Cornish Worthies: Sketches of Some Eminent Cornish Men and Families, Volume 2 (of 2)Tregellas, Walter H. (Walter Hawken)
History
Cornish Worthies: Sketches of Some Eminent Cornish Men and Families, Volume 2 (of 2)
Tregellas, Walter H. (Walter Hawken)
Cornwall (England : County) -- Biography
Sir William Killigrew, Knight, the first Sir Henry's next brother, now
claims a short notice. He too--Killigrew-like--was about the Court,
for he was a Groom of the Privy Chamber to James I., and was sworn
in Chamberlain of the Exchequer on 28th November, 1605. He married
Margaret Saundars of Uxbridge, a widow lady; and they seem to have
been a steady-going old couple, to whom, it may be mentioned, John Fox
and Robert Some dedicated a volume of their sermons. There is some
correspondence about Sir William in the Lansdowne MSS. touching his
'farming' the Seals of the Queen's Bench and Common Pleas, to which the
Chief Justice of the latter court objected; and Sir William, who was
appointed to his post by Burghley, seems to have ultimately compromised
matters by receiving the sum of £3,000. The Additional MSS. contain
other references to him; but hardly anything of sufficient interest to
warrant our lingering over his share in the family history. He died at
Lothbury on 23rd November, 1622; and his portrait, with that of Thomas
Carew, by Van Dyck, is preserved in the collection of Her Majesty Queen
Victoria. Richard Carew says that he was 'the most kind patron of all
his country and countrymen's (county) affairs at Court.'
But from this Sir William and 'Mystresse Margarye' descended Killigrews
who have made some noise in the world, as we shall presently find.
Besides two daughters, Katherine and Elizabeth--both of whom married,
but make no figure in our story--they had a son, Sir Robert Killigrew
of Hanworth, a wealthy man, and Chamberlain to two Queens of England,
viz., Elizabeth and the hapless consort of Charles I. He too kept
up the old family connexion with Pendennis Castle--of which he was
made Governor in succession to Sir John Parker, on 11th June, 1632,
towards the close of his life; and he further served the Crown by
going, in 1625, as an Ambassador to the United Provinces. Sir Robert
was an original shareholder in the New River Company (incorporated
in 1619); and was a great stickler for his rights in the matter of
the reclaimed lands in Lindsey Level, Lincolnshire (as to which, see
Dugdale's 'History of Embanking'); moreover, Farnaby, the celebrated
schoolmaster, dedicated to him the 1624 edition of his translations of
'Martial's Epigrams.' He was once 'sequestered' for a manual scuffle in
the House, in 1614, as appears in Spedding's 'Works of Francis Bacon;'
and he was mixed up in the story about the poisoned powder administered
to Sir Thomas Overbury, though it was clearly proved that Killigrew
was not to blame in that matter; but it is nevertheless true that he
was sent from the Council Table to the Fleet Prison for talking with
Overbury at his prison-window, after having paid a visit to Sir Walter
Raleigh in the Tower of London.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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