and Buckingham. However this may be, he now joyfully threw off his Judge's robes; he became Lord Ley, Baron Ley, of Ley, in the county of Devon; and, bearing the Treasurer's white wand, he took precedence of all peers, spiritual or temporal, except the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chancellor. He was at the same time admitted into the cabinet, and he continued in favour during the remainder of the reign of King James. On the accession of Charles I. he was promoted in the peerage, and took a title which afterwards became one of the most illustrious in the peerage of England, being borne by the hero of Blenheim, Ramillies, and Malplaquet. The first Earl of Marlborough, though he retained his office of Lord Treasurer for several years, mixed very little in public affairs, and was a mere puppet of the Duke of Buckingham. I cannot find the slightest trace of any speech he ever made in parliament after he was created a peer. He seems still to have had great delight in associating with his old legal friends at the Inns of Court, and we find him carrying his Treasurer's staff at a grand feast given at Serjeants' Inn by his brethren of the coif.* July 15, 1628. A.D. 1629. By and by it suited the convenience of the favourite that he should be removed from his office of Lord Treasurert: when he was obliged He is induced to exchange it for that of President of the Council, which he held till the 14th of March following, when he expired, in the 78th year of his age. The cause of his death is said to be Presi dent of the Council. Cro. Car. ix. + Lord Clarendon says, "The Earl of Marlborough was removed under pretence of his age and disability for the work (which had been a better reason against his promotion "). He observes, "There were at that time five noble persons alive who had all succeeded one another immediately in that unsteady charge, without any other person intervening: the Earl of Suffolk, the Earl of Manchester, the Earl of Middlesex, the Earl of Marlborough, and the Earl of Portland."-Rebellion, i. 74. to have been grief at the quarrel between Charles and the House of Commons after the passing of the PETITION OF RIGHT, which brought on an abrupt dissolution of the Parliament, and a resolution that the government of the country should henceforth be carried on by prerogative alone. In his last moments he was supposed to have had revealed to him the terrible times when Englishmen were to fight against Englishmen in the field, and the scaffold was to be crimsoned with royal gore. He is said to have been fond of antiquarian learning, and he amused himself with writing treatises on heraldry and other kindred subjects.* Wood describes him as "a person of great gravity, ability, and integrity, and of the same mind in all conditions." This is flattery, but it is curious to take a glance at one who, in an age of great men, with very slender qualifications, filled the offices of Coke and of Burleigh, and rose to higher rank than either of them. His earldom devolved successively on his two His descendsons, Henry and William, and, on the death ants. of the latter, in 1679, without issue, it became extinct.† The greatest honour ever conferred upon the house of Ley was by a sonnet addressed by Milton to the Lady Margaret, daughter of the Chief Justice. She resided in a battlemented mansion in Buckinghamshire, bosomed high in tufted trees, where she was cynosure of neighbouring eyes." The poet, captivated by her charms, as yet indifferent about popular See Hearne's Collection of Curious Discourses (London, 1775, 8vo.); Wood's Ath. Ox.; Bliss. ii. 441; Dug. Ch. Ser. 105, 106. Henry had been called up to the House of Lords in his father's lifetime,affording the only instance of a Chief Justice and his son sitting together in that assembly. "March 2. 1625.-HODIE VOL. I. "the Henry Lord Ley (the eldest son of James privileges-and thinking that the surest way to win her was to praise her sire, thus apostrophised her :— Milton's Sir Randolf His noble "Daughter to that good Earl, once President Of England's Council and her Treasury, Who lived in both unstained with gold or fee, At Chæronea, fatal to Liberty, Kill'd with report that old man eloquent! Though later born than to have known the days "their I have very great delight in now presenting to the reader a perfectly competent and thoroughly Crewe. honest Chief Justice. Considering the times in which he lived, the independent spirit which he displayed is beyond all praise. Since the Judges have been irremovable, they can take part against the abuses of power on very easy terms, independence and, as Lord Mansfield remarked, of