THE
FIRST DUKE AND DUCHESS
OF
NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE

[v]

PREFACE

The compiler of these pages does not labour under the delusion that he has written a book. All that he has attempted has been, as it were, to invite his reader to an arm-chair in his study, and to place in the reader’s hands a succession of open volumes and copies of manuscripts containing passages which throw more or less light upon the lives of the first Duke and Duchess of Newcastle. Occasionally he has ventured to make a few remarks, either of introduction or of retrospection, concerning the evidence thus brought before his guest, remarks which may easily be skipped at will.

This humble form of literary labour has the signal advantage that, if it fails to attract the reader, it succeeds in affording an object for reading to the writer.

Much assistance has been most kindly given in this work by Mr. Walter Herries Pollock.

[vii]

CONTENTS

[xiii]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

[1]

CHAPTER I.

In one or two former works relating to the seventeenth century, it has been the writer’s misfortune to lead his readers over rather muddy roads into somewhat shady places; but it will now be his privilege to offer himself as their guide along smooth paths paved with the strictest propriety into regions “of sweetness and delight,” where they may bask in the sunshine of unmitigated respectability. There will be nothing in these pages to give offence (and therefore pleasure) to Mrs. Grundy, or to raise that tender blush on the cheek of a maiden, which he has been assured still exists; although he has never yet had the good fortune to see it.

The two chief sources of information about the earlier part of the lives of the first Duke and Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, are The History of the Rebellion, by Lord Clarendon; and The Life of the Most Illustrious Prince, William Duke of Newcastle, by Margaret Duchess of Newcastle. The first-mentioned book needs no recommendation; as to the second and its fellow-works, such high authorities as the Master and other Dons of St. John’s College, Cambridge, wrote to its author: [2]“Your Excellencies books ... will not only survive our University, but hold date even with time itself; ... and incontinently this age, by reading of your books, will lose its barbarity and rudeness, being made tame by the elegance of your style and matter”.

In case this testimony should not be considered sufficient, another contemporary criticism shall be produced, namely, that of a certain Mr. Pepys, who kept a diary, and wrote in it on the 18th of March, 1667 (the same year in which the Master and Dons of St. John’s wrote their letter quoted above)—“Staid at home reading the ridiculous History of my Lord Newcastle, wrote by his wife; which shows her to be a mad, conceited, ridiculous woman, and he an asse to suffer her to write what she writes to him and of him”. Probably an estimate of the Duchess’s book, about half-way between that of the Dons and that of the diarist, would not be very far from a just one.

A serious drawback to most biographies is that they begin with the dull subject of family history and end with the dreary one of death; and, of the two, the latter frequently affords less dreary reading than the former. Happily, in the present instance, pedigree can be almost dispensed with; for it would be an insult to the reader to suppose him ignorant of the history of so celebrated a family as that of Cavendish, which, as Burke observes, “laid the foundations of its greatness originally on the share of Abbey lands, obtained, at the dissolution of the monasteries, by Sir William Cavendish”. This Sir William Cavendish left two sons who had issue; the eldest of these, [3]William, became first Earl of Devonshire, and the younger, Sir Charles of Welbeck Abbey, was the father of William Cavendish (the chief subject of these pages), who became first Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Those who profess to understand the mysteries of heredity say that children more frequently inherit the characteristics of their grandparents than those of their parents, and that a great man more often had a brilliant mother or grandmother than a brilliant father or grandfather. The William Cavendish in whom it is hoped that the reader may be interested had a very remarkable grandmother in Margaret, the third wife of Sir William Cavendish of the aforesaid Abbey Lands. She was a widow when Sir William married her, and she had inherited her late husband’s large estates under settlements. This estimable woman had no less than four rich husbands and succeeded in obtaining magnificent settlements from every one of them.

Collins[2] says that, on the death of Sir William Cavendish, she married Sir William St. Lowe, “possessor of divers fair lordships in Gloucester, which, in articles of marriage, she took care should be settled on her, and her own heirs, in default of issue by him, and accordingly, having no child by him, she lived to enjoy his whole estate, excluding his former daughters and brothers.” On his death she married George, [4]Earl of Shrewsbury, “whom she brought to terms” in an excellent marriage settlement, and she made him marry his eldest son and heir to her own youngest daughter, and his youngest daughter to her own eldest son. Well, in her case, may Collins speak of “Conditions that, perhaps, never fell to any one woman ... to rise by every husband into greater wealth, and higher honours; to have an unanimous issue by one husband only, etc.”

The “unanimous issue by one husband only” was the best part of the business, as it had the effect of concentrating the riches of four very wealthy husbands upon the offspring of one.

The grandmother of the first Duke of Newcastle, says Collins, “built three of the most elegant seats that were ever raised by one hand within the same county, beyond example, Chatsworth, Hardwick, and Oldcoates, all transmitted to the first Duke of Devonshire”.

Collins presently hints at a slight thorn which accompanied the roses of Lady Shrewsbury’s riches, at a certain period. He says: “It must not be forgotten, that this lady had the honour to be the Keeper of Mary, Queen of Scots, committed prisoner to George, Earl of Shrewsbury for seventeen years.” On the tomb of her husband, George, at Sheffield, is inscribed: “quod licet a malevolis propter suspectam cum captiva Regina familiaritatem saepius male audivit”.

THE CASTLE OF THE OGLES

Inherited by Newcastle from his mother. From his book on horsemanship

Possibly the excellent Lady Shrewsbury may have been more concerned about her husbands making first-[5]rate settlements upon her before marriage, than about their morals after marriage. In the case of Mary, Queen of Scots, however, she gave Queen Elizabeth a gentle hint that there were “goings-on,” with the result that Lord Shrewsbury was immediately deprived of the smiles of his captive Queen.

The Sir William Cavendish with whom we have to deal was born during the reign of Queen Elizabeth in 1592. Of course his mother was an heiress. Undoubtedly his grandmother would not have allowed his father to marry any one who was not! She was, in fact, the younger of the two daughters and co-heiresses of the seventh Baron Ogle. The elder co-heiress was the wife of the Earl of Shrewsbury, and, as was very proper, she died without issue.

Collins[3] has a little to tell us about Cavendish’s boyhood.

“After his school-learning, he was entered a scholar of St. John’s College, in Cambridge; but, delighting more in sports than in books, his father finding he had a ready wit, and a very good disposition, suffered him to follow his own genius, and had him instructed, by the best masters, in the arts of horsemanship and weapons, which he was most inclined to, and soon became master of them.”

As the Duchess of Newcastle is said to have consulted her husband about her writings, and as he is reported to have helped her considerably in writing them, it is highly probable that her account of the [6]education of a boy of the period describes Newcastle’s own experiences. In her Nature’s Pictures by Fancy’s Pencil, she says: [7]“His education, in the first place, was to learn the horn-book, from that his primer, and so the Bible, by his mother’s chambermaid or the like. But after he came to ten years old or thereabouts he went to a free school where the noise of each scholar’s reading aloud did drown the sense of what they read, burying the knowledge and understanding in the confusion of many words, and several languages; yet was whipt for not learning by their tutors, for their ill-teaching them, which broke and weakened their memories with the over-heavy burthens, striving to thrust in more learning than could be digested or kept in the brain.... After some time he was sent to the University, there continuing from the age of fourteen to the years of eighteen; at last considering with himself that he was buried to the world and the delights therein, conversing more with the dead than the living, in reading old authors, and that little company he had, was only at prayers, and meat; wherein the time of the one was taken up in devotion, the other in eating, or rather fasting; for their prayers were so long and their commons so short, that it seemed rather an humiliation and fasting, than an eating and thanksgiving. But their conversation was a greater penance than their spare diet; for their disputations, which are fed by contradictions, did more wrack the brain, than the other did gripe the belly, the one filling the head with vain opinions and false imaginations, for want of the light of truth, as the other with wind and rude humours, for want of a sufficient nourishment. Where upon these considerations he left the University.”

Could there be a greater contrast than that between Oxford or Cambridge life in the seventeenth century and in the twentieth?

Despite what Collins says about the young Cavendish delighting more in sports than in books, as well as a statement by his Duchess that “to school-learning he never showed a great inclination,” it is said in the Biographia Britannica[4] that his father, “discovering, even in his infancy, the strongest marks of an extraordinary genius, etc...., was extremely careful in the cultivation of them, and took all imaginable pains to have him instructed, as well in sciences as in languages; so that, at an age when most young gentlemen are but entering on knowledge, he might be truly said to have acquired a large stock of solid learning, which was adorned with an easy and polite behaviour, that, except on proper occasions, entirely concealed the scholar under the more taking appearance of the fine gentleman.”

Thomas Hobbes, the “Philosopher of Malmsbury,” was tutor to William’s first cousin, whose name was also William. Hobbes may or may not have acted as tutor to the subject of our story; but it was probably through Hobbes’s introduction in a tutorial capacity into the Cavendish family that he became an intimate friend of the William with whom we are concerned.

[8]

Cavendish was taken early to the Court of James I who made him a Knight of the Bath when he was about 17 or 18, and he was sent from thence to Savoy, with the Ambassador Extraordinary, Sir Henry Wotton. It was thus Cavendish’s fortune to be thrown early in life into the company of a man of considerable culture and no little experience of foreign Courts. Wotton had had an opportunity of earning the deep gratitude of James I in a rather romantic episode; but when that King sent him as his Ambassador to Venice, he was asked (at Augsburg) to contribute to a lady’s album, and he was so imprudent as to write: “An Ambassador is an honest man, sent abroad to lie for the good of his country.” King James was told of this and was so offended that, for five years after Wotton’s return from Venice, he gave him no further employment. Then he relented, and, at the time with which we are now dealing, James sent him as his representative to the Duke of Savoy, who, after having been allied with Spain against France, was now making an alliance with France against Spain.

In Wotton, who eventually became Provost of Eton, Cavendish had as a companion a man of letters. Of his poetry only two fragments shall be quoted.

CHAPTER II.

In the year 1620, Cavendish was raised to the peerage. The Duchess says:—

“About this time King James of blessed memory, having a purpose to confer some Honour upon My Lord, made him Viscount Mansfield, and Baron of Bolsover”.

But the event is less prettily described in a State Paper:—[7]

From this it seems that the Duchess would have been nearer the mark if she had writen:—

[13]

“About this time King James, of blessed memory, having a purpose to smooth over a troublesome dispute, made my Lord Viscount Mansfield and Baron Ogle,[8] for a consideration”.

There is reason for suggesting the last clause. From what the Duchess wrote, it might be inferred that these honours were given simply as the reward of merit, without any monetary payment on the part of the recipient; but judging from the following very matter-of-fact letter from Cavendish, about a peerage, not for himself but for another, a somewhat different inference might excusably be drawn.

“State Papers, Domestic, Charles 1st. Vol. LV, No. 26. 1627, Feb. 27.

“Mansfield to the Duke of Buckingham.

Cavendish, even early in his life, lent, or gave, large sums to the King, and by what he says about “quittinge of an olde debt,” he probably means that his peerages were given to him in lieu of payment of the debts owed to him by the King. He continues:—

It may have been observed that Cavendish writes as if payment for peerages were a matter of course, a rule in fact; and, allowing for the difference in the value of money, they appear to have cost as much then as they cost now, or even more. Evidently any man “willing to receave honor,” and willing to pay for it, was looked upon as fair game.

In the seventeenth century there was no central Conservative or central Liberal fund to receive the payments for peerages. Who then received them? Would it be the King? or would it be Buckingham?

“My cosen Pierepoint” must have submitted to be bled and to be bled freely; for a couple of months later he was created Baron Pierrepont, of Holme Pierrepont, Co. Nottingham, and Viscount Newark; and a year later he was created Earl of Kingston-upon-Hull.[10] Probably Buckingham took Cavendish’s advice as to Pierrepont, “spoke with him at London” and “brought him to good termes”—most likely something much better than the £12,000 mentioned in Cavendish’s letter. Let no one henceforward [16]speak about the purchase of peerages as if it were a modern abuse.

In the year 1628, Cavendish was created Earl of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Baron Cavendish of Bolsover;[11] and no doubt he was made to pay a good round sum in hard cash for this reward of “his true and faithful service to his King and Country”.

In spite of what we have read as to Cavendish being out of favour with Buckingham, the letter just quoted shows that Buckingham entrusted him with so delicate and confidential an errand as the squeezing of money out of a candidate for a peerage. The following letter, written a year later than the first, and shortly before Cavendish’s promotion to an earldom, proves that Buckingham employed him also in an, if possible, even more purely business transaction, although with the same negotiator, namely, “my cosen Pierepoint,” who had now become Lord Newark.

“State Papers, Domestic, Charles Ist. Vol. CVIII, No. 72. June 1628.

“William Viscount Mansfield to the Duke of Buckingham.

The business, apparently, was a proposed sale of land. Cavendish had just begun to be hopeful of making his bargain, when Lord Newark suddenly protested:—

Cavendish might well point out that there would be “sum dangers” in opposing the will of Buckingham;[12] but, as it happened, a couple of months later Buckingham was assassinated.

Newcastle, as we must now call William Cavendish, had a rent-roll of more than £22,000 a year—a very large income at the then value of gold—besides more than £3000 a year from his wife. Even with this wealth, he found his visits to the Court very expensive and by degrees even embarrassing, as will be seen presently.

Of Newcastle’s private correspondence at the period which we have lately been considering, there is a good deal among the manuscripts at Welbeck.[13] Only a few specimens shall be given.

“The King to William, Viscount Mansfield.

[19]

How many a modern legislator would be thankful to be allowed to send a proxy to the House!

“T. Earl of Arundel to Viscount Mansfield at Welbeck.

To be sent to the Tower was no rare event to a peer in those times. The father of the writer of the above letter had died in it.

“W. Earl of Newcastle to his Wife, the Countess of Newcastle, at Welbeck.

“Henry Bates to the Earl of Newcastle, at Welbeck.

The appointment of Newcastle to attend the King to Scotland, noticed at the end of the next letter, was destined to put him to enormous expense.

“Francis, Lord Cottington to the Earl of Newcastle.

[21]

The “good motive for your friends to put it to a period” probably alluded to an object that Newcastle had very much at heart, of which we shall hear more by and by.

[22]

CHAPTER III.

Clarendon tells us something of the personality of Newcastle.[17] “He was a very fine gentleman, active, full of courage and most accomplished in those qualities of horsemanship, dancing and fencing, which accompany a good breeding, in which his delight was. Besides that, he was amorous in poetry and music, to which he indulged the greatest part of his time.”

Newcastle seems also to have been “amorous” in pictures, if we may judge from the following letter.[18]

“W. Earl of Newcastle to Sir Anthony Vandyke.

[23]

Clarendon evidently thought that Newcastle’s loyalty to the King and the Church did not proceed entirely from disinterested motives; for he says: “He loved Monarchy, as it was the foundation and support of his own greatness; and the Church, as it was well constituted for the splendour and security of the Crown; and religion, as it cherished and maintained that order and obedience that was necessary to both; without any other passion for the particular opinions which were grown up in it, and distinguished it into parties, than as he detested whatever was likely to disturb the public peace”. As indeed a man with a large estate and a large income well might!

The Duchess writes: “His shape is neat, and exactly proportioned; his stature of a middle size, and his complexion sanguine”. She was too refined to talk about a red face. “His behaviour is such that it might be a pattern for all gentlemen; for it is courtly, civil, easy and free, without formality or constraint; and yet hath something in it of grandure, that causes an awful respect towards him.” Was there ever a better description of pomposity combined with condescension? [24]“His discourse is as free and unconcerned as his behaviour, pleasant, witty and instructive.... He is neat and cleanly; which makes him to be somewhat long in dressing.... He shifts,” i.e., changes his clothes, “ordinarily once a day, and every time when he uses exercise, or his temper” (temperature?) “is more hot than ordinary.... He makes but one meal a day, at which he drinks two good glasses of small-beer, one about the beginning, the other at the end thereof ... and a little glass of sack in the middle; which glass of sack he also uses in the morning for his breakfast, with a morsel of bread. His supper consists of an egg and a draught of small-beer.... His prime pastime and recreation hath always been the exercise of mannage and weapons.... The rest of his time he spends in music, poetry, and the like.”

The Duchess of Newcastle was such an admirer of her husband that it may be wise to give something more than full credit to her admissions respecting him. Among these are that he had “not so much of scholarship and learning as his brother Sir Charles,” that he was “no mathematician by art,” and that he had one vice in that “he has been a great lover and admirer of the female sex; which whether it be so great a crime as to condemn him for it, I will leave to the judgment of young gallants and beautiful ladies”. She also says: “He is quick in repartees”. The uncharitable may suspect that she had frequently winced under them.

WELBECK

Double-page engraving from Newcastle’s book on horsemanship

As to his religion, we learn something from a letter written by George Con, the papal agent at the Court of Queen Henrietta, to Barberini.[19] [25]“In matters of religion,” he wrote, “the Earl is too indifferent. He hates the Puritans, he laughs at the Protestants, and he has little confidence in the Catholics.”

On 5 May, 1633, a proclamation was issued that King Charles was about to make a progress to Scotland. Rushworth (Hist. Collections, Part ii. p. 178) states that he left London on the 13th, that after visiting “Giddon near Stilton in Northamptonshire, which by the vulgar sort of people was called a Protestant nunnery,” he went to Welbeck, among other places, and that he “was treated there at a sumptuous feast, by the Earl (since Duke of Newcastle), estimated to stand the Earl in some thousands of pounds”.

Probably a very small part of this money was given to Ben Jonson for the Masque, “Love’s Welcome at Welbeck,” which Jonson’s friend, Newcastle, employed him in writing for the occasion.

Of this entertainment Clarendon says (Hist., Book i. pp. 78-9): “Both King and Court were received and entertained by the Earl of Newcastle, and at his own proper expense, in such a wonderful manner, and in such an excess of feasting, as had scarce ever been known in England, and would still be thought very prodigious, if the same noble person had not, within a year or two afterwards, made the King and Queen a more stupendous entertainment, which (God be thanked) though possibly it might too much whet the appetites of others to excess, no man ever in those days imitated”.

[26]

His Duchess writes of it:—

“When his Majesty was going into Scotland to be Crowned, he took His way through Nottinghamshire; and lying at Worksop-Mannor hardly two miles distant from Welbeck, where my Lord then was, my Lord invited His Majesty thither to a Dinner, which he was graciously pleased to accept of: This Entertainment cost my Lord between Four and Five thousand pounds”.

In the July of the previous year (1633), Wentworth had been created a Baron and sent to Ireland as Lord Deputy. He was not made Lord Strafford until 1640. Among the Strafford Letters[20] are a good many from Newcastle. The first to be noticed was written after the journey to Scotland, and it throws some light upon the expense to which Newcastle was put by the King’s visit to Welbeck, as well as upon the costs incident upon Newcastle’s state attendance on the royal progress. Besides this the letter seems to have reference to another matter. Of that matter we find a notice in this paragraph from the Duchess’s book:—

“Within some few years after, King Charles the First, of blessed Memory, His Gracious Soveraign, ... thought Him the fittest Person whom He might intrust with the Government of His Son Charles, then Prince of Wales, now our most Gracious King”.

[27]

She omits to mention that her husband had specially desired this office and that he had for a long time schemed, begged, and asked his friends to beg, in order to obtain it. A letter from Newcastle to Strafford shows how keenly he was longing for it, although hope deferred was evidently making the heart sick.

“The Earl of Newcastle to the Lord Deputy.[21]

From this it would seem that Newcastle, as well as his friends, had very often asked the King to make him Governor to the Prince. “Refreshing the King’s memory,” he calls it!

After writing at some length in the same letter about his devotion to the King, he seems to have forgotten that he had said he would not trouble his friends to speak any more to the King on his behalf; for presently he rather inconsistently says:—

[29]

Considerable further correspondence passed between Newcastle and Wentworth about the much-longed-for appointment and the most likely method of obtaining it. Nearly a year later than the date of the above letter, Wentworth wrote the following advice to Newcastle.

“The Lord Deputy to the Earl of Newcastle.[22]

BOLSOVER CASTLE

From Newcastle’s book on horsemanship

In the year 1634, an event took place which may have made Newcastle rather more hopeful of gaining his end about the Governorship.

The Duchess writes:—

[31]

“A year after His Return out of Scotland, He [the King] was pleased to send my Lord word, That Her Majesty the Queen was resolved to make a Progress into the Northern parts, desiring him to prepare the like Entertainment for Her, as he had formerly done for Him,”—no very moderate request—“which My Lord did, and endeavour’d for it with all possible Care and Industry, sparing nothing that might add splendor to that Feast, which both Their Majesties were pleased to honour with their Presence: Ben Jonson he employed in fitting such Scenes and Speeches as he could best devise;”—this was the masque entitled “Love’s Welcome at Bolsover,”—“and sent for all the Gentry of the Country to come and wait on their Majesties; and in short, did all that ever he could imagine, to render it Great, and worthy Their Royal Acceptance.

“This Entertainment he made at Bolsover-Castle, in Derbyshire, some five miles distant from Welbeck, and resigned Welbeck for Their Majesties Lodging; it cost him in all between Fourteen and Fifteen thousand pounds.”

Miss Strickland (Queens of England, VIII. 72) thought that this royal entertainment at Bolsover gained for Newcastle the Governorship of the Prince. “So much pleased,” she says, “were the royal pair with the literary taste of the earl and his royal hospitalities at Bolsover, that they agreed in the appointment of Newcastle, as governor to Charles, Prince of Wales.” But this is not very probable; for so long as two years later, Newcastle was very despondent about obtaining the appointment. He had gone to London, and his attempts to secure it had been so much talked about that he was reported to have succeeded. This report had even reached the [32]ears of the King, and it is unlikely to have increased his chances of success.

“W. Earl of Newcastle to his wife (the Countess of Newcastle).[23]

He had several rivals for the office.

The Same to (the Same).

[33]

The Same to (the Same).

At this date Newcastle was evidently in despair and was on the point of going home in very low spirits. Place-hunting is not invariably an exhilarating sport, and Newcastle was certainly a place-hunter at this period. Some words of one of his former contemporaries (Francis Bacon)—a place-hunter himself—are not inapplicable to his case. “The rising into place is laborious; and by pains men come to greater pains.... By indignities men come to dignities. The standing is slippery, and the regress is either a downfall, or at least an eclipse, which is a melancholy thing.”

CHAPTER IV.

Everything is said to come to him who knows how to wait. Possibly this may not be a universal experience; but the Governorship of the Prince of Wales did come at last to the long-waiting Newcastle. The appointment was conveyed by the following very courteous letter, and it was accepted by a somewhat obsequious reply.

“Mr. Secretary Windebank to the Earl of Newcastle.[24]

“The Earl of Newcastle to Mr. Secretary Windebank.

In Lodge’s opinion, although Windebank says the King had commanded him to assure Newcastle that he did not owe his appointment “to any whatsoever,” it “was most probably with Wentworth’s advice” that the King gave it to him, which seems likely enough. It is pretty clear that, all through, New[37]castle had asked for the appointment himself and had got others to ask for it for him. We have seen that he sought Wentworth’s services in the matter and suggested that Wentworth should also obtain those of Lord and Lady Carlisle. At the same time he wanted to have the credit of having been given the appointment by the King, solely on the King’s own initiative, without any begging whatever, either by himself or by anybody else. Nor is it unlikely that Strafford, knowing Newcastle’s anxiety on this point, may have inspired Windebank to write the last paragraph of his letter, in which, with very suspicious ostentation, he assures Newcastle that he does not owe his appointment to any outside influence.

Few details exist concerning Newcastle’s conduct and experiences as Governor of the future Charles II. On one occasion he seems to have had reasons for complaining of his pupil to the boy’s mother, the Queen, who wrote to the little delinquent:—

It may have been in sarcastic reference to this little episode that the Prince wrote the following letter in a round hand, between double lines, when his correspondent was apparently also a patient.

“Charles, Prince of Wales, to His Governor,
Lord Newcastle.

A letter of instructions written by Newcastle to his pupil is a curiosity in its way. It is a sort of English Il Principe. Only portions of it are given here.

“(From a copy preserved with the Royal Letters in the Harleian MS. 6988, art. 62.)

[39]

Presently we find this instructor of youth also warning his pupil against too much religious devotion.

[40]

There is something decidedly Machiavellian in this advice to the Prince to worship God in order that he may himself in turn be worshipped by his people, and in the warning against any excess of piety, lest his people should fall into the terrible error of worshipping their God so much as to neglect to worship their King. Later on, Newcastle says:—

“For Books thus much more, the greatest clerks are not the wisest men; and the greate troublers of the world, the greatest captains, were not the greatest schollars; neither have I known bookewormes great statesmen; some have here to fore and some are now, but they study men more now then bookes, or else they would prove but silly statesmen....

“But S^r. you are [not?] in your own disposition religious and not very apte to your booke, so you need no great labour to perswade you from the one, or long discourses to dissuade from the other.

[42]

“The things that I have discoursed to you most, is to be courteous and civil to everybody; ... believe it, the putting off of your hat and making a leg pleases more then reward or preservation, so much doth it take all kind of people. Then to speak well of every body, and when you hear people speak ill of others reprehend them and seeme to dislike it so much, and do not look on em so favourably for a few days after.”

After this come long exhortations to courtesy, and instructions as to being agreeable to everybody without losing dignity.

In addition to all this advice, Newcastle personally superintended the riding lessons of the future Charles II. Newcastle was one of the finest horsemen of his times, and, in his standard work on horsemanship which we shall meet with later on, he says: “Our gracious and most excellent King” (Charles II), “is not only the handsomest and most comely horseman in the world, but as knowing and understanding in the art as any man”.

Very many years later, when Newcastle’s pupil became King of England, he either wrote, or caused to be written, in the Preamble to a Patent (16 March, 1664) creating Newcastle a duke: “The great proofs of his wisdom and piety, are sufficiently known to Us from our younger years, and we shall always retain a sense of those good principles he instilled into Us: the care of our youth, which he happily undertook for our good, he has faithfully and well discharged”.

We are anticipating, in the matter of time, when we say that Newcastle held the post of Governor to the Prince of Wales for about two years only; but the Governorship may as well be dealt with finally here. Her husband, says the Duchess, [43]“was privately advertised, that the Parliaments Design was to take the Government of the Prince from Him, which he apprehending as a disgrace to Himself, wisely prevented, and obtained the Consent of His late Majesty, with His Favour, to deliver up the Charge of being Governor to the Prince, and retire into the Countrey”.

In “apprehending a disgrace to himself,” and resigning the governorship of the Prince, if Newcastle did not meet with the “downfall” spoken of by Bacon, he at least suffered the “eclipse, which is a melancholy thing,” mentioned by the same writer. For so short a time, the appointment seems hardly to have been worth all the trouble which Newcastle had taken to obtain it. How far he succeeded in it we do not know, but one historian did not take a very exalted view of his success.

In his Personal History of Charles II, published as an appendix to Bohn’s edition of Grammont’s Memoirs, Sir Walter Scott says of the Prince: “His governors, successively the Earls of Newcastle, Hertford, and Berkshire, who had the care of his education, appear to have afforded him but few helps towards his improvement”. The Duchess’s statement that Newcastle “attended the Prince, his Master, with all faithfulness and duty befitting so great an employment,” evidently did not weigh heavily in Sir Walter’s opinion. The Prince, however, must have gained little by his change of governors; since Clarendon[27] says that Hertford, “for the office of Governour, never thought himself fit, nor meddled with it”.

[44]

Events of greater importance than the governorship of the Prince had begun to take place long before Newcastle resigned it, events which eventually proved of more moment than that governorship even to Newcastle himself. John Hampden had been condemned for refusing to pay ship money; Prynne had been pilloried for his writings; Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, had been suspended for libel; and the Scottish Parliament, after abolishing episcopacy, was preparing for war with England. Meanwhile the English Parliament was seething with disaffection.

King Charles mobilised an army to proceed against the Scots. He was sorely in need of money, and Newcastle gave him £10,000 towards the cost of the expedition. And he did more than this. Newcastle, says Clarendon,[28] “one of the most valuable men in the Kingdom, in his fortune, in his dependence, and in his qualifications, had, at his own charge, drawn together a goodly troop of horse of two hundred, which for the most part consisted of the best gentlemen of the North, who were either allied to the Earl, or of immediate dependence upon him, and came together purely on his account; and he called this troop the Prince of Wales’s troop, whereof the Earl himself was captain”.

