Sir Henry had shown by the liberal way in which he had treated the seminary priests that he was a man of generous nature. Nor was he a person to care very much about curbing his expenditure. Being, moreover, very nearly allied to the Earl of Cumberland, who loved him dearly, he frequented his company much, and was thereby led into expenses beyond what his means could afford. He was also much addicted to fleet hounds and horses; “vain, chargeable sports,” Sir Hugh terms them. Worst of all, he trusted too much to his servants in the management of his estates. The consequence was that in a very short time he fell into debt, and then, in order to free himself from his embarrassments, cast about for a way to cut off the entail. Although poor Sir Richard had thought he had so settled the succession that it would be impossible to alter it, yet by the cunning invention of the lawyers employed by Sir Henry the matter was effected. “Which shows,” says Sir Hugh, “that it is not good to be too solicitous in settling an estate or thinking to perpetuate a man’s name and family, but leave it to succeeding Providence.” Still, notwithstanding that Sir Henry had sold much land, his debts were on the increase. At length he determined to turn over to his eldest son, Richard Chomley, the land which remained for the payment of his debts and the increase of his children’s portions. Being much given to the pleasure of the chase he had always continued to hunt until, in the fifty-sixth year of his age, he fell from his horse while leaping a hedge. Tall and corpulent as he was, he was bruised to such a degree that he was never afterwards able to take any part in active life. So he removed from Roxby, where he had been residing for some years, and retired with his wife and family to York. There he continued to live until his death, which took place in the September of the year 1617.
Mr. Richard Chomley was about thirty-seven years old when his father died. At the early age of sixteen, Sir Henry, having then cut off the entail, had sent for his son from Cambridge and married him to Mistress Susanna Legard. The lady, who had lost her father and mother when quite a child, had been brought up by her cousin, Mrs. Hotham, mother to that unfortunate “yet truly honest and noble gentleman,” Sir John Hotham, who was beheaded by the Parliament of 1645. Mistress Susanna was two years older than her husband, and brought him a fortune of £2000 in ready money, which was considered a fair portion at the time. A lovely and gracious creature she appeared in the eyes of her boy husband. She was tall, slender, and of an elegant figure, her hair a bright chestnut, her eyes grey, and her face oval. She had, moreover, a complexion in which white and red were perfectly blended. But she had something even better than beauty and fortune for her dowry, for she was virtuous and religious. A loving wife too she proved, and one who soon acquired great influence over her husband. After the couple had been married about six weeks, Sir Henry, having regard to the bridegroom’s tender years, thought fit to send him back to Cambridge. The young man, however, proved that he had a will of his own. He had not been persuaded to go more than half way on his journey before he turned restive and went back to his bride. Thenceforth he showed himself to be of an active spirit; and before he was twenty one years of age became implicated in several matters which caused his father no small trouble and anxiety. Among these was the affair of the rising of the Earl of Essex, in the forty-third year of Queen Elizabeth, which, says Sir Hugh, cost him £3000. A few years afterwards the fiery young man struck a gentleman in the Star Chamber, and had it not been for the intercession of friends and a liberal payment of money, would have lost the offending member of his body. Richard Chomley was a handsome young man, being exceedingly tall, slender, and well formed. While very young his complexion was so fair and his features so delicate that he was able to act the part of a woman in a comedy at Trinity College, Cambridge, with great applause. Later in life he became swarthy, which yet might be ascribed, thought Sir Hugh, ‘ rather to his riding in the sun and much using of field sports in his youth than to nature; for the skin of his body was passing white, and of a very smooth grain.’ He had, moreover, “a most incomparable sweet breath insomuch as many times it might have been thought it had carried a perfume or sweet odoriferous smell with it. The hair of his head was of that loveliest shade, a chestnut’s ruddy brown, and the ends of his locks curled and turned up very gracefully, without that frizzling which his father, Sir Henry’s, was inclined to. His beard,” continues Sir Hugh, “was of a yellowish-brown and thin upon the chin; his eyes grey; his face long, with a handsome Roman nose. His aspect also was very winning: he had a most manly and graceful presence.” Nor was this all: he possessed a rare voice, sweet and strong. Nature had moreover endowed him with those graces which others endeavour to attain by art and practice. All these things rendered him famous among the fair sex. Great too was the valour he displayed on various occasions, especially in duels. These he had to fight pretty often, though never without provocation, for he was as far from giving offence as from taking it on slight causes, as will be seen from the following anecdote: --
