Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 62.djvu/181

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prosecution of the Spanish war. He continued to express these views energetically, but, by supporting a proposal made early in 1810 for the exclusion of reporters from the House of Commons, he provoked the hostility of the press, which for some time refused to report his speeches.

Windham's last speech was made on 11 May 1810. In July of the previous year he had injured his hip by his efforts in removing the books of his friend the Hon. Frederick North (afterwards fifth Earl of Guilford) [q. v.] out of reach of a fire. On 17 May 1810 Cline operated upon him for the removal of a tumour, but he never recovered from the shock, and died at his house in Pall Mall on 4 June, and was buried at Felbrigg. He married, on 10 July 1798, Cecilia, third daughter of Commodore Arthur Forrest [q. v.], but had no children.

Windham's personal advantages were many. He was rich, and had an income of 6,000l. a year. He was tall and well built, graceful and dignified in manner, a thorough sportsman, and in his youth, like his father, was very athletic and a practised pugilist. He had a good memory, and was widely and well informed; he was an ardent Greek and Latin scholar, and fluent in French and Italian. Though his voice was defective and shrill, he was, when at his best, a most eloquent orator, and was always a clear speaker and a keen debater; but his speeches were marred by occasional indiscretions of temper and want of reticence. He was pious, chivalrous, and disinterested, and his brilliant social qualities made him one of the finest gentlemen as well as one of the soundest sportsmen of his time. His diary, published in 1866, shows him to have been vacillating and hypochondriacal in private, but he seems to have relieved his feelings by this habit of private confession; and in public, though somewhat changeable, he was not irresolute. In an age of great men his character stood high, and although his conduct on two occasions in his political life led to charges of inconsistency, and earned for him the nickname of ‘Weathercock Windham,’ his personal integrity was unimpugned. The army undoubtedly owed much to his labours in improving its efficiency and condition. Panegyrics were pronounced upon him in the House of Lords by Lord Grey on 6 June 1810, and in the House of Commons by Lord Milton the following day, and Brougham paints him in laudatory terms in his ‘Historical Sketches of British Statesmen’ (i. 219). A portrait of him by Hoppner was placed in the public hall, Norwich, and there is another, by Sir Thomas Lawrence, at University College, Oxford (Cat. Guelph Exhib. No. 150). A print from the portrait by Hoppner was engraved by Say, and was published. There are also a portrait of him by Sir Joshua Reynolds and a second by Lawrence, both in the National Portrait Gallery, London, and a bust by Nollekens.

[Windham's Speeches, with Memoir by his secretary, Thomas Amyot (3 vols. 1806); Windham's Diary, 1784–1810, ed. Mrs. Henry Baring, 1866; Malone's Memoir of Windham, 1810, reprinted from Gent. Mag. 1810, i. 588 (cf. ib. 566); Mémoires du Comte Joseph de Puisaye; Lecky's Hist. of England in the Eighteenth Cent.; Hardy's Lord Charlemont, ii. 82, 86; Colburn's New Monthly Mag. xxxii, 555; Edinburgh Review, cxxiii. 557; Romilly's Life; Stanhope's Life of Pitt; Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. Hill; Cooke's Hist. of Party, iii. 433; Harris's Radical Party in Parliament.]

J. A. H.

WINDSOR, ALICE de (d. 1400), mistress of Edward III. [See Perrers.]

WINDSOR, formerly Hickman, THOMAS WINDSOR, seventh Baron Windsor of Stanwell and first Earl of Plymouth (1627?–1687), born about 1627 and baptised under the name of Thomas Windsor, was son and heir of Dixie Hickman of Kew, Surrey, by his wife Elizabeth, eldest sister and coheir of Thomas Windsor, sixth baron Windsor of Stanwell.

No connection has been traced between the Windsors of Stanwell and Sir William de Windsor, baron Windsor [q. v.], the husband of Alice Perrers. The Stanwell family claim descent from Walter Fitz-Other (fl. 1087), who held that manor at the time of Domesday and was warder of Windsor Castle, whence he derived the name Windsor. His third son, Gerald de Windsor (fl. 1116), was constable of Pembroke Castle (Itin. Kambriæ, pp. 89, 91), and steward to Arnulf, earl of Pembroke [see under Roger de Montgomery, d. 1093?], in whose service he saw much fighting in Pembroke. He was sent to king Murtagh in Ireland to ask his daughter's hand for Arnulf, married Nest or Nesta [q. v.], mistress of Henry I, and was father of William Fitzgerald, Maurice Fitzgerald (d. 1176) [q. v.], David (d. 1176) [q. v.], bishop of St. David's, and Angharad, mother of Giraldus Cambrensis [q. v.], the historian; he was thus the reputed ancestor of the numerous Geraldine families (see, besides the articles referred to, Freeman, Norman Conquest, v. 210, and William Rufus, ii. 96–7, 101, 108–110, 425, 451 and the authorities there cited).

It was from Gerald's eldest brother William that the Windsors of Stanwell claimed