Rushworth says[29] that, on the same day as the King, [45]“the Earl of Newcastle marched with his troop, carrying the Prince’s colours, into Berwick; and sent out parties to scout upon the Scots borders. His troop consisted of all gentlemen, most of them of very good estates, and fortunes, some £2,000, £1,500, £1,000 and £500 per annum, and the rest of good annual revenue; all gallantly mounted and armed, and well attended, with their own servants well mounted; for the maintaining of which troop the King was put to no charge at all.”

As everybody knows, this expedition was rendered fruitless, without a blow being struck, by an ill-judged treaty; but it was not altogether without adventure to Newcastle. The King’s cavalry were under the command of the Earl of Holland, and Holland not only disliked Newcastle personally, but was jealous of him on account of the £10,000 which he had given towards the expedition, and the brilliant troop which he had raised to accompany it. On a march over the Scottish border, says Rushworth, “the Earl of Holland put the Prince’s colours, commanded by the Earl of Newcastle, in the rear, which so offended the Earl of Newcastle, and that troop, as his Lordship commanded Cornet Edward Gray (brother to the Lord Gray of Wark), to take the colours from off the staff, yet marched in order without colours”.

Some pages farther on,[30] Rushworth continues this story. [46]“The Earl of Holland, General of the Horse, after he returned from his first expedition into Scotland, complained to his Majesty of the Earl of Newcastle taking off his colours from his staff in that march; the King being also by another noble person made acquainted with the reason of his so doing, because the Prince his colours were put in the rear. The King commended the Earl of Newcastle’s prudence in so doing, and did not attribute it to any unwillingness or neglect of that Earl in his Majesty’s service on that occasion. And his Majesty commanded that, for time to come, that troop of the Earl of Newcastle should be commanded by none but himself whilst they remained upon duty.”

“Afterwards, when a peace was concluded, and the army disbanded, the Earl of Newcastle thought fit to require an account of the Earl of Holland for the said affront which he had put upon him, and sent a challenge to him, and time and place where to meet appointed.[31] The Earl of Newcastle made choice of Francis Palmes for his second, a man of known courage and mettle.[32] The Earl of Newcastle appeared at the time and place, with his second; but the General of the Horse, his second, came alone, by which the Earl of Newcastle concluded that the design had been discovered to the King, who commanded them both to be confined and afterwards made a peace between them.”

[47]

Of this incident Kippis remarks,[33] with a great deal of sense: “Little service could be expected from an army in which an inferior officer might challenge his general, on account of a supposed slight in the giving of orders; and those persons must have had strange ideas of the laws of honour who could blame a commander-in-chief for refusing so unsoldierly a challenge”.

Shortly afterwards Newcastle received the following letter from Sir John Suckling, who, like Newcastle, had raised a troop of horse for the King, and had also led it on the same fruitless expedition to Scotland. Like Newcastle, again, he was literary and a playwright. He had been in a good deal of active military service on the Continent, and he was generous and amusing. If his troop of horse was only half the strength of Newcastle’s, it must have rivalled it, if it did not exceed it, in splendour. Aubrey says of it (Letters, p. 546):—

“Sir John Suckling, at his own chardge, razed a troop of 100 very handsome young proper men, whom he clad in white doubletts and scarlett breeches, scarlett coates, hatts and feathers, well-horsed and armed.”

“Sir John Suckling to the Earl of Newcastle.[34]

Aubrey favours us with a portrait of this correspondent, and evidently familiar friend, of Newcastle: “He was of middle stature and slight strength, brisque round eie, reddish faced, and red nose (ill liver), his head not very big, his hayre a kind of sand colour; his beard turned up naturally, so that he had a brisk and gracefull looke”.

As will soon be seen, a good service which Suckling tried to do for Newcastle, resulted rather to his detriment.

[49]

After the expedition to the borders of Scotland and the settlement of his affair with Lord Holland, Newcastle returned to Welbeck, “to his great satisfaction,” says the Duchess, “and with an intent to have continued there, and rested under his own vine and managed his own estate”. As we shall find in the next chapter, he did not rest under his own vine very long.

CHAPTER V.

“Archbishop Laud,” says the Duchess, “was pleased to tell His late Majesty, that my Lord was one of the Wisest and Prudentest Persons that ever he was acquainted with.

“For further proof, I cannot pass by that my Lord told His late Majesty King Charles the First, and Her Majesty the now Queen-Mother, some time before the Wars, That he observed by the humours of the People, the approaching of a Civil War, and that His Majesties Person would be in danger of being deposed, if timely care was not taken to prevent it.”

Perhaps a very far-reaching gift of prophecy may not have been necessary to foretell all this. Early in 1640, things were looking very threatening. Both in England and in Scotland political as well as religious disputes were causing frictions likely at any moment to produce a flame. Charles was preparing for a war against the Scots, and, in order to obtain a vote of supplies for this war, he summoned a Parliament, afterwards known as the Short Parliament.

When it had assembled, a letter from the Scots to the King of France, appealing for his assistance in a war which they were contemplating against the [51]English, was produced in the House to stimulate the loyalty of the Commons. It had little effect. Members boldly asserted that a Scottish invasion might be a bad thing, but that invasions by the Crown upon the liberties of Englishmen at home were worse things still and that these home invasions ought to be repelled before the Scottish invasion. As to either subsidies for the proposed campaign against the Scots, or ship-money, the Commons passed a Resolution that “till the liberties of the House and kingdom were cleared, they knew not whether they had anything to give or no”. Pym urged peace with the Scots, while Sir Henry Vane asked for £840,000 to make war upon them. The Commons, and even the Lords, were in a sulky humour, the King was now being publicly defied by his Government and he dissolved Parliament on 5 May, 1640.

Charles, Strafford and Vane tried every possible means of raising funds for the war. The citizens of London refused to make a loan at 8 per cent. and they also refused to levy a rate. An appeal to the King of Spain for a loan met with no better success. There were revolutionary risings in London. Torture was used for the last time in England upon one of the leaders[35] of the malcontents. Presently the bishops were persuaded to give a few thousands; Cottington managed to borrow £50,000 from the East India Company at the usurious interest of 16 per cent., and [52]at last the City agreed to a loan of £200,000, on the security of the Peers. Of all the Peers none was more ready to help the King financially than Newcastle.

The position of Newcastle’s great friend, Strafford, at this time, was intolerable. He was practically at the head of the King’s affairs; but those affairs were in an almost hopeless condition. There was not enough money to pay and provide for the army during a prolonged war; there was a mutinous spirit among the soldiers; their commander-in-chief, Northumberland, had no heart for the war; the high officials were trembling at the responsibility of illegal action; both the King and Strafford were in agony, the one from vacillation, the other from gout.

Conway, who was in command in the North and had been incredulous about a Scottish invasion, on discovering its reality wrote a very doleful letter early in August to Northumberland. He complained that he had only half the number of troops with which the Scots were about to cross the border and that nearly a quarter of his men were entirely unarmed. On learning the state of things in the North, Charles issued orders to all the lords-lieutenants in the Midlands and the North to call out the trained bands for immediate service, and, Northumberland’s health having broken down, Charles made Strafford Commander-in-Chief of the English army. The failure of Conway, of Northumberland, and eventually of Strafford, cleared the way for the employment of a man exceedingly unambitious of military service, namely, Newcastle.

[53]

The King left London for the North on 20 August, 1640. On the night of the same day, the Scottish army, of about 25,000 men, crossed the Tweed at Coldstream and invaded England. Charles reached York on the 23rd, Strafford joined him there four days later, and, on the 29th, the Scots took the city of Newcastle and occupied it. Before long the counties of Northumberland and Durham were completely in their power. Charles held a great council of the peers at York; he announced that he was about to issue writs for a Parliament to meet on 3 November, and he asked the advice of the council upon the situation. The upshot of much deliberation on the part of the council, and much negotiation with the enemy, was that a cessation of arms was agreed upon, the two northern counties being left in the possession of the Scots.

The Parliament—the notorious Long Parliament—met on the day appointed. Within ten days, Strafford, who had taken his seat in the Lords, was impeached and arrested. About a month later, Laud had also been impeached and, like Strafford, imprisoned in the Tower.

Charles soon discovered that he was no longer governing, but governed. The Parliament negotiated with the Scots without consulting him or even taking him into its confidence. Eventually the Commons voted that £300,000 should be given to the King’s enemies, the Scots, as a “Brotherly Assistance”.

The King’s affairs kept going rapidly from bad to [54]worse. We cannot here deal with the trials and the executions of Newcastle’s two friends, Strafford and Laud—for Laud also was a friend of Newcastle—or the Root and Branch Bill, or the Grand Remonstrance, or the Rebellion in Ireland which is said to have cost that country nearly half its population. We shall presently have enough to do with Newcastle himself without troubling ourselves about general politics; but it has been necessary to take a brief survey of them in so far as they led up to the most important events in Newcastle’s life.

In the years 1640 and 1641, the Queen showed more energy than the King, but she was equally, if not even more, injudicious. At about the period dealt with at the beginning of the last chapter, or even earlier, by way of obtaining the advice of a sage politician, she had listened, and persuaded Charles to listen, to the proposals of Newcastle’s profligate, and light-minded friend, Sir John Suckling. That courtier recommended the King to make use of his army in the North to re-establish and maintain his regal authority: as Strafford was in the Tower and Northumberland was still invalided, he suggested that Newcastle should be put in command of that army, and that he should bring it South, to overawe the Parliament and support the King. In addition to advising the use of force, Suckling personally endeavoured to raise loyal troops in support of the Crown. His efforts, however, did more harm than good to the King’s cause; his plot was discovered [55]by the Parliament, he fled to France and he was declared a traitor.

Although there was no proof of Newcastle’s complicity in this plot, the fact that his appointment to command the army of the North was part of its scheme made the Parliament suspect him more strongly than ever.

The effect of all this was that the Queen was now even more hateful to the Parliament than was the King. The crisis arrived when five members of Parliament began to urge that the Queen, as the prime author of the encroachments upon the liberties of the subjects, should be formally impeached. The King still hesitated; but, according to the well-known story, the Queen said to him:[36] “Go, you coward! and pull these rogues out by the ears, or never see my face again”. The Queen told Lady Carlisle of this little episode, Lady Carlisle told Essex, Essex told others, and others told the five members, who made their escape in safety.

Urged on the one side by his councillors to use the utmost caution, on the other by his Queen to be a man and to put his foot down, the vacillating and nervous King, in a moment of spasmodic courage, threatened the Parliament; whereupon the Parliament threatened the King, who then practically ran away, leaving London on 10 January, 1642.

The first actual conflict between the King and the Parliament took place in relation to Newcastle. When [56] Charles had left York, to meet the Long Parliament in London, he had sent all the ammunition and stores which he had accumulated for his war against the Scots, to Hull. He had foreseen the likelihood of a civil war, and he had privately given Newcastle a commission, appointing him governor of Hull; but he had told him not to use it unless he received further orders.

During the morning on which the King left London, early in January, 1642, one of his first acts was to dispatch orders to Newcastle, commanding him to make immediate use of that commission, and to hurry to Hull, as the Duchess says, “with all possible speed and privacy”. Of what followed she says:—

“Immediately upon the receipt of these his Majesties Orders and Commands, my Lord prepared for their execution, and about Twelve of the Clock at night, hastened from his own house when his Familie were all at their rest, save two or three Servants which he appointed to attend him. The next day early in the morning he arrived at Hull, in the quality of a private Gentleman, which place was distant from his house forty miles; and none of his Family that were at home, knew what was become of him, till he sent an Express to his Lady to inform her where he was.”

The probable intense anxiety of his wife, which might so simply and so easily have been saved, does not appear to have occurred to him. The Duchess continues:—

[57]

“Thus being admitted into the Town, he fell upon his intended Design, and brought it to so hopeful an issue for His Majesties Service, that he wanted nothing but His Majesties further Commission and Pleasure to have secured both the Town and Magazine for His Majesties use; and to that end by a speedy Express gave His Majesty, who was then at Windsor, an account of all his Transactions therein, together with his Opinion of them, hoping His Majesty would have been pleased either to come thither in Person, which he might have done with much security, or at least have sent him a Commission and Orders how he should do His Majesty further Service.”

Unfortunately for Charles, his most intimate followers could not be trusted for secrecy, and there were spies in his train. His orders to Newcastle were betrayed to the Parliament, and, by its authority, Sir John Hotham, who lived very near Hull, was appointed its governor and ordered to seize it with the help of the Yorkshire trained bands under his command.

Newcastle had entered Hull, had proclaimed himself its governor, in the King’s name, and had found that it contained a larger quantity of munitions than the Tower of London itself; but, when Legg, on behalf of the King, and Hotham, on the part of the Parliament, brought troops to occupy the town, the Mayor—to use a very vulgar expression—uncertain as to which way the cat would jump, refused to admit the soldiers of either of them.

“Before Newcastle had been three days in Hull,” [58]says Clarendon,[37] “the House of Peers sent for him, to attend the service of that House, which he had rarely used to do, being for the most part at Richmond attending upon the Prince of Wales, whose Governor he was.[38] He made no haste to return upon the summons of the House, but sent to the King to know his pleasure.”

As usual, Charles showed weakness. Having dispatched Newcastle in a tremendous hurry to secure his magazines at Hull against the Parliament, he now ordered him to obey the Parliament, to leave Hull and the magazines to their fate, and go to London. Newcastle, says the Duchess, “received orders from His Majesty to observe such Directions as he should receive from the Parliament then sitting: Whereupon he was summoned personally to appear at the House of Lords, and a Committee chosen to examine the Grounds and Reasons of his undertaking that Design; but my Lord shewed them his Commission, and that it was done in obedience to His Majesties Commands and so was cleared of that Action”.

Both Lords and Commons then petitioned the King to allow the magazines at Hull to be removed to the Tower of London; and when the King was slow in sending a reply, they ordered Hotham to dispatch them there at once.

Clarendon (Hist., vol. I, part II. book v.) describes Sir John Hotham as [59]“by his nature and education a rough and rude man, of great covetousness, of great pride, and great ambition; without any bowels of good nature, or the least sense or touch of generosity; his parts were not quick and sharp, but composed, and he judged well; he was a man of craft, and more likely to deceive than be cozened.” “He had been first induced to sympathise with the Parliament against the King,” adds Clarendon, “by his particular malice against the Earl of Strafford;” he had been imprisoned, probably as he suspected at the instigation of Strafford, for complaining in Parliament at the King’s demands for large subsidies for the army; and he had formally ranged himself upon the Parliamentary side; but the Parliamentary leaders “well knew that he was not possessed with their principles in any degree,” that, although he had considered Laud guilty of treason, he was a zealous supporter of Church and State, and that he had been “terrified” by certain votes against sheriffs and deputy-lieutenants passed in the House of Commons. “Therefore they sent his son, a member likewise of the House, and in whom they confided, to assist him, or rather to be a spy upon his father. And this was the first essay they made of their Sovereign Power over the Militia and the Forts.” As will appear later, the son was in reality more royalist in his inclinations than the father upon whom he was to spy.

Against such a usurpation of the Royal Prerogative the King made a protest on 9 March. He [60]was determined to displace Hotham, and to replace Newcastle, at Hull. In April he went North with a view to testing the powers of the Parliament by entering Hull himself. At the same time he was anxious to avoid all appearance of committing an act of war. Ostensibly, he intended merely to enter Hull as he might enter any of his other cities.

When Hotham was informed that the King was approaching, accompanied by 300 men, and that there were 400 more behind them, he was “in great confusion,” says Clarendon, “and calling some of the chief magistrates, and other officers together to consult, they persuaded him not to suffer the King to enter the town”.

Presently a messenger from Charles arrived, bringing to Hotham the information that the King would do him the honour of dining with him that day.

Bewildered almost to distraction, Hotham resolved to obey orders which he had received from the Parliament to admit no troops whatever without its special instructions. Accordingly he had his drawbridges raised, and standing upon the walls when the King arrived, he very respectfully informed him of the strict injunctions which he had received from his employers—the Commons. Then the King offered to come in with an escort of only twenty men; but Hotham, knowing that there was a strong royalist spirit within the town, was afraid of admitting him, and said that to allow even so small a number of armed men to [61]enter would be a breach of his orders. Clarendon says: “the gentleman, with much distraction in his looks, talked confusedly of ‘the trust he had from the Parliament’; then fell upon his knees, and wished ‘that God would bring confusion upon him and his, if he were not a loyal and faithful subject to His Majesty, but, in conclusion, plainly denied to suffer his Majesty to come into the town’”. The King’s soldiers then loudly called upon the garrison to kill Hotham on the spot and throw him over the wall; and Charles, having made his heralds proclaim Hotham a traitor, rode away in a rage.

In the following month (May), the greater part of the arms and stores were shipped from Hull to the Tower of London. The Hotham incident greatly increased the irritation already existing between the King and the Parliament; and, although war had not been actually declared, both sides were collecting troops and stores.

Charles ordered Newcastle to take possession of the city bearing his name, and also the command of the four adjacent counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, Durham and Westmoreland. On 17 June, 1642, he entered the city of Newcastle in the name of the King. He also secured Tynemouth Castle and he fortified Shields. The King had now a port on the East coast at which he could receive supplies from Holland, whither the Queen had gone to raise money for the coming war by selling her jewels and begging for loans.

[62]

It was all very well to be given the command of four counties; but it was difficult to command them without men to enforce commands. The King had indeed ordered Newcastle to make bricks without straw. As it was, when Newcastle arrived, “he neither found any military provision considerable for the undertaking that work, nor generally any great encouragement from the people in those parts”. So says the Duchess; and she adds:—

“As soon as my Lord came to Newcastle, in the first place he sent for all his Tenants[39] and Friends in those parts, and presently raised a Troop of Horse consisting of 120, and a Regiment of Foot, and put them under Command, and upon duty and exercise in the Town of Newcastle; and with this small beginning took the Government of that place upon him ... and armed the Soldiers as well as he could: And thus he stood upon his Guard, and continued them upon Duty; playing his weak Game with much Prudence, and giving the Town and Country very great satisfaction by his noble and honourable Deportment.” In short, under the circumstances, Newcastle would have found it very dangerous, when “playing his weak game,” to be anything except civil and obsequious.

Clarendon says that Newcastle had no sooner occupied the city of Newcastle, [63]“without the slightest hostility (for that town received him with all possible acknowledgment of the King’s goodness in sending him), but he was impeached by the House of Commons of High Treason”.[40] Although Clarendon states that he entered the town without the slightest hostility, the following entry occurs in the catalogue of the Thomason Tracts. “1642, July 12, Sir John Hotham’s Resolution presented to the King at Beverley. Whereunto is annexed joyful news from Newcastle, wherein is declared how the colliers resisted the Earl of Newcastle.”

CHAPTER VI.

On 22 August, 1642, the King formally hoisted his standard at Nottingham, and hostilities became a reality. He made Shrewsbury his head-quarters in September, and from there he wrote:—

“Your most asseured faithfull
“frend

“Charles R.[43]

[65]

In October the battle of Edgehill was fought, and in November there were encounters at Brentford and Turnham Green, after which the King took up his winter quarters at Oxford.

Essex, the Commander-in-Chief of the Parliamentary forces, commissioned Lord Fairfax to command the armies in Yorkshire and the adjacent counties; therefore henceforth Fairfax was to be Newcastle’s principal enemy.

Fairfax had a great advantage over Newcastle, having served with the English army in the Low Countries, whereas Newcastle had had no military experience. He had also the recommendation for a command in Yorkshire, that he was a Yorkshireman both by birth and by blood. On the other hand he laboured under the disadvantage of the intense dislike and contempt of his fellow-Yorkshireman and brother officer, Sir John Hotham, the Governor of Hull. There were very few “gentlemen, or men of any quality, in that large county,” says Clarendon, “who were disaffected to his Majesty”. The chief of these were Fairfax, the Hothams, father and son, Cholmondley, and Stapleton.

We must now return to him in the summer of 1642. A special charge, given to him by the King, was the Bishopric of Durham. In that diocese were many sympathisers with the Parliament, and among such were not a few of the clergy. Now [66]Newcastle knew the Dean to be thoroughly loyal to the King; so he issued an order that no sermon was to be preached in the diocese until it had been written out and submitted to the Dean; and he ordered the Dean not only to strike out anything which he might consider savouring of disaffection, but also to put in expressions of devoted loyalty to the sovereign, wherever such sentiments were wanting. Besides this he empowered the Dean to punish any of the clergy who might be in the least contumacious about the matter. We have the Duchess’s authority for this statement.

In spite of the carefully doctored sermons, the Duchess tells us that “there happened a great mutiny of the Trainband Souldiers of the Bishoprick at Durham, so that my Lord was forced to remove thither in Person, attended with some forces to appease them; where at his arrival (I mention it by the way, and as a merry passage) a jovial Fellow used this expression, That he liked my Lord very well, but not his Company (meaning his Soldiers)”.

Then Newcastle set resolutely to work to raise an army. It would be interesting to know with what weapons he armed it. The artillery of the time was provided with very elementary guns; and the muskets, harquebuses (carbines), and petronels (heavy pistols), all left much to be desired. Pikes were then an all-important weapon; but pikemen required almost more drill and training than did any other soldiers, and it is doubtful how soon those in New[67]castle’s hastily recruited army could have been of any effective service; but, at any rate, they could hardly be less experienced in military affairs than was their commander-in-chief.

Scythes, fastened to the ends of poles, we know to have been used in the seventeenth century by the defenders of fortresses, for hooking off soldiers attempting to scale the walls and for upsetting scaling-ladders. Most tempting tools to use, one would imagine. Bows and arrows were certainly carried by the Scottish army which crossed the English border, as described in an earlier chapter, and Grose (vol. II, p. 272) says that one of their uses was “to gall or astoyne the enemye with the hailshot of light arrows, before they have come within danger of the harquebuss shot”.

The Duchess says that the King of Denmark sent a ship containing arms and ammunition to Newcastle, and that, among the weapons, were “Danish clubs”. In our twentieth century superiority, we may look down with contempt upon clubs; but, in a hand-to-hand fight, heavy clubs might be weapons to which considerable respect would be due, if swung by the arms of able-bodied warriors upon the skulls of their enemies.

It was another person’s opinion that Newcastle had even more than a sufficient supply of arms and ammunition, and that he was acting the part of the dog in the manger.

[68]

“Sir Marmaduke Langdale to Sir William Savile.[44]

The King was of the same opinion as to Newcastle’s superfluity of weapons, and wrote to him asking for a supply; but he did not receive any, and Newcastle pleaded that he had none to spare. Charles then wrote:—[45]

As to men, Newcastle was also successful. The Duchess says:—

“Amongst the rest of his Army, My Lord had chosen for his own Regiment of Foot, 3,000 of such Valiant, stout and faithful men (whereof many were bred in the Moorish-grounds of the Northern parts) that they were ready to die at my Lord’s feet, and never gave over, whensoever they were engaged in action, until they had either conquer’d the Enemy or lost their lives. They were called Whitecoats, for this following reason: My Lord being resolved to give them new Liveries, and there being not red Cloth enough to be had, took up so much of white as would serve to cloath them, desiring withal, their patience until he had got it dyed; but they impatient of stay, requested my Lord, that he would be pleased to let them have it un-dyed as it was, promising they themselves would die it in the Enemies Blood: Which request my Lord granted them, and from that time they were called White-Coats;” or, sometimes, she might have added, “Newcastle’s Lambs”.

She tells us in another place that [70]“Within a short time, my Lord formed an Army of 8,000 Foot, Horse and Dragoons, and put them into a condition to march in the beginning of November, 1642. No sooner was this effected, but the Insurrection grew high in Yorkshire, in so much, that most of His Majesties good subjects of that County, as well the Nobility as Gentry, were forced for the preservation of their persons, to retire to the City of York, a walled Town, but of no great strength.”

Before going to York Newcastle had to leave about half his army behind him. Clarendon says: “having left a good garrison at Newcastle, and fixed such small garrisons in his way, as might secure his communication with that port, to which all his ammunition was to be brought, with a body of near 3,000 foot, and 600 or 700 horse and dragoons, without any encounter with the enemy (though they had threatened loud) he entered York, having lessened the enemy’s strength, without blood, both in territories and men”. Two regiments, which had been raised for the enemy, dissolved on his approach.

Newcastle then settled down for the winter, “yet,” says Clarendon, “few days passed without blows, in which the parliament forces had usually the worst”. But not always; for, if the following statement be true, Newcastle’s forces were on one occasion repulsed in a manner of which the description reads like a page from Don Quixote.

“Sir John Hotham to William Lenthall.[46]

When the winter set in,[47] Newcastle, with the King’s troops, held all the country between York and the border of Scotland, while the south of Yorkshire was under the control of Fairfax and the troops of the Parliament.

As no supplies came from the Government for the army of Newcastle, he had to provide for it otherwise. The Duchess tells us how this was managed: “It was agreed, That the Nobility and Gentry of the several Counties, should select a certain number of themselves to raise money by a regular Tax, for the making provisions for the support and maintenance of the Army, rather than to leave them to free-quarter and to carve for themselves”.

The seizure of York by Newcastle had been a step of the greatest importance. Clarendon says of it:[48] “It cannot be denied that the Earl of Newcastle, by the quick march of his troops, as soon as he had received his commission to be General, and in the depth of winter,”—late autumn would have been more accurate—[72]“redeemed, or rescued the city of York from the rebels, when they looked upon it as their own, and had it even within their grasp; and as soon as he was master of it, he raised men apace”. The Duchess says that he raised from first to last 100,000;[49] but this must surely be an exaggeration—“and drew an army together, with which he fought many battles, in which he had always (the last excepted,) success and victory”—another exaggeration.

Although Newcastle’s seizure of York was of the utmost importance, the King was somewhat premature in thinking that now “the business in Yorkshire” was “almost done”. On 15 December, 1642, he wrote (see Ellis’s Letters, series 3, vol. III, p. 293):—

WILLIAM CAVENDISH, DUKE OF NEWCASTLE.

From an engraving by Wm. Holl, after a painting by Van Dyck.

Something having been said already of Newcastle’s troops and weapons, it may be well to say a little about the General who was in command of them. His contemporaries shall describe him. Clarendon says: “He liked the pomp and absolute authority of a General well, and preserved the dignity of it to the full; and for the discharge of the outward state, and circumstances of it, in acts of courtesy, affability, bounty, and generosity, he abounded, which, in the infancy of war, became him, and made him, for some time, very acceptable to men of all conditions”.

Sir Philip Warwick,[50] a well-known cavalier, who knew Newcastle intimately, bears very similar witness, saying: he “was a gentleman of grandeur, generosity, loyalty, and steady and forward courage”.

Clarendon continues: “But the substantial part, and fatigue of a General, he did not in any degree understand (being utterly unacquainted with war), nor could submit to; but referred all matters of that nature to the discretion of his Lieutenant-General King”. Clarendon then says that when there was a [74]battle he was always present, if it was possible, and that, on such occasions, he “gave instances of an invincible courage and fearlessness in danger, in which the exposing himself notoriously did sometimes change the fortunes of the day, when his troops (had) begun to give way”. But “such actions were no sooner over than he retired to his delightful company, music, or his softer pleasures, to all of which he was so indulgent, and to his ease, that he would not be interrupted upon any occasion soever; insomuch as he sometimes denied admission to the chiefest officers of the army, even to General King himself, for two days together; from whence many inconveniences fell out”. As indeed may easily be imagined.

Sir Philip Warwick supports this evidence. He says that Newcastle’s “edge had too much razor in it; for he had a tincture of a romantic spirit, and had the misfortune to have somewhat of the poet in him.... This inclination of his own and such kind of witty society (to be modest in the expression of it) diverted many counsels, and lost many opportunities, which the nature of that affair”—the campaign in the North—“this great man had now entered into, required.”

CHAPTER VII.

