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 be equivalent to the legal coin of the realm, brought upon the author a good deal of ridicule. Notwithstanding Canning's declaration that no assembly of reasonable men could be persuaded to give their concurrence, all the resolutions were passed. On Sidmouth eventually joining the Perceval administration, Vansittart was at first suggested as lord treasurer and chancellor of the exchequer for Ireland (, Diary, ii. 372); but the assassination of the prime minister on 11 May gave him a chance of higher office, and he was appointed chancellor of the exchequer on 20 May 1812.

Vansittart came into office at one of the most embarrassing periods in the history of English finance. The plan of his first budget, which was presented on 17 June 1812, was due to his predecessor; but Vansittart made new proposals for taxation, preferring additions to the existing taxes on male servants, carriages, horses, dogs, agricultural and trade horses, to Perceval's proposed tax on private brewing establishments. On 3 March 1813 he brought forward, in a number of resolutions in the House of Commons, a ‘new plan of finance’ (published 1813 under title ‘The Outlines of a Plan of Finance’), dealing with the sinking fund. Under this plan, by repealing portions of the sinking fund bill, 42 George III, c. 71, it was believed the great advantage could be secured of keeping in reserve in time of peace the means of funding a large sum in case of renewed hostilities. The plan was adversely criticised by Huskisson, and Tierney said he was warranted in asserting that he had not met a single man who understood it; but the resolutions were agreed to seriatim on 26 March 1813 (Hansard, xxv. 350). This scheme was the first specimen of similar contrivances by Vansittart, all burdened with mysterious complications, which, after first winning from the public a puzzled admiration for the ability of their author, eventually brought him into disrepute. The main feature in the budget of 1813 was a general twenty-five per cent. increase of the customs to raise an extra 1,000,000l. required by the ‘new plan of finance.’

Hopes of relief to the burdened taxpayers which the peace excited were disappointed by the budget of 1814. The chancellor of the exchequer found himself obliged not only to maintain the war taxes, 20,500,000l. in amount, but also to raise immense loans for the sinking fund, which he insisted on maintaining. The difficulty of providing sufficient specie for the wants of the army and for the payment of foreign subsidies was successfully met by employing Rothschild to collect with great secrecy bullion for the continent (Addit. MS. 31231, f. 14). During Castlereagh's absence in Paris in 1815 the administration was represented by Vansittart in the commons. He somewhat prematurely on 23 Feb. 1815 explained what new taxes were about to take the place of the property tax (speech published in the Pamphleteer, No. xi.); but the escape of Napoleon made provision necessary in the budget of 14 June 1815 for the enormous expenditure of 79,893,300l., which was again met by a renewal of the war taxes and the issue of further loans. In this year the taxation of this country reached an unprecedented total.

On 12 Feb. 1816, in committee of supply, the chancellor of the exchequer presented his financial policy for a period of peace. This was to consist of a diminution of taxation and ‘a system of measures for the support of public credit.’ His proposal, however, to reduce instead of abolish the property tax was treated as a breach of good faith, the contention being that it was entirely a war tax. Numerous petitions strengthened discontent existing in the house, and the minister's motion for the continuance of the tax was rejected on 18 March (Hansard, pp. 33, 481). Vansittart thus found himself deprived of 7,000,000l. of revenue on which he had calculated; and on 20 March, owing to the pressure of the country members, he announced the discontinuance of the war malt tax. The loss of 2,700,000l. from this source, and about 1,000,000l. from other duties repealed, he appears to have regarded as of little consequence, ‘as recourse to the money market was now necessary.’ To make up for the loss of taxes producing some 18,000,000l., he made additions to the post dues and excise, and a considerable increase on the soap tax. For this last he was caricatured as ‘Startling Betty’ by appearing in the wash-tub. Payment of debt by the sinking fund to the amount of more than 14,000,000l. was in the budget provided for as usual by further loans.

In the debates on the consolidation of the British and Irish exchequers, Vansittart thought himself precluded from taking part as an interested party; he was strongly in favour of the consolidation, which was agreed to on 20 May 1816.

A new method of raising money was propounded in his budget speech of 14 May 1818. He proposed the issue of 27,000,000l. at three and a half in the place of a similar amount of three-per-cent. stock, and recommended this unusual process as not increasing the nominal capital of the debt, and as affording facilities in the future for a


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 reduction of the four and five per cents. The methods of the chancellor of the exchequer began now to be subjected to severe criticism. On the debate (2 Feb. 1819) on the continuance of the Bank Restriction Act, Tierney attacked the whole conduct of Vansittart's finance, asserting that the minister added to the debt by exchequer bills as fast as he reduced it by the sinking fund.

The budget of 1819 was framed on the principle enunciated in the regent's speech for the year, that a clear available surplus of 5,000,000l. ought to be applied annually to the reduction of the national debt. To effect this Vansittart proposed a consolidation of the customs and increased taxation to the extent of 3,190,000l., and to make up his deficiency availed himself of the simpler method of borrowing 12,000,000l. from the 15,000,000l. applicable under the sinking fund to the reduction of the debt (Hansard, xl. 864, 912, 974). The same policy was continued in 1820 and 1821, the requirements of the exchequer being provided for by borrowing from the sinking fund and issuing much smaller new loans, the chancellor clinging to some maintenance of the sinking fund, first for the sake of public credit, and secondly to prevent undue fluctuations in the price of stock. The heavy increase, however, of taxation in times of peace began to make Vansittart universally unpopular in the country (, Memoirs of the Court during the Regency, ii. 327), and on 14 June 1821 a motion for the repeal of the tax on horses employed in agriculture was carried against him in the house.

The conversion of the navy five per cents to a four-per-cent. stock, the most successful piece of finance with which Vansittart can be credited in his long term of office, was carried into effect without much difficulty in 1822. By this operation 105l. of the new stock was given for each 100l. of the old, and an annual saving of 1,140,000l. was thus effected at the cost of an addition of 7,000,000l. to the capital debt of this country. A similar arrangement for the conversion of the Irish five per cents was executed with equal facility the same year. The financial plan which Vansittart produced the same year for relieving in some degree the immediate burden of military and naval pensions was, however, from the first doomed to complete failure. His proposition was to grant to contractors a fixed annuity for forty-five years, calculated at about 2,800,000l., while the contractors for the annuity were to pay sums sufficient to meet the pensions due during a term of forty-five years. In other words, the plan was simply the contracting for annual loans for the next fifteen years, which were to be repaid by a gradually increasing annuity continuing for thirty years after the expiration of the first fifteen years (Hansard, new ser. vii. 737–58). This scheme, ingenious only in its unnecessary complication, ‘the most curious specimen of the most ruinous species of borrowing that the wit of man could devise’ (Annual Reg. 1822, p. 132), after being completely exposed by Ricardo, Brougham, and Hume, but yet accepted by the house, happily could not be carried into effect, as no capitalists were ready to accept the risk. Subsequently (24 May 1822) very considerable modifications were made in the plan, under which trustees were nominated to lend specified sums for fifteen years, to be raised by exchequer bills on the sale of annuities. Here, however, there was obvious waste in appointing trustees to sell annuities and exchequer bills while the commissioners were being employed at the same time under the sinking fund. For this extravagance Vansittart made some amends by the passing of an act under which the salaries of all civil servants were considerably reduced, and a provision for superannuation made by reserving a percentage out of each salary (3 Geo. IV, c. 113). He attempted to conciliate public opinion by proposing, in his last budget, the immediate reduction of the tax on salt from fifteenpence to twopence per hundred weight. But the ‘plan of finance’ had destroyed any remaining confidence placed in him, and his retirement from office (December 1822) was regarded with relief even by his own friends (, Memoirs of the Court of George IV, i. 405). The spiteful story that he was dismissed by a letter from Lord Liverpool's secretary (, Diary, vol. iii. 5 Feb. 1823) is, however, absolutely untrue. Lord Liverpool wrote to him (14 Dec. 1822) explaining the proposed rearrangement of the cabinet in order to include Huskisson and Robinson, and at the same time offered him the chancellorship of the duchy of Lancaster and a seat in the cabinet (Addit. MS. 31232, f. 294). Vansittart accepted this new arrangement without hesitation, and on 1 March 1823 was created Baron Bexley of Bexley in Kent, and awarded a pension of 3,000l. per annum. In the debates in the House of Lords he took an occasional but not important part. He moved the Spitalfields weavers bill on 16 July 1823, which had been framed by Huskisson to repeal the Spitalfields acts, and voted with Liverpool (24 May 1824) for the second reading of the English Roman catholic elections bill. He accepted Canning's invitation to retain his

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 office in the new cabinet (January 1828), but was omitted from the Duke of Wellington's administration, and did not again secure office.

During the remainder of his long life Bexley took an active part in aid of religious and charitable societies, being for many years president of the British and Foreign Bible Mission and a strong supporter of the Church Missionary and Prayer Book and Homily societies. He also materially assisted in the foundation and the promotion of the interests of King's College, London. He died on 8 Feb. 1851 at Foot's Cray in Kent, when his peerage became extinct. He married, 22 July 1806, Catharine Isabella, second daughter of William Eden, first baron Auckland [q. v.] She died without issue on 10 Aug. 1810.

The remarkable feature in Vansittart's political career is that he held for twelve years the office of chancellor of the exchequer, though possessing no special qualifications, at perhaps the most difficult financial period in English history. Despite, however, his weak points as an economist and financier, he could justly boast that he left the country in possession of a surplus revenue of 7,000,000l. A mild-mannered man, most ineffective in debate, he yet had many friends, and his mediocre abilities with accommodating and moderate views probably account for his holding office from 1801 to 1828 with the exception of only two years. He took a keen interest in foreign politics, and maintained a lengthy correspondence with D'Ivernois and Generals Miranda and Dumourier, which is preserved among his papers in the British Museum.

Vansittart was a high steward of Harwich, a director of Greenwich Hospital, a F.R.S. and F.S.A.; and received the freedom of the city of Edinburgh on 2 March 1814.

There are numerous portraits of Vansittart. Two by William Owen now hang respectively in the Guildhall, Harwich, and in the hall of Christchurch, Oxford. Of two portraits by Sir Thomas Lawrence, one (engraved by Dean) is at Foot's Cray, and the other at Kirkleatham. A fifth portrait, by Stephanoff, was engraved by Scriven. A sixth, by Rand, now at Foot's Cray, was engraved by C. Turner. A crayon portrait by Zornlin is in the National Portrait Gallery.

