Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 08.djvu/267

 rals of England, conveyed the Duke of Brittany to a haven near St. Malo, the galleys laden with property were attacked by the French after the armed ships had entered; but Calveley, with his bowmen, forced the shipmaster to turn the vessel against his will to the rescue. ‘Through the manfull prowess of Sir Hugh the gallies were repelled, for, according to his wonted valiancie, he would not return till he saw all other in safetie.’ In July 1380 he was preparing to go abroad as part commander with Sir John Arundell of an expedition against Brittany. Twenty vessels, with Arundell and a thousand men, were lost in a storm. Calveley, with seven sailors only of his ship, was dashed upon the shore. He was now governor of Brest, and went with the Earl of Buckingham on his French expedition. The crusade undertaken against the adherents of Pope Clement did not commend itself to his judgment, but when his counsel was overruled, he fought vigorously for the policy adopted, and his successes lent it strength, until his troops were surprised in Bergues by the army of the French king in numbers so overpowering as to make resistance hopeless, and he withdrew. The dissatisfaction on the return to England at the failure of the expedition did not include any blame of Calveley. He had the patronage of the Duke of Lancaster, was governor of the Channel Islands, and had the enjoyment of the royal manor of Shotwick. The estate of Lea in Cheshire devolved upon him, 35 Edward III. His paternal estate, the profits of his various offices, and the booty produced by the kind of warfare in which he was long engaged, must have resulted in great wealth. He devoted a portion of his plunder to works of piety. In conjunction with his supposed brother, Sir Robert Knolles, and another famous freelance, Sir John Hawkwood, he is said to have founded a college at Rome in 1380. Six years later he obtained a royal license for appropriating the rectory of Bunbury, which he had purchased, for the foundation of a college with a master and six chaplains. The building was in progress in 1385, and was probably finished at the date of the founder's death on the feast of St. George in 1393. He was buried in the chancel of his college, and his effigy in complete armour may still be seen on one of the finest altar-tombs in his native county. It is engraved in Lysons and in Ormerod. A tablet is suspended against the north wall, opposite to the monument of Calveley, recording a bequest by Dame Mary Calveley of 100l., the interest to be given to poor people frequenting the church on the condition of their cleaning the monument and chancel. Fuller states that Calveley ‘married the queen of Arragon, which is most certain, her arms being quartered on his tomb.’ On this it is only necessary to remark that the arms of Arragon are not quartered on the tomb, and Lysons has shown that there was no queen of Arragon whom Calveley could well have married. ‘It is most probable,’ says Ormerod, ‘that he never did marry, and it is certain that he died issueless.’

[Ormerod's History of Cheshire (ed. Helsby), ii. 766–9, 263; Fuller's Worthies of England (Cheshire); Lysons's Magna Britannia (Cheshire), 446, 542; Froissart's Chronicles (ed. Johnes), i. 371, 651, 666, 694, 734; Archæologia, vi. 148; Holinshed's Chronicles; W. H. Ainsworth's Ballads contain a translation of a Breton lai on the fight of the thirty published by J. A. C. Buchon in his Collection des Chroniques. Buchon first published Froissart's narrative of the battle in 1824, and afterwards included it in his edition of Froissart.]  CALVER, EDWARD (fl. 1649), poet, was a puritan; the inscription under his portrait describes him as a ‘Gent. of Wilbie, in the county of Suffolk.’ It is said that he was a relation of Bernard Calver, or Calvert, of Andover, who went from Southwark to Calais on 17 July 1620, and back again the same day. His works are: 1. ‘Passion and Discretion, in Youth and Age,’ London, 1641, 4to. The work is divided into two books, the second of which is preceded by a prose epistle to his friend and kinsman, Master John Strut. The work is written in a plain and serious style, and abounds in pious and moral reflections on the passions, expressed in tame and prosaic language. The copy in the Grenville library has four appropriate plates, by Stent, which are rarely met with. 2. ‘Divine Passions, piously and pathetically expressed, in three books,’ London, 1643, 4to. 3. ‘Englands Sad Posture; or, A true Description of the present Estate of poore distressed England, and of the lamentable Condition of these distracted times, since the beginning of this Civill and unnaturall Warr. Presented to the Right Honourable, Pious, and Valiant Edward Earle of Manchester,’ London, 1644, 8vo. With portraits of the Earl of Manchester, engraved by Cross, and of the author, engraved by Hollar. 4. ‘Calvers Royal Vision; with his most humble addresses to his majesties royall person,’ in verse, London, 1648, 4to. 5. ‘Englands Fortresse, exemplified in the most renowned and victorious, his Excellency the Lord Fairfax. Humbly presented unto his Excellency by E. C., a lover of peace,’ a eulogium in verse, London, 1648, 8vo. 6. ‘Zion's thankfull Echoes from the Clifts of Ireland. Of