ROBERT DEVEREUX, third Earl of Essex, was born in Essex House, in the Strand, in 1592. He was sent to Eton by his grandmother, who, after his father's death, received him into her house; and in 1602 he was removed to Merton College, Oxford, where the warden, Mr. (afterwards Sir Henry) Savile, who had been an intimate friend of his father, took charge of his education. He was restored to his hereditary honours in 1603, and three years afterwards was unhappily married to lady Frances Howard, a child of no more than thirteen years old. The new-married couple being too young to live together, Essex was sent to improve himself abroad ; while the bride, who was celebrated for her beauty, continued with her mother. It was four years before he returned to claim his wife, and iu the meantime she had contracted so great au affection for Lord Rochester, afterwards Earl of Somerset, that, until she was compelled by her father, she could not bo brought to cohabit with her husband. The union never was is happy one. Not many mouths after they had met, she instituted proceedings against him praying for a separation on a real or pretended charge of physical disability. A divorce was granted, and the lady was soon after married to Lord Rochester. The slur thus cast upon Essex drove him to the retirement of his country-house and the pursuit of rural occupations. After some years however, a solitary life became irksome to him. Tired of inaction, he joined Lord Oxford in 1620, raised a troop, and marched with the Elector Palatine in the war against Holland. In the winter he returned to England, where his opposition to the government rendered him unpopular at court; indeed the reception that he met with at home was so little agreeable that ho willingly renewed his military avocations abroad during the two follow ing summers; and in 1625 again raised a troop, with which he sailed to aid the United Provinces. His disposition and capability for mili tary service now struck the king, and he was appointed vice-admiral of a fleet which was employed in a fruitless expeditiou against Spain. Ho engaged in another expedition in the Low Countries, and was after wards bold enough to marry a second time. In this second choice of a wife (the daughter of Sir William Paulet) he was scarcely more for tunate than in his first. It is true indeed that the lady soon after
her marriage bore a son, which Essex owned and christened after his name, but her familiarities with Mr. Uvedale gave him cause to suspect her fidelity, and after much mutual crimination, on the one side for inconstancy, on the other, a renewal of former charges, a separation took place. The child died at the ago of five, and Essex never showed further inclination to matrimony.
Between his journey to Ireland in 1632 and his appointment in the fleet that sailed to Holland in 1635, Lord Essex spent his time either in his house at Chartley or in London. His inclination to seek popularity among the Presbyterians was evident and undisguised; nevertheless the king employed him as lieutenant-general of his troops that were sent against the Covenanters (1639). In 1640 he was one of twelve peers that signed a petition that a parliament should be called and an attempt made to settle the difficulties of the state without further bloodshed. He was also one of the commissioners sent to Ripon to treat with the Scots; and when, at the opening of the Long Parliament, the king saw that it was necessary that he should endeavour to conciliate the Presbyterian party, he made Essex lord chamberlain. It was the wish of many of the royalists that Essex, whose popularity was great among the Presbyterians, should also have been placed at the head of the army ; but Charles, who disliked him on account of the roughness of his manner, and doubted the firmness of his attachment to him, refused to appoint him, and would yield to their requests no further than to make him lieutenant-general of his forces so•ith of the Trent. When the Commons demanded of the king that a guard should be raised in the city of London, it was Essex whom they desired to have placed at its head. Charles, unwilling to listen to this request, left Loudon suddenly, and called upon Essex to follow him ; but Essex, indisposed to the king on account of the incivility with which he had always been treated at court, refused to follow, pleading his duty to remain in attendauoe of parliament.