“when Sir Richard was of about the age of twenty-three years (i.e., in 1603), coming to London, he went to see a play at Blackfriars, and coming late was forced to take a stool and sit on the stage as divers others did, and, as the custom was, between every scene stood up to refresh himself. Whilst he was in that posture, a young gallant, very brave, clapped himself upon Sir Richard’s stool, which he conjecturing was only to ease the gentleman for a while, did not demand his seat; which the gallant perceiving, he began to laugh and sneer, saying, “here is a young gentleman I have not only put by his seat, but he takes it very patiently.” And so continued jesting and making sport, insomuch as the company took notice thereof. Whereupon Sir Richard said “Sir, is it not sufficient to do me an injury but you must boast of it?” and, whispering him in his ear , said, “If you be a gentleman follow me;” and presently Sir Richard went out. The gallant followed, and, coming to an open place close by, the gentleman said, “What do you mean?” saith Sir Richard, “That you give me immediate satisfaction with your sword for the affront you have done me.” “Sir,” replied the gallant, “I have no sword.” “Then buy one,” saith Sir Richard. “But I have no money about me,” quoth the gallant. “I will furnish you,” saith Sir Richard. So carrying him to a cutler’s shop close by, the gallant turned over many, but could find none to please him, insomuch as Sir Richard offered his own, and would take any other. But neither did that please the gallant, who, whilst he there trifled away the time, his man came and brought with him a constable, and suddenly clasping his arms about Sir Richard’s middle said, “Mr. Constable, lay hold on him: this is he; he will kill my lady’s eldest son.” And the constable presently commanded him to keep the peace. Sir Richard, seeing himself surprised, said, “He meant the gentleman no harm, though he had done him an injury, of which,” said Sir Richard, “I will make you, Sir Constable, the judge.” And so, drawing the gallant out of the shop upon the pretence to relate the matter to the constable, as soon as they were in the street Sir Richard gave the gallant two or three good blows, and withal struck up his heels, and then turned to the constable and said, “I, Mr. Constable, promise you not to meddle further with my lady’s eldest son.” So he was willing to be gone with his beating. And though a great gallant and gamester about the town, and one that much frequented the ordinaries and places where was then the most resort of company, he never appeared amongst them after.”
As soon as young Richard came of age he left his father’s house where he and his wife had been living ever since their marriage, and went to board with his brother-in-law, Mr. Legard of Ganton. In 1608 he took up his abode at Whitby, where he gained the repute of being a wise man and great husbander of his property. By degrees he came to be looked upon as a person likely, not only to support, but to aggrandise his family. This doubtless he would have done had he not been drawn into various law suits, and had it not been for the death of his wife, which took place in 1611. This sad event plunged his domestic affairs into confusion, and occasioned him to break up his household. Having moreover, undertaken to pay so
me of his father’s debts, and also his brothers’ and sisters’ portions, he resolved to live very quietly. Unhappily for him, his cousin, Lord Scroope, came to Yorkshire in the year 1619, in the capacity of Lord President of her Majesty’s Council in the North, and Lord-Lieutenant of Yorkshire, Lord Scroope, soon after his arrival in the county, made Sir Richard Deputy-Lieutenant and one of the Council. Friendship and kindness increasing more and more between the two cousins, Sir Richard was drawn much to York, and his expenses proportionately increased. In the eighteenth year of King James’s reign he was chosen burgess for Scarborough, and went with all his family to London; but being at the time in very indifferent health, he scarcely went half a dozen times to the Parliament House.