[Hansard's Debates; Annual Register; Times, 10 Feb. 1851; Gent. Mag.; Dowell's History of Taxation; Buxton's Finance and Politics; Martineau's Hist. of Thirty Years' Peace; Walpole's Hist. of England; E. Herries's Memoir of J. C. Herries; nine volumes of Vansittart Papers in British Museum (Addit. MSS. 31229–37), bequeathed by Lord Bexley; information supplied by C. N. Vansittart, esq.]

VANSITTART, ROBERT (1728–1789), regius professor of civil law at Oxford University, born on 28 Dec. 1728 in London at Great Ormond Street, was the second son of Arthur van Sittart of Shottesbrook, Berkshire, by his wife Martha, eldest daughter of Sir John Stonhouse, bart., of Radley, Berkshire, comptroller of the household to Queen Anne. Henry Vansittart [q. v.], governor of Bengal, was his younger brother.

Robert was educated at Reading and at Winchester. He matriculated from Trinity College, Oxford, on 3 April 1745, was elected a fellow of All Souls' College, and graduated B.C.L. in 1751 and D.C.L. in 1757. In 1753 he was called to the bar by the society of the Inner Temple. On 17 May 1760 he was nominated high steward of Monmouth, in 1763 recorder of Maidenhead, in 1764 recorder of Newbury, and in 1770 recorder of Windsor. In 1767 he was appointed by the crown regius professor of civil law in the university of Oxford, a post which he held till his death. For some years previous to his appointment he performed the duties of public orator for his predecessor, Robert Jenner.

Vansittart was on intimate terms with the painters George Knapton and Hogarth, as well as with the poets Paul Whitehead and Cowper. In Italy he met Goethe, who named a character in one of his comedies after him. He was a friend of Dr. Johnson, who regarded him with much affection, and who was invited to visit India with him by his brother Henry. In 1759, in a festive moment, Dr. Johnson, while on a visit to Oxford, proposed that they should scale the walls of All Souls' together. On another occasion, while Vansittart was edifying Boswell with a lengthy story of a flea, Johnson burst in with ‘It is a pity, sir, that you have not seen a lion; for a flea has taken you such a time that a lion must have served you for a twelve-month.’

Vansittart, who was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries on 4 June 1767, amused his leisure with antiquarian studies. In the year of his election he edited ‘Certain Ancient Tracts concerning the Management of Landed Property’ (London, 8vo), which consisted of reprints of Gentian Hervet's translation of ‘Xenophon's Treatise of the Householde,’ 1534; Sir Anthony Fitzherbert's ‘Boke of Husbandry,’ 1534; and Sir Anthony Fitzherbert's ‘Surveyinge,’ 1539.

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 was a member of the ‘Franciscans of Medmenham,’ otherwise known as the ‘Hell-fire Club.’ To this society he presented with great pomp a baboon sent from India by Henry, to which Sir Francis Dashwood was accustomed to administer the eucharist at their meetings. Vansittart died at Oxford, unmarried, on 31 Jan. 1789, and was buried in a vault in the chapel of All Souls' College. In person he was tall and very thin, and the members of the Oxford bar gave the name of ‘Counsellor Van’ to a sharp-pointed rock on the river Wye from a fancied resemblance (see, Banks of Wye, 1823, p. 23).

Two portraits of Vansittart exist: one by Hogarth representing him as a young man, with a kerchief in the colours of the ‘Franciscans,’ wound in turban fashion over the head, embroidered with the motto ‘Love and Friendship;’ the other, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, depicting him in later life. Both were formerly in the Shottesbrook collection.

[Manuscript memoir kindly furnished by Mr. C. N. Vansittart; Vansittart Papers; Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. Hill, i. 348, ii. 194, v. 460; Piozzi Letters, i. 191, 197; Letters of Samuel Johnson, ed. G. B. Hill, i. 389; Hill's Johnsonian Miscellanies, ii. 380–1; St. James's Chronicle, 17 Sept. 1768; Autobiography of Mrs. Piozzi, i. 143–4; Boswelliana, p. 270; Leslie and Taylor's Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds, ii. 27, 28; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886; Gent. Mag. 1789, i. 182.]

VAN SOMER, PAUL (1576–1621), portrait-painter, was born at Antwerp in 1576. An elder brother, Bernard Van Somer, was entered in the guild of St. Luke at Antwerp in 1588 as the pupil of Philippe Lisart, but there is no trace of Paul Van Somer having become a member of the guild. The two brothers, according to the historian of art, Karel Van Mander, were in 1604 residing at Amsterdam, both in good esteem for portrait-painting and other branches of the art. Paul was then a bachelor, but Bernard had married in Italy the daughter of Arnold Mytens, who was probably related to Daniel Mytens [q. v.], for so many years Van Somer's rival as a portrait-painter in England. It is uncertain when he came over to England. A portrait of Christian IV, king of Denmark, at Hampton Court, is dated 1606, and it is possible that he came over in that king's train, as he seems always to have been the favourite painter of James I's consort, Anne of Denmark, and her household. Van Somer is chiefly known by a number of full-length portraits, both male and female, which are of great interest historically from the carefully rendered details of the costume, resembling very much the portraits by the great Spanish painter, Sanchez Coello. They are sometimes, when not signed, with difficulty distinguished from those by Mytens of a similar character. Speaking generally, those by Van Somer are more freely handled, and are richer in colour, showing a strong predilection for deep reds and browns. Van Somer also frequently introduced a piece of landscape or a view of a building into the background. A portrait of Anne of Denmark in hunting dress, with her dogs, painted in 1617, and now at Hampton Court, has a view of Oatlands in the background, another of the same queen has a view of Inigo Jones's facade at St. Paul's Cathedral. A portrait of James I, painted in 1619–20, also at Hampton Court, has a view of the newly erected banqueting-house at Whitehall in the background. Two interesting portraits of the Earl and Countess of Arundel, in the possession of the Duke of Norfolk, painted in 1618, show views of the earl's picture gallery and collections of marbles. A fine portrait of Henry, prince of Wales, formerly at Blenheim Palace, is in the National Portrait Gallery. Among other important portraits by Van Somer are those of Sir Simon Weston (1608); William Herbert, third earl of Pembroke (1617, engraved by Simon Van de Passe); Henry Wriothesley, earl of Southampton (engraved by Simon Van de Passe); Francis Bacon, viscount St. Albans (at Gorhambury); Sir Thomas Lyttelton (1621, at Hagley); Robert Carr, earl of Ancrum (1619); and others. There is a fine series of paintings by Van Somer at Ditchley, the seat of Viscount Dillon, representing ladies of Anne of Denmark's court. Van Somer died in London, and was buried on 5 Jan. 1621 in St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. It has been stated that his descendants remained in London and established a carpet manufactory. A portrait by Van Somer of himself was formerly at Ham House.

It is uncertain whether the mezzotint engravers Jan and Paul Van Somer belonged to this family. Jan Van Somer lived in Amsterdam, but his brother, Paul Van Somer, came to London in 1674, and lived in Newport Street, Soho, where he published many mezzotint engravings, and died in 1694.

[Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, ed. Wornum; Van Mander's Vies des Peintres, ed. Hymans; De Piles's Lives of the Painters.]

VAN SON, JAN FRANS (FRANCIS), sometimes erroneously written (1658–1718?), painter, born at Antwerp on


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 16 Aug. 1658, was son of Joris Van Son (1623–1667), a well-known painter of flowers and still life in that city, whose paintings are frequently to be met with in collections. His mother's name was Cornelia Van Heulem. Van Son was a pupil of his father and a family friend, Jan Pauwel Gillemans. He practised in the same manner as his father, painting still life, flowers, fruit, and the like, but without attaining the same success. Van Son came therefore to London, and obtained a lucrative patronage through his marriage with a niece of the king's serjeant-painter, Robert Streater [q. v.] He was also patronised by Charles Robartes, earl of Radnor, who had a great number of Van Son's paintings in his house in St. James's Square. Some of Van Son's paintings were of considerable size. He lived for some time in Long Acre, but finally in St. Albans Street, St. James's, where he died about 1718. He sometimes introduced his own portrait into his paintings.

[Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, ed. Wornum; De Piles's Lives of the Painters; Van den Branden's Antwerpsche Schilderschool.]

VAN STRAUBENZEE, CHARLES THOMAS (1812–1892), general, colonel of the 39th foot (Dorsetshire regiment), second son of Major Thomas Van Straubenzee, royal artillery, and of his wife Maria, youngest daughter of Major Henry Bowen of the 2nd royal veteran battalion, was born in Malta on 17 Feb. 1812. His great-grandfather, Philip William Casimir Van Straubenzee, captain in the Dutch guards, came to England about 1745, was naturalised by act of parliament, married Jane, only daughter of Cholmely Turner of Kirkleatham, Yorkshire, by Jane, granddaughter and sole heir of Sir Henry Marwood, bart., of Buskby Hall, Yorkshire, and died in 1765. He had a younger brother, General A. Van Straubenzee, who was governor of Zutphen in 1798. His third son, Charles Spencer, married a granddaughter of Sir George Vane of Raby, and had seven sons in the British army and navy; of these, the eldest, Henry, succeeded a grand-uncle as head of the family and in the property of Spennithorne, North Riding of York; and the seventh was the father of the subject of this memoir.

Charles Thomas Van Straubenzee received a commission as ensign in the Ceylon rifles on 28 Aug. 1828, and arrived in Ceylon in June the following year. He was promoted to be lieutenant in the 39th foot on 22 Feb. 1833. He joined his new regiment at Bangalore in India (Mysore), and on 17 March 1834 marched with it in the expedition under Brigadier-general Patrick Lindesay against Kurg (Coorg). Merkara, the capital, was found undefended, and occupied on 6 April, the raja surrendering in person on the 10th, when Van Straubenzee returned with his regiment to Bangalore.

