LORD MOUNTJOY. My Lord Mountjoy was of the ancient nobility, but utterly deceived in the support thereof; Patrimony, through his grandfather's excess in the action of Bullen, his father's vanity in the search of the philosophers-stone, and his brother's untimely prodigalities, * all which seemed, by a joint conspiracy, to ruin the house, and altogether to annihilate it. As he came from Oxford, he took the Inner-Temple in his way to court; whither no sooner came, but, without asking, he had тит. * "In his childhood, when his parents would have his picture, he chose to be drawn with a trowel in his hand, and this motto, Ad reædificandam antiquam DoFor this noble and ancient barony was decayed, not so much by his progenitors prodigality, as his father's obstinate addiction to the study and practice of alchemy, by which he so long laboured to increase his revenues, till he had almost fully consumed them." Fyne's Morrison's Journal of Tyrone's Rebellion. * a pretty strange kind of admission, which I have heard from a discreet man of his own, and much more of the secrets of those times. He was then much about twenty years of age, of a brown hair, a sweet face, a most neat composure, and tall in his person. The Queen was then at Whitehall and at dinner, whither he came to see the fashion of the court; the Queen had soon found him out, and, with a kind of an affected frown, asked the Lady Carver what he was; she answered she knew him not, insomuch as an inquiry was made from one to another who he might be, till at length it was told the Queen, he was brother to the Lord William Mountjoy. This inquisi * Morrison describes him as tall, and of very comely proportion, his complexion fair, though his hair was almost black, "his forehead broad and high, his eyes great, black, and lovely, his nose somewhat low and short, and a little blunt in the end, his chin round, his cheeks full, round, and ruddy, his countenance chearful, and as amiable as ever I beheld of any man." Morrison's Journal. This was a picture to suit the taste of the "Maiden Queen," a distinguished connoisseur in male beauty. tion, with the eye of majesty fixed upon him, as she was wont to do, and to daunt men she knew not, stirred the blood of this young gentleman, insomuch, as his colour came and went, which the Queen observing, called him unto her, and gave him her hand to kiss, encouraging him with gracious words and new looks; and so diverting her speech to the lords and ladies, she said, that she no sooner observed him, but that she knew there was in him some noble blood, with some other expressions of pity towards his house; and then again demanding his name, she said, fail you not to come to the court, and I will bethink myself how to do you good : and this was his inlet, and the beginnings of his grace; where it falls into consideration, that though he wanted not wit and courage, for he had very fine attractions, and being a good piece of a scholar, yet were they accompanied with the retractives of bashfulness, and a natural modesty, which, as the tone of his house, and the ebb of his fortune then stood, might have hindered his progression, had they not been reinforced by the infusion of sovereign favour, and the Queen's gracious invitation. And that it may appear how low he was, and how much that heretic necessity will work in the dejection of good spirits, I can deliver it with assurance, that his exhibition was very scant until his brother died, which was shortly after his admission to the court; and then was it no more than a thousand marks per annum, wherewith he lived plentifully in a fine way and garb, and without any great sustentation during all her times; and as there was in his nature a kind of backwardness which did not befriend him, nor suit with the motion of the court, so there was in him an inclination to arms, with a humour of travelling and gadding abroad, which had not some wise men about him laboured to remove, and the Queen herself laid in her commands, he would, out of his natural propension, have marred his own market; for as he was grown by reading, whereunto he was much addicted, to the theory of a soldier, so was he strongly invited by his genius to the acquaintance of the practice of the war, which were the causes of his excursions; for he had a company in the Low-Countries, from whence he came over with a noble acceptance of the Queen; but somewhat restless, in honourable thoughts he exposed himself again and again, and would press the Queen with the pretences of visiting his company so often, that at length he had a flat denial; and yet he stole over with Sir John Norris into the action of Brittany, which was then a hot and active war, whom he would always call his father, honouring him above all men, and ever bewailing his end; so contrary he was in his esteem and valuation of this great commander to that of his friend my Lord of Essex; till at last the Queen began to take his decessions for contempts, and confined his residence to the court and her own |
