Part 13

'The Seamen's Victory, or _Admiral Killigrew's_ glorious conquest over the French Fleet, in the Streights, as they were coming from Thoulon towards Brest. With the manner of Taking Three of their French Men of War, and sinking Two more; although the French Admiral vainly boasted he would recover Brest or Paradice, yet he shamefully run from the English Fleet. (_To the Tune of The Spinning Wheel._)'

The ballad is illustrated with rough wood-cuts, three of which represent ships, and a fourth, it is to be presumed, the Admiral himself. It begins thus:

'Here's joyfull news came late from Sea, 'Tis of a gallant Victory, Which o'er the French we did obtain, Upon the throbbing Ocean Main. As soon as e'er they found our Rage, The Rogues was glad to disengage.'

The defeat of the attempt made by the Toulon fleet to join that at Brest is then described, in the same rude sort of lines eminently adapted for the roystering choristers who frequent seaside taverns; and the poet thus continues:

'Now while we did maintain the Fight, Two French Ships there we sunk down right, And likewise have we taken Three, This Crown'd our Work with Victory; The noble, valiant KILLEGREW, After the rest do's still pursue.'

And the ballad concludes with the hope--

'That we hereafter may advance To shake the very Crown of France.'

Possibly it refers to an episode of the fight which may have escaped the notice of the illustrious historian. This much, however, is certain, that the exploits of the British Admiral were caricatured in a street play, probably got up for political purposes.

Admiral Killigrew has been described in the following terms by one G. Wood, his clerk, who sailed with him to the Mediterranean:

'A young man in the flower of his age but a man of great experience and to add to his experience he's a man of undaunted Courage Prudence and Conduct, making it his study in all his actions to doe nothing (though never so much to his own advantage) but that which is truely honorable and altogeither tending to the honor and advantage of his King and Country. Hee likewise carry'd his com̄and w^{th} so much gravity and wisdome that he was both belov'd and fear'd by all y^e squad^n from y^e highest to y^e lowest; and for his Prudence and Dilligence in managing of his Ma^{tie's} affairs.... I might inlarge much more and speak nothing but truth of this hono^{ble} comand^s yett fear I should be look't upon as a flatterer by those y^t knows him not.'

Whilst serving in the Mediterranean, in chase of a _Salletine_ frigate, he was severely wounded by the bursting of a gun in his own ship, the splinters breaking both bones of his right leg, and frightfully wounding his head.

I have been unable to ascertain whom Admiral Henry married; but he had a son who bore the same name as himself, and who settled at St. Julian's in Hertfordshire. I think it must have been he who was a Major in Lord Strafford's Royal Regiment of Dragoons, the composition of which corps and the pay of its members are set forth in the Add^l. MSS. 22,231 in the British Museum. It would, however, be uninteresting to trace farther the descent of this branch of the family.

James, the younger brother, when only twenty-one years of age, and unmarried, was killed in a sea engagement off Leghorn, in January 1694/5, on board the _Plymouth_; like Nelson, 'in the arms of victory.'[90] His ship was a fast sailer, and outstripped her companions, so that when Captain James Killigrew came up with the French he had to engage two ships at once, both bigger than his own, one of which, however, he sunk, and the other he took. He sustained the unequal combat, it is said, for four hours. Besides losing his own life, fifty of his men were killed and wounded when the remainder of the British ships at length came up to his assistance. 'Characters like his need no encomium,' observes Charnock. Some accounts attribute cowardice to his comrades on this occasion.

We have now nearly completed our task, and have come to the last of the Killigrews whose history is likely to be entertaining, or instructive. ANNE,

'quæ stabat ubique victrix forma, ingenio, religione,'

as her epitaph (now destroyed) in the chancel of St. John the Baptist, in the Savoy Chapel, once described her;[91] and most gratifying it is to close our account of the Killigrews with the story of this admirable woman.