character. temptation is all to the side of popularity." Under the Stuarts, a judge gave an opinion against the Crown with the certainty of being dismissed from his office; and, if he retained his virtue, he had this peculiar merit, that he might have sacrificed it without becoming infamous, for, however profligate, numerous examples would have defended him, and the world would have excused him, saying "he is not worse than his neighbours." The name of RANDOLF CREWE, therefore, ought to be transmitted with honour to the latest posterity. The more do we owe this debt of gratitude to his memory, that he was * Christian as well as surnames were, in those days, spelt very differently. We find this name written "Randophe," 6 "Randolph," "Randulph," "Randulf,” "Ranulph," Ranulf," "Randalf," and "Randal." not, like Sir Edward Coke, ostentatious and blustering in the discharge of his duty. Not seeking to obtain the applause of the world, he was a quiet, modest, unambitious man, contented with the approbation of his own conscience. The subject of this memoir was of an ancient family, who took their name from a manor, in the His family. county of Chester, which had belonged to them at least as far back as the beginning of the reign of Edward I. This possession had, for 250 years, belonged to owners of a different name, by the marriage of the heiress into another family, but was repurchased by our Chief Justice, the true heir male of the Crewes. Born in the year 1588, he was the eldest son of John Crewe, of Nantwich, Esquire, a gentleman in rather reduced circumstances, but animated by a strong desire to restore the greatness of his lineage. There was one other son, Thomas; and their father resolved to breed them to the bar, as affording the best chance of honourably acquiring preferment. They were both lads of excellent parts, and he used to entertain them with stories of the greatness of their ancestors: he would point out to them the great manor of CREWE, forming a large section of the county; and he fired their imaginations with the vision of their recovering it, and again becoming "Crewes of that ilk." In the reign of Edward III. two brothers, of the name of Stratford, successively held the office of Lord Chancellor; and in recent times the two brothers Scott rose in the law to equal eminence. The two Crewes afford another instance of similar success. They were at the same school, the same college, and the same inn of court; always equally remarkable for steady application, sound judgment, and honourable conduct. They both followed exactly the same course till they were Ser jeants-at-law, were knighted, and were successively. Speakers of the House of Commons,-when fate varied their destiny.* Sir Thomas never having been a Chief Justice, I must confine my narrative to Sir Randolf. A.D. 1602. We have to boast of him as one of the ornaments of Lincoln's Inn; and in our books are the folHe studies at lowing entries respecting him, marking the several stages of his career there : Lincoln's Inn. "Cestr. Radulphus Crewe admiss est in societate ibm decimo tertio die Novembris anno regni Regina Elizabeth decimo nono ad instanc Richi Wilbraham et Lawrencij Woodnett manuc— "Octo die Novembris Anno regni Elizabethe vicesimo sexto "It is orderede that theise gentlemen hereafter namede shalbe called to the utter barre, vid. Mr. Jones and Mr. Sidleye and they to be called at the nexte moote in the hall the savinge of auncientye of Mr. Jonnes and Mr. Sidleye to the utter barrestors that have not mooted. And Mr. Mollton and MR. CREWE to be called to the barre the firste moote the nexte terme." "Lyncolnes Inne. Ad Consilium ibm teñt tertio die Novembris anno Rinse Eliz.: c* quadragessimo scdo. 1600. "Yt ઃઃ ys ordered that Mr. Edward Skepwyth Mr. James Leighe and Mr. RANDOPHE CREWE shalbe called to the Benche and be published at the next pleading of the next whole Moote in the Hall." "Lincolnes Inne. Ad Consilium ibm tent nono die Maij anno r. Rae Dnæ Elizabethe z xliiijto 1602. "Att this Counsell Mr. RANDOLPHE CREWE is elected and chosen to be reader the next somer and is to have such allowances as the last somer reader hadd, and Mr. Gellybrand and Mr. Christopher are elected to be Stewardes of the Reader's Dynner." He made himself a deep black-letter lawyer; and, from early training, he was particularly fond of genealogy and heraldry. He had likewise a ready elocu *The son of Sir Thomas, soon after the Restoration, was created by Charles II.; Baron Crewe of Stene in the county of Northampton; but this peerage became extinct in 1721, by the death without issue of his two sons, who had successively inherited it. |