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RE-INTERMENT 
 
 it 
 
 REMAINS OF 
 
 Lady Alice Apsley Boteler, 
 
 WIFE OF 
 
 GEORGE FENWICK, Esq, 
 November 23, 1870. 
 
 [Reported for the Hartford Daily Courant^ Nonj. z^th.'\ 
 
 HARTFORD 
 
 1870. 
 
/r33 
 
 7f 
 
LADY FENWJCK. 
 
 THE CEREMONIES AT SAYBROOK. SPEECHES. - 
 
 RELIGIOUS EXERCISES. RE-INTERMENT 
 
 OF THE REMAINS. 
 
 The re-interment of the remains of Lady 
 Fenwick took place at Saybrook, Wednesday 
 afternoon, Nov. 23. The bones, forming 
 nearly a complete skeleton, were arranged in 
 a neat coffin, on the lid of which was a plate 
 with the inscription, 
 
 LADY ALICE APSLEY BOTELER. 
 
 WIFE OF GEORGE FENWICK. 
 
 DIED 1648. 
 
 It has been widely published that a remo- 
 val of the remains is rendered necessary by 
 the location of the new Valley railroad. It 
 is exceedingly creditable to Saybrook that 
 the necessity was met with such good taste 
 and honorable respect by the citizens. 
 
 The commemorative services were held at 1 
 o'clock in the Congregational church, both 
 
4 Lady Fenzuick. 
 
 the bells of the town being tolled on the occa- 
 sion. The Rev. Mr. McCall presided. George 
 H. Chapman, Esq., one of the oldest and most 
 public-spirited inhabitants of the town, and 
 chpirman of the committee appomted by the 
 town to take the matter in charge, read a 
 written statement of the doings of the com- 
 mittee. The Rev. Mr. Shepard read the 90th 
 Psalm, and then the Rev. Mr. Cheseborough 
 offered prayer. After the singing of a hymn, 
 Mr. McCall announced that the Hon J. H. 
 Trumbull was not able to be present 
 and deliver an historical discourse as 
 had been expected. He made a few 
 remarks on the history of the days of 
 Lady Fenwick, both in England and in what 
 is now known as Connecticut. The Rev. Mr. 
 Heald read a sketch of her life. Lady Feu- 
 wick, as she is called, was the daughter of 
 Sir Edward Apsley, and the heir of her 
 brother, who was the last of the Apsleys of 
 Apsley. Her first husband was Sir John 
 Boteler, commonly called Lord Boteler, and 
 from him she took her title which she kept to 
 the time of her death. 
 
 Professor Gilman, of Yale College, next 
 spoke of the early history of Saybrook, as 
 the center of an original and independent 
 government, the mother city from which 
 Norwich was founded, the old seat of Yale 
 College, and the place made famous by the 
 Platform. 
 
Lady Fenwick. 5 
 
 The Hon. Ralph D. Smith, of Guilford, 
 made au interestius address on the facts of 
 Lady Feu wick's history. She sailed from 
 London near the 20th of May, 1639, in com- 
 pany with Mr. Fenwick, whom she had lately 
 married. Whitfield was a fellow passenger. 
 They arrived about the 15th of July, and the 
 delight of the captain at the appearance of 
 the harbor gave the names of Fair Haven 
 and New Haven to the towns on the shore. 
 Lady Boteler eave Whitfield all the cows that 
 were brought over, and he carried them with 
 him to Guilford. From the allusions to his 
 wife which are found in Governor Fenwick' s 
 letters, we find that hers was a character of 
 great cheerfulness. She cultivated fruits 
 and flowers, had a "shooting gun," which 
 must have been for sport, as the Pequot 
 war was over ; and she kept pet rab- 
 bits. All indicates a "life of cheer. 
 She lived here only nine years, in which time 
 three children were born. The fort was 
 burned in 1647, and it is said that Lady Bote- 
 ler was buried within its palisades. If so, it 
 would seem that her death must have been 
 before 1648. In 1648, Fenwick was reelected 
 first magistrate of Connecticut ; and on the 
 7th of November in the same year he was in 
 England a Colonel in the army of the north. 
 He was appointed, but did not act as a judge 
 in the trial of Charles I.; was a lawyer of 
 Gray's Inn; sat in Parliament ; was Governor 
 
Lady FenwicL 
 
 of Tyuemouth ; and died March 15, 1657, 
 Governor of Berwick on the Tweed. 
 
