# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lumley, John (1534?-1609)

1904 Errata appended.
​LUMLEY, JOHN, Lord Lumley (1534?–1609), born about 1534, was the only son of George Lumley of Thwing in the East Riding of Yorkshire, by Jane, second daughter and co-heiress of Sir Richard Knightley of Fawsley, Northamptonshire. His father, for taking ​part in Aske's insurrection, was attainted of high treason in June 1537, and executed at Tyburn (Froude, History, ii. 512, iii. 10, 19, 34). Lumley became, however, entitled to the family estates upon the death of his grandfather, John, baron Lumley (1493–1544) [q. v.], by virtue of a settlement made after his father's attainder. On his petition to parliament in 1547 he was restored in blood, and was created Baron of Lumley, the honour being limited to his own heirs male. In May 1549 he matriculated at Cambridge as a fellow-commoner of Queens' College, together with Henry Fitzalan, lord Maltravers, whose sister he married soon afterwards. He was also educated in the court of Edward VI, whose funeral he attended. On 29 Sept. 1553 he was created K.B. Two days afterwards he attended at the coronation of Queen Mary, and his wife, dressed in crimson velvet, sat in the third chariot of state. He was one of the peers who on 17 Feb. 1553–4 sat in judgment on Henry Grey, duke of Suffolk [q. v.], charged with high treason; he was also present at the condemnation of Dr. Rowland Taylor for heresy at St. Mary Overies on 30 Jan. 1554–5, and sat in judgment on 26 Feb. 1556–7 on Charles, lord Stourton, for the murder of the Hartgylls. At the accession of Elizabeth he was one of the lords appointed to attend her on her journey from Hatfield to London, and he was constituted one of the commissioners to settle the claims at her coronation. On the elevation of his father-in-law, the Earl of Arundel, to the chancellorship of the university of Oxford, he nominated him as his successor in the high stewardship on 24 Feb. 1558–9. Lumley was one of the peers who, on 22 April 1559, sat upon the trial of Thomas, lord Wentworth, charged with the treasonable surrender of Calais in 1558. In 1566 he was employed to treat with the Duke of Florence for the recovery of a debt due to Henry VIII, and obtained both principal and interest.
A steady adherent of Lord Arundel, Lumley was deeply implicated in the intrigues, which formed the Ridolfi plot, for the re-establishment of Roman catholicism and the marriage of his brother-in-law, the Duke of Norfolk, to Mary Queen of Scots. In August 1569 he was one of those who intimated to Don Gueran that he was ready to take up arms, and in September he was ordered to present himself at Windsor. On 29 Sept. certain articles were ministered unto him, to which he gave answers, but he was eventually sent to the Tower. In April 1570 he was confined in Mr. Hampden's house near Staines, but soon released. He at once with Arundel recommenced negotiations with Gueran. In October 1571 he was again committed to the Marshalsea for complicity in the Ridolfi conspiracy, and, as Northumberland in his examination on 24 June 1572 mentioned Lumley as a favourer of the Scottish queen, he was not liberated until April 1573.
In 1582–3 Lumley, in conjunction with Richard Caldwell, M.D., founded a surgery lecture in the Royal College of Physicians, endowing it with the yearly stipend of 40l. (Munk, Coll. of Phys. 1878, i. 60). His name occurs in the special commission of oyer and terminer for Sussex, issued on 1 Feb. 1585–6, under which William Shelley was indicted of high treason. Despite his long imprisonment on Mary's account, he avoided all association with the plots for her escape, and allowed himself to be nominated one of the commissioners for her trial. He was present at Fotheringay Castle and in the Star-chamber in October 1586.
He also attended the Star-chamber on 28 March 1587, when William Davison was arraigned for misprision, and took a discreditable part in the prisoner's examination (Howell, State Trials, i. 1236).
In 1589 he purchased for 5,350l. various manors in Durham. Towards the close of 1590 he conveyed to the queen the palace and park of Nonsuch, which had been bequeathed to him by Lord Arundel, in exchange for lands of the yearly value of 534l. In July 1591 he entertained Elizabeth at Lewes, Sussex. In 1592 he built the Lumley aisle in Cheam Church, Surrey. He obtained for Hartlepool, Durham, a charter of incorporation, which bears date 3 Feb. 1592–3. About this time he erected a handsome monument to his father-in-law Arundel in the collegiate church of Arundel, Sussex. He added to the buildings at Lumley Castle, and built in the church of Chester-le-Street a series of monuments to his ancestors, removing thither the bones of such of them as had been buried elsewhere.