When his wife died she had left him with six children; and just about this time he married his eldest daughter, Margaret, “a very personable and beautiful woman,” to Mr. Strickland of Boynton, and his eldest son, Hugh, to Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Sir William Twisden of Peckham, in Kent. In the year 1624 he was made High Sheriff of the county; and not long afterwards, writs being issued for a new Parliament, Sir Thomas Wentworth and Sir John Savill stood to be Knights of the Shire for the county of York, and Sir Richard, being distantly related to Wentworth, declared himself for him, and did him all the favour he could. The expenses to which he was put on this occasion increased his debts to a sum “mysterious and incredible.” “All that can be said and imagined to account for it,” says Sir Hugh, “is that his carrying his family to London did not only put him out of his ordinary way of living, but drew him to an extraordinary charge.” Moreover, on account of the excessive cheapness of all goods about that time Sir Richard made little or nothing of those in his own hands. Besides Lord Scroope, affecting running horses had put him into a humour of breeding (which, observes Sir Hugh in a parenthesis, I have found to be vain and unprofitable), and which obliged him to keep two or three horses in constant training at several different places the year through. Then his shrievalty had been a great expense to him. But one of his greatest cankerworms was the interest he had to pay on borrowed moneys. It seems that he was also, like his grandfather, a great admirer of the fair sex; but, observes Sir Hugh, “I have heard him protest that it was not costly to him.”
As if this had not been enough, a cousin of Sir Richard’s, one Mr. Gascoign, went to live in his house when he came to London. This gentleman being much addicted to the search after the philosopher’s stone, Sir Richard also fell in love with it. Accordingly Gascoign not only got money out of him for these purposes, but Sir Hugh discovered among his father’s papers a cancelled bond, binding him to pay one of the adepts in that profession £200 for a certain secret. Sir Richard was always very slow in acknowledging how much these occult studies had cost him, but it is certain the money he spent on them tended very greatly to the increase of his debts. “Strange and remarkable it is,” Sir Hugh philosophically observes, “that a man who had passed the greatest part of his life with the reputation of one of the ablest and wisest gentlemen of the country should now, at the age of forty-seven years, when commonly men’s judgements are ripest and grown more sage by experience, not only be tempted into such a foppery and delusion, but even desire to intricate his eldest son therein too, for he would often try to persuade him to join him in his researches, and when the young man refused would remark he was so incredulous he should never be better for his studies.” Then his son would reply, “Sir, let me be no worse and I will never desire to be better.” There being now no other way to get rid of his debts, he made over to his eldest son the whole of his estate for ten years, reserving only £400 a year for himself to live on.
He died ultimately, at the age of sixty-two, of a surfeit of oysters. He was buried in the chancel of Whitby church, under the great blue stone where his grandmother had been laid twenty years before him.
Sir Richard was twice married.
By his first wife -- the beautiful Susanna Legard, who died in 1611 of a fever she had caught in going to see her son Hugh, who was ill at Scarborough -- he had four sons and two daughters. His second wife was Margaret Cob, with whom he had become acquainted and married during one of his visits to London. He was then about thirty-three years of age, and the lady some ten years his junior. Like her predecessor, she proved a loving dutiful wife, living many years at Whitby with her husband in great retirement, but with much content. She had four sons of her own, and was a good kind step-mother, bringing up her husband’s two daughters with great tenderness, and when they died, grieving for them as if they had been her own children. On their part, they loved and honoured her as much as though she had been their own mother.
Having given an account of his ancestors and of his family, Sir Hugh begins his own autobiography. Being about to write the story of his own life, it puts him in mind, he says, of that fancy of the Emperor Charles V., when he would have the ceremony of his funeral procession performed upon himself while he was living. “Nor am I insensible,” he continues, “with what difficulty and prejudice I undertake this work, considering when I am to mention my own blemishes and imperfections, the frailty of human nature is such I shall scarcely discern or rightly judge of them; and if I mention aught may be to my commendation or advantage, it will be thought pride or vain glory.” Accordingly, he requires his sons, if they know of any remarkable infirmities in him which he has not mentioned, that they should add it by way of a postscript to his biography. For the rest it is his desire to use as much truth and clearness as the frailty of human nature will permit.
