rector of Mantby and Lyng in Norfolk, born August 20th,

1770.

Fourth, William, born August 13th, 1772, a colonel in the army, captain in the first regiment of foot-guards,

Fifth, Henry, in holy orders, M. A. born December 19th, 1773, rector of Oxmead and Swanton Abbots in Norfolk, and vicar of Buxton in Norfolk.

Sixth, Edward, born April 25, 1775, a captain in the Royal Staffordshire militia.

Seventh, Sambrook, born February 18th, 1779, a lieut.-colonel in the army, and captain in the first regiment of foot-guards.

Eighth, Frederic, born March 23d, 1779, in holy orders, M.A. rector of Sudbury, and vicar of Marston in the county of Derby; married, in May 1807, the only daughter of the late Reverend Richard Levett, of Milford in the county of Stafford.

Ninth, Mary, born December 8th, 1763; married, January 22d, 1785, the late Sir Francis Ford, Bart. of the island of Barbadoes, and of Ember Court, in Surry.

Tenth, Anne, born February 22d, 1768; married Bell Lloyd, Esq. second son of Bell Lloyd, of Bodfach, in the county of Montgomery, and brother of Sir Edward Price Lloyd, Bart.

Eleventh, Catharine Juliana, born December 27th, 1780. THOMAS Anson, Esq. of Shugborough, eldest son, succeeded his father, and was elected in his father's room for Lichfield in 1789, which city he continued to represent till his elevation to the Peerage; to which he was raised on February 17th, 1806, by the titles of BARON OF SOBERTON, in the county of Southampton; and VISCOUNT ANSON, of Shugborough and Orgrave in the county of Stafford.

His Lordship was born February 17th, 1767, and married, September 15th, 1794, Anne-Margaret, second daughter of Thomas William Coke, of Holkham in Norfolk, Esq. member of parliament for that county, by Jane, sister to the present Lord Sherborne; and by her has had issue,

First, Thomas William, born October 20th, 1795.
Second, George, born October 13th, 1797.

Third, Charles Littleton.

Fourth, William, born February 26th, 1801.

Fifth, Henry, born May 15th, 1804.

Sixth, Edward, died an infant.

Seventh, Anne-Margaret, born October 3d, 1796.

Eighth, Georgina, died an infant.

Ninth, a daughter born in June 1807.

Tenth, a daughter, born October 20th, 1808.

Titles. Thomas Anson, Viscount Anson, and Baron Soberton. Creation. Viscount Anson, of Shugborough and Orgrave, com. Staff, and Baron of Soberton, February 17th, 1806.

Arms. Argent, three bends engrailed Gules, a crescent for difference.

Crest. Out of a ducal coronet, Or, the top of a spear, Argent. Supporters, On the dexter side, a seahorse, Argent, on the sinister, a lion guardant, collared.

Motto. NIL DESPERANDUM.

Chief Seat. Shugborough, & Staffordshire.

See a print and description of it in Pennant's Journey to London.

LAKE, VISCOUNT LAKE.

ALMARIC LAKE, or Du Lake, of Southampton, had two sons.
First, Sir Thomas, of whom presently.

Second, Arthur Lake, who was born in St. Michael's parish in that town, and educated for a time in the free-school there, whence he was transplanted to Wykeham's school; and thence elected Probationer Fellow of New College, Oxford; and after two years made perpetual fellow, in 1589. Five years afterwards he proceeded in arts, entered into holy orders, was made Fellow of Wykeham's College at Winchester, bout 1600; and three years afterwards appointed master of the hospital of St. Cross, in the place of Dr. Robert Bennet, promoted to the See of Hereford. In 1605, he was installed Archdeacon of Surry. In April 1608, he was made Dean of Bristol in the room of Dr. James Montague, promoted to the See of Bath and Wells; and at length himself BISHOP OF BATH AND WELLS, to which he was consecrated at Lambeth, December 8th, 1616.

In all these places of honour and employment, he carried himself the same in mind and person, shewing by his constancy that his virtues were virtues indeed; in all kinds of which, whether natural, moral, theological, personal, or pastoral, he was eminent, and one of the examples of his time. He always lived a single man, exemplary in his life and conversation, and very hospitable. He was also well read in the Fathers and Schoolmen, and had such a command of the Scripture, (which made him one of the best preachers), that few went beyond him in his time.

