Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/378

 372

NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. n. NOV. 4, 1916.

and his speech defending himself from various' cliarges of ill-faith towards the Parliament, delivered on July 14, is well worth study (ibid., p. 426). The point of immediate interest, however, is a communication to him by Sir Francis Drake from Buckland (Devon) of the following Sept. 10, saying :

" I intend this evening to send your letters to your town of Newport, which takes your remembrance for a great favour " (Ibid., p. 462).

This letter, I think, supplies a key to the mystery hitherto surrounding Perceval's return for that remote Cornish borough. For who was Sir Francis Drake ? He was the second baronet, and was at that time re-possessed of the neighbouring estate of Wt-rrington (which up to the present generation dominated the Parliamentary represeritation of the now disfranchised boroughs of Launceston and Newport) after it had temporarily been taken from the Drake family by Sir Richard (" Skellum ") Gren- ville in the Royalist interest in 1645-6 ; and he acquired the manor of Newport in 1650 (Lady Eliott Drake, 'Family and Heirs of Sir Francis Drake,' vol. i. p. 208). He was one of those moderate Presbyterians with whom Perceval politically was allied, though, unlike the latter, he throughout had been openly faithful and even zealous in the Puritan cause ; and he was closely associated, both in public and private affairs, with Sir William Morice, Charles II. 's Secretary of State, who bought Werrington from him, the two working together though Morice in the far superior role for the Restoration (ibid., pp. 420-21). Drake, therefore, was the dominating figure in Newport's electoral affairs at the date of Perceval's election in 1647, as he was the next year, when, because of that representative's death, William Prynne, a politician of the same " stripe," was elected. Drake himself was returned for Newport to the Convention in 1660, and again to the " Pension Parliament " of 1661 ; but he died on Jan. 6, 1662, adhering to the last to his moderate views. He had been in favour of the Parliament's cause on its original lines, as his work on the Devonshire Committee attested early in the Civil War ; and in his will he made a bequest to his " noble friend and kinsman, Sir John Maynard " (ibid., p. 433), a predecessor in Newport's representation, and always an illustrious confessor of liberty. Thus it is to the special interest of Drake, therefore, that I should now attribute Perceval's brief and i stormy Parliamentary appearance for a Cornish constituency.

ALFRED F. ROBBINS.

CERTAIN GENTLEMEN OF THE

SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

(12 S. ii. 268.)

THE identification of many of these names must be partly a matter of conjecture, but I think we may safely assume that the funeral of the Earl of Shrewsbury would have been attended by the heads of the leading families in South Yorkshire and the neighbouring counties. On this basis the following notes may be of use to MAJOK LESLIE :

Lord Talbot. George (Talbot), Lord Talbot, eldest son of the Earl of Shrewsbury,, who now succeeded his father as 6th Earl, was principal mourner at the funeral. Afterwards K.G. and Earl Marshal. One of the judges of Mary, Queen of Scots, and husband of the celebrated Bess of Hardwick- Died in 1590.

Lord Darcy of the North. This was probably John (Darcy), Lord Darcy de- Darcy '(1529-87), grandson of the Lord Darcy who was " Warden of the Scotch Marshes," and Governor of Bamburgh Castle. There was at the same time another Lord Darcy, of an Essex family of that name.

Sir William Vavasour. This may have been Sir William Vavasour of Haslewood,. who was knighted at Flodden, and was High Sheriff of Yorkshire in 1564.

Sir Gervase Clifton. A member of a Nottinghamshire family whose pedigree wil) be found in vol. iv. of the Harleian Society's publications, p. 16.

Sir John Neville. High Sheriff of York- shire in 1561, was convicted of nigh treason in 1569, and his estates confiscated. See Foster's ' Yorkshire Pedigrees.'

Sir Thomas Eton. In the account of the funeral printed in Gatty's edition of Hunter's ' Hallamshire ' he is called " Mr. Thomas Eton, and is said to have carried the standard. He may have been the Thomas Etton or Eyton, of Eyton in Shropshire., whose great - grandmother was Katherine,. daughter of a former Earl of Shrewsbury.

Nicholas Longford, of Longford, co. Derby ; Francis Rolleston of Lea ; and Peter Frechvill of Staveley, were the heads of their respective families at the Visitation of Derbyshire in 1569. This is printed in The Genealogist, New Series, vols. vii. and viii.

Arthur Copley. The Copleys were settled at Batley and Sprotborough in Yorkshire, but the name Arthur does not seem to occur in the family. The head of the Batley branch in 1560 was an Alvery Copky.