CHICHESTER, Earls of. [See Pelham.]
CHICHESTER, ARTHUR, Lord Chichester of Belfast (1563–1625), lord deputy of Ireland, was the second son of Sir John Chichester of Rawleigh, near Barnstaple, by his wife Gertrude, daughter of Sir William Courteney of Powderham (Prince, Worthies of Devon). The date of his birth can be assigned to the end of May 1563, from the statement in his father's 'inquisitio post mortem' (court of wards), that he was five years and a half when his father died on 30 Nov. 1 568. He was educated at Exeter College, Oxford. The entry of his matriculation (communicated by the Rev. C. W. Boase), which took place on 15 March 1583, states correctly that he was then nineteen, being, in short, not very far from twenty, a most unusual age in those times. According to a tradition preserved by Grainger (Biog. Hist. i. 395) he fled to Ireland, having ' robbed one of Queen Elizabeth's purveyors, who were but little better than robbers themselves.' If the lad retook what he held the purveyor to have unjustly seized, no moral depravity is to be inferred from the action. Our knowledge of the remainder of Chichester's early career is almost entirely derived from an account of his life written by Sir Faithful Fortescue (printed for private circulation by Lord Clermont), who cierived his information from his own father, who was a companion of Chichester in his attack on the purveyor, and who shared in his subsequent flight to Ireland.
In Ireland — to give the main points of Fortescue's story — the two young men stayed with Sir George Bourchier, another Devon- shire man. Having obtained the queen's pardon, Chichester was made captain, under Lord Sheffield, of one of the queen's best ships in the fight with the Armada in 1588. in 1595 he commanded 'one of the queen's ships with five hundred men' in Drake's last expedition. In 1596 he was a volunteer in the Cadiz voyage, when Essex gave him a company in the place of a captain who had been killed. In 1597 he was sergeant-major-general of the force sent under Sir Thomas Baskerville to the assistance of Henry IV, and was wounded at the siege of Amiens and subsequently knighted by the king. He afterwards served as a captain in the Low Countries, and was in garrison at Ostend when Sir Robert Cecil picked him out for employment in Ireland, and sent him thither in command of a regiment of twelve hundred men.
One or two points require notice in the preceding story. Fortescue speaks of the young Cnichester staying with Bourchier, 'who was then master of the ordnance in Ireland,' and as afterwards fighting against the Armada. Bourchier, however, was not master of the ordnance till 1592, but this attribution of a later office out of date is only what may be expected in a memoir written in a subsequent generation. Again, though Fortescue speaks of Chichester as commanding a ship in Drake's last voyage, his name is not mentioned in the narrative of that voyage in Hakluyt (iii. 583), and it does not occur in the list of captains given by Monson (Churchill, Collection of Voyages, iii. 182). It must, however, be remembered that Fortescue had already spoken of Chichester as captain under Lord Sheffield in the fight with the Armada, so that he uses the term as applicable to a subordinate position. Further, there is reason to conjecture that Chichester was employed in a military command in Drake's voyage. On that occasion the whole military iorce was commanded by Sir Thomas Baskerville [q. v.], and two years later Chichester was sergeant-major-general, or third in command of the army under the same Baskerville — a sudden leap from the command of a company at Cadiz, which is most easily accounted for by the supposition that Baskerville knew his man from experience, an experience which can hardly have been acquired except in Drake's expedition. With respect to the approximate dates of the later occurrences mentioned, the siege of Amiens occupied the summer of 1597, coming to an end 15-25 Sept. According to Fortescue, Chichester arrived in Dublin a second time when Loftus and Gardiner were lords justices, that is to say, at some time between 16 Nov. 1597 and 16 April 1599, and probably much nearer to the latter date than to the former.
To continue Fortescue's account, Chichester was sent with his regiment to Drogheda. When Essex arrived, 'hearing much in praise of Sir A. Chichester,' and, it may be added, liaving known something of him at Cadiz, he went to review his regiment. So well had Chichester's men been drilled, that Essex, in the excitement of the moment, thought fit to charge the pikemen at the head of the cavalry. Chichester took the matter seriously, and repulsed the horsemen as if they had been enemies. The earl had to wheel about with a scratch inflicted on his person by one of the pikemen.
The occurrence to which this anecdote refers must have taken place in the first days after Essex's arrival at Dublin. In his despatch of 28 April the earl announced that he had appointed Chichester to be governor of Carrickfergus and the adjacent countiy.
