7

LIVES

OF

EMINENT BRITISH STATESMEN.

SIR JOHN ELIOT.

1590-1632.

JOHN ELIOT was "a Cornishman born, and an esquire's son."1 His family, though new residents in that county, were of very ancient Devonshire descent. Prince alludes to them in his "Worthies;" and Fuller has pointed out the name of Walter Eliot, one of his ancestors, in the sheriff's return of the gentry of the county of Devon, made in 1433, during the reign of Henry VI. Browne Willis, who may be considered a good authority on the subject, having married a lineal descendant of the family2, states that this Walter Eliot allied himself to the family of sir Richard Eliot, appointed a justice of the court of King's Bench by Henry VIII., but more illustrious as the father of one of the earliest of our vernacular writers, the famous sir Thomas Eliot. The first of the family who settled in Cornwall appears to have been the great-uncle of sir

1 Anthony Wood, Ath. Oxon. vol. ii. p. 478. Ed. Bliss.
2 See Ducarel's "Life of Browne Willis."

3 Browne Willis's " Notitia Parliamentaria," vol, ii. p. 142.

John, who obtained from the family of Champernowne the priory of St. Germains and its lands, in exchange for property possessed by him at Cutlands, near Ashburton. To this priory the name of Port Eliot was then given, which it bears to this day. Its large estates have descended with it from father to son, and form a considerable portion of the property of the present earl of St. Germains.2

At this seat of Port Eliot John Eliot was born, on the 20th of April, 1590.3 In his youth he was subjected to none of the restraints that should have been applied to a temper naturally ardent. His father was a man of easy habits, kept very hospitable house4, flung it open to every sort of visitor, and never, it is to be presumed, troubled himself to consider the effect of such a course upon the uncontrolled disposition and manners of his son. It is to this lax education that we have to attribute a painful incident in the life of Eliot, of which the most treacherous advantage has been taken by his political enemies.5

Archdeacon Echard, a notorious advocate of the Stuarts, and a most inaccurate historical writer, gave the first public account of it. After stating, most untruly (as we have seen), that Eliot was of a new

family.1," this archdeacon proceeds:

"Within his

own parish there lived one Mr. John Moyle, a gentleman of very good note and character in his country, who, together with his son, had the honour to serve in parliament. Whether out of rivalship or otherwise, Mr. Eliot, having, upon a very slight occasion, entertained a bitter grudge against the other, went to his house under the show of a friendly visit, and there treacherously stabbed him, while he was turning on one side to take a glass of wine to drink to him."2 He states further : "Mr. Moyle outlived this base attempt about forty years, who, with some others of his family, often told the particulars to his grandson, Dr. Prideaux, and other relations, from whom I had this particular account." 3 We are here left uncertain, it will be seen, whether the account was received at fifth or sixth hand from gossiping relations, or from the respected and learned dean of Norwich. A late writer, however, has thought fit to assume the latter, and has insisted, with considerable and very obstinate vehemence, on the probable truth of the statement. With the help of materials in a lately published work by lord Nugent, and guided by a fact I have discovered respecting sir John Eliot's father, I now present this singular incident in a new, and, it may be hoped, a final aspect.

It occurred, so far as there is truth in it, in the extreme youth of Eliot. That he should have earned for himself, at that time, the epithet "wilful," will scarcely appear surprising after what I have said of the habits and indulgences of his father. Mr. Moyle, who resided at Bake, a district of the parish of St. Germains, close to Port Eliot, took upon himself to warn old Eliot that