 The Hon. H. P. Haven, of New Loudon, 
 was the next speaker. He spoke of the great 
 interest which he took in the history of Lady 
 Boteler or Fenwick ; and of the good work 
 which the citizens of Saybrook had done 
 in caring for the remains which 
 had been exhumed. Saybrook was a separate 
 colony till 1614, when it was transferred to 
 the jurisdiction of Connecticut. He spoke of 
 all that the Pilgrim mothers did for the 
 country, and returned thanks for the rever- 
 ence shown to antiquity. Then he gave a 
 brief history of the old tombstone. Lady 
 Fenwick was not the first white woman who 
 died in Connecticut, but the first woman to 
 whom a tombstone was erected in 
 what is now this state. Matthew Gris- 
 wold furnished the stone and seven pounds 
 was paid him for it. There is no probability 
 that any inscription was placed on the stone 
 originally; probably Colonel Fenwick died 
 before sending out any inscription for it. 
 The inscription on the monument of Henry 
 Wolcott in Windsor, which is of about the 
 same age, is still quite legible. 
 
 Mr. McCall said that the community was 
 under obligations to Mrs. Commodore Joseph 
 Hull for the care which she had taken of the 
 old monument. 
 
 J. H. Grannis, M. D., read an account of the 
 
Lady FenwicL 7 
 
 condition in which the skeleton was found- 
 It was clearly the skeleton of a white woman 
 of middle age, having no peculiarity except a 
 remarkable curvature of the spine. 
 
 A poem, written twelve years ago by the 
 late Miss Frances M. Caulkins, on "The 
 Tomb of Lady Fenwick," was then read by 
 the Rev. Mr. Hart, of Trinity College. 
 
 " On Saybrook's wave washed height, 
 
 The English lady sleeps : 
 Lonely the tomb, but an angel of light 
 
 The door of the sepulchre keeps. 
 
 No roof, no leafy shade, 
 
 The vaulted glory mars — 
 She sleeps in peace, with the light on her bed 
 
 Of a thousand kindly stars. 
 
 She sleeps where oft she stood, 
 
 Far from her native shore, 
 Wistfully watching the bark as it rode 
 
 To the home she should see no more. 
 
 She sighed — " O loved bowers 
 
 With all life's dew's impearled, 
 Where I nestled and sang with the rosy hours. 
 
 Nor dreamed of this distant world. 
 
 " Sweet home of joy and love. 
 
 My old ancestral seat ! 
 Away, away, flies my bosom's dove. 
 
 Dear scenes of youth to greet. 
 
 "O, I remember well 
 
 My cradle and my chair— 
 The story so sweet that my mother would tell ; 
 
 My closet hour of prayer ! 
 
Lady Fenwick. 
 
 "I would that I might die 
 
 On that dear English ground ; 
 Home sleep is so sweet ; 'tis so good to lie 
 
 With old yews all around. 
 
 "A pilgrim band we came, 
 
 Self-exiled o'er the sea- 
 Sowing the seed of God's great name, 
 
 Wherever a foot- track might be. 
 
 "And I loved the woodland waste — 
 
 The free, pure worship of God ; 
 And the cots of the exiles that brightened and 
 graced 
 
 Wilds where the savage had trod. 
 
 "But now I thirst, I pine 
 
 On my native soil to lie ; 
 To drink of England's air the wine. 
 
 To kiss her turf and die. 
 
 "It must not be; sleep, sleep 
 
 Lays on me her still hand ; 
 Let me drop, where I looked out over the deep 
 
 So oft for my native land. 
 "There's a dearer home than home, 
 
 Sweeter air than native air ; 
 I see the bright hill tops, and spirits that roam 
 
 Beckoning, beatified there. 
 
