Zbc Earls Spencer 369 



safe to infer from that reference to fox-killing that 

 the first Lord Spencer was a fox-hunter. Indeed foxes, 

 as I have already shown, were in those days not hunted 

 but incontinently slain as pestilent vermin. It was this 

 John Spencer who flung in Lord Arundel's teeth the 

 retort I have given above, and thereby showed that he 

 was not ashamed of the fact that his grandsire had been 

 a Warwickshire grazier. 



Henry, the third Baron Spencer, gave the family an 

 upward step in the peerage, for he was created Earl of 

 Sunderland by Charles the First. But he did not live 

 long to enjoy his earldom. His patent bears date 8th 

 June 1643, and a little more than three months later, on 

 the 20th of September, he was shot through the heart 

 whilst gallantly leading a charge of Cavaliers against the 

 Roundheads at Newbury. But he is, perhaps, best 

 remembered as the successful rival in love of Edmund 

 Waller, smoothest of versifiers and most versatile of 

 trimmers, who could eulogise with equal fluency the 

 Lord Protector Cromwell and his restored Majesty 

 King Charles the Second. Waller, who was rich and 

 well-born, aspired to the hand of Dorothy Sidney, eldest 

 daughter of the Earl of Leicester, and sister of Algernon, 

 the republican patriot, whose noble life ended on the 

 scaffold. The poet poured out tender verses to his 

 ' Saccharissa,' but she was deaf to the voice of the Muses, 

 and had the bad taste (from Waller's point of view) to 

 prefer his prosaic rival Henry Spencer. 



An only son was the issue of the union of the cavalier 

 Earl and the beautiful ' Saccharissa' — Robert, whose sole 

 vice was an inveterate love of gambling, a vice, how- 

 ever, which, as in the case of Charles James Fox, did 

 not prevent him from attaining political distinction. He 



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