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much happier in the filial affections of her daughter than in the conjugal tenderness of her husband; who, taken up with military glory and the pomp of tilts and tournaments, paid little attention to domestic duties. He is said also to have neglected the interests, as well as the education, of his only surviving child, the Lady Anne, who married, first, Sackville Earl of Dorset; and, secondly, Philip Herbert Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, whom Pennant calls "a brutal simpleton." This amiable and most accomplished daughter of a virtuous mother paid a pious and interesting tribute of her affection, at their last parting, which took place at Brougham, where the Countess Margaret died, in May, 1616 (having survived her husband eleven years). Near this spot her daughter caused a pillar to be erected, on which is the following inscription :

"This pillar was erected by Anne Countess of Pembroke for a memorial of her last parting, in this place, with her good and pious mother, Margaret Countess Dowager of Cumberland, on the 2nd of April, 1616: in memory whereof, she hath left an annuity of four pounds to be distributed to the poor of the parish of Brougham every second day of April for ever, upon the stone-table hard by. Laus Deo."

Rogers, in his 'Pleasures of Memory,' has beautifully alluded to this memorial, and sees

466

GEORGE CLIFFORD, EARL OF CUMBERLAND.

With lifted eye revered,

That modest stone which pious Pembroke reared,
Which still records, beyond the pencil's power,
The silent sorrows of a parting hour;

Still to the musing pilgrim points the place
Her sainted spirit most delights to trace.

This noble lady erected also a monument to her tutor, Samuel Daniel, the poetical historian; another to Spenser; founded two hospitals; and repaired or built seven churches and six castles. Being advised by her friends to be more sparing in these buildings, during the Protectorate of Cromwell, lest he should demolish them, she replied with great spirit-" Let him destroy them if he will; he shall surely find, as often as he does so, I will rebuild them while he leaves me a shilling in my pocket." She certainly was a noble creature. When Sir J. Williamson, Secretary to Charles II., nominated to her a member for the borough of Appleby, she returned this resolute and spirited answer :

"I have been bullied by an usurper; I have been neglected by a court; but I will not be dictated to by a subject: your man sha'n't stand.

"ANNE DORSET, PEMBROKE AND MONTGOMERY."

As she had lived highly respected, so she died, at an advanced age, deeply lamented.

SIR WILLIAM MONSON.

1585 TO 1643.

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ADMIRAL SIR WILLIAM MONSON, a well-educated and more than ordinary accomplished seaman, was the third son of Sir John Monson, a respectable country gentleman of South Carlton in Lincolnshire, where the subject of this memoir was born in the year 1569. At a proper age he was entered at the University of Oxford; but, being of a bold and enterprising disposition, which suited not exactly the studious and quiet life of a college, he determined to follow the bent of his inclination; and entered into the sea service, as a common sailor, on board a merchantman: being led to it, as he says,

by the wildness of my youth." His continuance in it, however, was very early put to a severe test. In one of two barks, in which he was serving, he had the good fortune to take the first Spanish prize that had been brought to the English shore. Being on the coast of Spain, they fell in with and boarded a Spanish vessel of 300 tons, well manned and armed. "All our men,' "All our men," he says, "with one con

sent and courage entered her, and were left fighting aboard her all night, the seas being so grown that our barks were forced to ungrapple and fall off. The Spaniards betook themselves to their close fights, and made two attempts, by trains of powder, to blow up their decks, on which we were; but we happily prevented it by fire-pikes. Thus continued the fight till seven in the morning, when the Spaniards found they had so many men killed and disabled that they were forced to yield."

"When we came to take a view of our people, we found few left alive but could shew a wound or shot through their cloaths in that fight. We were a woeful spectacle, as well as the Spaniards; and I dare say that, in the whole time of the war, there was not so rare a manner of fight, or so great a slaughter of men on both sides."

The passage, "we were forced to ungrapple, and to leave our men fighting on board her," leaves a doubt whether he was one of the fighters, or one of the crew in the bark.* This was

in the year 1585, and the first of his seamanship, being then in his sixteenth year. At this time, war being declared against Spain, Queen Elizabeth was holding out every encouragement to the naval profession, by countenancing expeditions against her greatest enemy, Philip of Spain. This event may have decided the future lot of Monson; * Monson's Tracts, p. 459.

and the rapid progress he made in navigation may be inferred, from his having obtained the command of a merchant vessel in little more than two years. And it may also be inferred, that he aimed at something higher than the mercantile service, by being engaged in the following year, 1588, on board the Charles pinnace, one of the Queen's ships employed against the Invincible Armada, but, as he tells us, not in the command of her.

In the following year, 1589, Monson, now styled Captain, commanded one of the ships in the expedition of the Earl of Cumberland against the Terceira Islands, in which they took several valuable ships, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. But the details of this expedition are already given in the memoir of the Earl of Cumberland.

The next voyage of 1591, in which Monson went as Captain of the Earl of Cumberland's own ship, was a very unfortunate one for Monson, he having, when detached, been captured by six galleys, and detained as a hostage for performance of covenants for the release of the crew, and suffered imprisonment for nearly two years. From the galleys he was removed to the castle of Lisbon, where, in the same prison, was a Portuguese gentleman of the name of Emanuel Fernandez, who had been a follower of the unfortunate Don Antonio, and had been imprisoned nearly seven years, for bringing messages and letters to the friends of that pretended sovereign.

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