 "Andlo! my Saviour-star 
 
 Shines off all earthly gloom ; 
 His messenger comes— he bears me afar, 
 
 To a fairer, nobler home." 
 
 By grateful love enshrined. 
 
 In memory's book heart-bonnd, 
 She sank to rest with the cool sea wind 
 
 And the river murmuring round. 
 
Lady Fenwick. 
 
 And ever this wave-washed shore 
 Shall be linked with her tomb and fame. 
 
 And blend with the wind and the billowy roar, 
 The music of her name. 
 New London, Jan. 11, 1858." 
 
 After a second hymn had been sung: and 
 those who desired had reverently viewed the 
 remains, a procession was formed, the re- 
 mains were carried to the old burial 
 ground at the Point, where they were 
 committed to the ground by the Rev. 
 Mr. Heald. So all that is left of Lady Fen- 
 wick rests not far from where she was laid 
 more than two centuries ago. The old stone 
 will be set up over the grave, and it is pro- 
 posed to place by it a slab to commemorate 
 its removal. 
 
 All the speakers expressed great regret that 
 Mr, Trumbull was not able to prepare and 
 deliver the address which was expected from 
 him. It is confidently hoped, however, that 
 he will deliver his historical discourse at 
 some future day, perhaps when the old tomb- 
 stone is set in its place. 
 
 ABSTRACT OF MR. TRUMBULL'S ADDRESS. 
 
 Mr. Trumbull was not well enough to ven- 
 ture upon the journey to Saybrook and the 
 additional labors it would have imposed upon 
 him. Bnt he has kindly permitted as to give 
 the following abstract of the historical por- 
 tion of his address :— 
 
lo Lady Femwick. 
 
 George Fenwick, Esq., the founder of Say- 
 brook, belonged to an ancient and honorable 
 family well known in the annals of Northum- 
 berland and the Scottish border, that traced 
 its descent from a De Fenwyke, who was lord 
 of the manor and castle of Fenwyke in Stam- 
 fordham, co. Northumberland, in the time of 
 King Stephen. He was the great grandson of 
 Sir John Fenwick, chief of the name and 
 common ancestor of the Fenwicks of Walling- 
 ton, Brinkburn, Stanton, Whitton, &c. The 
 Brinkburn family was founded by Tristram, 
 a grandson of this Sir John, who received, in 
 the reign of Edward VI. a grant of Brink- 
 burn priory, on the river Croquet, about twen- 
 ty-five miles northwesterly from Newcastle. 
 Sir John Fenwick of Wallington, son of Tris- 
 tram, was created a baronet by Charles I. in 
 1628. It is not quite certain whether George 
 Fenwick was the son or the nephew of Sir 
 John of Wallington, but there is sufficient 
 evidence that he was a member of this branch 
 of the family, and nearly related to the Sir 
 John Fenwick, who emigrated to New Jer- 
 sey in 167.5. 
 
 His name first appears in connection with 
 New England, among the signers of the arti- 
 cles of agreement between the lords and gen- 
 tlemen interested in the Earl of Warwick's 
 grant, or (as it has been called) the Old Patent 
 of Connecticut, and John Winthrop, Junior, 
 under date of July 7th, 1635, and of the com- 
 
Lady FenzuicL 
 
 mission of the same date granted by the com- 
 pany to Winthrop, as " Governor of the River 
 of Connecticut in New England and of the 
 harbours and places adjoining," for one year 
 from his arrival there. This commission was 
 subscribed by Arthur Haselrigge, George 
 Fenwick, Sir Richard SaltonstaU, Henry 
 Lawrence and Henry Darley, " in their own 
 name and in the name of the Right Honora- 
 ble Viscount Say and Sele, Robert Lord 
 Brooke, and the rest of their company." 
 