Having said something of the Commander-in-Chief, it may be well to notice his principal officers. King, the Lieutenant-General, whom he placed over his infantry, was a soldier of considerable experience. Clarendon says that he “had exercised the highest commands under the King of Sweden with extraordinary ability and success”. We saw in the last chapter that Newcastle left a great deal to the discretion of King, and, considering our hero’s total inexperience of war, it was probably well that he did so. Some readers of these pages may feel inclined to add: Then probably, also, any merits that were earned by Newcastle’s army were due to King and not to Newcastle. This may, or may not, have been the case; but, if they were due to King, he did not get the credit for them. In fact, the result was the other way about. As everybody knows, Newcastle finally met with disaster, “when,” says Clarendon, “those who were content to spare” Newcastle blame, poured upon the head of the unfortunate General King bitter accusations of “infidelity, treason and conjunction with his country-men” (the Scots), “without the least foundation or ground for any such reproach”. [76]“Throughout the whole course of his life,” he had “been generally reputed as a man of honour”. Elsewhere Clarendon says that, under Newcastle, King “ordered the Foot with great wisdom and dexterity”.

We will notice next the general in command of Newcastle’s cavalry, General Goring, who had obtained that appointment chiefly through the influence of the Queen. When he took it up, he was bitterly chagrined at not having been made Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the North, instead of Newcastle. Goring also owed Newcastle a grudge over the Governorship of the Prince of Wales. Goring had set his hopes upon that appointment, and, as we have seen, Newcastle got it.

Of General Goring, Bulstrode says:[51] “If his conscience and integrity had equalled his wit and courage, he had been one of the most eminent men of the age he lived in: but he could not resist temptations, and was a man without scruple, and loved no man so well, but he would cozen him, and afterwards laugh at him, as he did at the Lord Kimbolton; and of all his qualifications (which were many) dissimulation was his master-piece, in which he so much excelled, with his great dexterity, seeming modesty and unaffectedness, etc.”

Clarendon says[52] that he was a hard drinker, and [77]that “he was not able to resist the temptation, when he was in the middle of” the enemy, “nor would decline it to obtain a victory: as, in one of those fits, he had suffered the horse to escape out of Cornwall; and the most signal misfortunes of his life in war had their rise from that uncontrollable license”. Goring “in truth, wanted nothing but industry (for he had wit, and courage, and understanding, and ambition uncontrolled by any fear of God or man) to have been as eminent and successful in the highest attempt of wickedness, as any man in the age he lived in, or before”.

We come next to a general of a very different character, the general in command of Newcastle’s artillery. It might be expected that a general would be chosen to command artillery on account of his knowledge of guns and their management; but Sir Philip Warwick says that Newcastle chose Davenant as his General of Artillery because he was a poet.

Aubrey has something to tell us about this warbling warrior. He says[53] that Shakespeare stayed “once a yeare” at the public-house kept by Davenant’s father and mother, and the old scandal-monger adds that, “when he was pleasant over a glasse of wine with his most intimate friends,—e.g., Sam Butler (author of Hudibras) etc.”—Davenant would say that he considered he wrote with the very spirit of Shakespeare “and seemed contented enough to be thought his son”. He was very intimate with Newcastle’s [78]friend, Sir John Suckling; and, long after the time with which we are dealing in this chapter, he became Poet Laureate.

Like Goring, Davenant to some extent obtained his appointment by the help of the Queen; for when she sent[54] “over a considerable quantity of military stores, for the use of the Earl of Newcastle’s army, Mr. Davenant came over with them, offered his services to that noble Peer, who was his old friend and patron, and was by him made Lieutenant-General of his Ordnance, to the no small dislike of some, who thought that a post very unfit for a poet; in which, however, they made no great compliment to their General” (Newcastle) “who wrote poems and plays as well as Mr. Davenant”.

To make his staff complete, Newcastle appointed, “The Rev^d. Mr. Hudson,” a “very able Divine,” “Scout Master General of the army,” as we learn from the same authority.

We find the army of the North, therefore, under a Commander-in-Chief who was utterly inexperienced, a General of infantry who had[55] “the unavoidable prejudice, in this conjuncture, of being a Scots-man,” a drunkard for General of cavalry, a poet for General of Artillery, and a very able divine for “Scout Master-General”. What could be expected of a campaign in which, at any critical moment, the Commander-in-Chief might have “retired to his softer pleasures” and refused to see anybody, while one of [79]his Generals might be getting drunk, another, not exactly drunk, but “pleasant with a glass of wine,” reciting his poems or boasting of his illegitimate birth, and a third writing a sermon?

During the winter Newcastle was not idle. The Duchess says: “And though the season of the year might well have invited my Lord to take up his Winter-quarters, it being about Christmas; yet after he had put a good Garison into the City of York, and fortified it, upon intelligence that the Enemy was still at Tadcaster,” a town about eight miles south-west of York, “and had fortified that place, he resolved to march thither”.

The enemy had broken down part of the stone bridge which gave entrance to the town, had planted guns on the remaining part, and had also placed guns on a newly-made fort on a hill, near the town, commanding the road from York. This affair is worthy of notice because, as will presently be seen, it reflects upon the character of Goring, the Lieutenant-General of the Horse.

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“My Lord ... ordered a march before the said Town in this manner: That the greatest part of his Horse and Dragoons should in the night march to a Pass at Weatherby, five miles distant from Tadcaster, towards North-west, from thence under the Command of his then Lieutenant General of the Army, to appear on the West side of Tadcaster early the next morning, by which time my Lord with the rest of his Army resolved to appear at the East-side of the said Town; which intention was well design’d, but ill executed; for though my Lord with that part of the Army which he commanded in person, that is to say, his Foot and Cannon, attended by some Troops of Horse, did march that night, and early in the morning appear’d before the Town on the East side thereof, and there drew up his Army, planted his Cannon, and closely and orderly besieged that side of the Town, and from ten in the morning till four a Clock in the afternoon, battered the Enemies Forts and Works, as being in continual expectation of the appearance of the Troops on the other side, according to his order; yet (whether it was out of Neglect or Treachery that my Lords Orders were not obeyed) that days Work was rendered ineffectual as to the whole Design.”

“Ineffectual” because Goring and his horse did not “appear on the West side of Tadcaster early the next morning”. Consequently the enemy escaped during the night and went “to another strong hold not far distant from Tadcaster, called Cawood-Castle, to which, by reason of its low and boggy Scituation, and foul and narrow Lanes and passages, it was not possible for my Lord to pursue them without too great an hazard to his Army; whereas had the Lieutenant General performed his Duty, in all probability the greatest part of the principal Rebels in Yorkshire would that day have been taken in their own trap, and their further mischief prevented”.

Although Goring is not mentioned by name, in the [81]above account, there can be little doubt that he was the delinquent. We know the name of the Lieutenant-General who commanded “the greatest part of the horse and dragoons”. Whether his conduct was due to drunkenness, or to treachery, or to jealousy of Newcastle, does not appear. The poet, whose guns “battered the enemy’s forts and works,” may have done better than might have been expected on this occasion.

At about this period a very courteous correspondence took place between Newcastle and the younger Hotham. The relations of the Hothams to Newcastle are a matter of history concerning which the Welbeck manuscripts contain many interesting and important details. Only fragments from those manuscripts can be given here.

In December, 1642, Captain John Hotham, Sir John’s son, wrote to Newcastle[56] about an exchange of prisoners, offering to release “as many as the Earl has released, without an exchange”. On the 27th he wrote: “Your free and noble expressions of doing me so many great and real favours shall make me endeavour either to requite them or be extremely thankful for them”.

A few days later he wrote: “With faith and honour to serve the King and the Commonwealth is all our ambition, and to leave that to posterity which our ancestors left us, an untainted name”. And he goes on to [82]“bewail the unhappiness of these distractions, that hinder me from attending upon your Lordship”.

A week afterwards he wrote again to Newcastle: “I honour the King as much as any and love the Parliament, but do not desire to see either absolute conquerors.... If the honourable endeavours of such powerful men as yourself do not take place for a happy peace, the necessitous people of the whole Kingdom will presently rise in mighty numbers and whosoever they pretend for at first, within a while they will set up for themselves, to the utter ruin of all the nobility and gentry of the kingdom.”

We shall presently have occasion to look at some letters from Hotham to Newcastle written three months later. In the meantime several events took place of considerable importance both to Newcastle and to the Hothams.

In some “propositions for peace,” which the Parliament sent to the King in January, 1643, complaints were made at “the raising, drawing together, and arming of great numbers of Papists, under the command of the Earl of Newcastle ... whereby ... the Papists have attained means of attempting, with hopes of effecting, their mischievous designs of rooting out the Reformed Religion, and destroying the professors therefore”. Newcastle had no love for Papists. He simply took into his army any loyal men whom he met with. But the Commons were bent upon his destruction, and one of their “propositions for peace” was that, in any amnesty there should be a special “exception of William, Earl of Newcastle”.

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Although both Clarendon and the Duchess tell us that Newcastle won nearly all his skirmishes in midwinter, 1642-3, there are what profess to be “True Relations” to the contrary among the Thomason Tracts.

“1643. Jan. 2. A True Relation of a Great Victory obtained by Lord Willoughby of Parham against divers forces of the Earl of Newcastle.”

“1643. Jan. 23. A True and Plenary Relation of the defeat given by Lord Fairfax forces unto my Lord of Newcastles forces in Yorkshire.”

In February, 1643, Newcastle was informed that the Queen, having sailed from Holland, would shortly land somewhere on the east coast of Yorkshire, and he was ordered to meet her and to escort her to a place of safety. One would imagine that, at this time, Newcastle must have had more than sufficient worries and anxieties on his mind, without having the care of the Queen’s precious person laid upon his shoulders.

Her Majesty had sailed from Scheveling in a fine English ship, accompanied by eleven transports laden with stores and ammunition for the King; and, as a convoy, she had the protection of the famous Dutch Admiral, van Tromp. After tossing in a storm for a fortnight, she was driven back to Scheveling; but in a few days she sailed again and anchored in Burlington (now Bridlington) Bay, on 20 February.

Two days passed without any symptoms of troops for her protection; so she remained on board; but, [84]on the 22nd, a large body of cavaliers appeared on the hills. Newcastle, who had not known where to expect her to land, had been rambling along the east coast; and, as soon as his scouts brought him news of the arrival of the Queen’s ships, he hastened to Burlington.

Under the protection of Newcastle by land and van Tromp by sea, the Queen landed and got lodgings in the town. On reaching the shores of her husband’s kingdom, she might fairly have expected some peaceful repose after her voyage; but her rest was disturbed at five o’clock the next morning, by the sound of heavy firing.

Five small ships of war, belonging to the Parliament, had entered the bay during the night, unobserved by van Tromp, whose large ship drew too much water to follow them into the bay. It seems absurd that they should have been out of shot of the Dutch guns; but the cannon of that time did not carry far. As the Parliament had voted the Queen guilty of high treason for sending supplies from abroad to the King’s army, Batten, the Parliamentary Admiral, thought this a good opportunity of taking either her person or her life. She wrote to King Charles:[57] [85]“One of these ships had done me the honour to flank my house, which fronted the pier, and before I could get out of bed, the balls were whistling upon me in such style that you may easily believe I loved not such music. Everybody came to force me to go out, the balls beating so on all the houses, that, dressed just as it happened, I went on foot to some distance from the village to the shelter of a ditch like that at Newmarket;[58] but, before we could reach it, the balls were singing round us in fine style and a serjeant was killed within twenty paces of me.” This must have been trying work for a lady, at between five and six o’clock on a February morning, more than an hour before sunrise, on the bleak coast of Yorkshire.

When the Parliamentary ships sailed out of the bay into deep water, on the ebbing of the tide, van Tromp had a word or two with them; but, strange to say, he failed to capture them.

The captain of one of the Parliamentary ships, however, had imprudently ventured on shore, where he was taken prisoner by some of Newcastle’s soldiers. Having been tried by court-martial and condemned to be hanged, he happened to be met by the Queen on his way to execution. She asked what the procession meant and, on being informed, she ordered him to be liberated, when he went over at once to the King’s service. This incident is mentioned in Bossuet’s famous funeral oration after the death of Henrietta Maria.

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CHAPTER VIII.

According to a Yorkshire tradition, recorded by Miss Strickland in her Queens of England (viii. 98), while the Queen’s stores were being laden and put in order of march, she stayed at Boynton Hall, a place some two miles to the west of Burlington or Bridlington, belonging to Sir William Strickland who, although he had received a baronetcy from Charles I was now on the side of the Parliament. Sir William happened to be away from home, but—probably owing to the presence of Newcastle’s troops—the Queen was received as a guest, if only as an enforced guest, by either Lady Strickland, or by whatever person may have been in charge of the house. Among other efforts of hospitality for the benefit of Her Majesty, a great display was made of gold and silver plate.

When the Queen went away, she expressed her excessive gratitude for the excellent entertainment which had been provided for herself and her train, adding that, as the Parliament was granting no subsidies to the King, she regretted to be under the painful necessity of carrying away with her the plate of which there had been such a magnificent display. She said that she should look upon it only as a loan—in fact its temporary removal would be a mere [87]matter of form—and she left a portrait of herself as a pledge for its repayment. There never was any return or repayment; but the portrait is stated to have become, in course of time, at least as valuable as the plate for which it was pledged. So says Miss Strickland who, as one of the family, should have been able to judge; but, in making this calculation, we doubt whether she sufficiently considered the increase in the value of the plate during the same course of time. Silver plate of the reign of Charles I has been sold for as much as £40 an ounce. The writer of these pages has a silver box, given to an ancestress of his own by Charles II, and it was lately valued for insurance, by a professional expert, at £30 an ounce.

The Queen then retired to York, under the protection of Newcastle. The Duchess says:—

“My Lord finding Her Majesty in this condition, drew his Army near the place where she was, ready to attend and protect Her Majesties Person, who was pleased to take a view of the Army as it was drawn up in order; and immediately after, which was in March, 1643, took Her journey towards York, whither the whole Army conducted Her Majesty and brought her safe into the City. About this time, Her Majesty having some present occasion for Money, My Lord presented Her with 3,000£ Sterling, which she graciously accepted”—Charles and Henrietta seldom “graciously refused”—[88]“and having spent some time there in Consultation about the present affairs, she was pleased to send some Armes and Ammunition to the King, who was then in Oxford; to which end, my Lord ordered a Party, consisting of 1500, well commanded, to conduct the same, with whom the Lord Percy, who then had waited upon Her Majesty from the King, returned to Oxford; Which Party His Majesty was pleased to keep with him for his own Service,” much to the loss and inconvenience of Newcastle.

The Queen’s presence did much for the King’s cause in Yorkshire. Some time earlier, Sir Hugh Cholmley had been induced by his friend, Sir John Hotham, to take the side of the Parliament; and, as a reward, he had been made Governor of the Castle of Scarborough, a fortress of considerable importance. But, when the Queen came, says Clarendon, he “very frankly revolted to his allegiance; and waited on Her Majesty for her assurance of her pardon”. He then delivered up the Castle of Scarborough to Newcastle, who reinstated him as Governor of it, on behalf of the King. It may be worth mentioning that Clarendon says Cholmley had[59] “oftener defeated the Earl of Newcastle’s troops ... than any other officer of those parts”.

The Queen wrote, in a letter to Charles I, on 20 March, 1643: “Sir Hugh Cholmley is come in with a troop of horse to kiss my hand; the rest of his people he left at Scarborough, with a ship laden with arms, which the ships of the Parliament had brought thither. So she is ours.”

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To some extent, the propinquity of the Queen was also influencing the Hothams; although they hesitated to follow the example of Cholmley by delivering up Hull to Newcastle. Sir Philip Warwick says[60]:—

“The Queen presently after landed at Burlington Bay with good provision of arms, ordnance, and ammunition, and was by the Earl of Newcastle conveyed to York; and she so influenced Sir Hugh Cholmley, who commanded the port of Scarborough for the Parliament, and old Sir John Hotham and his son, who commanded Hull, that important garrison; that had she been as successful in the last as she was in the first, the whole North had been cleared, and that undoubtedly would have turned the scale upon the South, and restored his Majesty unto his just rights, the people unto their true liberties, and the nation unto its former profound peace. But Hotham’s timorous temper betrayed himself and the design.”

Cholmley immediately became very active in the King’s service; and, to some extent by his assistance, Newcastle obtained command of almost the whole of Yorkshire. The younger Hotham at about this time explained the position of himself and his father to Newcastle, in the following letters:—

“Captain John Hotham to the Earl of Newcastle.[61]

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“1643. Mar. 22. I have sent this other letter to excuse me for not granting Sir Marmaduke Langdale a safe conduct, and, to deal freely with your Lordship, he shall never have one from me, I know him too well. For a letter to the Queen, that I will certainly come in and at such a time, I cannot do it. This enclosed you may show her, if you please, or burn, for your Lordship knows that I ever said to you that I would do anything which might further his Majesty’s service in the peace of the kingdom, and that if the Parliament did stand upon unreasonable terms with him, I would then declare myself against them and for him, but otherwise to leave my party that I had set up with, and no real cause given that an honest man may justify himself for so doing before God and the world, I would never do it, although I endured all the extremities in the world, for I well knew no man of honour or worth will ever think such a man worthy of friendship or trust. For the prejudice you undergo for not spoiling the East Riding truly you have put an obligation upon me by sparing it thus long, but rather than your Lordship shall suffer anything of prejudice either in your honour or affairs, I shall not desire the thing any longer, but you may take what course you please, and we shall do so for our defense. For Sir Hugh Cholmley and his manner of coming in, every man must satisfy his own conscience and then all is well! All are not of one mind.” Captain Hotham was intensely jealous of Cholmley but dared not follow his example.

To this letter Newcastle would seem to have sent [91]a civil reply; for within a fortnight, Hotham wrote again:—[62]

“1643. Mar. 30. I thank you for your two letters in which you are pleased so favourably to interpret the actions of your servant, and, if your Lordship knew my real intentions, you would be far from blaming me.... You have got by Sir Hugh Cholmley’s turning, when he could give no reason for it, but an old castle,” [Scarborough] “which will cost you more keeping than it is worth: his captains and soldiers are all here and have left him naked enough.”

One would infer from the next letter that Newcastle had written too hopefully to the Hothams about the probability of a renewal of their allegiance to the King, and that, in retaliation, Captain Hotham was trying to shake the allegiance of Newcastle himself, by telling him that he was distrusted by the Royalists.

“Captain John Hotham to the Earl of Newcastle.[63]

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Newcastle was evidently disturbed in his mind by this very disagreeable news, as well he might be; for he must have sent immediately to Hotham asking for fuller particulars. A couple of days after the preceding letter, Captain Hotham sent him these details:—

“The words were these: ‘that you were a sweet General, lay in bed until eleven o’clock and combed till twelve, then came to the Queen, and so the work was done, and that General King did all the business’. They were spoken by my Lady Cornwallis in the hearing of Mr. Portington, a fellow cunning enough; and this to my father and another gentleman with many other words of undervaluing, which he said were spoken by others.... You can expect nothing at Court: truly the women rule all.... You have now done great service; that will be forgotten when they think they can shift without you.”

How far Hotham may have been perfectly honest and sincere in his correspondence with Newcastle it is difficult to determine. That there was a good deal of truth in what he said as to Newcastle having enemies among the Royalists and the rumours of his living a too easy and luxurious life in a campaign, and [93]leaving the work of the Commander-in-Chief to General King, is made probable by certain statements which we have already seen in the words of Clarendon. But both the Hothams were anxious to be on the winning side; they were doubtful as to which side that would be, and it seems likely that, in spite of all the high-sounding professions in the letters of the younger Hotham, the motives of both the father and the son were personal rather than patriotic.

Later in the same month, Hotham appears to have been trying to bring about peace, by interesting some of the leading supporters of the Parliament, with whom he came in contact, in favour of the King. On 14 April he wrote to Newcastle from Lincoln: “I have not been idle since I writ last to do his Majesty and your Lordship the best service I could, although to bring that about I was glad to go seemingly by the contrary. I have since I came into this town dealt with some of my friends that they would not be so violent against his Majesty’s service, and was bold (enough) to promise them a pardon if they would retire and give way, that this country might be wholly at his devotion. The gentlemen are so considerable that of my knowledge, if they desist, there shall not be a man here to hold up his hand against his Majesty.” This was very cheering news for Newcastle and was almost enough to make him fancy that the end of the campaign was in sight.

On 4 May Captain Hotham wrote to Newcastle: [94]“I think you are mistaken in my father, for the reason of his standing a little aloof is, that he so infinitely wishes the peace of the kingdom, which he thinks the King’s last answer tends not to, that I know staggered him much.... It was said from a good hand that the Queen thought much you did not enough communicate with her and take her directions.... I confess I am in a very great strait in these businesses, your Lordship’s wisdom can best give directions in it.”

Yet the very next day Captain Hotham wrote with others to Lenthall about joining his forces to those of Cromwell. This, however, may have been with the object of throwing dust in the eyes of the Parliament; and it is the more likely because the Parliament itself seems to have thought that something of this sort was his object. Whitelock says:—[64]

“Captain Hotham, being suspected by the Parliament, was imprisoned at Nottingham, from whence escaping, he under-hand treated with the Earl of Newcastle.”

We may as well dispose of the Hothams once for all; albeit to do so will make it necessary to anticipate considerably beyond the period of Newcastle’s campaign with which we are now dealing. Although long, the following statement of the whole affair of the Hothams by Sir Hugh Cholmley is worth reading, especially as the writer had been on intimate terms both with the Hothams and with Newcastle. Yet it may be that the statement should be taken cum grano [95]salis; as Cholmley probably felt considerable resentment towards the Hothams for regarding him as a base renegade from the Parliamentary cause in which he had at one time shown so much zeal.

“An Original, endorsed by Clarendon ‘Sir Hugh Cholmley’s Memorials’.[65]

“If Sir John Hotham could have been assured of what he had done or said in Parliament, and received into grace and favour,”—Cholmley seems to mean: If he could have been assured that what he had said in Parliament in the past would have been forgiven him and that he would be received into grace and favour by the King—“he might have been made a faithful and serviceable person; the denying of which (or at least answering it coldly) was a great motive to his undertaking that employment at Hull....

“Sir John Hotham, when he departed from London, gave assurance to some of his nearest friends, that he would not deny the King entrance into Hull, and surely had not done it, but that he was informed by some person near the King, in case he permitted his Majesty entrance, he would lose his head; and it is conceived the same person did most prompt the King to go to Hull....

“The Earl of Newcastle had not been long with his forces in Yorkshire, when there began a treaty between him and young Hotham; whom together with his father they sought to draw to the King’s party.

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Sir Marmaduke Langdale, a great friend of young Hotham’s,[66] was the mover between him and the Earl; and this was sooner laid hold on, in that the Lord Fairfax was now made a General for the Parliament of the forces of Yorkshire, and some adjacent counties; which discontented old Hotham, and though the son had as much as in reason he could expect (and more than fell to his share), being made Lieutenant General to Fairfax, yet he was not well pleased.

“The Queen’s army coming to Bridlington had brought such a magazine of arms and ammunition, my Lord of Newcastle’s army began to be very formidable and young Hotham having retired himself (and those forces which belonged to him and his father) from the Lord Fairfax, and being then at Beverley, began to have fresh notions of treating; and thereupon makes a journey for one night to the Earl at Bridlington, upon colour and pretences of a change of prisoners; there he demanded his father to be made a Viscount, and himself a Baron, that they might have £20,000 in money, and a Patent to the father to be Governor of Hull during his life”;—this was, indeed, the very converse of the system of purchasing peerages mentioned in an early chapter—“all which, as it would have been granted, so probably accepted, but that in this nick of time, Sir John received some assurance of the Scots coming into England, and that young Hotham (by his alliance and friendship with the Wrays) was chosen General [97]of Lincolnshire; yet both parties made this advantage by the treaty, that as the Lord Newcastle forebore to come near Hull and Beverley, so young Hotham, though he had above 1,000 horse and dragoons, did not interrupt the Lord Newcastle’s march from Bridlington; which might easily have been done, his army being over-charged with baggage, and the season so tempestuous that his forces were very much dispersed.

“Immediately after this young Hotham goes to be General for the Parliament in Lincolnshire, so that the treaty was off the hinge, till such time as he was laid hold of at Nottingham by Cromwell, which the father did so much resent as he did not only write to the close committee in a menacing style for his son’s enlargement, but was otherwise so passionate in words and deportment that it gave the Parliament a great suspicion of him.... In the interim young Hotham breaks loose from Cromwell, and comes to Hull where the father and son think it very opportune to renew the treaty with my Lord of Newcastle; and thereupon Sir John writes that letter, which was after (at the battle of York) taken in my Lord’s cabinet,” i.e. Newcastle’s, “and cost both the Hothams their heads.”...

It is a matter of English history that Sir John Hotham and his son were arrested, imprisoned for many months in London, tried, and beheaded. And it is a somewhat remarkable fact—journalists would call it “the irony of fate”—that Sir John Hotham, [98]who had been one of the first to express a wish in Parliament for proceedings against Archbishop Laud, should have been executed a few days before that Archbishop. Possibly a knowledge of this fact may have helped to mitigate the sadness of the last days of Laud.

During the months dealt with in a portion of the present chapter;—to be exact, on the 17th of April, 1643,—Newcastle lost his first wife. It is scarcely possible that he can have been with her when she died; but of her illness and death, the collector of these historical odds and ends has been unable to discover any details.

CHAPTER IX.

In April Newcastle learned that the enemy’s General of cavalry was going to leave Cawood Castle for the west of Yorkshire; so he dispatched Goring, with a strong body of horse, to attack him on his march. Goring, a really able General when sober, overtook the Parliamentary cavalry and surprised their rear by a sudden charge, at Bramham Moor, or, as it was sometimes called, Seacroft Moor, and completely routed them, although their numbers were greater than his and in spite of their being under the command of Fairfax himself. If the Duchess’s story is true, Goring’s Horse killed many of the enemy, and took about 800 prisoners whom, with ten or twelve colours, they carried to York.

Lord Fairfax wrote[67] of this engagement: “Here our men, thinking themselves secure, were more careless in keeping order; and, whilst their officers were getting them out of houses where they sought for drink (it being an extream hot day)”—apparently it was one of the enemy’s drunken days and one of Goring’s sober days—“the enemy got, by another way into the Moore, as soon as we,” and then he [100]candidly acknowledges the complete rout. Indeed he says: “Some officers, with me, made our retreat with much difficulty”.

This was an important victory to the credit of Goring; but the glory of his surprising Fairfax in April was sadly tarnished in May by his being surprised in his turn by Fairfax. Newcastle had taken Wakefield in April and had left it under the protection of Goring and his Horse. The enemy quietly approached and entered that town at night. Night is usually a bad time, and a town a bad place, for a drunkard: be this as it may, Goring was taken prisoner with most of his men and horses, and the enemy “possessed themselves of the whole Magazine, which was a very great loss and hindrance to my Lords designs, it being the Moity of his Army, and most of his Ammunition”.[68]

Fairfax wrote:[69] “This appeared the greater mercy, when we saw our mistake; for we found three thousand men in the town, and expected but half the number.... This was more a miracle than a victory.”

Pious Royalists, on the contrary, would probably attribute their own defeat to the machinations of the devil; and the impious modern reader may possibly consider the victory, on Fairfax’s own showing, rather a fluke.

Some time afterwards Newcastle recovered Goring by an exchange of prisoners; but the defeat at Wakefield very seriously hampered him.

[101]

Shortly before the disaster at Wakefield, Newcastle had taken Rotherham by storm, and Sheffield without opposition. Early in June he stormed and took Howly House, a place which the Duchess describes as “a strong stone house, well fortified ... wherein was a garrison of soldiers, which My Lord summoned, but the Governor disobeying the summons, he battered it with his cannon, and so took it by force”. She gives Newcastle great credit for his extraordinary humanity in not killing the Governor in cold blood, after the place had been captured.

The King was now becoming very nervous and he wished for Newcastle’s help. On 18 June, 1643, the Queen wrote to Newcastle from Newark: “The King is still expecting to be besieged in Oxford.... He had sent me a letter to command you absolutely to march to him, But I do not send it to you, since I have taken a resolution with you that you remain. There is a gentleman, Lieutenant Markham, who has received from you a letter, so angry, that I thought it could not be from you, so that I have commanded him to remain, and I hope that he will not be punished for it, moreover ... since I am yet good-natured enough not to send you your order from the King to march to him, you, on your part, must not punish one who stays by order of the Queen.... Your constant and faithful friend, Henrietta Maria.” [70]

This letter shows the conveniences likely to follow [102]from allowing a lady to meddle in the conduct of a campaign.

