Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 20.djvu/52

 more to the fact that he was second cousin once removed to Elizabeth, through the marriage of his grandfather, Sir John Fortescue of Punsborne, to Alice, daughter of Sir Geoffrey Boleyn and great-aunt of Anne Boleyn. The same marriage brought Fortescue into kinship one degree more distant with Robert Devereux, earl of Essex, who in his letters invariably addresses him as his ‘loving cosen.’ In one of these letters (Add. MSS. Brit. Mus. 4119), undated, but no doubt written in 1596, the Earl of Essex asks Fortescue's interest on behalf of the appointment of Francis Bacon to the mastership of the rolls.

On the accession of Queen Elizabeth, Fortescue was appointed keeper of the great wardrobe (Patent Rolls, 1 Eliz. pt. vii. m. 10). The great or standing wardrobe was situated in Blackfriars, near Carter Lane. It contained, in addition to a collection of armour and royal costumes, a large number of state documents and papers, as well as a house in which Fortescue, when in London, resided during the whole reign of Elizabeth (, Survey, vol. i. bk. iii. p. 224). Here, in addition to his ordinary guests, he had, like other statesmen of the period, to act on occasion as host or gaoler to state prisoners, a duty which he seems to have found peculiarly burdensome, as he complains several times in his letters to Burghley of the unfitness of his house for such a purpose. Fortescue entered parliament for the first time in 1572, when he was returned for the borough of Wallingford. He sat in every subsequent parliament during the reign of Elizabeth as member first for the borough and afterwards for the county of Buckingham, until the parliament of 1601, when he was returned for Middlesex (Return of Members of Parliament, pt. i.) His name hardly occurs as a speaker in D'Ewes's ‘Journal’ until 1589, after which date he seems to have spoken frequently in the House of Commons, chiefly, however, in his capacity of chancellor of the exchequer, in proposing subsidies, suggesting means of taxation, or expressing the wishes or commands of the queen. In the midst of graver matters he appears once as an advocate of parliamentary propriety, when, on 27 Oct. 1597, three days after the meeting of parliament, he ‘moved and admonished that hereafter no member of the house should come into the house with their spurs on, for offending of others’ (, Journal, ed. 1693, p. 550). On the death of Sir Walter Mildmay in 1589, Fortescue succeeded him in the office of chancellor of the exchequer and under-treasurer, and was sworn a member of the privy council (, Annales, ii. 27). The office of chancellor of the exchequer was an exceedingly lucrative one. A curious account of his sources of official income exists in a paper drawn up after his death, endorsed ‘Sir John Fortescue's meanes of gaine, by Sir Richard Thekstin, told me, 26 Nov. 1608’ (Add. MS. Brit. Mus. 12497, f. 143). It appears from this paper that Fortescue received from the queen a number of grants of land in several counties, leases in reversion of great value, and sinecure places, and from Burghley ‘many advantageous imployments in the custom-house,’ and other means of enriching himself. After a few years of office he grew to be a remarkably wealthy man, bought large estates in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, maintained a retinue of sixty or seventy servants, and lived in much state. He built on his estate of Salden a house of great size and beauty at an expense of some 33,000l., equal to not less than 120,000l. at the present day. He also bought or hired the manorhouse of Hendon, where he principally resided during the sitting of parliament, and he possessed a house in Westminster in addition to his official residence in Blackfriars. In November 1601 he was appointed chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, so that he held during the remainder of the queen's lifetime three offices of importance at the same time. He also served upon a number of commissions, notably upon all those which concerned jesuits or seminary priests, and sat as a member of the Star-chamber, and as an ecclesiastical commissioner (, vol. vii.). After the death of Elizabeth, Osborne (Works, ed. 1701, p. 379) relates that Fortescue, with Lord Cobham, Sir Walter Raleigh, and other members of the privy council, made some efforts to impose conditions upon James VI, apparently with a view to prevent his appointing an unlimited number of Scotchmen to office in England. The story is to a certain extent confirmed by Bishop Goodman, who says: ‘I have heard it by credible persons that Sir John Fortescue did then very moderately and mildly ask whether any conditions should be proposed to the king’ (Court of King James, 1839, p. 14). According to Osborne, Lord Cobham and the others were ‘all frowned upon after by the king,’ but in Fortescue's case no very serious results followed. He was, it is true, deprived of the most important of his offices, the chancellorship of the exchequer, which was bestowed upon Sir George Home, created Earl of Dunbar; but he received on 20 May 1603 a new patent for life of the chancellorship of the duchy of Lancaster, and was continued in his office of master of the great wardrobe by patent of 24 May 1603 (, vol. vii.