Sir Charles Danvers, (c1568- 18 March 1601) was a soldier and actor in Essex's rebellion of 1601, was eldest son of Sir John Danvers of Dauntsey, Wiltshire, by Elizabeth, fourth daughter and coheiress of John Nevill, last baron Latimer. His two younger brothers, Henry and John, are separately noticed. Charles was probably born about 1568. As early as 1584 he had commenced a continental tour, and wrote to thank Walsingham for giving him permission to leave England.

Like many other youths of good family he served under Lord Willoughby in the Netherlands, and was knighted by his commander in 1588. On 16 June 1590 he, with Sir Charles Blount [q.v.], was created M.A. at Oxford.

A local dispute in Wiltshire proved a disastrous turning in his career. The accounts vary in detail. According to the best-authenticated report in the 'State Papers,' Sir Walter Long and his brother Henry, neighbours of the Danverses, had been committed to prison on a charge of theft by Sir John Danvers, Charles's father, who died in 1593.

To avenge this insult the Longs killed one of Danvers's servants, and liberally abused all the Danvers, and especially Sir Charles. Henry Long finally challenged Sir Charles Danvers, and in a subsequent encounter was killed by Sir Charles's brother Henry. Henry Wriothesley, third earl of Southampton, permitted both brothers to take temporary refuge in his house at Whitley Lodge, near Tichfield, Hampshire.

Henceforth Charles was 'exceedingly devoted to the Earl of Southampton upon affection begun first upon the deserving of the same earl towards him when he was in trouble about the murder of one Long' Charles and Henry were subsequently outlawed, and took refuge in France. Henry IV, received them kindly, and interceded with Elizabeth on their behalf, but to little immediate purpose. Charles who was friendly with Sir Thomas Edmondes, the English ambassador at Paris, and constantly petitioned Sir Robert Cecil to procure the reversal of the order of banishment.

The Earl of Shrewsbury met the exiled brothers at Rouen, France in October 1596, and applauded their soldierly bearing in a note to Cecil. On 30 June 1598 they were pardoned, and in August were again in England. In 1599 Charles Danvers was given a colonel's commission in the army that accompanied Essex to Ireland.

He was wounded in an early engagement (July) and had few opportunities of displaying further military capacity, but his intimacy with Southampton was renewed at Dublin, and Essex treated him with consideration. He returned to London with Essex in September 1599, and was in frequent communication with the earl during his subsequent imprisonment. He was staying with Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy [q.v.], at Wanstead, in September 1599, and on 26 April 1600 he was with Southampton at Coventry.

In October 1600 at the request of Henry Cuffe [q.v.], Essex's secretary, he took part in the conferences among Essex's friends regarding the best means of restoring the earl to the queen's favour. Dury House, where Essex's partisans met regularly in the winter of 1600, belonged to the Earl of Southampton, and Danvers seems to have lodged there at the end of 1600 with the view to aiding them more effectively in their secret negotiations. His friend, Sir Christopher Blount, easily induced him to vote for a forcible insurrection, by which the queen and her palace should be placed at Essex's disposal.

On Saturday, 7th February 1600-1, when the details of the rising were finally determined, Danvers was entrusted with the part of seizing the presence-chamber and 'the halberds of the guard' at Whitehall. On the following day the attempt was made to raise the city in rebellion, and failed miserably.

Danvers was carried prisoner to the tower, made a full confession on 18 Feb. 1600-1, and signed a declaration setting forth all he knew of Essex's secret negotiations with Scotland. He was tried with Cuffe and others on 5 March, admitted his guilt, and was beheaded on Tower Hill together with Blount on 18 March. He was buried in the Tower church.

It was generally admitted that Danvers's intimacy with Southampton had led him into the conspiracy. He confessed on the scaffold to a special hatred of Lord Grey, merely on the ground that Grey was 'ill-affected to Southampton.' Danvers's large property in Wiltshire was escheated, but in July 1603 his brother Henry was declared heir by James I

Sir John Danvers (Regicide 1588- 1655)
The third son of Sir John Danvers of Dauntsey in Wiltshire. His elder brother Henry was the Earl of Danby and Danvers was knighted by King James I in 1609. He sat as MP for Oxford University in all the Parliaments of the early reign of Charles I and was a member of the King's Privy Chamber. Danvers made two marriages to heiresses, then fell into debt through his own extravagance. A cultured man, he associated with intellectuals, poets and divines. Through his travels in France and Italy, he developed sophisticated tastes in gardening and architecture, which he indulged at his house in Chelsea and his estate at Lavington in Wiltshire.

Elected to the Short Parliament in 1640, Danvers became involved in opposition to King Charles, reputedly through pressure of debt. Although he was commissioned a colonel in the Parliamentarian army during the First Civil War, his military career was undistinguished. He was elected to the Long Parliament as recruiter MP for Malmesbury in 1645.

