Part 9

His son John--third of the name--seems to have been, according to some contemporary accounts, a man of no very high character; in fact, he has been stigmatized as 'a pirate,' an 'avoider of his debts,' 'a gamester,' and 'spendthrift.' Amongst the Lansdowne MSS., in the British Museum, are preserved accounts of his misconduct. One, dated 7th March, 1588/9, is a 'Complaynte against John Killigrew of y^e County of Cornwall, of many of his ill demeners.' First comes a list of his 'knowen debtes' to Her Majesty and others. Then the document sets forth that, notwithstanding many judgments obtained against him, he 'satisfieth no man;' but rides abroad, attended by armed servants, defies the bailiffs, and commits all sorts of high-handed irregularities. It concludes with the statement that he endeavours to satisfy his wealthier creditors with vain promises, and the poorer ones with blows and threatening words; and in fact, the complainants say it would require 'a hole quire of pap^r' to sum up all his misdeeds. His boarding and pillaging a Danish ship, and some similar acts of violence, are set forth by Sir Julius Cæsar in other documents of this series; and our hero, together with one William Ewens, are set down as 'notorious pirates.' That he did not obtain the honour of knighthood under such circumstances is hardly to be wondered at.

I cannot, however, help thinking that he has been debited with many of the misdeeds of one Peter Killigrew, who lived a century before him, but whose exact connexion with the family I have been unable to trace satisfactorily. Perhaps the one mentioned in Strype's 'Memorials of Edward VI.,' of whom it is observed, in 1552, that one 'Strangwich' (? Restronguet), 'and two Killigrews with him, were such notable sea-rovers, that, in the month of February of that year, the King sent a letter to the French King, that he would do his endeavour for the apprehension of them.' And yet, in 1592, a Mr. Killigrew, according to the same authority, was appointed, at Sir Walter Raleigh's request, on a commission to inquire into the matter of the distribution of the spoil of a certain richly-laden Spanish carrack, '_The Mother of God_' taken by some of Sir Walter's ships on her return from the East Indies. Indeed, there is considerable difficulty in identifying some of the Killigrews of the sixteenth and early in the seventeenth centuries. But the fact is, that not only were the Killigrews concerned in exploits of this nature, but there were many others amongst the west-countrymen who, under Sir Peter Carew, slipped over to France, and did a little privateering against Spain on their own account, being anxious to do all in their power to prevent the marriage of Mary with Philip of Spain. A Killigrew of this date had three ships under his command, according to the Calais MSS. 'Wild spirits of all nations,' says Froude--'Scots, English, French, whoever chose to offer--found service under their flag. They were the first specimens of the buccaneering chivalry of the next generation, the germ out of which rose the Drakes, the Raleighs, the Hawkinses, who harried the conquerors of the New World.' Ultimately the Godolphins and Killigrews were threatened with prosecution, but nothing came of it. By his wife Dorothy, daughter of Thomas Monck of Potheridge, Devon, John is said to have had nine sons and five daughters, though I can only trace ten children altogether. She was the sister of General Monck, Duke of Albemarle, whose exploits on behalf of his royal masters, and especially the prominent part he took in the restoration of Charles II., are well-known matters of history. I have referred somewhat more fully to this in the chapter on the Grenvilles.

This John (whom we have called the third) had two brothers, Thomas and Simon, both of whom were Court favourites. Some other Cornish gentlemen of the time seem to have been equally popular with the Queen, as Elizabeth said of them that they were all 'born courtiers, and with a becoming confidence.' Queen Elizabeth sent Thomas on an embassy to the Count Palatine of the Rhine; and I find that he was also commissioned to seize a certain ship of Brittany at 'Pensans' (Penzance), and to 'distribute the spoil among such as by certain Britaines have been heretofore spoiled of their goods and wronged.' Rough and ready justice this, seemingly, and a lesson from which some subsequent Killigrews, as we shall find, did not fail to take a hint. John's younger brother, Simon, was, to some extent, a herald, as appears by a letter from him on the subject of the Manaton coat of arms, preserved amongst the Harleian MSS. (1079), in the British Museum. The two younger brothers added to the family estates by purchases of a property, with a town-house at Lothbury; a country seat at Kineton (? Kempton) Park, near Hampton Court; besides sundry lands and manors in East Cornwall, Devon, and Lincolnshire. Of their two sisters, Mary and Katherine, I can learn nothing, except that the latter married twice.

