Indian Antiquary Vol 41

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 78

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[APRIL, 1912.
In the following year, Shipnian, waiting on the King to ask for service, was knighted by mistake in the following curious manner: Thomas Smith writing to Algernon, Earl of Northumberland (August 1641 ), says, "Captain Shipman who went to Edinburgh last year " is also knighted by mischance for the King being moved by some friend of his in the " Bedchamber to grant him the making of a Knight, his Majesty coming forth and his head, " as it seems, troubled with business, Shipman knelt down to kiss the King's hand ; the King "drew out his sword and knighted him, whereat the poor man was not a little troubled, and his lady " is since more among her musk melons." Whatever this allasion to the melons may refer to, it shows that Shipman was married at this time.
In the following year, the war broke out between the King and Parliament, and Shipman joined the Royal Arny. His naine appears among the Captains in Sir Nicholas Byron's regiment, and he was, no doubt, present at Edgehill where Byron was wounded. In the same regiment wag his younger brother John Shipman, as Ensign. John Shipman had served on the Irish expedition of 1640, as Ensign to Colonel Charles Essex ; but, on the outbreak of the Civil War, be refused to follow his Colonel and joined his brother with the Royal Army. Essex was killed at Edgehill on the Parliamentary side,
How Shipman fared during the war does not appear ; but when the war was over and the Commonwealth was busy hunting down the more provinent supporters of the royal cause, he was summuned before the Council of State, and committed to the Tower (April 1651 ). After a year's imprisonment he was released on bail, and we hear no more of him till the restoration of the Monarchy was regarded as certain. In April 1660 he petitioned Charles II. who was at Breda, to be granted the office of Chief Armourer of the Tower, then in possession of one Analey, a fanatic. He stated that he had served the late King and his Majesty through the late wars, and had had great losses and hardship. This petition met with a speedy response from the King, still in Holland, in the shape of a warrant, granting to Sir Abraham for thirty-one years, the reversion of the keepership of the lighthouse at Dangeness, when the fifty years lease granted by James I. to Sir Edward Howard should expire. In the following January the grant was confirmed.
About this time Shipman married Marie, 5th danghter of Montagu, afterwards Earl of Lindsay' and widow of Dr. John Hewett who was exocuted by Cromwell in June 1658.
On the marriage of Charles II. to the Infanta of Portugal, an expedition was prepared to take over the island and harbour of Bombay which formed part of the Infanta's dowry. In March 1662 the expedition, consisting of five men-of-war, under James Ley, 3rd Earl of Marlborough, sailed with four hundred soldiers, exclusive of officers, under Sir Abraham Shipman, who was nominated Governor and Commander-in-Chief, and reached Bombay in September, The soldiers were divided into four companies, respectively commanded by Sir Abraham Shipman, who was to receive £2 per day ; Colonel John Hangerford at twelve shillings a day ; Captain John Shipman aud Captain Charles Povey each at eight shillings a day. The Portuguese disputed the meaning of the treaty, and of the orders sent out from Lisbon and refused to cede the island. The Earl of Marlborough therefore conveyed the troops to Surat, and put them ashore at Swally, but their presence occasioned so much apprehension, that Sir George Oxenden, the East India Company's representative at Surat, persuaded Marlborough to re-embark them. Shipman and his men were therefore landed on the barren, uninhabited island of Anjediva near Carwar, pending settlement of the question about
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1 Seo Clarendon.
* See Popy's Diary, 15th May 1653.