Peter Carew

Peter Carew. Painting by Gerlach Flicke , before 1559

Sir Peter Carew (* around 1510; † before December 15, 1575 in New Ross ) was an English adventurer, military man and politician who was elected six times as a member of the House of Commons .

Origin and youth

Peter Carew came from the Carew family of Mohun's Ottery , a family of the Gentry of Devon . He was the third son of William Carew and his wife Jane Courtenay. One of his brothers was the future Admiral George Carew . Carew attended Exeter Grammar School from about 1523 to 1524 . However, since he kept skipping school, his father is said to have put him on a dog leash and brought him back to Mohun's Ottery, where he was then chained for several weeks. Then his father took him to the Cathedral School of St Paul’s in London, but Carew also dropped out of school a little later. Although Carew was later able to read in English and spoke Italian and French, he knew little Latin and even less Greek, and his handwriting was considered almost illegible. After breaking off his school career, a friend of his father's took him to the French royal court, but Carew also ran away from there, joined the French army and took part in the Battle of Pavia on February 24, 1525 . After this catastrophic defeat for the French, Carew entered the service of Prince Philibert of Orange . After three years of service in the prince's entourage, he moved into the entourage of Philibert's sister Claudia von Nassau, before returning to England in 1530. Thanks to the letters of recommendation from his two employers, he was able to enter the service of King Henry VIII as a page .

Rise as a courtier

Carew quickly won the favor of Henry VIII and became Gentleman of the Privy Chamber before 1533 . He accompanied the king in 1532 to his meeting with the French king Francis I in Calais and in 1534 belonged to the entourage of the ambassador Lord William Howard to Scotland. In 1539 he was one of the courtiers who greeted Anna von Kleve , the king's new wife. In 1540 he became a member of the Gentleman Pensioners .

Participation in the Turkish war and military in the war with France

With the permission of the king, he traveled to Italy via France in the spring of 1541 with his cousin John Champernown and Henry Knollys . After spending the winter in Venice, Carew and Champernown traveled on to Ragusa in the spring of 1542 and then overland to Constantinople , where they remained disguised as merchants for two months. They then returned to Venice by ship. Then they briefly took part in the First Austrian Turkish War, where they came to Vienna and Buda . After Champernown's death, Carew returned to Venice and then on to England, which he presumably reached again in 1542. This unusual and adventurous journey for an Englishman of the 16th century made him famous at the royal court. When war broke out with France in 1543 , he joined Sir John Wallop's army as an infantry officer together with his older brother George Carew . In 1544 he led a cavalry unit before he became the commander of the castle of Hardelot near Boulogne . In the same year he returned to England, joined the Royal Navy and was commanding a warship under Admiral John Dudley, 1st Viscount Lisle . He was believed to have witnessed the sinking of the Mary Rose , in which his brother George drowned. Carew was knighted by Admiral Lisle and accompanied him to France for peace negotiations in 1546.

Promotion to the Gentry of Devon

After his brother Philip Carew had died childless, Carew inherited George Mohun's Ottery and other lands in southern Devon after the death of his eldest brother. Although considerable parts of his inheritance initially remained as a Wittum in the possession of his mother and his sister-in-law Mary Norrys, the widow of George Carew, Carew rose to a leading member of the Gentry of Devon through his estate. In the general election of 1545, thanks to the influence of his acquaintance Lord Russell, he was elected MP for the Borough of Tavistock . From 1546 to 1547 he served as sheriff of Devon. However, his legacy also included considerable debts, some of which still came from his grandfather Edmund Carew . Due to his limited financial resources, he was therefore only able to expand his property insignificantly. Instead, he worked as a businessman and entrepreneur. He acquired the lead roofs from monasteries that had been dissolved by the Reformation, and together with Russell, who had since risen to Earl of Bedford, and with other investors, he received permission in 1550 to dig for lead and iron in Exmoor and Dartmoor . However, these mines made little profit. Nevertheless, Carew had a new mansion built in Mohun's Ottery and led an elaborate lifestyle. When his debts to the crown alone exceeded £ 2,000, he was forced to enter into an agreement in 1553 to repay it in at least £ 100 annual installments. Carew now courted Margaret, the widow of the wealthy George Tailboy, 2nd Baron Tailboy . Only when the old king intervened in his favor, Carew was able to marry her, after which the wedding on February 20, 1547, the day of the coronation of the new, minor King Edward VI. took place. Carew lived on his wife's extensive lands in Lincolnshire until about 1550 . With the support of the Earl of Bedford, he was elected MP for Dartmouth in 1547 , where he had considerable influence as Lord of the Borough. In 1552 he began a dispute with Dartmouth over ownership of Dartmouth Castle . This fortress was built in the 14th century by the citizens of the city, but on the property of the Carew family. After a long dispute, the fortress was awarded to Carew in 1556.

