Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/302

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Penderel
290
Pendlebury

at Boscobel. The king and his party reached Whiteladies in the dawn of the following morning. There he changed his clothes, and Richard Penderel concealed him for the rest of the day in the thickest part of Boscobel wood. At night the king completed his disguise in Richard's house of Hobbal Grange, and under his guidance made an unsuccessful attempt to pass the Severn into Wales. Returning to Boscobel, he was concealed, sometimes in the Royal Oak, and sometimes in the secret chambers of Boscobel House, until Richard and Humphrey, with their brothers William, John, and George, were able to conduct him on 9 Sept. to his next hiding-place at Moseley Court, near Wolverhampton, the seat of Mr. Whitgreave [see Lane, Jane].

At the Restoration the faithful brothers were not forgotten. They joined the procession of royalists through the streets of London on 29 May 1660. Charles loaded them with benefits, made them, it is believed, gentlemen of coat armour (but of this there is no record at the College of Arms), and commanded that they should attend at court once a year. Upon each of the brothers a pension, payable to them and their heirs ‘for ever,’ was settled by letters patent under the great seal, the amount of Richard's pension being 100l. per annum. When at court Richard Penderel, who had been presented by the king with a ring which is still possessed by the family, resided in the house of Henry Arundell in the Great Turnstile, Lincoln's Inn Fields (it was demolished in 1883). There, in February 1671–2, he fell ill of a fever, and died on the 8th of that month. He was buried in the churchyard of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, beneath an altar-tomb, still standing, which bears a eulogistic epitaph. The tomb was ‘repaired and beautified’ by order of George II in 1739. His will, made on the day of his death, describes him as of ‘Hobbal Grange, Gentleman,’ and shows him to have been a man of substance. He was survived by his wife Mary (her surname is unknown), who lived until 1689, and eight children, four sons and four daughters. William Penderel, his next brother, succeeded his father in the occupation of Boscobel House, and also received a pension of 100l. per annum. He died in 1706, aged over eighty-four. Each of the five brothers left posterity.

Richard Penderel di Boscobello (1679–1732), only son of Edmund Penderel, the son of Humphrey of Whiteladies, and great-nephew of Richard, had Queen Catherine of Braganza for godmother, and served part of his novitiate in the Society of Jesus at the English College in Rome. He was released from his vows, and became a secret agent of the exiled Stuarts. He was exempted by name, with the rest of his family, from the penal laws against the catholics (Orders in Council of 17 Jan. 1678–9, 25 July 1708, and 6 April 1716), a circumstance which enabled him to conspire in England with comparative safety. He appears to have lived chiefly in Italy, and was created by Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia Marquis Penderel di Boscobel or di Boscobello, a title which still exists.

There are several engraved portraits of Richard Penderel and his brother William. Zoust painted a portrait of Richard, which was formerly in the Jennens collection, and was engraved in mezzotint by Houston. The extant portraits of William all represent him at the age of eighty-four (cf. Bromley, Catalogue).

[The Boscobel Tracts, edited by J. Hughes, 1857; Foley's Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, passim; Un Agent des Stuarts (Richard Penderel di Boscobel) par Charles Sebastiani, Paris, n.d.; L'Intermédiaire des Chercheurs et Curieux, xxviii. 193; Wills in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury; Records of the Privy Council; family papers; see also Carlos, William.]

J. P. B.

PENDERGRASS, Sir THOMAS (d. 1709). [See Prendergast.]

PENDLEBURY, HENRY (1626–1695), dissenting divine, born at Jowkin in the parish of Bury, Lancashire, on 6 May 1626, was son of Henry Pendlebury of Bury. The Pendleburys were a family long settled at West Houghton (see Earwaker, Local Gleanings, ii. 632, 740). From Bury grammar school Henry passed to Christ's College, Cambridge, on 1 May 1645, where he became a sizar, and graduated B.A. on 26 April 1648, finally proceeding M.A. Taking holy orders, he was made minister at Ashworth, near Middleton, in 1648. In the following January he preached before the Bury classis, and was approved. In the Commonwealth church survey of 1650 he is noted as ‘lately minister at Ashworth, but hath ceased to officiate for want of maintenance’ (Lanc. and Cheshire Record Soc. Publ. i. 26).

Before July 1650 he had contracted ‘a clandestine and irregular marriage’ with Sarah Smith. But, after inquiry into the matter, the classis was satisfied (September 1650), and ordered him to be ordained at Turton, on 23 Oct. 1650, to Horwich chapel in Dean parish (ib. i. 32). Towards the end of the year (16 Oct. 1651, according to Chorl-