Sir Hugh was the first child of his parents, his father being just twenty years of age when his son was born, at Roxby, on Mary Magdalen’s Day, A.D. 1600. The little boy was unfortunate in his nurses, and for many years was but a weak ailing child. At three years old he also met with an accident which might have proved fatal. The maid who attended him let the child tumble out of the great chamber window at Roxby, and had it not been that in the act of falling he was espied and caught hold of by a servant who was waiting upon his grandfather at dinner in the room below, his life would have ended then and there. When he was but seven years old, his father and mother went to keep house at Whitby, and the little fellow accompanied them on horseback. He had just begun to ride a little way in advance with one of his father’s servants beside him, when, on passing over a common called Paston Moor, he put his horse to a gallop. The animal running away, the child got alarmed and called out to the servant who, taking hold of his arm intending to lift him from his horse, let him fall to the ground. Fortunately, though one of the horses passed so near him as to tread on his hat, the little fellow escaped without hurt, as also did his mother, who in her fright had leaped off her horse. The following year, on the feast of St. Mary Magdalen, he was exposed to and escaped another great danger. It chanced that at his father’s house there was a great fierce sow, which had two pigs about a quarter old. As the three were lying close together asleep near the kitchen door, young Master Hugh, out of folly and waggery, as he terms it, began to kick one of them. While he was doing so, the other got up, on which he fell to kicking them both to make them squeak. The sow hearing the cries of her young ones, rushed to the rescue, caught the young gentleman by the leg, and before he could recover himself, dragged him about twenty yards under the window of the larder. The three then began to bite him, and would soon have made an end of him had not the butler, who was carrying a glass of beer to his master, hearing him cry, set down the beer on the hall table, and running out snatched him away from the sow, who was just proceeding to attack her victim in the throat.
At eleven years of age Hugh was sent to the free school at Beverley, where he was attended by his usual ill fortune. Soon after he had gone there he took a fever which was prevalent there. Hearing of his illness, his cousin, Mrs. Hotham, sent for him to her house at Scarborough, where his mother going to see him caught the fever and died. The poor boy felt her loss greatly, for she had been a tender mother to him, and adds Sir Hugh, “I loved her dearly.”
After the boy had been about two years at Beverley school, Mr. Petty, the head master, was chosen Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. He had, by that time, become so much attached to his pupil, as well as thinking him apt to learn, that he persuaded Hugh’s father to let the boy accompany him to Cambridge, though he was then only just past thirteen years of age. Sir Richard gave consent, and he was entered as a fellow commoner. There being a youth there who some years before had been at Beverley school, Mr. Petty introduced him to young Chomley. But the acquaintance proved a very undesirable one: the young gentleman in question being a loose liver of questionable habits, and likely to ruin his companion as well as himself. Circumstances happily led to the breaking up of the set to which they belonged; and Hugh, though idle to the last, shook himself clear of dissipation.
He was seventeen years old when he finally left the university. He then spent a year in the country with his father, and became so fond of hunting, hawking, and horse races, that he could not easily put aside those pastimes, when he afterwards saw the vanity of them. On his going to London the following year, he was admitted a member of Gray’s Inn, at the end of Michaelmas Term. But he totally neglected the study of the law during the whole of his three years’ residence in the metropolis. After he had quitted the Inns of Court he took a lodging in Fleet-street, then a very fashionable part of London, and misspent his time more than ever, doing nothing but frequenting bowling-houses and gaming-houses. “Though for other extravagances, I was,” he says, “very temperate.” So matters went on until he had arrived at the age of twenty-two, when he was married, at the church in Milk-street, to the daughter of Sir William Twisden. The wedding breakfast was held at Sir William’s town house in Redcross-street, “which was so good a house,” says Sir Hugh, “as few gentlemen in town had the like, and bravely was it furnished.” There, in the year 1624, Mrs. Chomley presented her husband with a son and heir. The baby was as fair and fine a child, in its father’s estimation, “as ever was born of a woman, and the instant after it came into the world looked broad with its eyes and as pert as if it had been a month old.”
Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell Page 513
