never transpired, but who has been conjectured to be Defoe. His theological views, however, are unlike Defoe's, and he implies, with whatever truth, that he has been on the coast of Guinea. Whoever he was, he was content merely to abridge Drury's artless story and fit it for general reading. Either he or Drury, or both, possessed an eminent dramatic faculty, and great power of bringing scenes and persons vividly before the eye. Drury's religious controversies with the natives are most humorously recounted, and the characters of the various petty chiefs and their wars are a better illustration of a Homeric state of society than most commentaries on the ‘Iliad.’ The editor betrays a certain bias in one respect; he is evidently a believer in natural religion, as distinguished from revelation, and he involuntarily represents the people of Madagascar as more pious, moral, and innocent than is quite consistent with fact, superior as they really are to most uncivilised nations. In every other point the truth of Drury's narrative has been entirely corroborated, so far as the case admits, by the knowledge since acquired of other parts of the island. The wild and remote district where his lot was cast has hardly been visited since his time, and will be the last portion of Madagascar to be explored.
Later editions of Drury's travels appeared in 1743, 1808, and 1826, the last being vol. v. of the series of autobiographies published by Hunt & Clarke.
[Drury's Madagascar, or Journal during Fifteen Years' Captivity on that Island.]
DRURY, Sir WILLIAM (1527–1579), marshal of Berwick and lord justice to the council in Ireland, third son of Sir Robert Drury of Hedgerley, Buckinghamshire, and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Edmund Brudenell, esq., was born at Hawstead in Suffolk on 2 Oct. 1527. Having completed his education at Gonville Hall, Cambridge, he attached himself as a follower to Lord Russell, afterwards created Earl of Bedford. Accompanying this nobleman into France on the occasion of the joint invasion of that country by Charles V and Henry VIII in 1544, he took an active part in the sieges of Boulogne and Montreuil, but had the mishap to be taken a prisoner during a skirmish in the neighbourhood of Brussels. On being ransomed he served for a short time at sea, becoming ‘an excellent maritimal man.’ In 1549 he assisted Lord Russell in suppressing a rebellion that had broken out in Devonshire owing to the reforming and iconoclastic government of the protector Somerset. Though, like his patron, a staunch adherent of the reformed church, he refused to countenance the ambitious designs of the Duke of Northumberland in his attempt to alter the succession, and on the death of Edward VI he was one of the first to declare for Queen Mary. His religion, however, and his connection with the Earl of Bedford rendering his presence distasteful to Mary, he prudently retired from court during her reign (Collectanea Topographica, vi. 92; Cullum, History of Hawsted, p. 133; Fuller, Worthies, Suffolk, Cooper, Athenæ Cantab.)
The accession of Elizabeth at once restored Drury to public life; and the government of Mary of Lorraine seeming to call for English interference in Scotland, he was despatched to Edinburgh in October 1559 to investigate the state of parties there, and to view the new fortifications of Leith, then said to be rapidly approaching completion. The propriety of sending him on this secret mission was at first doubted by Cecil, owing to the fact that his brother ‘was thought to be an inward man with the emperor's ambassador.’ But his conduct speedily removed these suspicions, and confirmed Sir Ralph Sadler's opinion of him as being ‘honest, wise, and secret.’ Elizabeth having determined to assist the lords of the congregation, and the siege of Leith having been undertaken, Drury had again the misfortune to fall into the enemy's hands; but beyond a short detention he seems to have suffered no other injury, for on 10 Oct. 1560 he married Margaret, daughter of Thomas, lord Wentworth, and widow of John, last lord Williams of Thame, in the church of St. Alphage, London. His experience, prudence, and personal bravery qualifying him for service on the borders, he was, in February 1564, appointed to succeed Sir Thomas Dacre as marshal and deputy-governor of Berwick, an office which he continued to fill until 1576, and his letters to Cecil regarding the progress of events in Scotland are among the most important state documents relative to this period. In April 1567 he received a challenge from Bothwell for uttering foul reproaches against him, but having expressed his willingness to meet him, the earl's ardour cooled and the meeting never took place. The winter of 1569–70 was an anxious time for the wardens of the marches owing to the rising of the northern earls. But the rebellion having been suppressed, and the Earl of Northumberland carried off a prisoner to Lochleven Castle, Drury and Sir Henry Gates were, in January 1570, commissioned to treat with the regent Murray for his surrender. While passing through the streets of Linlithgow on his way to meet them, Murray met his death at the hand of Bothwelhaugh.