To return, therefore, to the main line--Sir John, the fourth and last of that name (for Sir William, the eldest son, who was made a baronet in 1661, and was buried in Westminster Abbey in 1665, would seem to have led an uneventful life, and need not detain us), was knighted at Whitehall on 8th November, 1617; he was 'a good, sober man,' and was likewise, I fancy, a Captain of Pendennis. He seems, moreover, to have been the chief promoter, at great pecuniary loss, of the first beacon-light on the Lizard, for which he obtained a patent from King James I., in 1619.[56] But he had the misfortune to marry an unsuitable partner--Jane, the daughter of Sir George Fermor--about whom Hals tells the following story (the credibility of which Davies Gilbert thought was at least questionable; but the tradition is still locally extant).[57]

Towards the close of Elizabeth's reign, two Dutch ships of the Hanse Towns League, and therefore under special protection, sailed into Falmouth Harbour, driven there either by the Spaniards or by stress of weather. They had scarcely arrived before Dame Killigrew, accompanied by some ruffians, boarded the Dutch ships, slew the owners, and seized two hogsheads of pieces of eight, which she took 'for her own use.' This high-handed proceeding of course produced remonstrances on the part of the rightful proprietors of the money, and led to the trial, conviction, and execution of all the offenders, save the lady herself, at Launceston. She barely escaped, and not without the utmost interest having been made for her with the Queen by Sir John Arundell, of Tolverne, and Sir Nicholas Hals, of Pengerswick.

Nor was this the only irregularity for which the authorities of Pendennis were complained of. In 1631 the Castle guns were fired upon the King's ships! and on the 2nd November in that year a Captain Kettleby writes thus: 'None disturb the free trade in those parts more than the Captain of Pendennis Castle--he is at peace with neither King's ships, nor others--both the Admiral and the writer have been twice shot at by him in going in and out. The last shot fell in the town of St. Mawes, but only hurt one woman.' Possibly the explanation of such apparently wanton mischief as this is to be found in the rivalry which existed for precedence between the two castles, Pendennis and St. Mawes, on opposite sides of the harbour mouth--a rivalry so intense as to have finally rendered a compromise indispensable.

Whether the details of the story of Dame Mary, or Dame Jane (an 'old Jezebel,' as her enemies called her) be true or not; whether it be a distorted reproduction of some of the misdeeds of her father-in-law, the third John; or whether the real cause of the misunderstanding between her husband and her faithless self was the now fast-growing rivalry between the ports of Penryn and Falmouth--this much at least is certain: that in the year 1633 Dame Jane gave to the mayor of 'Permarin,' and his successors in office for ever, a handsome silver chalice, still used as a loving-cup at the mayor-choosings, on which it is recorded that the Penryn mayor succoured her when she was 'in greate miserie.'[58] The unhappy pair were divorced, without issue; the husband dying in 1632 or 1636, and his wife twelve years afterwards.

A few words may be added here on the subject of the harbour. Penryn, the more ancient port, lies at the head of a long, tortuous creek; more secure, doubtless, from its position, and its once stockaded channel, from an enemy's ships than Falmouth was before the erection of Pendennis and St. Mawes Castles; and to Truro the same remark applied with still greater force. The rivalry between the two more ancient ports, Penryn and Truro, and the comparatively modern Falmouth, was, as may be supposed, of the keenest; but the natural advantages of Falmouth--at length defended by two forts, and aided by the powerful interest of the Killigrews--prevailed; and Falmouth, too, became 'a port.' A town--now one of the largest, busiest, and gayest of the quiet towns of Cornwall--accordingly sprang up around the once lonely site of Arwenack.[59]

Failing issue of the eldest brother, Sir William, the first baronet--and also of Sir John--Sir Peter, first knight of that name, now becomes the representative of this, the elder branch of the family: 'a merry youth, bred under the Earl of Bristol,' says one authority--and known as 'Peter the Post,' as another tells us, from the alacrity with which he despatched 'like wild-fire' all the messages and other commissions entrusted to him in the King's cause. On him was laid the important duty of conveying from Oxford the King's proposals to the Parliament in January, 1645. Like Rupert himself, he seems to have been in perpetual motion; and on one occasion, during 'Oliver's usurpation,' Sir Peter rode from Madrid, through France, and having passed the sea, got to London in seven days. Like Sir Tristram in the 'Monks and Giants,'

'From realm to realm he ran, and never staid.'

