, and of his son Joseph
Washington, a learned lawyer and author, of Gray's Inn. About the same
time we hear of Richard Washington and Philip Washington holding high
places at University College, Oxford. The Sulgrave branch, however,
was the most numerous and prosperous. From the mayor of Northampton
were descended Sir William Washington, who married the half-sister of
George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham; Sir Henry Washington, who made a
desperate defense of Worcester against the forces of the Parliament in
1646; Lieutenant-Colonel James Washington, who fell at the siege of
Pontefract, fighting for King Charles; another James, of a later time,
who was implicated in Monmouth's rebellion, fled to Holland and became
the progenitor of a flourishing and successful family, which has
spread to Germany and there been ennobled; Sir Lawrence Washington, of
Garsdon, whose grand-daughter married Robert Shirley, Baron Ferrers;
and others of less note, but all men of property and standing. They
seem to have been a successful, thrifty race, owning lands and
estates, wise magistrates and good soldiers, marrying well, and
increasing their wealth and strength from generation to generation.
They were of Norman stock, knights and gentlemen in the full sense of
the word before the French Revolution, and we can detect in them here
and there a marked strain of the old Norse blood, carrying with it
across the centuries the wild Berserker spirit which for centuries
made the adventurous Northmen the terror of Europe. They were a strong
race evidently, these Washingtons, whom we see now only by glimpses
through the mists of time, not brilliant apparently, never winning the
very highest fortune, having their failures and reverses no doubt,
but on the whole prudent, bold men, always important in their several
stations, ready to fight and ready to work, and as a rule successful
in that which they set themselves to do.

In 1658 the two brothers, John and Lawrence, appeared in Virginia. As
has been proved by Mr. Waters, they were of the Sulgrave family,
the sons of Lawrence Washington, fifth son of the elder Lawrence of
Sulgrave and Brington. The father of the emigrants was a fellow of
Brasenose College, Oxford, and rector of Purleigh, from which living
he was ejected by the Puritans as both "scandalous" and "malignant."
That he was guilty of the former charge we may well doubt; but that he
was, in the language of the time, "malignant," must be admitte