Activities during the reign of Edward VI.

Carew had met Lutherans from Germany through his travels and military service. After Henry VIII's break with the Catholic Church, he converted to Protestantism as a courtier. Although he was briefly suspected of being in possession of heretical books in 1545, this was apparently not pursued any further. When the Catholic Prayer Book Rebellion began in June 1549 in south-west England , Carew and his uncle Gawain Carew were supposed to support Thomas Denys , the sheriff of Devon, in negotiations with the rebels. You should expressly not use force, but after failed negotiations, there was a skirmish and rioting by the rebels. Carew went to London to report the situation to the Regency Council. Lord Protector Somerset criticized him sharply, but Carew was able to justify himself and then supported the Earl of Bedford in the military suppression of the rebellion. When Somerset was overthrown in 1549 by the Earl of Bedford and John Dudley, who was now Earl of Warwick, Carew profited from his good relations with the two new rulers. In the March 1553 election he was elected Knight of the Shire for Devon. On the death of Edward VI. however, he was not privy to Dudley's plans to make Jane Gray the new queen. In July 1553 he therefore proclaimed Maria Tudor as the new queen in Dartmouth .

Conspirators during the reign of Maria I.

In October 1553 Carew was again elected Knight of the Shire for Devon, but when he realized that the new queen wanted to reintroduce Catholicism, he joined the conspiracy of Sir Thomas Wyatt before November . Together with other dissidents, he wanted to prevent the queen from marrying the Spanish king Philip II. Carew informed the Duke of Suffolk that if the queen married Philip , he would support the succession of her half-sister Elizabeth . When the Queen dissolved Parliament, Carew withdrew to Devon, where he wanted to gain more supporters and support the planned uprising of Edward Courtenay, 1st Earl of Devon . However, the Wyatt conspiracy was quickly exposed, and in early 1554 Carew was ordered to London by the Privy Council . Carew declared his loyalty to the Queen in writing and left Mohun's Ottery on January 23, 1554. Apparently he wanted to go to London to justify himself, but in fact he fled to Weymouth in disguise , from where he could sail to France on a ship. The government suspected Carew of planning another rebellion with the French King Henry II and had him monitored by Nicholas Wotton, the English ambassador in Paris. However, Carew tried before the end of May 1554 to obtain a pardon from Ambassador Wotton. He refused a service for the French king and traveled to Venice in early July 1554. A few months later he was with Protestants in Strasbourg. His wife, who had remained in England, continued to advocate his pardon. In September 1554, she was allowed to officially contact him. His friend Sir John Mason also stood up for him. On December 9, 1555 Carew was finally pardoned, but King Philip withheld the letter in the Spanish Netherlands , which was part of his empire . Perhaps Carew should betray other Protestant conspirators in exchange for his pardon. Around May 16, 1556 he was arrested with John Cheke near Brussels , brought to England and imprisoned in the Tower , although it is unclear whether he really had betrayed Cheke. Since Carew had already been pardoned and no new charges could be brought against him, he was released in October 1556 on payment of a fine of 2,000 marks and a further repayment of his debts to the crown. In September 1557 he served in the army of the Earl of Pembroke , which supported the Spanish troops against France after the battle of Saint-Quentin , but he was no longer politically active until the death of Queen Maria.

