who was on occasions the medium through which Temple’s letters reached their destination, and avoided falling into the hands of Dorothy’s jealous brother.  Sir John Osborne married Dorothy Barlee, granddaughter of Richard Lord Rich, Lord Chancellor of England in the reign of Henry VIII.  Sir John was Treasurer’s Remembrancer in the Exchequer for many years during the reign of James I., and was also a Commissioner of the Navy.  He died November 2, 1628, and was buried in Campton Church,—­Chicksands lies between the village of Hawnes and Campton,—­where a tablet to his memory still exists.

Sir John had five sons:  Peter, the eldest, Dorothy’s father, who succeeded him in his hereditary office of Treasurer’s Remembrancer; Christopher, Thomas, Richard, and Francis,—­Francis Osborne may be mentioned as having taken the side of the Parliament in the Civil Wars.  He was Master of the Horse to the Earl of Pembroke, and is noticeable to us as the only known relation of Dorothy who published a book.  He was the author of an Advice to his Son, in two parts, and some tracts published in 1722, of course long after his death.

Of Sir Peter himself we had at one time thought to write at some length.  The narrative of his defence of Castle Cornet for the King, embodied in his own letters, in the letters and papers of George Carteret, Governor of Jersey, in the detailed account left behind by a native of Guernsey, and in the State papers of the period, is one of the most interesting episodes in an epoch of episodes.  But though the collected material for some short life of Sir Peter Osborne lies at hand, it seems scarcely necessary for the purpose of this book, and so not without reluctance it is set aside.

Sir Peter was an ardent loyalist.  In his obstinate flesh and blood devotion to the house of Stuart he was as sincere and thorough as Sir Henry Lee, Sir Geoffrey Peveril, or Kentish Sir Byng.  He was the incarnation of the malignant of latter-day fiction.

“King Charles, and who’ll do him right now? 
King Charles, and who’s ripe for fight now? 
Give a rouse; here’s in hell’s despite now,
King Charles.”

To this text his life wrote the comment.

In 1621, James I. created him Lieutenant-Governor of Guernsey.  He had married Dorothy, sister of Sir John Danvers.  Sir John was the younger brother and heir to the Earl of Danby, and was a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to the King.  Clarendon tells us that he got into debt, and to get out of debt found himself in Cromwell’s counsel; that he was a proud, formal, weak man, between being seduced and a seducer, and that he took it to be a high honour to sit on the same bench with Cromwell, who employed him and contemned him at once.  The Earl of Danby was the Governor of Guernsey, and Sir Peter was his lieutenant until 1643, when the Earl died, and Sir Peter was made full Governor.  It would be in 1643 that the siege of Castle Cornet began, the same year