STUART, Esmé (c.1579-1624)

Esmé Stuart was the younger son of one of James VI’s favourites, the 1st duke of Lennox, who owned an estate at Aubigny-sur-Nère, in central France. It seems unlikely that Esmé ever knew his father, who left to make his way at the Scottish court at around the time of his birth. Although Lennox returned to France three years later, he died in 1583, when Esmé was aged just four. The new duke of Lennox was Esmé’s elder brother, Ludovic, who was summoned to Scotland six months after their father’s death, leaving Esmé rather than his brother to be brought up as the 7th Seigneur d’Aubigny. It was in this capacity that Esmé paid homage to the French king in April 1600, aged 21.14 Stuart, 266. However, Lennox did not formally surrender his rights over his French title until May 1603, and he did so only on condition that Esmé did not alienate any part of his lordship without first obtaining his consent and that of his male heirs. He also made Esmé assume responsibility for payment of their father’s debts.15 HMC 3rd Rep. 395; NRS, GD220/1/F/8/3/1.

Aubigny was not reunited with his brother until 1601, when Lennox arrived in France as a special ambassador; the two brothers returned to Scotland together that November.16 APC, 1601-4, p. 378. Following James VI’s accession to the English throne in March 1603, Aubigny evidently travelled with Lennox to London. This is clear, because he attended the first, disastrous performance of Ben Jonson’s ‘Sejanus’ at the Globe, which took place sometime before 17 May, when plague caused the theatres to be closed.17 I. Donaldson, Ben Jonson: A Life, 186.

Aubigny may have been disappointed at his reception in England. Despite being the king’s cousin, neither he nor his brother was showered with wealth or office. Nevertheless, in August 1603, he was licensed to export 6,000 tuns of beer over six years, which grant was calculated by the Exchequer, four years later, to have cost the king £3,600 in lost revenue.18 CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 33; Add. 36970, f. 16. However, he became a permanent fixture in the life of the court, performing in masques,19 Carleton to Chamberlain ed. M. Lee, 54; Illustrations of Brit. Hist. ed. E. Lodge, iii. 223. some of which were written by Ben Jonson, who, like him, was Catholic. Aubigny soon became Jonson’s patron, and may even have provided the playwright with an annuity of £100.20 Donaldson, 183.

Early in 1604 Aubigny was authorized to travel to France, presumably to visit his mother and attend to his affairs.21 Bodl., Ashmole 62, f. 5. However, he had returned by 30 Apr., when he wrote to Sir Julius Caesar^‡, judge of the admiralty court, on behalf of the French ambassador. Shortly thereafter, and despite a poor grasp of English – his surviving letters are all in French - he was naturalized by the English Parliament, as was Lennox.22 Letters of Denization and Acts of Naturalization ed. W.A. Shaw (Huguenot Soc. xiii), 2. For his surviving correspondence, see Add. 5664, ff. 415, 417-18v; 12506, ff. 179, 192; NLS, ms 5070, f. 2. Aubigny did not accompany his brother to Paris in December 1604, when Lennox attempted to intercede with the French king on behalf of their cousin, the marquise de Verneuil, who had been charged with treason. This meant that he was on hand to give the king advice on French etiquette after Lennox, appointed ambassador extraordinary, complained that he had been slighted at his first audience.23 HMC Hatfield, xvii. 31. Whether Aubigny ever returned to France after 1604 is unclear.24 Donaldson, 185, assumes that he did.

By the summer of 1606 Aubigny, now a gentleman of the bedchamber, was dissatisfied that no significant financial provision had been made for him by the king. He therefore petitioned for the right to hunt for lands that properly belonged to the crown but which were now in private hands, so that he might compound with their owners. However, as such a grant had already been issued to William Tipper, the king offered to assign him the profits arising from any concealed lands he discovered on a purely discretionary basis.25 HMC Hatfield, xviii. 268-9; CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 328. This offer seems to have been rejected, as Aubigny wanted a fixed income, and therefore in November a compromise was reached, whereby Aubigny was given the right to hunt for concealed lands up to a certain yearly value.26 SO3/3, unfol. (13 Nov. 1606).