She was born in 1660, in St. Martin's Lane; and, the Restoration not having then been effected, was (according to Cibber's 'Lives of the Poets') christened in a private chamber, the offices of the Common Prayer-book not being at that time publicly allowed. Early distinguished for her skill in poetry and in painting, and for her learning, taste, and purity of life, for her fame she is not indebted to that which alone would have been sufficient to perpetuate it--I mean Dryden's renowned ode. This, exaggerated as its terms may appear, is nevertheless said, by those who knew her, to be hardly too strongly expressed. Even the ascetic Anthony Wood wrote of her the well-known line,

'A Grace for beauty, and a Muse for wit;'

and he assures us that 'there is nothing spoken of her which she was not equal to, if not superior.' That she was an accomplished artist Dryden's verse records, and that this was a talent possessed by at least one of her ancestors we have seen in the account of Sir Henry Killigrew, the diplomatist; but I am not aware that any of her paintings remain to us; but Walpole saw her portrait by herself, and thought more highly of her painting than of her poetry. The portrait has been admirably engraved in mezzotint by Becket and by Blooteling. She painted James II. and his Queen, as well as several 'history-pieces,' landscapes, and still-life subjects, which Dryden mentions in the poem that Dr. Johnson pronounced 'the noblest ode that our language has produced.' I am aware that Warton somewhat differs from the great critic as to this; but it would be difficult to point to a finer English threnody; and, notwithstanding the probability of its being familiar, if not to all, yet to most of my readers, I venture to think that the reproduction here of such parts as particularly refer to Anne Killigrew may not be unacceptable. The noble strain thus opens:

'Thou youngest virgin daughter of the skies, Made in the last promotion of the blest: Whose palms, new plucked from Paradise, In spreading branches more sublimely rise, Rich with immortal green, above the rest; Whether, adopted to some neighbouring star, Thou roll'st above us in thy wandering race; Or, in procession fixed and regular, Mov'st with the heaven's majestic pace; Or, call'd to more superior bliss, Thou tread'st, with seraphims, the vast abyss:-- Whatever happy region is thy place, Cease thy celestial song a little space; Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine, Since heaven's eternal year is thine. Hear then a mortal muse thy praise rehearse, In no ignoble verse,[92] But such as thy own voice did practise here, When thy first fruits of poesy were given, To make thyself a welcome inmate there; While yet a young probationer And candidate of heaven.'

Exaggerated language perhaps, but sincerely meant. And the master of the 'long-resounding line' concludes:

'When in mid-air the golden trump shall sound, To raise the nations under ground; When in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, The judging God shall close the book of fate, And there the last assizes keep For those who wake, and those who sleep;-- When rattling bones together fly From the four corners of the sky; When sinews o'er the skeletons are spread, Those clothed with life, and life inspires the dead; The sacred Poets first shall hear the sound, And foremost from the tomb shall bound, For they are covered with the lightest ground; And straight, with inborn vigour, on the wing, Like mounting larks, to the new morning sing. There thou, sweet Saint! before the choir shalt go, As harbinger of heaven, the way to show, The way which thou so well hadst learnt below.'

The allusion to the grief of her brother Henry, the Admiral, then at sea, is very fine:

'Meantime her warlike brother on the seas, His waving streamers to the wind displays, And vows, for his return, with fond devotion pays. Ah, generous youth! that wish forbear,-- The winds too soon will waft thee here! Slack all thy sails! and fear to come;-- Alas! thou know'st not--_thou art wrecked at home_.'

Her skill as a painter he depicts in the following happy lines:

'Her pencil drew whate'er her soul designed, And oft the happy draught surpass'd the image in her mind. The sylvan scenes of herds and flocks, The fruitful plains, and barren rocks; Of shallow brooks that flowed so clear The bottom did the top appear: Of deeper, too, and ampler floods, Which, as in mirrors, showed the woods: Of lofty trees with sacred shades, And perspectives of pleasant glades, Where nymphs of brightest form appear, And shaggy satyrs standing near, Which them at once admire and fear. The ruins, too, of some majestic piece Boasting the power of ancient Rome or Greece; Whose statues, friezes, columns, broken lie, And, though defaced, the wonder of the eye; What Nature, Art, bold Fiction e'er durst frame, Her forming hand gave feature to the name.'