He was one of those who very nearly succeeded, it is said, in enabling Charles I. to effect his escape into France; and it was in his time that (as it is said) in revenge for his attachment to the Stuart cause, the mansion of Arwenack was ruined by Waller during the memorable operations of the siege in the time of the Civil War. It is, however, not improbable that its destruction was commenced by its patriotic owner in order to prevent its occupation by the enemy. Pendennis was the last castle (except Raglan) which held out for the King's cause;[60] but on the 16th August, 1646, it too was forced to surrender (though with flying colours, and all the honours of war) to Fairfax, after a terrible five months of siege 'and famine and harsh wounds,' endured gallantly by old John Arundell of Trerice, then nearly eighty years of age.

'Lady Penelope, fair Queen, most chast, Pendennis, of all Royall Forts the last, The last, the only, Fort ne'er conquered was, Ne'er shall be; who in constancy doth passe The rest of all thy sisters, who to thee (The eclipse of all thy kinde) but strumpets be.'

The author of these verses, after the surrender, significantly, and not unnecessarily, added the ensuing note:

'Penelopen ipsam (persta modo), tempore vinces, Capta vides sero Pergama; capta tamen.'

The family estates, worth, at one time, £6,000 a year, had sadly dwindled away by the time they came into the second Sir Peter's possession; indeed, they are said to have been worth no more than about £80 a year; yet he contrived to become elected M.P. for Camelford, and by 1630 had married Mary, the sister of Lord Lucas, of Colchester, Earl Pembroke giving the marriage portion of 'a good £300 a year;' and the _Mercurius Politicus_ for 15th March, 1660, informs us that in that month he was made Governor of Pendennis by General Monk. This Sir Peter continued, like his predecessors, a sturdy champion of Falmouth. He got the Custom House removed from its old place at Penryn, to his own more modern town; carved the parish of Falmouth out of that of St. Budock (15 Charles II.); and, with the assistance of the King and others, built and endowed the church, dedicated to the memory of King Charles the martyr,[61] where his own bones first, and then those of other Killigrews after him, were laid. Some accounts give 1670 as the date of his death; others say--probably more accurately--that he died on the road to Exeter, in 1667: possibly killed on one of his break-neck rides; for, as we have seen, he was a man of no common energy and daring. He left three children: Peter, William, and Elizabeth.

Of the sister it seems unnecessary to say more than that she married a Count de Kinski, a title which, I believe, still survives. William, who died unmarried in 1678, became a soldier of fortune, and ultimately a general officer; and he was commander-in-chief of some Danish forces, sent by the Spaniards against the Swedes. After one of his successful engagements, he sold certain captured horses (his share of the spoil) to His Majesty of Denmark for some £3,000. But failing to get his money from his royal employer, the general executed the military movement known as 'right-about-face,' and transferred his sword to the Dutch, by whom his valour was more honourably rewarded. I have failed to trace the details of his career; but he seems to have been recalled to England at the Restoration, and had a regiment of foot. His nephew succeeded to his estate, which Martin Lister says was 'composed more of honour than of substance.'

It is, however, with the elder son of this generation that we have chiefly to deal, for through him the succession was kept up. Sir Peter, the second baronet (inheriting that title from his uncle, the foregoing Sir William, the first), was born in 1634, and was educated, notwithstanding his father's reduced estate, first at Oxford, and afterwards in France. Whilst he was at Oxford, the horrible execution of Anne Green, for murdering her infant illegitimate child, took place. After hanging for half an hour, she recovered her life in consequence of judicious medical treatment; and full particulars of the event are given in a rare little volume published at Oxford in 1651, and entitled 'News from the Dead.' To this work many of the members of the university contributed short sets of verses, some in Latin, some in English. The following lines were those supplied by the Cornish baronet:

'Death, spare your threats, we scorne now to obey; If Women conquer thee, surely Men may. How came this Champion on I cannot tell, But I nere heard of one _come off_ so well.