He was promoted to a company in the 39th foot on 10 March 1837, and in November he went to England on furlough. In November 1841 he married, and in June of the following year he rejoined his regiment at Agra. In October 1842 he joined the army of reserve assembled at Firozpur on the return of the troops from Afghanistan. On 27 Aug. 1843 he was promoted to be regimental major, and in the autumn his regiment joined the army of exercise assembled at Agra in consequence of the state of affairs at Gwalior. Early in December he marched with it under Sir Hugh (afterwards Lord) Gough [q. v.] against Sindia. He distinguished himself at the battle of Maharajpur on 29 Dec., when the 39th foot, supported by the 56th native infantry, drove the enemy from their guns into the village, the scene of a sanguinary conflict; later the regiment in a gallant charge carried the entrenched main position at Chouda, when the commanding officer of the regiment was desperately wounded, and Van Straubenzee, succeeding to the temporary command, brought it out of action after capturing two standards from the enemy. Van Straubenzee was mentioned by Gough in despatches for his conduct at Maharajpur, was specially brought to the notice of the commander-in-chief for services at Gwalior, and received the bronze star. He was promoted to be brevet lieutenant-colonel on 30 April 1844.

On 30 Aug. 1844 Van Straubenzee exchanged into the 13th Prince Albert's light infantry, and, returning with it in July 1845, was quartered at Walmer. He took part in the ceremony of presentation of new colours to it by Prince Albert on 13 Aug. 1846 at Portsmouth. On 28 Aug. he exchanged into the 3rd ‘buffs,’ and accompanied his new regiment to Ireland in October. In April 1851 he embarked with the battalion for Malta, and on 11 Nov. was promoted to be regimental lieutenant-colonel to command it. On 20 June 1854 he was promoted to be brevet colonel.

On 12 Nov. Van Straubenzee took the regiment to the Piræus in connection with the war with Russia. He was made a colonel on the staff on 15 Nov. to command the British contingent in Greece. He remained at the Piræus until 23 March 1855, when the ‘buffs’ were relieved by the 91st foot, and he returned with them to Malta. The


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 Opinion of the Court In the Gnutella network made available by Morpheus, the process is mostly the same, except that in some versions of the Gnutella protocol there are no supernodes. In these versions, peer computers using the protocol communicate directly with each other. When a user enters a search request into the Morpheus software, it sends the request to computers connected with it, which in turn pass the request along to other connected peers. The search results are communicated to the requesting computer, and the user can download desired files directly from peers’ computers. As this description indicates, Grokster and StreamCast use no servers to intercept the content of the search requests or to mediate the file transfers conducted by users of the software, there being no central point through which the substance of the communications passes in either direction.

Although Grokster and StreamCast do not therefore know when particular files are copied, a few searches using their software would show what is available on the networks the software reaches. MGM commissioned a statistician to conduct a systematic search, and his study showed that nearly 90% of the files available for download on the FastTrack system were copyrighted works. Grokster and StreamCast dispute this figure, raising methodological problems and arguing that free copying even of copyrighted works may be authorized by the rightholders. They also argue that potential noninfringing uses of their software are significant in kind, even if infrequent in practice. Some musical performers, for example, have gained new audiences by distributing


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AVISTOCK, in the reign of Elizabeth, was a more picturesque town than it is at present. Then the abbey walls, crenellated [sic] and with towers at intervals, were still standing in complete circuit, and the abbey church, the second finest in the county and diocese, though unroofed, was still erect. The houses, slate-hung in quaint patterns representing fleurs-de-lis, oak leaves, swallow-tails, pomegranates, with gables to the street, were very different from the present houses, stuccoed drab and destitute of taste. Moreover the absurd, gaunt market hall erected last century was not a central and conspicuous disfigurement to the town.

But a few strides to the west, on the Plymouth road, stood Fitzford House, a mansion recently erected, consisting of a court, entered through a massive gatehouse, and the mansion standing back, with porch and projecting wings.

In this house lived the Fitz family. They had been there for four generations and had married well. They were also well estated, with property in Cornwall, in Kent and Southwark, as well as in Devon. John Fitz, the father of the man whose tragic history we are about to relate, married Mary, daughter of Sir John Sydenham, of Brimpton, in Somerset, and had late in life one son, the "unfortunate" Sir John. The Fitzes had been a family bred to the law; the first known of them, John 185


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 low, was born at Ludlow on 9 Aug. 1742. He entered the navy in August 1755 on board the Revenge, with Captain Frederick Cornewall, a man of local property and influence [see under, and ]. In the Revenge Vashon was present at the battle of Minorca on 20 May 1756, and on Cornewall being sent to England as a witness on the trial of Admiral John Byng [q. v.], he was moved into the Lancaster, with Captain George Edgcumbe (afterwards Earl of Mount-Edgcumbe) [q. v.], and took part in the reduction of Louisbourg in July 1758. The Lancaster went to the West Indies, as part of the force under Commodore John Moore (1718–1779) [q. v.] in the reduction of Guadeloupe. Vashon was then moved into the Cambridge, Moore's flagship, and continued in her, under Captain Goostrey and Rear-admiral Charles Holmes [q. v.], at Jamaica. While there he was frequently lent to the Boreas, a cruising frigate, and in her saw some sharp boat service, in cutting out the enemy's privateers. Holmes died in November 1761, and on 1 July 1762 Goostrey was killed in the attack on the Morro Castle at Havana. In the summer of 1761 Goostrey is said to have asked Holmes to make Vashon a lieutenant. Holmes demurred, saying he looked such a boy, but he would make him one by and by. The death of Holmes and Goostrey deprived him of this patronage, and though he passed his examination on 7 Sept. 1763, and continued serving without interruption on the Newfoundland station and the West Indies, he was not promoted till 1 June 1774, when Sir George Rodney made him a lieutenant of the Maidstone. In 1777 the Maidstone returned to England, and, after refitting, was sent out to the coast of North America, under the command of Captain Alan (afterwards Lord) Gardner [q. v.], and employed during the early months of 1778 in active cruising. In March Vashon commanded the boats in setting fire to a ship which they had driven on shore, where she was defended by several field-pieces. In July he was sent up to Lord Howe at New York with news of the French fleet; and, having rejoined the Maidstone, assisted in capturing the Lion, a large armed ship. Vashon, with four-and-twenty men, was put on board her, but the boisterous weather prevented further communication, and the situation of the prize crew with some two hundred prisoners was very critical. The ship, too, was in a sinking condition, but Vashon succeeded in keeping the Frenchmen at the pumps, and so bringing his charge safely to Antigua.

For this service Vashon was promoted to the rank of commander on 5 Aug. 1779, ordered home, and appointed to the Alert, in which he was again sent to the West Indies. Early in 1781 he was sent home with despatches from Jamaica, was for some time attached to the fleet in the North Sea under Sir Hyde Parker, and in December went out to the West Indies with Rodney, where the Alert was stationed off Martinique as a look-out ship; he was with the fleet in the action off Dominica on 12 April 1782, when he took possession of the Glorieuse; was active in saving the people blown up in the César, and was posted to the Prince William by a commission dated the same day. He was afterwards appointed by Rodney to the Formidable, as flag-captain; and, on Rodney's being superseded, was moved into the Sibyl, which he commanded till the peace. From 1786 to 1789 he was captain of the Europa, with Commodore Gardner's broad pennant on board; in the Spanish armament of 1790 commanded the Ardent, and in 1793 was appointed to the St. Albans, employed on convoy service to the Mediterranean and to Jamaica. He afterwards commanded the Pompée in the Channel fleet off Brest, and during the mutiny at Spithead. When the fleet had returned to its duty, a new and dangerous outbreak occurred in the Pompée, and, though this was promptly quelled and the ringleaders tried by court-martial and sentenced to death, Vashon applied to be relieved from the command. He commanded in turn the Neptune, the Dreadnought (1801–1802), and the Princess Royal from 1803 till his promotion to the rank of rear-admiral on 23 April 1804. He then, for four years, commanded the ships at Leith and on the coast of Scotland; was made a vice-admiral on 28 April 1808, and admiral on 4 June 1814. He died at Ludlow on 20 Oct. 1827. He left one son, in holy orders.

[Ralfe's Nav. Biogr. iii. 182 (a long memoir apparently contributed by Vashon himself); Marshall's Roy. Nav. Biogr. i. 208; Gent. Mag. 1827, ii. 465.]

VASSALL, JOHN (d. 1625), colonial pioneer, who describes himself in his will as ‘mariner,’ was of French extraction. He was sent to England by his father, John Vassall, during the religious troubles in France from his home in Normandy. Vassall seems to have been recognised as an authority in questions of navigation, as we find him recommended to be examined by the judge of the admiralty as to ‘the skill of the pilot’ in a suit respecting the wreck of a vessel on the Goodwin sands in 1577. In 1588 Vassall


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 fitted out and commanded a vessel of 140 tons to serve against the Spanish armada. In Harleian MS. 168, f. 177, his vessel is called the Samuell, while in the state papers in the record office (Eliz. vol. 215, f. 76) it appears as the Solomon.

Vassall was a member of the Virginia Company of London, and his name is inserted in its second charter of 23 May 1609 as ‘John Vassall, gentleman.’ In the following year he subscribed 25l. towards the adventure. From 1589 to 1602 he was apparently residing at ‘Ratcliffe hamlet,’ in the parish of Stepney, but about the latter year seems to have left the parish and gone to live at Cockseyhurst, Eastwood, Essex, where he had property. He died, however, at Stepney of the plague in 1625, and was buried in the parish church on 13 Sept. At Eastwood Vassall became acquainted with [q. v.], who mentions him in his ‘Pilgrimage’ (edit. 1617, p. 705) as ‘a friend and neighbour of mine.’

Vassall married, first, at St. Dunstan's, Stepney, on 25 Sept. 1569, Anne Howes, by whom he had no issue; and, secondly, on 4 Sept. 1580, also at St. Dunstan's, Anna Russell (d. 1593) of Ratcliffe, by whom he had, besides other children, Samuel [q. v.] and William (see below). Vassall married, thirdly, on 27 March 1594, Judith (d. 1639), daughter of Stephen Borough of Stepney and Chatham, brother of William Borough [q. v.], and widow of Thomas Scott of Colchester and London, by whom he had two sons and four daughters.

