Chapter Shepherd Lord to Shield of Gold of S by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Shepherd Lord to Shield of Gold

Shepherd Lord (The), lord Henry de Clifford, brought up by his mother as a shepherd to save him from the vengeance of the Yorkists. Henry VII. restored him to his birthright and estates (1455–1543). He is the hero of much legendary narrative.

The gracious fairy,
Who loved the shepherd lord to meet
In his wanderings solitary.

Wordsworth: The White Doe of Rylstone (1815).

Shepherd of Banbury. (See SHEPHERD, JOHN CLARIDGE.)

Shepherd of Filida.

Preserve him, Mr. Nicholas, as thou wouldst a diamond. He is not a shepherd, but an elegant courtier,” said the curé.—Cervantes: Don Quixote, I. i. 6 (1605).

Shepherd of Salisbury Plain (The), the hero and title of a religious tract by Hannah More. The shepherd is noted for his homely wisdom and simple piety. The academy figure of this shepherd was David Saunders, who, with his father, had kept sheep on the plain for a century.

Shepherd of the Ocean. So Colin Clout (Spenser) calls sir Walter Raleigh in his Colin Clout’s Come Home Again (1591).

Shepherds Garland (The), nine eclogues by Drayton (1593).

Shepherds Pipe (The), seven eclogues by W. Browne (1614).

Shepherds Week (The), six pastorals by Gay (1714). The shepherds portrayed are every-day shepherds, not Arcadian myths. They sleep under hedges, their nosegays are hedge flowers, and the shepherdesses milk the cows and make butter.

Shepherdess (The Faithful), a pastoral drama by John Fletcher (1610). The “faithful shepherdess” is Corin, who remains faithful to her lover although dead. Milton has gathered rather largely from this pastoral in his Comus.

Sheppard (Jack), immortalized for his burglaries and escapes from Newgate. He was the son of a carpenter in Spitalfields, and was an ardent, reckless, and generous youth. Certainly the most popular criminal ever led to Tyburn for execution (1701–1724). Sir James Thornhill painted his likeness.

(Daniel Defoe made Jack Sheppard the hero of a romance in 1724; and W. H. Ainsworth, in 1839.)

Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, brings ill luck to the possessor. It belonged at one time to the see of Canterbury, and Osmund pronounced a curse on any layman who wrested it from the Church.

The first layman who held these lands was the protector Somerset, who was behaded by Edward VI.

The next layman was sir Walter Raleigh, who was also beheaded.

At the death of Raleigh, James I. seized on the lands and conferred them on earl of Somerset, who died prematurely. His younger son Carew was attainted, committed to the Tower, and lost his estates by forfeiture.

James I. himself was no exception. He lost his eldest son the prince of Wales, Charles I. was beheaded, James II. was forced to abdicate, and the two Pretenders consummated the ill luck of the family.

Sherborne is now in the possession of Digby earl of Bristol.