By Isabel, daughter to Sir Thomas Holcroft,* of ValeRoyal, in the county of Chester, knight, he left issue one daughter, and sole heiress, named Elizabeth; who, in right of her father, became baroness Ros; and, at the age of thirteen, married William Cecil,† eldest son to Sir Thomas Cecil, knight, who was the eldest son of Lord Burleigh, afterwards Earl of Exeter. This lady died at the house of her grandfather, Sir Thomas Holcroft, in Tower Street, London, April 12, 1591; and was buried in the chapel of St. Nicholas, in Westminster Abbey; where a monument was erected for her on the west side of the chapel. This monument together with bishop Sprat's, was removed, to make room for that of Elizabeth, duchess of Northumberland, who died Dec. 5, 1776. But the figure of the lady Ros, with the armorial bearings, has been preserved, by being placed over an adjoining tomb. She is represented in a recumbent posture, leaning on the left arm, and veiled. She left an only son, William, not quite a year old, who at his mother's funeral, was proclaimed, after the service in the church, by the title of Lord Ros, of Hamlake, Trusbut, and Belvoir; and, afterwards, in the reign of king James, claimed those baronies in right of his mother, in opposition to Francis, Earl of Rutland. The king determined, that he should be the Lord Ros, of Holderness, and have the ancient seat of the Lords Ros in parliament; but that the title of Lord Ros, of Hamlake, Trusbut, and Belvoir, should still remain to the Earl of Rutland. The Lord Ros, of Holderness, was sent ambassador to the emperor Matthias, in Spain, whence he returned the next year; and in 1618, having travelled into Italy, he died without issue, at Naples, not without suspicion of being poisoned. On his death, the

* Holcroft. Arms-Argent a cross and bordure engrailed, sable.

+ Cecil. Arms-Barry of 10, argent and azure; over all, six escutcheons 3, 2, 1 sable, each charged with a lion rampant of the first.

title of Lord Ros reverted, indisputably, to the Rutland family.

A letter of the lady Isabel, widow of Edward, Earl of Rutland, to the lord keeper Puckeringe, has been preserved, relating to some appointments, which she wished to be made in a commission of sewers, which he was about to grant, "for the redressing of such losses and harms, which the dwellers upon Trent sustained, by weirs thereon builded." She states, that, as her majesty's tenant of mills and fishings in Trent, she receives more loss thereby than any one in Nottinghamshire; and mentions that certain of her neighbours in that county, were prepared, as she had heard, to object to the Earl of Shrewsbury, (a connexion by marriage of the Rutland family,) being appointed one of the commission of sewers, whom she wished to be appointed. She prays her, that her son-in-law, Mr. William Cecil, grandson to the lord treasurer Burleigh, may be one of the commissioners. The letter, which is dated Nov. 18, 1592, is not otherwise interesting, than as indicating the writer to be an active, high-spirited woman, determined to take the best means in her power, to preserve her property uninjured. Nichols has preserved a fac-simile of her signature on this occasion: it is written in a firm, masculine hand.

JOHN, the brother to the last Earl, became Earl of Rutland in 1587; and in the same year, was appointed constable of the Castle of Nottingham, and lord lieutenant of that county. He had served in the Irish wars, as a colonel of foot. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Francis Charlton,* of Apley, in the county of Salop, Esq.; and had by her five sons and four daughters. By his last will, made Feb. 23, 1587-8, when "sick of body, but of good and perfect remembrance,” he ordered his body to be buried, in the Church of Bottesford; and "the order and charges of his funeral, disposing to * Charlton. Arms-Or, a lion rampant gules.

The ex

the poor, and ordering of his tomb, he leaves to the discretion of his executors, and the supervisors of his will." ecutors were his wife, the Countess of Rutland; Roger, Lord Ros, his son; his uncle George Manners, Esq.; and Roger Manners, one of the esquires for the queen's majesty's body; his loving father-in-law, one of her majesty's justices of the court of common pleas; his loving cousin, Sir George Chaworth, knight; and the supervisors, (to each of whom, he gives a piece of plate worth £20,) were the lord high treasurer Burleigh, and the Earl of Leicester, lord steward of her majesty's household. To his younger sons, Francis, George, and Oliver, he gave certain specific manors and lands, in Yorkshire; and to his daughters, £1000 each.