Dryden then alludes to her portraits of the royal family--and first of the King:

'For, not content to express his outward part, Her hand called out the image of his heart.'

Of his Consort's likeness the poet gracefully observes:

'Our phœnix Queen was pourtrayed, too, so bright, Beauty alone could beauty take so right.'

And, with a grand hyperbole, the poem ends with the above prediction that at the last day the Poets shall first awake at the sound in mid-air of the golden trump:

'For they are covered with the lightest ground.'

Mistress Anne Killigrew, as the virgin poetess and paintress was called, after the fashion of the time, was, like so many others of her family, attached to the Court. She was Maid of Honour to the Duchess of York; and, even in those loose days, was unspotted by the contaminating influences amongst which she found herself. One other taint, however, she did not escape--the contagion of small-pox, of which horrible malady this 'cynosure' died at her father's prebendal house in the Cloister of Westminster Abbey, on the 16th June, 1685, in the twenty-fifth year of her age.[93]

To her 'Poems,' now a rare book--a thin quarto, which appeared shortly after her death--are prefixed Dryden's ode, and the mezzotint by Becket, after her portrait of herself. Sir Peter Lely also painted her likeness.

It has already been said that none of her paintings remain; but of her poetical powers we may still judge from the following extracts. They will, of course, fall somewhat flat after the lofty lines which have just been cited; yet I venture to think that they will be found worthy of perusal. At any rate, Dryden writes,

'Thy father was transfused into thy blood, So wert thou born into a tuneful strain;'

and they were at least considered at the time sufficiently good for the insinuation that they were not her own--a calumny to which the gentle Anne replied:

'UPON THE SAYING THAT MY VERSES WERE MADE BY ANOTHER.

* * * * * *

'Th' envious Age, only to Me alone, Will not allow, what I do write, my Own, But let 'em rage, and 'gainst a Maide Conspire, So Deathless Numbers from my Tuneful Lyre Do ever flow; so Phebus I by thee Divinely Inspired and possest may be; I willingly accept Cassandra's Fate, To speak the Truth, although believ'd too late.'

The following lines also are, I venture to think, far from commonplace:

'AN ODE.

'Arise, my Dove, from midst of Pots arise, Thy sully'd Habitation leave, To Dust no longer cleave; Unworthy they of Heaven that will not view the Skies. Thy native Beauty reassume, Prune each neglected Plume Till, more than Silver white, Than burnisht Gold more bright, Thus ever ready stand to take thy Eternal Flight.'

Notwithstanding her modesty, she was not without some confidence that her poetry would survive her, as it has, in fact, already done for two centuries; for thus she wrote her own epitaph:

'When I am Dead, few friends attend my Hearse; And for a Monument I leave my _Verse_;'

a monument, perhaps, _ære perennium_, and which certainly remains longer than the marble cenotaph which was destroyed by the fire in the Savoy.[94]

Epitaphs, indeed, seem to have had a charm for her, as if she had a foreboding of her early death; and the following lines in praise of Mrs. Phillips may serve for a fair description of herself, and as a finish to these extracts from her compositions:

'Orinda (Albion's and her sex's grace) Owed not her glory to a beauteous face, It was her radiant _soul_ that shone within; Which struck a lustre through her outward skin; That did her lips and cheeks with roses dye, Advanced her height, and sparkled in her eye. Nor did her sex at all obstruct her fame, But higher 'mong the stars it fixed her name; What she did write, not only all allowed, But every laurel to her laurel bowed.'

Perhaps too much has been said of the virtues and graces of this chaste and accomplished lady; but it must be remembered that women such as she were rare in the days in which she lived and wrote. Nor must we forget that we are far removed from the sphere of that _personal_ influence, the attractions of which are so powerful, and which probably contributed in no small degree to the fame of this fair scion of the Killigrews.

