Some Passages from the History of the Chomley Family
The majority of men are so much occupied now-a-days with the present and the future, that they are unwilling to cast a glance upon the past. It seems a matter of little importance to them that even the very names of families, the members of which played a busy part in the history of their country, should die out unnoticed and uncared for. Yet it would not surely be so if we were better aware how much of interest lies in the story of the lives and careers of some of the “forebears” of our English gentry. Still it is not often that a fortunate chance enables us to see our ancestors as they lived and moved among their cotemporaries. Too frequently the details handed down respecting them are so few and meagre, that it is impossible to form out of them a faithful picture of either the men or their surroundings. These remarks do not, however, apply to the memoirs of Sir Hugh Chomley, in which he gives “some account of his family, and the distresses they underwent during the wars between the King and the Parliament.” For a long period these memoirs existed in manuscript only. But, towards the close of the last century, Mr. Nathaniel Chomley, one of Sir Hugh's descendants, had them printed for private circulation amongst the members of his family. Thanks to the kind permission we have received to make what use we please of the volume, we are in a position to give an abstract of their contents.
Every autobiography, whatever its merits or its defects may be, will present some points of interest. These will be increased in proportion as the writer neither attempts to glorify his own doings nor to paint his contemporaries in any colours save their true ones. Moreover, when the memoir has not been written with a view to the public eye, but has been intended solely to keep the memory of their ancestor fresh in the breasts of his descendants, the probabilities become very great that in it we shall have a faithful representation of the life and times of the writer.
Many have been the motives which have induced men to record the story of their lives. In this case, Sir Hugh Chomley tells his sons that he was “first and chiefly moved to the work by the love he bore to their indulgent mother, his dear wife. Being desirous,” he says, “to embalm her great virtues and perfections to future ages, I consider it would not be so proper, nor so much for her honour, to speak of her single as to bring her in her proper range and place among those preceding deserving women, mothers of families, amongst which she will be found a prime flower in the garland. And this,” he goes on to say, “could not be done without mentioning their husbands, who, in respect of their sex, may not only claim to have the greatest honour and reverence ascribed to them, but commonly are the greatest actors in the scene.”
Sir Hugh begins his narrative with a sketch of the first of his progenitors, who planted himself in the East Riding. In the reign of Henry VII., Sir Roger Chomley, a “black, proper, stout man,” having married a daughter of Sir Marmaduke Constable, of Flamborough, quitted Cheshire, his native county, in order to settle in Yorkshire. In the fifth year of Henry VIII. Sir Roger was knighted, and on the 28th of April, 1538, he fell sick and died. Of the four children who survived him, Richard, the eldest, was made a knight at the battle of Musselburgh, in which he had commanded a regiment raised merely by his power and interest in his own county. Nor was heeminent as a soldier only; he was also a great improver of his estates, and added considerably to their extent. His chief place of residence was at Roxby, near Pickering, where he lived “in great port,” having a large family, comprising at least fifty or sixty men-servants. But although there used to be often as many as twenty-four pieces of beef put in the morning into the pot, yet sometimes it so happened that but one would be left for Sir Richard's own dinner. The idle serving men, it appears, were accustomed to have their breakfast in the house, and going into the kitchen would use so much liberty as to stick their daggers into the pot and take out the beef without the leave or privacy of the cook. On such occasions Sir Richard would merely laugh and cry out, “What! would not the knaves leave me but one piece for my own dinner?” Nevertheless, he always liked to have a great train of these menials about his person. Even when he journeyed to London on business, unaccompanied by his wife, he used to be attended by never less than thirty, and sometimes even forty of them. And as there chanced to be a great feud between Sir Richard and his brother-in-law the Earl of Westmorland, who had married successively two of Sir Richard's sisters, the retainers of the gentlemen never met, whether in London streets or elsewhere, but a fight took place. These brawls were, however, attended with less danger to life and less bloodshed than they would have been in succeeding times; for the men fought with buckler and short swords, and it was counted unmannerly to make a thrust.