Aubigny nevertheless remained dissatisfied with this arrangement, and in March 1607 he bombarded the king with a variety of additional suggestions, among them proposals to be allowed to export 1,000 tons of salted beef and 3,000 tons of pork over three years, or to export £10,000 worth of prohibited goods. He added that he would be happy to accept ‘some reasonable sum’, together with a licence to export at least some goods, ‘for the maintenance of himself and his followers in his Majesty’s service till a course be resolved upon for his settling’.27 Add. 36767, f. 84. See also f. 86. This persistent badgering paid dividends, for by late September Aubigny had been granted the right to collect debts to the crown totalling £4,000. He was also given former chantry lands worth £375 and permission to collect fines and forfeitures in Hampshire and Wiltshire.28 SO3/3, unfol. (June and Nov. 1606). However, in return he was obliged to surrender his licence to export beer.29 E214/596.

One way for Aubigny to improve his financial position was to marry an heiress. He had previously been betrothed to the daughter of the comte de Sancerre, but she had died, so he remained conveniently unattached.30 G. Thaumas de la Thaumassiere, Histoire de Berry, 697. By November 1607 he had apparently found a suitable new bride in the form of Catherine, sole daughter and heir of Sir Gervase Clifton of Bromswold, Huntingdonshire, whose landed estate was worth around £2,000 a year.31 Illustrations of Brit. Hist. iii. 208-9. In June 1608 articles of agreement were drawn up, whereby Clifton agreed to provide Aubigny with an income of £500 p.a., and to leave him one of his three principal Huntingdonshire manors, that of Leighton Bromswold, on his death. In return Clifton, who obtained a peerage, was promised that the king would bestow upon Aubigny and his new wife lands worth £1,000 p.a.32 Add. 38170, f. 308; GERVASE CLIFTON. On 13 July James, having laid the groundwork two months earlier, gave orders to this effect,33 CSP Dom. Addenda 1580-1625, pp. 509-10; SO3/4, unfol. (19 May 1608); L.M. Hill, ‘Sir Julius Caesar’s Jnl.’, BIHR, xlv. 316. See also Lansd. 161, f. 287. and shortly thereafter the marriage was celebrated. By the spring of 1612 the couple were living in a house in Blackfriars.34 Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, i. 345; CSP Dom. 1611-18, pp. 322-3. However, the king’s own financial needs were now so pressing that between 1609 and 1613 the only lands made over to Aubigny were worth just £36 p.a., even though Aubigny personally submitted to the lord treasurer, Robert Cecil^*, 1st earl of Salisbury, a schedule of likely properties.35 E147/6/4, ff. 24v-5v; HMC Hatfield, xxi. 6. Aubigny realized fairly quickly that his grant was all but worthless, for in February 1609 he tried to exchange it for £18,000 in cash.36 CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 489. Eventually he sold it, along with his right to hunt for concealed lands, to one of the clerks of the petty bag.37 SP14/28/44.

It was not only the king’s grant of land which came up short. When Aubigny tried to hold his father-in-law to the terms of the 1608 marriage settlement, Clifton claimed that the promised annual pension of £500 formed ‘no part of the first promise, nor any addition thereunto’. He also argued that the articles of agreement were ‘changeable at pleasure’. Far from benefiting financially from marrying Clifton’s daughter, Aubigny soon found himself seriously out of pocket. Indeed, he later claimed that he was forced to buy his father-in-law’s estate for £15,000.38 Add. 38170, ff. 310v, 312v. By October 1610 Clifton was under pressure from the Privy Council to honour his agreement.39 Add. 11402, f. 161. However, maintaining that he was the injured party, Clifton complained to the king in June 1611 of the fraudulent dealings of Aubigny and Lennox, who had helped negotiate the marriage settlement.40 CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 42. Not only did he deny having reneged on the 1608 agreement, he also claimed that he and his friends and family had lent considerable sums to Aubigny, none of which was ever likely to be repaid. In addition, he complained of having laid out £1,000 of his own money in improving Lennox’s estate, management of which he had assumed in 1609.41 Add. 38170, f. 304. ‘Great wars’ ensued, during the course of which Clifton was ordered to surrender Leighton Bromswold and the manor of Little Gidding to his son-in-law in return for £12,000. This was a staggering sum, and although Lennox stepped in to settle payment of £8,000 (by mortgaging to Clifton the Yorkshire manor of Temple Newsam), Aubigny proved unable to find the remaining £4,000. In April 1612 the case was heard by the Privy Council. At this hearing Clifton was so enraged that he vowed to marry a whore and get her pregnant in order to produce an alternative heir.42 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 346; C54/2140/23; Add. 38170, f. 308; GERVASE CLIFTON. Inevitably, the quarrel also found its way into Chancery, where the lord chancellor, Lord Ellesmere (Thomas Egerton^*, later Viscount Brackley) attempted unsuccessfully to broker a settlement.43 Add. 38170, f. 314v; SO3/6, unfol. (14 Nov. 1616).

