Robert Carey, 1st Earl of Monmouth

Robert Carey, 1st Earl of Monmouth
Robert Carey, 1st Earl of Monmouth, c. 1591
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Robert Carey, 1st Earl of Monmouth (ca. 1560 – 12 April 1639) was an English nobleman and courtier. He was the youngest son of Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon (Chamberlain and first cousin of Queen Elizabeth I) and Anne Morgan, daughter of Sir Thomas Morgan and Anne Whitney.

As a young man he accompanied several diplomatic missions abroad and took part in military expeditions. In 1587 he joined in the attempt to relieve Sluys. In 1588 served as a volunteer against the Spanish Armada, and commanded a regiment in the Earl of Essex's expedition to Normandy in support of the Protestant Henry IV of France in 1591, taking part in the siege of Rouen. He was knighted by Essex the same year for having by his intercession with the Queen procured his recall.

In the parliaments of 1586 and 1588 he represented Morpeth; in that of 1593, Callington; and in those of 1596 and 1601, Northumberland. From 1592 till the end of Elizabeth's reign he occupied various posts in the government of the Scottish borders, being appointed Warden of the Middle March in 1596, which he held till February 1598.

This was some of the most important work of his life, and he was largely responsible for easing the troubles and the depredations of the Border Reivers. His conflict with the Scottish fyrebrande Robert Ker, 1st Earl of Roxburghe was only settled after great skill and tact on Carey's part.

In March 1603 he visited the court, and witnessed Queen Elizabeth I's last illness, which he described in his memoirs. Anxious to recommend himself to her successor James I, and disobeying the orders of the council, he started on horseback immediately after the Queen's death on the morning of 24 March 1603, in order to be the first to communicate the tidings to James, arrived at Holyrood late on 26 March, and was appointed by the King a Gentleman of the Bedchamber. But his conduct met with general disapproval and merited censure as "contrary to all decency, good manners and respect," and on James's arrival in England he was dismissed from his new post.