"As [Stuckius] said of that great river Danubius, it riseth from a small fountain, a little brook at first, sometimes broad, sometimes narrow, now slow, then swift, increased at last to an incredible greatness by the confluence of 60 navigable rivers, it vanisheth in conclusion, loseth its name, and is suddenly swallowed up of the Euxine sea: I may say of our greatest families, they were mean at first, augmented by rich marriages, purchases, offices: they continued for some ages, with some little alteration of circumstances, fortunes, places, &c until, by some prodigal son, for some default, or for want of issue, they are defaced in an instant, and their memory blotted out." The Anatomy of Melancholy, ii, 19. "I have laboured to make a covenant with myself that. affection may not press upon judgment: for I suppose there is no man that hath any apprehension of gentry or nobleness but his affection stands to the continuance of so noble a name and house, and would take hold of a twig or a twine thread to uphold it. And yet Time hath his revolutions: there must be a period and an end of all temporal things-finis rerum-an end of names and of dignities, and whatsoever is terrene: and why not of DeVere? For where is Bohun? Where is Mowbray? Where is Mortimer? Nay which is more and most of all, where is Plantagenet? They are entombed in the urns and sepultures of mortality."-RANULPHE CREWE (1625) in Sir William Jones Reports, 101. CHAPTER FOURTEEN A LACKLAND CADET As Cary of Devon never produced an intellectual genius, nor a national hero, nor a benefactor of mankind, so, to apply another and peculiarly English measure of human achievement, C Cary of Devon never attained the peerage. The solid distinction of this family is that for more than seven hundred years it has lived and has made its persistent career as part of the local governing class of a single sitfast and strongly characteristic community. In contrast with his Devon stock the cadet who transmitted his name into the peerage is typically modern. By force of circumstances, if not by native inclination, he broke an old tradition, and began a new one. Viewed across the ages he typified his progeny: they have risen high and fallen low and risen again, but when the story is told they no longer are rooted in the soil. It has been shown that Sir William Cary, of the tenth generation, "the Liegeman of the Red Rose" who was beheaded at Tewkesbury in 1471, left a son by each of his two marriages. The elder, son of his first wife Elizabeth Paulet, was Master Robert Cary of Clovelly, the Compostela pilgrim, the prosperous squire. The younger, son of his second wife Alice Fulford, was the disinherited cadet, to whom we now come. THOMAS CARY (1460?-1548?)1 is called in the Visitation pedigrees "of Chilton Foliot," a magniloquent exaggeration, characteristic of heralds, which was intended as complaisance to highplaced descendants. The description had its origin in a mere place of residence (as who should say to-day "of London"), not in any feudal lordship, or even in a "farm" from the crown.2 He grew up under the shadow of the failure 1 We have no more evidence for the date of Thomas Cary's death than of his birth. It is inference in both cases. For his birth we have the date of his mother's marriage. As his second son was in possession of his copyhold at Chilton Foliot in 1548 and says in his will that he inherited it, Thomas Cary may be assumed to be dead before that date, for he would then be at least eighty-eight years of age. 2 Chilton Foliot, co. Wilts, was a manor in dower of the queen From a survey of England, temp. Henry VIII and Edward VI. taken on behalf of Queen Catherine Parr, December 17, 1548, it appears that Sir Edward Darell had been the "farmer" of the manor since 1546, and that among the copyholds in the manor was one known as Sowley, then held by Sir John Cary "of Plashy." It is described as a house containing "hawle and ketchinge, 2 chambers and a stable." (H. & G., iii, 145.) Such was Thomas Cary's seat, to which his son had succeeded, and such the modest origin of the heralds' high-sounding brand "of Chilton Foliot." |