On the return of the Earl of Essex from Ireland, Lumley appeared to side with him, but soon afterwards sat in judgment on him and the Earl of Southampton.
He joined in the proclamation of James I, and early in 1603 was appointed keeper of the house and park at Nonsuch, an office which he probably held under Elizabeth. On 13 April in the same year the king paid a visit to Lumley Castle, apparently in Lumley's absence. He was received by Dr. James, dean of Durham, who expatiated at tedious length on the antiquity of the Lumley family, with which he claimed relationship, whereupon James impatiently exclaimed, ‘Oh, mon, gang na further; let me digest the knowledge ​I have gained, for I did na ken Adam's name was Lumley.’ On 7 July Lumley was chosen a commissioner for settling coronation claims, and on the 22nd was in a commission for the creation of knights of the Bath. In September following Prince Henry and Charles, duke of York, visited him at his house at Cheam.
Lumley died on 11 April 1609 at his residence on Tower Hill in the parish of St. Olave, Hart Street, and was buried in Cheam Church. In the Lumley aisle there is his monument surrounded with nineteen coats of arms and containing a long genealogical inscription in tolerable Latin, which was drawn up by himself, and inscribed also on tablets at Lumley Castle and in the adjacent church at Chester-le-Street.
He married, first, before March 1552, Jane, elder daughter of Henry Fitzalan, twelfth earl of Arundel [q. v.], and had by her two sons and a daughter, who all died in infancy. Lady Lumley (d. 1576–7) was eminent for her classical attainments. Her translations from Greek into Latin and from Greek into English are preserved in the British Museum among the Royal MSS. (15 A. i. ii. and ix.), having been handed down with Lord Lumley's library (Gent. Mag. 1833, pt. ii. pp. 494–6). Her portrait is at Lumley Castle. By his second wife, Elizabeth (d. 1617–18), daughter of John, lord Darcy of Chiche, he had no issue.
He was, says Camden, a person of entire virtue, integrity, and innocence, and in his old age a complete pattern of true nobility. Bishop Hacket observes that Lumley did pursue recondite learning as much as any of his honourable rank in those times. He was a member of the Elizabethan Society of Antiquaries (Archæologia, i. xx). He formed a noble collection of portraits, and patronised the Dutch artist, Richard Stevens. There is some evidence that he was himself skilled in painting (cf. his letter to Mr. More of Loseley, dated 5 Sept. 1589, in Kempe, Loseley Manuscripts). In the formation of his library Lumley was probably indebted to the advice of his learned brother-in-law, Humphrey Lhuyd. He also inherited the valuable collection formed by Lord Arundel. Soon after Lumley's death his library was purchased by James I for his son Henry, prince of Wales, and on his death it became part of the royal library, which was presented to the British Museum by George III. In 1598 he gave eighty-four volumes to the university library at Cambridge, and in 1599 forty volumes in folio to the Bodleian Library at Oxford (cf. Strype, Annals, iii. i. 500–1). Others are to be found in the Harsnett Library at Colchester.
Though alienated from his cousins, he entailed in 1607 the lands and castle of Lumley upon one of them, Richard Lumley, afterwards viscount Lumley of Waterford [q. v.] From him descend the Earls of Scarborough. With the exception of the family portraits and a few curiosities, the art treasures which Lumley had brought together at Lumley Castle were dispersed by auction for trifling sums early in the present century (ib. 1855, pt. i. 66–7). His estates in Surrey passed to Splandian Lhuyd, eldest son of his sister Barbara, by her first husband, Humphrey Lhuyd [q. v.] An account of Lumley's estates will be found at the Record Office (Inquisitions post mortem, 7 James I, pt. ii. 109).
In 1550 Lumley translated from the Latin and inscribed to Lord Arundel ‘A Certein Treatise called the Institution of a Christien Prince or Ruler, collected by Erasmus of Rotherodame’ (in British Museum Royal MS. 17. A. 49). It has not been printed.
There are three portraits of him at Lumley Castle, dated 1563, 1588, and 1591. The last is by Richard Stevens. His portrait is also at Arundel Castle. A fifth portrait, on board, was in the Lumley aisle at Cheam till the beginning of the present century, when it became the property of the Earl of Scarborough. The Cheam portrait is finely engraved in Sandford's ‘Genealogical History’ (ed. Stebbing). There are also engravings of Lumley by Fittler and Thane.
[Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. ii. 516–21; Surtees's Durham, ii. 158–63; Froude's Hist. of Engl. vols. ix. x.; Cal. of State Papers, Dom. 1547–80, and Addenda, 1566–79.]
G. G.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.187 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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