241 - ENGLISH SCHOOL (17TH CENTURY)PORTRAIT OF EDWARD, VISCOUNT CONWAY (1592-1655), THREE-QUARTER-LENGTH, IN A RED COAT AND WHITE STOCKOil on canvasBears inscription of the Conway family tree (on a sheet attached to the reverse)127 x 107cm (50 x 42in.)The Right Honorable Edward Conway 2nd Viscount Conway (1592- 1655) was a distinguished peer,parliamentarian, military commander, and celebrated bibliophile. He was educatedat Queens College, Oxford and spent most of his early life in the Netherlands andserved as a military commander in the Low Countries. He was Knighted atWhitehall in March 1618 and married in the following year, the union proving tobe long but unhappy. As a veteran of numerous campaigns he had fallen heavilyinto debt, in October 1623 he resolved to return home again to order hisaffairs, but could not guarantee that he would not be arrested by his creditors.A solution presented itself when Conway was returned in his absence as MP forWarwick. Conway helped to organize the ill-fated Cadiz Expedition, vowingloyalty to the Duke of Buckingham.At the 1626 Conway was returned at Yarmouth, however at the1628 parliamentary elections, he was unable to find a seat and was summoned tothe Lords in his father’s barony, an honour unprecedented for a viscount’s son,and took his seat on 23 April.In 1629 Conway obtained the governorship of CountyLondonderry, and settled at Lisburn, where he formed an extensive library. Heinherited his father’s titles two years later, but leased his family seat atRagley to the 2nd Lord Brooke (Robert Greville). Conway returned to Ireland in1639 with a new army commission, but was summoned back to England in 1640 asgeneral of the horse against the Scots. He sought to recover his military reputationby volunteering for further service in Ireland and drove back the Irish rebelsat Lisburn in November 1641, but his library was burnt in the battle’saftermath. He sided with both the Parliamentarians and Royalists at certainperiods which meant he was viewed with suspicion, he was also plagued by debt,and now in declining health, he found shelter with his friend 10thEarl of Northumberland at Petworth House until 1653, when he returned to theContinent, finally dying either at Paris or Lyons in June 1655. His body wasbrought home, and buried with his ancestors at Arrow, Warwickshire.