6        HER FATHER, SIR HENRY CONSTABLE

Henry Constable, lord of Burton Constable, in Holderness,^
a name, in estate and canonicall pedegree, inferiour to none
within the vast extent of Yorkshire. The condition of
this family might compete for divers ages with any lord iu
the realme for greatness of state and prerogative, and truly
for state it was, till these sad times, so incomparable, that
the best younger brother ownd it for a favour to be bred
there in quality of a gentleman-waiter. In prerogative it
came near the highest, having privilege to make vassals
or slaves, and receive homage, as their native prince, with
chain and cloth in equipage of sovereignty. Her mother,
the lady Margaret Constable,^ a flourishing branch derived
from the honourable hnage of the earls of Caernarvon,
rarely parted by nature, embellished with singular en¬
dowments in the internall, a beauty in the externall, full
of majesty, tall in stature, sweet in countenance, fair in
complexion, qualified with a proportion of vermillion, of
an accomplished gracefullness, and in her whole com¬
position so attractive that she was commonly stiled the
Star of the Court, and a Mirrour or looking-glass in the
country. From this matchless pair came our divine
Dorothy, bearing in her name the gift of God (Dorothea
Donum Dei), a true daughter of such parents, not only
for the essentiall character wherein filiation consists, and
cannot be  destroyed, but for similitude in  perfection,
 

d Sir Henry Constable was lord paramount of Holderness, and

was the 18th in lineal descent from.....le Constable, who came

over with William the Conqueror in 1066. Sir Henry Constable,
brother of the subject of this memoir, was created, in 1620, viscount
Dunbar, ol Scotland, and in 1645 died at Scarborough of wounds
received in the king's cause. The estate of the Constable family
were sold by an additional Rump Act, made Aug. 4th, 1652.

*^ The brother of lady Margaret Constable, sir Robert Dormer, was
created lord Dormer in 1615. His grandson Robert, lord Dormer,
was created earl of Caernarvon in 1626, and was slain on the king's
side in the first battle of Newbury, 1643. Sir William Dormer,
father of lady Margaret Constable, was made a Knight of the Bath
at the coronation of queen Mary.    He married a Catesby.—//. L.