Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 41.djvu/183

 guineas, yet his income was more than 4,000l. a year. The second Earl of Clarendon wrote of him on 18 Jan. 1689: ‘I was at the Temple with Mr. Roger North and Sir Charles Porter, who are the only two honest lawyers I have met with.’ He entered parliament as member for Dunwich in 1685, and voted against the court party on the question of the ‘dispensing power.’ Of course, he was a strong supporter of his brother Dudley's measure for putting a tax of a halfpenny a pound on tobacco and sugar, and when the house went into committee of supply on 17 Nov. 1685 he was appointed chairman. On the death of the lord keeper, Roger North seems to have been oppressed by a kind of despair. Perhaps he saw too clearly what was coming, and felt himself powerless to face the revolution which he felt was inevitable. With the accession of Jeffreys to the chancellorship, Roger North gradually found that his attendance in the court of chancery became more and more intolerable, and his practice, though still large, fell off. He was much engaged at this time, too, in the business which had been forced upon him as executor to the lord keeper, and the still more troublesome and arduous duties, which he discharged with much pains and labour, as executor of Sir Peter Lely. These latter occupied a large portion of his time for more than seven years. When the revolution came all hopes of advancement in his profession passed from him. As early as 1684 he had been talked of as likely to succeed to a judgeship; but with Jeffreys as chancellor there could be no expectation of any such career. By the accession of William of Orange he was practically shelved. He was a staunch and conscientious nonjuror, and he accepted the condition of affairs as final as far as he himself was concerned. In 1690 he purchased an estate at Rougham in Norfolk, which is still the residence of his descendants, who have inherited it in the direct line. Almost before he entered into possession of this property he found himself with six nephews and a niece, the children of his three elder brothers, more or less upon his hands. The lord keeper's sons were his wards. By the death of his eldest brother, Charles, lord North and Grey, leaving two sons and a daughter almost entirely unprovided for, it devolved upon him to see that some education and maintenance should be secured for them; and when Sir [q. v.] died in 1691, Roger North became the guardian of the two sons, Dudley and Roger. He had his hands full of family business during the next few years. He set himself to build a new mansion on his Rougham estate, and in the meantime retained his chambers at the Temple and spent some of his time in London. Montagu North, who had been kept as a prisoner of war at Toulon for three years, was released in 1693, and from that time made his home at Rougham, and became the inseparable companion of his brother till his death in 1709. In 1696 Roger North married Mary, daughter of Sir Robert Gayer of Stoke Pogis, Buckinghamshire, a stiff and furious jacobite, who had been made a knight of the Bath in 1661 at the coronation of Charles II. With this lady he obtained a considerable accession of fortune. From the time he took up his residence at Rougham till his death he lived the life of a country gentleman, taking no part in politics, and not being even in the commission of the peace. He had, however, no lack of resources, and his time did not hang heavily on his hands. He was an accomplished and enthusiastic musician. His very interesting ‘Memoires of Musick, being some Historico-critticall Collections on that Subject 1728,’ written for his own amusement during retirement, were first made known to the world through the extracts given by Dr. Burney in the third volume of his ‘General History of Musick.’ Burney obtained the information from North's eldest son. The manuscript finally came into the possession of Robert Nelson of Lynn, through whose means it was placed at the disposal of Dr. Rimbault. The latter edited it in 1846, with elaborate notes and a brief memoir of the author. The ‘Memoires’ are both valuable and curious, giving a fair sketch of the development of music under Charles II, some account of the rise of opera in England, and biographical notes respecting John Jenkins the lutenist, Matthew Locke, Thomas Baltzar, and Sir Roger L'Estrange, who, like himself, was nicknamed ‘Roger the Fiddler.’ Among Roger North's additions and improvements at Rougham Hall was a music-gallery sixty feet long, for which he had an organ built by Father Smith. This organ is still preserved in Dereham Church. North also collected works of art, some of which are still preserved at Rougham Hall; he planted largely, bred horses, went into various agricultural experiments, got together a large collection of books, which he meant to serve as a library of reference for the clergy of the neighbourhood; he spent many hours of the day with his pen in his hand, and a large mass of his manuscripts are still preserved in the British Museum, comprising his correspondence, miscellaneous notes on questions of law, philosophy, music, architecture, and history. These are rather the jottings of a student amusing himself by putting his impressions