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For three centuries
the Christian name of Peregrine has been a special favorite in the noble
house of the Berties, formerly Dukes of Ancaster, and now Earls of
Lindsey. The name, as every fourth-form schoolboy knows, denotes a
'foreigner' or 'traveler;' and it is familiar to English ears also in
it's abridged and disguised shape of 'pilgrim.'
Most fancies have a
reason, if one can only find it out; and there is good reason for the
fancy which the Berties have taken for the name of Peregrine; for it
commemorates an event in their family history of which they may well be
proud, though three centuries and more have passed since that event
occurred.
It appears from the
records of the College of Arms that, according to the Heralds' Visitation,
one Thomas Bertie, a gentleman of high birth, long pedigree, and great
accomplishments, a member of a family seated at Berstead or Bearsted, in
Kent, 'having a long tyme used himself to feates of armes,' was appointed
by King Henry VIII Captain or Governor of Hurst Castle, between
Southampton and the Isle of Wight. We know little of him personally, and
perhaps he did not hold his captaincy long enough to leave a name behind
him for any further I feates;' but by his wife, Alice Say, or Saye, he
left a son, Richard, who became a fellow of Corpus Christi College,
Oxford, was bred to the Bar, and became distinguished for his
accomplishments in an age when the young students of Lincoln's-Inn and the
Temple took part in plays, masques, and revels; and when even grave Lord
Chancellors and Keepers were not ashamed to 'lead
the brawls' at Christmastide in the Great Hall, which was decorated with
bright mistletoe and holly for the occasion.
In 1553 young Robert
Bertie carried off as his prize and married one of the belles of the
Court, the fair Mistress Katherine, Baroness Willoughby d'Ereshy in her
own right, as only daughter and the heir of William, last Lord Willoughby
of the ancient line, and also amply dowered with This world's goods, as
being the youthful widow of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, whose near
relation to the throne made the Tudor Queen Vary almost as furious at this
love-match as her sister Elizabeth was afterwards, whenever she found that
a Dudley or a Sidney had married without first asking her royal leave.
If Mr. Bertie had not
already imbibed some strong Protestant opinions from his wife, who was
much attached to her first husband's memory, the anger of the queen at his
presumption may have confirmed in him an idea that the Catholics were not
the most charitable people in the world; and probably his wife was not
slow in fanning such an idea into a flame. At all events, the pair thought
' discretion the better part of valor : and so, not long after their
marriage, which was sudden and secretly contrived, they quietly effected
their escape from London to Germany. Here and in Poland, to which they
extended their travels, they found plenty of persons in high positions,
and even in courts, who were well disposed to anyone who had a grievance
against that most unpopular of sovereigns, Mary Tudor.
But the story of the
flight abroad of this couple is styled by Sir Bernard Burke a 'romantic'
affair, and such indeed it was. It will be remembered that Charles
Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk, was one of the firmest and staunchest
friends of Archbishop Cranmer, and that his wife almost surpassed him in
zeal for the cause of the 'new religion.' At all events, at Grimsthorpe,
her seat in Lincolnshire, she kept as her domestic chaplain Dr. Latimer,
the same who, under Queen Mary, as Bishop of Worcester, died at the stake.
Finding, from sources of private information, that she and her new husband
were down on the Queen's 'Black List,' she resolved to steal a march on
the myrmidons of the law, and to find some excuse for a voluntary exile,
which she did not intend to be of brief duration. Accordingly, either at
Boston or at Lynn, the young couple secured berths on board a fishing
vessel which was bound for one of the ports in the Low Countries, taking
with them an infant daughter, named Susan, who afterwards married Reginald
Grey, Earl of Kent.
Though they passed the
perils of the sea without much difficulty, yet, on landing on the shores
of the Netherlands, they found themselves the objects of suspicion and
mistrust. Accordingly they went through a series of not very pleasant
adventures, and suffered much fatigue as they travelled on in disguise
from one city to another in the hopes of finding a retreat among some of
the Protestant princes of the petty states of Germany. At last, however,
they succeeded in finding a resting-place for the soles of their feet. At
Wesel, in the Duchy of Cleves, not far from the confluence of the Rhine
and the Lippe, in 1555, the duchess was
delivered of a son, to whom she and her husband gave the name of
Peregrine, for the reason stated above. Dugdale, who in the main follows
Hollinshead, says that, when they were refused a lodging at Wesel, they
were about to shelter themselves from the cold on a very bad and wintry
night in the porch of the great church, and to buy coals and wood, in
order to light a fire there, but that, on their way, Mr. Bertie heard two
youths talking Latin, and that he thereupon prevailed on them, being a
very fair scholar himself, to conduct them to a private lodging, where
they had the good luck to be recognized by a Mr. Peverel, a Protestant
minister, who caused them to be entertained in a style befitting their
rank.
It is probable that
they remained at Wesel for about two years, as in 1557 they journeyed on
into Poland, where they were duly installed by the ruling power in the
earldom of Crolan, in Samogitia, and had conferred on them full and
absolute power to rule and govern it in the king's name; and here they
stayed, apparently quite contented, until the death of Mary and the
consequent accession of Elizabeth prepared the way for their return to
England, which, under the new queen, soon declared for the Protestant
cause.
In the letters patent
by which Peregrine Bertie was subsequently naturalized, it is recited that
Richard Bertie, his father, had a license from Queen Mary to travel in
foreign lands. This is explained by Dugdale and Hollinshead, who say that
soon after his marriage Bishop Gardiner sent for him, and asked him
whether the duchess, his wife, was as ready now to set up the Mass as she
had been before to pull it down? The same authorities say that, supposing
the duchess would be in danger, her husband obtained the Queen's license
to travel, as if to collect some debts due from the Emperor of Germany to
the late Duke of Suffolk; and that he thereupon made his way to the
Continent, leaving the poor duchess to follow
after him in the best way she could, whether on board a fishing boat, as
related above, or by any other chance vessel. Be this as it may, there is
a note in Hollinshead recording the escape, though he
does not enter into details about it, and Miss Strickland passes over the
affair almost in silence.
Mr. Bertie and his
wife, on their return to England, stood high in favor at the Court of the
'Maiden Queen,' The young son, whom, in memory of his birth dining
their forced exile from England, his parents named Peregrine, grew up to
manhood as handsome and accomplished as his father had been before him;
and, on his mothers death, in 1580, he was summoned to Parliament as Lord
Willoughby. He proved himself one of the first soldiers of his time; and
Sir Robert Naunton speaks of him in his 'Fragmenta Regalia' as' one of the
Queen's first swordsmen and a great master of the military art'
He married a lady of the noble house of De Vere,
daughter of Henry eighteenth Earl of Oxford of that line, by whom he had a
son Robert, a soldier by profession, like his father, who claimed, though
without success, the earldom of oxford in right of his mother.
He was more fortunate in a claim which he preferred
to the office of Lord Great Chamberlain If England, which was allowed to
him, and which has descended to his present representative, the Lady
Willoughby d'Eresby, mother of Lord Aveland. He
was created Earl of Lindey, and made a Knight of the Garter; and at
the outbreak of the Civil War he was appointed
General-in-Chief of the Royal Forces, a division which be commanded at the
Battle of Edge Hill, where he fell.
His great grandson was raised to the Marquisate of Lindsey and the
Dukedom of Ancaster, titles which became extinct
early in the present century, when the Earldom of Lindsey passed to a
distant cousin, who was descended from a younger son of the second earl.
But in almost every generation down to the present time one of the sons of
the house of Bertie has borne the name of Peregrine.
Chapters From the Family Chests, 1887
Chapters From the Family Chest |
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