'PET. KILLIGREW, Eq. Aur. fil. Coll. Reg.'

And here is a specimen of his powers as a writer of Latin verse, on a very different subject:

[PRO REGE SOTERIA.]

'Funera funeribus commiscens, bustaq; bustis Ira avidæ, nato Principe, pestis abit. Filius an regis potuit dum vagijt infans A tôta rabidam gente fugare luem? Nec valet, Antidotas sibi Rex, depellere varos Cujus Apollinea est tarn benè nota manus? Tantane _Carolidæ_ potuêre crepundia? plebem De tumulo redimet qui modò natus erat? Et res usque; nova est? morbum miramur abortum, Depulsum sceptro, Carole magne, tuo?'

In 1662, Sir Peter, who had been made Governor of Pendennis on the Restoration, married the handsome, virtuous, and accomplished Frances Twysden, daughter of Sir Roger, the well-known judge of that name;[62] and the union appears to have been a happy one in every respect, save as to the offspring. Peter, the eldest, died young; George, the second son, was killed in a tavern brawl at Penryn (at the house of a Mr. Chalons, says Tonkin), by 'a stab in the back' from a barrister named Walter Vincent. Another account states that the skull, which was found in 1861, showed that the hole made by the rapier was clearly visible in the forehead. Frances, the elder daughter, married a Cornish gentleman named Richard Erissey,[63] who 'cast her off' three years after their marriage. Ann, the youngest, who died without issue, married Martin Lister, a Staffordshire gentleman and soldier of fortune, who assumed the name of Killigrew, and managed the estates for many years. Clearly the main stem of the great race of Killigrew was rapidly decaying!

On the death, or murder, of his son George, old Sir Peter, who had gone to live at Arwenack in 1670, disappointed at having no male issue, and sick of the innumerable squabbles in which he found himself involved with the Falmouth folk, retired, first to London, and then, in 1697, to Ludlow, where he passed his time in scientific pursuits of a speculative character, the results of which appear to have died with him. His portrait, by Sir Godfrey Kneller, now in the possession of Mrs. Boddam Castle, of Grove House, Clifton (a descendant of the Killigrews), fully harmonizes with what we know of his character. One practical thing, however, he did: viz., to build the public quay at Falmouth; and to that old town, endeared to him by so many pleasant memories of the past, were his remains conveyed to be interred in the parish church, among those of his more immediate ancestors. The monuments are not, at present, to be seen; perhaps they are hidden under the raised floor of the chancel: but there were laid, in 1704, the remains of Sir Peter Killigrew,--the last male in the main[64] line.

George, his son, though, as we have seen, he died young, was not unmarried. He gained for his wife an offshoot of another old Cornish family, Ann, daughter of Sir John St. Aubyn, Bart., by whom he had issue one daughter (Ann), married to a Major John Dunbar. To the heiress of the ill-starred Erissey match--Sir Peter's youngest grand-daughter, Mary--the bulk of the remaining Killigrew property seems to have descended; and through her the present representative of the family (the Earl of Kimberley) holds it. She married, in 1711, a Colonel John West.[65]

There are few things more amusing in its way than the account which Mr. R. N. Worth has preserved for us in the _Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall_, of the arrangements which Martin Killigrew (Lister) requested should be made for Colonel West's reception at Arwenack. They are as follows:

'MR. ABRM. HALL,

* * * * *

'It is but by guess I have to tell you that you are not to expect to see ye Col^n. till about ye end of ye first week in May, who bringing with him ye young gentleman[66] in question, must add considerably to ye flurry you will be put in from his being a person of great consideration as I hear, tho' I know not so much as his name and as Little any particular of his circumstances. But suppose you must be advised by the Col^n. as to your providing accommodation for their Retinue: Two bed chambers for ye gentlemen you will put in ye best order you can; a room for ye servants to Eat in: The best Cook your Town affords; some choise good Hambs and a provision of fatt chickens: Wine you must leave Mr. James to provide; and if any fine green Tea[67] be to be had, you must secure some of it, as what ye Col^n. is most Nice in, and drinkes much off. Two of ye largest Tea potts you can borrow, He using them both at a time. Nice and knowing beyond ye comon in providing a Table, so that your Mother will only have to receive his orders every morning on that head. The stable put in ye best order you can, provided with Hay and Corne.