(1592–1655), fourth son of John by his second wife, was born at Stepney in 1592. He was named in the first charter of the Massachusetts Company of March 1629, and sailed for the colony in July of the following year. Not being able to agree with his colleagues, he returned to England after a stay of only a few months. He again went to America in June 1635, and, after a short stay at Roxbury, removed to Scituate in Plymouth colony, where, on 28 Nov. 1636, he joined the church of John Lothrop. Already in 1637, when Scituate was petitioning for more land, Vassall had managed to quarrel with his surroundings, and a new tract of land was granted to the place on the condition that a township was founded and that the differences with Vassall were composed. In 1638 he took the oath of fidelity. Though a public-spirited man, his usefulness was much restricted by his inability to agree with those around him. He became one of the richest settlers in Plymouth colony. In 1646, with a few others as discontented as himself, he sailed for England to make his grievances known. Some account of the alleged grievances is given in a pamphlet entitled ‘New England's Jonas cast up in London’ (London, 1647), with the name of John Child on the title-page, but it was probably the work of Vassall. It was answered in the same year by Edward Winslow in ‘New England's Salamander Discovered,’ in which the author's opinion of Vassall is openly expressed.

In 1650 Vassall removed to Barbados, where he died in 1655, possessed of much property.

A descendant, (1764–1807), after serving at Gibraltar (1782) and in Flanders during the French revolutionary wars, and being nearly executed as a spy, purchased in 1801 the lieutenant-colonelcy of the 38th regiment, called under his command the ‘crack regiment of Ireland.’ He took part in the capture of the Cape of Good Hope, and was appointed governor of the town. He died of wounds received during the capture of Monte Video on 3 Feb. 1807. His remains were removed to St. Paul's, Bristol, where a monument, designed by Flaxman, with verses by Mrs. Opie, was erected to his memory (cf., Poems, 1811, p. 111; , Ramble to the Lakes, 1810, p. 353).

[Unpublished pedigree by the late Rev. W. Vassall; Visitation of London, 1633 (Harl. Soc. Publ.), xvii. 308; Murdin's State Papers in the Reign of Elizabeth, p. 617; Brown's Genesis of the United States, pp. 208, 223, 1036; Force's Tracts, iii. 36; Hill and Frere's Memorials of Stepney Parish, passim; Newcourt's Repertorium, i. 505, ii. 483; Chester's Marriage Licences (Foster); Brigg's Reg. Book of the Parish of St. Nicholas Acons, pp. 66, 67; P.C.C. 99 Clark; Hutchinson's Hist. of Massachusetts Bay, i. 10–14, 17; Massachusetts Hist. Soc. Collections, 2nd ser. iv. 240, 244, v. 121, 499–500, 517; Savage's Genealogical Dict. of First Settlers in New England, iv. 367; Anonymous Memoir of Lieut.-col. Vassall, passim; Gent. Mag. 1807, pp. 363, 481.]  VASSALL, SAMUEL (1586–1667), parliamentarian, second son of John Vassall [q. v.] by his second wife, Anna Russell, was baptised at Stepney on 5 June 1586. He became a merchant in London, and traded to New England, the West Indies, and Guinea. He was one of the incorporators of the first Massachusetts company in March 1628, and in 1630 was one of those who advanced 50l. in the enterprise. He and his brother William [see under ] afterwards acquired by purchase, as original proprietors, two-twen-


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B. Open-Content Licensing: Software
The contemporary peer-production phenomenon began in the software world in the 1970s and 1980s, with later open-content projects modeling themselves on the paradigm established by free and open source software (“FOSS”). Software licensing, accordingly, supplies the logical starting point for an examination of the legal underpinnings of commons-based peer production. Although dozens of standard-form licenses exist for FOSS works, many of them share a common intellectual ancestor: the GNU Project’s celebrated GPL.

1. The GNU GPL and LGPL
In the FOSS world, the GNU GPL is the most widely used license. There have been three versions of the GPL: Version 1, which was

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200 not restricted to the "historical" peoples. In speaking of the feudal states of India, Ratzel states : "Even beyond Radshistan, the nobles often enjoyed a great measure of independ- ence, so that even in Haiderabad, after the Nizam had acquired the sole rule over the country, the Umara or Nabobs maintained troops of their own, independently of the army of the Nizam. These smaller feudatories did not comply with the increased demands of modern times as regards the administration of Indian states as often as did the greater princes." "^ In Africa finally, great feudal states come and pass away, as do bubbles arising and burst- ing from the stream of eternally similar phenomena. The powerful Ashanti empire, within one and a half centuries, has shriveled to less than one-fifth of its territory; *^® and many of the empires that the Portuguese en- countered have since disappeared without leaving a trace of their existence. And yet these were strong feudal powers: "Stately and cruel negro empires, such as Benin,

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186 Fitz, had been a bencher of Lincoln's Inn, and the John Fitz who married Mary Sydenham was also a counsellor-at-law, and he managed considerably to add to the wealth of the family. When he had got as much as he wanted out of the pockets of his clients, he retired to his family place of Fitzford and there amused himself with astrology and the casting of horoscopes. When his son John was about to be born in 1575, John Fitz studied the stars, and, says Prince, "finding at that time a very unlucky position of the heavens, he desired the midwife, if possible, to hinder the birth but for one hour; which, not being to be done, he declared that the child would come to an unhappy end and undo the family."

John Fitz was riding over the moor one day with his wife, when they lost their direction, were, in fact, pixy-led, and they floundered through bogs, and could nowhere hit on the packhorse track that led across the moors from Moreton Hampstead to Tavistock. Exhausted and parched with thirst they lighted on a crystal stream, dismounted, and drank copiously of the water. Not only were they refreshed, but at once John Fitz's eyes were opened, the spell on him was undone, and he knew where he was and which direction he should take. Thereupon he raised his hand and vowed he would honour that well, so that such travellers as were pixy-led might drink at it and dispel the power over them exercised by the pixies. The spring still flows and rises under a granite structure erected in fulfilment of his vow by John Fitz; it bears his initials and the date 1568 in raised figures and letters on the covering stone. Formerly it was on a slope in the midst of moorland away from the main track, near the Blackabrook. Now it is enclosed in the reclaimed tract made into meadows by the convicts of Princetown. Happily


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 of a term not yet expired. In all probability he died in Massachusetts, but the exact time or place is not known. He may be identical with the Samuel Vassall of Bedale in Yorkshire, who was living in 1665 (will of his son John, P. C. C. 29 Hyde). But when letters of administration were granted in London to his son Francis on 24 Sept. 1667, it was stated that he died abroad.

[Unpublished pedigree by the late Rev. William Vassall; Hutchinson's Hist. of Massachusetts Bay, i. 10; Rushworth's Hist. Coll. pt. i. p. 641, pt. iii. vol. i. p. 246, pt. iv. vol. i. pp. 313, 619, pt. iv. vol. ii. p. 1099; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1629 to 1659, passim; Neill's Virginia Carolorum, pp. 75–6; Cal. State Papers Colonial, 1574–1660, passim; Official List of M.P.'s, i. 482, 491; Commons' Journals, vols. ii. iii. iv. v. vii. and viii.; Lords' Journals, vii. 224; Massachusetts Hist. Soc. Coll. 2nd ser. v. 121–2; manuscript notes by late Rev. W. Vassall, kindly supplied by Douglas Sladen, esq.]  VAUGHAN, BENJAMIN (1751–1835), politician and political economist, born in Jamaica on 19 April 1751, was eldest son of Samuel Vaughan, a West India merchant and planter, who settled in London, by his wife Sarah, daughter of Benjamin Hallowell of Boston. (1752–1830) [q. v.] was his younger brother. Benjamin was educated at Newcome's school in Hackney, at the nonconformist academy at Warrington, and at Cambridge University, but was prevented by the system of religious tests from graduating, being a unitarian. He apparently became acquainted with Lord Shelburne through Benjamin Horne, the elder brother of [q. v.], and soon gained the confidence of that statesman, by whom he was occasionally employed in confidential political business and as private secretary. He also studied law at the Temple and medicine in Edinburgh; it is said because William Manning, whose daughter Sarah he married on 30 June 1781, had at first refused his consent to the marriage on the ground that he had no profession (Vaughan's wife was aunt of Cardinal Manning). He subsequently returned to mercantile pursuits, and entered into a partnership with his brother-in-law, William Manning. He made acquaintance with Benjamin Franklin, with whom he afterwards contracted a warm friendship and continued to correspond after the outbreak of the war with the colonies. Like all the followers of Lord Shelburne, he sided with the colonists in their struggle with the mother country, and his political as well as his religious sympathies brought him into intimate relations with Price, Priestley, Paine, and Horne Tooke during the American war and the French revolution. In June 1782 he was sent to Paris to give private assurances to Franklin that the death of Lord Rockingham and the accession to power of Lord Shelburne had caused no change of policy in regard to the intention of recognising the independence of the United Colonies. In September of that year he took an active though unofficial part in the negotiations for peace at the secret request of Shelburne, who employed him on account of his intimate friendship with Franklin, and helped to persuade the English ministers to admit the independence of ‘the United States of America’ as a preliminary, and ‘not as depending upon the event of any other part of the treaty.’ He also urged that so great a divergence of views existed between the American and French negotiators in Paris as to give the British government an opportunity of concluding a separate peace with the colonies if this concession to their views were made. Vaughan's activity was resented by the English official negotiators, as appears by a letter of [q. v.] to Lord Shelburne (Life of Shelburne, iii. 256, 321).

