His brother William, next in age, succeeded him as the representative of the family--a position which he must have held for about seventy years; for he was nearly ninety when he died, in or about 1694. When a Gentleman Commoner of Oxford he wrote some verses, which Henry Lawes thought good enough to set to music; he also wrote four plays; and when he left the University (where he afterwards took the degree of D.C.L.), he was forthwith welcomed at Court, and became a Gentleman Usher of the Privy Chamber, and afterwards Vice-Chamberlain to Queen Katherine. About 1661 he was made a Baronet, probably on account of his loyal attachment to the late King, whose body-guard he often commanded. At York, when the Civil War broke out in 1642, he commanded a troop of cavalry, composed of servants and retainers of the 1st troop of Life Guards, under Lord Bernard Stuart; and at Edgehill he was one of the foremost in Prince Rupert's fiery charge--a charge which at once began and had almost ended the battle. Old Sir William kept up the Killigrew connexion with the West-country, by being, in his turn also, made Governor of Pendennis; but he is best known and remembered by two little books which he wrote very late in life, and especially by his 'Artless Midnight Thoughts,' written when he was eighty-two years old, and described by himself as the reflexions 'of a gentleman at Court, who for many years built on sand, which every Blast of Cross Fortune has defaced; but now he has laid new Foundations on the Rock of his Salvation, which no Storms can shake; and will outlast the Conflagration of the World, when Time shall melt into Eternity.'[79] This curious little work is full of pious reflexions and thoughts, both in prose and verse. It was dedicated first to Charles II., and afterwards to James II., who had made his old age much happier than ever his youth was, 'when I shared in all the glories of this Court, and splendour of Four great Kings for three score years.' He himself describes the book as 'a small parcel of such fruit as my little cell in White Hall doth naturally produce from the barren brains of 82 years old.' He also wrote some plays of a very different stamp from those of his younger brother, as may be judged from the following lines: 'COMMENDATORY VERSES BEFORE THREE PLAYS[80] OF SIR WILLIAM KILLIGREW.--(By T. L.) 'That thy wise and modest Muse Flies the Stage's looser use; Not bawdry _Wit_ does falsely name, And to move laughter puts off shame:-- 'That thy theatre's loud noise May be virgin's chaste applause; And the stoled matron, grave divine, Their lectures done, may tend to thine:-- 'That no actor's made profane, To debase Gods, to raise thy strain; And people forced, that hear thy Play, Their money and their _souls_ to pay:-- 'That thou leav'st affected phrase To the shops, to use and praise; And breath'st a noble Courtly vein,-- Such as may Cæsar entertain,