'If I do not greatly mistake, this flurry cannot continue above three weeks, for that their impatience will be greater to get back to Bath than it is to see Falmouth.

'You are still in time to see that your Closett and Books be put in ye best Order you can, and nothing to be seen there belonging to other people's business, but only to ye Estate. You will finde ye Col^n. quick of comprehention and as ready at figures as can be supposed.

'_At ye same time you observe to them ye great sums I have raised from ye Estate you will do me Justice to note ye improvements I have made upon it. And that tho' times are now dead as thro'out ye kingdome, yet as they have been good it may reasonably be hoped they will be so again, & that in ye main you doubt not of giving a yearly demonstration (by ye Rentall) of ye increase of ye Estate_; when Diner is over you get back to your Closet, and as you see it proper, you returne with your pen in your ear, making ye Col^n. sensible he is wanted above, whereby he may git rid of impertinant Comp^n. if such be with him. Nor can I see in respect to time ye Col^n. can do more in business than from day to day, he giving you orders which you will take in writing, and at parting take his hand to them, you giving him a duplicate.

'You will be able to borrow glasses, knives, forks, and spoons, with some handsome pieces of plate, in everything to make ye best figure you can; and if you can borrow a better horse than your own, you ought to do it. Relying upon ye Col^n. generosity (His greatest fault), you will be nothing out of pocket upon this occasion. As from me pray your Mother to trouble ye Col^n. with as Little of her conversation as her business will admit off. I thinke enough at a time to a man of your accute parts--

'Yours 'MART. KILLIGREW.

'St. James's, 16th April, 1737.'

It will be seen from the above that Martin was a man of some mettle, and able to manage the affairs of his stewardship adroitly, though far away from the scene. He was always at war with the Corporation of Falmouth, of which borough he was for some time Recorder, and he died in St. James's Square, London, on 7th March, 1745.[68]

Amongst the latest notices of any member of the family that I have met with, one is contained in the sprightly pages of Mrs. Delany's 'Life and Correspondence;' the subject of her remarks seems to have been a true Killigrew, at least so far as his dramatic talent affords any indication. On the 26th January, 1752, at Mr. Bushe's (near Dublin), at a dinner-party, she met a Mr. Killigrew, who was 'a very entertaining, charming man, well-bred, good-humoured, and sings in a most extraordinary manner; has a fine voice, fine taste, no knowledge of music, but the exactest imitation of Senesino and Monticelli that you can imagine. He sings French songs incomparably, with so much humour that in spite of my gloom he made me laugh heartily.'

Of another, the last male of his name, Thomas Guildford Killigrew, I find from _Notes and Queries_, 1873, p. 224, and also from other sources, including information[69] with which I have been favoured by Mrs. Boddam Castle, that he married Miss Catharine Chubb, a distant relative, after having much impoverished himself in the Stuart cause in 1745, and that he settled in Bristol for the sake of economy. He died in 1782 without issue. At his death Mrs. Killigrew adopted her great niece, Mary Iago, afterwards married to Daniel Wait, Mayor of Bristol, in 1805. On the death of Mrs. Killigrew, in 1810, the family plate and portraits (one of the latter, Sir Peter Killigrew, by Sir Godfrey Kneller, and another, of Thomas Guildford Killigrew himself) passed to Mrs. Wait by will, and from her to Mrs. Boddam Castle, wife of Mr. Boddam Castle, barrister-at-law, now residing at Clifton. Some of the plate is more than 150 years old; the crest a demi-griffin, with 'T.C.K.' over it.

The last who bore the surname of Killigrew was Frances Maria (daughter of George Augustus Killigrew, of Bond Street), who died in Portman Street, London, on 20th July, 1819, aged seventy-one.

And here let us pause, after having exhausted (so far as I am aware) all the sources of information, and having, I believe, at least set down all that was noteworthy, of the _elder_ branch of the Killigrews.

_THE SECOND BRANCH._