Newcastle let his army rest at Howly House for five or six days. He then marched towards Bradford, “a little, but a strong town”.

Very unexpectedly, Newcastle “met with a strong interruption” on his march to the “little” town of Bradford; for the enemy had “very privately gotten out of Lancashire” “a vast number of Musquetiers,” and, as all the country about Bradford sympathized with the Parliament, Newcastle was unable to obtain intelligence of the movements of his foes. Newcastle’s greatest victory was to be won in the battle which followed and the Duchess shall act as our War Correspondent—by no means an inefficient one on this occasion.

Although written of as Alderton and Atherton and Adderton, the name of the scene of this battle is now spelt Adwalton Moor. It is immediately to the right of Drighlinton Station, on the branch line from Ardsley Junction to Bradford.

The Duchess begins by saying that in Fairfax’s “Army there were near 5000 Musquetiers, and 18 Troops of Horse, drawn up in a place full of hedges, called Atherton-moor, near to their Garison at Bradford, ready to encounter my Lord’s Forces, which then contained not above half so many Musquetiers as the Enemy had; their chiefest strength consisting in Horse, and these made useless for a long time together by the Enemies Horse possessing all the [103]plain ground upon that Field; so that no place was left to draw up my Lords Horse, but amongst old Coalpits; Neither could they charge the Enemy, by reason of a great ditch and high bank betwixt my Lord’s and the Enemies Troops, but by two on a breast, and that within Musquet shot; the Enemy being drawn up in hedges, and continually playing upon them, which rendered the service exceeding difficult and hazardous.

“In the mean while the Foot of both sides on the right and left Wings encounter’d each other, who fought from Hedg to Hedg, and for a long time together overpower’d and got ground of my Lords Foot, almost to the invironing of his Cannon; my Lords Horse (wherein consisted his greatest strength) all this while being made, by reason of the ground, incapable of charging; at last the Pikes of my Lords Army having had no employment all the day, were drawn against the Enemies left wing, and particularly those of my Lords own Regiment, which were all stout and valiant men, who fell so furiously upon the Enemy, that they forsook their hedges, and fell to their heels: At which very instant my Lord caused a shot or two to be made by his Cannon against the Body of the Enemies Horse, drawn up within Cannon shot, which took so good effect, that it disordered the Enemies Troops.

[104]

“Hereupon my Lord’s Horse got over the Hedg, not in a body (for that they could not), but dispersedly two on a breast; and as soon as some considerable number was gotten over, and drawn up, they charged the Enemy, and routed them; so that in an instant there was a strange change of Fortune, and the Field totally won by my Lord, notwithstanding he had quitted 7000 Men, to conduct Her Majesty, besides a good Train of Artillery, which in such a Conjuncture would have weakned Caesars Army. In this Victory the Enemy lost most of their Foot, about 3000 were taken Prisoners, and 700 Horse and Foot slain, and those that escaped fled into their Garison at Bradford, amongst whom was also their General of the Horse, Sir Thos. Fairfax.”

Fairfax, after stating that the Royalist troops had been on the very point of retreating, goes on to say:[71] “Whilst they were in this wavering condition, one Colonel Skirton”—a Colonel in Newcastle’s army—“desired his General to let him charge with a stand of Pikes, with which he broke in upon our men; and, they not being relieved by our reserves (which were commanded by some ill-affected officers, chiefly Major General Gifford, who did not his part as he ought to do), our men lost ground which the enemy seeing, pursued this advantage, by bringing up fresh troops; ours being discouraged, began to fly and were soon routed.”

Heath says:[72] [105]“The Marquess of Newcastle ... routed the Parliamentarians, gained their five pieces of cannon, and so amazed them, that they fled to Leeds, which way was precluded and obstructed; then to Bradford, in their flight whither, he took and killed two thousand, while Fairfax hardly escaped to Leeds with the convoy of one troop of horse. The next day the said Earl came before Bradford, which after the battering of forty great shot, he took, with two thousand more of the same party the next morning, with all their arms and ammunition.”

After the battle of Adderton Heath, Newcastle had an opportunity of showing courtesy to Fairfax,[73] “whose Lady being behind a Servant on Horse-back, was taken by some of My Lord’s Soldiers, and brought to his Quarters, where she was treated and attended with all civility and respect and within few days sent to York in my Lords own Coach, and from thence very shortly after to Kingstone upon Hull, where she desired to be, attended by my Lords Coach and Servants”.

Of this incident Fairfax himself wrote:[74] “Not many days after the Earl of Newcastle sent my wife back again in his coach, with some horse to guard her; which generous act of his gained him more reputation than he would have got by detaining a lady prisoner, upon such terms”.

Although he had captured his enemy’s wife, Newcastle unfortunately failed to capture his enemy’s far more important staff, owing to some dilatoriness on [106]the part of a galloper,[75] “the chief Officers retiring to Hull, a strong Garison of the Enemy ... My Lord, knowing they would make their escape thither, as having no other place of refuge to resort to, sent a Letter to York to the Governour of that City, to stop them in their passage; yet by neglect of the Post, it coming not timely enough to his hands, his Design was frustrated.”

Newcastle had taken Lincoln and retaken Gainsborough, which had been captured shortly before by Cromwell; so altogether, at this part of the campaign, he was a victorious General.

It might seem pretty safe to infer that the Duchess’s account of the war was written from what she heard from her husband’s lips, and it is difficult to believe that he did not insist upon seeing it, either in manuscript or in proof, before it was published. If this surmise be correct, he intended, at the point in the campaign which we have now reached, to have gone to the South, so as to attack the enemy from the North, while the King fought them from the South. Ever afterwards he appears to have believed that, had he done so, he “would doubtless have made an end of the war”. But urgent requests reached him from the General in command at York, as well as from “the nobility and gentry” of the county, to return at once to their assistance, as they declared that the enemy was increasing in number and power every day. His General at York stated [107]that, unless Newcastle came quickly, all would be lost in the North. Hints also reached him, that if he took his army to the South and left Yorkshire to its fate, he would be considered to have betrayed his trust.

Newcastle then hurried back to York, only to find the enemy so weak, that it retreated before him wherever he went, and his presence as well as that of his troops unnecessary.

The question presents itself whether Newcastle would have been wise to march to the South, leaving such a fortress as Hull behind him, a fortress very strongly garrisoned and containing many of Fairfax’s best officers. It is true that the younger Hotham had professed some sympathy with the Royalists, but neither he nor his father had shown any definite symptoms of deserting the Parliament. On the other hand, it might be argued that it would have been worth while to lose Yorkshire and the northern counties, if by co-operation Newcastle’s army and the King’s could have completely conquered the southern counties, subdued London, and broken the power of the Parliament.

In the early autumn of 1643, King Charles made Newcastle a Marquess. This advance in the peerage was of course an acknowledgment of his military services, and had nothing whatever to do with any purchase of the title by such a gross thing as filthy lucre: at the same time it is difficult to forget that the new Marquess had probably spent more in hard cash [108]out of his own pocket for the King in raising his army than would have been necessary to buy the title in the ordinary heraldic market.

The gentlemen of Yorkshire were very uneasy at the presence of the recently-mentioned strong garrison in the south-east corner of their county, at Hull, and they besought Newcastle to lay siege to it and crush it, once for all, promising to raise 10,000 men to help him if he would make the attempt, a promise which was never fulfilled. Newcastle consented to their request, marched to Hull and besieged it.

The defence of Hull under Lord Fairfax was a very different thing from what it would have been if the wavering, half-Royalist Sir John Hotham had still been in command. But Hotham had lately been arrested and taken to the Tower. Newcastle threw up a good many batteries and fired red-hot shot into the town. Fairfax replied to Newcastle’s fire with water, by cutting dykes on the Hull and Humber, thus flooding the invaders, their batteries, their guns, their red-hot shot, and their camps.

And now, again, the question of marching to the assistance of the royal army in the South of England was urged upon Newcastle. According to Clarendon, while he was besieging Hull—and he besieged it for six weeks—the King ordered him,[76] if he thought he could not take it quickly, to leave sufficient troops to invest it, and to march with the remainder of his army [109]through Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Essex towards London, which Charles would then approach from the opposite side.

Charles also told the Queen to press Newcastle on this point—evidently he had not much confidence in the power of his own commands! She wrote to Newcastle: “He” (the King) “had written me to send you word to go into Suffolk, Norfolk or Huntingdonshire. I answered him that you were a better judge than he of that, and that I should not do it. The truth is that they envy your army.” [77]

Newcastle sent a reply back to the King, telling him that “he had not strength enough to march and to leave Hull securely blocked up,” and that the gentlemen of Yorkshire, “who had the best regiments and were among the best officers, utterly refused to march till Hull were taken”. This shows the state of discipline among the King’s faithful officers at this period.

Besides Clarendon’s account of the King’s attempt to draw Newcastle to the South, we have that of Sir Philip Warwick, who acted as Charles’s envoy in this business:—[78]

[110]

“The King, finding by these experiences in the South, how tough the business was likely to prove, sent me some time before into the North to the Earl of Newcastle. My commission was, (for I had but three or four words under the King’s hand, written on a piece of white sarsanet to give me credit with him) to try what he meant to do with his army; and whether he would (when the season was) march up Southerly and in a distinct body keep at some distance from the King, to give a check unto the Southern army. But I found him very averse to this, and perceived that he apprehended nothing more than to be joined to the King’s army, or to serve under Prince Rupert; for he designed himself to be the man that should turn the scale, and to be a self-subsisting and distinct army, wherever he was, which, when I perceived fixed in him, being left to discretion, I thought it more reasonable to wave it, than press him to the contrary.... He told me that, when he could quit Yorkshire, and leave it in a condition to defend itself against the aforementioned enemies in it, he would march through Lincolnshire and recruit himself there, and so over the Washes into Norfolk and Suffolk and the associated counties; which had been a noble design.” After mentioning a disaster which later on befell Newcastle and the prospects of King Charles, Warwick adds: “which if he had pursued that design of marching into their associated counties, it had prevented; so as he had a natural foresight, from whence his danger should arise; but not a good angel or genius to divert it”.

It was all very well for Newcastle to talk about his projects when he should be able to quit Yorkshire and leave it in a condition to defend itself; but very soon he was not in a position to do either.

[111]

On 10 October, Manchester, Fairfax, and Cromwell defeated a force which Newcastle had collected in Lincolnshire. According to Whitelock,[79] “The Earl of Manchester took in Lincoln upon surrender, and therein 2500 armes, 30 colours, 3 pieces of cannon”. The same authority states that: “The Lord Fairfax beat from about Hull part of the King’s,” i.e. Newcastle’s, “forces, took from them 9 pieces of cannon, of which one was a demy-culverin, one of those which they called ‘the Queen’s Gods,’ and 100 arms.... Colonel Cromwell routed 7 troops of the King’s horse in Lincolnshire under Colonel Hastings.” Newcastle was then obliged to raise the siege of Hull, much to the disappointment and alarm of the “nobility and gentlemen of Yorkshire”; and he marched back to York.

Of the state of the war after this event Clarendon says:[80] “Albeit the Marquis of Newcastle had been forced to rise as unfortunately from Hull, as the King had been from Gloucester, yet he had still a full power over Yorkshire, and a greater in Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire than the Parliament had”. The latter part of this statement is rather surprising when we consider the recent defeat of Newcastle’s forces in Lincolnshire.

In ending this chapter we will notice a letter from the Queen to Newcastle, written on 7 October, just before he raised the siege of Hull, in which the old [112]matter of the Governorship of the Prince crops up again.[81]

“There is one thing about which I want to be informed by you before doing it. The Marquis of Hertford desires to be made groom of the stole to the King. If that be, he must cease to be governor to Prince Charles, so that we must place some one else about Prince Charles, which I do not wish to do, without first knowing whether you wish to have it again.” Presently she says (if he does not wish for it again): “there are two other places and I desire to know which would be most agreeable to you, for I have nothing in my thoughts so much as to show you and all the world the esteem in which I hold you, therefore write frankly to me, as to a friend, as I am now doing to you, which you desire;—chamberlain, or gentleman of the bedchamber. If I had chosen to act ceremoniously, I should have had this written to you by another, that is all very well where there is no esteem, such I have for you; and as this is written with frankness, I request a reply of the same, and that you believe me, as I am, truly and constantly,

“Your faithful and very good friend,

“Henrietta Maria R.”

William Cavindish Marquis of Newcastle.

From an Original by Van Dyck.

His Seals & Autographs from the original Letters in the Possession of
John Thane

[113]

CHAPTER X.

Newcastle had not been many days in York, when he heard a rumour that the enemy was advancing from the South into Derbyshire, and he marched thither at once, that is to say early in November, 1643. He posted some troops in different parts of the county, and fortunately he met with no serious opposition. On the contrary, he was able to raise a considerable force both of cavalry and of infantry. The rumour of the advance of an army from the South proved groundless, and he went peacefully to his own houses of Bolsover and Welbeck, where he stayed for a little time, making them his winter quarters.

Unfortunately, the pleasures of his hearth and home were marred by the arrival of some very unwelcome information,[82] namely, that the Scots were about to invade England with a large army, which was to fight on the side of the Parliament. This was serious news, indeed, to the Commander-in-Chief of the Royalist army in the North of England, which would necessarily be called upon to check the invasion.

“At this time,” [83] we read in Clarendon, [114]“nothing troubled the King so much as the intelligence he received from Scotland, that they had already formed their army, and resolved to enter England in the winter season.... The circumstance of the time made the danger of the invasion the more formidable; for the Earl of Newcastle, lately created a Marquis, had been compelled with his army, as much by the murmours and indisposition of his officers, as by the season of the year, to quit his design upon Hull, and to retire to York.” Clarendon adds that the garrison at Hull had “made many strong infalls into the country and defeated some of his” (Newcastle’s) “troops”.

The report of the expected advance of an army from Scotland greatly alarmed the nervous “nobility and gentry of Yorkshire,” who sent to implore Newcastle to return to their assistance, once more promising to raise 10,000 men to strengthen his army. Newcastle marched back to York,—not to please the nobility and gentry of that county, who had promised, and yet failed to provide, a force of 10,000 men for him, on a former occasion—but because it was necessary to proceed to York on his way North against the Scots. When he reached York, he found that the nobility and gentry had not raised so much as a single man to add to his army. Therefore he had himself to raise what men he could for the defence of the county, when he was actually on his march towards the North against the enemy.

The military situation was now greatly changed. Hitherto the Parliamentary army had lain between the [115]King in the South and Newcastle in the North. If Hull could have been taken and its garrison captured, Newcastle would have marched to the South and the army of the Parliament would soon have been attacked on both sides at once. Now, on the contrary, it was Newcastle who was likely to be attacked on both sides at once, by the Scots from the North and by Fairfax from the South.

On 19 January, 1644, the Scottish army of 21,000 men crossed the border and Newcastle marched to the city from which he took his title. He came there in February, and on the 13th he wrote[84] to the King, announcing his arrival there, and stating that he had had to march his army through thawing snow and floods. He added that, the day after his arrival, the Scots attacked the town; but that the town’s soldiers were very faithful and drove the enemy a mile from its walls. He lamented that he would not be able to take more than 5000 foot and 3000 horse into the field, or 8000 in all, against the enemy’s 20,000 or more; and he complained of want both of arms and of ammunition.

According to the Duchess, the Scottish General was ignorant of Newcastle’s arrival, expected no opposition, consequently approached the town incautiously and was repulsed with considerable loss. She writes as to what immediately followed:—

[116]

“The Enemy being thus stopt before the Town, thought fit to quarter near it, in that part of the Country; and so soon as my Lords Army was come up, he” (i.e., Newcastle) “designed one night to have fallen into their Quarter; but by reason of some neglect of his Orders in not giving timely notice to the party designed for it, it took not an effect answerable to his expectation. In a word, there were three Designs taken against the Enemy, whereof if one had but hit, they would doubtless have been lost; but there was so much Treachery, Jugling and Falshood in my Lord’s own Army” (were the poets and the divines quarrelling?) “that it was impossible for him to be successful in his Designs and Undertakings. However, though it failed in the Enemies Foot-Quarters, which lay nearest the Town; yet it took good effect in their Horse Quarters, which were more remote; for my Lord’s Horse, Commanded by a very gallant and worthy Gentleman”—can this have been the reinstated Goring?—“falling upon them, gave them such an Alarm, that all they could do, was to draw into the Field, where my Lord’s Forces charged them, and in a little time routed them totally, and kill’d and took many Prisoners, to the number of 1500.”

Whitelock gives a slightly different account of this affair. [117]“The Scots besieged Newcastle, and took a main outwork, and beat back the enemy sallying out upon them. The Marquess of Newcastle being in the town, burnt a hundred houses in the suburbs; the inhabitants clamour against him. Seven of the Parliamentary frigates lay in the mouth of the haven to stop their passage by seas. The Marquess ordered the firing of the coal-mines, but that was prevented by General Leslie’s surprising of all the boats and vessels.”

The Scots withdrew; but they went Southwards and got into Newcastle’s rear. Both armies manœuvred against each other in various parts of the county of Durham, for some time, without coming into actual collision, the Scots seeming anxious to avoid an engagement; indeed their failure to take an immediate initiative with their large preponderance in numbers was the cause of much discontent and grumbling among the supporters of the Parliament in London.

On more than one occasion, we have seen the King desiring that Newcastle should march his army to the support of that in the South. The tables were now turned. On 16 February, Newcastle wrote to Charles, urging him to send troops to the North against the powerful Scottish army, and expressing a strong opinion that, unless reinforcements were sent thither, and sent very speedily, the King would be in danger of losing his crown.

Some desultory fighting took place in the beginning of March, of which Newcastle gave an account to the King; and, as a specimen of his military dispatches, parts of it shall be given here. They can be read, or skipped at the reader’s pleasure.[85]

(Dispatch communicating the doings of the army under the Marquis of Newcastle to the King.) It is headed [118]“A True relation of all the observable passages that have happened in these (northern) parts since my last to your Majesty; with the reason of the impossibility of making good the Tyne against the Scots.... Sir Thos. Riddell sent about 50 musketeers from Tynemouth Castle to destroy some corn in the enemies’ quarters, from whence they were drawn out, as he was informed: But it seems his intelligence betrayed them to the enemy and about 45 of them were taken prisoners, who being carried to Leslie (Earl of Leven) he sent them to me as a token, and I returned him thanks for his civility, with this answer, that I hoped very shortly to repay that debt with interest, which I did in a few days.”

[119]

“Colonel Dudley from his quarters about Prudhoe marched over the river with some horse and dragoons and fell into a quarter of the enemy’s in Northumberland, and slew and took all that was in it, 55 prisoners, and gave such an alarum to four of their quarters that they quitted them in disorder and with some loss; in which (skirmish) we should have suffered no loss at all, had not Colonel Brandling been taken prisoner through the unfortunate fall of his horse; and Colonel Dudley perceiving a greater force preparing to assult him, retreated, and in his retreat took 8 of the Scots prisoners, both horses and men, but they took 4 of his dragoons, whose horses were so weak they could not pass the river.... Upon Wednesday the 6th inst. at one o’clock afternoon our first troops passed Newbridge, and a while after the enemy appeared with some horse; when they advanced toward us with more than they first discovered, after some bullets had been exchanged, and they appeared again in greater force, we backed our party with Lord Henry (Percy’s) regiment,—Lieutenant Colonel Schrimsher (Scrimegour) commanding them—being part of Colonel Dudley’s brigade, with which he drew up after them, with whom also we sent some musketeers; which caused the enemy that day to look upon us at a farther distance.”

It would appear much to Newcastle’s credit that he was able to manœuvre for some time against an army nearly three times the size of his own, were it not doubtful whether the credit was not due to King (Lord Ethyn), to whom he is known to have left much of the work which should properly have been done by himself. As to his other generals they seem to have been Newcastle’s chief source of weakness. Here is a story of disaster told by the Duchess:—

“A great misfortune befel My Lords Forces in Yorkshire; for the Governour whom he had left behind with sufficient Forces for the defence of that Country, although he had orders not to encounter the Enemy, but to keep himself in a defensive posture; yet he being a man of great valour and courage, it transported him so much that he resolved to face the Enemy, and offering to keep a Town that was not tenable, was utterly routed, and himself taken prisoner, although he fought most gallantly.”

Of this affair, Whitelock gives a fuller account:—[86]

[120]

The forces of Newcastle were hard pressed throughout their return to York. The Duchess’s account says that Newcastle’s rear had to fight the enemy every day of the journey; but that the retreat was made in excellent order.

News of Newcastle’s retreat to York caused great disappointment among the Royalists at Court, and his enemies took the opportunity of blaming his whole conduct of the war. These complaints were conveyed to him in letters by his friends. Their effect [121] upon him was so great that he lost heart and, as is pretty evident from the following letter, he had written to the King expressing a wish to resign his command.

(MS. Harl., 6988, art. 104. Orig. Entirely in the King’s hand.)

The question presents itself whether the tongues and pens of those who were dissatisfied with New[122]castle’s conduct of the campaign in the North, spoke and wrote with no foundation for dissatisfaction. Perhaps both the blame and the praise which were his due are pretty fairly allotted on one of the pages of Hume:—[88]

Undoubtedly this is true. His own expenditure upon the war was enormous, as the Duchess assures us and as contemporary writers testify; and his personal influence brought many great men, followed by large numbers of their servants, dependants and tenants, into the Royalist army. Again, his “humane behaviour” made him and his army popular in the counties which they occupied, a condition as important as difficult of attainment in a civil war.

Hume continues: [123]“But amidst all the hurry of action, his inclinations were secretly drawn to the soft arts of peace, in which he took delight; and the charms of poetry, music, conversation, often stole him from his rougher occupations. He chose Sir William Davenant, an ingenious poet, for his lieutenant general”—“as one of his lieutenants generals” would have been more accurate—“The other persons, in whom he placed confidence, were more the instruments of his refined pleasures, than qualified for the business which they undertook. And the severity and application, requisite to the support of discipline, were qualities in which he was entirely wanting.”

Very probably these defects were more accountable for Newcastle’s failures than “the juggling, falsehood and treachery in his army and amongst some of his officers” of which his Duchess was fond of complaining. And it is more than likely that Granger was right in saying that Newcastle “was much better qualified for a court than a camp”.[89]

Not the less should it be remembered that Newcastle was vastly outnumbered by his enemy from Scotland and that his troops which he had left in his rear had been defeated by his enemy in the South. Under such conditions even Napoleon would have been in difficulties.

[124]

CHAPTER XI.

Early in the year 1644 five Irish regiments were landed at Mostyn, on the north coast of Wales, to join the Royalist army, and probably that part of it under the command of Newcastle. They were unopposed as they marched through Wales, Chester, and a great portion of the county of Cheshire. But when they reached Nantwich, some seventeen miles to the south-east of Chester, they found it strongly garrisoned. They had not long laid siege to it, when Sir Thomas Fairfax, the son of Lord Fairfax, arrived with a superior force, and, after a stubborn battle of two hours, routed them. Thereupon nearly half of the Irish regiments “turned their coats” and joined the Parliamentary army under Sir Thomas Fairfax, who then, considerably strengthened in numbers, was free to join his forces with those of his father in Yorkshire. This made the position of Newcastle much more precarious. He must have written to the King asking for reinforcements, for Charles replied:—

(MS. Harl., 6988, art. 106. Orig. Entirely in the King’s hand.)

Meanwhile, general interest was concentrated on the war in the South. Essex and Waller, each with a large force, were endeavouring either to enclose the army of the King, or to besiege him in Oxford. Knowing his inferiority in numbers, Charles avoided a battle, and partly by manœuvring, and partly owing to the mutual jealousy of Essex and Waller which prevented them from acting in concert, the King managed to escape them, after fighting one or two unimportant and indecisive actions. His position was now one of great jeopardy, and it was just then that he received the disheartening news of the defeat at Selby and Newcastle’s enforced retreat to York, with his request to be relieved of his command.

At York Newcastle soon found himself closely invested. Our female War Correspondent shall tell us what she knew about it.

[126]

“My Lord being now at York, and finding three Armies against him, viz. the Army of the Scots, the Army of the English that gave the defeat to the Governour of York, and an Army that was raised out of associate Counties,”—this is a little premature; as the army of the Associated Counties did not arrive for several weeks—“and but little Ammunition and Provision in the Town; was forced to send his Horse away to quarter in several Counties, viz. Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, for their subsistence, under the Conduct of his Lieutenant-General of the Horse, My dear Brother, Sir Charles Lucas, himself remaining at York, with his Foot and Train for the defence of that City.” Clarendon, however, says that Newcastle’s object in sending his Lieutenant-General of the Horse (Goring, of course), with a large body of cavalry, was “to remain in those places he should find most convenient, and from whence he might best infest the enemy.” In carrying out these instructions, Goring, at first, not only met with some success, but at the same time raised additional forces on his marches, and money also, as we learn from the following State Paper.[90]

“Proceedings at the Committee of both kingdoms.... To advertise the Earl of Manchester of the great damage done to cos. Leicester, Stafford and those parts, by the Earl of Newcastle’s horse, which, coming from York, have raised 1,000 horse, and £10,000.”

[127]

Lord Newcastle has “now about 3,000 horse and dragoons near Uttoxeter in Staffordshire, which we hear with 1,000 horse might have been wholly prevented. They still increase their force, raise much money, and ruin those that depend on protection from the Parliament.” Evidently Goring, to use an expression of the Duchess, “carved for himself” in the districts in which he was campaigning.

It was as much as Newcastle could do to withstand the siege of York. His biographer says:—

[128]

“The Enemy having closely besiedged the City on all sides, came to the very Gates thereof, and pull’d out the Earth at one end, as those in the City put it in at the other end; they planted their great Cannons against it, and threw in Granadoes at pleasure: But those in the City made several sallies upon them with good success. At last, the General of the associate Army of the Enemy, having closely beleaguer’d the North side of the Town, sprung a Mine under the wall of the Mannor-yard, and blew part of it up; and having beaten back the Town-Forces (although they behaved themselves very gallantly) enter’d the Mannor-house with a great number of their men, which as soon as my Lord perceived, he went away in all haste, even to the amazement of all that were by, not knowing what he intended to do; and drew 80 of his own Regiment of Foot, called the White-Coats, all stout and valiant Men, to that Post, who fought the Enemy with that courage, that within a little time they killed and took 1500 of them; and My Lord gave present order to make up the breach which they had made in the wall; Whereupon the Enemy remain’d without any other attempt in that kind, so long, till almost all provision for the support of the soldiery in the City was spent, which nevertheless was so well ordered by my Lords Prudence, that no Famine or great extremity of want ensued.”

No famine or great extremity, perhaps, for the moment. Nevertheless, Newcastle was becoming very anxious, and, at the least, foresaw both famine and great extremity facing him in the near future. Clarendon tells us that “he sent an express to the King to inform him of the condition he was in”; and to let him know “that he doubted not to defend himself in that post, for the term of six weeks or two months; in which time he hoped his Majesty would find some way to relieve him”. Newcastle was well aware that the King would know of his objection to having his army joined to that of Rupert, an objection proceeding from something near akin to jealousy; so, now that he was in a strait, and practically begging for Rupert’s help, since it was the only help available, he thought it wise to write to Charles “that he hoped his Majesty did believe that he would never make the least scruple to obey the grandchild of King James”.

Charles, in fact, had already sent Prince Rupert northwards with the relief of Newcastle as his ultimate object. Having marched for his quarters at [129]Shrewsbury, Rupert had taken by surprise the strong Parliamentary forces that were investing Newcastle’s garrison at Newark-upon-Trent, in Nottinghamshire, and had compelled them to raise the siege. He had then marched westward and taken Stockport, Bolton, and Liverpool. The message from the King, ordering him to proceed at once to the relief of York, reached him when he had raised the siege of Latham House, which had been gallantly defended by the brave Lady Derby for more than four months.

Like Newcastle, Rupert had enemies at Court: like Newcastle again, he was anxious to be relieved of his command, and this just at the time when Newcastle was asking for his assistance. Once more, as in the case of Newcastle, Rupert’s rivals were urging the King to recall him.

