Robert (Sir) his heir. Sir John d. 9 Jan. 1599, and was survived by his son

SIR ROBERT SPENCER, 1st Lord Spencer of Wormleighton, Warwick, was elevated to the peerage 21 July 1603, by the title of Baron Spencer of Wormleighton. This nobleman appears to have been a very spirited member of parliament, as his reply to Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel in a debate upon the royal prerogative, in 1621 evinces. "My Lord," said Howard, "when these things were doing, your ancestors were keeping sheep"-"When my ancestors were keeping sheep," replied Spencer, "your ancestors were plotting treason." This excited such irritation, at the moment, that Arundel, as the aggressor, was committed to the Tower; but soon after, acknowledging his fault, was discharged. His Lordship m. 15 Feb., 1587, Margaret, dau. and co-heir of Sir Frances Willoughby, of Woollaton. She d. 17 Aug., 1597. He d. 25 Oct., 1627, and was survived by his only living son

William, 2nd Baron Spencer, bapt. 4 Jan., 1591-2; m. 1617 Penelope, dau. of Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, by whom (who d. 16 July, 1667), he had (with other issue):

1. Henry, 1st Earl

2. Robert, created Viscount Teviot, in the peerage of Scotland, 1685, a dignity that expired with himself. (From Burke's Peerage and Baronetage.)

LORD ROBERT SPENCER.

"Lord Robert Spencer, Sheriff of Northamptonshire in the forty-third year of Elizabeth, before which time he received the honor of knighthood, and when King James ascended the throne, was reputed to have by him the most money of any person in England. Ben Johnson alludes to him in these lines:

"Who since Thamyra did die
Hath not brook'd a lady's eye
Not allow'd about his place
Any of the female race."

The grief of Sir Robert Spencer for the loss of his beloved consort, Margaret, daughter of Sir Francis Willoughby, thus beautifully alluded to, was no poetic fiction. He lost her in August, 1597; but though he survived her thirty years, he never made a second choice. He was created Baron Spencer of Wormleighton, July 21, 1603. The records of the times gave him a very high character, being spoken of as "The old Roman chosen Dictator,' seldom leaving his farm save when called to the Senate. During the debates in Parliament, 1621, relating to the King's power and prerogative, this Lord Spencer, standing up boldly for the public liberty (with the Earls of Oxford, Southhampton, Essex, and Warwick), made some allusion to the past, and the Earl of Arundel replying thereto said, 'My Lord, when these things were doing, your ancestors were keeping sheep,' to which this Lord Spencer, with a spirit and quickness of thought peculiar to him, immediately answered: 'When my ancestors were keeping sheep (as you say), your ancestors were plotting treason.' So says Wilson's Hist. of Great Britain, London, 1653, p. 163; but see the more correct account given at length in 'Gardner's

Hist. of England,' London, 1886, Vol. IV., pp. 114-116. Lord Spencer d. October 25, 1627, and was buried in great splendor with his ancestors at Brington. His son, William, married Penelope, daughter of Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. 'Lord Spencer was the great friend of the Washingtons of Sulgrave,' ancestors of Gen. George Washington."

(The Genesis of the U. S. A narrative of the movement in England, 1605-1616, which resulted in the plantation of North America by Englishmen, disclosing the contest between England and Spain for the possession of the soil now occupied by the United States of America, Vol. II, p. 1021).

THE STARS AND STRIPES.

We are indebted to a patriotic English gentleman, Edward W. Tuffley of Porthampton, England, for the most reliable and authentic history of the origin of our Stars and Stripes, who discovered our Stars and Stripes, who discovered our National Emblem to have been designed from the coat of arms of the Washington family. In the church at Brighton, England, which is the parish church for Althorp, the ancestors of the Spencer family lie buried. In this church is a memorial brass plate of the Washingtons, which shows the arms of the family to have been the Stars and Stripes. In the chancel is a monument to Lawrence Washington, which has a brass plate dated 1564, bearing the Stars and Stripes.