It was written on her epitaph, according to Ballard:

'Abi, Viator, et plange, Si eam plangi oporteat Cui, tam pié morienti, Vel Cœlites plauserint.'

Even at this distance of time, it is delightful to think that she left a wicked world and age before a single spot had dimmed the lustre of her widely admired, but unsullied, fame:

'Wearing the white flower of a blameless life.'

FOOTNOTES:

[51] This monument was originally placed on a site which overlooked on the one hand the remains of the family mansion, and on the other the little lake--formerly an arm of the sea, and known in Leland's time as 'Levine Prisklo,'--which was once the well-filled swannery of the Killigrews. It was moved in 1836 to make way for the houses now known as 'Grove Place;' and again in 1871, to its present appropriate site opposite the Arwenack Manor-office.

[52] The town arms of Falmouth, modified of course, are derived from those of Killigrew. The arms of the _Devonshire_ Killigrews are gules, three mascles on. This latter coat appears on some woodwork in St. Budock Church, and on the brass of Thomas Killigrew, to which reference will presently be made.

[53] I am somewhat inclined to think that this _may_ be the Thomas Killigrew who died at Biscay, in Aragon. He married twice--Johanna Herry and Jane Darrell; possibly there may be some mistake in the Christian name of the latter lady. Perhaps the same Thomas who is mentioned in the Journals of Roger Machado, of an embassy to Spain and Portugal, in 1488, as having entertained the traveller, whom stress of weather drove into Falmouth harbour; and as having bequeathed, in the year 1500, one hundred marks for the rebuilding of St. Budock Church. In the autumn of 1882, whilst restoring St. Gluvias Church, the workmen came upon some leaden coffins in good preservation, which were supposed to contain the remains of members of the Killigrew family. The coffins were not opened.

[54] Since doing this I have had the advantage of consulting Colonel J. L. Vivian's elaborate pedigree in his recent annotated edition of the 'Herald's Visitations to the County of Cornwall.'

[55] This lady seems to have been the real heroine of an exploit accredited by Hals to Dame Jane Killigrew, one of her successors (_see post_). Mr. H. Michell Whitley has drawn attention to Hals's mistake, or confusion, in the _Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall_, 1883. But in those high-handed days there may have been more than one culprit, and more than one misdemeanour--and Hals is curiously circumstantial.

[56] Cf. Mr. Howard Fox's article on the 'Lizard Lighthouses,' _Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall_, No. XXII., March, 1880, p. 319. Sir William Killigrew vainly endeavoured to obtain a renewal of the patent in 1631.

[57] Dame Mary Killigrew seems to have been the true heroine of this story. _See ante._

[58] The cup is figured in the _Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall_.

[59] Arwenack is so shown on a chart preserved in the British Museum, and engraved by Lysons in his 'Mag. Brit.' (Cornwall). St. Mawes Castle is shown as half built, Pendennis not yet commenced, and two other works--one at Gillyngvase Bay, the other at Trefusis Point--as _contemplated_. There is another and still finer coloured map, with Lord Burghley's handwriting on it, in the National Collection.

[60] The _negotiations_ for the surrender of Raglan were begun before those for Pendennis. Cf. the Chapter on the Arundells.

[61] Sir Peter measured out the ground for the church, churchyard, and minister's house, on 29th August, 1662. The first sermon was preached in the church on 21st February, 1663, by Mr. John Bedford, of Gerrans, from Genesis xxiii. 20, 'And the field, and the cave that is therein, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession of a buryingplace by the sons of Heth.'

[62] One of the most scathing letters of reproach ever written was addressed by this lady to Rev. Mr. Quarme, the Incumbent of Falmouth, for his ingratitude after Sir Peter's decease. It is preserved amongst the archives in the manor-office at Arwenack.

