Part 5 (1/2)

Wild as they are, accept them, so we're wee; To ood worcks be the effects of nes, As we are Angli, ells too; No better worck can state--or church-man do

The Campion connection interests onist of unrhymed lyrical verse--my special metrical hobby I like to think that William Strachey may have supported Campion in his controversy with Gabriel Harvey, who, by the way, lived at Saffron Walden, froer, however, in such speculation Before long someone may prove that it was not Bacon rote Shakespeare but Strachey rote both Bacon and Shakespeare

The following exa and exciting to us John Strachey, son of Williaes of Wedh e can proudly claies, whose arreat-grandfather--I am not quite sure which--was of the very best type of Elizabethan soldiers-errant He was killed at the Siege of Antwerp in 1583

He had the good fortune to be coe On the wall of Wed a heart surrounded by a laurel-wreath The inscription of the memorial runs thus:

Sacred to the es, of the County of Soe of Antwerp, about 1583, with unconquered courage o ensigns froave three legacies: his soule to the Lord Jesus, his body to be lodged in Fleland

Here lies his wounded heart, for whodoood to part So stout a body and so brave a heart

I have often wondered how a poet could have been found in Somersetshi+re in those days to produce such spirited verse The Elizabethan age, so splendid in great poetry, was apt to be tortured and affected in what Dr Johnson called ”lapidary inscriptions”

Little did I think when, as a boy, I first read those lines how closely linked England was to rees fell, how ain be laid in Flemish earth, and how many true soldiers would in my own day deserve my forbear's epitaph

It seees's arht to Sutton by Miss Hodges In an old Hodges inventory which is still a the papers at Sutton there is mentioned ”an armour of proof” My father also used to tell us how he had seen two or three sets of ar on the brackets which supported the Minstrels'

Gallery in the Hall at Sutton My father's uncle, alas, was born in the eighteenth century and bred in India till about 1820 He was therefore little affected by Scott and the Gothic revival When he cah full of interest in his house and family, he not only removed the Minstrels' Gallery fro on it for some hundred and fifty years to be destroyed

The Estatee with his legs in the Croh, ere quite small children, my eldest brother, by pure accident, discovered half a steel helreenhouses

Tords, however, were allowed to remain at Sutton, and are there to this day They are, however, probably Cromwellian and not Elizabethan

We know very little of what happened to the Stracheys during the Civil War, for at the crisis of the conflict John Strachey was only a boy He was born in 1634 and therefore was only twenty-six at the end of the Commonwealth, and would have been only fifteen years old at the tiood Roundheads, however, cannot be doubted, for John Strachey when he grew up becaes, whose daughter was later ht on the side of the Commonwealth My father was always very proud of the fact that the intellectual father of the Whigs was so closely united with our ancestor A propos of a deferred visit to Spain, Locke says in one of his letters that he is glad he is not going, because he will now be able to pay his visit to Sutton Court; ”a greater rarity than o a long way before one meets a friend”

Of all hted and thrilled us ht almost say, was the patron saint of the family, and soends in regard to him and other relations and connections of my family with India

But first I ard Clive as our patron saint It will be remembered how, after Clive had won Plassey, he cae and bought his unique collection of rotten boroughs He did not, however, reain to reform the Civil Service and to place the affairs alike of the Co, _ie_ the British Government and Parliament, on a sound basis The un to degenerate on all sides, military, naval, and civilian In two years corruption was destroying what Clive's statesenius had won

Clive, when he agreed to return to Bengal was a Member of Parliament, and like a wise reat affairs ood Private Secretary He looked round, therefore, for an able and trustworthy young hted upon Henry Strachey, who had just reached years of discretion But I had better quote Clive's own ringing words in regard to his selection They will serve to show, as, that Clive was not the kind of inspired savage that he is sometimes portrayed, but a e In the speech in the House of Coainst hirants and presents which he took from Meer Jaffir, not only after the Battle of Plassey but in the final settlement which concluded his Indian career, he described the members of his official family--the men whom he had taken out to India with him on that occasion As Strachey had become a Member of the House of Commons he could not refer to him by name Here are Clive's actual words:

[Illustration: The Close, Sutton Court, Soentleman was my Secretary, now a Mereatest reat are the obligations I have been under to hiations was his having recoentleable industry I could never have gone throughh, we have no idea how Henry Strachey cae Grenville was able to give hie of ood to his subordinates, would never tolerate inefficiency His approval meant much

But Clive did more for us as a family than merely appoint Henry Strachey to be his private secretary It happened that at the time of his appointment Henry Strachey was very much in the position in which Clive hen he first went out to India Henry Strachey was the eldest son of a hopelessly eentleman of old family John Strachey, the friend of Locke, had been very well off, and so had his son John, the Fellow of the Royal Society Besides Sutton and an estate at Elm and Buckland, near Frome, he owned a considerable a and as to tell of him, but here I will only say that the said John Strachey the second had tives and nineteen children, consequently at his death the faes Strachey, who succeeded him, added to these pecuniary troubles, and then died; the property descended to a younger brother, Henry Strachey Though he h family, the Clerks of Pennycuick, and so was kinsman not only of the Clerks but of the Pri to redeeone so far by his time that the Strachey estates had actually passed to the e of a suiven If the 12,000 could not be paid within the twelve months, Sutton, and the whole of the land, would have passed for ever from the family

When Clive heard of this predicaenerosity, advanced the money in anticipation of the remuneration which Strachey was to receive for his services in India Thus Sutton Court was saved

Thanks to Clive there are still Stracheys at Sutton and I am here to tell the tale In those days twelve thousand pounds was a very big suentleman, and a considerable sum even to a man as rich as Clive The modern equivalent would be over 30,000 But Clive was not away, and he ell repaid Henry Strachey was not only devoted to hiuardian to his infant son and heir

One of three or four pictures which Dance, the portrait-painter, painted of Clive hangs to this day in the Hall at Sutton It always thrilled round, where, surrounded by the smoke of battle, a coe an invisible Oriental foe If I rehtly, the British Cavalry played no part at Plassey, but probably the artist thought that historical accuracy itimately be subordinated in this instance to the demands of art