 It appears that the company interested in 
 the patent had determined to establish a 
 considerable colony at the mouth of the Con- 
 necticut or in the valley above. Lion Gardi- 
 ner, an engineer who had been in the service 
 of the Prince of Orange, was employed to 
 plan and construct, under the or- 
 ders of the governor, a fort, and to lay out 
 a town. He arrived in Boston, November 
 18, 1635. Mr. Winthrop had already de- 
 spatched a few men to the River's mouth, to 
 take formal possession for the patentees and 
 commence building, against the next spring, 
 when (as Gardiner informs us,) there were 
 expected *'to come from England, three 
 hundred able men, whereof two huudred 
 should attend fortification, fifty to till the 
 ground, and fifty to build houses." 
 
 John Winthrop returned from England 
 with his commission, in October, 1635, and 
 with him came Sir Henry Vane and Hugh 
 
12 Lady Fenwick. 
 
 Peters, authorized to represent the patentees 
 in neg:otiatious with the parties who were 
 about removing from Massachusetts to the 
 Connecticut Valley, and in other matters. 
 
 The vessel in which Lion Gardiner came, a 
 month later, brought provisions and supplies 
 for the projected fort and plantation, with a 
 letter from Sir Arthur Haselrigge and Mr. 
 Fenwick, to John Winthrop, "to encourage 
 his forwardness, in a work of such exceeding 
 consequence" to his employers. 
 
 Why the principal patentees deferred and 
 finally abandoned their purpose of emigra- 
 tion to New England need not be told here. 
 In the spring of 1636, " our great expectation 
 at the River's mouth,"— says Lion Gardiner, 
 — "came only to two men, Mr. Fenwick and 
 his man ; who came with Mr. Hugh Peters, 
 and Mr. [John] Oldham and Thomas Stan- 
 ton," from Boston. 
 
 Mr. Fenwick came over in May, 1636. The 
 author of the " Wonder Working Provi- 
 dence," noting his arrival, calls him " a godly 
 and able instrument to assist in helping to 
 uphold the civil government of the second 
 and third colonies here planted;" and "a 
 good encourager to the Church of Christ at 
 Hartford." 
 
 June 10th, 1636, the elder Governor Win- 
 throp wrote from Boston to his son who was 
 then at the River's mouth : — 
 
Lady Fenwick. ^3 
 
 "Mr, Fenwick, of Gray's Inn, one of tbose 
 who employ you, hath written to you by Mr. 
 Hooker, and intends about a month hence, 
 with my brother Peter, to be with you. The 
 gentlemen seem to be discouraged in the de- 
 sign here; but you shaU know more when 
 they come to you."* 
 
 A week afterwards, he wrote again :— 
 "Mr. Fenwick, my brother Peter, etc. set 
 forth on horseback on the 29th of this month, 
 and will expect you shall beat the upper 
 towns to carry them down the River," &c. 
 
 July 1st, Sir Henry Vane, who had been 
 chosen governor of Massachusetts, wrote to 
 his "much respected friend, Mr. John Win- 
 throp the younger," referring him for coun- 
 sel and direction "in the matters of Connec- 
 ticut," to Mr. Fenwick, whom "it hath 
 pleased God to send into this country," 
 
 This first visit of Fenwick's to Saybrook 
 was not a long one. He probably returned to 
 England that summer or early in the autumn. 
 Three years afterwards, in July, 1639, he 
 came again to Connecticut. "In this month," 
 as Governor Winthrop notes in his journal— 
 "there arrived two ships at Quilipiack, [New 
 Haven]. One was of three hundred and fifty 
 
 * He wrote, April 7th, to his father from Pasbe- 
 SHAUKE,-the Indian name of the River s mouth or of 
 Fort Point,— announcino: his safe amval at that place 
 on the first instant. 4th Ser. Mass. Hist. Coll vol. vi, 
 p 514. Lion Gardiner wrote this name Pashpes- 
 HAUKS, "alias Saybsooke Forte." 
 
