it was printed, and again in 1667[9].” A full account is then given of the public employments and honourable rewards of Sir William Cavendish; and the descent of the two ducal families of Devonshire and Newcastle from this most fortunate subject is set forth with all due regard to genealogical accuracy.
Sir William Cavendish generally understood to be the author;
From these two great public reservoirs of English biography this account of Sir William Cavendish, both as an author and a man, has been drawn off into innumerable other works. Writers of high authority in affairs of this nature have adopted it; and even historians of the life of Wolsey, upon whom it appeared to be incumbent to make accurate inquiry into this subject, have retailed as unquestioned truth what the Biographia and the Peerages have told us concerning an author to whose most faithful and interesting narrative |but erroneously.| they have been so largely indebted. Sir William Cavendish may therefore be regarded as the tenant in possession of this property: nor, as far as I know, hath his right ever been formally controverted. Before the reader has got to the last page of this little treatise he will probably have seen reason to conclude that this account is all fable: for that Sir William Cavendish could not possibly have been the Cardinal’s biographer, nor, of course, the faithful attendant upon him; that circumstance of his history proceeding entirely upon the supposition that he was the writer of the work in question[10].
While we have thus brought before the public the person who may be considered as the presumed proprietor of this work, we have also made good our promise to show that there are more claimants than one upon this piece of literary property. Lord Herbert, we have seen, quotes the manuscript as the production of a George |A third claimant.| Cavendish. Other writers of no mean authority, as will be seen in the course of this disquisition, have attributed it to another member of the house of Cavendish whose name was Thomas.
The editors of the Biographia and the Peerages have made very light of my Lord Herbert’s testimony. What those divers circumstances were which led the latter to reject it, as they have not informed us, so we must be content to remain in ignorance. The noble historian of the life and reign of Henry VIII. is not accustomed to quote his authorities at random. If he sometimes endeavour too much to palliate enormities which can neither be excused nor softened down, he is nevertheless generally correct as to the open fact, as he is always ingenious and interesting. Supported by so respectable an authority, the pretensions of this George Cavendish of Glemsford to have been the faithful attendant upon Wolsey, and the lively historian of his rise and fall, ought to have received a more patient examination. Descended of the same parents with Sir William, and by birth the elder, in fortune he was far behind him. At a period of great uncertainty the two brothers took opposite courses. William was for reform, George for existing circumstances. Contrary to the ordinary course of events, the first was led to wealth and honours, the latter left in mediocrity and obscurity. The former yet lives in a posterity not less distinguished by personal merit than by the splendour cast upon them by the highest rank in the British peerage, the just reward of meritorious services performed by a |George Cavendish the real author.| race of patriots their ancestors. Of the progeny from the other, history has no splendid deeds to relate; and, after the third generation, they are unknown to the herald and the antiquary. But this is to anticipate. I contend that the wreath which he has justly deserved, who produces one of the most beautiful specimens of unaffected faithful biography that any language contains, has been torn from this poor man’s brow, to decorate the temples of his more fortunate brother. To replace it is the object of the present publication. It will, I trust, be shown, to the satisfaction of the reader, that this George Cavendish was the author of the work in question, and the disinterested attendant upon the fallen favourite. The illustrious house of Devonshire needs no borrowed merit to command the respect and admiration of the world.
Let it not however be supposed that the writer is meaning to arrogate to himself the credit of being the first to dispute the right of Sir William Cavendish, and to advance the claim of the real owner. The possession which Sir William has had has not been an undisturbed one: so that were there any statute of limitations applicable |Writers who have advanced his claim.| to literary property, that statute would avail him nothing. The manuscript of this work, which now forms a part of the Harleian library, is described by the accurate Wanley as being from the pen of a |Wanley.| George Cavendish[11]. In 1742 and the two following years, ‘A History of the Life and Times of Cardinal Wolsey’ was published in four volumes |Grove.| octavo by Mr. Joseph Grove, who subjoined, in the form of notes, the whole of what was then known to the public of these Memoirs; describing them in a running title, ‘The Secret History of the Cardinal, by George Cavendish, Esq.:’ but, as if to show that no one who touched this subject should escape defilement from the errors of the Biographia and the Peerages, he confounds together the two brothers in the account he gives of the author at the 98th page of his third volume. During the remainder of the last century it does not appear that Sir William Cavendish suffered any material molestation in his possession of this property: |Douce.| but in the present century Mr. Francis Douce, in his most curious ‘Illustrations of Shakspeare,’ restores to George Cavendish the honour of having produced this work, and marks by significative Italics that it was an honour which |Wordsworth.| another had usurped[12]. Dr. Wordsworth may also be ranked amongst those writers who have ventured to put a spade into Sir William’s estate. To this gentleman belongs the merit of having first presented to the public an impression of this work, which conveys any just idea of the original[13]. In an advertisement he expresses himself thus cautiously as to the name of the author: “The following life was written by the Cardinal’s gentleman-usher, Cavendish, whose Christian name in the superscription to some of the manuscript copies is George, but by Bishop Kennet, in his Memoirs of the family of Cavendish, by Collins in his Peerage, and by Dr. Birch (No. 4233, Ayscough’s Catalogue Brit. Museum) he is called William[14].” Had the learned editor pursued the question thus started, it is probable he would have been led to the conclusion which will here be brought out, and have thus rendered wholly unnecessary the disquisition now tendered to the notice of the public. But here he has suffered the matter to rest.
Doubts of Sir William Cavendish’s right to this work gained not much credit in the world.
And indeed, to say the truth, though there may possibly have been two or three other writers who have intimated a doubt as to the right of Sir William Cavendish to the work in question, these doubts seem never to have gained hold on the public attention. It would be an invidious task to collect together the many modern supporters of his claim: there are, amongst them, names who have deservedly attained a high degree of celebrity in the walks of biography, history, antiquities, and topography. All the writer wishes is, that he may stand excused with the public in offering what he has collected upon this point: and if the concession is made that the suspicions of Sir William Cavendish’s right to this piece of biography have never gained much hold on the public mind, and that it is a prevailing opinion in the world that the greatness in which we now behold the house of Devonshire owes its origin to a train of fortunate circumstances resulting out of an attendance on Cardinal Wolsey, he must consider himself as amply excused.
Let us now hear the evidence.