The Underhill family found
themselves deep in the currents of Elizabethan history and politics, having
first-hand contact with some of the most influential and enigmatic figures of
the time. The rise of the Underhill family much like that of Dudley and others
was accomplished by gaining the favor of the crown, and the gifts of lands,
titles, and exclusive contracts that followed. The holdings of the Underhill
family would reach their height during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. At that
time they had acquired property in every parish within six miles of Ettington.
Further, they became connected with some of the best families of Warwick by
marriage, and many members of the family obtained knighthood. [i]
As with well known figures of the time associated with the Elizabethan
court, many would come to inauspicious ends, including the Underhill family. While Sir Hugh Underhill and his son Thomas Underhill fared well, John Edward Underhill (1574-1608) was not quite
as fortunate.
He first married Mary
Moseley. Following her death he married his second wife Leonora Honor Pawley in
1595 and had three children, John (1597-1672), Lettice (1608-1673), and
Petronella (date unknown). Their son Captain John Underhill was born October 7,
1597, in Baginton, Warwickshire, England.
John Edward Underhill was a
friend and companion to the Earls of Leicester and Essex, and as a youth serve
in Leicester’s own Troop of Guards that was sent to the assistance of the Dutch
by Queen Elizabeth. When Netherlands offered their sovereignty to the Earl of
Leicester, John Edward Underhill was bearer of dispatches to that effect to
Lord Burleigh. The Queen and Underhill had a private interview in which she
instructed to deliver a confidential letter.
Royall Tyler in The Algerine Captive (1795) recounts a
family story about an interaction between Sir John and Queen Elizabeth I.[ii]
The Earl of Leicester had been sent to the Netherlands to aid in their defense.
Underhill was responsible for delivering dispatches from Leicester to Lord
Burleigh and the Queen. The same day the dispatches were delivered, that
evening the Queen summoned Sir John.
She asked “So Leicester
wants to be a king?”
Underhill replied that the
Dutch had indeed made the offer of sovereignty of their country to her general.
“No”, replied the queen, “it
is not the Dutch; they hate kings and their divine right; it is the proud
Leicester, who years to be independent of his own sovereign, who moves this
insolent proposal. Tell him, from me, that he must learn to obey, before he is
fit to govern. Tell him” added the queen, softening her voice, “that obedience
may make him a king indeed.”
The Queen then dispatched
Underhill with a letter to deliver to Leicester, a purse of one hundred crowns
for himself, and direction to enclose the letter in lead and sink it in case of
danger in his passage by sea, and to deliver it privately.
Leicester upon receiving the
letter was agitated and walked his chamber the whole of the ensuing night.
After he recovered, he returned to England, “animated by the brightest hopes of
realizing the lofty suggestions of his ambition” according to Tyler.
For Elizabeth to be before
the grandson of her loyal servant at Greenwich, and the son of Dudley’s
assistant Thomas, using him to deliver a personal message, must haven given
pause to her and Underhill, for he was the third generation now in service of
the queen.
In December 1587, after
Underhill delivered the letter, Leicester returned to England. He was severely
in debt because of his personal financing of the war. In July 1588, the Earl of
Leicester was appointed Lieutenant and Captain-General of the Queen’s Armies
and Companies as the Spanish Armada neared. After the Armada, he is said to
have dined every day alone with the king. He died at Combury Park near Oxford
on 4 September 1588. Elizabeth was in such shock that she locked herself in her
apartment for several days. She kept the last letter he sent her only six days
before her death, and put it in her treasure box at her bedside, where it was
until she died 15 years later.
John Edward Underhill made
the unfortunate decision of tying himself the Earl of Essex who was successor
of Leicester to the Queen’s favor. While Underhill had been involved in the
successful attack on Cadiz, Spain, he also shared the ill fortunate in a
campaign against Tyronne in Ireland. When Essex rose in insurrection against
the Queen, Essex was executed and Underhill left for the safety of Holland. He
remained there for a number of years in the company of a group of pious
Puritans in Bergen op Zoom. He died in 1608 and was buried in the Gertrudiskerk
(Church of St. Gertrude).
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