Things were going badly with Newcastle. Whitelock says: “A battery was made at the Windmill-Hill at York, five pieces of ordnance planted, which shot into the town, and did much hurt. The Lord Eglinton, with four thousand Scots, entered some of the gates. A strong party sallying out of the city was beaten back with loss. General Leven with his regiment took a fort from the enemy, and in it 120 prisoners. The garrison burnt up much of the suburbs.”

According to Whitelock,[91] Newcastle made an attempt to leave York. [130]“The Earl of Newcastle, Sir Thomas Widderington, and other chief commanders with a strong party sallied out of the town, endeavouring to escape, but were driven back into the city.” It is most unlikely that Newcastle was “endeavouring to escape” and to desert York in its extremity. The probability is that he was only making a sally upon the enemy’s forces.

Whitelock makes another statement. He says:[92] “The Earl of Newcastle desired a treaty, which was admitted, and he demanded to march away with bag and baggage, and arms, and drums beating, and colours flying, and that all within the town should have liberty of conscience, the Prebends to enjoy their places, to have Common Prayer, organs, surplice hoods, crosses, etc.”

It is almost incredible that in return he would have promised to take no farther part in the war. But even if he and his army were to continue to fight for the King, he would have been offering to surrender the highly important fortress of York. It is far more likely that he was endeavouring to delay the siege operations of the enemy by parleys and negotiations, while awaiting the arrival of Rupert.

His conditions, however, were “denied by the Parliament’s Generals; but they offered the Earl of Newcastle that he and all his commanders should go forth on horseback with their swords and the common soldiers with staves in their hands, and a month’s pay, and all else to be left behind them”.

This obviously meant the disarmament of the troops, which one would have expected Newcastle to have

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instantly refused; but, says Whitelock, “the enemy desired four or five days to consider thereof which was granted,” and this, if true, has an ugly sound. But every day of armistice was of value to Newcastle, when a force was known to be coming to his relief, and he may have seized the opportunity for delay.

Besides the large Scottish army, and the troops under Lord Fairfax, Newcastle was to be besieged before long by the army that had been raised against the King in what were known as the Associated Counties, namely Essex, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, Norfolk, Bedford and Huntingdon. This army had been placed under the command of the Earl of Manchester who, when Lord Kimbolton, had been impeached by Charles at the same time as the Five Members. His General of the Horse—or it might almost be said his second in command—was Oliver Cromwell.

Manchester was a rigid Presbyterian. Warwick says of him:—[93]

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“The Earl of Manchester, formerly known by the name of Lord Kimbolton, was a gentleman of very good parts, and of very good education, both at home and abroad, and of a debonnaire nature, but very facile or changeable.... With all his good nature, or the facility of it, he did as much harm as the worst-natured man could have done. And therefore it was supposed, though he seemed the head, he was but the instrument of Mr. Cromwell, who made great ravage in all those associated counties on the King’s party.”

Cromwell’s character is too well known to need description here; but, as Warwick was with Newcastle, let us hear what he has to say about the most formidable enemy against whom Newcastle ever fought a battle.[94]

“I have no mind to give an ill character of Cromwell; for, in his conversation with me, he was ever friendly; though at the latter end ... he was sufficiently frigid. The first time that ever I took notice of him was in the beginning of the Parliament held in November, 1640, when I vainly thought myself a courtly young gentleman, (for we courtiers valued ourselves much upon our good clothes). I came one morning into the House well clad, and perceived a gentleman speaking (whom I knew not) very ordinarily apparelled; for it was a plain cloth suit, which seemed to have been made by a country tailor; his linen was very plain and not very clean ... his hat was without a band, his stature was a good size, his sword stuck close to his side, his countenance swollen and reddish, his voice sharp and untuneable.... Yet I lived to see this very gentleman, whom out of no ill-will I thus describe, by multiplied good successes, and by real (but usurped) power (having had a better tailor and more converse among good company) ... appear of a great and majestic deportment.”

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“... Whilst I was about Huntingdon, visiting old Sir Oliver Cromwell, his uncle and godfather, at his house at Ramsey, he told me this story of his successful nephew and godson; that he visited him with a good strong party of horse, and that he asked him his blessing, and that, the few hours he was there, he would not keep on his hat in his presence; but, at the same time, he not only disarmed but plundered him; for he took away all his plate.” As we are aware, there was a royal precedent for robbing a host of his plate.

Among the State Papers, there are a good many dispatches from the Parliamentary army in the North at this (to Newcastle) very critical time. The first to be quoted tells us the strength of the force which Rupert was said to be taking to the relief of Newcastle.[95]

“Sir John Meldrum to the Earl of Denbigh.... Sir Thomas Fairfax and Major-General (David) Leslie are in full pursuit of Prince Rupert’s Army, deeply engaged in a country full of difficult passages for ordnance and carriages. Rupert’s forces are divided into two bodies, the Marquis of Newcastle’s horse, not exceeding 3,000 as I am credibly informed, and 100 foot, without ordnance, lying upon the frontiers of Yorkshire, betwixt Woodhead and Stopford; and the Prince himself with 4,000 horse and 7,000 foot, and 14 pieces of ordnance lying about Bolton and Bury, at a great distance from each other.”

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From the following it would appear that Goring must have manœuvred very skilfully to avoid being heavily outnumbered in a battle.[96]

“Selby. The Earl of Manchester to the Committee of both kingdoms ... I can assure you that I took all care to bring on an engagement with the Duke of Newcastle’s horse which came from York, but they would not stay within 20 or 30 miles of where my horse were. The time they employed in plundering about Leicester, most part of my horse were on this side Trent, unable to move by reason of the heavy rains. As soon as they had notice that Major-General Leslie and my horse were moving towards Nottingham, thinking to intercept them in their march northward, they marched in such hot haste toward Uttoxeter that they left great numbers of their horse dead on the highways, passing the Trent at Burton, and so got into Derbyshire. Sir Thos. Fairfax was sent with directions to engage Newcastle’s horse, we having intelligence that they were coming toward Sheffield and Rotherham, but as soon as our horse were within 7 or 8 miles of them, they presently marched into those parts of the country in which it would be very difficult to pursue them.”

Although Goring was not strong enough to engage his enemy at this time, he was doing good service by delaying the juncture of the army of the Associated Counties with the Scottish army before York. But [135]a time came when he could delay that juncture no longer.[97]

“Sir Harry Vane, Junr., to the Committee of both kingdoms Leaguer before York.... It appears to me very evident that if Manchester had not brought up his foot to the siege the business would have been very dilatory, whereas the siege is now made very straight about the city, the Earl’s forces lying on the North side, where they have advanced very near the walls, and are busy in a mine of which we expect a speedy account, if by a treaty we be not prevented. The Scotch forces under Sir James Lumsdale’s (Lumsden’s) command united with those of Lord Fairfax, possess the suburbs at the East side, and are within pistol shot and less of Walmgate.”

In the later part of the same dispatch, Sir Harry Vane notices the “parley” mentioned by Whitelock. He only dwells upon a matter of etiquette, which turned upon the question whether Newcastle did not put Manchester’s name on the direction of a letter, through literal ignorance of his presence, or from a desire to ignore it.

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“On the 9th inst., the Earl of Newcastle sent letters to the Earl of Leven and Lord Fairfax for a parley, not taking notice of the Earl of Manchester being there, but in that respect the treaty was refused and notice sent to Newcastle that unless he directed his letters to all three generals he could have no answer, whereupon letters were sent to all three Generals, and a civil excuse by the omission in regard, as he pretended, he did not know the Earl of Manchester in person had been there.” It is possible the mistake may have been intentional, with the object of again causing a delay.

In June, Newcastle was reported to have had a success of some sort, in which he was said to have lost his life.[98]

“Sir E. Nicholas to Sir Gervase Lucas. Oxford.... It is not believed at London that the Marquis of Newcastle is slain, but they confess the Marquis of Newcastle has given the Scots a good blow.” Possibly this may refer to the occasion on which the Duchess says that her husband “killed and took 1500” of the enemy.

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CHAPTER XII.

Although Newcastle had been anxious to avoid a junction with Rupert as long as possible, lest he should lose some of the credit of defeating the enemy in the North, he had no personal dislike of that General. The two men were on good terms, and they were correspondents. Among the Rupert letters are four from Newcastle, congratulating him on different victories. In one of them he says of those victories that, “as they are too big for anybody else, so they appear too small for his Royal Highness,” and in another that, although Rupert will not allow them to be talked about in his presence, they will be talked about “to posterity, to His Royal Highness’s everlasting fame”.

Early on 1 July, Newcastle heard that Rupert with his army would arrive that very day, and he immediately wrote, and sent to Rupert, the following letter of welcome:—[99]

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“May it please your Highness, you are welcome, sir, so many several ways, as it is beyond my arithmetic to number, but this I know, you are the Redeemer of the North, and the Saviour of the Crown. Your name, sir, hath terrified three great Generals, and they fly before it. It seems their design is not to meet your Highness, for I believe they have got a river between you and them; but they are so nearly gone as there is (no) certainty at all of them or their intentions, neither can I resolve anything, since I am made of nothing but thankfulness and obedience to your Highness’s commands.”

Rupert arrived, as Warwick tells us, “with a very good army, Goring being joined to him with the Northern horse”. It was not without some skilful manœuvring that he was able to effect an entrance into York. Here is his enemy’s account of it:—[100]

According to this account, therefore, it was Rupert who put the river between himself and the enemy, and not the enemy who put the river between themselves and Rupert, as Newcastle had written.

Rupert having effected his juncture with Newcastle, the Parliamentary generals had to consider what should be their next step. It used to be held that a besieging army should be larger than that of the place invested; but the Royalist and the Parliamentary armies were pretty equal in numbers. The most probable decision of the Parliamentary Generals, therefore, would be to retire.

On the other hand, it was a question whether it would be the policy of the Royalist army to force an engagement. With a fortified town at their backs, it might have been under other circumstances; but Newcastle’s men had been much underfed of late, and Rupert’s were wearied by long marches, whereas the Parliamentary forces, although very short of provisions, were better fed than Newcastle’s, nor were they travel-worn like Rupert’s.

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When Rupert went into York, on Monday, 1 July, he took about 2000 horse with him; but he left his foot, his ordnance, and the remainder of his cavalry in camp about five miles to the north of the town.

Newcastle, a dignified man of middle-age, accustomed to respect and deference, had now to receive as his superior officer that impetuous sprig of royalty, Prince Rupert, a youth of 22; and, glad as he was that Rupert had come to his relief, he can scarcely have got rid of all his previous feelings of jealousy. He told Rupert that the enemy had already raised the siege, that the Parliamentary Generals were quarrelling, that there was intense jealousy between the Scotch and the English troops, and that, in all probability, the army from Scotland would separate itself from its English allies, when, if left to themselves, the enemy would disperse in various directions, and would make no further attempts upon York.

Rupert, on the contrary, wanted to attack, stating that he had a letter in his pocket from the King commanding him to give battle to the Parliamentary army and crush it, once for all.[101] Newcastle [141]urged that it would at least be wiser to await the arrival of Colonel Clavering, whom he was momentarily expecting with more than 3000 men, as well as that of 2000 men from the Northern garrisons. With this addition of 5000 men, the Royalist army would have considerably outnumbered that of the Parliament. Besides the reinforcements definitely expected, Newcastle had great hopes of the arrival of Montrose with some troops from Scotland. Rupert replied to Newcastle’s arguments by saying: “Nothing venture, nothing win,” and then he returned to his camp and spent the night there.

Early on the Tuesday morning Rupert was again in York and with Newcastle. Meanwhile there had been as much diversity of opinion between the Parliamentary Generals on the question of fighting or not fighting, as between the Royalist. The English Generals were all for action, the Scotch for a withdrawal to seek some more favourable battle-field, and finally the latter over-persuaded the former.

In the Royalist council of war, Rupert was able to reply to Newcastle’s continued desire for delay until the arrival of the shortly expected reinforcements, by stating that his scouts reported the enemy to be already on the move and that, unless they were attacked that day, they would probably altogether escape a battle.

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Newcastle persisted in his objections to an immediate engagement, while Rupert’s persistence in favour of it never wavered. Heated, if courteous, words are said to have passed between the two Generals—the story that they even came to blows may be safely dismissed as fiction—but finally Newcastle yielded although under strong protest, to the royal authority, saying: “I am ready and willing, on my part, to obey Your Highness, no otherwise than if His Majesty were here in person. Happen what may, I will not shun to fight: for I have no other ambition than to live and die a loyal subject of His Majesty.”

Rupert replied: “My Lord, I hope we shall have a glorious day”.[102] Orders were then given to marshal all the forces into order of battle.

The rear-guard of the Parliamentary army was just preparing to start—the advance-guard was already three miles on its road towards Tadcaster, when a body of Royalist horse appeared, pulled up, and then galloped away. Almost immediately afterwards, between ten and eleven o’clock, 5000 of Rupert’s horse entered [143]upon the moor, near Marston village, where the rebel army had been encamped during the night and a small part of it was still remaining. On hearing of this the Parliamentary Generals thought that Rupert was manœuvring to attack them on their march. If he fell upon their rear it might be fatal, therefore Fairfax sent gallopers on the fastest horses he could find to urge the immediate return of all the Parliamentary troops then on the march.

Marston Moor lies seven miles to the west of York, about half-way between that city and Knaresborough. Although enclosed in 1767, at the time with which we are dealing much of it consisted of a large tract of open moorland, covered with whinbushes and gorse; but there were fields of rye on the southern side. The soil was marshy in some places and sandy in others. A road called Marston Lane crossed it, for about two miles from east to west, and 300 or 400 yards to the north of this lane ran “a great ditch,” almost parallel with it. This ditch separated the moor from some cultivated land.

On the south side, for the most part in some fields of rye, between the road and the ditch, the Parliamentary Generals placed the main body of their troops as they arrived. To the north of the ditch, the part of the moor on which the Royalist troops were gradually assembling, the ground was very flat; but from the road, running from east to west, the ground rises towards the south; and, upon this rising ground, the General of the Scotch ordnance placed twenty-[144]five guns. Behind these guns, and still higher on the incline, the Generals of the Parliamentary army made their head-quarters, near which they posted their wagons and stores.

The arrival and the posting of the troops seems to have been slow on both sides. To distinguish between the two armies, the Cavaliers wore no scarves, and the Puritans wore white paper or white handkerchiefs in their hats; their watchword was “God with us,” while that of the Cavaliers was “God and the King”. “How goodly a sight,” wrote Ash, Lord Manchester’s chaplain, “was this to behold, when two mighty armies, each of which consisted of above 20,000 horse and foot, did, with flying colours prepared for the battle, look each other in the face.”

But afternoon had come on and many of Newcastle’s troops had not yet arrived. More extraordinary still, Newcastle himself had not put in an appearance. Rupert galloped back to York to find out the reason of the delay. There he found that a considerable number of Newcastle’s cavalry were in a state of mutiny, clamouring for their long over-due pay, and openly declaring that they would not leave the city to face the enemy until they got it. Both Rupert and Newcastle “played the orator” to them; but it was only after oft-repeated promises of prompt payment that they yielded and marched out of York so late as nearly five o’clock in the afternoon, with Rupert riding in the rear, and Newcastle, in his state-coach drawn by six horses, following them at a short distance.

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Having once started, the hitherto reluctant cavalry rode rapidly to the front. Rupert had arranged everything for his order of battle before going into York. The accounts of that order are rather conflicting; but, roughly speaking, it was something of this sort. The centre was composed mainly of infantry under Newcastle and King, or Lord Ethyn as he was now entitled. The right wing was formed of Rupert’s own cavalry, including his regiment of “old soldiers all, gentlemen who had seen much service in France and Spain,” Lord Byron’s Irish horse, Lord Grandison’s horse, and some other cavalry, in all 7200 horse, drawn up in twelve divisions. The left wing contained about 4000 of Newcastle’s cavalry under Goring and Sir Charles Lucas, with a line of musketeers in front of them. The whole of the ditch was also lined with musketeers. A few guns were also posted in the ditch, and the rest of the artillery was placed on the flanks.

Confronting the Royalist centre was the Parliamentary infantry under Manchester and Leven. Opposite the Royalist right, the enemy’s left contained Cromwell’s “Ironsides,” other cavalry of Manchester’s and some Scottish horse; in all about 4200 horse, supported by 3000 foot soldiers. In front of the Royalist left the enemy’s right was made up of 4800 horse, consisting of Lord Fairfax’s famous cavalry and some Scottish cavalry regiments, including the Ayrshire Lancers—rather an uncommon armament at that period. In both armies reserves of cavalry and in[146]fantry were drawn up in the rear. The numbers in the opposing armies is doubtful; but probably they were pretty equal, and something over 20,000 on either side.

Rupert showed Ethyn a sketch of his position and asked him how he liked it. Ethyn replied that it was very fine on paper, but that it would not be so on the field. Rupert had placed his front rank close to the ditch, which was impassable in many places, and to this Ethyn strongly objected. Rupert replied, “They may be drawn to a farther distance”. Ethyn, probably thinking that any retreat along the whole line would draw on an immediate attack from the enemy, replied, “No, sir. It is too late.”

Rupert was very angry with Ethyn for saying this. They had not been on the best of terms beforehand, for Rupert thought that Ethyn, when General King, had not sufficiently supported him in a certain battle on the Continent. Rupert revenged himself upon Ethyn for finding fault with his order of battle on Marston Moor by twitting him when the engagement was over, for having been of very little use during the action.

In the course of the afternoon, a few shots were fired from the cannon of both armies; but without important results, although a captain was killed on each side; on one a nephew of Cromwell, on the other a son of Sir Gilbert Haughton. Some of the Puritan soldiers sang psalms, deriving considerable consolation from the psalmist’s denunciations of his enemies, which [147]they mentally applied to what they called “the King’s cursed and cursing cormorants”. Rupert, not tolerating defeat even in devotion, ordered his chaplain to preach to his men; on hearing of which the Puritans declared Rupert to be a “jingling Machiavelian,” guilty of a blasphemous mockery.

Several showers had fallen during the day, and towards evening black clouds gathered overhead, a heavy thunderstorm set in, and rain fell in torrents. On arriving at Marston Moor, Newcastle asked Rupert whether he meant to fight that evening—it was then between five and six o’clock. Rupert said that he had no intention of doing so and that he would make his grand attack early in the morning: at the same time he recommended Newcastle to seize the opportunity of taking a rest.

A rest was only too welcome! Newcastle had had a long, anxious, perplexing day, and he was glad to return to his coach, which had been left at some little distance behind the troops. The first thing he did on getting into it was to light his pipe[103] and enjoy a soothing smoke, after which, utterly worn out by worry, he fell asleep upon the cushions of his chariot.

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CHAPTER XIII.

Many people may have experienced the sensation of being suddenly disturbed soon after going to sleep, when very tired. Sleep at that time is supposed to be at its deepest. On being awakened, although only ten or twenty minutes may have actually passed since sleep came on, it would seem as if it had lasted for hours; not that there is the sense of refreshment usual after long sleep, on the contrary, the feeling left is one of bewilderment combined with extreme languor.

It is probable that with some such sensations Newcastle suddenly awoke, about seven o’clock, on the evening of Tuesday, 2 July, 1644; and there was noise in abundance to disturb his slumbers. The heavy roll of the thunder was drowned by the booming of cannon, the firing of muskets, pistols and arquebuses, and the war cries of the excited soldiers; for in those primitive times soldiers fought near enough to bandy curses with each other. One naturally wonders whether, when it came to “push of pike,” the Roundhead warriors remembered how strictly they had been forbidden by Cromwell to use bad language, if indeed any language could be worse than that of the Puritan divines themselves.

Most likely the Generals on either side had had no intention of fighting that evening; certainly there is [149]no reason for doubting the sincerity of Rupert in telling Newcastle that he did not intend to attack until the morning; but, as we have seen, the rival armies had been drawn up perilously close to each other. They were within musket-shot—a very short distance with the fire-arms of the period, and it may be that the battle was begun by some of the men without orders from their officers. Anyhow, the match had been applied to the powder; probably the Generals on either side thought that the battle had been begun by those on the other, and soon orders were given in all directions for a general engagement.

Newcastle armed himself as quickly as possible, mounted his horse and galloped to the front, accompanied by his brother, Sir Charles Cavendish, two other officers, and his page. The first men he came upon were some gentleman volunteers, who had formerly chosen him for their captain, and he called out to them:—

“Gentlemen, You have done me the Honour to choose me your Captain, and now is the fittest time that I may do you service; wherefore if you’ll follow me I shall lead you on the best I can, and show you the way to your own Honour”.

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They were soon under fire and Newcastle led them against a regiment of Scottish infantry. By some ill-luck, or clumsiness, he lost his sword; but, although several officers immediately offered him theirs, he refused them and took his page’s little sword, which the Duchess tells us was “half leaden”. With this little weapon, however, he killed three Scots and led his company of volunteers right through the enemy’s regiment. Then he was brought to a standstill by a single brave Puritan pikeman, whom he charged three times without effect, but the courageous fellow was hacked down by the followers of Newcastle.

Meanwhile, Newcastle’s cavalry were doing splendidly on his left under Goring and Sir Charles Lucas, whose sister Newcastle subsequently married. She describes her brother as one who by nature “had a practick genius to the warlike arts, or Arts in War, as Natural Poets have to Poetry”. With regard to the Royalist cavalry, Mr. Fortescue, in his standard work, A History of the British Army,[104] writes of [151]“the superiority of the Royalist cavalry. The long neglect of the mounted service left the supremacy to the ablest amateurs, and the majority of these, though there were hundreds of gentlemen on the Parliamentary side, were undoubtedly for the King. Nor was it only the courage, honour, and resolution of which Cromwell had spoken that favoured them; they had from the nature of the case better horses, a higher standard of horsemanship and equipment, a quicker natural intelligence and a higher natural training. The thousand lessons which the county gentlemen learned when riding with hawk and hound were of infinite advantage in the casual and irregular warfare of the first two or three years ... One fatal defect however marred what should have been a most efficient cavalry, the blot had been hit by Cromwell, indiscipline.”

It was with such cavalry as this that Goring and Sir Charles Cavendish charged on Marston Moor, on a day which, Mr. Fortescue says, “may indeed be termed the first great day of English cavalry”.

On the whole, Ethyn may have been right in blaming Rupert for drawing up his army close to the “great ditch,” but his having done so did him good service on his left flank; for, when Fairfax wished to charge Newcastle’s cavalry, he found the ditch impassable, and his only means of reaching his enemy to be an almost straight lane which ran at right angles to, and across, the ditch. Fairfax’s cavalry were only able to cross the bridge over the ditch “three or four” abreast, and it is surprising that they should have got over it at all, exposed as they were to the fire of musketeers lining the lane. The muskets of the period, however, could be reloaded but very slowly, and the heavy rain which was falling may have interfered with the priming and caused missfires. Nor did the Royalist artillery, likewise directed upon the bridge, but also probably hampered by the rain, very seriously cripple the invaders. Fairfax’s horse [152]drove the Royalist gunners “from their cannon, being two drakes” (six-pounders) and a “demiculverine” (a nine-pounder).

What appears to have obstructed the progress of Fairfax’s cavalry even more than the musketeers, the drakes and the demiculverine, was a quantity of furze bushes and small ditches which they found lying between themselves and Newcastle’s horse, when they had got over the “great ditch”. The Royalist cavalry was also inconvenienced by these impediments, for both sides charged simultaneously. “We were a long time engaged with one another,” wrote Fairfax, who was unhorsed and received a deep cut across the cheek which marked him for the rest of his life. Sir Charles Fairfax and Major Fairfax were killed. “There was scarce an officer but received a hurt,” wrote Lord Fairfax. Sir William Fairfax led the Yorkshire foot across the ditch over Moor Lane Bridge; but the fire of Newcastle’s famous regiment of Whitecoats did this infantry more mischief than it had done to the cavalry; and the Yorkshire foot were driven back, thinned in numbers and completely demoralized by the gallant Royalists.

“On Marston, with Rupert, ’gainst traitors contending.” [105]

A small portion of Newcastle’s horse ran away and Fairfax, with about 400 men, made the mistake of following them for some distance towards York. Then [153]it occurred to him that he had better return to see how the rest of his cavalry was faring; so he galloped back.

He says:[106] “Having charged through the enemy, my men going after in pursuit, and myself returning back to my other troops, I was got-in among the enemy who stood, up and down the field, in several bodies of horse. So, taking the signal out of my hat, I passed through them for one of their own commanders, and got to my Lord of Manchester’s horse.”

During the temporary absence of Fairfax, the main body of his cavalry had fallen into some confusion, and Goring seized the opportunity of making a vigorous charge upon it. The King’s old horse, “veterans of hard service and fame,” were more than the newly hired cavalry of the Roundheads could withstand and a rout set in. Goring had a cry raised of “See they run in the rear,” on hearing which those in the van turned tail and began to run themselves. The Ayrshire Lancers and the regiments of Lord Eglinton, whose son was mortally wounded in this battle, held their ground for some time; but the stampede of the routed van at last bore them with it to the rear. Then there was a general rush for the bridge over the ditch, which some of the defeated foot had not yet crossed, and the Parliamentary cavalry and infantry became hopelessly mixed up, many men on foot being trampled upon by the horses of their own comrades.

When the Roundhead troops had returned to their [154]own side of the ditch, the Royalist cavalry pursued them headlong. Heath says, “the Scots some of them ran ten miles on end, and a wee bit, crying quarter, with other lamentable expressions of fear”. Arthur Trevor in a letter to Ormonde, says that the Scottish cavalry kept galloping away, crying “Wae’s us! Wae’s us! We’re a’ undone.”

All, however, did not spur northward: some spurred to Lincoln, some to Hull, some to Halifax, some to Wakefield, all reporting the utter rout of the Parliamentary army. The news reached Newark, whence the Royalists sent an express messenger to convey the glorious tidings to Oxford. Both at Oxford and at Banbury, Church bells were rung, bonfires were lighted, and fireworks were let off in honour of the great victory of Rupert and Newcastle over the combined armies of the Parliament and the Scotch. The splendid news made happy the heart of King Charles and set his anxious mind at rest.

Reports of the victory spread to London. Vicars, the Puritan author, wrote: [155]“Yea, our sottish and bewitched mole-eyed malignants of London also, were so led along with a spirit of lying, like their father the devil, that they mightily boasted of this robber’s vain victory over us, the vanquishing of our whole three armies, the death and imprisonment of all our three most renowned and precious Generals”.[107]

The defeated Roundhead Generals fled for their lives. Manchester ran away, but repented and returned: Lord Leven never drew rein till he reached Leeds, twenty miles from the battle-field; and Lord Fairfax fled for refuge to Cawood Castle, where, finding neither food, fire nor candle, he philosophically got into bed. Indeed Principal Baillee wrote in a letter to a friend, dated 12 July, 1644: “All six generals took to their heels—this to you alone”.

But let us return to the battle-field and observe a few further details of the fight: for thus far we have only been concerned with the Royalist left wing and the Parliamentary right.

At the beginning of the battle, soon after seven in the evening, the left wing of the Roundheads charged the ditch, which was passable in their front. While Manchester’s infantry attacked that of Newcastle, Cromwell’s cavalry charged Rupert’s, Byron’s and the Irish horse. “And now,” wrote Manchester’s chaplain, “you might have seen the bravest sight in the world, for they moved down the hill like so many thick clouds, in brigades of 800, 1,000, 1,200 and 1,500 each.” “We came down the hill,” says Watson, who was with Cromwell’s cavalry, [156]“in bravest order and with the greatest resolution that ever was seen.... In a moment we were passed the ditch and on to the moor upon equal terms with the enemy.” The Royalists abandoned four drakes in the ditch. Watson continues: “Our front division charged their front, Cromwell’s division of 300 horse, in which he himself was in person, charging the first division of Prince Rupert’s, of which himself was in person,[108] in which all were gallant men”.

Yet it was not all plain sailing for Cromwell and his cavalry. A sword-wound[109] on the neck obliged Cromwell to leave the field and receive surgical treatment in a house hard by, and the Royalist cavalry made a splendid resistance, repelling the Roundheads several times. As was the custom in those days, both sides galloped towards each other until they were within shot, when they pulled up and fired their carbines or pistols, and then charged with their swords. It is said that at the last charge on this occasion, the rival cavalry, after firing, threw their pistols at each others heads.

