Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

As to the finding the commission, though the noble histogian was ignorant of it, it was nevertheless a thing very publicly known, for Mr. Tomkins was the person sent for it to the lady Aubigney, and for his own security buried it in his cellar, as he confessed upon his examination; upon which it was immediately dug up, and thus it came into the parliament's hands; yet it does not appear that any great discoveries were made of the persons originally embarking in that design, though it was ripe for execution when Mr. Waller's plot was but in embryo. On the 30th of June, a council of war sat at Guildhall, of which the earl of Manchester was president, before whom Mr. Tomkins, Mr. Challoner, Mr. Blinkhorne, Mr. Abbot, and Mr. White were tried, of whom the four first received sentence of death, Mr. Tomkins was executed over against his own house, and at his death he called the matter for which he suffered a foolish business,' and said he was drawn into it by affection for his brother-in-law, which plainly shews, that by a foolish business he meant Mr. Waller's scheme; as to Mr. Challoner, he was assisted by Mr. Peters, and appears to have been a zealot in the puritan way; he does indeed say that he died justly, but then he was ac quainted only with Mr. Waller's design. He was executed the same day before the Royal Exchange. In his dying speech he observes, that he had been wrongfully charged with respect to the commission, having known nothing of the procuring it, nor of the commission itself, till the Friday before the discovery, the day before these men suffered. Mr. Waller received the sentence of death at the court martial, though a member of the House of Commons; was reprieved by the earl of Essex as general, and afterwards pardoned for his discoveries. Upon the whole it appears that Şir Nicholas's design was open and honourable, was conducted with great secresy and success, and that it was disappointed by the breaking out of a thing quite different from it in its nature, and of which Sir N. Crispe had no knowledge, and in the credit or event of which, therefore, he could have no

concern.

By the discovery of this business Sir N. Crispe found himself obliged to declare openly and plainly the cause he

[blocks in formation]

meant to take, and having at his own expence raised a regiment of horse for the king's service, he put himself at the head of it, and distinguished himself as remarkably in his military as he had ever done in his civil capacity: when the siege of Gloucester was resolved on, Sir Nicholas Crispe was charged with his regiment of horse to escort the king's train of artillery from Oxford, which important service he very gallantly performed. In the month of September following, a very unlucky accident befel him, in which he was no way to blame; and though the circumstances attending it clearly justified his conduct to the world, yet the concern it gave him was such as he could not shake off so long as he lived. He happened to be quartered at Rouslidge in Gloucestershire, where one Sir James Ennyon, Bart. of Northamptonshire, and some friends of his took up a great part of the house, though none of them had any commands in the army, which however, Sir Nicholas bore with the utmost patience, notwithstanding he was much incommoded by it. It fell out some time after that certain horses belonging to those gentlemen were missing; upon which Sir James Ennyon, though he had lost none himself, came to Sir Nicholas Crispe on their behalf, insinuating that some of his troopers must have taken them, and after a long expostulation, conceived in pretty rough terms, insisted that he should immediately draw out his regiment, that search might be made for them, Sir Nicholas answered him with all the mildness imaginable, offered him as full satisfaction as it was in his power to give, but excused himself from drawing out his regiment, as a thing improper and inconvenient at that juncture, for reasons which he assigned him. This however was so far from contenting Sir James, that he left him abruptly, and presently. after sent him a challenge, accompanied with a message to this effect, that if he did not comply with it, he would pistol him against the wall. Upon this Sir N. Crispe, taking a friend with him, went to the place appointed, where he found Sir James Ennyon and the person who brought him the challenge. Upon their meeting, Sir Nicholas began to use his utmost endeavours to pacify him, but to no purpose,

[blocks in formation]

he was determined to receive no satisfaction but by the sword, and they accordingly engaged; and in this duel Sir James having received a wound in the rim of his belly, languished for near two days, and then expired; but first of all sent for Sir N. Crispe, and in a manner becoming a gentleman and a Christian, was sincerely reconciled to him. Upon the second of October following, Sir Nicholas was brought to a court martial for this unfortunate affair, and upon a full examination of every thing relating to it, was most honourably acquitted.

