Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 55.djvu/322

 at until 1586. On 8 May in that year the queen, by the advice of Leicester and the lord chancellor, drew up articles of a composition between the earl and his wife, but neither party was inclined to submit. Next month the earl wrote to Walsingham urging his suit for the banishment of his wife, 'now that she hath so openly manifested her devilish disposition. . .' in the defamation of his house and name. He also forwarded some notes of evidence to the effect that his countess had 'called him knave, fool, and beast to his face, and had mocked and mowed at him' (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1581-90, pp. 451-55). In a bitter letter to his wife, in strains far different from those of his early letters, he reminds her how, when, as 'St. Loo's widow,' she was a byword for rapacity, he had covered those 'imperfections (by my intermarriage with you), and brought you to all the honours you now have.' Shortly after this the queen seems to have ultimately succeeded in patching up a kind of agreement between the pair (see Hatfield Papers, iii. 161 sq.)

The earl returned from London to Sheffield in July 1585, and thenceforth spent most of his time at his quiet manor of Hansworth, which stood within the boundary of Sheffield Park. There the queen wrote to him at the close of 1589 in terms of greater affection than it was her wont to use. After calling him her 'very good old man,' she desired to hear of his health, especially at the time of the fall of the leaf, and hoped that he might escape his accustomed enemy, the gout. At the same time she urged him to permit his wife 'some time to have access to him, which she hath now of a long time wanted' (State Papers, Dom. 1581-90, p. 636). It is not probable that he complied with this suggestion, as it appears that he had for some time past been in a 'doating condition,' having fallen under the absolute sway of one of his servants, Eleanor Britton, whose rapacity, says Hunter, ' equalled anything we have ever read of (Hallamshire, p. 97). Shrewsbury died at Sheffield Manor on Wednesday, 18 Nov. 1590, at seven in the morning. He was buried in Sheffield parish church on 10 Jan. 1591. Twenty thousand persons are said to have attended the funeral, at which three lost their lives. A sumptuous monument had been erected during the earl's lifetime, with a long Latin inscription by Foxe the martyrologist. The date and year of the earl's death are lacking, having never been supplied by the executors, 'whose neglect therein,' said Dugdale, ' he did prophetically foretel' (Baronage, i. 334, where the inscription is given in full, together with the provisions of the will, dated 24 June 1590).

By his first wife Shrewsbury had issue: Francis, lord Talbot, who married, in 1562, Anne, daughter of William Herbert, first earl of Pembroke [q. v.], but died in his father's lifetime; Gilbert Talbot, seventh earl [q. v.]; Henry; and Edward, who succeeded Gilbert as eighth earl; and three daughters; of these, Catherine (to whom Queen Elizabeth gave many tokens of friendship) married, in 1563, Henry, lord Herbert (afterwards second Earl of Pembroke [q. v.]); Mary married Sir George Savile of Barrowby, Lincolnshire; and Grace married Henry, son and heir of Sir William Cavendish of Chatsworth. By his second wife Shrewsbury had no issue.

[The chief authority is Shrewsbury's Correspondence. A large number of his letters to Burghley, Walsingham, Elizabeth, the Earl of Leicester, and others are given in Lodge's Illustrations of British History, London, 1838, vols. i. and ii.; others are contained in Murdin's Burghley Papers, London, 174J, and in Hunter's Hallamshire, ed. G-atty, 1669. See also Gr. E. C[okayne]'s Complete Peerage; Dugdale's Baronage, 1675; Labanoff's Lettres de Marie Stuart, London, 1844; Froude's History of England, vols. ix. xi.; Philippson's Ministerium unter Philipp II, 1895, p. 510; State Papers and Letters of Sir Ralph Sadler, ed. Clifford, 1809.] 

TALBOT, GILBERT, first  (1277?–1346), was born about 1277, being the eldest son of Richard de Talbot, the lord of certain manors in Gloucestershire and Herefordshire. His mother Sarah was a younger daughter of William Beauchamp, earl of Warwick. Talbot took part in Edward I's expedition into Scotland in 1293, and succeeded to his father's lands in 34 Edward I (1305–6). As a tenant of Earl Thomas of Lancaster [q. v.], and as a kinsman, through his mother, of the Earl of Warwick, he was among those who found it necessary to obtain a pardon for their share in the death of Gaveston (Parl. Writs, ii. 68). He took part, as a follower of William de la Zouche, in the expedition against Scotland in 1319. Early in 1322 he was among the barons who were in arms against the Despensers, and attacked and burnt Bridgenorth (ib. ii. 174–5). On Edward II's approach he and the others fled northwards to Thomas, earl of Lancaster (, p. 36). He was captured at Boroughbridge on 17 March, but was allowed to purchase his pardon by a fine of 2,000l. and a promise of one tun of wine annually to the king (Parl. Writs, ii. 213). On 10 Oct. he was empowered to pursue and arrest Robert le Ewer and his accomplices