Carlyle describes the scene as [157]“the most enormous hurly-burly of fire and smoke and steel flashings and death tumult, ever seen in those regions. We just get a glimpse of them joining battle in complete array and the next shows them scattered, broken, straggling across moor and field on both sides in utter bewilderment.” A spirited account, but somewhat misleading, for they fought long and hard before either side was scattered.

Unfortunately for the Royalists, among Rupert’s horse were some raw levies, and although his own old troops were the bravest and most brilliant cavalry then in this country, they were lacking in that virtue in which Cromwell’s “Ironsides” excelled, namely discipline; and discipline now told its tale. This cavalry contest is said to have lasted an hour. Before the end of it Cromwell had returned to the field. The issue still seemed doubtful, when Sir David Leslie’s horse came up and attacked the Royalists in the flank, which at last wavered, broke and fled, “Cromwell scattering them before him like a little dust,” says Watson with bombastic exaggeration. Anyhow, in the end, the cavalry on the right wing of the Royalist army was thoroughly routed.

On the Royalist left Goring, after defeating the enemy’s cavalry, had followed the usual custom of attacking the flank of the enemy’s infantry with his victorious horse; but he could rally only a few troops for this purpose. The greater part of Newcastle’s cavalry had galloped far out of sight in pursuit of the vanquished Scottish fugitives. Another part had cantered up the hill and was busily engaged in looting the Parliament’s wagons and stores.

But another General was adopting the same tactics [158]on an opposite side of the field with much greater success. Cromwell, having routed the Royalist cavalry with his own, had nearly the whole of his well-disciplined horse in hand, wherewith to attack the right flank of the Royalist infantry, and that attack Newcastle’s infantry were unable to resist. They were soon in confusion, regiment after regiment was charged and dispersed, and the King’s infantry became a rabble of scattered fugitives.

But not all! And now we come to the most heroic incident in the whole battle, an incident which did great and lasting honour to the army of Newcastle. It is thus described in a book which was published only thirty-two years after it took place.[110]

[159]

“There was yet standing two regiments of the Lord Newcastle’s, one called by the name of his Lambs [or Whitecoats]: these being veteran soldiers, and accustomed to fight, stood their ground, and the fury of that impression of Cromwell, which routed the whole army besides; nor did the danger nor the slaughter round them make them cast away their arms or their courage; but seeing themselves destitute of their friends, and surrounded by their enemies, they cast themselves into a ring, where though quarter was offered them, they gallantly refused it, and so manfully behaved themselves, that they slew more of the enemy in this particular fight, than they had killed of them before. At last they were cut down, not by the sword, but showers of bullets, after a long and stout resistance, leaving their enemies a sorrowful victory, both in respect of themselves whom they would have spared, as in regard of the loss of the bravest men on their own side, who fell in assaulting them. A very inconsiderable number of them were preserved, to be the living monuments of that Brigade’s loyalty and valour.”

William Lilly says, in his Diary, that the Whitecoats, “by mere valour, for one whole hour kept the troops of horse from entering amongst them at near push of pike: when the horse did enter they would have no quarter, but fought it out until there was not thirty of them living. Those whose hap it was to be beaten down upon the ground as the troopers came near them, though they could not rise for their wounds, yet were so desperate as to get either a pike or a sword, or piece of them, and to gore the troopers’ horses, as they came over them or passed by them. Captain Coventry, then a trooper under Cromwell, and an actor,”—it is curious that there should have been a “play-actor” among the troops of Cromwell—“who was the third or fourth man that entered amongst them, protested he never, in all the fights he was in, met with such resolute brave fellows, or whom he pitied so much, and said he saved two or three against their wills.”

Heath says: [160]“Night ended the pursuit: for it was eleven o’clock before the fight ceased, else more blood had been shed.... Here were slain to the number of 8,000 and upwards in the field and flight; which at certain was divided equally between both armies: for what slaughter was made by the prince upon the Scots and Fairfax, was requited by Cromwell on the left wing as aforesaid, and the fight was furious and bloody there. It must needs be a great carnage;” and then some horrible details follow.

Newcastle remained on the field to the end. The Duchess says:—

“His two sons had Commands, but His Brother, though he had no Command, by reason of the weakness of his body; yet he was never from My Lord when he was in action, even to the last; for he was the last with my Lord in the Field in that fatal Battel upon Hessom-moor,[111] near York; and though my Brother, Sir Charles Lucas, desired My Lord to send his sons away, when the said battel was fought, yet he would not, saying, His sons should shew their Loyalty and Duty to His Majesty, in venturing their lives, as well as Himself”.

The three Generals of the Roundhead army state in their official dispatch that the Royalists lost “all their ordnance to the number of 20 (pieces), their ammunition, baggage, about 100 colours and 10,000 arms”. Whitelock says (89): “From this battle and the pursuit, some reckon were buried 7,000 Englishmen, all agree that above 3,000 of the Prince’s men were slain in the battle, besides those in the chace and 3,000 prisoners taken, etc.”

[161]

To the “chace,” as Whitelock calls it, an end was put by darkness. Rupert escaped being taken prisoner by dismounting and hiding in a field of standing beans. Afterwards he succeeded in getting into York, as also did Newcastle. Just outside the town Newcastle met Rupert, to whom he exclaimed: “All is lost!” As well he might. Marston Moor was a defeat from which the Royalist cause never recovered, and it was one of the greatest battles ever fought on English soil.

There was little disgrace in being overcome, after an exceptionally hard-fought battle, by such a General as Cromwell, to whom the honours of Marston Moor are chiefly due. And Newcastle can scarcely be considered a defeated General in this case, for Rupert was in supreme command. His was the defeat. Newcastle had been opposed to risking the engagement; yet, finding himself in it, although against his will, he exhibited exceptional courage as also did his men.

But Marston Moor saw the destruction, almost the annihilation, of his army, the loss of his prestige, the blasting of his hopes, the ruin of his fortunes.

[162]

CHAPTER XIV.

“No, I will not endure the laughter of the Court,” said Newcastle,[112] when, on the following morning, Rupert asked him to make an effort to recruit his forces. “I will go to Holland.”

“And I will rally my men!” said Rupert.

Before we blame Newcastle for deserting the King’s service and leaving England without his permission, we ought to remember that he was in a position widely different from that of most defeated Generals. He had been publicly proclaimed a traitor by the Parliament. When any indemnity had been proposed he had been specially excepted from it by name. If he fell into the hands of the enemy, the Tower and the block were almost inevitable; although, if he had been taken prisoner in such a great battle as that of Marston Moor, there is just a bare, but unlikely, possibility that he might have been liberated in an exchange of prisoners.

The most important evidence in his favour is a letter from Charles I, dated 28 November, 1644, that is about four months after Newcastle had fled the country; for, if the King excused his conduct, no one else had a right to complain.

[163]

[164]

The Duchess says, that before leaving York Newcastle had asked Rupert “to give this true and just report of him to his Majesty, that he had behaved himself like an honest man, a Gentleman, and a Loyal subject. Which request the Prince having granted, my Lord took his leave; and being conducted by a Troop of Horse, and a Troop of Dragoons to Scarborough went to Sea, and took shipping for Hamborough; the Gentry of the Country, who also came to take their leaves of My Lord, being much troubled at his departure, and speaking very honourably of him, as surely they had no reason to the contrary.”

Quite true, in the main; but something said by Sir Hugh Cholmley in his private memoirs[114] has a bearing upon his last remark. [165]“After the battle of Hess Moor, the Marquis of Newcastle came to Scarborough, and lodged at my house two days, till I had furnished him with a ship to go beyond sea; at his departure, he thanked me for my entertainment, and told me ‘he had some fear I should have stayed [stopped] him’; which I suppose he conceived would be some countenance to his: my answer was ‘I wish he could stay; that if he had committed an error, I knew my duty so well, I was not to call him to account, but obey, he being my general; that for my own part, though the place was in no defensible posture, I meant not to surrender till I heard from the King, or was forced to it’.” This was a broad hint to Newcastle as to Cholmley’s opinion of his conduct in flying from the country.

In continuing her story, the Duchess says that Newcastle, when “preparing for his journey, asked his Steward How Much Money he had left? Who answer’d, That he had but 90£. My Lord not being at all startled at so small a Summ, although his present design required much more, was resolved too seek his Fortune, even with that little; ... he embarqued with his Company, and arrived in four days time to the said City, which was on the 8th of July, 1644.”

Half a dozen lords, a bishop, and a good many of his relations and friends, including his brother and two sons, sailed with Newcastle.

“But before My Lord landed at Hamborough his eldest Son Charles, Lord Mansfield, fell sick of the Small Pox, and not long after his younger Son, Henry, now Earl of Ogle, fell likewise dangerously ill of the Measels; but it pleased God that they both happily recovered.”

Here is some news of Newcastle after he had been only a few days in Holland.

[115]“John Constable to his father, Sir Henry, Viscount Dunbar, Amsterdam. ... For the news that is here stirring, first Prince Rupert is here mightily condemned for his rashness, but the Marquis of Newcastle much more for coming away.”

[166]

[116]“John Constable to his father, Sir Henry, Viscount Dunbar (Rotterdam).... The Marquis of Newcastle is still at Hamburgh in poor condition; both his sons have had the measles; I believe he now repents his folly.”

Luckily for Newcastle, much of the blame which was due to him was thrown upon Ethyn. Clarendon says:[117] “The strange manner of the Prince’s coming, and undeliberately throwing himself and all the King’s hopes into that sudden and unnecessary engagement, by which all the force the Marquis had raised, and with so many difficulties preserved, was in a moment cast away and destroyed, so transported him with passion and despair that he could not think of beginning the work again and involving himself in the same undelightful condition of life, from which he might now be free. He hoped his past meritorious actions might outweigh his present abandoning the thought of future actions and so, without farther consideration, he transported himself out of the Kingdom, and took with him General King” (Ethyn); “upon whom they who were content to spare the Marquis, poured out all the reproaches of infidelity, treason, and conjunction with his country-men (the Scots),” an accusation which Clarendon declares to have been “without the least foundation”.

In the next paragraph Clarendon says that “the loss of England,” which soon followed, made the loss[167] of York comparatively little spoken of, and that Newcastle’s patient endurance of his subsequent losses “so perfectly reconciled all good men to him, that they rather observed what he had done and suffered for the King and for his country, without inquiring what he had omitted to do”.

Henrietta Maria remained a steadfast friend to Newcastle, even when he had fled from his country and from her husband’s service. I “shall assure you,” she wrote to him from Paris (20 Nov., 1644), “of the continuance of my esteem for you, not being so unjust as to forget past services upon a present misfortune. And therefore believe that I shall always continue to give proofs of what I tell you, and you will see how I shall behave, and with what truth I am, Your very good, and affectionate friend,

“Henrietta Maria R.” [118]

Of what happened to the remains of Newcastle’s army at York, Heath tells us:—[119]

[168]

“The victor enemy being come again before York, summoned the city again: they had used before their utmost endeavours, by mines and assaults, (in one whereof they lost nearly one thousand men, and were beaten off) to have entered; to which the Governor returned answer, that he was no whit dismayed with their present success; yet nevertheless on equal conditions he would come to a treaty and surrender; which in nineteen days after the battle was concluded on.” The garrison was allowed to “march out according to the honourable custom of war”.

If there was still a sufficient garrison at York to hold out for nineteen days—and there is nothing to show that it could not have held out longer—was Newcastle justified in deserting it? True, there was no prospect of any adequate force coming to his relief; and, in any terms of surrender, he, as a proclaimed traitor, might not have been allowed to march out, a free man, either with or without the honours of war. On the other hand, if he had held York, what honour would have been his in the case of the success of the King’s army in the South and the total defeat of the army of the Parliament, a contingency which, at that time, was still apparently possible, and would have been rendered more probable if a large portion of the army of the Parliament had been occupied in the siege of York.

To sympathisers with Newcastle, it may be consoling to reflect that recriminations and reproaches for neglect of duty or courage, at or after the battle of Marston Moor, were not confined to the Royalist side, as both Rushworth and Clarendon bear witness. Manchester and Cromwell disliked each other; and another General, Crawford, a bitter enemy of Cromwell, pretended that Cromwell, after receiving a very slight wound in the neck given accidentally by one of his own men, at the beginning of the battle of Marston Moor, had made it an excuse to escape from the [169]field until the fighting was practically over.[120] Cromwell seized opportunities of bringing counter-charges against both Crawford and Manchester, accusing the latter of disaffection to the Parliamentary cause.

Welbeck, Newcastle’s home, received a visit from the enemy, about a month after its owner had sailed from England. The guest shall tell his own story:—[121]

[170]

“Edward Earl of Manchester to the Committee of both Kingdoms. ... Upon my coming near Welbeck, I sent a summons to the place and they with great civility sent to parley with me. The next day, Friday, they rendered the house to me upon composition. I was willing to give them large terms, because I was not in a condition to besiege a place so well fortified as that was. I therefore gave the officers and soldiers liberty to march out with all their arms and colours flying; but when I came to take possession of the house most of the soldiers came to me to lay down their arms, desiring tickets of me to return to their own homes, the which I granted them, so as I had 350 muskets in the house, 50 horse arms, 11 pieces of cannon great and small, whereof the Governor had liberty to carry away one: I had likewise 20 barrels of powder and a ton of match. The house I preserved entire, and put a garrison into it of Notts men, until I know your Lordship’s resolutions whether you will have it slighted or no. The place is very regularly fortified; and the Marquis of Newcastle’s daughters and the rest of his children and family are in it, unto whom I have engaged myself for their quiet abode there, and to intercede to the Parliament for a complete maintenance for them; in the which I beseech your Lordships that they may have your favour and furtherance.”

TRAINING WITH THE RIGHT HAND.

Manchester seems not only to have “engaged” himself for the quiet abode of Newcastle’s children in the home at Welbeck, but eventually to have left it ungarrisoned by Parliamentary troops; for, some thirteen months later, Welbeck entertained a very different visitor, in the person of the King himself. Charles went there under most depressing circumstances. There was no banquet costing £5000 awaiting him there now, nor a masque of welcome written by Ben [171]Jonson. The total defeat of his army in the North at Marston Moor had recently been followed by as complete a defeat by Cromwell of his army further South at Naseby, when his baggage was captured and his compromising letters to and from the Queen and the Irish rebels were seized and published by the Parliament. Newcastle’s late General, Goring, had been defeated by Fairfax at Langport; and Rupert had surrendered Bristol to the enemy. The last battle fought in the open field on behalf of the King was lost at Rowton, near Chester, on 23 September.

Charles’s only hope now lay in succour by Montrose, whose only hope, again, lay in succour from the King. Wandering from place to place, Charles, Clarendon tells us,[122] “had made haste from Ludlow, that the Scottish army might no more be able to interrupt him; and with very little rest, passed through Shropshire, and Derbyshire, till he came to Welbeck, a house of the Marquis of Newcastle in Nottinghamshire, then a garrison for his Majesty; where he refreshed himself and his troops, two days”. But what a contrast must such gloomy refreshment have been to the magnificent hospitality which he had received there on two former occasions.

This was probably one of the saddest visits ever paid to Welbeck. The Governor of Newark and the Royalist gentry of Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, and Yorkshire waited upon the King during his short visit at Newcastle’s home. At first it was decided [172]that Charles should proceed direct to Scotland and join Montrose; but afterwards it was thought better that he should take up his quarters at Doncaster and raise troops in Yorkshire. However, it is no part of our duty to follow the footsteps of that ill-fated King.

Here is a pathetic letter from Newcastle to the Prince of Wales:—[123]

After describing the rest of his journey, she says:—

Upon this seeing of Newcastle by one of the Maids of Honour to Her Majesty a good deal depended, and it will be best to deal with the matter in a fresh chapter.

[174]

CHAPTER XV.

Of the Duchess of Newcastle’s writings we have already seen a good deal, and the time has now arrived for introducing her in person. Perhaps it may be best to begin by quoting Cibber’s statement[124] that the future “Duchess herself in a book entitled ‘Nature’s Pictures, Drawn by Fancy’s Pencil to the Life,’ has celebrated both the exquisite beauty of her person and the rare endowments of her mind”. False modesty is a vice from which the Duchess was perfectly free.

MARGARET DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE

From an engraving by Alais, after a painting by Diepenbeck

Margaret Lucas was a daughter of Sir Thomas Lucas, of whom she says: “though my father was not a peer of the realm, yet there were few peers who had much greater estates, or lived more noble therewith”. She does not mention the fact that her great-grandfather had been town-clerk of Colchester.[125] Her two brothers, Sir John, who was created Lord Lucas by Charles I in 1644, and Sir Charles, were both distinguished cavaliers; and she mentions another brother, Sir Thomas, of whom Burke—not the Duchess—says he “was illegitimate, having been born prior to the marriage of his parents”. For this [175]trifling confusion of dates, the excellent Lady Lucas endeavoured to atone by the prudishness upon which she insisted in her children. The Duchess tells us that—

“She was of a grave Behaviour, and had such a Majestic Grandeur, as it were continually hung about her, that it would strike a kind of an awe to the beholders, and command respect from the rudest.... She had a well favoured loveliness in her face, a pleasing sweetness in her countenance, and a well-temper’d complexion, as neither too red nor too pale.... Also she was an affectionate Mother, breeding her children with a most industrious care, and tender love, and having eight children, three sons and five daughters, there was not any one crooked, or any ways deformed, neither were they dwarfish, or of a Giant-like stature, but every ways proportionable; likewise well featured, cleer complexions, brown haires, but some lighter than others, sound teeth, sweet breaths, plain speeches, tunable voices, I mean not so much to sing as in speaking, as not stuttering, nor wharling in the throat, or speaking through the nose, or hoarsely, unless they had a cold, or squeakingly, which impediments many have; neither were their voices of too low a strain, or too high.” Negatively, a truly remarkable family!

Of her father the Duchess says: [176]“He unfortunately killed one Mr. Brooks in a single Duel; for my father by the Laws of Honour could do no less than call him to the field, to question him for an injury he did him, where their Swords were to dispute, and one or both of their lives to decide the argument, wherein my Father had the better; and though my Father by Honour challenged him, with Valour fought him, and in Justice killed him, yet he suffered more than any Person of Quality usually doth in cases of Honour; for though the Laws be rigorous, yet the present Princes most commonly are gratious in those misfortunes, especially to the injured. But my Father found it not, for his exile was from the time of his misfortunes to Queen Elizabeth’s death; for the Lord Cobham being then a great man with Queen Elizabeth, and this Gentleman, Mr. Brooks, a kind of a Favourite, and as I take it Brother to the then L. Cobham, which made Queen Elizabeth so severe, not to pardon him: but King James of blessed memory graciously gave him his Pardon, and leave to return home to his Native Country.”

The description of the education and family life of herself and her sisters, given by the Duchess, is not altogether uninteresting.

“As for tutors, although we had for all sorts of vertues, as singing, dancing, playing on musick, reading, writing, working, and the like, yet we were not kept strictly thereto, they were rather for formality than benefit, for my Mother cared not so much for our dancing and fidling, singing and prating of severall languages, as that we should be bred virtuously, modestly, civilly, honourably, and on honest principles.”

[177]

As to the habits of this edifying family, she says:—

“But to rehearse their Recreations. Their customs were in Winter time to go sometimes to Plays, or to ride in their Coaches about the Streets to see the concourse and recourse of People; and in the Spring time to visit the Spring garden, Hide park, and the like places; and sometimes they would have Musick; and sup in Barges upon the Water; these harmless recreations they would pass their time away with; for I observed, they did seldom make Visits, nor never went abroad with Strangers in their Company, but onely themselves in a Flock together agreeing so well, that there seemed but one Minde amongst them: And not onely my own Brothers and Sisters agreed so, but my Brothers and Sisters in law, and their Children, although but young, had the like agreeable natures, and affectionable dispositions; for to my best remembrance I do not know that ever they did fall out, or had any angry or unkind disputes. Likewise, I did observe, that my Sisters were so far from mingling themselves with any other Company, that they had no familiar conversation or intimate acquaintance with the Families to which each other were linkt to by Marriage, the Family of the one being as great Strangers to the rest of my brothers and Sisters, as the Family of the other.”

How far such an education and such surroundings would be conducive to breadth of mind, sociability, [178]and success in the world, the reader must judge for himself.

Although she had been exceedingly anxious to become a Maid of Honour, Margaret does not appear to have enjoyed the two years which she spent in that capacity. She says: “I had heard that the world was apt to lay aspersions even on the innocent, for which I durst neither look up with my eyes, nor speak, nor be any way sociable, insomuch as I was thought a Natural Fool”. Being “fearfull and bashfull, I neither heeded what was said or practic’d, but just what belong’d to my loyal duty, and my own honest reputation; and, indeed, I was so afraid to dishonour my Friends and Family by my indiscreet actions, that I rather chose to be accounted a Fool, then to be thought rude or wanton; in truth, my bashfulness and fears made me repent my going from home to see the World abroad”.

Ballard says:[126] “Her person was very graceful, her temper naturally reserved and shy, and she seldom said much in company, especially among strangers”. She herself confesses and deplores her own bashfulness; but she declares it to be a better thing than rudeness on the ground that “a rude nature is worse than a brute nature, by so much more as man is better than beast, but those that are of civil natures and gentle dispositions, are as much nearer to celestiall creatures, as those that are of rude or cruell are to Devils”.

[179]

This particular “celestiall creature” favours us with some more details of her own character. “I am gratefull, for I never received a curtesie but I am impatient, and troubled untill I can return it; also I am Chaste, both by Nature and Education, insomuch as I do abhorre an unchast thought; likewise I am seldom angry,” yet “when I am angry, I am very angry, but yet it is soon over, and I am easily pacified, if it be not such an injury as may create a hate”;—a highly significant reservation—“neither am I apt to be exceptious or jealous; but if I have the lest symptome of this passion, I declare it to those it concerns, for I never let it ly smothering in my breast to breed a malignant disease in the minde.” “I am neither spitefull, envious nor malicious; I repine not at the gifts that Nature or Fortune bestows upon others.” “My God,” she would almost seem to have said, “I thank Thee that I am not as other women are.”

Newcastle had heard a good deal of Margaret Lucas before he met her. He had been a friend and a patron of her brother, whom Charles I had made a peer. Lord Lucas had been in Newcastle’s army, and when Newcastle had asked him in what manner he could best serve him, Lucas had replied that he had no desires on his own account, being ready to suffer exile or death in the royal cause; but that he was anxious about his sister Margaret, at Queen Henrietta’s little Court in Paris, as her beauty exposed her to danger, and, owing to his losses through the civil war, he had no dowry to bestow upon her. At [180]the same time he expatiated upon her character and virtues to such an extent as to arouse the curiosity of Newcastle.[127]

With the paragon of perfection self-described in the preceding pages, the exiled Newcastle fell in love. The lady herself shall describe what happened:—

“My Lord ... was pleased to take some particular notice of me, and express more than an ordinary affection for me; insomuch that he resolved to chuse me for his Second Wife; for he, having but two Sons, purposed to marry me, a young Woman that might prove fruitful to him and encrease his Posterity by a Masculine-Offspring. Nay, He was so desirous of Male-Issue, that I have heard him say, He cared not (so God would be pleased to give him many Sons) although they came to be persons of the meanest Fortunes; but God (it seems) had ordered it otherwise, and frustrated his Designs”—here the Duchess becomes very plain-spoken—“which yet did never lessen his Love and Affection for me.”

Several of Margaret Lucas’s love-letters are in existence at Welbeck Abbey.[128] Let us look at a few of them.

“Margaret Lucas to the Marquis of Newcastle.

[181]

From this it is evident that Newcastle’s friends had been trying to dissuade him from the marriage, and that Margaret’s friends were also trying to prevent it. It is not surprising that they should have done so. Newcastle was then living entirely on credit and was borrowing wherever he could. However agreeable a man’s conversation may be, if it ends in his saying, “By the way, I wonder whether you would kindly lend me £ ... for a few days,” he is not likely to be very popular.

As Margaret writes that the Queen would take it ill unless informed before Margaret “resolved,” the engagement was probably not yet definitely made. In her next letter Margaret begins to fear that she may have been immodestly forward in her flirtations with Newcastle. Yet, under cover of ostentatious bashfulness, she takes the opportunity of asking Newcastle to propose his suit to the Queen.

“The Same to (the Same).

In another letter she says: “Saint Germains is a place of much slander, and thinks I send too often to you”. From the next letter it would seem that Newcastle had been a little jealous of Porter; but no courtship would be complete without a lover’s quarrel!

“I hope you are not angry for my advice about Saint Germans. I gave it simply for the best. As for Mr. Porter he was a stranger to me, for before I came to France I never saw him or at least knew him to be Mr. Porter or my Lord Newcastle’s friend. I never speak to any man before they address themselves to me nor look so much in their face as to invite their discourse, and I hope I never was uncivil to any person of whatsoever degree; but to-morrow the Queen comes to Paris and then I hope to justify myself.”

In one letter she seems annoyed at hearing that Newcastle had announced the engagement before it was quite settled:—

“It was said to me you had declared your marriage to Lord Jermyn. I answered it was more than I could do.”

In an earlier chapter, Sir Philip Warwick told us [183]that Newcastle “had the misfortune to have somewhat of the poet in him”. This misfortune impelled him to write poems to Margaret, who replied:—

“Your verses are more like you than your picture, though it resembles you very well”.

From a later letter, she would seem to have been at St. Germains and Newcastle in Paris, and that she feared to go with the Queen to Paris lest she should be supposed to be doing so with the object of flirting with Newcastle:—

“I hear the Queen comes to Paris next week to the solemnities of Princess Mary’s marriage, and I am in a dispute whether I should come with her if I can get leave to stay. My reason is because I think it will stop their discourse of us when they see I do not come. My Lord let your eye limit your poetry.” Possibly Newcastle’s verses may have begun to savour too strongly of the Song of Solomon. The question of the poems crops up again in a later letter, and they would seem to have been the cause of a slight misunderstanding:—

“I am sorry you should bid me keep the verses you sent me, for it looks as though you thought I had flung away those you sent before.”

But perhaps Newcastle may only have been anxious that his verses should be carefully preserved, in order that, at some future date, he might publish them in a book of his “Collected Poems”. Poets are not totally destitute of eyes to business. Anyhow, no maker of verses would like to think that they had been “flung away”. The next letter hints at more troubled waters:—

[184]

“I never said any such thing as you mentioned in your letter about your picture, nor even showed it to a creature before yesterday when I gave it to mend; but I find such enemies that whatever is for my disadvantage, though it have but a semblance of truth, is declared.

“It is not usual to give the Queen gloves or anything else, but if you please I will give them to her.”

Presently comes another letter which looks as if, even then, all was not quite smooth between the lovers.

“I am sorry you have metamorphosed my letter and made that masculine which was efemenat. My ambition is to be thought a modest woman, and to leave the title of a gallant man to you.”

Five affectionate letters follow, but they contain nothing of world-wide interest. The last states Margaret’s intention of going to Paris, and in a sixth she says:—

“There is nothing will please me more than to be where you are, and I begin to admire Paris because you are in it.”

Both Newcastle and Margaret were afraid of the Queen, for in the next letter she says:—

[185]

“I know not what counsel to give concerning the Queen, but I fear she will take it ill if she be not made acquainted with our intentions. If you please to write a letter to her and send it to me, I will deliver it the day you send for me. I think it no policy to displease the Queen, for though she will do us no good she may do us harm. I send my maid about some business, and she and Lady Brown”—the wife of the English Ambassador—“shall agree about the other thing you spoke of.

“Pray consider that I have enemies.”

From the following letter it would appear that the Queen had been informed of the proposed marriage and that she was very angry. Obviously Margaret was expecting a wigging:—

“I have not been with the Queen yet. I hear she would have me acknowledge myself in a fault and she not to be in any, but it will be hard for me to accuse myself and to make myself guilty of a fault when I am innocent, but if it be the duty of a servant to obey all the commands of a mistress though it be against myself I will do it, if it be but to bring myself to the use of obedience against I am a wife. For the hindrance of our marriage I hope it will not be in their power. I am sure they cannot hinder me from loving.”

