Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/99

Armine  players in 1598, and to have accompanied them, to Scotland in the following year. In 1608 he published a work called 'A Nest of Ninnies' (reprinted by the Shakspeare Society), and in 1609, styling himself 'servant to the King's most excellent Majesty,' he printed a play: 'The Two Maids of More Clacke, with the Life and simple manner of John in the Hospital,' as it was acted by 'the children of the King's Majesty's Revels.' Armin is enumerated as one of the original representatives of Ben Jonson's 'Alchemist' in 1610. From a passage in Armin's next tract, 'The Italian Tailor and his Boy,' 1609, it has been concluded that Armin had played the part of Dogberry, succeeding to that duty upon the death or the departure from the Lord Chamberlain's players of William Kemp, the original Dogberry. About 1611 John Davies of Hereford published his 'Scourge of Folly,' in which a long 'epigram' was devoted to 'honest gamesome Kobin Armin,' and testimony was borne to the worth of his private character, and the excellence of his public performances. In 1615 was published a play, the 'Valiant Welshman,' purporting to have been written by R. A.: the publisher may have wished the public to infer that Robert Armin was the author. The date of his death is not known. The London parish registers have been vainly searched for evidence of his burial. Apparently he left no will, nor were there issued any letters of administration of his estate.

[Memoirs of the Principal Actors in the Plays of Shakespeare, by J. Payne Collier, 1846; Langbaine's Account of the English Dramatic Poets, 1691.]  ARMINE or ARMYNE, MARY (d. 1675–6), remarkable for her learning, piety, and benevolence, was the daughter of Henry Talbot, fourth son of George, sixth Earl of Shrewsbury, and second wife of Sir, baronet, of Osgodby, Lincolnshire [q. v.]. Her first husband was Thomas Holcroft, Esq. Lady Mary's accomplishments included a good knowledge of French and Latin, and wide reading in divinity and history. Her business capacity is applauded at length by her biographer, and her personal beauty and activity, which characterised her old age no less remarkably than her youth, were frequently commented on by her contemporaries. She devoted her wealth to many charitable objects. At the time of the 'ejection of the two thousand' ministers' on the fatal Bartholomew day [1662] she gave 500l. to Mr. Edm. Calamy, to be distributed among the most indigent and necessitous families of them,' and the 'godly ministers' seldom appealed to her in vain for assistance in pecuniary difficulties. She took a similarly practical interest in the missionaries engaged in converting the Indians of North America. At home, she founded three hospitals, one at Barton Grange, in Yorkshire, and by her will left 40l. per annum to be applied to charitable purposes for ninety-nine years. She died 6 March 1675-6, over eighty years of age. Her portrait was painted by Cornelius Jansen, and is now at Welbeck. An elegy 'upon the much-lamented death of the truly honourable, very aged, and singularly pious lady, the Lady Mary Armine' was written by John Sheffield, afterwards Duke of Buckinghamshire.

[Samuel Clarke's Lives of sundry Eminent Persons in this Late Age (1683); Wilford's Lives of Eminent Persons; Granger's Biographical History, iv. 175.]  ARMINE, RICHARD. [See .]  ARMINE, WILLIAM. [See .]  ARMINE, or ARMYNE, WILLIAM (1593–1651), parliamentarian, was the son of Sir William Armine of Osgodby, Lincolnshire, where he was born 11 Dec. 1593. The family was of Yorkshire origin, and has been traced to one Sewal de Armyne, stated to be the grandfather of Richard and William de Ayreminne [q. v.], the well-known ecclesiastics of the fourteenth century. The father of our Sir William was M.P. for Grantham in 1588-89, was sheriff of Lincolnshire in 1603, when he was knighted (23 April) by James I, and died at the age of sixty on 22 Jan. 1620-21. The son was created a baronet on 28 Nov. 1619 on payment of 1,095l., married a fortnight afterwards Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Michael Hicks, Knight, and was in 1620 holding the office of sheriff of Huntingdonshire. He was returned as M.P. for Boston in 1621 and 1624, as M.P. for Grantham in 1625, and as M.P. for the county of Lincoln in 1626, 1628, and 1641. In May 1626 he was one of the assistants to the managers of Buckingham's impeachment. In March 1626-7 he was appointed a commissioner for the collection of the arbitrary loan in Lincolnshire, and on his refusal to lend or enter into bond for his appearance before the council was committed to prison in the Gatehouse, Westminster; he was released, at the same time as John Hampden, early in the following year (Cal. Dom. State Papers, 1627-8, p. 81; 