Aubigny was now heavily in debt, and the fact that he had failed to derive financial benefit from his marriage meant that he quickly began casting about for money-making schemes again. In March 1613 he asked for the right to farm brazilwood (a source of red dye) and to export corn from Ireland for 21 years. He also sought permission to make and sell copper farthing tokens,44 Add. 10038, f. 128. thereby placing himself in competition with his brother, who also wanted this monopoly. None of these requests were granted, although in December 1613 he was given the profits from court leets and the right to compound with those who no longer held these manorial bodies.45 SO3/5, unfol. (20 Dec. 1605); CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 222. In 1615 Aubigny tried again, this time seeking the right to inspect newly made silk, but the corporation of London pointed out that the authority to regulate the London livery companies already resided in the mayor and common council.46 Remembrancia ed. W.H. and H.C. Overall, 119-20. He subsequently turned his attention to the manufacture of leather, joining forces with the Glovers’ Company and leather-dressers to demand the right of search. Once again he was thwarted, this time by the Leathersellers’ Company, whose wardens observed that they already checked quality and affixed their seal free of charge.47 Add. 38170, ff. 87v-8; SP14/31/90; Remembrancia, 101.

Not until March 1617, after he tried unsuccessfully to bring about an end to the court case between Clifton and his son-in-law,48 SO3/6, unfol. (Nov. 1616). did the king again intervene to try to prop up Aubigny’s finances, by granting the latter £5,000. However, although Aubigny had received £2,100 by Michaelmas 1617,49 CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 445; Lansd. 169, f. 146. it seems unlikely that this money was ever paid in full due to the poverty of the Exchequer. Aubigny was also authorized to recover more than £40,000 paid by the crown to a fraudulent contractor during the Elizabethan wars in Ireland. How much of this money Aubigny ever collected is unknown, but when the crown learned in 1622 of the existence of some lands in Devon belonging to the former contractor, they were seized and leased to Aubigny.50 CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 444; W. Devon RO, 107/210. Moreover, in June 1617 James gave Aubigny crown lands worth £1,000.51 SO3/6, unfol. (June 1617).

Aubigny accompanied the king when James revisited Scotland over the summer of 1617.52 HMC Downshire, vi. 138. On his return to London, he took a lease of a house in Drury Lane, on the outskirts of the capital.53 LCC Survey of London, v. 101. There he contributed £40 towards rebuilding the parish church.54 J. Parton, Some Acct. of the Hosp. and Par. Church of St Giles in the Fields, 347. In July 1618 the king, still anxious to bolster the finances of his cousin, granted Aubigny the wardship of the seven-year-old Gerald FitzGerald, 15th earl of Kildare [I]. This was perhaps surprising, as it was intended that Kildare would receive an English education and be raised in the Protestant faith, whereas Aubigny himself was probably still Catholic. However, it was expected that in due course Kildare would marry one of Aubigny’s daughters. In the event Kildare, being a sickly boy, died in November 1620 before he could cross the Irish Sea. His title thereupon passed to another minor, Gerald’s eight-year-old cousin George FitzGerald, necessitating a further wardship, which Aubigny obtained in March 1621.55 CPR Ire. Jas. I, 408b, 410a; 1625-33, pp. 474-5. The extent to which Aubigny derived financial benefit from either of these wardships is unknown. However, ownership of some of the Kildare lands was disputed, and in March 1623 the king was forced to step in to try to force Sir Terence Dempsey to surrender them.56 SO3/7, unfol. (2 Mar. 1623).

