The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 | Page 6

out of the north, settled at Purleigh in Essex, where we find
them in the year 1442. From this date, passing lightly over a hundred
troubled years, we find Peter Osborne, Dorothy's great-grandfather,
born in 1521. He was Keeper of the Purse to Edward VI., and was
twice married, his second wife being Alice, sister of Sir John Cheke, a
family we read of in Dorothy's letters. One of his daughters, named
Catharine,--he had a well-balanced family of eleven sons and eleven
daughters,--afterwards married Sir Thomas Cheke. Peter Osborne died
in 1592; and Sir John Osborne, Peter's son and Dorothy's grandfather,
was the first Osborne of Chicksands. It was he who settled at
Chicksands, in Bedfordshire, and purchased the neighbouring rectory at
Hawnes, to restore it to that Church of which he and his family were in
truth militant members; and having generously built and furnished a
parsonage house, he presented it in the first place to the celebrated

preacher Thomas Brightman, who died there in 1607. It is this rectory
that in 1653-54 is in the hands of the Rev. Edward Gibson, who
appears from time to time in Dorothy's letters, and who was on
occasions the medium through which Temple's letters reached their
destination, and avoided falling into the hands of Dorothy's jealous
brother. Sir John Osborne married Dorothy Barlee, granddaughter of
Richard Lord Rich, Lord Chancellor of England in the reign of Henry
VIII. Sir John was Treasurer's Remembrancer in the Exchequer for
many years during the reign of James I., and was also a Commissioner
of the Navy. He died November 2, 1628, and was buried in Campton
Church,--Chicksands lies between the village of Hawnes and
Campton,--where a tablet to his memory still exists.
Sir John had five sons: Peter, the eldest, Dorothy's father, who
succeeded him in his hereditary office of Treasurer's Remembrancer;
Christopher, Thomas, Richard, and Francis,--Francis Osborne may be
mentioned as having taken the side of the Parliament in the Civil Wars.
He was Master of the Horse to the Earl of Pembroke, and is noticeable
to us as the only known relation of Dorothy who published a book. He
was the author of an Advice to his Son, in two parts, and some tracts
published in 1722, of course long after his death.
Of Sir Peter himself we had at one time thought to write at some length.
The narrative of his defence of Castle Cornet for the King, embodied in
his own letters, in the letters and papers of George Carteret, Governor
of Jersey, in the detailed account left behind by a native of Guernsey,
and in the State papers of the period, is one of the most interesting
episodes in an epoch of episodes. But though the collected material for
some short life of Sir Peter Osborne lies at hand, it seems scarcely
necessary for the purpose of this book, and so not without reluctance it
is set aside.
Sir Peter was an ardent loyalist. In his obstinate flesh and blood
devotion to the house of Stuart he was as sincere and thorough as Sir
Henry Lee, Sir Geoffrey Peveril, or Kentish Sir Byng. He was the
incarnation of the malignant of latter-day fiction.
"King Charles, and who'll do him right now? King Charles, and who's

ripe for fight now? Give a rouse; here's in hell's despite now, King
Charles."
To this text his life wrote the comment.
In 1621, James I. created him Lieutenant-Governor of Guernsey. He
had married Dorothy, sister of Sir John Danvers. Sir John was the
younger brother and heir to the Earl of Danby, and was a Gentleman of
the Privy Chamber to the King. Clarendon tells us that he got into debt,
and to get out of debt found himself in Cromwell's counsel; that he was
a proud, formal, weak man, between being seduced and a seducer, and
that he took it to be a high honour to sit on the same bench with
Cromwell, who employed him and contemned him at once. The Earl of
Danby was the Governor of Guernsey, and Sir Peter was his lieutenant
until 1643, when the Earl died, and Sir Peter was made full Governor.
It would be in 1643 that the siege of Castle Cornet began, the same
year in which the rents of the Chicksands estate were assigned away
from their rightful owner to one Mr. John Blackstone, M.P. Sir Peter
was in his stronghold on a rock in the sea; he was for the King. The
inhabitants of the island, more comfortably situated, were a united
party for the Parliament. Thus they remained for three years; the King
writing to Sir Peter to reduce the inhabitants to a state of reason; the
Parliament sending instructions to the jurats of Guernsey to seize the
person of Sir Peter;