Robert Devereux was born in an Elizabethan splendour world in 1591, in London. Son of the great Essex, his father was one of the most powerful men in the country, though his good relations and flirtatious affairs with the Tudor Queen, Elizabeth I. Eventually his father was remembered for a traitor, being beheaded for attempting to remove Elizabeth from the throne in a coup, during her later years. Essex would have grown up knowing of his families now tarnished past. He was so different to his handsome, dashing and charismatic father, who was tall and proud, strutting around Elizabeth’s court as though he were her husband, yet a terrible womaniser. At the age of 13, he married Frances Howard, daughter of the Earl of Suffolk. It was a political match, designed no doubt to enrich the Devereux family and Frances was sensual yet slightly highly strung. Soon after her marriage, Frances became the mistress of Robert Carr, Viscount Rochester and one of King James’s favourites. Essex took no interest in politics, yet Frances loved gossip and intrigue, anxious to climb the social ladder. She then managed to apply to Parliament and the King for an annulment of her marriage, which was gained with the influence of her influential family. To make things worse for Essex, she claimed it was on the grounds of impotency. Essex then eagerly married another Frances, daughter of Sir William Paulet, yet for some reason this marriage was bleak and she eventually took a lover, Sir Thomas Uvedale. It was rumoured that she took Uvedale because of Essex’s impotency and soon she was pregnant to Uvedale, while Essex melancholy accepted the baby as his own, but it died soon after. Essex moved out and left Frances after this and went to live with his sister, who was married to the Marquis of Hertford (a future Royalist) in their grand house in London’s Strand. Essex would be tainted with these failed marriages and became commonly known as The Great Cuckold. Parliament During his life to that point, Essex had seen service on the continent in Holland and when he attended the radical Parliaments of King Charles I’s reign in the 1640’s, he sat regular in the House of Lords. He was still well known for military flair, even though he had had no real successes, but he had fostered a sense of admiration in his men and people saw him as honest and although dull and bleak, he was reliable. As he sat in the House of Lords with his pipe, deep in thought, he was now stout and retiring, yet still retained that undercurrent of magnetism. He was singled out by Pym, the King’s leading opponent in the Parliament, to lead the Roundhead army and was given the orders to rescue the King’s person out of the hands of his evil councillors. After receiving the orders, he went slowly to the House of Lords, addressing a few words to the eager members, before he was due to join the army. No sooner had he finished, than he stood and left before they could reply and he totally ignored the commons and they went in search of the elusive figure of their commander-in-chief. After finding him puffing on his pipe, he stood, acknowledged them in silence and walked away with pipe in one hand and hat in the other. As he entered the arena of the English Civil War, he was destined to play a major part. His Presbyterian religious views had brought him into opposition to the King’s views and he found his men eager to fight under him, which sort of re-invigorated him. Civil War Although he packed his coffin with his baggage, he marched slowly and tediously toward the King. In battles he was rarely successful, lacking in tactical skills, but not bravery. He thrice allowed himself to be cut off from his base and many times during the war he would disobey Parliaments orders or lose the advantage because he was not quick or sharp enough to seize opportunities. Indeed in the later stages of the war, he tended to be more pro peace than anything, which worried Parliament. But he never showed interest in the King’s offers to defect, but his time was running out. Essex seemed to hate the fact he was fighting against the King, whom he did not dislike, but like many men, wanted a more moderate Monarchy. When he found out about a well-known Royalist gentleman who had been imprisoned in the Tower of London, Essex sent to advise him that he wanted to pay a visit. The prisoner refused this, saying that Essex was no longer worthy of his respect as an Earl, for he was a traitor and had lost his gentlemanly status. Downward Slope Essex’s greatest defect was jealousy and he refused to work with his subordinate commanders, threatening to resign if he thought he had been slighted and furious if his rivals were given better armies, men or pay. This caused him to be at loggerheads with Sir William Waller and instead of fighting together, Essex would split the army and walk into certain disaster. Cornered in Fowey in 1644 by the King himself and the Royalist army, Essex surrendered. He had found himself trapped solely because he could not face working with Sir William and as such, had taken all his men on a long and unnecessary march to the tip of Cornwall. He lost 6000 men and arms, ammunition, standards, yet he himself took a fishing boat to safety. It was his darkest moment and now Cromwell was on his case, pressing for any MP to give up military command. This included Essex as a member of the House of Lords and he resigned in 1645, to retire to London. There he died on 14th September 1646 and Parliament voted that his Royalist brother-in-law should be refused permission to attend the funeral. The ceremony in Westminster Abbey proved the great respect he still held and the radical religious Independent’s even allowed a Presbyterian minister to preach. A funeral effigy of Essex in military apparel was laid on his tomb, but it was soon hacked to pieces by a religious madman who said that an angel had commanded him to do it. Although Essex had no great impact on the Parliamentarian victory, no-one doubted he was brave and committed, giving stability to the Parliamentary cause, which it needed when it was fighting their legitimate and lawful King. Back to Table of Contents -- King or Parliament #3 Back to King or Parliament List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2002 by Mark Turnbull. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com