In 1790 Vaughan was in Paris with Lord Wycombe, the eldest son of Lord Shelburne (then Lord Lansdowne), and was in frequent communication with the leaders of the party opposed to the French court. At the ‘fête de la fédération’ of 14 July 1790 in the Champ de Mars he was almost the only stranger, except those belonging to the corps diplomatique, who obtained a place in the covered seats near the royal box. He describes Marie-Antoinette as looking ‘well, fat, and sulky’ (to Lord Lansdowne 15 July 1790). His French sympathies were not abated by the violent turn taken by subsequent events. In February 1792 he became member for Calne. He was very active at this time with his pen on commercial and economic subjects, as well as on politics. A ‘Treatise on International Trade,’ which was translated into French in 1789, and a series of letters to the ‘Morning Chronicle’ condemning the attack of the northern powers on Poland and France in 1792 and 1793, are his principal performances. There is a record of a speech by him in February 1794 on the subject of the negro population in the West Indies. But his active parliamentary career was now abruptly terminated, owing to the arrest of William Stone, brother of [q. v.], a well-known supporter of the French revolution and a notorious enemy to the policy of Pitt. J. H. Stone was at the time in Paris. On William Stone a letter from Vaughan was found,


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 apparently intended for J. H. Stone, and in consequence Vaughan was summoned before the privy council on 8 May 1794. Although the letter contained nothing that was in reality compromising, Vaughan, conscious probably that other and more dangerous documents might have fallen into the possession of the government, and aware that he had been introduced to William Jackson (1737?–1795) [q. v.], the Irish conspirator, left the country, and took refuge in France, where he arrived at the commencement of the reign of terror. War had been declared against England, and Vaughan was liable to be seized at any moment as a ‘moderate’ or as a ‘foreigner.’ He lived in hiding at Passy; Robespierre, at that time a member of the committee of public safety and at the height of his power, and Bishop Grégoire being among the few persons cognisant of the secret. In June his hiding-place was discovered, but he escaped with a month's imprisonment at the Carmelites, probably owing to the goodwill of Robespierre, and then left for Geneva. Thence he wrote a long letter to Robespierre, which actually arrived on 9 Thermidor (27 July) at the very moment of the fall of the dictator. It advised him to keep France within her natural limits, and to surround her with a fringe of free and allied states, a sort of anticipation of the Confederation of the Rhine (Journal de la Montagne, August 1794). This letter was alleged by Billaud-Varennes, in a speech on 28 July 1794, to be a proof that Vaughan was a spy of Pitt's. In 1796 he published a pamphlet at Strasburg in defence of the Directory, which he vaunted as a highly successful form of government, and one likely to be permanent. Subsequently he returned to Paris, and, though assured by Pitt, through his brother-in-law, William Manning, that he could safely return to England, he remained in France.

There are numerous allusions to Vaughan and Stone in the despatches of Barthélemy, the French minister in Switzerland, and in one of them Barthélemy describes Vaughan as a man ‘dont le patriotisme, la probité, et les lumières sont infiniment recommandables’ (Papiers de Barthélemy, iv. 593).

Vaughan preserved his good relations with Lord Lansdowne owing to the identity of their views in regard to France. About 1798 he went to America, probably despairing, like Priestley, of the political outlook in England. He joined his brothers and his relatives on the side of his mother at Hallowell, where he lived in a peaceful retirement. His political opinions are said to have adopted a very conservative hue in his later years. He died on 8 Dec. 1835, leaving three sons and four daughters. His descendants still live at Hallowell. In 1779 Vaughan issued the first collective edition of Franklin's works in London, under the title ‘Political, Philosophical, and Miscellaneous Pieces by Benjamin Franklin.’ He also superintended the ‘Complete Works of Benjamin Franklin,’ issued in 1806 (London, 8vo), with a memoir.

VAUGHAN, CHARLES JOHN (1816–1897), headmaster of Harrow, master of the Temple, and dean of Llandaff, born in 1816, was second son of Edward Thomas Vaughan, vicar of St. Martin's, Leicester, by his wife Agnes, daughter of Thomas Pares, manufacturer and banker, of Leicester. Under the skilful tuition of his father, a man of ability and force of character, he early showed remarkable promise, and, after his father's untimely death in 1829, was sent to Rugby, then under the guidance of Dr. Arnold. Of the same year as Stanley, whose sister Catherine he married many years later (1850), and slightly senior to Clough, he belonged to the generation which, under Arnold, made the name of the school. After dividing with Stanley the honours of Rugby, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, and was bracketed with Lord Lyttelton as senior classic and chancellor's medallist in 1838. He graduated B.A. in 1838 and M.A. in 1841, proceeding D.D. per regias literas in 1845. In 1839 he was elected fellow of his college, and proceeded to the study of the law. After a brief trial, however, he resolved to follow the calling of his father and elder brother. He was ordained in 1841, and almost immediately afterwards was appointed to the vicarage of St. Martin's, Leicester, formerly his father's parish, and subsequently that of both his eldest and youngest brothers. This charge he held, with great profit to his flock, till 1844.

In that year he was elected to the headmastership of Harrow. The school was then in low water. Its numbers had dropped to little over sixty, and its discipline was out of joint. Within two years Vaughan had


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 raised the numbers to over two hundred, and poured fresh life into the studies and discipline of his pupils. During the last dozen years of his rule it is probable that no school stood higher than Harrow. In his dealings both with boys and masters he happily joined firmness with consideration, and no headmaster, Arnold excepted, gathered round him a more gifted band of scholars or colleagues. Among the former may be mentioned Dr. Butler (his successor in the headmastership), C. S. Calverley, and Sir George Trevelyan; among the latter Dr. Westcott and Dr. Farrar. It is noticeable that, like Arnold, he refused to be lost in the more mechanical labour of organisation, and to the end, though far from indifferent to such minor details, found his chief work in teaching and preaching. As teacher, his main object was to impart to his pupils that strict accuracy of thought and expression, and to the more capable of them that keen sense of style and the subtle delicacies of language, in which his own delight peculiarly lay. As preacher—though certainly the sermons of those days are not comparable either in religious depth or in beauty of expression to those of later years—he already showed the instinctive grasp of his hearers' needs and the power of appealing directly to their hearts, which eventually made him one of the weightiest preachers of his generation.

At the end of 1859 Vaughan resigned the headmastership of Harrow. A few months later Lord Palmerston, who as chairman of the governing body had formed the highest opinion of his capacity, offered him the bishopric of Rochester. He accepted it without hesitation. A day or two later, probably after a severe struggle with his ambition, the acceptance was withdrawn. It is commonly believed that offers of a like sort were renewed more than once; but even to his closest friends he never spoke of them; his determination had been taken once for all. In the latter part of 1860 he was appointed to the important vicarage of Doncaster, and threw himself heart and soul into the ordinary work of a town parish. It was here that he perfected his powers as a preacher; it was here also that he entered on what was destined to be the most distinctive work of his life, the preparation of young men for ordination. After deep consideration he took occasion, in a sermon preached before the university of Cambridge in 1861, to announce his readiness to receive graduates of any university for this purpose. The offer was at once taken up by a few men. Before he left Doncaster over a hundred pupils had passed through his hands; before his death the number had gone beyond 450. Never probably has there been a deeper or more lasting bond between master and scholars than existed between him and successive generations of his pupils.

In 1869 Vaughan accepted the mastership of the Temple, and entered his new field of work with a manly declaration that he stood on the old paths of Christian belief, and must not be expected to trim his course with a view to suiting the supposed wishes of a critical, or perhaps sceptical, audience. This at once established a firm understanding between him and the benchers, an understanding which remained unbroken to the end. In 1879 he accepted the deanery of Llandaff. Henceforth he divided the year between the Temple and Llandaff, and found considerable advantage in the variety of pastoral work which the change offered to his pupils. His weight of character and freedom from sectarian bias soon won him a unique influence among all parties in South Wales. He was thus enabled to take a leading part in the foundation of the University College at Cardiff (1883–4), of which, in recognition of his services, he was elected president in 1894. A severe illness which assailed him in that year prevented him from actively discharging his new duties, and led to his resignation of the mastership of the Temple. He still, however, continued his work as dean and with candidates for ordination until illness again attacked him in the summer of 1896. After lingering for more than a year he died on 15 Oct. 1897. He left a strict injunction that no life of him should be published.

Among the numerous works published by Vaughan—altogether more than sixty—may be mentioned:
 * 1) ‘Memorials of Harrow Sundays,’ 1859; 5th edit. 1880.
 * 2) ‘Notes for Lectures on Confirmation,’ 1859; 9th edit. 1876.
 * 3) ‘St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans’ (Greek text, with notes), 1859; 5th edit. 1880.
 * 4) ‘Epiphany, Lent, and Easter,’ 1860; 3rd edit. 1868.
 * 5) ‘Lessons of Life and Godliness’ (sermons preached at Doncaster), 1862; 5th edit. (printed with ‘Words from the Gospels’), 1891.
 * 6) ‘Lectures on St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians,’ 1862; 4th edit. 1882.
 * 7) ‘Lectures on the Revelation of St. John,’ 2 vols. 1863; 5th edit. (1 vol.) 1882.
 * 8) ‘Words from the Gospels,’ 1863; 3rd edit. 1875.
 * 9) ‘The Church of the First Days,’ vol. i. 1864, 3rd edit. 1873; vol. ii. 1865, 3rd edit. 1874; vol. iii. 1865, 3rd edit. 1875; in one vol. 1890.
 * 10) ‘The Young Life equipping itself for God's Service,’ 1872; 7th edit. 1877.
 * 11) ‘St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians’ (Greek text, with notes, &c.), 1885.
 * 12) ‘The Epistle to the Hebrews’


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Rh the structure has not been destroyed: it is surrounded by a protecting wall.

In the same year that John Fitz erected this well, he obtained a lease to carry water in pipes of wood or of lead through the garden of one John Northcott to his mansion at Fitzford. The little house that he built over the spring in his close, called Boughthayes, still stands, picturesquely wreathed in ivy.

He died 8 January, 1589-90, aged sixty-one, and by his will made his wife executrix and guardian of his son, who was then rather over fourteen years old. There is a stately monument in Tavistock Parish Church to John Fitz and his wife, he clothed in armour, which in life he probably never wore, as he was a man of the long robe. The effigies are recumbent, and by them is a smaller, kneeling figure of the son and heir their only child, the "unfortunate" John Fitz. But the widow did not have charge of her son; as a ward under the Queen he was committed to Sir Arthur Gorges, "who tended more to the good of the child than his own private profit," which was perhaps unusual. Mary Fitz retired to Walreddon, near Tavistock, another house belonging to the family, for her initials "M. F." and the date 1591 are cut in granite over the doorway. But presently she married Christopher Harris, of Radford, when she moved to his house near Plymouth.

The young John Fitz is described as having been "a very comlie person." He was married, before he had attained his majority, to Bridget, sixth daughter of Sir William Courtenay. Of this marriage one child, Mary, was born 1 August, 1596, when her father was just twenty-one years old. John Fitz was now of age, considered himself free of all restraint, owner of large estates, and was without stability of


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188 character or any principle, and was inclined to a wild life. He took up his residence at Fitzford, and roystered and racketed at his will.

One day (it was 4 June, 1599) he was dining at Tavistock with some of his friends and neighbours. The hour was early, for in the account of it we are told that "with great varietie of merriments and discourse they outstript the noontide."

John Fitz had drunk a good deal of wine, and he began to brag of his possessions, and boasted that he had not a foot of land that was not his freehold. Among those present was Nicholas Slanning, of Bickleigh. He interrupted Fitz, and said, "That is not so. You hold of me a parcel of land that is copyhold, and though of courtesy it has been intermitted, yet of due, you owe me so much a year for that land."

