ESSEX, ARTHUR LAPEL, 1ST EARL OF (1632-1683), English statesman, son of Arthur, 1st Baron Capel of Hadham (c. 1641), executed in 1649, and of Elizabeth, daughter and heir of Sir Charles Morrison of Cashiobury in Hertfordshire, was bap tized on Jan. 28, 1632. In June 1648, then a sickly boy of 16, he was taken by Fairfax's soldiers from Hadham to Colchester, which his father was defending, and carried every day round the works with the hope of inducing Lord Capel to surrender the place. At the restoration he was created Viscount Malden and earl of Essex (April 20, 1661).
He early showed himself antagonistic to the court, to Roman Catholicism, and to the extension of the royal prerogative, and was coupled by Charles II. with Holles as "stiff and sullen men," who would not yield against their convictions to his solicitations. Nevertheless he was sent on an embassy to Denmark in 1669, and in 1672 became lord lieutenant of Ireland. During the five years of his rule in Ireland he took great pains to understand the Irish situation, the purity of his administration brought him into con flict with many interested persons, accustomed to corrupt methods, and he was recalled in 1677. On the fall of Danby in 1679 he became a commissioner of the treasury, and in the next year a member of the council. He was a supporter of the policy of Halifax, and in spite of his strong Protestant views, gained the king's confidence.
Subsequently his political attitude underwent a change, the exact cause of which is not clear—probably a growing conviction of the dangers threatened by a Roman Catholic sovereign of the character of James. He now, in 168o, joined Shaftesbury's party and supported the Exclusion bill, and on its rejection by the Lords carried a motion for an association to execute the scheme of expedients promoted by Halifax. On Jan. 25, 1681, at the head of fifteen peers he presented a petition to the king re questing the abandonment of the session of parliament at Oxford. He was a jealous prosecutor of the Roman Catholics in the popish plot, and voted for Stafford's attainder, on the other hand inter ceding for Archbishop Plunket, implicated in the pretended Irish plot. But he declined participation in Shaftesbury's design to seize the Tower in 1682, and on Shaftesbury's consequent de parture from England became the leader of Monmouth's faction, in which were now included Lord Russell, Algernon Sidney, and Lord Howard of Escrick. Essex took no part in the wilder schemes of the party, but after the discovery of the Rye House Plot in June 1683, and the capture of the leaders, he was arrested at Cashiobury and imprisoned in the Tower. On July 3o, he was discovered in his chamber with his throat cut. Evidence points clearly if not conclusively to suicide, his motive being possibly to prevent an attainder and preserve his estate for his family.
Essex was a statesman of strong and sincere patriotism, just and unselfish, conscientious and laborious in the fulfilment of public duties, blameless in his official and private life. Evelyn describes him as "a sober, wise, judicious and pondering person, not illiterate beyond the rule of most noblemen in this age, very well versed in English history and affairs, industrious, frugal, methodical and every way accomplished"; and declares he was much deplored, few believing he had ever harboured any sedi tious designs. He married Lady Elizabeth Percy, daughter of Algernon, loth earl of Northumberland, by whom, besides a daughter, he had an only son Algernon (1670-171o), who suc ceeded him as 2nd earl of Essex.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. See the Lives in the Dict. of Nat. Biography and in Bibliography. See the Lives in the Dict. of Nat. Biography and in Biographia Britannica (Kippis), with authorities there collected; Essex's Irish correspondence is in the Stow Collection in the British Museum, Nos. 200-217, and selections have been published in Letters written by Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex (1770) and in the Essex Papers (Camden Society, 189o), to which can now be added the Calendars of State Papers, Domestic, which contain a large number of his letters and which strongly support the opinion of his contemporaries concerning his unselfish patriotism and industry; see also Somers Tracts (1813) , x., and for other pamphlets relating to his death the catalogue of the British Museum.