SAVAGE, Edward II (c.1600-c.1672), of The Savoy, Mdx. and Chingford, Essex.

The younger son of an impecunious Hampshire gentleman, Savage’s inheritance as the residuary legatee of his widowed mother, who died in 1623, was probably meagre. PROB 11/142, f. 483. Nevertheless, it was possibly in this year that he started his Court career, as he claimed in 1665 that he had entered Charles I’s service some 42 years earlier. SP29/135/22. It is certain that at the end of that year, on the orders of the lord steward, Ludovic Stuart, 1st duke of Richmond, whose third wife described Savage as ‘cousin’, he and John Jacob, possibly the Member of that name, were licensed to empark lands in Essex. CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 135; ‘Six Wills relating to Cobham Hall’, ed. W.A. Scott Robertson, Arch. Cant. xi. 248.

Richmond died in early 1624, but Savage found a new patron in the duke of Buckingham, becoming gentleman usher to the latter by 1628. He presumably owed his preferment to his cousin Sir Thomas Savage, subsequently 1st Viscount Savage, who had helped to arrange the favourite’s marriage. R. Lockyer, Buckingham, 59. His kinship with Viscount Savage probably also accounted for his election for St. Ives following the decision of Benjamin Tichborne to opt for Petersfield, where Savage’s father had sat in 1614. Lord St. John (Lord John Paulet*), the son of the borough’s dominant electoral patron, William Paulet, the 4th marquess of Winchester, had married Viscount Savage’s daughter. CP, xii. pt. 2, p. 768. The viscount was also a friend of Sir Anthony Mayney*, who was both closely connected with the Paulets and Sir Richard Weston*, who had influence at Midhurst, where Savage was elected in 1628, thanks to his kinsman, Anthony Browne, 2nd Viscount Montagu. He left no trace on the records of either Parliament. PROB 11/151, f. 131v.

In early 1629, following the assassination of Buckingham the previous summer, Savage was appointed a gentleman of the privy chamber. Later that same year, or thereabouts, his position at Court was strengthened by his marriage to Lady Margaret Smythe, who was not only a rich widow but also a gentlewoman of Henrietta Maria’s privy chamber. T. Corser, Collectanea Anglo-Poetica (Chetham Soc. lxxi), 225-8. As a close friend of William Noye*, Savage helped arrange the latter’s funeral in 1634. HEHL, EL6514. He was later authorized by the Mines Royal to prospect for minerals in Wales and, together with Edmund Wyndham*, obtained several lucrative monopolies. They were granted flooded lands in county Limerick and the Bedford Level, but incurred substantial losses over the latter project. Savage’s brief second marriage to another wealthy widow resulted in a legacy of only £1,000. CSP Dom. 1635-6, p. 569; 1638-9, p. 624, 1640-1, pp. 190, 463; CSP Ire. Add. 1625-60, p. 226; SP29/135/22.

During the first Bishops’ War he attended Richmond’s nephew, the 4th duke of Lennox, whom he described as his ‘best friend’, and was knighted at Berwick. In 1639 he was also entrusted with distributing the dowager duchess of Richmond’s clothes and assisting her executors. CSP Dom. 1639, pp. 298, 384; ‘Six Wills relating to Cobham Hall’, 247-8. A dispute with James Cambell† over his second wife’s will led to a charge of breach of privilege during the Long Parliament. CJ, ii. 53. In early 1644 a parliamentarian tract described him as one of the ‘papistical and malignant’ royalists in control of Chester. Tracts relating to Civil War in Cheshire ed. J.A. Atkinson (Chetham Soc. n.s. lxv), 90. However, he evidently subsequently left that city for the West Country, being captured by the New Model Army at the fall of Bridgwater the following year. Sir Thomas Fairfax’s Letter to Hon. William Lenthall Esq. Speaker of House of Commons of all Particulars Concerning Taking of Bridgewater (1645), p. 6. In August 1651 he participated in the unsuccessful attempt of the 7th earl of Derby (James Stanley*), who had recently appointed Savage as one of his trustees, to raise Lancashire in support of Charles II, and he subsequently claimed to have been seriously wounded in the Cavalier cause, losing the use of his right hand, and suffered eight years’ imprisonment. He reckoned his losses to be £4,000. HMC Portland, i. 614; Stanley Pprs. ed. F.R. Raines (Chetham Soc. lxvii), p. cclxix; SP29/135/22.

Savage was reappointed to the privy chamber by Charles II at the Restoration and given several ex gratia payments, but his requests for a sinecure proved fruitless, despite the support of the duke of Albemarle (George Monck†). On 9 Apr. 1672 he described himself as at death’s door. He may have survived a further fortnight; a petition from him was read and referred at a meeting of the Treasury commissioners on the 23rd, but he probably died soon after as this is the last known occasion when he was mentioned in the records of government. No will or administration has been found. CSP Dom. 1665-6, pp. 530, 598; 1668-9, p. 308; 1671-2, p. 295; CTB, iii. 1063.