He died the 24th February, the day after the execution of his will, which was proved May 1, 1588. By Elizabeth his wife, who was buried at Bottesford, March 24, 1594, he had five sons; Edward, who died young; Roger, Francis, and Sir George, successively Earls of Rutland; and Sir Oliver. His daughters were Bridget, married to Robert Tyrrwhit, of Kettleby, county of Lincoln, esquire, son and heir to Sir Robert Tyrrwhit, knight; Frances, to William, Lord Willoughby, of Parham; Elizabeth, to Edmund Scroop, Earl of Sunderland, but died without issue; and Mary, who died unmarried, in April, 1588.

Nichols describes a monument and records an inscription to the memory of Bridget, by her husband, Robert Tyrrwhit, in the chancel of Bigby, (Beakeby, Nichols) county of Lincoln, which is a pleasing memorial of his affectionate remembrance of her virtues. An epitaph in Latin verse, on the same monument, which Nichols calls, "a comely epitaph," might not so well please modern taste. The construction and sentiments are, however, intelligible enough, when we consider that classical literature was, at that period, (1604) comparatively a newly discovered mine; the ore from which

was most enthusiastically applied to every purpose; and, often to the neglect of the fine gold of the sacred writings. The beauty of the person commemorated in this epitaph, is equalled to that of Venus. The fate that took her from this world, is stated to be more cruel than savage tigers. She is said to have entered the gloomy palace of the inexorable Proserpine, before she had well seemed to live, or completed her fifth lustrum; and the husband is represented as mourning her loss with the deepest sorrow, and reproaching the Gods. It would not be just to doubt the sincerity of the survivor, or to criticise, too severely, the taste which dictated such an epitaph. It is, no doubt, a faithful representation of an affectionate husband's feelings, though through a medium partaking of the fantastic taste of the period, in which an elaborate and gorgeous display of words, (euphuism) pervaded the ordinary intercourse of life, with the higher classes; and a cumbrous pedantry was the character of scholars.

Edward, the eldest son of John, the fourth Earl of Rutland, dying an infant,

ROGER, the next brother succeeded their father at his death, Feb. 24, 1587-8, and became the fifth Earl, being then only eleven years of age. He was educated at the University of Cambridge, where he took the degree of M. A. In 1595, he visited France, Italy, Switzerland, and the low countries, where he continued three years; and, afterwards, "he went, voluntary, the island voyage."* (See description of his monument in Bottesford Church.) In 1598, he was colonel of foot in the Irish wars; in which year, (July 10) he was incorporated M. A., in the University of Oxford, and is styled by Wood, (Fasti Oxonienses,) an eminent traveller, and a good soldier. In 1600, he was appointed constable

Island voyage. This expression is used to designate the naval expedition, under the command of the Earl of Essex; part of whose object it was, to intercept the Spanish Merchantmen from the West Indies.

of Nottingham Castle, and chief justice in eyre of Sherwood Forest. On the 7th of June, in the same year, he was a principal attendant at the marriage of the Lord Herbert and Mrs. Ann Russell; which was celebrated in great state at Blackfriars, the queen being present.

The different position in which Roger, Earl of Rutland, stood in Elizabeth's estimation, during the last two years of her reign, requires some notice. He appears to have been, from an early period, on terms of familiar intercourse with the accomplished but impetuous and ill-fated Earl of Essex. This latter nobleman had been brought up, by the highly moral and religious Lord Burleigh, as the guardian appointed by his father; whose son, William Cecil, had married Elizabeth, sole child and heiress of Edward, third Earl of Rutland. Essex, the ward, and Roger, the connexion by marriage of Burleigh, would thus have opportunites under the roof of their common friend, of forming an acquaintance, which, congeniality of pursuits, and probably of disposition, for both appear to have been ingenuous, high spirited young men, soon matured into a warm friendship. When the Earl of Rutland set out on his travels in 1595, Essex, though then, as the successor to the Earl of Leicester, his father-inlaw, in Elizabeth's favour, occupied in all the duties of a courtier in high trust with that severely exacting queen, found time to write a letter to his friend on travel, which displays a judicious and highly cultivated taste; and makes us regret that the infirmities of a noble disposition, had not been either better regulated by the individual, or more mercifully visited by the sovereign. In 1597, the two friends met; the one (Essex) as joint commander with Howard and Raleigh of an expedition intended to destroy the Spanish armament, which had been prepared for an attempt on Ireland, the other, (the Earl of Rutland) as an animated

* The Earl of Essex was senior to the Earl of Rutland by nine years.