Shortly after his third marriage in 1649, Danvers was appointed to the High Court of Justice and signed the King's death warrant. He became a member of the Council of State, but lost his position in 1650 after a quarrel with Henry Marten in which he argued that the Council should be granted greater powers to act independently of Parliament. Danvers is said to have helped several Royalists ruined during the wars. He died in 1655.

The tomb to Sir John and Lady Anne Danvers is to the left of the altar located in Dauntsey Church. The tomb has brass engravings on the top - a large one which depicts Sir John and Lady Anne dressed as a knight and his lady, and four crests (one in each corner) The individual crests are less than three centimetres wide, so the quality may appear distorted for a larger image, click here

Sir Henry Danvers (1573 -1644)
Danvers, Henry, Earl of Danby (1573–1644), army officer and administrator, was born on 28 June 1573 at Dauntsey, Wiltshire, the second son of Sir John Danvers (1540–1594), landowner, of Dauntsey and the Hon. Elizabeth (1545–1630), youngest daughter and coheir of John Neville, fourth Baron Latimer (d. 1577). Educated at home, he was, from an early age, page to Sir Philip Sidney and was probably present with his master at the battle of Zutphen in 1586 where Sidney was fatally wounded. Danvers then volunteered for service under Maurice, count of Nassau and prince of Orange, who put him in command of a company of infantry when he was eighteen years of age.

In 1591 he was distinguished for his bravery in the Normandy campaign under the second earl of Essex and was knighted by him on the field for his part in the siege of Rouen. He and his brother, Sir Charles Danvers, an equally distinguished soldier, were involved in the long-standing feud with the Long family in Wiltshire which led to the murder of Henry Long on 4 October 1594.

There are two contemporary but conflicting accounts of the incident; according to one, Henry Long was dining with friends at ‘one Chamberlaine's house in Corsham’ when the Danvers brothers and their retainers burst into the room and shot Long dead. The other version of events states that Long was ‘slain by Sir Henry Danvers while defending his brother Sir Charles against Long and his company’. Both accounts agree that the brothers then fled on horseback to Whitley Lodge, near Titchfield, the seat of Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton, a close friend of the Danvers. Southampton was Shakespeare's patron, and some literary critics have suggested that this family feud, ending as it did in duelling and death, may have inspired Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The brothers were outlawed and Southampton helped them flee to France; no indictment was preferred against them by either the Long family or the state.

In France the Danvers joined the military forces of Henri IV and because of their outstanding valour became personally known to the French king, who also interceded for them with Queen Elizabeth. The earl of Shrewsbury also met them in Rouen and in October 1596, commending them to Sir Robert Cecil, wrote: ‘Heare is daily with me Sir Charles and Sir H. Davers, two discreet fine gentlemen who cary themselves heare with great discretion, reputacion and respect: God turne the eyes of her Majestie to incline unto them [that] thei shall soon tast of her pittie and mercie’. In 1597 Sir Henry Danvers was apparently a captain of a man-of-war in the earl of Nottingham's expedition to the coast of Spain; the earl said of him that he was ‘one of the best captains of the fleet’. Danvers's mother Elizabeth, who had by this time married Sir Edmund Carey, cousin to the queen, played a notable part in the campaign for a pardon, and Essex's wife, Frances Walsingham, widow of Sir Philip Sidney, helped in the brothers' rehabilitation. With so much highly placed influential intercession it is not surprising that the Danvers were pardoned on 30 June 1598, though it was not until 1604 that the coroner's inquisition was found to be technically unsound and the verdict of outlawry reversed. Their return to England was delayed until August 1598 because of Sir Henry's illness in Paris.

Danvers soon crossed to Ireland, his patrons Essex, Southampton, and later Charles, eighth Baron Mountjoy, ensuring his employment in the army there. He showed outstanding bravery in the more important engagements of the Nine Years' War, being wounded three times. Under Lord-Deputy Essex in 1599 he was prominent in the reduction of Cahir Castle, and was shot in the face while aiding Essex and Lord Barry near Mallow, co. Cork; in July that year his command of the cavalry near Arklow in Wicklow was significant in the defeat of Feagh McHugh O'Byrne's men. In September 1599 Essex made him lieutenant-general of horse. Danvers was present at the famous parley and truce between Essex and O'Neill, but unlike his elder brother, Sir Charles, he kept clear of the subsequent conspiracy and revolt of the earl of Essex for which both were attainted and beheaded.

Under Lord Mountjoy, Essex's successor, Danvers was prominent in a battle at Moyry Pass (between Dundalk and Newry—the famous Gap of the North) in November 1600 when Mountjoy forced a passage against very strong opposition from O'Neill's forces. He took important rebel leaders prisoner but was shot through the thigh. In the disposal of forces in the summer of 1601 Danvers had command of 100 horse. Mountjoy appointed him governor of the garrison at Armagh in July 1601 and used his cavalry expertise in re-establishing the former fort of Portmore on the Blackwater.