From the next missive it is clear that there had been an encounter between the Queen and Margaret and that a truce had been patched up merely for appearance’ sake. It is also pretty evident that the Queen would have stopped the marriage altogether if she had had the power to do so.

[186]

“I hope the Queen and I are friends. She saith she will seem so at least, but I find if it had been in her power she would have crossed us. I heard not of the letter, but she said to me that she had it in writing that I prayed you not to make her acquainted with our designs. My Lord since our affections are published, it will not be for our honours to delay our marriage. The Queen intends to come on Monday. I will wait on her to Paris and then I am at your service.”

In another letter she says:—

“I hope the Queen and I shall be very good friends again, and may be the better for the differences we have had. It was reported here that you would be with us before we could be with you, and be assured I will bring none to our wedding but those you please. I find to satisfy the opinion that we are not married already we must be married by one of the priests here, of which I think Cousens is the fittest. We shall not come till Monday.”

The marriage received the approval of Margaret’s mother; for she wrote:—[129]

“Elizabeth, Lady Lucas, to the Earl of Newcastle.

Margaret thus analyses her love for Newcastle:—

[187]

“He was the onely Person I ever was in love with;

Neither was I ashamed to own it, but gloried therein, for it was not Amorous Love, I never was infected therewith, it is a Disease, or a Passion, or both, I only know by relation, not by experience; neither could Title, Wealth, Power, or Person entice me to love; but my love was honest and honourable, being placed upon Merit, which Affection joy’d at the fame of his Worth, pleas’d with delight in his Wit, proud of the respects he used to me, and triumphing in the affections he profest for me.”

This sounds rather an arctic sort of love; but, be that as it may, the wedding took place, and, according to Evelyn, in the chapel of Evelyn’s father-in-law, Sir Richard Brown, the English Ambassador.

Although married to one who had been among the wealthiest of English noblemen, the bride found herself in poverty. Her husband was unable to obtain a penny from England; the Parliament had taken possession of his estates and he was living with money borrowed upon, what looked at that time, exceptionally bad security. The Duchess says that “the ordinary Use” was then “at Six in the Hundred,” i.e. that the usual interest on good securities was 6 per cent. Then what rate of interest were lenders in Holland and France likely to have charged an exile whose chance of ever regaining his property seemed very remote? The question summons up visions of something nearer sixty than “six in the hundred”.

The bride thus describes the financial position:—

[188]

“After My Lord was married, having no Estate or Means left him to maintain himself and his Family, he was necessitated to seek for Credit, and live upon the Courtesie of those that were pleased to Trust him; which although they did for somewhile, and shew’d themselves very civil to My Lord, yet they grew weary at length, insomuch that his Steward was forced one time to tell him, That he was not able to provide a Dinner for him, for his Creditors were resolved to trust him no longer. My Lord being always a great master of his Passions, was, at least shew’d himself not in any manner troubled at it, but in a pleasant humour told me, that I must of necessity pawn my Cloaths to make so much Money as would procure a Dinner. I answer’d That my Cloaths would be but of small value and therefore desired my Waiting-Maid to pawn some small toys, which I had formerly given her, which she willingly did.”

One cannot help admiring Newcastle for being so far “master of his Passions,” as to overcome any desire to pawn his own clothes in order to get a dinner, and for conceiving the happy idea of telling his wife to pawn hers. When he had fortified himself by eating the dinner provided by pawning the toys belonging to his wife’s maid, Newcastle paid his creditors a visit and, by “perswasive arguments,” induced them to lend him some more money, with which he got the toys out of pawn for his wife’s maid, and provided her with means to go to England with the object of endeavouring to obtain some money from his brother-in-law.

[189]

Soon afterwards, Newcastle had “proffers made him of rich matches in England for his two sons,” whom he dispatched there forthwith, “hoping by that means to provide for them and himself”—the italics are not in the original. Somehow these matches failed to come off; but at least one of his sons made a good marriage a little later.

It may seem that, when Newcastle himself married a girl who was not an heiress, he must have lost the match-making instincts which he had inherited from his grandmother; but in justice to his memory let it be remembered that no heiresses were then to be had at the impoverished Court of the English Queen in France; and that, as Margaret’s father had been a very wealthy man, in the case of a royal restoration it was just possible that there might yet be some useful pickings.

[190]

CHAPTER XVI.

Although Queen Henrietta Maria had disapproved of Newcastle’s marriage with her maid-of-honour, she showed him considerable kindness. She invited him to a great Council which was held at St. Germains, attended by the Prince of Wales, Prince Rupert, the Marquesses of Worcester and of Ormond, the Earl of St. Albans, Lord Jermyn and others. At the Council, Newcastle[130] “delivered his sentiment, that he could perceive no other probability of procuring Forces for His Majesty, but an assistance of the Scots; But Her Majesty was pleased to answer my Lord, That he was too quick”. An unpleasant expression; but Her Majesty was quite right! For the King, unfortunately, did seek “an assistance of the Scots,” with a result only too well known.

The Queen did Newcastle a much greater service than the empty compliment of an invitation to a Council at which he was snubbed. She gave him £2000! Fortunately at that time, she still had some money. She received 12,000 crowns a month from Anne of Austria, and she obtained help from some of her relations; but she sent very large sums to her husband [191]in England, and she made handsome donations to distressed cavaliers—such as Newcastle—in France and Belgium, selling her jewels for the same purposes. When the wars of the Fronde began, those who were helping her became in want themselves, and they could do nothing more for her. She then found herself in sore straits.

Mademoiselle de Montpensier says in her Memoirs: “The Queen of England appeared, during a little while, with the splendour of royal equipage, she had a full number of ladies, of maids of honour, of running footmen, coaches and guards. All vanished, however, by little and little, and at last nothing could be more mean than her train and appearance.” And so things went on, from bad to worse, until, about three years after the time with which we are now dealing, Cardinal de Retz found her, with her last loaf eaten, her last faggot burned, and her little daughter in bed at mid-day, because there was no fire on the hearth and snow was falling heavily.

Things were a long way from being so bad as that, however, when she gave Newcastle £2000. Having got that money, and having squeezed a little more cash out of his creditors, instead of economising, Newcastle left his lodgings and took a good house, resolving, as his wife says, “for his own recreation and divertisement in his banished condition, to exercise the Art of Mannage, which he is a great lover and Master of”. He gave £160 for one horse, and what [192]is now vulgarly termed an “I.O.U.” for £100, for another. To estimate these prices as £480 and £300 of our money would be to undervalue them. But men in debt always seem to buy the longest-priced horses.

Soon after he had made these purchases, the Queen desired Newcastle to go to the Prince of Wales in Holland; but his ungrateful creditors made a difficulty about their debtor leaving Paris, whereupon the Queen most generously made herself responsible for his Parisian debts. On the morning of the day on which he left Paris, his creditors, says his wife, showed “so great a love and kindness for him” that they came to “take their farewell of him”. No wonder! It is easy to understand that they would be anxious, to have a few words with him—perhaps a good many words—and to come to a very clear understanding, before losing sight of him. Love and kindness indeed!

For about six months Newcastle lived at Rotterdam, as his wife tells us, “at a great charge keeping an open and noble table for all comers”; although he was heavily in debt and seemed to have little prospect of ever repaying his creditors.

In addition to the large sums he owed in Holland and in Paris, he borrowed £2000, while in Rotterdam, from Lord Hertford and Lord Devonshire, all of which he spent there, as well as another £1000 which he borrowed; [193]“his expense being the more, by reason he lived freely and nobly,” which, of course, he had no business to do.[131]

While at Rotterdam, he made visits to the Prince of Wales at the Hague. Finding that he could be of no help to the Prince, and probably also finding that he could borrow no more money in Rotterdam, he went to Antwerp, where he took a house[132] “that belonged to the widow of a famous Picture-drawer, Van Ruben”. Here, however, was a difficulty, for the Widow Rubens’s house was “to be let unfurnished,” and Newcastle had no cash with which to buy furniture. Happily he was a past-master in the art of borrowing.

His wife says:—

“About this time my Lord was much necessitated for Money, which forced him to try several ways for to obtain so much as would relieve his present wants. At last Mr. Alesbury, the onely Son to Sir Th. Alesbury, Knight and Baronet, and Brother to the now Countess of Clarendon, a very worthy Gentleman, and great Friend to my Lord, having some Moneys that belonged to the now Duke of Buckingham, and seeing my Lord in so great distress did him the favour to lend him 200£. (which money my Lord since his return hath honestly and justly repaid).”[194] No doubt! But that was some dozen years later, and the delay may have been inconvenient to the Duke of Buckingham. “This relief came so seasonably, that it got my Lord Credit in the City of Antwerp, whereas otherwise he would have lost himself to his great disadvantage; for my Lord having hired the house aforementioned, and wanting Furniture for it, was credited by the Citizens for as many Goods as he was pleased to have, as also for Meat and Drink, and all kind of necessaries and provisions, which certainly was a special Blessing of God, he being not onely a stranger in that Nation, but to all appearance, a Ruined man.”

While at Antwerp, Newcastle was exempted from all taxes and excise dues. In 1650 he was made a member of the Privy Council of Charles II, and he urged the King to make an agreement with Scotland on any terms and to go there in person. Hyde opposed the Scotch policy advocated by Newcastle, whom he describes in one of his letters “as a most lamentable man, as fit to be a general as to be a bishop”.[133] Yet Hyde and Newcastle remained on good terms, and, when Hyde was accused in 1653 of betraying the King’s Councils, Newcastle wrote him “a very comfortable letter of advice”.[134]

At Antwerp Newcastle’s chief amusement was riding the two horses which he had bought for £160 and £100, until they both, unfortunately, suffered premature death. This is remarkable; for tittupping[195] round a riding-school was a gentle form of exercise more likely to lengthen than to shorten a horse’s existence. Being desperately hard up, it might naturally be expected that he would give up riding and economise. Not a bit of it! On the contrary, finding himself horseless, “though he wanted present means to repair these his losses, yet he endeavoured and obtained so much Credit at last that he was able to buy two others, and by degrees so many as amounted in all to the number of 8. In which he took so much delight and pleasure, that though he was then in distress for Money, yet he would sooner have tried all other ways, then parted with any of them; for I have hear’d him say, that good Horses are so rare, as not to be valued for Money.” He had excellent offers for two of these horses; but, poor as he was, nothing would induce him to sell either of them.

So difficult did Newcastle find it to keep eight horses and himself, to say nothing of his wife, with scarcely any money in hand, and a rapidly diminishing credit, that it became necessary, not to reduce his stud, but to send his wife to England to try to raise the wind. He could spare her, but not his horses. With Lady Newcastle went Newcastle’s brother, Sir Charles Cavendish, whose property, which had been sequestered since he left England, was to be sold outright if he did not quickly compound for it.

Lady Newcastle and Sir Charles had so little money for their journey that they were obliged to stay at Southwark, until Sir Charles had pawned his watch [196]to pay for their night’s lodging and for the very short remainder of their journey into London, where they found lodgings in Covent Garden. The Duchess’s book relates what followed.

“Having rested our selves some time, I desired my Brother the Lord Lucas, to claim, in my behalf, some subsistence for my self out of my Lords Estate (for it was declared by the Parliament, That the Lands of those that were banished, should be sold to any that would buy them, onely their Wives and Children were allowed to put in their Claims:) But he received this Answer, That I could not expect the least allowance, by reason my Lord and Husband had been the greatest Traitor of England (that is to say, the honestest man, because he had been most against them).”

Newcastle had felt some compunction about compounding with traitors to his King. Henrietta Maria very kindly wrote to him, saying that she had heard of his scruples from Lord Jermyn, adding: “I am sufficiently assured of your affection and fidelity to tell you, that I think the king cannot be displeased that you should do what the late king his father”—it was after the death of Charles I—“permited those to do who had served him, when he was not in a condition to assist them.... And I cannot forbear pitying you, knowing well your repugnance to treat with these abominable villains.”

The Duchess continues:—

[197]

“Then Sir Charles intrusted some persons to compound for his Estate; but it being a good while before they agreed in their Composition, and then before the Rents could be received, we having in the mean time nothing to live on, must of necessity have been starved, had not Sir Charles got some Credit of several Persons, and that not without great difficulty; for all those that had Estates, were afraid to come near him, much less to assist him, until he was sure of his own Estate. So much is Misery and Poverty shun’d!” No novel discovery.

“But though our Condition was hard, yet my dear Lord and Husband, whom we left in Antwerp, was then in a far greater distress than our selves.”

In fact his creditors had become very “impatient”—who can wonder?—and he wrote to his wife that, unless some money were sent to him immediately, he would starve. With very great difficulty Sir Charles Cavendish raised £200, which he sent out at once to his brother. We need not enter into the details of Sir Charles’s compounding for his estates, or of his saving Welbeck and Bolsover for Newcastle.

During her stay in England, Lady Newcastle consoled herself in her anxieties with pens and paper, of which we shall hear a good deal later.

It was probably not very long before Lady Newcastle’s visit to London that King Charles I was beheaded, an incident unmentioned in her memoirs. But perhaps she regarded it as a tragedy too well known to require notice.

After being in England a year and a half, having heard that her husband was “not very well,” and [198]having but “small hopes” of raising money out of his estates, Lady Newcastle returned to him. Sir Charles Cavendish was prevented from accompanying her by ague, and she had reached her husband only a short time, when news came of Sir Charles’s death.

Clarendon[135] describes Sir Charles Cavendish as Newcastle’s “brave brother, who was a man of the noblest and largest mind, though the least, and most inconvenient body that lived”. Almost the only words at all approaching disparagement of her husband, occurring in the Duchess’s story of his life, are in her already quoted statement that he had “not so much of scholarship and learning as his brother Sir Charles Cavendish”.

As we have seen, Newcastle had written to his wife, in England, that unless she or his brother sent him money immediately, he would starve; therefore it might be reasonably supposed that he had sold the last of his horses. Such was very far from being the fact. When Lady Newcastle returned, she found her starving husband with “the Mannage of his horses,” as she calls it, so splendid that “all strangers that were Persons of Quality” came to see it.

It was at Antwerp that Newcastle wrote his famous book on horsemanship, which we will notice when we consider his literary works in a later chapter.

Ben Jonson had written, concerning Newcastle’s horsemanship:—

[199]

Of his book on horsemanship, Newcastle wrote to Secretary Nicholas from Antwerp, on 15 February, 1656: “I am so tormented about my book of horsemanship as you cannot believe, with a hundred several trades I think, and the printing will cost above £1,300, which I could never have done but for my good friends, Sir H. Cartwright and Mr. Loving; and I hope they shall lose nothing by it, and I am sure they hope the like”. Only the impecunious can afford to embark upon literary extravagances of this sort.

Lady Newcastle’s return had one very inconvenient effect. It had been generally known at Antwerp that her expedition to England had been for the purpose [200]of raising money to pay her husband’s debts, and it was naturally, though most erroneously, assumed that she had returned with that money. In consequence, there was a general rush of Newcastle’s creditors to his house, crowding and clamouring for a settlement of their little accounts. Wonderful to relate, when Newcastle “had informed them of the truth of the business, and desired their patience somewhat longer,” they were “willing to forbear”. This, says the pious Duchess, “was a work of Divine Providence”. Undoubtedly it was; but did not Newcastle tempt Providence very hard, when he lived in what she admits to have been “so much Splendor and Grandure” on borrowed money, with only a very problematical prospect of ever being able to repay it?

It would seem, from the following letter, written by Buckingham, that Newcastle had asked him to beg on his account from Charles II; that Charles had promised some money, and had been persuaded to break his promise by Newcastle’s enemies. Buckingham also advises Newcastle to make the best terms he can with the Government of the Commonwealth about his property.[136]

“G. Duke of Buckingham to the Marquis of Newcastle.

Some time later the Royalist affairs were going very badly.[137]

[202]

“G. Duke of Buckingham to the Marquis of Newcastle.

Among other correspondence of Newcastle’s of the same period, is a letter from Clarendon, then Sir Edward Hyde, asking him to try to prevent a duel.[138]

“Sir Edward Hyde to the Marquis of Newcastle.

Newcastle appears to have called himself, or at least to have had some idea of calling himself, by the title of Prince on the Continent. A letter from so high an authority as Garter-King-at-Arms, at the Herald’s College, asserted him to be justified in so doing.[139]

[204]

“Sir Edward Walker, Garter, to the Marquis of Newcastle.

Towards the end of his exile, Newcastle put his son, who had succeeded in obtaining an income, probably by his marriage, into his old home at Welbeck, as will be seen by the following letters.[140]

“Robert Deane (the Marquis of Newcastle) to (Viscount Mansfield).

[205]

“The Same to the Same.

“The Same to (the Same).

The change of title from Duke to Prince, if he ever made it, did not soften the hearts of Newcastle’s creditors. Their generosity steadily decreased, until the poor men appeared to be losing their nerve altogether. Newcastle, says his wife, “was put to great plunges and difficulties”. Her chief fear was that her husband [206]“for his debts would suffer imprisonment, where sadness of mind, and want of exercise and air, would have wrought his destruction”. However, when the yet unrestored Charles II “was pleased to accept of a private dinner at” Newcastle’s house in Antwerp, “he did merrily and in jest” tell Lady Newcastle “that he perceived her Lord’s Credit could procure better Meat than His own”.

The Newcastles also gave Charles something more than “a private dinner”. Sir Charles Cotterell wrote to Nicholas:—[141]

“At the ball at Lord Newcastle’s was the Duchess of Lorraine and her son and daughter, with the King and his brothers and sister, several French people, and some of the town. The King was brought in with music, and all being placed, Major Mohun, the player, in a black satin robe and a garland of bays, made a speech in verse of his lordship’s”—Newcastle’s—“own poetry, complimenting the King in his highest hyperbole. Then there was dancing for two hours, and then my Lady’s Moor, dressed in feathers, came in and sang a song of the same authors, set and taught him by Nich. Lanier. Then was the banquet brought in, in eight great chargers, each borne by two gentlemen of the court, and others bringing wines, drinks, etc. Then they all danced again two hours more, and Major Mohun ended all with another speech, prophesying his Majesty’s Re-establishment.”

The report of all this magnificence must have made Newcastle’s creditors feel a little anxious.

[207]

Shortly afterwards, with the help of the remainder of his brother Charles’s estate, Newcastle “sprinkled something amongst his Creditors, and borrowed so much of Mr. Top and Mr. Smith (though without assurance) that he could pay such scores as were most pressing, contracted from the poorer sort of Tradesmen, and send ready mony to Market, to avoid cozenage (for small scores run up most unreasonably, especially if no strict accounts be kept, and the rate be left to the Creditors pleasure) by which means there was in a short time so much saved, as it could not have been imagined”.

Thus, by borrowing from new creditors to pay old ones, the Newcastles contrived to live in luxury for a good many years; in short until the Restoration.

Newcastle’s correspondence with Nicholas, among the Egerton Manuscripts in the British Museum, reveals his alternate hopes and fears as to the probability of that event. It is amusing to find a General, who rightly or wrongly fled from his country, cavilling at others for doing the same thing. In January, 1659, he wrote from Antwerp to Nicholas: “There are many noblemen, or at least lords, that are comed over to Paris, it is true, but those lords that can take such sudden apprehensions of fears so far off, I doubt will hardly have the courage to help our gracious Master to his throne—woful people—and the next generation of lords they tell me are fools. It will be a brave Upper House!”[142]

[208]

CHAPTER XVII.

At last the long-looked-for Restoration actually took place, and Newcastle determined to sail for England, which he could then do in perfect safety, as he would now be a loyal subject in that country instead of a traitor specially excepted from any possibility of pardon.

The only difficulty in returning to his country was the objection made by his creditors to his leaving Holland until his debts were paid. But Newcastle was a resourceful debtor; and he surmounted the difficulty by the very simple expedient of pawning—not his wife’s clothes this time, but his wife herself! Being in another part of Holland, says that lady, “my Lord declared his intention of going for England, withal commanding me to stay in that city (Antwerp), as a Pawn for his debts, until he could compass money to discharge them”.

“Being in another part of Holland!” Yes! It is certainly pleasanter to express desires of such a nature to one’s wife by letter rather than in person.

Having left his wife in pawn at Antwerp, Newcastle started in excellent spirits for England.[143]

[209]

“My Lord (who was so transported with the joy of returning into his Native Countrey, that he regarded not the Vessel) having set Sail from Rotterdam, was so becalmed, that he was six dayes and six nights upon the Water, during which time he pleased himself with mirth, and pass’d his time away as well as he could; Provisions he wanted not, having them in great store and plenty. At last being come so far that he was able to discern the smoak of London, which he had not seen in a long time, he merrily was pleased to desire one that was near him, to jogg and awake him out of his dream, for surely, said he, I have been sixteen years asleep, and am not thoroughly awake yet. My Lord lay that night at Greenwich, where his Supper seem’d more savoury to him, than any meat he had hitherto tasted; and the noise of some scraping Fidlers, he thought the pleasantest harmony that ever he had heard.”

It is gratifying to learn that thoughts of his absent wife in dreary exile did not lessen the spirits, the merriness, or the transports of joy, of the Marquess.

Collins[144] gives us the following information about Newcastle after the Restoration. Newcastle, on his return to England, “finding his estate much entangled, was obliged to borrow £5,000 whereof his cousin, the Earl of Devonshire, lent him £1,000.... His Lordship lived at Dorset House, during his stay in London.”

[210]

“The King had made him a Knight of the Garter on Jan. 12, 1651; but he does not appear to have received the insignia until ten years later. By a warrant of April 10, 1661, the King ordered Lord Sandwich, Master of the Great Wardrobe, to give Newcastle ‘18 yards of blue velvet for an upper robe, 10 yards of crimson velvet for an under robe or surcoat, together with 16 yards of white taffata to line them both’. The King also ordered Sir Gilbert Talbot, Master of the Jewels, to give him a collar of gold, ‘containing the usual number of garters,’ ‘likewise one rich George on horseback’. After the Restoration, his Majesty made him one of the Gentlemen of his Bed-Chamber.”

Lady Newcastle says that her husband “at last” borrowed enough money to redeem her out of pawn; or rather nearly enough; for even then the amount he sent over was £400 short, and she had to borrow that sum from a Sir John Shaw, in Antwerp, to make it up. After sundry adventures, she sailed for England in a Dutch man-of-war. When she had joined her husband, she was rather disappointed at finding him in circumstances which she did not consider befitting his rank. “After I was safely arrived at London, I found my Lord in Lodgings; I cannot call them unhandsome; but yet they were not fit for a Person of his Rank and Quality, nor of the capacity to contain all his Family: Neither did I find my Lord’s Condition such as I expected.”

Some historians hint that her ladyship found herself mocked and derided by the gay ladies and the flippant gallants at the licentious Court of Charles II, where she felt out of her element, and that this was her chief reason for wishing to retire to Welbeck. [211]She continues: “Wherefore out of some passion I desir’d him to leave the Town, and retire into the countrey; but my Lord gently reproved me for my rashness and impatience”.

She got her way, however, before long; and Newcastle obtained the King’s leave to retire to Welbeck. The only account we have of his financial affairs, after the Restoration, is that of his wife; therefore, part of it shall be given here; although even that part is wearisome, lengthy, and far from lucid; indeed it may be skipped without serious loss.[145]

Newcastle “kissed His Majesty’s hand, and went the next day into Nottinghamshire, to his Manor-house call’d Welbeck; but when he came there, and began to examine his Estate, and how it had been ordered in the time of his Banishment, he knew not whether he had left any thing of it for himself, or not, till by his prudence and wisdom he inform’d himself the best he could, examining those that had most knowledge therein. Some Lands, he found, could be recover’d no further then for his life, and some not at all: Some had been in the Rebels hands, which he could not recover, but by His Highness the Duke of York’s favour, to whom His Majesty had given all the Estates of those that were condemned and executed for murdering his Royal Father of blessed memory, which by the Law were forfeited to His Majesty; whereof His Highness graciously restor’d my Lord so much of the Land that formerly had been [212]his, as amounted to 730£ a year. And though my Lord’s Children had their Claims granted, and bought out the life of my Lord, their Father, which came near upon the third part, yet my Lord received nothing for himself out of his own Estate, for the space of eighteen years, viz., During the time from the first entring into Warr, which was June 11, 1642, till his return out of Banishment, May 28, 1660; for though his Son Henry, now Earl of Ogle, and his eldest Daughter, the now Lady Cheiny, did all what lay in their power to relieve my Lord their Father, and sent him some supplies of moneys at several times when he was in banishment; yet that was of their own, rather then out of my Lord’s Estate; for the Lady Cheiny sold some few Jewels which my Lord, her Father, had left her, and some Chamber-Plate which she had from her Grandmother, and sent over the money to my Lord, besides 1000£ of her Portion: And the now Earl of Ogle did at several times supply my Lord, his Father, with such moneys as he had partly obtained upon Credit, and partly made by his Marriage.

[213]

“After my Lord had begun to view those Ruines that were nearest, and tried the Law to keep or recover what formerly was his, (which certainly shew’d no favour to him, besides that the Act of Oblivion proved a great hinderance and obstruction to those his designs, as it did no less to all the Royal Party) and had settled so much of his Estate as possibly he could, he cast up the Summ of his Debts, and set out several parts of Land for the payment of them, or of some of them (for some of his Lands could not be easily sold, being entailed)....”

From this we learn that, so soon as he was able, Newcastle sold property to pay the large debts which he incurred during his sixteen years of exile. With cumulative interest their amount must have been very great.

“His two Houses Welbeck and Bolsover he found much out of repair, and this later half pull’d down, no furniture or any necessary Goods were left in them, but some few Hangings and Pictures, which had been saved by the care and industry of his Eldest Daughter the Lady Cheiny,[146] and were bought over again after the death of his eldest Son Charles, Lord Mansfield; for they being given to him, and he leaving some debts to be paid after his death, My Lord sent to his other Son Henry, now Earl of Ogle, to endeavour for so much Credit, that the said Hangings and Pictures (which my Lord esteemed very much, the Pictures being drawn by Van Dyke) might be saved; which he also did, and My Lord hath paid the debt since his return.”

After giving a number of figures, including the former rent-roll of all his estates, she says: “The Loss of my Lords Estate, in plain Rents, as also upon ordinary Use, and Use upon Use, is as followeth:—

[214]

“The Annual Rent of My Lords Land, viz. 22,393£. 10s. 1d. being lost for the space of 18 years, which was the time of his acting in the Wars, and of his Banishment, without any benefit to him, reckoned without any Interest, amounts to 403,083£. But being accounted with the ordinary Use at Six in the Hundred, and Use upon Use for the mentioned space of 18 Years, it amounts to 733,579£.”

Six in the hundred, or six per cent. and use upon use, or cumulative interest, sounds fairly high.

Farther on, she says: “The Lands which My Lord hath lost in present possession are 2,015£. per annum, which at 20 years’ purchase come to 40,300£. and those which he hath lost in Reversion, are 3,214£. per annum, which at 16 years’ purchase amount to the value of 51,424£.

“The Lands which my Lord since his return has sold for the payment of some of his debts, occasioned by the Wars (for I do not reckon those he sold to buy others) come to the value of 56,000£. to which out of his yearly revenue he has added 10,000£. more, which is in all 66,000£.

“Lastly, The Composition of his Brothers Estate was 5,000£. and the loss of it for eight years comes to 16,000£.

“All which, if summ’d up together, amounts to 941,303£.

“These are the accountable losses, which My Dear Lord and Husband has suffered by the late Civil Wars, and his Loyalty to his King and Country.”

Certainly her ladyship had “an eye to the main chance,” nor did she wish her husband to lose credit [215]for one penny that he had sacrificed in the loyalist cause; but even if we allow for considerable exaggeration in her statement and object to six per cent. at “use upon use,” his sacrifices must still have been enormous.

To descend from very great matters to very small, it may be remembered that we found Newcastle having a quiet pipe immediately before the battle of Marston Moor; and, from the following extract from a letter, he evidently intended to solace his retirement at Welbeck by the use of tobacco.[147]

An important post was given by the King to Newcastle, namely, that of Chief Justice in Eyre north of the Trent. Originally Justices in Eyre, or in itinere, were delegated with power from the King’s great Court to visit the counties assigned to them and hear all pleas. Their functions were to protect the King’s interests and to try law-suits and indictments. But the trial of law-suits and criminals by Justices in Eyre had become practically obsolete before Newcastle’s time, and what his duties may have been is somewhat [216]doubtful; very likely they may have been principally honorary or even nominal. They would appear, however, to have included the defence of his large district; for, in 1662 and 1663, there were rumours of disaffection north of the Trent, as the following extracts from letters to Newcastle, among the Welbeck MSS., will show.

