Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 59.djvu/266

There was a problem when proofreading this page.
Walter
260
Walter

Duke of Monmouth [see Scott, James (known as Fitzroy and as Crofts), Duke of Monmouth and Buccleuch); (2) a daughter, Mary (by Arlington ?), born at The Hague on 6 May 1651, who married William Sarsfield, elder brother of Patrick, earl of Lucan [q. v.], and secondly, William Fanshawe (d. 1708), master of requests, by whom she had issue.

Between 1673 and 1680 (while the exclusion bill agitation was maturing) a legend was prepared and industriously circulated by the country party to the effect that Charles had legally married Lucy Walter. It was asseverated in course of time that the contract of marriage was preserved in a black box in the possession of Sir Gilbert Gerard, son-in-law of John Cosin (the bishop himself had died in 1671). In a novel which had a wide circulation it was the designing Prince of Purdino (James) who advised his brother, King Conradus of Otenia, to marry the beautiful 'Lucilious,' but, in order to avoid disgusting the Otenians, to do so with the greatest privacy imaginable, and in the presence of but two witnesses, himself and the priest (Cosin) (The Perplex'd Prince, London, 1681? 12mo, dedicated to William, lord Russell, by T. S.) Sir Gilbert Gerard, summoned before an extraordinary meeting of the privy council convened by the king, stated that he knew nothing whatever of such a marriage contract; and the king issued three declarations in denial of the marriage (January, March, and June 1678). One of these declarations, signed by sixteen privy councillors, was entered in the council book and registered in chancery.

A 'demi-nude' portrait of Lucy Walter, in possession of the Marquis of Bute, was engraved by Van der Berghe for Harding's 'Grammont;' another portrait belongs to Earl Spencer, and a third to the Paynter family of Pembroke. At Ditchley is a portrait of the lady and the Duke of Monmouth I as the Madonna and Child. A 'curious' half-length by Honthorst was destroyed at Whitehall in the fire of 1699. Aubrey has this characteristic memorandum respecting a portrait: 'Mr. Freeman (who married the Lady Lake) has the Duke of Monmouth's mother's—Mrs. Lucy Walters, who could deny nobody—picture, very like her, at Stanmore, near Harrow-on-the-Hill' (Brief Lives, 1898, ii. 283).

Lucy Walter is often spoken of incorrectly as Mrs. Walters or Waters, and during her career she seems to have adopted the alias of Mrs. Barlo or Barlow (the name of a family with which the Walters of Pembrokeshire had intermarried).

[Dwnn's Herald. Visitations of Wales, i. 228; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. ii. 375, with pedigree; Miscell. Geneal. et Herald. 2nd ser. iv. 265; Clarke's Life of James II. i. 491 sq.; Steinmann's Althorp Memoirs. 1869, pp. 77 sq., and Addenda, 1880; Clarendon State Papers, vol. iii.; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1656-7, p. 4; Whitelocke's Memorials, 1732, p. 649; Heroic Life of Monmouth, 1683; Evelyn's Diary, ed. Wheatley, passim; Pepys's Diary and Corresp. 1842, ii. 34. v. 232; Rochester's Panegyrick on Nelly; Hamilton's Grammont, ed. Vizetelly, vol. ii.; Burnet's Own Time; Continuation of Clarendon's Life, 1857; Life of Dugdale, p. 95; Roberts's Life of Monmouth, i. 2-5; Ferguson's Robert Ferguson the Plotter, 1887, pp. 45, 50; Gent. Mug. 1851, ii. 471; Rapin's Hist. of England, 1793, ii. 712; Jesse's Court of England under the Stuarts. 1840, iv. 314 sq.; Lyon's Personal Hist. of Charles II, 1851. p. 35; Cunningham's Nell Gwyn. 1892, p. 162; Lingard's Hist. 1849, viii. 479; Masson's Milton, vi. 604.]

T. S.

WALTER, RICHARD (1716?–1785), chaplain in the navy, son of Arthur Walter, merchant in London, was admitted a member of Sidney-Sussex College, Cambridge, on 3 July 1735, 'aged 18.' He graduated B.A. in 1738, was elected to a fellowship, ordained, and in 1740 was appointed chaplain of his majesty's ship Centurion, then fitting out for her celebrated voyage round the world, under the command of Commodore George Anson (afterwards Lord Anson) [q. v.] As the Centurion sailed in September 1740, Walter cannot have been ordained priest later than Trinity Sunday 1740, which throws the date of his birth back to May 1716 at the latest. His age at matriculation must have been erroneously entered by at least a year. Walter continued in the Centurion, having often with the other officers, though 'a puny, weakly man, pale, and of a low stature,' to assist in the actual working of the ship, till her arrival at Macao in November 1742. In December, an opportunity occurring, he obtained the commodore's leave, and returned to England in one of the East India Company's ships. He took his M.A. degree in 1744, and in March 1745 was appointed chaplain of Portsmouth dockyard, a post which he held till his death on 10 March 1785. He was buried at Great Staughton, Huntingdon, where he owned some property, though it does not appear that he had ever resided there. On 5 May 1748 he married, in Gray's Inn Chapel, Jane Saberthwaite of St. Margaret's, Lothbury, and left issue a son and daughter, whose descendants survive. The son's great-grandson, the Rev. E. L. H. Tew, owns a portrait of his ancestor. The daughter's son was Sir Henry Prescott [q. v.]