For the decisive siege and battle of Kinsale in the last months of 1601 Danvers, a lieutenant of horse, mobilized detachments of cavalry from the northern garrisons; his troop of horse then made a courageous charge on the rearguard of O'Neill's forces in their feigned retreat during which Danvers suffered a slight sword cut. In January 1602 he was in England, apparently bringing the good news of the main victory at Kinsale back to the court. He was again in Ireland as sergeant-major-general of the army under Mountjoy during the latter's final campaigns against O'Neill's resistance in Ulster after Kinsale and was much mentioned in dispatches in the taking of Innisloghlin (later Loughinsholin), one of the last major O'Neill fortresses in his own heartlands of Tyrone.

In November 1602 Mountjoy sent Danvers to England ‘with a million letters to all my friends there’, and on 4th April 1603 it was Danvers who brought news of the queen's death to Mountjoy in Dublin. James I created him Baron Danvers of Dauntsey, Wiltshire, in the great hall at Hampton Court on 21 July 1603 ‘for his valiant service at Kinsale in Ireland’. Furthermore in 1605 by a special act of parliament Danvers was restored in blood as heir to his father, Sir John, notwithstanding the attainder of his elder brother, Sir Charles. Thereafter he attracted important and lucrative offices. He became lord president of Munster on 14 November 1607, a post he kept until 1615 (though he does not appear to have often resided there), when he sold it to the earl of Thomond for £3200, despite the clamours of Sir Richard Moryson, his vice-president, to succeed to the office. He acquired a grant, in reversion, of the office of keeper of St James's Palace on 15 June 1613, and on 23 March 1621 he became governor of the island of Guernsey for life. He visited the island to present his patent to Guernsey's royal court and to take the oath as the island's ‘cappitaine garde et gouverneur’ on 25 August 1621.

Although responsible for the defences of the Channel Islands, and frequently mentioned in this regard in official papers, Danvers was reluctant to reside in Guernsey. Writing to Secretary Coke in August 1627 he thought it was ‘not for the king's honour, nor suitable to his own reputation, that he, who was appointed general against anticipated foreign invaders in Ireland, should go to Guernsey to be shut up in a castle’; but, he added, if it was the king's pleasure he would be at Portsmouth before they could bring round a ship for his transport. His residence was not insisted upon, and he visited the island on only two further occasions, in 1629 and in 1636. Under Charles I he was created earl of Danby on 5 February 1626 and sworn a member of the privy council on 20 July 1628. Two years later his mother died and Danby succeeded to her estates. In May 1633 he was made a councillor for Wales and on 7 November installed knight of the Garter. Much trusted by Charles I, Danby was given further commissions, was one of the council of war appointed on 17 June 1637, and acted on the commission for the regency from 9 August to 25 November 1641.

Immensely wealthy and unmarried, Danby became a public benefactor in his foundation of what is now Oxford Botanic Gardens, the oldest surviving physic and botanic gardens in Britain. Probably inspired by his knowledge of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris founded in 1597, Danby first conceived his project in 1621. In 1622 he began to bring it to fruition by buying 5 acres of poor drained meadow and the former Jewish cemetery opposite Magdalen College; he raised the levels, walled the gardens, and commissioned a magnificent gateway of three portals and entrance portico built by Nicholas Stone after a design by Inigo Jones. Danvers's bearded bust crowned the portico, and the entrance was inscribed Gloriae Dei Opt. Max. Honori Caroli Regis, in usum Acad. Et Reipub. Henricus comes Danby DD. MDCXXXII. He donated his gardens to the college and university ‘for the advancement … of the faculty of medicine’: the original financial outlay was in the region of £5000, and he also left in his will the impropriate rectory at Kirkdale, Yorkshire, towards their future maintenance.

The gardens were laid out on the ‘living text-book approach’ and though Danby failed to get John Tradescant, the king's gardener, he did employ Jacob Bobart, a veteran of the German wars, to collect and propagate plants. In retirement in his country house in Cornbury Park, Oxfordshire, Danby appears to have suffered much ill health; he died there on 20 January 1644 in his seventieth year ‘full of honours, wounds and das’, and reportedly worth more than £11,000 per annum. According to his relation John Aubrey, Danby was ‘of a magnificent and munificial [generous] spirit … he was tall and spare; temperate, sedate and solid; a very great favourite of Prince Henry’ (ibid.). He was buried in the chancel of Dauntsey parish church, Wiltshire, where a monument of white marble, engraved with some verse written in 1629 by his relative the poet George Herbert (d. 1633), was erected to his memory. On his death his titles became extinct.