Court and Country

Abstract

We have to imagine for ourselves, if we are to grasp it at all fully, the rhythm of life of a Jacobean nobleman who was also a leading courtier, if never quite a member of the inner governing circle — the alternation of duties and activities at the centre and in the country, both public and private. It is in regard to this last, Southampton’s family and private affairs, that the evidence is sadly incomplete, owing to the failure of the male line after his son, the fourth Earl, the division of the estates among coheiresses, the dispersal of possessions, the destruction of papers.