Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 20.djvu/53

Fortescue pt. ii. p. 65;, Swyncombe, p. 401). In the same year he twice entertained King James; in May at Hendon, and in June, with Queen Anne and Prince Henry, at Salden (, Progresses of James I, i. 165; , p. 402).

The election for Buckinghamshire in January 1604 gave rise to a serious constitutional struggle between the crown and the House of Commons. Fortescue was defeated in his candidature by Sir Francis Goodwin. When the writs were returned, the court of chancery at once declared that the election was void, on the ground that a judgment of outlawry had been passed against Goodwin, and on a second election Fortescue was returned, and took his seat in the parliament which met 19 March 1604. The question of this election was raised immediately after the meeting of the House of Commons, and after hearing Sir F. Goodwin the house decided in his favour. The lords then demanded a conference with the commons on the subject, declaring that they did so by the king's orders. The commons thereupon sent a deputation to wait upon the king, who asserted the right of the court of chancery to decide upon disputed returns; the commons, on the other hand, maintained their exclusive right to judge of the election of their own members, and after several interviews with the king, and a conference with the judges, James suggested a compromise, which was accepted by the House of Commons, that both Goodwin and Fortescue should be set aside and a new writ issued (Commons' Journal, i. 149-69). In February of the next year, 1605-6, Fortescue was returned for the county of Middlesex, for which he sat for the brief remainder of his life. He died in his seventy-fifth year, on 23 Dec. 1607, and was buried in Mursley Church, Oxfordshire.

Few men have more narrowly missed such fame as history can bestow than Fortescue. He held a considerable place in the government during one of the most eventful periods of English history. Although the greater part of his correspondence, preserved in the Record Office and at Hatfield, deals with official matters, there are a sufficient number of private letters to show that he counted among his friends such men as Burghley, Francis and Anthony Bacon, Raleigh and Essex, and that his assistance and good offices with the queen were constantly asked by persons of note and importance in the state. That he enjoyed in a high degree the confidence of Elizabeth is clearly evident from these letters, which serve to confirm the words which Lloyd attributes to her: 'Two men, Queen Elizabeth would say, outdid her expectation, Fortescue for integrity, and Walsingham for subtlety and officious services' (State Worthies, ed. 1670, p. 556). He had a considerable reputation for scholarship; Camden calls him ' an excellent man and a good Grecian' (Annales, ii. 27); while Lloyd speaks of him as 'a great master of Greek and Latin.' Among his friends was Sir Thomas Bodley, to whose newly founded library at Oxford he presented a number of books and several manuscripts.

Fortescue was twice married: first, to Cecily, daughter of Sir Edmund Ashfield; and secondly, to Alice, daughter of Christopher Smyth. By his first wife he had two sons, Sir Francis, K.B., and Sir William, and one daughter. The eldest son of Sir Francis was created a baronet of Nova Scotia in 1636. The direct male line of the house ceased with the death of Sir John, the third baronet, in 1717. The only portrait of Fortescue known to exist was, after long search, discovered by the late Lord Clermont. A copy of this picture was presented by him to the Bodleian Library, and two engravings of it are given in his family history.

[Lord Clermont's Hist. of the Family of Fortescue; Napier's Hist. Notices of the parishes of Swyncombe and Ewelme.]  FORTESCUE, (1670–1746). [See ]  FORTESCUE, NICHOLAS, the elder (1575?–1633), chamberlain of the exchequer, was the eldest son of William Fortescue of Cookhill, and grandson of Sir Nicholas Fortescue, groom porter to Henry VIII, to whom the Cistercian nunnery of Cookhill, on the borders of Worcestershire and Warwickshire, was granted in 1542. Fortescue, who was throughout his life a zealous Roman catholic, for several years harboured at Cookhill the Benedictine monk, David Baker [q. v.] In 1605, after the Gunpowder plot and the rising of the Roman catholics of Warwickshire, Fortescue underwent several examinations, and fell under some suspicion on account of a large quantity of armour found in his house. His name appears twice in the 'Calendar of State Papers' in connection with the plot. A letter from Chief-justice Anderson and Sheriff Warburton to the privy council states that Fortescue of Warwickshire, though summoned to appear before them, had not come forward to be examined. A declaration by himself says that the armour in question has been in his house for five years, and adds that he has not seen Winter, the conspirator, for eight years, and was not summoned to join the rising in Warwickshire (Cal. State Papers, 1603-10, pp. 253, 304). He succeeded