Aubigny’s difficulties with his father-in-law were finally ended in October 1618 when Lord Clifton committed suicide. Aubigny’s wife thereupon became a peer in her own right, and Aubigny himself now held an estate in Huntingdonshire, of which county he was soon appointed joint lord lieutenant. Two months later, in May 1619, the king announced that he intended to raise Aubigny to the English peerage.57 SP14/109/46. This decision was long overdue, as James had already elevated Lennox to the earldom of Richmond. Consequently, on 17 June 1619 Aubigny was created earl of March.58 C231/4, f. 86v. Aubigny, who had continued to regard himself as a servant of France even after he came to live at the English court,59 Ambassades de M. de La Boderie, i. 396. was undoubtedly delighted with this elevation, but as an English peer he was no longer capable of remaining a French vassal. He was therefore obliged to surrender his French lordship to his second son Henry who, in 1623, was sent to France to be formally raised a Catholic.60 Cust, 100; APC, 1621-3, p. 489.

As a newly created English peer, March took his seat in Parliament when it assembled in late January 1621.61 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 338-9. However, his attendance was rather erratic, and in mid February he missed three days in a row (15-17 February). Most of his absences are difficult to explain, but one of them, on the morning of 23 Mar., coincided with the assignment of the wardship of the young 16th earl of Kildare by the Court of Wards.62 V. Treadwell, Buckingham and Ire. 120. March also played little recorded part in the proceedings of the House. Indeed, so far as is known, he made only one speech, on the afternoon of 26 Apr., during a debate on the false dyeing of silk, a subject about which (given his earlier desire to be given responsibility for regulating silk manufacture) he had some knowledge. However, his words went unrecorded by the clerk.63 PA, HL/PO/JO/5/11, p. 57. He was also named to only a handful of committees. His first appointments were made on 8 Mar., when he was required to consider bills to punish those who failed to observe the Sabbath and to prevent abuses in procuring writs of certiorari. He was later asked to confer with the Commons about both measures. On 18 May he was nominated to a committee for a bill to naturalize a fellow Scot, Sir Robert Ayton. Five days later, with the sitting drawing to a close, he was instructed to help consider any petition which the House had not yet answered.64 LJ, iii. 39b, 130b, 141a; Add. 40085, f. 160. When Parliament reassembled on 20 Nov., March missed only one day in the Lords (8 Dec.), a striking contrast with his sporadic attendance earlier in the year. However, he remained as inconspicuous as before, making no recorded speeches and securing nomination to just one committee, on a bill concerning the government of Wales.65 LJ, iii. 172b.

For March, perhaps the chief business of the Parliament was a bill that he himself laid before the House. This was a measure to assure his title to the Yorkshire manor of Temple Newsam, which received a first reading on 26 February. This manor, worth £1,000 p.a., had been acquired from March’s brother Lennox by the late Lord Clifton, who had assigned it for the duration of his life to a number of trustees. March inherited this manor on Clifton’s death, but, fearful that his title was not secure, he therefore desired statutory confirmation of the conveyance. His bill, which was amended in committee, rapidly passed through the Lords,66 Ibid. 30a, 31a, 41b, 50a; Add. 38170, f. 314v. but in the Commons, which took delivery of the measure on 17 Mar., the sheer weight of legislation before the lower House meant that it made slow progress. Indeed, not until 1 May did it receive a second reading. This still left enough time for the bill to complete its passage, but the Commons regarded it with some suspicion, Sir Henry Poole saying it was ‘dangerous to suffer tenants for life to pass away the inheritance of lands’.67 CJ, i. 568a, 598b. Consequently, the bill was never reported.

March’s failure to persuade the Commons to endorse his bill seems not to have deterred the financier and businessman Sir Arthur Ingram^‡, who, by July 1622, agreed to purchase Temple Newsam for £12,000.This was an enormous sum, but it was evidently not sufficient to enable March to clear his debts, for in November 1622 the king, anxious to relieve his kinsman, resolved to bestow upon him £2,000 as a free gift.68 Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent., U269/1/OE387; E403/2562, f. 79. Half this amount was paid immediately, but James’s own financial affairs were so straitened that a warrant to issue the residue was not issued until February 1624.69 CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 164. It may have been because the finances of his brother remained precarious that in August 1622 Lennox approached the earl of Kellie [S] to sell his office of groom of the stole to March. As well as affording the incumbent easy access to the king, this position may have been worth as much as £2,500 p.a. However, Lennox’s inquiry displeased the royal favourite, George Villiers^*, marquess (later 1st duke) of Buckingham, who clearly had an eye to installing his own nominee whenever Kellie chose to retire, and as a result March lost interest in pursuing the matter.70 HMC Mar and Kellie, ii. 130. On the value of this office, see G. Aylmer, King’s Servants, 206. Lennox therefore arranged instead that his brother should benefit from the sale of a barony.71 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 546.