He was author of some posthumous publications, collected into a volume, entitled "Sermons with religious and divine Me

ditations, London, 1629, fol. Besides ten Sermons on several occasions, 1641, 4to. He died in 1626, and was buried in an isle on the north side of the choir of Wells cathedral. Over his grave was soon after laid a flat stone, neither marble nor free, with this engraven on a brass plate affixed to it:

"Here lieth Arthur Lake, Doctor in Divinity, late Bishop of Bath and Wells, who died on the 4th of May, 1626.” a

Sir THOMAS LAKE, of Cannons, com. Middlesex, his elder brother, was born at Southampton, bred a scholar, and afterwards taken into the service of Sir Francis Walsingham, Secretary of State, as his amanuensis. By him he was recommended to Queen Elizabeth, to whom he read French and Latin. A little before her death she made him clerk of her Signet; and after her death he was sent by the state in that capacity to attend King James I. from Berwick. That monarch soon afterwards employed him in French affairs, and knighted him. After Sir Robert Cecil, (Salisbury) attained the administration of affairs, the place of Secretary of State was divided into two; and Sir Thomas Lake was appointed to one of them; " and so continued," says A. Wood, “with honourable esteem of all men, till malice and revenge, two violent passions, overruling the weaker sex, b

a Wood's Ath. Ox. vol i. p. 604, 605.

b Lord Roos, in February 1616, married Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Lake, principal Secretary of State; and in July of the same year his title of Lord Roos, which had been disputed by the Earl of Rutland, was adjudged in his favour. He returned from Spain in March, 1616-17, and in August following secretly withdrew himself out of England, leaving his estate in great disorder, after having sent a challenge to his brother-in-law. Arthur Lake; and though he was required by the lords of the council to return, refused to comply with their order.*

Saunderson, who was secretary to Lord Roos, in his embassy to Spain, gives the following account of the dispute between Frances, the old Countess of Exeter, and the Lake family, to which I have alluded.

"Sir Thomas Lake's daughter marrying Lord Roos, this Baron upon Lake's credit was sent ambassador extraordinary into Spain 1611, in a very gallant equipage, with hopes of his own to continue longer, to save charges of transmitting any other.

"In his absence here fell out a deadly feud ('tis no matter for what) between the Lady Lake, and her daughter's step-mother the Countess of

VOL. VI.

Birch's Life of Prince Henry, p. 213---215.

In his History of the Reign and Death of James I.

2 F

concerning his wife and daughter, involved him in their quarrel, the chief and only cause of his ruin." c

Exeter, which was particularly described in a letter, and sent from England for me at Madrid, and because of my near relations in that embassy, I shewed the same to my lord ambassador.

"A youthful widow this Countess had been and virtuous, the relict of Sir Thomas Smith, clerk of the council, and register of the parliament; and so she became bed-fellow to this aged, gouty, diseased, but noble Earl; and that preferment had made her subject to envy and malice.

"Home comes the Lord Roos from his embassy, when he fell into some neglect of his wife and her kindred, upon refusing to increase the allowance to her settlement of jointure, which was promised to be completed at his

return.

"Not long he stays in England; but away he gets into Italy, turned a professed Roman catholic, being cozened into that religion here by his public confident Gondamore.

"In this his last absence, never to return, the mother and daughter accuse the Countess of former incontinency with the Lord Roos, whilst he was here; and that therefore upon his wife's discovery he was fled from hence, and from her marriage bed, with other devised calumnies, by several designs and contrivements, to have impoisoned the mother and daughter.

"This quarrel blazoned at court to the King's ear, who as privately as could be singly examines each party. The Countess with tears and imprecations professes her innocency; which to oppose, the mother and daughter counterfeit her hand to a whole sheet of paper, wherein they make her with much contrition to acknowledge herself guilty, crave pardon for attempting to impoison them, and desire friendship for ever with them all.

"The King gets sight of this, as in favour to them, and demands the time, place, and occasion, when this should be writ. They tell him, that all the parties met in a visit at Wimbledon, (the Earl of Exeter's house), where, in dispute of their differences, she confessed her guilt, desirous of absolution and friendship, consents to set down all under her own hand, which presently she writ at the window, in the upper end of the great chamber at Wimbledon, in presence of the mother and daughter, the Lord Roos, and 'one Diego, a Spaniard. his confiding servant.

"But now they being gone and at Rome, the King forthwith sends Master Dendy, one of his serjeants at arms, some time a domestic of the Earl of Exeter, an honest and worthy gentleman, post to Rome, who speedily returns with Roos's and Diego's hands, and other testimonials, that all the said accusation, confession, suspicions, and papers, concerning the Countess,

c Fasti, vol. i. p. 145.

This fixes the Countess of Exeter in question to have been Frances Bridges, daughter of William, fourth Lord Chandos, and widow of the first Earl of Exeter, Lord Roos's grandfather, not Elizabeth Drury, widow of his father, who died in 1658, aged eighty; and was two years older than the Countess Frances, who did not die till 1663, aged eighty-three.