XXVIII.
RICHARD KEMPE.
XXVIII. President of the Council
and
Acting Governor.
XXVIII. June, 1644, to June, 1645.
Richard Kempe comes before us first as a member of
the Council of Virginia, in 1642, and in 1644 as Acting Governor
during Sir William Berkeley's absence in England.
Bishop Meade, in his "Old Churches, Ministers, and Families
of Virginia," says:
"There is one name on the foregoing list[483]
to which I must allude as
having, at an early period in the history of Virginia, been characterized
by a devotion to the welfare of the Church and religion—that of Kempe.
The name often occurs on the vestry-book of Middlesex County in such a
way as to show this. The high esteem in which one of the family was
held, is seen from the fact that he was the Governor of the Colony in 1644,
and the following extract from the first volume of Hening's Statutes will
show not only the religious character of those in authority at that day, but
the probability that Governor Kempe sympathized in the movement, for
the Governors had great power either to promote or prevent such a measure.
In 1644 it was—
`Enacted by the Governor, Council, and Burgesses of this Grand
Assembly, for God's glory and the public benefit of the Colony, to the
end that God might avert his heavy judgments that are upon us, that the
last Wednesday in every month be set apart for fast and humiliation, and
that it be wholly dedicated to prayers and preaching, &c.
`Richard Kempe, Esq., Governor.'
"I do not remember ever to have seen such an indefinite and prolonged
period appropriated by a public body to public humiliation. It
speaks well for the religion of our public functionaries of that day."
On Sir William Berkeley's return, Richard Kempe continued
to serve the Colony as a member of the Council until
1648, and perhaps later, and subsequently acted as the Secretary
of that body.
On a slab in the grave-yard around the old church at
Williamsburg, Bruton Parish, Virginia, and lying against
the wall of the church in order to preserve it, might be seen,
a few years ago, the following:
"Under this marble lyeth the body of Thomas Ludwell, Esquire, Secretary
of Va., who was born at Bruton, in the County of Somerset, in the
Kingdom of England, and departed this life in the year 1678. And near
this lye the bodies of Richard Kempe, Esquire, his predecessor in the Secretary's
office, and Sir Thomas Lunsford, Knight. In memory of whom
this marble is placed, by order of Philip Ludwell, Esq., nephew of said
Thomas Ludwell, in the year 1727."