Funerary monument of Peter Carew in Exeter Cathedral

Politician under Elizabeth I.

Re-election to the MP

After the death of Maria I, Carew was active again in politics and was re-elected as Knight of the Shire for Devon in 1559, probably with the support of Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford , under whom he had served in France in 1557. He was also able to win the favor of the new Queen Elizabeth and took over the post of Deputy Lieutenant in Devon under the Earl of Bedford and from 1559 served as Justice of the Peace of Devon and Dorset . When an English negotiating delegation was supposed to conclude an armistice with a French army that had landed in Scotland in 1559, Carew was sent to the Scottish border as a military adviser at the end of the year. In the House of Commons he was one of the MPs who urged the Queen to marry in order to secure the line of succession. This, his debts and his radical Protestantism soon meant that he had to leave the court again. He returned to Devon, where he actively fought piracy. From 1564 to 1565 he commanded a fleet himself to take action against pirates in the Irish Sea and in the western English Channel . After he had not run in the general election in 1563, he was elected in a 1566 by-election as a member of Parliament for Exeter. He had to become a citizen of the city and undertake to represent the interests of the city in the House of Commons himself. In the House of Commons he was on a committee that discussed the succession to the throne, but as early as 1567 Carew turned mainly to Ireland.

Military service in Ireland

In Ireland, from 1567, Carew claimed to be the rightful heir to the old Lords Carew. With the help of the antiquarian John Hooker and the attorney William Peryam , he sued the Court of the Barony of Odrone in County Carlow . This attempt met with determined opposition from the Irish gentry, especially that of Sir Edmund Butler . The English officials gave little support to his claims, which is why Carew returned to England in 1569 or 1570. In the general election of 1571 and 1572 Carew did not run again, but instead he was appointed Constable of the Tower . In July 1573 he was a member of the Earl of Essex's army , which was supposed to restore English rule in Ireland. Carew now claimed not only lands in Odrone, but also in Munster . Sir John Perrot and other British officials advised the Lord Deputy and the Queen not to support Carew's claims in the face of the tense situation in Ireland due to the Desmond Rebellions . Instead, Carew was appointed Marshal of the Earl of Essex's Army. As such, he operated in Ulster until November 1574 . Because of an illness he returned to the Pale and a little later to England. In April 1575, the Queen sent him again to Ireland as the deputy of Essex. He again took part in a campaign to Ulster. When Essex returned to England, Carew tried to have parts of Munster occupied. However, he fell ill on the way to Cork and died in Ross . He was buried in Waterford on December 15, 1575 .

Carew is said to have been of medium height but of stature. His hair was black and he had a full beard. He was considered generous, hospitable and brave. Personally modest and sober, it could also be wasteful. His servant and friend John Hooker alias Vowell had an epitaph built for him in Exeter Cathedral and wrote a biography about him.

Marriages and inheritance

Carew's marriage in 1547 to Margaret Skipwith , widow of George Tailboys, 2nd Baron Tailboys and daughter of William Skipwith of South Ormsby , Lincolnshire , had remained childless. In his will of 1574 he only regulated his claim to Odrone, through which his debts were to be paid. After that, his eponymous cousin Peter Carew († 1580) should be his heir. However, his debts had not been paid by 1585. His goods including Mohun's Ottery eventually fell to his niece Thomasine Kirkham and her husband Thomas Southgate .

literature

• John Hooker, Sir John Maclean: The life and times of Sir Peter Carew, kt. (from the original manuscript). Bell & Daldy, London 1857

Web links

• Roger Virgoe: CAREW, Sir Peter (c.1510-75), of Mohun's Ottery, Devon. (History of Parliament Online, Ref Volumes: 1509–1558)
• Roger Virgoe: CAREW, Sir Peter (c.1510-75), of Mohun's Ottery, Devon. (History of Parliament Online, Ref Volumes: 1558–1603)
• JPD Cooper: Carew, Sir Peter (1514? -1575). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004

Individual evidence

1. ↑ English Heritage: Sir Peter Carew and Dartmouth Castle. Retrieved June 7, 2017 .