LEICESTER, EAHL OP. 



LEICESTER, EAHL OF. 



interrupt hi* general protidenc*. Consequently ho admits evil in the 

 world which do** not contribute to the perfection of the whole. 

 LuboiU howerer deniee that Uod could remove the existing evil from 

 UM world without prejudice to it* goodnen. lie moreover doe* not 

 admit of the opposition of general and particular providence, but 

 iumkr the general law of tbo universe to be nothing ele than the 

 totality of all apedal laws. (On thU subject consult Mendelsohn, 



Kl ph. Schriften,' p. 538.) 



1-eibniu has born spoken of principally as a metaphysician, but it 

 should be remembered that bis mathematical fame is ss high among 

 mathematician* as hU metaphyitcal reputation is among metaphy- 

 sicians, and perhaps higher. 



Of the works of Leibnitz several editions and collections hare 

 appeared. The two principal are the following: 'O. W. L-ibnitii, 

 Opp. otunia nuno priinum coll. stutL,' Dutens, Geneva), 6 voli. ; and 

 CEurre* Phil., Lat et Franc., de feu M. Leibnitz, pub. par M. 

 Raspc 1 ,' AmnUloJ., <4to, 170o. The ' Commerciiiin Philosophicum et 

 Mathematicum,' 2 Tola. 4to, containing the correspondence of Leib- 

 niti with John Bernoulli, was published at Lausanne and Geneva in 

 1745. 



LEICESTER, ROBERT DUDLEY, EARL OK, one of Queen 

 Elisabeth's principal favourites, was born about the year 1531, of an 

 ancient and noble family. Edmund Dudley, the rapacious minister of 

 Henry Vll., was hU grandfather. His faih-r was John Dudley, duke 

 of Northumlx- rland, who, after attaining considerable celebrity during 

 the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI., was executed in August 

 1553, for his adherence to the claims of Lady Jane Grey, who was his 

 daughter in-law. Robert Dudley was knighted by Edward VI.; was 

 imprisoned at the same time and for the same offence as his father ; 

 was liberated in 1554 ; and was afterwards appointed master of the 

 ordnance to Queen Mary. He had all those exterior qualities which 

 were likely to ingratiate him with a queen : a youthful and handsome 

 person, a polite address, and a courteous insinuating behaviour ; and 

 Elizabeth was no sooner on the throne than she bestowed upon him a 

 profusion of grants and titles. He received from her lordships, 

 manors, and castles : he was made master of the horse, a privy-coun- 

 cillor, a knight of the garter, high steward of the University of Cam- 

 bridge, baron of Denbigh, and earl of Leicester; to which other 

 dignities were subsequently added. Leicester was continually in 

 attendance at court, and the queen delighted in his society. At on 

 early age he had married Amy, the daughter of Sir John Hobsart. la 

 IJiJU this lady died suddenly at Cumnor under suspicious circum- 

 stances, murdered, as many supposed, at the instigation of her husband, 

 who, seeing no bounds to the queen's friendship for him, found his 

 wife an obstacle to his ambition : but there really appears no sufficient 

 ground for the suspicion, which however Sir Walter Scott, who in his 



Keuil worth' has in the most extraordinary manner distorted the 

 historical circumstances, has rendered the common opinion. The queen 

 admired Leicester, trusted him, and allowed him great influence ; she 

 also projected a marriage for him with Mary, Queen of Soots. It in 

 scarcely necessary to say that the union did not take place ; and that 

 Leicester, continuing to reside at court, played his part with the queen 

 with consummate dexterity. During this residence he engaged in an 

 intrigue, or, as the lady asserted, a marriage with the widow of Lord 

 Sheffield, who bore him a son, to whom be bequeathed much of his 

 property, and the reversion of some of his estates on the death of his 

 brother, in a will which designated him his ' base' son. Lady Sheffield, 

 in a long and elaborate statement which she drew up when her son 

 Sir Robert Dudley sought in tho reign of James II. to establish his 

 legitimacy, declares that she afterwards narrowly escaped death from 

 some poison that was administered to her, and being menaced by the 

 Earl of Leicester, consented to marry Sir Edward Stafford, " a person of 

 great honour and parts, and sometime ambassador to France," aa the 

 only way to protect herself from the vengeance of the earl : and she 

 declare* that "she deeply repented afterwards of this marriage, as 

 having thereby done the greatest wrong that could be to herself and 

 her son." The proceedings, we may add here, were suddenly brought 

 to a stop at tho suit of Leicester 1 * widow, the Lady Lettice, the Star 

 Chamber ordering the papers to be sealed up, and the principal 

 witueMes " to be held *uspect." Sir Robert Dudley immediately left 

 the country, and never returned to it But in the reign of Charles I, 

 the king, who lucoeeded to Kenilworth as heir to his brother Prince 

 Henry, who had purchased Sir Robert Dudleys title to that estate, 

 bargained with the wife of Sir Robert Dudley (the having separated 

 from her husband who was living at Florence) for the purchase of 

 h' r jointure on the Kenilworth property, and (as a part apparently 

 of the purchase money) created her Duchess of Dudley, the patent 

 letting forth that the legitimacy of Sir Robert Dudley had been fully 

 established. Sir Walter Scott it may bo noticed bos borrowed much 

 ot the testimony of tho widow of Lord Sheffield who claimed to be 

 Leicester's wife and transferred it to Amy Uobsart, whom he never 

 denied, except in the page* of the novel, to be his wife. 



