Awnsham Churchill for many years, and left him a small legacy.
Lists of some of the books published by Messrs. Churchill may be seen in an advertisement after the preface of Camden's ‘Britannia’ (1695), and in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ (vol. liii. pt. ii. p. 1014). Perhaps their most extensive undertaking was the publication of the first edition of Rymer's ‘Fœdera’ (16 vols. folio, 1704–15); the seventeenth volume (1717) was issued by William Churchill, and the last three (1726–1735) by Jacob Tonson. Churchill was ‘stationer to the king’ and the leading bookseller of the day. He amassed a considerable fortune, and was able to purchase, in 1704, the manor of Higher Henbury in Dorsetshire from John Morton, and that of West Ringstead from James Huishe in 1723. He was M.P. for Dorchester between 1705 and 1710. He died unmarried on 24 April 1728, and his brother John succeeded to the estate. A library at Henbury was formed by the two brothers. William Churchill who died on 22 Feb. 1736, ‘bookseller to his majesty,’ was the son of John Churchill.
[Dunton's Life and Errors, 1818; Nichols's Illustrations, viii. 464; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. i. 79, 150, &c., iii. 713, viii. 366, ix. 662–4, 771; Gent. Mag. 1783, vol. liii. pt. ii. pp. 832, 937, 1014; H. R. Fox Bourne's Life of John Locke, 1876; Britton's Life of J. Aubrey, 1843; Orig. Letters of Locke, Sidney, and Shaftesbury, ed. T. Forster, 1830; Letters of Eminent Men addressed to R. Thoresby, 1832, vol. i.; Calendar of Treasury Papers (1702–7, 1708–14, 1714–19), 1874–83; Sir T. D. Hardy's Syllabus of the Documents in Rymer's Fœdera, 1869, vol. i. preface; for family information, arms, &c., see Hutchins's History of Dorset, 3rd ed. 1861–70, 4 vols. fol.]
CHURCHILL, CHARLES (1656–1714), general, third surviving son of Sir Winston Churchill [q. v.], was born on 2 Feb. 1656. Like his more famous brother, John Churchill, first duke of Marlborough [q. v.], he was born in the manor-house of Ashe, in the parish of Musbury, a parish situate butween Seaton and Axminster, and, through in Devonshire, close to the confines of Dorsetshire. When thirteen years old he was approinted page of honour to Christian V, king of Denmark, and a few years later became gentleman of the bedchamber to Prince George of Denmark, afterwards the husband of Queen Anne of England. After the accession of William III to the English throne, Churchill entered upon military life, and he was present at the siege of Cork in 1690. At the battle of Landen, or Neerwinden, in 1693, he had the good fortune to take captive his nephew, the Duke of Berwick. He was then a brigadier, but in March 1694 he was elevated to the dignity of major-general of the foot forces, and was also created governor of Kinsale. In May 1702 he was raised still higher in the service, being appointed a lieutenant-general and master to the queen’s buckhounds. At the battle of Blenheim (13 Aug. 1704) Churchill ably assisted his eldest brother in his design, as it was under his lead that a portion of the allied troops forced the passage of the river Nebel, an achievement for which he was rewarded, in October 1705, with the lieutenancy of the Tower of London. For his services at Blenheim he was honoured by being made the guardian of Marshal Tallard and the other French generals on their journey to imprisonment in England. When the city of Brussels surrendered to Marlborough, in May 1706, the command of the city was conferred upon Churchill, and in August of the same year he directed the siege operations against the town of Dendermonde. Honours were now showered upon him. The command of her majesty’s forces in the Netherlands during the absence of his brother was entrusted to his care; he was made governor of Guernsey in November 1706 (a position which he held until 1711, and for which he resigned the lieutenancy of the Tower of London), general of the army 11 Jan. 1707, and in February of the same year, on the death of Lord Cutts, he was rewarded with the colonelcy of the 2nd regiment of foot guards. Churchill was for many years a member of parliament, sitting from 1701 to 1710 for the united borough of Weymouth and Melcombe. In March 1708 he was seized with an apoplectic fit, and the last years of his life were passed in retirement on the estate of Great Mintern in Dorsetshire, which he had inherited from his father. He died, without legitimate issue, on 29 Dec. 1714, and was buried in the church of Great Mintern, where a monument was erected to his memory. He married, in 1702, Mary, daughter and sole heiress of James Gould of Dorchester, and to her he left his estate and the greatest part of his personal property. She married at Beaconsfield, on 13 Feb. 1717, Montagu, second earl of Abingdon, and, dying on 1 Jan. 1757, was buried at Dorchester. Churchill’s natural son, Charles Churchill, was created a lieutenant-general on 2 July 1739, and was also governor of Plymouth. He died in 1745, having been for thirty years member for Castle Rising in Norfolk through the influence of the Walpoles, with whom he was connected by his marriage to Anna Maria, a natural daughter of Sir Robert Walpole. By Mrs. Oldfield, the celebrated actress, he had a natural son, the third