In November 1623 March played host to the French ambassador after an upper floor in a house next door to the ambassador’s residence collapsed, killing 95 people.72 Ibid. 520-1. Following the sudden death of his brother in February 1624, March inherited both the earldom of Lennox and the office of lord chamberlain of Scotland. However, he did not also acquire his brother’s English titles, as, by the terms of the latter’s creation, succession to the earldom of Newcastle and dukedom of Richmond (both of which had been bestowed in June 1623) had been limited to Lennox’s legitimate sons, of whom there were none.73 47th DKR, 109. March nevertheless hoped to pick up some or all of his late brother’s offices and reversions. (Lennox had been lord steward and lord lieutenant of Kent, and had acquired reversions to the lord wardenship of the Cinque Ports and the constableship of Windsor Castle). However, though he went to see the king, March found that all these prizes were quickly snapped up by others. There was not even the prospect that he would be granted membership of the Privy Council.74 HMC Mar and Kellie, ii. 193. His only crumb of comfort was to be admitted to the order of the Garter in his brother’s place.

Although appointed by the crown as one of the triers of petitions from England, Scotland and Ireland, March played no part in the Parliament of 1624, whose assembly was delayed by his brother’s death. Instead, he assigned his proxy to his kinsman Prince Charles (Charles Stuart^*, prince of Wales).75 LJ, iii. 208a; Add. 40087, f. 3. He may have been too preoccupied with other matters to attend Parliament, for in addition to making arrangements for the management of his recently acquired estates in Scotland (and seeing off those who sought to intrude)76 HMC 7th Rep. 723; HMC Mar and Kellie, i. 124. he had also to negotiate a financial settlement with his sister-in-law, Frances, dowager duchess of Richmond. The resulting arrangements were complex, but in return for his sister-in-law’s jointure and a number of valuable patents, March (or Lennox, as he had now become) agreed to pay his brother’s funeral expenses, pay off his servants and provide Frances with a pension of £3,000 for life.77 Eg. 2026, f. 23v. See also HMC 6th Rep. 682. The patents involved included one giving him the right to survey seacoal at Newcastle. However, it was not long before this monopoly was brought into question by the Commons, and in mid March the new duke of Lennox was obliged to promise to have the patent sent to the lower House for its inspection.78 CJ, i. 685b. Another matter which may have helped keep Lennox from Parliament was his campaign to gain control of the king of France’s Scottish guard, the captaincy of which his brother had been about to assume at the time of his death. However, at the end of May he was once again pipped to the post, this time by his own nephew, George, Lord Gordon of Badenoch [S], at which he was, not surprisingly, incensed.79 HMC Mar and Kellie, ii. 204.

In late June the dowager duchess of Richmond asked the king to bestow upon Lennox the right to collect the fees payable to the seal office of King’s Bench and Common Pleas, commonly known as the greenwax, which previously had been farmed by her late husband and were worth £1,500 p.a. Permission appears to have been given, but soon thereafter Lennox was persuaded to surrender his grant in return for an annuity of £3,500.80 SO3/7, unfol. (July 1624). See also CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 314. However, just as these new arrangements were being put in place, in late July 1624, Lennox was struck down while staying as a guest at a house in Kirkby, Northamptonshire. He contracted spotted fever, a skin eruption caused by rickettsia (a form of micro-organism) transmitted by ticks and mites, and died after just three days.81 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 574; CSP Ven. 1623-5, p. 415.

Lennox was buried in Westminster Abbey, ‘as honourably as the time would permit’, on the night of 6 August.82 Westminster Abbey Regs. 123; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 574. His distraught widow Catherine subsequently obtained letters of administration, her husband having left no will.83 PROB 6/11, f. 118. Although Catherine, who later married James Hamilton, 2nd earl of Abercorn [S], claimed to have enough money to pay off Lennox’s debts, she was evidently not believed, for in March 1625 James assigned her £3,350 towards their settlement.84 CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 463. Lennox was succeeded by his eldest son James Stuart^†, created duke of Richmond in 1641. One of his daughters subsequently married the son and heir of Thomas Howard^*, 21st (or 14th) earl of Arundel, without the king’s permission, a match which Arundel claimed that Lennox himself had tried to promote.85 M.F.S. Hervey, Life, Corresp. and Collections of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, 244.