Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/238

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from Calais (Froude, ch. xvii.; deposition of the Earl of Southampton in Strype, Memorials, 8vo ed. vol. ii.). He witnessed the arrest of Cromwell, 10 June 1540, when, according to Marillac, ‘to show that he was as much his enemy in adversity as in prosperity he had pretended to be his friend, he stripped the Garter off the fallen minister’ (Froude, ch. xvii.). Shortly afterwards, ‘upon some discontent between Henry and the king of France, whereupon the French raised forces in Picardy, Fitzwilliam, with John, lord Russel, then newly made high admiral, carried over two troopes of northern horse into those parts’ (Herbert, p. 484). He died at Newcastle-upon-Tyne in October 1542, while on his march into Scotland, leading the van of the English army commanded by the Duke of Norfolk. In honour of his memory ‘his standard was borne in the foreward throughout that whole expedition’ (ib. p. 483). In his will, dated 10 Sept. 1542, he desired to be buried in the parish church of Midhurst, where a new chapel was to be built for a tomb for himself and his wife Mabel, at an expense of five hundred marks, ‘if he should die within one hundred miles of it’ (abstract of will registered in P. C. C. 16, Spert, in Nicolas, Testamenta Vetusta, ii. 707–9). The chapel remains, but there are no signs of a tomb; he was therefore probably buried at Newcastle. To the king he gave ‘his great ship with all her tackle, and his collar of the Garter, with his best George beset with diamonds.’ He married in 1513 Mabel, daughter of Henry, lord Clifford, and sister of Henry, first earl of Cumberland, but by this lady, who died in 1535, he had no issue. Consequently the earldom of Southampton at his decease became extinct, while his entailed estates would rightly devolve upon his two nieces, daughters of his elder brother, Thomas Fitzwilliam, who was slain at Flodden Field in 1515: Alice, married to Sir James Foljambe, and Margaret, the wife of Godfrey Foljambe. The Cowdray estate fell to his half-brother, Sir Anthony Browne [q. v.]

There is a portrait of Fitzwilliam in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, which is considered to be a copy of the one by Holbein, destroyed at Cowdray by the fire in September 1793 (Sussex Archæol. Coll. vii. 29 n.)

[Dugdale's Baronage, ii. 105–6; Letters and Papers of Reign of Henry VIII, ed. Brewer and Gairdner; Cal. State Papers, Venetian, vols. iii. iv. vi. (Appendix); Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica, i. 360, ii. 69; Sussex Archæol. Coll.]

G. G.

FITZWILLIAM, Sir WILLIAM (1526–1599), lord deputy of Ireland, eldest son of Sir William Fitzwilliam of Milton in the hundred of Nassaburgh, Northamptonshire, and Anne, daughter of Sir Richard Sapcote of Elton, Huntingdonshire, was born at Milton in 1526. He was grandson of Sir William Fitzwilliam, sheriff of London [q. v.] Related through his mother to Sir John Russell, first earl of Bedford, he was on his entrance into court placed under the protection of that nobleman, who presented him to Edward VI, by whom he was created marshal of the king's bench. From a lease granted to William Fitzwilliam, esq., ‘one of the gentlemen of the king's chamber,’ of certain lands in Ireland on 10 July 1547, it would appear that he had already at that time formed a connection with Ireland, which throughout a long life was the chief sphere of his labours (Collins, Peerage; Lodge, Peerage (Archdall); Bridges, Northamptonshire, vol. ii.; Wiffin, House of Russell; Cal. of Fiants, Ed. VI, 70).

When the succession to the throne was threatened through Lady Jane Grey, he loyally (though a protestant) stood by Mary, and in 1555 was created temporary keeper of the great seal of Ireland (Lib. Hib. ii. 14). Coming under the influence of the Earl of Sussex, who spoke of him as a friend, he took that nobleman's side against Sir A. St. Leger (Hamilton Cal. i. 133, 231; Cal. Carew MSS. i. 257, 260). On 24 July 1559 he was made vice-treasurer and treasurer at wars in Ireland, a post he held till 1 April 1573, when he was relieved by Sir Edward Fitton (Lib. Hib. ii. 43; Ham. Cal. i. 157). In 1559, too, he was elected M.P. for Carlow county in the Irish House of Commons. In 1560, during the temporary absence of the Earl of Sussex, he was appointed lord justice, taking the oath and receiving the sword at Christ Church on Thursday 15 Feb. (patent, 18 Jan. 1560). His conduct was approved by the queen (Ham. Cal. i. 160), who again entrusted the government to him during the absence of Sussex in 1561 (patent, 10 Jan. 1561). Meanwhile Shane O'Neill had entered upon a course of conduct which for the next eight years was destined to perplex and madden the government. On the return of Sussex in June a campaign was undertaken against him which, though ending in failure, reflected great credit on Fitzwilliam, by whose ‘worthiness,’ and that of Captain Warne, the English army was, according to Sussex, saved from annihilation (ib. i. 177). In August he was sent into England to explain the state of affairs to the council; but immediately afterwards returned to Ireland. On Thursday, 22 Jan. 1562 he was again sworn chief governor during the absence of Sussex from 16 Jan. to 24 July (patent, 20 Dec. 1561). On 3 Dec. he and Justice Plunket were des-