He continued to serve with the same zeal and fidelity during the year 1644, and in the spring following, when a treaty was set on foot at Uxbridge, the parliament thought fit to mark him, as they afterwards did in the Isle of Wight treaty, by insisting that he should be removed from his Majesty's presence. A few months after, they proceeded to an act of greater severity, for, April 16, 1645, they ordered his large house in Bread Street to be sold, which had been for many years belonging to his family; neither was this stroke of their vengeance judged a sufficient punishment for his offence, since, having resolved to grant the Elector Palatine a pension of 8000l. a year, they directed that 20007. should be applied out of the king's revenue, and the remainder made up out of the estates of Lord Colepepper and Sir Nicholas Crispe, which shews how considerable a fortune he had left in their hands. The king's affairs were now grown desperate, when Sir Nicholas Crispe finding himself no longer in a capacity to render him any service, thought it expedient to preserve himself, and with which view, in the beginning of the month of April, 1646, he embarked with Lord Colepepper and Colonel Monk, and a few days after was safely landed in France. As he had many rich relations, who had a great interest with those in power, they interposed in his favour; and as Sir Nicholas knew very well he could be of no service to the royal cause abroad, he did not look upon it as any deviation from his duty to return, and live quietly at home. Accordingly, having submitted to a composition, he came back to London, and took all the pains he could to re

trieve his shattered fortunes. He was indeed a person of so clear a head, had such thorough and extensive notions of trade, and withal of so quick an invention, that he very soon engaged again in business with the same spirit and success as before: in the season of prosperity he was not undutiful of the wants of his royal master, then in exile, but contributed chearfully to his relief when his affairs seemed to be in a most desperate condition. Upon the great change that happened after the death of Oliver Cromwell, he was instrumental in reconciling many to their duty, and so well. were his principles known, and so much his influence apprehended, that when it was proposed the royalists in and about London should sign an instrument signifying their inclination to preserve the public tranquility, he was called upon, and very readily subscribed it. He was also principally concerned in bringing the city of London in her corporate capacity, to give the encouragement that was necessary to leave general Monk without any difficulties or suspicions as to the sincerity and unanimity of their inclinations. It was therefore very natural, after reading the king's letter and declaration in common council, May 2, 1660, to think of sending some members of their own body to present their duty to his Majesty. Accordingly, having appointed nine aldermen and their recorder, the next person they thought of was Sir N. Crispe, whom with several other worthy persons, they added to the committee, from an assurance that the king would receive a double satisfaction from the nature of their message, and from its being brought by several of those who had suffered deeply in his own and in his father's cause. His Majesty received these gentlemen very graciously in their public capacities, and afterwards testified to them separately the sense he had of their past services.

[ocr errors]

Upon the king's return, Sir N. Crispe and Sir John Wolstenholme, though the latter was then near eighty, were reinstated as farmers of the customs, which they put into very good order. As Sir Nicholas was now in years, and somewhat infirm, he spent a great part of his time at his noble country seat near Hammersmith, where he was in some

measure

measure the founder of the chapel. He had now an oppor tunity of returning the obligation he had received from some of his relations; nor did he neglect it, but procured for them that indemnity from the king, gratis, for which he had so dearly paid during the late confusion. The last testimony he received of his royal master's favour was his being created a baronet, April 16, 1665; but did not long survive it, dying February the 26th in the next year, in the sixty-seventh year of his age, leaving a very large estate to his grandson Sir Nicholas Crispe. His corpse was interred with his ancestors in the parish church of St. Mildred in Bread Street, and his funeral sermon preached by his reverend and learned kinsman, Mr. Crispe, of Christ Church, Oxford; but his heart was sent to the chapel at Hammersmish, where there is a short and plain inscription upon a cenotaph erected to his memory, or rather upon that monument which himself erected in grateful commemoration of the glorious martyr king Charles the First, of blessed memory, as the inscription placed there in Sir Nicholas's life time tells us, under which, after his decease, was placed a small white marble urn, upon a black pedestal, containing his heart.

Lloyd, in his memoirs gives us a very high idea of his activity and enterprize as well as of the signal services which he rendered the king: "One while," says he, "you would meet him with a thousands of gold; another while, in his way to Oxford, riding in a pair of panniers, like a butter woman going to market; at other times he was a porter car. rying on his Majesty's interest in London; he was a fisherman in one place, and a merchant in another. All the succours which the king had from beyond sea came through his hands, and most of the relief he had at home was managed by his conveyance."

As to the character of this active, generous and loyal per. son, who lived beloved by the great, prayed for by the poor, and universally esteemed and regretted by all ranks of people, it has been sufficiently represented from his actions in the course of this memoir.

There is a fine whole length painting of this great and

worthy

« AnteriorContinuar »