post of secretary to a fellow-Yorkshireman, Archbishop Tillotson.
On the death of the archbishop in 1694 Fairfax retired into private life at York, where he devoted himself to literary work, and to acting as the friend and mentor of the younger generations of his family. He carried on a correspondence with most of the literary men of his day. Some interesting communications of his are among the correspondence of Bishop Atterbury. He wrote a life of the Duke of Buckingham, translated the life of the Huguenot, Philip Mornay, seigneur du Plessis, and several poems from his pen are extant, the principal of which is ‘The Vocal Oak, a Lament upon Cutting down the Woods at Nun Appleton.’ He also edited and published ‘The [Autobiographical] Short Memorials’ of his cousin, Thomas, lord Fairfax, in 1699. Brian Fairfax died on 20 Sept. 1711. He married, on 22 April 1675, in Westminster Abbey, Charlotte, daughter of Sir Edmund Cary. She died 14 Nov. 1709. Three sons, Brian, Ferdinando, and Charles, were educated at Westminster School.
Brian Fairfax, the younger, born 11 April 1676, entered as a queen's scholar in 1690; was elected to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1693; proceeded B.A. 1697, and M.A. 1700; became fellow of Trinity in 1698; and was commissioner of customs from 1723 till his death, 9 Jan. 1748–9 (Gent. Mag. 1749, p. 44). He collected a valuable library and a gallery of pictures at his house in Panton Square. A catalogue of the library preparatory to a sale by auction was printed in April 1756. But, by a subsequent arrangement, the whole was sold to Mr. Child of Osterley Park, Middlesex. It remained at Osterley till May 1885, when it was sold by Sotheby for the Earl of Jersey. A catalogue of Brian Fairfax's pictures and curiosities was issued in 1759. They were then in the possession of Robert Fairfax, who resided at Leeds Castle, Kent, and became seventh Lord Fairfax on the death of his brother Thomas in 1782. Ferdinando was elected from Westminster to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1694, and proceeded B.A. in 1697. Charles, elected to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1702, was dean of Down and Connor from 1722 till his death on 27 July 1723. He is described as ‘a good scholar in the old Irish character’ (Cotton, Fasti Eccles. Hibern. iii. 227; Welch, Alumni Westmonast. pp. 224, 228, 240; information from Mr. C. R. Markham, C.B.).
[Fairfax Corresp. vol. i. and introd.; Civil War, vol. ii.; C. R. Markham's Hist. of the third Lord Fairfax; Herald and Genealogist; Analecta Fairfaxiana (manuscript); Douglas and Wood's Peerage of Scotland, i. 563–5.]
FAIRFAX, Sir CHARLES (fl. 1604), soldier, was the fourth son of Sir Thomas Fairfax of Denton and Nun Appleton in Yorkshire, and brother of Thomas, first lord Fairfax [q. v.] He was born in or about 1567, and when very young he went with his brother to serve under Sir Francis Vere in the Low Countries. Charles became a distinguished commander. At the battle of Nieuport he rallied the English companies at a critical moment with distinguished gallantry, and he was one of the defenders of Ostend. By desire of Sir Francis Vere he went to the camp of the Archduke Albert as a hostage, and he fought in the breach when the Spanish forces assaulted the works in December 1601. In 1604 Fairfax was at the siege of Sluys, commanding troops which routed the Spanish general Velasco. The date and manner of his death have not been ascertained. The notice of the Sir Charles Fairfax in the ‘Fairfax Correspondence’ (i. xix) is erroneous. He was never governor of Ostend, and he certainly was not slain in the manner and at the time there stated, for he was afterwards at the siege of Sluys.
[Vere's Commentaries; Fairfax Correspondence, i. xix; Clements R. Markham's The Fighting Veres, pp. 279, 301, 308, 321, 324, 326, 329, 330, 367, 452.]
FAIRFAX, CHARLES (1597–1673), antiquary and genealogist, born at Denton in Yorkshire 5 March 1597, was the seventh and third surviving son of Sir Thomas (afterwards first Lord) Fairfax [q. v.] He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, 5 Oct. 1611, and was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn 9 March 1618. About 1627 he married Mary, sole heiress of the Breary family, of Scough Hall in the forest of Knaresborough and Menston. His life was spent chiefly on his wife's patrimony at Menston, Yorkshire, as the trusted counsellor and faithful annalist of his family. At Menston he was within a few miles of his paternal home at Denton.
A few days before the battle of Marston Moor (2 July 1644) Cromwell and other parliamentary leaders held a conference at Fairfax's house at Menston, around a table now at Farnley Hall, Yorkshire. While his nephew, Sir Thomas, afterwards third lord, did much to preserve the minster and archives at York, Charles was engaged with his brother antiquary, Roger Dodsworth [q. v.], in the search for and rescue of many valuable books and documents. In 1646 he was appointed by his brother, Ferdinando, second lord Fairfax [q. v.], steward of the courts at Ripon, and during the later years of the Commonwealth he was induced to take service as a colonel