14 Lady Fenwick. 
 
 tons, wherein came Mr. Fenwick and 
 his lady and family, to make a plan- 
 tation at SavDrook, upon the mouth 
 of Connecticut." "Their passage was 
 so ordered— (wrote the Rev. Mr. Daven- 
 port, from New Haven,)— as it appeared 
 that prayers were accepted, for thev had no 
 sickness in the ship, except a little sea-sick- 
 ness. * * Thev attained to the haven 
 where they would be, in seven weeks." 
 
 Lady Fenwick, or as she appears to have 
 been frequently called. Lady Alice Boteler, 
 was the second daughter of Sir Edward 
 Apsley, of Thackham, in the county of Sur- 
 rey, Knight, and, at the time of her marriage 
 with Mr. Fenwick, was the widow of Sir 
 John Boteler, eldest son of Sir Oliver Bote- 
 ler, of Teston in Kent, Knight. The date of 
 Sir John's decease is not ascertained. He 
 died before his father, on whose demise, in 
 1632, the estate passed to a younger brother, 
 Sir William Boteler, who was created a baro- 
 net by Charles I., in 1641, espoused the King's 
 cause against the Parliament, and was killed at 
 the battle of Cropredy Bridge, June 29, 1644. 
 The widow of the elder son had by courtesy 
 only, the title of 'Lady Boteler' ; for her 
 husband had not succeeded to the title or 
 estates. 
 
 The Apsleys had been living at Thackham 
 (or Thakeham) Place nearly four hundred 
 years, since the estate came to the family by 
 
Lady Fenwick. 15 
 
 the marriage of Stephen Apsley of Ap- 
 sley Farm with Margaret, daughter of 
 Stephen Le Power, iu the first half of the 
 thirteenth century. Elizabeth Apsley, the 
 elder sister of Lady Boteler, married Sir Al- 
 bert Norton, Knt., afterwards a Secretary of 
 State ; Ann, the youngest sister, married 
 Matthew Caldecott, Esquire, of Sherington, 
 in Sussex. Edward, her only brother, suc- 
 ceeded his father,in the estates at Thakeham, 
 where he was living in 1634. 
 
 TSIo record of the birth of Alice Apsley, has 
 been found, and the family genealogy makes 
 no mention of her second marriage or her 
 death. Such omissions are not uncommon in 
 the pedigrees of English families. After the 
 restoration of Charles II, neither the Apsleys 
 nor the Botelers desired to perpetuate the 
 memory of their connection with a 
 parliamentary officer who had been named 
 by Cromwell as one of the judges of Charles 1. 
 
 By her first marriage Lady Boteler had no 
 children. By her second, with Mr. Fenwick, 
 she became the mother of two daughters, 
 Elizaheth, born not very long after the es- 
 tablishment of her parents at Saybrook, and 
 Dorothy, born (as the inscription on her 
 tombstone shows) November 4th, 1645. These 
 daughters bore the name of Lady Fenwick's 
 two aunts, Dorothy and Elizabeth Apsley. 
 
 Of the domestic life of the Fenwicks. at the 
 
1 6 Lady Fenwick. 
 
 fort, we catch only an occasional glimpse, 
 from contemporary correspondence. Thomas 
 Lechford, the London attorney who lived in 
 Boston for a few years, and returned to Eng- 
 land in the summer of 1641, tells us in his 
 "Newes from New England," that 
 " Master Fenwike with the Lady Bote- 
 "ler" were living at Connecticut river's 
 mouth, " in a fair house, and well fortified ; 
 and one Master Hiegison, a young man, their 
 chaplain." [This was the Rev. John Higgin- 
 son, afterwards the assistant and successor of 
 the Rev. Henry Whitfield at Guilford, and 
 lat§r, the minister of Salem, Mass., from 1660 
 to 1708.] " These plantations [in Connecti- 
 cut] have a Patent. The Lady was lately ad- 
 mitted of Master Hooker's church [in Hart- 
 ford], and thereupon her child was baptized." 
 