John started from his seat, and told Slanning to his face that he lied, and mad with rage, drew his dagger and would have stabbed him. Slanning with a knife beat down Fitz's blade, and the friends at the table threw themselves between them and patched up the quarrel as they supposed. Nicholas Slanning then left the apartment and departed for Bickleigh with his man, both being on horseback.

They had not ridden far when they came to a deep and rough descent, whereupon Slanning bade his man lead the horses, and he dismounting walked through a field where the way was easier.

At that moment he saw John Fitz with four attendants galloping along the lane after him. Without ado, Slanning awaited the party and inquired of John Fitz what he desired of him. Fitz replied that he had followed that he might avenge the insult offered him. Thereupon Fitz called to his men, and they drew their blades and fell on Slanning, who had to defend himself


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Rh against five men. The matter might even then have been composed, but one of Fitz's men, named Cross, twitted his master, saying, "What play is this? It is child's play. Come, fight!" Fitz, who had sheathed his sword, drew it again and attacked Slanning. The latter had long spurs, and stepping back they caught in a tuft of grass, and as he staggered backward, Fitz ran him through the body. At the same time, one of Fitz's men struck him from behind. Slanning fell to the ground and died. He was conveyed home, and buried in Bickleigh Church, where his monument still exists, but in a mutilated condition. It was of plaster, and when the church was "restored" fell to pieces; but the curious Latin inscription has been preserved.

Nicholas Slanning had been married to Margaret, daughter of Henry Champernowne, of Modbury, and he died leaving as his heir a child, and the administration of his estates was committed to that son's great-uncle. Of Ley, the fine Slanning place, nothing now remains except the balls that stood on the entrance gates, that have been transferred to the vicarage garden at Bickleigh. The situation was incomparably beautiful, and it is to be regretted that the grand old Elizabethan mansion has been levelled with the dust. Sir Nicholas Slanning, created a baronet in 1663, moved to Maristowe in Tamerton Foliot, but the second and last baronet died without issue in 1700, and in 1798 John Modyford Heywood, who inherited the extensive Slanning estates through a female line, sold them all to Sir Manasseh Lopes, a Portuguese Jew diamond merchant, who had obtained a baronetcy by buying up rotten boroughs in Cornwall and putting in members whose votes could be relied on by the ministry of the day. The baronetcy was created in 1805. The first baronet was the son of Mordecai Lopes, of Jamaica.


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190 "Great," we are informed, "was the lamentation that the countryside made for the death of so beloved a gentleman as Maister Slanning was."

John Fitz, then aged twenty-four, escaped to the Continent and stayed in France, until the exertions of his wife and mother succeeded in December, 1599, in procuring a pardon for him; whereupon he returned home, unsubdued by the past, insolent, riotous, and haughty. At the coronation of James I, 1603, he was knighted, not for any services done to the Crown or State, but because he was of good family, well connected, and with property.

He returned to Fitzford, where, finding his wife and child something of a drag upon him in his wild and dissipated career, he turned them out of doors, and his wife had to go for shelter to her father. Left now to himself and his evil associates, "Men of dissolute and desperate fortunes," chief among whom was "Lusty Jacke, one whose deedes were indeed meane, whose qualities altogether none," he behaved in such sort that "the Towne of Tavistocke, though otherwise orderly governed with sobriety, and likewise of grave magistrates, was thereby infected with the beastly corruption of drunkenesse. Sir John, of his own inclination apte, and by his retained copesmates urged, persevered evermore to run headlong into such enormities as their sensuality and pleasures inclined unto, spending their time in riotous surfettinge and in all abominable drunkenness, plucking men by night out of their beddes, violently breaking windows, quarrelling with ale-conners [ale-tasters], righting in private brables amongst themselves. And when they had abused the townsmen and disturbed their neighbours, Sir John's own house was their sanctuary or receptacle to cloak their outrages; so as it seemed they lyved as, in time


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Rh of old, the common outlaws of the land did, neither worshipping God nor honouringe Prince, but wholly subject to their contentes alone."

According to Prince, about this time Fitz committed another murder; but what seems to be better authenticated is that he all but killed one of the town constables.

In the summer of 1605, Sir John Fitz was summoned to London to appear before the courts, in answer to a claim of compensation for their father's murder, made by the children of Nicholas Slanning, the eldest of whom, Gamaliel, was now about eighteen years old. He set out on horseback, attended by a servant. Dissipation had weakened his mind and shattered his nerves. He was in deadly alarm. Not only would he be heavily fined for the assassination of Slanning, but he had been playing ducks and drakes with his property which had been settled by deed of 20 March, 1598-9, on his wife, and he expected to be called to task for this by Sir William Courtenay, his wife's father. He took it into his head that his life was in danger, that the friends and kinsfolk of Slanning would ambuscade and murder him; that Sir W. Courtenay would be willing to have him put out of the way so as to save the property from being further dissipated. At every point on his journey he showed himself suspicious of being waylaid or pursued. Every day his fancies became more disordered.

At length he reached Kingston-on-Thames, and put up for the night there. But he could not sleep, noises disturbed him, and rising from his bed he insisted on the servant getting ready his nag, and away he rode over Kingston Bridge, alone, having peremptorily forbidden his man to accompany him, entertaining some suspicion that the man had been bought by his enemies


text: United States Statutes at Large/Volume 1/3rd Congress/1st Session/Chapter 33


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192 and would lead him into a trap. He drew up at the "Anchor," a small tavern at Twickenham, kept by one Daniel Alley; it was now 2 a.m., and all Twickenham was asleep. He hammered at the door and shouted; presently the casement opened, and the publican put out his head and inquired what the gentleman wanted. Sir John demanded a bed and shelter for the rest of the night. Daniel Alley begged to be excused, he had no spare room, his house was small and not fitted for the reception of persons of quality. However, on Sir John's further insistence he put on his clothes, struck a light, descended, and did his utmost to make the nocturnal visitor comfortable, even surrendering to him his own bed, and sending his wife to sleep with the children. Sir John cast himself on the bed. He tossed; and host and hostess heard him cry out, and speak of enemies who pursued him and sought his blood. There was no sleeping for Daniel or his wife, and the host rose at dawn to join a neighbour in mowing a meadow. But when he was about to go forth, his wife begged not to be left in the house alone with the strange gentleman. The neighbour came up, and he and Alley spoke together at the door. Their voices reached Sir John, who had fallen into a disordered sleep. Persuaded that the enemies were arrived and were surrounding the house, he rushed out in his nightgown, with his sword drawn, fell on his host, and killed him. Then he ran his sword against the wife, wounding her. But now, with the gathering light, he discovered what he had done, and in a fit of despair stabbed himself in two places. He was secured now by neighbours who had come up, and taken to the bed he had just quitted. A surgeon was sent for, and his wounds were bound up. But Sir John angrily refused the assistance of


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 perhaps been procured through the influence of Colonel [q. v.] (Jones's Impeachment, in Charters of Swansea, p. 193). There is a portrait of him (dated 1644) preserved at Derwydd. His eldest son, John, apparently predeceased him, and his estate therefore devolved on

the younger (1613–1676). He served in the royalist army, and when Tenby was captured by Cromwell in May 1648 he was taken prisoner and kept confined in Tenby Castle. He is described in a contemporary pamphlet as Sergeant-major Vaughan, though in his memorial inscription his rank is given as colonel (, Civil War in Wales, ii. 378; Stepney Notices, pp. 12, 84). After the Restoration Vaughan was knighted at Whitehall on 9 Jan. 1661 (, Knights, p. 149), and was sheriff for the borough of Carmarthen in 1661 and mayor in 1670. He was also elected M.P. for Carmarthen county in January 1667–8, but a question arose as to his eligibility to sit, as he ‘had been outlawed for a debt upon a bond of 1,000l.’ (Commons' Journals under 17 Feb. 1667–8). The decision was in his favour, and he retained the seat till his death on 26 Dec. 1676. He was buried at Llandebie church, where an elaborate monument was erected to his memory by his widow Elizabeth, the eldest daughter and coheiress of William Herbert of Colebrook, Monmouthshire. On the death, without issue, of his only child, Margaretta, in 1704, the Derwydd estate devolved upon his nephew, Richard Vaughan of Derllys (1654–1724), who was recorder (1683–1722) and M.P. in fourteen parliaments (1685–1724) for Carmarthen borough, as well as chief justice for Carmarthen circuit (1715–24). From the recorder's brother the estate descended in the female line to its present possessor, Alan Stepney-Gulston, esq.

Most writers have erroneously assumed the existence of only one Sir Henry Vaughan, while some (cf., Parl. Hist. of Wales, pp. 45, 52–3) have still further confounded them with a Henry Vaughan of Cilcennin, Cardiganshire, who was sheriff of that county in 1642, and was described shortly afterwards as ‘being anything for money, a proselyte, and favorite to all the changes of tymes … his motto, Qui nescit dissimulare, nescit vivere’ (Cambrian Register, i. 166; cf. , Sheriffs of Cardiganshire, p. 16).

VAUGHAN, HENRY, ‘’ (1622–1695), poet, was born at Newton-by-Usk in the parish of Llansaintffraed, Brecknockshire (Anthony à Wood MSS. Ff. 39, f. 216). He and his twin-brother [q. v.] were born on 17 April 1622 (Sloane MS. 1741). Their father, Thomas Vaughan (d. August 1658), was the representative of an ancient and honourable Welsh family, the Vaughans of Tretower Castle, descended from Sir Roger Vaughan of Bredwardine, who had fallen at Agincourt. Vaughan's mother was Denys Gwillims, heiress of Newton. [q. v.] was his cousin. ‘Their grandmother,’ Aubrey wrote of the twins, ‘was an Aubrey; their father a coxcombe, and no honester than he should be—he cosened me of 50s. once.’ Although the relationship cannot be precisely traced, Henry must indubitably have been akin in blood as well as in mental constitution to the ‘Mr. Vaughan’ (born 1605) whose nativity appears in Gadbury's ‘Collectio Geniturarum’ (1663), and who ‘was subject to believe that he conversed with angels and spirits many times in the likeness of scarabees, who informed him of unhappiness that attended either himself or his family.’

