his horse and snatched up the half-pike; and took upon him the command of the foot, at whose head he fought till he was brought down by three wounds, one in his shoulder by a ball, another in his forearm by a broad sword, and the third, which was the mortal stroke, in the hinder part of his head by a Lochaber axe. This wound was given him by a highlander, who came behind him while he was reaching a stroke at an officer with whom he was engaged' (Gent. Mag. xv. 530). He was carried, in a very weak condition, to the manse of Tranent, but lived till the forenoon of the following day. On the 24th he was buried in the north-west corner of Tranent Church, which he had been in the habit of attending. The mansion-house of Gardiner was destroyed by fire 27 Nov. 1852. By his wife, Lady Frances Erskine, daughter of the fourth Earl of Buchan, whom he married 11 July 1726, he had thirteen children, only five of whom, two sons and three daughters, survived him. Gardiner's daughter Richmond was the 'Fanny Fair' of the song ''T was at the Hour of Dark Midnight,' written in commemoration of Gardiner by Sir Gilbert Elliot [q. v.], third baronet (1722-1777).
[Doddridge's Life of Colonel Gardiner, frequently printed; Doddridge's Sermon on the Death of Colonel Gardiner, 1745; Poem on the Death of Colonel Gardiner, 1746; Gent. Mag. xv. 530; Chambers's Biog. Dict. of Eminent Scotsmen; Cannon's Historical Records, 13th dragoons; Alexander Carlyle's Autobiography; Chambers's Hist. of the Rebellion; Burton's Hist. of Scotland; information kindly supplied by Lieutenant-colonel Fergusson of Edinburgh.]
GARDINER, MARGUERITE, Countess of Blessington. [See Blessington.]
GARDINER, RICHARD, D.D. (1591–1670), divine, was born in 1591 at or near Hereford, and went to the grammar school of that town. In 1607 he entered Christ Church, Oxford, as a poor scholar, taking the degree of B.A. in 1611, M.A. in 1614, and D.D. in 1630. About this time he took holy orders, and, though he seems to have held no preferment, became known as a brilliant and quaint preacher. As deputy-orator to the university, some time previous to 1620, he delivered an 'eloquent oration' upon James I's gift of his own works to the library. James I,
according to Wood, gave to Gardiner the reversion of the next vacant canonry at
Christ Church in reward for a speech made before the king 'in the Scottish tone.' He was accordingly installed in 1629. In 1630 he was appointed one of the chaplains in ordinary to Charles I. He continued deputy-orator, and in this capacity made the university oration to the king on his return from
Edgehill. In 1647 he was examined several times before the parliamentary visitors, and deprived of his prebend. He lived obscurely at Oxford, befriending poor royalists, until the Restoration, when he was reinstated (July 1660). From this time he devoted all his means to charitable purposes and to the enrichment of the college. Among other benefactions in 1662-5 he gave 510l. towards rebuilding parts of Christ Church, and in 1663 he gave lands at Bourton-on-the-Water,
Gloucestershire, to the support of two servitors on that foundation. He also erected a fountain in the quadrangle. He died at Oxford in 1670, aged 79, and was buried in the north choir aisle of Christ Church Cathedral, where a monument to his memory was erected, bearing a ludicrously laudatory inscription by South, who succeeded him in his prebend. Gardiner was a man of keen intellect, and his sermons are still worth reading.
His writings are: 1. 'Sermon at St. Paul's Ch. on his Majesty's day of Inauguration, 27 March 1642.' 2. 'Specimen Oratorium,' a collection of his official speeches, published in London in 1653, and again in 1657. In 1662 it was reprinted with additions, and republished in 1668 and 1675. 3. 'Sixteen Sermons preached in the University of Oxford and at Court,' 1659; besides several separate sermons.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iii. 921; Wood's Hist. of Oxford; Le Neve's Fasti Eccl. Angl. ii. 521; Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, ed. 1714, ii. 104; Watt's Bibl. Brit.]
GARDINER, RICHARD (1723–1781), called Dick Merryfellow, author, born at Saffron Walden, Essex, 4 Oct. 1723, was the son of the Rev. John Gardiner, LL.D., rector of Great Massingham, Norfolk, by a daughter of John Turner of Saffron Walden. After being educated at Eton and St. Catharine's Hall, Cambridge, where he took no degree, he went abroad for some years, and while returning to England was taken prisoner at sea by a French privateer and imprisoned at Dunkerque. On his release in 1748 he went to Norwich, and was persuaded by his relations to enter holy orders. He is said to have been a successful preacher, but in 1751, while still a deacon, he retired from the church. His unsuccessful suit to a young lady led him to publish in 1754 'The History of Pudica, a Lady of Norfolk, with an account of her five lovers, by William Honeycomb.' One of the
lovers, named 'Dick Merryfellow,' was intended for himself. The satire is dull and
