Brief Lives: Charles Danvers 1568 1601. ^[711]Sir Charles Danvers (age 33) was beheaded on Tower-hill [Map] with Robert, earle of Essex (age 35), February the 6th, 1600^[712]. I find in the register of the Tower chapell [Map] only the sepulture of Robert, earl of Essex (age 35), that yeare; wherfore I am induced to beleeve that his body was carryed to Dantesey^[CX] in Wilts to lye with his ancestors. Vide Stowe's Chronicle, where is a full account of his and the earle's deportment at their death on the scaffold.

With all their faylings, Wilts cannot shew two such^[713] brothers.

His familiar acquaintance were...^[714], earl of Oxon (age 50); [his brother] Sir Francis (age 40) and Sir Horace Vere (age 36); Sir Walter Ralegh (age 47), etc.-the heroes of those times.

Quaere my lady viscountesse Purbec and also the lord Norris for an account of the behaviour and advice of Sir Charles Danvers in the businesse of the earl of Essex, which advice had the earle followed he had saved his life.

[715]Of Sir Charles Danvers, from my lady viscountesse Purbec:-Sir Charles Danvers advised the earle of Essex, either to treat with the queen-hostages..., whom Sir Ferdinando Gorges (age 36) did let goe; or to make his way through the gate at Essex house, and then to hast away to Highgate, and so to Northumberland (the earl of Northumberland maried his mother's (age 51) sister), and from thence to the king of Scots, and there they might make their peace; if not, the queen was old and could not live long. But the earle followed not his advice, and so they both lost their heads on Tower-hill.

Note.

[711]. MS. Aubr. 8, fol. 25v.

[712]. i.e. 1600/1.

[713]. Dupl. with 'shew the like two brothers,' scil. as Sir Charles Danvers and his brother Henry, earl of Danby.

[714]. Edward Vere, seventeenth earl of Oxford (age 50).

[CX]In MS. Aubr. 3, fol. 46, Aubrey writes, in reference to burials at Dantesey, 'quaere, if Sir Charles Danvers that was beheaded?-He was buryed in the Tower chapell.' Aubrey's description of the burial-place of the Danvers family (MS. Aubr. 3, fol. 46), with the inscriptions, is printed in J. E. Jackson's Aubrey's Wiltshire Collections, pp. 223-225; the pedigree of Danvers is there given at p. 216.