Endymion Porter

He was with him during the two Scottish campaigns, attended him again on the visit to Scotland in August 1641, and followed Charles on his last departure from London in 1642, receiving the nominal command of a regiment, and sitting in the Royalist parliament at Oxford in 1643.

"[2] He had been Captain of the St Martin-in-the-Fields company of the Westminster Trained Bands but was among the Royalist officers purged from the regiment on 24 January 1642 after a dispute over guarding the Houses of Parliament.

[7] Towards the end of 1645, when the king's cause was finally lost, Porter abandoned England, and resided successively in France, Brussels and Antwerp, where he was reduced to great poverty, and the Netherlands.

He died shortly afterwards, and was buried on 10 August 1649 at St Martin-in-the-Fields, leaving as a special charge in his will to his sons and descendants to "observe and respect the family of my Lord Duke of Buckingham, deceased, to whom I owe all the happiness I had in the world".

[8] According to Wood, Porter was "beloved by two kings: James I for his admirable wit and Charles I for his general bearing, brave style, sweet temper, great experience, travels and modern languages".

He wrote verses, was a generous patron of Davenant, who especially sang his praises, of Dekker, May, Herrick and Robert Dover, and was included among the 84 "essentials" in Edmund Bolton's "Academy Royal.

"[8] He was a judicious collector of pictures, and as the friend of Rubens, Van Dyck, Daniël Mijtens and other painters, and as agent for Charles in his purchases abroad he had a considerable share in forming the king's magnificent collection.