After the King’s death Auverquerque felt no inclination to remain in England, but returned to his native land, and once more engaged in the war which was still waging against France; and the States-General, in acknowledgment of his services, bestowed on him the highest military honours, by making him Field-Marshal of the whole army. He closed his noble career by dying (as he had always desired) on the field. The gallant Marshal had for some time suffered from bad health, which he never allowed to interfere with his duties. He died in the camp at Rouselaer, on the 17th day of October 1708, after the battle of Lille. Collins gives a detailed account of the funeral, with more than common military honours, even for an officer of such exalted rank. The funeral car was escorted by squadrons of life guards, horse guards, and dragoons, the colours of the regiments, as well as the men, being in mourning, two battalions of foot guards, with arms reversed, etc. The body was followed for a quarter of a league by a band of mourners, consisting of the Marshal’s sons and most of the generals, headed by the Duke of Marlborough. The troops were then drawn up, and saluted, after which there was a triple discharge of cannon; the generals returned to the camp, and the melancholy cortége passed on towards the place of interment at Auverquerque.
The Marshal married Isabella van Arsens, daughter of Cornelius, Lord of Sommerdyke and Placata (who survived him), by whom he had five sons and two daughters. The eldest surviving son, Henry, was made an English peer in 1698, by the title of Earl of Grantham, Viscount Boston, and Baron Alford. He had to wife his cousin, Lady Henrietta Butler, daughter of the celebrated Earl of Ossory (son to the first Duke of Ormonde), by whom he had two sons and three daughters. The youngest, Lady Henrietta Auverquerque, married William, third Earl Cowper, and through this union the present noble owner of Panshanger boasts a lineal descent from the hero, William the Silent, and Maurice, Princes of Orange, whose portraits Lady Henrietta brought into the Cowper family, together with the splendid Vandyck of John of Nassau—purchased by Lord Grantham at the Hague, in 1741, for the sum of 5000 florins, from the Van Swieten collection,—also several other Dutch pictures, which may be found in this Gallery. From the aforesaid lady the present Lord Cowper derives his title of Dingwall, though only called out of abeyance so recently as 1880.
Lord Albemarle, in his delightful volume entitled Fifty Years of My Life, speaks in the highest terms of the valour and generalship of Field-Marshal d’Auverquerque, and says the history of the War of Succession best attests his merits as General, and the Marlborough despatches best show the estimation in which he was held by that consummate commander. The titles of Earl Grantham and Baron Alford were bestowed upon him for his services, but he never assumed these honours.
No. 7.
ADMIRAL CORNELIUS VAN TROMP.
In a leather jerkin. Holding a truncheon. The other arm akimbo.
Ship blowing up in the background.
BORN 1629, DIED 1691.
By Sir Peter Lely.