 In a letter addressed to Governor Winthrop 
 of Massachusetts, in October. 1639. Mr. Fen- 
 wick wrote as follows : — 
 
 " I am lastly to thank you kindly on my 
 "wife's behalf, for your great dainties; we 
 " both desire and delight much in that primi- 
 " tive employment of dressing a garden, and 
 " the taste of so good fruits, in these parts, gives 
 " us good encouragement. We both tender 
 " our love and respect to yourself and bedfel- 
 " low." 
 
 The next summer, he found himself in em- 
 barassed circumstances, in consequence of 
 the non-receipt of expected supplies from 
 
Lady Fenwick. 17 
 
 England. Apologizing to Governor Win- 
 throp for requesting the payment of a debt, 
 he said : — 
 
 "My occasions are such, and my disap- 
 " pointments have been so great, that I 
 " have been and am like to be more strait- 
 " ened for moneys this year than, in that 
 " little time I have lived, I have ever been. 
 »' * * The Lord's will be done. If He see 
 " not meet my occasion should proceed, ac- 
 " cording to my own order and provision, I 
 " hope He will give me a heart, with all 
 *' humbleness, to be contented to have them 
 " stayed or carried on after His good will 
 " and pleasure." 
 
 In May, 1641, he writes, less despondingiy : 
 
 " I have received the trees you sent me, for 
 " which I heartily thank you. If I had any 
 " thing here that could pleasure you, you 
 " should freely command it I am pretty 
 " well stored with cherry and apple trees, 
 " and did hope I had a good nursery of ap- 
 " pies, of the apples you sent me last year, 
 " but the v/orms have in a manner destroyed 
 " them as they came up." 
 
 Soon after Mr. Fen wrick's arrival at Say- 
 brook, the General Court at Hartford, (Aug. 
 8, 1639,) appointed a committee to consult 
 with him "about a treaty of combination 
 which is desired again to be on foot with the 
 Bay." They reported, the next week, that 
 "they found Mr. Fenwick every ways suitable 
 
Lady Fenwick. 
 
 to their minds." He was ready and will- 
 ing to join with Connecticut and Mas- 
 sachusetts, in "eutertainiug a firm com- 
 bination, for defensive and offensive 
 war, and all mutual offices of love and 
 friendship." This prepared the way for the 
 Confederation of the United Colonies of New 
 England, which, however, was not perfected 
 till 1643. In October, 1639, the General Court 
 nominated Mr. Fenwick for a magistrate, 
 "proincZcfZ he should become a freeman of the 
 Colony," before April, 1640. The condition 
 was one he could hardly comply with, 
 without surrender thereby of the title by Pat- 
 ent under which he and his associates claimed 
 proprietorship and independent jurisdic- 
 tion. But he became a party to the confede- 
 ration of the colonies, and (with Edward 
 Hopkins as the other commissioner from Con- 
 necticut,) subscribed the articles of union, at 
 Boston in September, 1643. 
 
 The history of the negotiation for the 
 sale of Saybrook Fort, belongs to that 
 of the colony and state, and need 
 not be rehearsed here. It is prob- 
 able that before the close of 1643, most, if not 
 all, of the patentees in England had aban- 
 doned their purpose of emigration to Connec- 
 ticut. Mr. Fenwick, though he continued to 
 act in behalf of " himself and some noble per- 
 sonages by patent interested," had become in 
 fact the sole representative of the Saybrook 
 
Lady Fenwick, ip 
 
 company. In October, 1644, the General 
 Court appointed a committee "to treat with 
 him concerning the settling of the River's 
 Mouth," etc., and "to determine and cou- 
 ckide with him as they shall judge meet." 
 On the fifth of the ensuing December, articles 
 of agreement between Mr. Fenwick and " the 
 "jurisdiction of Connecticut river" were 
 subscribed, by which the former conveyed 
 the fort at Saybrook and all his interest in 
 lands upon the river, with a reservation of 
 land and buildings improved by himself for 
 his own use, and a stipulation that double 
 house-lots should be assigned to "any other 
 " of the adventurers that may come into 
 "these parts," with right of "free warren" 
 and "liberty for a fowler for his, or their, 
 " own occasions," &c. 
 