The two brothers, Henry and Thomas, always affectionately united throughout life, received their first regular education from Matthew Herbert, rector of Llangattock, and in 1638 proceeded to Jesus College, Oxford. Henry left Oxford without a degree, and spent some time in London studying law at the wish of his father, but ultimately turned his attention to medicine. When or where he obtained a medical diploma has not been ascertained, but about 1645 he began to practise as a physician in Brecknock, whence in or about 1650 he removed to his native place, continuing to practise. Writing to Aubrey towards the end of his life, he says: ‘My profession allso is physic, which I have practised now for many years with good successe (I thanke God) and a repute big enough for a person of greater parts than myselfe’ (Wood MS. F. 39, f. 227). According to Antony à Wood he became eminent for his medical skill, ‘and was esteemed by scholars an ingenious person, but proud and humorous’ [whimsical]. He suggests in his elegy on the death of ‘R. W.’ that he was present at the battle of Rowton Heath, possibly as a surgeon with the king's army.

Vaughan had published a small volume, entitled ‘Poems, with the Tenth Satyre of Juvenal Englished’ (London, 8vo), in 1646; and another volume, ‘Olor Iscanus: a Collection of some select Poems and Translations’—deriving its title from the principal poem, a eulogy on the River Usk, and accompanied with prose translations from Plutarch, Maxi-


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 Tyrius, and Guevara—was probably ready for the press in December 1647, the dedication to Lord Digby bearing that date. It did not appear, however, until 1651 (London, 8vo; reissued 1679), when it was published by Thomas Vaughan, with an address to the reader hinting that it would, but for his intervention, have been destroyed by the author. There is nothing objectionable in the book, and it can only be concluded that a revolution had in the meantime occurred in the poet's mind, which had rendered his secular poetry distasteful to him. The nature of this revolution may be deduced from the book he had published in the meantime, ‘Silex Scintillans: or Sacred Poems and private Ejaculations, by Henry Vaughan, Silurist’ (London, 1650, 8vo), which evinces deep traces of the influence of George Herbert, the effect rather than the cause of the spiritual visitation which he had clearly been experiencing. Some allusions in the poems seem to connect this with the death of a brother, which, being also alluded to in the preface to Thomas Vaughan's ‘Anthroposophia Theomagica’ (1650) as having occurred during the composition of that book, must have taken place between 1647 (when Thomas, deprived of his living, removed to Oxford) and 1650. The composition of the whole of the first part of ‘Silex Scintillans’ may thus be fairly placed between 1647 and 1650, and the number, no less than the merit of the poems, indicates the strength of the spiritual influence which had overpowered Vaughan and raised him to a far greater height as a poet than was promised by his early compositions. The impulse continued some time, for in 1655 a second part of ‘Silex Scintillans’ appeared, appended to what professed to be a reprint of the first, but was in fact only a reissue. This second part, though in general scarcely equal to the first, contains the crown of all Vaughan's poetry—‘They are all gone into the world of light.’ Vaughan had published, February 1652, a small volume of devotion, entitled ‘The Mount of Olives … with an excellent discourse of the blessed state of Man in Glory, written by Father Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, and now done into English,’ and in 1654 ‘Flores Solitudinis,’ three religious tracts—two translated from the Jesuit Nierembergius, and another from St. Eucherius, with a life of St. Paulinus of Nola compiled by himself. The title-page speaks of a period of sickness, which seems to have been about 1652. In 1655 Vaughan published ‘Hermetical Physick’ (London, 12mo), a collection of extracts translated from the ‘Naturæ Sanctuarium’ of Henricus Nollius (Frankfort, 1619).

Nothing more is heard of Henry Vaughan until 1678, when ‘J. W.,’ an Oxford M.A. who has not been identified, printed ‘Thalia Rediviva: the pass-times and diversions of a Countrey Muse;’ here, along with poems by the ‘Silurist,’ are pieces by Vaughan's brother Thomas, who had died thirteen years previously. Some of Henry Vaughan's are apparently juvenile compositions; but others, by their subjects and the greater regularity of the versification, seem to be later than ‘Silex Scintillans.’ The friend ‘C. W.’ who is celebrated in a fine poem in ‘Thalia’ was Vaughan's cousin and neighbour, Charles Walbeoffe of Llanhamlach. The existence of three known copies (in the Brit. Mus., in Rowfant Library, and a private library at Brecon) has led to the conjecture that the publication was unauthorised, and that Vaughan suppressed it; but copies of the ‘Mount of Olives’ and ‘Hermeticall Physick’ are hardly less rare than ‘Thalia Rediviva.’ In truth, Vaughan's writings could afford little but waste paper for his own generation. He was a man of the past, as misplaced in the Restoration era as formerly among the puritans. He died, aged 73, according to his epitaph, on 23 April 1695, and was interred in Llansaintffraed churchyard. His neglected gravestone has been recently restored (January 1896).

Vaughan was twice married. His first wife was Catherine, daughter of Charles Wise, by whom he had three daughters—Lucy, Catherine, and Frances—and one son, Thomas. He married, secondly, his first wife's sister Elizabeth, who survived him and administered his estate. By her he had three daughters—Grizel, Lucy, and Rachael—and one son, Henry, rector of Penderyn (Vaughan of Newton pedigree in Harl. MS. 2289). Having died intestate, administration was granted on 29 May 1695 to his widow, ‘Eliza’ (Genealogist, iii. 33–6).

Vaughan's position among English poets is not only high, but in some respects unique. The pervading atmosphere of mystic rapture, rather than isolated fine things, constitutes the main charm of his poems; yet two, ‘The Retreat’ and ‘They are all gone into the world of light,’ rank among the finest in the language, and, except the poems on scripture history and church festivals, there is scarcely one without some memorable thought or expression, though frequently kindling, to use his own simile, like ‘unanticipated sparks from a flinty ground.’ He not unfrequently lapses into absurdity, misled by the affectation of wit and ingenuity which beset the poetry of his time; but his taste is on the whole better than Herbert's, and much better


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 than Crashaw's. It is natural to compare Vaughan with Herbert, to whom he was so much indebted; the resemblance is evident, but so is the dissimilarity. Perhaps this may be best expressed if we define Herbert as theistic, and Vaughan as pantheistic. Herbert is devout according to recognised methods, Vaughan is a devout mystic. Herbert visits the spiritual world as a pious pilgrim, but Vaughan is never out of it.

As a writer of prose, of which his ‘Mount of Olives’ is the most important instance, Vaughan commands a rich and melodious style, somewhat disfigured by the passion for antithesis habitual in his day. His translations of Greek and Spanish authors are probably made from Latin versions. Guevara's ‘Praise and Happinesse of the Countrie-Life’ (ap. ‘Olor Iscanus’) has dwindled to a mere abridgment in his hands, although reinforced by interpolations of his own. The fugitive pieces of verse and the translations scattered through his prose works have been brought together by Dr. Grosart, as an appendix to his edition of Vaughan's writings in 1871, under the title ‘Aurea Grana.’

The title of ‘Silurist’ which Vaughan assumed had a topographical significance. ‘Silures,’ Aubrey explains, ‘contayned Breconockshire, Herefordshire, &c.’ (, Lives, ed. 1898).

Vaughan's poems remained practically unknown until, towards the end of the eighteenth century, a copy came into the hands of Wordsworth, whose ‘Ode on the Intimations of Immortality’ and ‘Happy Warrior’ exhibit traces of his influence. Campbell names him only to disparage him. Some striking parallels between Tennyson and Vaughan's poetry have been noted, but Tennyson declared that he had read nothing of Vaughan's work but ‘They are all gone into the world of light.’ Dr. John Brown, F. T. Palgrave, Archbishop Trench, George Macdonald, Miss Guiney, and his editors have done much for him in various ways, and it may safely be said that there is now (after Milton) no poet of the Caroline period, except Herbert and Herrick, who is more widely known, and not one whose reputation is more solidly established.

Vaughan's ‘Silex Scintillans’ was edited by the Rev. H. F. Lyte in 1847. The book was reprinted in 1858, and in a revised form in 1883 and 1891. In 1871 Dr. Grosart printed in the ‘Fuller Worthies' Library’ in four volumes a complete edition of everything of Vaughan's recoverable, a large proportion from unique copies. A facsimile reprint of the first part of ‘Silex Scintillans,’ edited by the Rev. W. Clare, appeared in 1885, and an edition of the complete poetical works, in two volumes, was edited for the ‘Muses Library’ in 1896 by Mr. E. K. Chambers, with an introduction by the Rev. H. C. Beeching. Vaughan's secular poems, with some pieces by his brother Thomas, were edited in 1893 by J. R. Tutin. A selection of the sacred poems, with decorations by Mr. C. S. Ricketts, appeared in 1897.

[The memoirs in the modern editions cited above are the principal authorities for Vaughan's life; but see also Aubrey's Brief Lives, ed. A. Clark, 1898, ii. 268–9; Julian's Dict. of Hymnology; Masson's Milton, vi. 312, 388; Jones's Hist. of Brecknockshire, 1805–9, ii. 544 sq.; Sloane MS. 1741, f. 89. The fullest critical estimates of Vaughan, apart from those in the standard editions, are that in Dr. John Brown's Horæ Subsecivæ, originally published in the North British Review, and that by Miss L. I. Guiney, in the Atlantic Monthly for May 1894 (reprinted in her Little English Gallery, 1894). For the restoration of Vaughan's grave, see the Athenæum for 12 Oct. 1895 and 18 Jan. 1896; and the Daily Graphic, 8 Nov. 1895, with a reduced facsimile of the inscription.]

VAUGHAN, HENRY (1766-1844), physician. [See .]