In his youth Sir Richard had married Margaret, the daughter of Lord Conyers. She dying before him, he took for his second wife the beautiful widow of Lord Scroope of Bolton. Soon after the birth of their first child a difference, caused no doubt by Sir Richard's conduct, arose between the pair and continued many years. At last, coming to a gentleman's house where they were strait of lodging, the husband and wife were perforce thrown together. The consequence was a reconciliation, which was soon afterwards still more closely cemented by the birth of a son, whom they named Henry, and who in course of time succeeded to his father's estates.
At the age of 63, in the year 1589, the “great black knight of the north” died, and was buried in the chancel of Thornton church. He was tall of stature, “and withal big and strongly made, having had in his youth a very able body.” His hair was black, his eyes the same hue, and his complexion a clear brown. Nor was he great only in stature; but also in power, estate, and fortune. A wise and prudent man, too, as regarded the management of his estates, a kind master, a liberal landlord, a loving father, and a tender husband, albeit “extraordinarily given to the love of women.”
In his choice of wives he was peculiarly fortunate. His second wife, the Lady Katharine, was not only a gentlewoman of great piety, but endowed with a more than ordinary share of beauty. Outwardly a Roman Catholic, she seems to have been at heart a Protestant; for almost the last words she spoke were, “Daughter, let the priests be put out of the house.” She died in the year 1598, having survived her husband nearly twenty years, and was buried in the chancel of Whitby church “under the great blue stone.”
By his first wife Sir Richard had three sons and several daughters. By his second wife he had a daughter named Katherine after her mother, and a son named Henry. His eldest son, Francis, succeeded to a brief enjoyment of the title and estates. He was, like his stalwart father, a right proper man, and had been bred a soldier. Sir Richard loved him entirely, and if he had but married with his approbation would have left his estates freely to him. But the young man was obstinately determined to take to wife one Mrs. Jane Boulmer, who though of good family was not equally fortunate in the matter of reputation. In fact, her character and manner oflife were such that Sir Richard was accustomed to say she was of a humour he liked better for a mistress than a wife for a son. When, however, he saw that Francis was not to be dissuaded from the match, he determined to settle his lands in such a way that his heir should have power to dispose of only £500 a year by will. If he had not made this arrangement, he was sure, he said, that after his death his Aunt Frank--for so he always called Mrs. Jane--would have made her husband cut off the entail, and so settle the estates that not a foot should come to any of his blood. The event proved that he had been right. No sooner had the old man gone down to his grave than Aunt Frank so wrought upon her husband that he settled on her all the lands he had at his disposal.
After his father's death, Sir Francis resided for the most part at
Whitby, where he built a house. Yielding to Mrs. Jane's persuasions, the dwelling was constructed entirely of wood, although the country afforded plenty of good stone. “Wood would serve them well enough for their time,” the lady was wont to say, knowing she should not have a child, and therefore caring little what destruction she did to the woods. She was, moreover, of a most haughty spirit, and had such a hold over her husband, who was a very valiant man and a complete gentleman in all points, that it was thought her influence over him could only proceed from witchcraft. So exceedingly over-topped was he by her that he even submitted to have the first letter of her name carved upon the door-post before his. Moreover, though Sir Francis died at Whitby, she would not permit him to be buried in his own church, but caused his body to be carried to Beverley, a place with which the Chomley family had no relations. There, in the church of St. Mary's, she laid him in his grave; but though she had vowed he should be buried in “a place where never a Chomley should set his foot on,” her purpose was afterwards frustrated, “as it were by Divine Providence,” piously observes Sir Hugh. After the death of Sir Francis, his widow married a man of mean quality, to whom she gave all the land which her late husband had settled upon her.
Sir Francis Chomley having died childless, his half-brother, Henry, became heir to the estates. Previous to the death of Sir Francis, Henry had married Sir William Babthorpe's daughter. The lady being a Roman Catholic, and the husband and wife living then at Whitby, their house became a sort of receptacle for seminary priests coming from beyond the seas, and who landed frequently at that port. Sometimes as many as three or four of these gentry would come together; and as they generally made their appearance with but a scant supply of clothes and money, Sir Henry was accustomed to send them away, being so charged by his wife, with a great supply of all kinds of both necessary and superfluous garments. Thus those who entered the house in rags might be seen leaving it clad in scarlet and satin, and attended with men and horses, the better to disguise their profession. Sir Henry himself seems to have somewhat inclined to Catholicism, though he attended the services of the Reformed Church. His tendencies, and perhaps the imprudent conduct of his wife, often brought him into trouble. On several occasions he was not only called upon to pay heavy penalties, but had the grief of seeing his wife carried off, not merely once, but again and again, to prison, and kept there for a long time. However, as years passed by, his opinions underwent a change, and at last both he and his wife became not only Protestants, but very zealous ones too.