 At the next session of the G-eneral Court, 
 April, 1615, Mr. Fenwick was chosen a magis- 
 trate of the Colony. In July, he was appoint- 
 ed one of the commissioners to the meeting 
 of the United Colonies, at New Haven ; 
 and a letter was addressed to him,, 
 by the Court, to desire him, "if his 
 " occasions will permit, to go for England, 
 " to endeavor the enlargement of the Patent, 
 "and to further other advantages for the 
 "Country." His name appears among the 
 magistrates present at the Court of October 
 8th, and on the 11th of the same month he 
 subscribed an additional agreement respect- 
 
20 Lady Fenwick. 
 
 ing the mode and time of payment for the 
 Fort. Not long after this, he sailed for 
 England. 
 
 The time of his departure has not been pre- 
 cisely ascertained, but an order of Court made 
 in December, directing payment of the Fort 
 Rate to be made to Mr. Hopkins, ''as Mr. 
 "Fenwick's assign,'' seems to imply that he 
 was already gone. 
 
 For two or three years, the Colony regard- 
 ed his absence as only temporary; as ap- 
 pears by his re-election to the magistracy in 
 1647, and again in 1648. But I find no evi- 
 dence that he ever came again to New Eng- 
 land. 
 
 Tradition finds the cause of his return in 
 the death of Lady Fenwick, and the necessi- 
 ty of seeking a more suitable home for his 
 infant children. But that event, though it 
 may have hastened his departure was not his 
 only reason for leaving Saybrook ; for, more 
 than a year before this, he had proposed the 
 sale of the Fort to Connecticut, "when he in- 
 tended to return to England." 
 
 His wife's death must have occurred soon 
 after the birth of her daughter Dorothy, 
 Nov. 4th, 1645. 
 
 The two children remained, probably, till 
 they were old enough to be sent to England, 
 in charge of Mr. Fenwick's sister Elizabeth 
 and of a Mrs. Mary Fenwick, who is occa- 
 sionally mentioned in the Wiuthrop corre- 
 
Lady Fenzvick. 21 
 
 spondence. These ladies were both at Say- 
 brook, with the chaplain, Rev. Thomas 
 Peters, in the autumn of 1646.* Mrs. Mary 
 may have been the widow of Colonel John, 
 the elder brother (or cousin) of George Fen- 
 wick, — who married Mary, daughter of Sir 
 George Selby, and who was killed at Marston 
 Moor in 1644. 
 
 Almost immediately upon his return to 
 England, Mr. Fenwick began to take an 
 active part in public affairs. His name ap- 
 pears, May 15th, 1646, as one of the Parlia- 
 ment's Commissioners for the Plantations 
 in America, subscribed to an order in favor 
 of Samuel Gorton and his company. 
 In July, 1645, he was appointed by Parliament 
 one of the " Commissioners to establish and 
 secure peace between England and Scotland." 
 In May, 1647, he was serving in the army in 
 Ireland. The next year, he was at the north, 
 in his native county of Northumberland, 
 co-operating with his friend Sir A. 
 Haselrigge, then governor of Newcastle 
 for the Parliament. In 1648, " Colonel 
 Fenwick commanded Northumberland's 
 newly raised regiment," and in July 
 he participated in "a gallant victo- 
 ry against Langdale's forces" under Sir 
 Richard Tempest, for which a public thanks- 
 giving was ordered by Parliament. He cou- 
 
 * See 4th Mass Hist. Coll., vi. 520; and Savage's 
 Wiuthrop, i. App. A. 66. 
 
