Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 3.djvu/521

 CRAVEN 501 devoted himself to the relief of sufferers.(*) Col. of a regt. of Foot, 1 662. A Lord Proprietor of Carolina, 1663. C) On 16 Mar. (1664/5) '7 Car II he was cr. VISCOUNT CRAVEN OF UFFINGTON, Berks, and EARL OF CRAVEN, CO. York, receiving also an extension of the title of BARON CRAVEN OF HAMPSTED MARSHALL, Berks, to William Craven, C') s. and h. of Sir William C. of Lenchwick, co. Worcester, deed, with rem. to Sir Anthony Craven,('=) br. of the said Sir William C. of Lenchwick, in like manner. Finally, on 11 Dec. 1666, he received a further extension of the title of BARON CRAVEN OF HAMPSTED MARSHALL, Berks, to Sir William Craven,(<=) s. of Thomas C. (another br. of the said Sir Anthony C. abovenamed) in like manner. P.C. 1 1 Apr. 1666 till 21 Apr. 1679, and 9 Mar. 1 680/1 till Feb. 1688/9. High Steward of Cambridge Univ., 1667 till his death; Col. of the Coldstream Guards, 1670-89; Master of the Trinity House, 1670-71; Lord Lieut, of Midx. and Southwark, 1670-89; a commissioner for the government of Tangier, 1673; Lieut. Gen. 1678-89. When the Dutch troops came to take possession of the guard at St. James's and Whitehall, 27 Dec. 1687, he refused to lead off his troops till authorised by King James so to do. Under the new reign, having always been a staunch Tory, he was deprived of his regiment and his other appointments. He d. aged 88 years and 10 months, at his house in Drury lane, 9 Apr. 1697, unm., when all his honours, save the Barony conferred in 1666, became extinct. He was bur. at Binley, near Coventry. Will, dat. 4 July 1689 to 7 July 1691, pr. 11 Apr. 1697. ("^) (*) He gave a piece of land " wherein some thousand of corpses " of those that died of the plague, were buried. It was near Carnaby Str., Golden Sq. It was ex- changed for a field in Paddington, called Craven Hill, to be used for a like purpose if a like plague should occur, which, again, in 1845 was exchanged for lands further off. ('') On 24 Mar. 1663, Charles II, by charter "granted to Edward, Earl of Clarendon, George, Duke of Albemarle, William, Lord Craven, John, Lord Berkeley, and others their heirs and assigns," all the tract of land in North America commonly called Carolina, to be held of the Crown of England as a County Palatine. {Hist. MSS. Com., House of Lords MSS., vol. vi, N.S. pp. 406-7). The Chief or President of these proprietors was known as Lord Palatine. V.G. ("^) See tabular pedigree. C) In the Ferney Papers he is referred to as " Little Lord Craven, whose bounty makes him the subject of every man's discourse." In a letter of Sir Nathaniel Hobart he is thus described: "His wealth is his greatest enemy and yet his only friend. It begets in his inferiors a disguised friendship, in his equals envy. His vanity makes him accessible to the one, the meanness of his birth, person and parts, contemptible to the other; and though in those great ones envy may be the true motive, yet his many follies rendering him obnoxious to a just censure, that passes away unseen." His hum- ble origin is mentioned in England and the English, by Price Collier, 1 9 10, where the writer says: — "The Dukes of Leeds trace back to a clothworker; the Earls of Radnor to a Turkey merchant; the Earls of Craven to a tailor; the families of Dartmouth, Ducie, Pomfret, Tankerville, Dormer, Romney, Dudley, Fitzwilliam, Cooper, Leigh, Darnley, Hill, Normanby, all sprang from London shops and counting-houses, and that not so very long ago." He appears to have been ever ready to devote himself to the welfare of others, munificent in his gifts, and pre-eminently loyal. V.G.