Sir Henry had shown by the liberal way in which he had treated the seminary priests that he was a man of generous nature. Nor was he a person to care very much about curbing his expenditure. Being, moreover, very nearly allied to the Earl of Cumberland, who loved him dearly, he frequented his company much, and was thereby led into expenses beyond what hismeans could afford. He was also much addicted to fleet hounds and horses; “vain, chargeable sports,” Sir Hugh terms them. Worst of all, he trusted too much to his servants in the management of his estates. The consequence was that in a very short time he fell into debt, and then, in order to free himself from his embarrassments, cast about for a way to cut off the entail. Although poor Sir Richard had thought he had so settled the succession that it would be impossible to alter it, yet by the cunning invention of the lawyers employed by Sir Henry the matter was effected. “Which shows,” says Sir Hugh, “that it is not good to be too solicitous in settling an estate or thinking to perpetuate a man's name and family, but leave it to succeeding Providence.” Still, notwithstanding that Sir Henry had sold much land, his debts were on the increase. At length he determined to turn over to his eldest son, Richard Chomley, the land which remained for the payment of his debts and the increase of his children's portions. Being much given to the pleasure of the chase he had always continued to hunt until, in the fifty-sixth year of his age, he fell from his horse while leaping a hedge. Tall and corpulent as he was, he was bruised to such a degree that he was never afterwards able to take any part in active life. So he removed from Roxby, where he had been residing for some years, and retired with his wife and family to York. There he continued to live until his death, which took place in the September of the year 1617.
Mr. Richard Chomley was about thirty-seven years old when his father died. At the early age of sixteen, Sir Henry, having then cut off the entail, had sent for his son from Cambridge and married him to Mistress Susanna Legard. The lady, who had lost her father and mother when quite a child, had been brought up by her cousin, Mrs. Hotham, mother to that unfortunate “yet truly honest and noble gentleman,” Sir John Hotham, who was beheaded by the Parliament of 1645. Mistress Susanna was two years older than her husband, and brought him a fortune of £2000 in ready money, which was considered a fair portion at the time. A lovely and gracious creature she appeared in the eyes of her boy husband. She was tall, slender, and of an elegant figure, her hair a bright chestnut, her eyes grey, and her face oval. She had, moreover, a complexion in which white and red were perfectly blended. But she had something even better than beauty and fortune for her dowry, for she was virtuous and religious. A loving wife too she proved, and one who soon acquired great influence over her husband. After the couple had been married about six weeks, Sir Henry, having regard to the bridegroom's tender years, thought fit to send him back to Cambridge. The young man, however, proved that he had a will of his own. He had not been persuaded to go more than half way on his journey before he turned restive and went back to his bride. Thenceforth he showed himself to be of an active spirit; and before he was twenty one years of age became implicated in several matters which caused his father no small trouble and anxiety. Among these was the affair of the rising of the Earl of Essex, in the forty-third year of Queen Elizabeth, which, says Sir Hugh, cost him £3000. A few years afterwards the fiery young man struck a gentleman in the Star Chamber, and had it not been for the intercession of friends and a liberal payment of money, would have lost the offending member of his body. Richard Chomley was a handsome young man, being exceedingly tall, slender, and well formed. While very young his complexion was so fair and his features so delicate that he was able to act the part of a woman in a comedy at Trinity College, Cambridge, with great applause. Later in life he became swarthy, which yet might be ascribed, thought Sir Hugh, ' rather to his riding in the sun and much using of field sports in his youth than to nature; for the skin of his body was passing white, and of a very smooth grain.' He had, moreover, "a most incomparable sweet breath insomuch as many times it might have been thought it had carried a perfume or sweet odoriferous smell with it. The hair of his head was of that loveliest shade, a chestnut's ruddy brown, and the ends of his locks curled and turned up very gracefully, without that frizzling which his father, Sir Henry's, was inclined to. His beard," continues Sir Hugh, "was of a yellowish-brown and thin upon the chin; his eyes grey; his face long, with a handsome Roman nose. His aspect also was very winning: he had a most manly and graceful presence." Nor was this all: he possessed a rare voice, sweet and strong. Nature had moreover endowed him with those graces which others endeavour to attain by art and practice. All these things rendered him famous among the fair sex. Great too was the valour he displayed on various occasions, especially in duels. These he had to fight pretty often, though never without provocation, for he was as far from giving offence as from taking it on slight causes, as will be seen from the following anecdote:--
