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Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex KB PC (11 January 1591 – 14 September 1646) was an English Parliamentarian and soldier during the first half of the seventeenth century. With the start of the English Civil War in 1642 he became the first Captain-General and Chief Commander of the Parliamentarian army, also known as the Roundheads. However, he was unable and unwilling to score a decisive blow against the Royalist army of King Charles I. He was eventually overshadowed by the ascendancy of Oliver Cromwell and Thomas Fairfax and resigned his commission in 1646. ==Youth and personal life== Robert Devereux was the son and heir of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, the courtier and soldier from the later reign of Queen Elizabeth I. His mother was Frances Walsingham (1569–1631), the only daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth's spymaster. He was born at the home of his grandmother, Lady Walsingham, in Seething Lane, London. He was educated at Eton College and Merton College, Oxford,〔 being created MA by the university in 1605. The 2nd Earl led an unsuccessful rebellion against Elizabeth in 1601. He was subsequently executed for treason and the family lost its title. However, King James I chose to restore it after he became King of England. In 1604, Robert Devereux became the 3rd Earl of Essex. The young earl became a close friend of Henry Stuart, Prince of Wales, who was three years Essex's junior. Essex was married at age 13 to the 14-year-old Frances Howard; he was then sent on a European tour from 1607 to 1609, apparently without having consummated the marriage. Meanwhile, his wife began an affair with Robert Carr, Viscount Rochester, a favourite of King James I. After Essex's return, Frances sought an annulment on the grounds of impotence. Essex claimed that he was only impotent with her and had been perfectly capable with other women, adding that she "reviled him, and miscalled him, terming him a cow and coward, and beast."〔Haynes, Alan: ''Sex in Elizabethan England'', page 129. Wrens Park Publishing, 1997〕 The divorce was a public spectacle and it made Essex a laughing-stock at court. It was small comfort that the finding that Frances was still a virgin was greeted with equal derision: as a popular ballad put it ''The Dame was inspected, but fraud interjected a Maid of greater perfection.'' The annulment was granted on 25 September 1613, and Frances Howard married her lover, who had been made 1st Earl of Somerset, on 26 December 1613. Three years later the Somersets were tried by a panel of Lords for their part in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury; Essex sat as a juror in the trial of his former wife and pressed the King to send her to the scaffold.〔Somerset, Anne: ''Unnatural Murder - Poison at the Court of James I''〕 Both were condemned to death, but the sentence was never carried out. On 11 March 1630 Essex married Elizabeth Pawlett, daughter of Sir William Pawlett, of Edington, Wiltshire, past High Sheriff of Wiltshire and cousin of William Paulet, 4th Marquess of Winchester. Elizabeth was introduced at Court during the Great Parliament of 1628/29 just after her father died, as the eldest unmarried daughter needing to marry to improve her family prospects. Back from travels in military service on the Continent (see below) Robert was also pressured to marry again (and quickly) to show the Court the humiliation from his first marriage could be overcome. This marriage was also a disaster and failed, though not as publicly. They separated in 1631, the Countess remaining at Essex House in The Strand, London, Robert "playing soldiers" at his estates. There was a son from the union, Robert, styled Viscount Hereford, who was born on 5 November 1636 and died of plague a month later.〔Article by John Morrall.〕 Essex, who had given the birth date as a deadline beyond which he would have disowned the child,〔 grudgingly acknowledged him as his own; however, the father was widely suspected by the Court to be Elizabeth's alleged lover, Sir Thomas Uvedale (from the alleged prompting of William Seymour, 1st Marquess of Hertford, Robert's brother-in-law who leased part of Essex House in London, and expected to inherit if Robert had no issue). Elizabeth, through her funeral oration (years later) by her second husband Sir Thomas Higgons vigorously denied this. It has recently been suggested that Essex suffered from male hormone deficiency, leading to failure to consummate his first marriage and produce an heir in his second.〔Haynes, Alan: ''Sex in Elizabethan England'', page 131. Wrens Park Publishing, 1997〕 However, portraits of Essex show him with a prolific growth of facial hair. He also had a tendency to aggression leading to quarrels and threats of duels. Both these characteristics are counter-indicative of hypogonadism. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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