William Cavendish 1592-1676

William CAVENDISH, 1st Duke of Newcastle 1592-1676

Biographical Note

Born at Handsworth Manor, Yorkshire. Son of Sir Charles Cavendish (1553-1617) and husband of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (1623?-73). Educated as a fellow-commoner at St John's College, Cambridgein 1608. Made Knight of the Bath in 1610; served as MP for East Retford 1614. He was made Charles, Prince of Wales in 1638 and Privy Councillor the following year. Appointed a Captain-General in the Civil War on the royalist side. Following the parliamentary victory, he went into exile in Europe and returned to England after the Restoration. He was made Duke of Newcastle in 1665. He was a patron of Ben Jonson, and the intellectual circle of his exile included the likes of Thomas Hobbes, René Descartes and Pierre Gassandi.

Books

The libraries of Cavendish, Henry Cavendish, 2nd Duke (1630-91) and John Holles, 3rd Duke (1622-1711) were sold at fixed price in London, 2.3.1719 (3244 lots). The 3rd Duke used several engraved armorial bookplates. Margaret Cavendish is best remembered for her writings; no particular personal library of hers has been identified but some of her reading has been deduced from the contents of the sale catalogue.

Sources

• Crawford, J. Margaret Cavendish’s books, in L. Knight (ed), Women’s bookscapes in early modern Britain, Ann Arbor, 2018, 94-114.
• Gambier Howe, E. R. J. Franks bequest: catalogue of British and American book plates bequeathed to the ... British Museum. London, 1903. 15108-9/*20.
• Hulse, Lynn. "Cavendish, William, first duke of Newcastle upon Tyne (bap. 1593, d. 1676), writer, patron, and royalist army officer." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.