VAUGHAN, HENRY HALFORD (1811–1885), professor of modern history, born in August 1811, was the son of Sir John Vaughan (1769–1839), by Augusta, daughter of Henry Beauchamp, twelfth lord St. John of Bletsho. Sir Henry Halford (previously Vaughan) [q. v.] was his father's brother. He was sent to Rugby in 1822, and left in 1829 for Christ Church, Oxford. In 1833 he took a first class in literæ humaniores, along with Deans Scott and Liddell, and Robert Lowe (afterwards Lord Sherbrooke). In 1836 he was elected fellow of Oriel; ‘a very good election,’ according to Pattison, who notes that Vaughan was said to have read nothing in the previous vacation except Bacon's ‘Advancement of Learning.’ In the same year he gained the chancellor's prize for an English essay upon the ‘Effects of a National Taste for general and diffusive Reading.’ In 1840 he was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn, but never practised as a barrister. His taste was for philosophical and historical rather than professional studies. In 1841 he was appointed clerk of assize on the South Wales circuit. In 1843 he was appointed a temporary assistant to the poor-law commission to inquire into the employment of women and children in agriculture. In 1848 he was appointed professor of modern history at Oxford. His inaugural lectures are said to have caused a ‘thrill of excite-


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HE Earl of Northumberland had shown himself solicitous for the welfare of the soul of Sir John Fitz when he heard of the murder and suicide at Twickenham; he was even more solicitous over his estate. He was aware that Sir John had left an only daughter, still a child, who was with her mother at Radford. He posted up to London at once, saw the King, and bought of him the wardship of the little orphan for £465, to be paid in instalments, and raised out of the estate of the little heiress, who was then aged nine years and one week.

"The law of wardship," says Mrs. G. Radford, "seems so cruel and tyrannical that it is wonderful that it should have endured so long. By it, when any man who held land in capite, or direct from the Crown, died, his heir, if a minor, belonged to the king, who had a right to receive all rents and profits from these lands until the heir became of age. He could also marry the ward to whom he would. Henry VIII established the Court of Wards and Liveries, the number of estates held in capite being so great that some organized system was necessary. By it the wardship and marriage of minors were sold to the highest bidder, who was sometimes the child's mother or the executors of the father's will. But if they were not very prompt in applying, or did not offer the largest sum, then to any stranger. The guardian would have 194


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Rh take one another’s place in different dialects. Cadhmus, a plasm, mould for casting bullets, from Scot calmes, caums, in Sutherland càmus, is gàmus in West Ross, and is so given in the Highland Society’s Dictionary (supplement and English-Gaelic part sub plasm). Geuban, crop of birds, in some districts gizzard, referred by MacBain to English gaps, is ceòban in Strathspey, and ciaban in Skye and West Ross. Cial, brim of a vessel, in Rob Doun’s poems ceàl, is identified by MacBain with ciobhull, jaw, ‘more properly giall,’ he says. Cial means jaw in Strathspey. The West Ross culm, obscurity, haze about the moon, etc., seems to be a variant of gulm, a frown, etc., from English gloom? MacAlpine’s ‘glìbheid, weather in which a curious mixture of rain, sleet, and hail prevails’ is clìfeid in West Ross, in Sutherland glìfeid with meaning of sleet; c.f. glìb, sleet. Clìobar and glìobar, glìobas, sleet, also occur. Gartan, an insect found on deer, cattle, and dogs, West Ross, seems to be a form of cartan, a cattle·bott, heath-mite, etc. The connection of crobhsag, gooseberry, West Ross, in East Ross crobhrsag with plural there crobhrsan, seems certain, though not quite clear, with gròiseid borrowed from Lowland Scots, in which the word is variously written grozel, grizzle, groset, grozer, groser, grosert. Different terms for gadfly are creithleag, cleithir, gleithir, creithire, Kintyre, etc., Irish cleabhar, creabhaire, and creathaire, Middle Irish crebar.

g

G is often silent in the prepositional pronouns agam, ‘a’am,’ agad, againn, agaibh, e.g. in Arran, Kintyre, North Argyll, Perth, Skye, and Sutherland. In the group sgt sometimes it is silent as in passive participles loisgte, burned, pronounced ‘loiste’; ruisgte, stripped, ‘ruiste.’ Sometimes g is preserved in that group. The difference is due to frequency of use, the cause of many of the seeming irregularitities in letter changes. When a word is in constant use phonetic changes are apt to take place more readily, and to be carried further than in words that are more rarely


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 during the negotiations at Newport. He afterwards suffered a term of imprisonment—cause and duration uncertain—which was intermitted in 1650 for three months, during which he had leave (license of the council of state dated 22 July) to reside in London for the benefit of his health. On 18 Dec. 1656 he was authorised to resume practice at the bar; but, scrupling to recognise the government, he remained in retirement until the Restoration.

Declining the seat on the bench then offered him by Clarendon, Vaughan was appointed about July 1660 steward of Mevennydd and other royal manors in Cardiganshire. Returned for that county to the pensionary parliament, he early distinguished himself as a leader of the country party. He was the principal opponent of the transference of the three years' limit from the duration to the intermission of parliaments (31 March 1664–5), and made an ingenious but unsuccessful attempt to enervate by amendment the new test imposed on dissenting ministers in the same year (, Own Time, fol. i. 225). In 1667 (October to December) he stood forth as one of the most zealous and determined of the promoters of the impeachment of his former friend Clarendon. He presided in the spring of 1668 over the committee charged with the collection of precedents bearing on the constitutional questions raised by the cases of Alexander Fitton [q. v.] and Thomas Skinner (1629?–1679) [q. v.], and took a leading part in the conferences with the lords and other proceedings. In the same year he was knighted, invested with the coif, and created chief justice of the common pleas (19–20 May). As such he was ex officio a member of the court of summary jurisdiction charged with the determination of cases between owners and occupiers of tenements in the districts ravaged by the fire of London (19 Car. II, c. 3). In recognition of his services in this capacity, the corporation caused his portrait to be painted by Michael Wright, and placed in Guildhall (1671). By virtue of a special commission Vaughan sat as speaker of the House of Lords in the absence of Lord-keeper Bridgeman, 6–18 Nov. 1669, and 11 March to 4 April 1669–70.

Vaughan died at Serjeants' Inn on 10 Dec. 1674. His remains were interred in the Temple church, where there is a monument to his memory. The portrait of Vaughan mentioned by Evelyn (Corresp. ed. Bray, p. 301) as in the Clarendon gallery is now missing. Engraved portraits of him are at the British Museum, and one is prefixed to his ‘Reports,’ edited from his manuscripts by his son, Edward Vaughan, London, 1677, fol.; 2nd ed. 1706. Three of Vaughan's letters, one dated 12 March 1643–4, the others only 10 and 11 April, are printed in ‘Archæologia Cambrensis,’ new series, iv. 62–7.

Edward Vaughan (d. 1688), son of the lord chief justice by his wife Jane, eldest daughter of John Stedman of Cilcennin, Cardiganshire, M.P. for Cardigan 26 Feb. 1678–9 to 28 March 1681, married Letitia, daughter of Sir William Hooker, and had a son John (b. about 1670, d. 1721), who was created by William III Baron of Fethard, co. Tipperary, and Viscount Lisburne, co. Antrim, and was ancestor of the Earls of Lisburne.

[Life by Edward Vaughan, prefixed to Vaughan's Reports; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iii. 1026; Whitelocke's Mem. p. 177; Commons' Journal, iv. 260, ix. 55; Lords' Journal, vii. 656, xii. 261–9, 305–38; Rushworth's Hist. Mem. III. i. 244, ii. 575; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1650 p. 248, 1656–7 p. 203, 1660–1 p. 141, 1664–5 p. 90, 1667 pp. 142, 406; Cal. Committee for Compounding, 1642–56, ii. 894; Members of Parliament (Official Lists); Letters of Humphrey Prideaux to John Ellis (Camden Soc.), p. 27; Bishop Cosin's Corresp. (Surtees Soc.), ii. 276, 278; Harl. MS. 4931, f. 126; Addit. MSS. 21507, 22883, f. 97; Stowe MSS. 180 f. 84, 304 ff. 77, 84–6; Hatsell's Prec. (1818), iii. App. ii.; Cobbett's State Trials, vi. 726; Le Neve's Pedigrees of Knights (Harl. Soc.), p. 207; Phillips's Civil War in Wales, p. 355; Cambrian Register, i. 164; Cambrian Quarterly Mag. i. 61; Granger's Biogr. Hist. of England, 4th ed. iii. 369; Brief Memoirs of the Judges whose portraits are preserved in Guildhall (1791); Pepys's Diary, ed. Braybrooke; Evelyn's Diary; Walpole's Anecd. of Painting, ed. Wornum, iii. 952; Yorke's Royal Tribes of Wales, p. 110; Foss's Lives of the Judges; Nicholas's Annals of the Counties and County Families of Wales; Peerage of Ireland, 1768; G. E. C[okayne]'s Complete Peerage; Williams's Parl. Hist. of Wales; Notes and Queries, 9th ser. iv. 4.] J. M. E.

VAUGHAN, JOHN (1748?–1795), lieutenant-general, born in 1747 or 1748, was a younger son of Wilmot Vaughan, third viscount Lisburne, by Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Thomas Watson of Berwick-on-Tweed. He entered the service in the old 52nd regiment, or Colonel Pawlett's 9th regiment of marines, from which on 9 April 1748 he was transferred to a cornetcy in the 10th dragoons. He became lieutenant in the regiment on 10 Dec. 1751, captain-lieutenant on 5 Jan. 1754, and captain on 28 Jan. 1755. With the 10th dragoons he served in England and Scotland, and in Germany during part of the seven years' war. He left the


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Rh complete control over the ward, who generally lived in his house, could marry the ward as he liked, this also being generally an affair of money, and received the rents of the minor's estate without any liability to account."

Accordingly, at the age of nine, little Mary Fitz was taken from her mother, but under whose charge she was placed at first does not appear. A year or two later, she was living in the house of Lady Elizabeth Hatton, second wife of Sir Edmund Coke, then Master of the Court of Wards. At once the Earl of Northumberland sent his brother, Sir Allan Percy, into Devon to look over the estates of Mary Fitz and make what money he could out of them by felling timber.

Sir Allan was, apparently, quite satisfied with what he saw; he was a needy man, and resolved on marrying the heiress, and this he did about 1608, when he was aged thirty-one and she twelve. But as she was so young it was arranged that she should not live with her husband till she reached a nubile age. She never did live with him, for he caught a severe chill through lying on the damp ground when hot and tired with hunting, and he died in November, 1611. She was the wealthiest heiress in Devonshire, and the Earl of Suffolk schemed to obtain her for his third son, Sir Thomas Howard. She was not only rich, but beautiful. Her father had been a remarkably handsome man, and Lord Clarendon, long after this date, speaks of her as "having been of extraordinary beauty." But she balked [sic] all schemers by running away with Thomas Darcy, a young man of her own age, son of Lord Darcy, of Chiche, afterwards Earl Rivers. Lord Darcy could not object to the match, but Mary Fitz was still a