[63] Probably a descendant of that Erissey whose nimble dancing delighted James I. so much that he inquired what was his name. The King admired the gentleman, but 'liked not his name,' to which some one had possibly prefixed the letter 'h' in pronouncing it. Some remains of the ancient mansion of this old Cornish family are still to be seen on the estate of that name in the parish of Ruan Major: the dates on an old doorway and on some lofty gate-posts are, respectively, 1603 and 1671.

[64] It was this Sir Peter who, finding that, in 1689, Pendennis Castle required some repairs, visited the Collector of Customs at Penryn, at ten o'clock at night, and carried off the Collector and the money (some £200 odd), 'for the good of the King's castle.'

[65] Both their daughters, Frances and Mary, took the name of Killigrew; the former married the Hon. Charles Berkeley, the latter John Merrill, Esq.; but from both marriages there was female issue only.

[66] The young gentleman is apparently Mr. Merrill, subsequently the husband of the Colonel's eldest daughter.

[67] When this letter was written the price of tea was--Bohea, 12s. to 14s.; Pekoe, 18s.; and Hyson, 35s. per lb.

[68] To a copy of a MS. history of the family, written by him in 1737-38, I have been indebted for some interesting particulars.

[69] The statement in _Notes and Queries_ is on the authority of Mr. William Killigrew Wait, who still, I believe, lives in or near Bristol.

[70] He was taken prisoner at Rouen, in Nov. 1562, and, according to Wright's 'Queen Elizabeth and her Times,' was to be 'redeemed for young Pegrillion.' And here it maybe conveniently observed that this work contains Killigrew's letters to Burghley on the state of Scotch affairs--perhaps the most important business which he had to manage in the course of his diplomatic career.

[71] Thus summarized by F. S. Thomas in his 'Historical Notes,' and by other authorities: Ambassador to Scotland, 1566; negotiating in 1569 for fresh ports to be opened in the Baltic; to France, when Walsingham was sick, 1571; Scotland again, 1572, to negotiate for the surrender of Edinburgh Castle; again, 1573; and at Berwick, 1574; in London, 1575, and back to Scotland the same year; in the Low Countries in 1586; and to France with the Earl of Essex, to assist the King of France, in 1591.

[72] Murdin.

[73] According to Froude, there was a Killigrew of Pendennis, who was one of the 500 forlorn hope who cut their way through Guise's lines at Rouen, in October, 1562. On the capture of that place, and after the garrison had been cut down almost to the last man, he was taken, half-dead, but eventually recovered. I cannot help thinking this must be the same Killigrew.

[74] As Cyrus at Thermopylæ, Crassus in Parthia: therefore Alexander had exact maps always about him to observe passages, streights, rocks, plains, rivers, etc.

[75] Another sister, Anne, married Nicholas Bacon, Lord Chancellor, and became the mother of Sir Anthony and of FRANCIS BACON--LORD VERULAM.

[76] When he was called upon in Parliament to profess his adherence to 'The Good Cause,' as the Parliamentarians termed it, Sir Henry bluntly and bravely declared, 'When I see occasion, I will provide a good horse, a good buff coat, and a good pair of pistols: and then I make no question but I shall find a "good cause."' Very shortly after this speech he found it necessary for his safety to leave London for Cornwall, with the results about to be described.

[77] Cf. the chapter on the Arundells for an account of the siege of Pendennis.

[78] It will be seen, further on, that these two families intermarried again; and that the house of Kimberley now represents that of Killigrew.

[79] The first edition, a little duodecimo, was published in 1684, a third edition was published at Winchester (where, it will be remembered, Charles sometimes kept his Court), on 7th Aug., 1686.

[80] 'Selindra,' 'Pandora,' and 'Ormasdes.' Printed in 1665, London, 8vo.

[81] A Thomas Killigrew, whom I cannot quite identify, was in the Queen's Bench prison in 1642-43 on a suspicion of having raised arms against the Parliament.

[82] Women did not appear on the stage until after the Restoration.

[83] About this time we find Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, interceding with the Court on Thomas Killigrew's behalf, for a commission in 'Captaine Morgan's companie, who is dead.'