Returning to the proper course of Leicester's career, we may observe 

 that Leicester's favour continued, and the queen was prevailed upon 

 to viiit bis castle at Kenilworth, in Warwickshire, where he entertained 

 her for many day* with pageant* and feasting, prepared in a ityle ol 

 magnificence unequalled even in those days. It is not surprising that 

 Leicester, on account of the undue eminence to which he had risen, 



should have been odious to Cecil, Essex, and many of tho principal 

 English nobility; neither can it bo wondered at that tho foreign ambas- 

 sadors who came to treat for the hand of tho queen should have felt 

 hostility towards a courtier who, aspiring to be her suitor hi 

 was known to be advene to her making a foreign alliance. To n 

 mine his power was the interest of many persons ; and it was with 

 tlii* view that Simier, the ambassador of the Duke of Anjou, acquainted 

 Elizabeth with a fact which had been hitherto concealed from her, 

 namely, Leicester's marriage with Lady Essex. The queen was 

 violently angry when first the disclosure was made, and threatened to 

 commit him to the Tower ; she relented however, and again received 

 him at court with undiminiahed esteem. There were other person* 

 to whom, for other reason*, Leicester'* marriage wa* likewise a source 

 of anger. There were suspicions that foul means had been resorted to 

 for its accomplishment. These suspicions, as in the previous case*, 

 could not be proved ; for such inquiries as were not suppressed through 

 fear were foiled by artifice ; but considering Leicester's character, they 

 were not unwarranted by the facts. He had become enamoured of 

 I.'uly Essex during her husband's lifetime. Lord Essex died Mi.M-nly 

 of a peculiar sickness which could not be accounted for, and two day* 

 after his death Leicester was married to his widow. Accusations for 

 this and other offences were not only made in private, but attacks 

 against him were published in a book entitled ' Leicester's Common- 

 wealth.' which the queen caused her council to contradict upon her 

 own personal knowledge and authority. 



In 1585 Leicester took charge of some forces sent to the Low Coun- 

 tries, and was invested with great powers for the settlement of some 

 differences that had arisen there : he sailed in December, and was 

 received at Flushing with great pomp. He was unfit however for a 

 military commander, and so fully manifested his incapacity while 

 opposing the troops of his experienced adversary tbo Prince of Rir.ua, 

 that on his return to the Hague the States expressed their diisatisfac* 

 tion at his tactics, and suspicions of his fidelity. Ha returned to 

 England in November 1536. [BABNEVELDT.] It was at the time ol lii s 

 arrival that Elizabeth was anxious to determine what course to pursue 

 with her prisoner Mary, Queen of Scots. When Leicester was consulted, 

 his advice appears to have been that she should be privately put to 

 death. In 1587 he returned to the Low Countries with a consul 

 force, both horse and foot, and was received with honours; but before 

 loug fresh quarrels arose between him and the States ; he wai again 

 accused of mismanagement, and the queen recalled him after an : 

 of five months. 



In 1588 he was appointed lieutenant-general of the infantry m; 

 at Tilbury Fort for defence against the Spaniards. ThU was the last 

 trust conferred upon him. He was seized with illness at his house at 

 Corubury, in Oxfordshire, which he had visited on his road to K. nil- 

 worth, and died on the 4th of September 1588 ; and as he had before 

 been suspected of poisoning, so now, perhaps from tho suddenness of hid 

 death, he was suspected to have been poisoned, and the vulgar suspicion 

 pointed at his wife, though the Privy Council appears to have thought 

 it necessary to prosecute tin inquiry into a report of his having been 

 poisoned by a son of Sir James Crofts, in revenge for the imprisonment 

 of his father. Leicester's body was removed to Warwick for inter- 

 ment. After the fashion of the age, he gave lands for cbarit.ihle 

 endowments, and the hospital of Robert, earl of Leicester, at Warwick, 

 still remains as a monument of his liberality, or of his conformity to 

 the practice of his times. 



LEICESTER OF HOLKIIAM, THOMAS WILLIAM COKE, 

 EARL OF. Thomas Coke, Esq., of Holkham, in Norfolk, great- 

 great-grandson of Sir Edward Coke, the chief-justice, was in 1723 

 created Baron Luvel, of Minster Lovel, in Oxfordshire ; and in 1744 

 Viscount Coke of Holkham, and Earl of Leicester. Ou his death 

 without heirs male, in 1759, the titles became extinct, and the estites 

 went to his nephew, Weuuian Roberts, Esq. (the sou of his sister 

 Anne and her husband, Colonel Philip Roberts), who thereupon 

 assumed the surname and anus of Coke. The subject of the present 

 notice was his son, who was born on the 4th of May 17.">i Ou the 

 death of his father in 1776, Mr. Coke succeeded him in the repre- 

 sentation of the county of Norfolk his only inducement as be 

 asserted in a speech which he made at a dinner given to him in 1S33, 

 being that he WAS told if he would not stand, a Tory would be sure 

 to come in. This horror of Toryism, or of what he imagined that 

 term to mean, constituted nearly the whole of Mr. Coke's political 

 system to the end of his life. With a brief interval Mr. Coke con- 

 tinued to represent the county of Norfolk down to his retirement 

 from the House of Commons in 1832. 



Mr. Coke, though a keen and steady partisan, was not a frequent 

 speaker in parliament The two occasions on which he appeared most 

 conspicuously were, on tho 24th of March 1783, when in a short 

 speech he moved an address requesting that his majesty would be 

 pleased to form an administration entitled to the confidence of the 

 people, which, being assented to, wo* followed by the resignation of 

 Lord Shelburne and the formation of the Coalition Ministry of Mr. 

 Fox and Lord North; and on the 2nd and 3rd of February 1784, 

 when ho carried two motions against the existing ministry'' 

 Pitt, which however had no effect He also on subsequent year* 

 came forward on some occasions when measures affecting agriculture 

 occupied the attention of the House. In all matters of general policy 