“when Sir Richard was of about the age of twenty-three years (i.e., in 1603), coming to London, he went to see a play at Blackfriars, and coming late was forced to take a stool and sit on the stage as divers others did, and, as the custom was, between every scene stood up to refresh himself. Whilst he was in that posture, a young gallant, very brave, clapped himself upon Sir Richard's stool, which he conjecturing was only to ease the gentleman for a while, did not demand his seat; which the gallant perceiving, he began to laugh and sneer, saying, “here is a young gentleman I have not only put by his seat, but he takes it ve
ry patiently.” And so continued jesting and making sport, insomuch as the company took notice thereof. Whereupon Sir Richard said “Sir, is it not sufficient to do me an injury but you must boast of it?” and, whispering him in his ear , said, “If you be a gentleman follow me;” and presently Sir Richard went out. The gallant followed, and, coming to an open place close by, the gentleman said, “What do you mean?” Saith Sir Richard, “That you give me immediate satisfaction with your sword for the affront you have done me.” “Sir, replied the gallant, “I have no sword.” “Then buy one, saith Sir Richard. But I have no money about me,” quoth the gallant. “I will furnish you, saith Sir Richard. So carrying him to a cutler's shop close by, the gallant turned over many, but could find none to please him, insomuch as Sir Richard offered his own, and would take any other. But neither did that please the gallant, who, whilst he there trifled away the time, his man came and brought with him a constable, and suddenly clasping his arms about Sir Richard's middle said, “Mr. Constable, lay hold on him: this is he; he will kill my lady's eldest son.” And the constable presently commanded him to keep the peace. Sir Richard, seeing himself surprised, said, “He meant the gentleman no harm, though he had done him an injury, of which,” said Sir Richard, “i will make you, Sir Constable, the judge.” And so, drawing the gallant out of the shop upon the pretence to relate the matter to the constable, as soon as they were in the street Sir Richard gave the gallant two or three good blows, and withal struck up his heels, and then turned to the constable and said, “I, Mr. Constable, promise you not to meddle further with my lady's eldest son.” So he was willing to be gone with his beating. And though a great gallant and gamester about the town, and one that much frequented the ordinaries and places where was then the most resort of company, he never appeared amongst them after.”
As soon as young Richard came of age he left his father's house where he and his wife had been living ever since their marriage, and went to board with his brother-in-law, Mr. Legard of Ganton. In 1608 he took up his abode at Whitby, where he gained the repute of being a wise man and great husbander of his property. By degrees he came to be looked upon as a person likely, not only to support, but to aggrandise his family. This doubtless he would have done had he not been drawn into various law suits, and had it not been for the death of his wife, which took place in 1611. This sad event plunged his domestic affairs into confusion, and occasioned him to break up his household. Having moreover, undertaken to pay some of his father's debts, and also his brothers' and sisters' portions, he resolved to live very quietly. Unhappily for him, his cousin, Lord Scroope, came to Yorkshire in the year 1619, in the capacity of Lord President of her Majesty's Council in the North, and Lord-Lieutenant of Yorkshire, Lord Scroope, soon after his arrival in the county, made Sir Richard Deputy-Lieutenant and one of the Council. Friendship and kindness increasing more and more between the two cousins, Sir Richard was drawn much to York, and his expenses proportionately increased. In the eighteenth year of King James's reign he was chosen burgess for Scarborough, and went with all his family to London; but being at the time in very indifferent health, he scarcely went half a dozen times to the Parliament House.