22 Lady Fenwick, 
 
 tinued iu active service, and with distin- 
 guished success, till October, 1651, when he 
 was appointed one of the Commissioners for 
 the Affairs of Scotland ; a commission in 
 which he was associated with Chief Justice 
 St. John, Sir Henry Vane, General Monk, and 
 other leaders of the parliamentary party. In 
 1652, he was made Governor of Berwick, and 
 on the 20th of November, the same year, he 
 married at Clapham, in Surrey, Katherine, 
 eldest daughter of Sir Arthur Haselrigge, by 
 his secondwife, sister of Robert, Lord Brooke. 
 [This lady survived her husband and was 
 again married to Colonel Philip Babington, 
 of Harnham, county of Northumberland. 
 When she died, in 1670, the church,which had 
 placed her under ban for some alleged con- 
 tempt of its censure, refused her body chris- 
 tian burial. Her coffin was placed in a cave 
 or grotto iu the cliff on her husband's estate 
 at Harnham, where it remained until the be- 
 ginning of the present century, when the re- 
 mains were built into a tomb.] 
 
 In 1656, Col. F. was returned as member for 
 Berwick, in Cromwell's new Parliament, but 
 he was one of the considerable number who 
 were excluded from their seats "for want 
 of the approbation of the council" — in 
 other words, because Cromwell, whose 
 power was now supreme in the State, 
 doubted their entire subserviency to his 
 views and purposes. His last appearance in 
 
Lady Fenzuick. 23 
 
 public life is as one of the subscribers to a 
 memorial or remonstrance addressed to the 
 Speaker of the House, September, 1656, in- 
 veighing against this unwarranted usurpation 
 of power, and infringement of the liberties 
 of Parliament, by Cromwell. 
 
 He died early in the ensuing spring. In his 
 will, executed March 8th, he declared himself 
 as "at present in good health." His death oc- 
 curred only seven days afterwards. When I 
 was in Berwick, fourteen years ago, I visited 
 the church where a monument was erected to 
 his memory, bearing this inscription : — 
 
 " Col. George Fenwick, 
 
 of Brinkburn, Esq. 
 
 Governor of Berwick in the year 1652, 
 
 was a principal instrument of causing 
 
 this Church to be built, and died 
 
 March 15th, 1656. 
 
 A GOOD MAN IS A PUBLIC GOOD." 
 
 Of his two daughters, ElizahetTi, the elder, 
 married her cousin, Roger Fenwick, of Stan- 
 ton, and their son. John, married Margaret, 
 daughter of William Fenwick, of Bywell, 
 thereby uniting the three families and es- 
 tates of Brinkburn, Stanton and Bywell. 
 
 Dorothy, the younger daughter, married 
 Sir Thomas Williamson of East Markham, 
 in Nottinghamshire, and afterwards of 
 North Wearmouth Hall, co. Durham, Baro- 
 net. The inscription on her monument names 
 
24 Lady Fenwick. 
 
 her as "oue of the daughters aud co-heiress- 
 " es of George Fenwick of Brinkburn, 
 "Esquire." ''She died, Nov. 4, 1699, her 
 "•hWtli day, aged 54." 
 
 A copy of Col. Fenwick' s will is preserved 
 in the State Archives, and an abstract of it 
 is printed in the Appendix to the first vol- 
 ume of the Colonial Records of Connecticut. 
 
 One of the sisters of George Fenwick was 
 married May 20th, 1648, to Capt. 
 John CuUick, an early proprietor and 
 prominent citizen of Hartford and Sec- 
 retary of the Colony from 1648 to 1658. 
 He removed to Boston in 1659, and died there, 
 January, 1663. His widow married Richard 
 Ely of Boston. She had, by her first hus- 
 band, a son John, who graduated at Harvard 
 College in 1668, and died not long afterwards ; 
 and two daughters, Elizalbeth and Mary. 
 Elizabeth married Benjamin Batten, of Bos- 
 ton, afterwards of London. 
 
 The monument to the memory of Lady 
 Fenwick, which has just been removed, was 
 erected at the cost of this Benjamin Batten, 
 the son-in-law of Mr. Fenwick's sister, — as 
 appears by the receipt of Matthew Griswold, 
 given in 1679, and recorded at Saybrook. 
 
 P 1) 18 1 
 


 
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