The threatened risings, however, subsided, and Newcastle had leisure to turn his mind to matters of a more domestic nature.

Newcastle’s son seems to have inherited his taste for overspending himself.[148]

[218]

Here is a significant entry among the Welbeck manuscripts.

But this must have included interest at a very high rate, which no doubt Newcastle had had to pay himself; for a year later we find this letter:—

Apparently one of the King’s idiosyncrasies was a prejudice against “six per cent. at Use upon Use”. Finding that he could not get repaid even a comparatively small sum lent to the King, much less any of the larger losses which he had suffered for the Royalist [219]cause, Newcastle would seem to have bethought him that a Dukedom might be better than nothing, and, from the following letter written by the King, it is quite clear that Newcastle must have asked for one in so many words.[149]

Newcastle was that year advanced to the dignities of Earl of Ogle and Duke of Newcastle.

Charles II must have found this a cheap method of settling accounts with, what he calls in the preamble to the Patent, his “most beloved and faithful cousin and councillor,” and of preventing that cousin and councillor from worrying him with any more requests for repayments of money. As he had now [220]promoted Newcastle to the same position on which he was soon to place some illegitimate children, what more could Newcastle want?

There is an extraordinary entry in the list of the Welbeck manuscripts:—

It is scarcely conceivable that a son should be asked solemnly to bind himself, in the case of his wife’s death, never to marry again so long as a son of hers should be living! Yet, if this summary of the document in question is correct, so it must have been.

It is clear that Newcastle arranged, or endeavoured to arrange, all the marriages and matchmakings of his children and grandchildren. In reply to one of his attempted bargains, in the marriage market, he received the following gentle snub.[150]

[221]

As a matter of fact, when she was “of an age to judge,” the sole heiress of the eleventh and last Earl of Northumberland (of the old Percys) did marry Newcastle’s grandson. And “the age to judge” was fourteen. Her husband died in the following year; so she was a widow at fifteen, which she only remained for two years, as she married a second time at the age of seventeen,[151] and she had been engaged also to another suitor[152] in the interval; but he was assassinated.

Later still, some very elaborate and most business-like matrimonial arrangements were under discussion.[153]

[222]

“The Earl of Ogle, to his father, the Duke of Newcastle.

[223]

Here we see a little of his celebrated match-making great-grandmother exhibiting itself in Ogle. The Lexington match, however, never came off. Ogle’s second daughter married John, second Earl of Breadalbane.

The next entry in the Historical Commission’s Report of the Welbeck MSS. shows that even daughters, like other worms, will turn if tried too hard.

“The Countess of Ogle to her daughter, Elizabeth.

That graceful epistle seems to have been written more than a year before Ogle’s letter to his father; but probably it had been provoked by the family habit of daughter-dealing.

The best short account of the life of the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle, after the Restoration, is to be found in Sir Egerton Brydges’s Preface to the Duchess’s “True Relation” of her own life.

[224]

All very true, except on one point. This account, as well as one or two other accounts, of the post-Restoration life of the Newcastles might lead a reader to suppose that during the latter part of their existence they never went to London. Any such supposition would be most erroneous. They may have gone there very seldom; but, when they did go, they took good care to make their presence felt. As Pepys will tell us in a later chapter, they made a great show of splendour, and the Duchess became the talk of the Town!

THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE AND THEIR FAMILY

By Diepenbeck

Thus in this Semy-Circle wher they Sitt,

Telling of Tales of pleasure & of witt.

Heer you may read without a Sinn or Crime,

And how more innocently pass your tyme.

[225]

[226]

CHAPTER XVIII.

Newcastle, after spending sixteen years in exile, lived to spend about the same length of time in England.

It might be expected that he would have taken up the position of a great Cavalier who had made larger financial sacrifices in the Royalist cause than almost any other of the King’s subjects, or that he would have posed as the hero of many battles. Instead of assuming any such position, however, Newcastle chose to figure as a man of letters, an author, a poet, and a playwright.

As an author, he had some claims to the position he desired; for he had written a standard work. During his exile he produced a book entitled A New Method and Extraordinary Invention to Dress Horses, and work them, According to Nature by the Subtlety of Art. This is mainly an exposition of what is known as the haute école of horsemanship; thus the most ponderous volume on what we now talk of as the French style of riding was written by an Englishman. It is a gorgeous folio, beautifully printed, splendidly illustrated; and a good copy is worth about ten guineas at the present moment. If it were a new book, modern booksellers would doubtless advertise [227]it either as an “édition de luxe,” or as “a sumptuous volume”.

One of the best editions is that by J. Brindley, London, 1743. That the book was a success, and a great success, the most malignant caviller at Newcastle cannot fairly deny.

The work is illustrated by Diepenbeke, whose representations in it of the Welbeck of those days, and of Bolsover Castle, have a special interest. Editions were published in London, Paris and Nuremberg, both in English and in French. In this magnificent volume the reader may learn how to train his horse to make curvets, pirouettes, demi-pirouettes, passades, voltes and demi-voltes, terms which may also be found in modern French books upon horsemanship.

Men who fancy that they know all about hunters may be surprised at their own ignorance when they read that “Your Hunter ... need not be kept ... to an exact regimen of diet: any clean food is fit for him”. If a horse’s wind is broken, it is a simple matter to mend it again by feeding him on fat bacon, sweet oil, and brandy figs, or by dosing him with small shot, pounded in a mortar and mixed with sulphur. Among other remedies for the horse will be found “A receipt for ruined nerves,” as well as “A remedy for the head-ach,” a malady seldom complained of in modern stables.

No notice of the life of Newcastle would be complete without a few quotations from the book with which his name is chiefly associated. Let us begin [228]with a description “Of the true Seat and the necessary Actions of a good horseman.[154] Before a horseman mounts, he ought first to take care that all his horse’s furniture be in order, which is soon done, without prying into every minute circumstance, to show himself an affected connoisseur in the art. When he is seated (for I take it for granted that everyone knows how to mount a horse)”—a large assumption—“he ought to sit upright upon the twist, and not upon the buttocks, though most people think they were made by nature to sit upon; however it is not so on horseback.

“When he is thus placed upon his twist in the middle of the saddle, he ought to advance, as much as he can, towards the pommel, leaving a hand’s breadth between his backside and the arch of the saddle, holding his legs perpendicular, as when he stands upon the ground, and his knees and thighs turned inwards towards the saddle, keeping them as close as if they were glued to the saddle; for a horseman has nothing else but this, together with the balance of his body, to keep himself on horseback. He ought to fix himself firm upon his stirrups, with his heels a little lower than his toes, so that the ends of his toes may pass about half an inch beyond the stirrup, or something more. He should keep his hams stiff, having his legs neither too near, nor too distant from the horse; that is to say, they should not touch the horse’s sides, because of the aids which shall afterwards be explained.

[229]

“He ought to hold the reins in his left hand, separating them with his little finger, holding the rest in his hand, having the thumb upon the reins, which should be held strait over the horse’s neck.

“He should have a slender switch in his hand, not too long, like a fishing rod, nor too short, like a bodkin; but rather short than long, because there are many useful aids with a short one, that a long one will not admit of. The handle of it ought to be a little beyond the hand, not only for the sake of caressing the horse with it, but likewise to hold it the faster. The right hand, that holds the switch, ought to advance a little before the bridle hand, with the small end of the switch pointing to the inside.

“The rider’s breast ought to be in some measure advanced, his countenance pleasant and gay, but without a laugh, pointing directly between his horse’s ears as he moves forward. I don’t mean, that he should fix himself stiff like a post, or that he should sit upon a horse like a statue; but, on the contrary, that he should be in a free and easy position, as it is expressed in dancing with a free air. Therefore I would have a Gentleman appear on horseback without stiffness or formality, which rather savours of the scholar than the master, and I could never observe such a formality, without conceiting the rider to look awkward and silly.

[230]

“A good seat is of such importance, as you will see hereafter, that the regular movement of a horse entirely depends upon it, which is preferable to any other assistance; therefore let it not be despised. Moreover I dare venture to affirm, that he who does not sit genteely upon a horse, will never be a good horseman. As to the management of the bridle-reins and caveson, I will teach you more concerning them in the following discourse than has been hitherto known.”

Here is some safe advice.[155]

“The Way I took to reduce a Horse, that was extreamly Resty.

“A Horse’s restiness, when it is in a high degree, does not consist only in his refusing to advance, but also in his opposition to the rider, in every thing he possibly can, and with the utmost malice.... One must endeavour therefore to gain the horse; for the perfection of a well-managed horse consists in his following the will of his rider, so that the will of both shall be the same.... Violent methods will not do. For when the horseman thinks himself victorious, he is deceived, etc., etc. If the rider begins again to beat and spur the horse will resist again; it is not the beast then that is vanquished, but the man, who is the greater brute of the two.... The whole therefore is to make the horseman and his horse friends.

“ART AVAILS MUCH MORE THAN THE BRIDLE”

Terre a terre la reste contre la muraille a Main droite

From Newcastle’s book on horsemanship

[231]

“If you can’t gain your point one way, you must have recourse to another. You would make your horse advance, and he to defend himself against you runs back; at that instant pull him back with all your strength, and if to oppose you he advances, immediately force him briskly forwards. If you would turn to the right, and he endeavours to turn to the left, pull him round to the left as suddenly as possible: if you would turn him to the left, and he insists on the right, turn him as smartly to the right as you are able.... If he would rise,” probably the author means rear, “make him rise two or three times.” A very, very dangerous piece of advice! “In a word, follow his inclinations in everything, and change as often as he. When he perceives there can be no opposition, but that you always will the same thing as he, he will be amazed, he will breathe short, snuff up his nose, and won’t know what to do next.”

In these days, we are apt to consider good hands and the skilful use of the bridle of the utmost possible importance in horsemanship. Newcastle was of a different opinion.

“The bridle,” he says,[156] “I confess, is of some use, tho’ but little; art avails much more, as all your excellent riders well know; for I have managed a horse with a halter only, and he went as well as with the bridle.... I have also managed an English one with a scarf, and made him curvet and vault very justly.”

Yet he tells us, later, that, in addition to his favourite curb, with a high port and rings on it, and appallingly long cheeks to the bit—a bridle about which the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals would have something to say, were it used in these days—he liked to have a caveson on his horse’s [232] nose, with the reins fastened to the pommel of his saddle. By the way, in an illustration, the saddle which he says cannot possibly be improved upon, looks more like an elephant’s howdah than the saddle of a horse.

Here is some queer anatomy with some still queerer inference from it.

The horse’s[157] “fore-legs are made like those of a man, having his knee bending forward; and his hind-legs like a man’s arm, having the sinews of his ham bending backwards, which is diametrically opposite to the former. If the hind-legs of a horse bent in the same manner as those before, he would walk upright like a man; but his hind-legs bending contrary, they resemble the arm of a man, and his fore-legs bend as ours, which makes him go upon all four; and there is no other reason for beasts going upon all four, with their bellies to the ground.”

Newcastle apparently did not realise that a man’s wrist corresponds to a horse’s knee, and a man’s heel to a horse’s hock.

The following extract will show hunting-men how little they know about leaping:—

“For Leaping-horses, there are four several airs, which are Croupades, Balotades, Caprioles, and a Step and a Leap....

“Croupades is a leap where the horse pulls up his hinder legs, as if he drew or pulled them up into his body.

[233]

“Balotades is a leap where the horse offers to strike out with his hinder legs, but doth not, and makes only an offer or half strokes; showing only the shoes of his hinder legs, but doth not strike, only makes an offer, and no more.

“Caprioles is a leap, that when the horse is at the full height of his leap he yerks, or strikes out his hinder legs, as near and as even together, and as far out as ever he can stretch them, which the French call nouër l’aiguilette, which is, to tie the point.”

It is a pity that the Duke does not inform his readers which of the “four several airs” of “the leaping-horse” are respectively most suitable for the negotiation of oxers, bulfinches and brooks.

In training the horse to make demi-pirouettes, demi-voltes, etc., not content with the powerful curb, the caveson with its reins fastened to the pommel of the saddle, and having the horse’s head tied by a rope to a pole fixed in the ground, Newcastle would have his rider wear terrible spurs on his heels and carry a poinson, which was a “short stick with an iron point at one end of it,” in his hand. And, as if even all this were not enough, he would have two men on foot to “help” the horse, one with a switch in his hand and the other with a “Scourge”. By these gentle means, he tells us, horses may acquire “airs built only of art”.

Let us next learn something about curvets.[158]

[234]

“To work a horse in Curvets backwards upon the Voltes.

“The pillar being on the right side, to the right you must advance your breast and pull in your belly, your bridle-hand on the contrary side, putting it very much out and back each time, and helping at the same time with the opposite leg. This is to make him go in a circle; but all the aids must be given in the right time. The rein and contrary leg here works the horse’s croupe, and his shoulders are at liberty.”

Here we have a highly scientific description of “Curvets upon the Voltes, sideways”.[159]

“The horse’s hind-legs that are out ought to follow the fore-legs that are in, neither more in nor more out; the fore-legs however are within the lines of the hind ones, since they are narrower. The pillar or center is without the head of the horse when you work the croupe out, for which reason his fore-legs describe the smallest circles, and those behind the largest. The fore-leg within the volte describes the least of the two smaller, and the other fore-leg the largest of them. The hind-leg within the volte describes the least of the larger circles, and the other without the volte the greatest.”

It is pleasant to contemplate what the face of a British groom would be like if the above instructions were given to him before getting into the saddle.

Let not the conceited modern horseman smile at any of these quotations from Newcastle’s great book.

“AIDS”

From Newcastle’s book on horsemanship

[235]

He was a professor of a style of horsemanship which went out of fashion in this country long ago, but culminated in France some two hundred years later than the days of Newcastle, under those two great masters of the Haute École, Baucher and Captain Raabe.

It was not only in the pirouetting and demi-volting of horses that Newcastle interested himself. After the Restoration, he went on the Turf; although it is doubtful whether he raced except at Welbeck.[160] Near that place he established a race-course, where he held no less than six meetings in the year, and the races at them were run under special rules of his own making.

Some years earlier (in 1659) he had denied all knowledge of racing—or horse-coursing, as he called it—in a letter to Nicholas (Egerton MSS., British Museum). “It is two professions, a good horseman and a Horse courser. I pretend to the first, but know nothing of the second, for I’ll cozen nobody; I only take care not to be cozened.”

[236]

CHAPTER XIX.

The book noticed in the last chapter is the most important that Newcastle ever wrote; but he also wrote poems and plays. Granger says:—[161]

“William, Marquis of Newcastle, who amused himself at this period with poetry and horsemanship was, as a natural consequence of his rank, much esteemed as a poet. His poetical works, which consist of plays and poems, are very little regarded; but his fine book of horsemanship is still in esteem.”

Another critic held a far higher opinion of Newcastle’s plays and poems, and praised him also as a patron of men-of-letters. Langbaine, who was almost his contemporary, says:—[162]

[237]

“To speak first of his acquaintance with the Muses, and his affable deportment to all their votaries, no person since the time of Augustus better understood dramatic poetry, nor more generously encouraged poets; so that we may truly call him our English Mecaenas. He had a more particular kindness for that great master of dramatic poesy, the excellent Jonson, and ‘twas from him that he attained to a perfect knowledge of what was to be accounted true humour in comedy. How well he has copied his master, I leave to the critics: but I am sure our late, as well as our present Laureate, have powerful reasons to defend his memory. He has writ four Comedies, which have always been acted with applause; viz., Country Captain, ... Humorous Lovers, ... Triumphant Widow, and Variety. We have many other pieces writ by this ingenious Nobleman, scattered up and down in the poems of his Duchess; all which seem to confirm the character given by Mr. Shadwell, ‘That he was the greatest master of wit, the most exact observer of mankind, and the most accurate judge of humour that ever he knew’.”

It is only fair to add that on page 104 of a later edition of the same book, published in 1699 and entitled, “The Lives And Characters Of The English Dramatick Poets, First Begun By Mr. Langbain, Improved and Continued Down To This Time By A Careful Hand,” we read, concerning the above notice of Newcastle:—

“Mr. Langbain has always a good word for quality; he can see no Blemish in a Person that has a Title, tho’ he be so sharp-sighted in all those of a lower station; and he is so transported on the worthy Nobleman” (Newcastle) “that he baulks the Curiosity of his Readers, for some Account of his Life, to vent a clumsey Flattery”.

[238]

Let us hear another critic. Walpole says:[163] “As an author he is familiar to those who scarce know any other author ... from his book of horsemanship.... He was fitter to break Pegasus for a manage than to mount him on the steeps of Parnassus.... One does not know whether to admire the philosophy or smile at the triflingness of this[164] peer, who after sacrificing such a fortune for his Master and enduring such calamities for his country, could accommodate his mind to the utmost idleness of literature.”

In this instance, the critic has been criticised. Newcastle’s “elegant and retired studies,” says Lodge,[165] “his adoption of which in truth denoted the greatness of his spirit, a late noble person has endeavoured to ridicule ... with less taste and justice than are commonly to be found in his censures, and with more than his usual spleen”. Lodge is probably right in saying that, although Newcastle “could not claim the higher attributes of a dramatic author ... he was a close observer, and a faithful delineator of the characters and manners of ordinary society”.

It would be impossible to give long extracts from Newcastle’s plays here; but one or two are offered from “The Humorous Lovers,” a comedy of which even Walpole says that it was [239]“acted by his Royal Highnesses servants,” that it “was received with great applause, and esteemed one of the best plays at that time”.

The characters figuring in one scene were “Courtly, A gentleman in love with Emilia,” and “Emilia, a gentlewoman in love with Courtly”.

Act V. Scene I.

Enter Courtly and Emilia.

Near the end of the play, the same characters are again alone together upon the stage.

The two next extracts from the same play may serve as specimens of Newcastle’s verse. In each case the speaker is a sane man feigning madness. In the first he is addressing his lady-love.

As the poet, soon after this, becomes indecent, we will not read any more of this effusion, which, if not exactly Dantesque, is not entirely devoid of humour.

In the second poem, the sham madman again addresses the lady who is in love with him.

[242]

It is curious that Pepys should have attributed this play to the Duchess. On 30 March, 1667, he wrote in his Diary: “To see the silly play of my Lady Newcastle called ‘The Humorous Lovers’; the most silly thing that ever came upon a stage. I was sick to see it, but yet would not but have seen it, that I might the better understand her.”

Of another play attributed to Newcastle, “Sir Martin Marall,” Pepys wrote on 16 August, 1667: “My wife and I to the Duke’s playhouse, where we saw the new play acted yesterday, ‘The Feign Innocence, or Sir Martin Marall’; a play made by my Lord Duke of Newcastle, but, as everybody says, corrected by Dryden. It is the most entire piece of mirth, a complete farce from one end to the other that certainly ever was writ. I never laughed so in all my life, and at very good wit therein, not fooling.”

After all this high praise, it is painful to a writer of a panegyric on Newcastle, to read in the Encyclopædia Britannica that he “translated Molière’s L’Etourdi under the title ‘Sir Martin Mar-All’”. Almost worse still is it to read, in The Dictionary of National Biography, that Newcastle “translated Molière’s L’Etourdi, which Dryden”—not Newcastle—“converted into a play”.

Whatever may have been the assistance rendered by Dryden in what Pepys calls the making of this play, he certainly wrote its prologue and epilogue, which may be found in his collected works. They are by no means the most brilliant efforts of Dryden’s genius.

[243]

The severe critic of Langbaine’s worship of nobility, already quoted, says of Newcastle’s play, “The Triumphant Widow”: “This was esteemed a good Play, and Mr. Shadwell had so good an opinion of it, that he borrowed a great part thereof to compleat his Comedy called Bury Fair”.

In a poem entitled “The Philosopher’s Complaint,” Newcastle professes to watch a philosopher in his study, through a cranny in the wall. He hears him bewailing his fate in being a man and not a beast. The poem is long. Here are a few verses:—

[244]

Probably Newcastle shone more as a patron, than as a producer, of literature. Besides the men-of-letters whom he placed on the staff of his army in the North, he befriended Ben Jonson, a poet who was often in need of help in a pecuniary form, and also Shadwell, who, like Newcastle, only on an infinitely humbler scale, had lost a large part of his fortune in the service of his King. Both Jonson and Shadwell were Poets Laureate. Shirley and Flecknoe were also patronized by Newcastle.

Here is a begging letter from Ben Jonson to Newcastle: “My Noblest Lord and Best Patron. I send no borrowing epistle to provoke your lordship, for I have neither fortune to repay, nor security to engage that will be taken; but I make a most humble petition to your lordship’s bounty to succour my present necessities this good time of Easter, and it shall conclude all begging requests hereafter on behalf of your truest beadsman and most thankful servant, B. J.” (Harleian MSS. 4955).[167] In another letter he thanks Newcastle for his “lordship’s timely gratuity”.

One of Newcastle’s most intimate literary friends was not a poet, but a dry old philosopher. A good many letters written to Newcastle by Hobbes, the author of Leviathan, are among the Welbeck manuscripts, and from these a few extracts shall be given. At the time they were written, Hobbes was travelling with the young Earl of Devonshire, then a lad of 17 or 18.

[245]

“Thomas Hobbes to (the Earl of Newcastle).

“Thomas Hobbes to (the Earl of Newcastle).

“The Same to the Same, at Welbeck.

[247]

The greater part of the letters of Hobbes consists of disquisitions upon certain matters connected with optics, and especially upon some experiments made by Warner. They go far to show that Newcastle was interested in science, as well as in literature, pictures, and music. Hobbes also frequently expresses pleasant anticipations of discussions on philosophy with Newcastle when he shall visit him at Welbeck.

Another, and an even better-known philosopher, Des Cartes, is said to have been a friend of Newcastle. Surely Walpole was too severe when he accused a companion of Des Cartes and Hobbes of “accommodating his mind to the utmost idleness of literature”.

Newcastle seems to have made scientific experiments on his own account. In a Preface which he wrote to his wife’s Philosophical and Physical Opinions, he says: [248]“Dr. Payne, a divine and my chaplain, who hath a very witty, searching brain of his own, being at my house at Bolsover, locked up with me in a chamber to make Lapis Prunellae, which is saltpetre and brimstone[168] inflamed, looking at it a while, I said, Mark it, Mr. Payne, the flame is pale like the sun and hath a violent motion in it, like the sun; saith he, It is so, and the more to confirm you, says he, look what abundance of little suns, round the globe, appear to us everywhere, just the same motion as the sun makes in every one’s eyes. So we concluded the sun could be nothing else but a very solid body of salt and sulphur, inflamed by his own violent motion upon his own axis.”

So much for scientific inference. But observe what presently follows:—

“This,” he concludes, “is my opinion, which I think can as hardly be disproved as proved; since any opinion may be right or wrong, for anything that anybody knows, for certainly there is none can make a mathematical demonstration of natural philosophy”.

Well! The exact sciences have advanced a little since such a statement as that could be made.

MARGARET, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE

From the frontispiece of one of her books by Diepenbeck

[249]

CHAPTER XX.

In the last two chapters we have been considering the literary works of Newcastle. We must now face those of his Duchess—a very much more serious matter. The quantity of her written stuff was prodigious. The following list of her books, drawn up by Langbaine, is enough to cause the stoutest heart to quail. He says:—[169]

“She has published six and twenty plays, besides several loose scenes”—loose they are indeed—“nineteen of which are bound, and printed in one volume in Fol. 1662, the others in Folio, Lond., 1668, under the title of Plays never before printed. I know there are some that have but a mean opinion of her plays; but, if it be considered that both the language and plots of them are all her own, I think she ought to be preferred to others of her sex, which have built their fame on other people’s foundations.”

Then he enumerates:—

“Plays.

The other seven he does not name; but he says that to her play “Presence” are added twenty-nine single scenes which the Duchess designed to have inserted into this play, but finding it would too much lengthen it, she printed them separately. Of her other works he mentions:—

“The life of the Duke of Newcastle in English. Folio. London 1667.

“The same in Latin. Folio. London 1668.

“Nature’s Picture drawn by Fancy’s Pencil to the life. Folio. London 1656, at the end of which she has writ her own life.

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“Philosophical Fancies. Folio. London 1653.

“Philosophical & Physical Opinions. Folio. London 1655.

“Philosophical Letters. Folio. London 1664.

“Two Hundred and Eleven Sociable Letters. Folio. London 1664.

“Orations. Folio. 1662.

“Poems. Folio. 1653.”

The reader need not be afraid that much of all this is to be inflicted upon him; we have already seen a good deal of her writings; but a few fresh examples must needs be given. One reason for the prodigious number of her works was that she always kept secretaries at hand to write at dictation whatever happened to come into her head, a second seems to have been that she considered whatever came into her head to have been worthy of publication. Cibber says of her:—[170]

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“Being now restored to the sunshine of prosperity, she dedicated her time to writing poems, philosophical discourses, orations and plays. She was of a generous turn of mind, and kept a great many young ladies about her person, who occasionally wrote what she dictated. Some of them slept in a room contiguous to that in which her Grace lay, and were ready, at the call of her bell, to rise any hour of the night, to write down her conceptions, lest they should escape her memory. The young ladies, no doubt, often dreaded her Grace’s conceptions, which were frequent, but all of the poetical or philosophical kind.”

She herself gives the following long-winded description of the speed at which her mighty brain kept turning out matter for “copy,” and what is given here is a mere fragment of a sentence of miraculous length.

“... the brain being quicker in creating than the hand in writing, or the memory in retaining, many fancies are lost, by reason they ofttimes outrun the pen; where I, to keep speed in the Race, write so fast as I stay not so long as to write my letters plain, insomuch as some have taken my hand-writing for some strange character, and being accustomed so to do, I cannot now write very plain, when I strive to write my best; indeed, my ordinary hand-writing is so bad as few can read it, so as to write it fair for the Press, but however, that little wit I have, it delights me to scribble it out, and disperse it about, for I being addicted from my childhood to contemplation rather than conversation, to solitariness rather than society, to melancholy rather than mirth, to write with the pen than to work with a needle, passing my time with harmeless fancies, their company being pleasing, their conversation innocent, in which I take such pleasure, as I neglect my health, for it is as great a grief to leave their society, as a joy to be in their company, my only trouble is, lest my brain should grow barren, or that the root of my fancies should become insipid, withering into a dull stupidity for want of maturing subjects to write on,” and so on, and so on!

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The account given above by Cibber of the young ladies who “slept in a room contiguous to that in which her Grace lay, ready, at the call of her bell, to rise any hour of the night, to write down her conceptions, lest they should escape her memory,” arouses our deepest sympathy. Imagine what it would be to be awakened by her Grace’s bell from a deep slumber to write down one or other of the following platitudinous “conceptions” taken at hazard from one of her books:—

“I have observed, That many instead of great Actions, make onely a great Noise, and like shallow Fords, or empty Bladders, sound most when there is least in them.”

“I observe, That as it would be a grief to covetous and miserable persons, to be rewarded with Honour, rather than with Wealth, because they love Wealth, before Honour and Fame; so on the other side, Noble, Heroick and Meritorious Persons, prefer Honour and Fame before Wealth.”

“It is not every ambitious and aspiring spirit that can do brave and noble actions.”

The world would not have been very seriously poorer if the Duchess had omitted to ring her bell, and if these sage “conceptions” had “escaped her memory” in the morning.

Her best work, at any rate her most valuable contribution to the history of her times, is the story of her husband’s life, into which we have already dipped, perhaps too often and too deeply. In spite of her [254]pardonably exaggerated praise of Newcastle and all his works, the narrative, if not always accurate, is pretty fairly rendered; and if Nature ever intended that she should scribble at all, it may have been as a war-correspondent to a daily newspaper, in which case she was born a little before her time.

It would be easy to sneer at her poetry; but, at its best, it is not so very bad, although it always contains some weak lines. Let us look at one or two of her most successful efforts.

In her description of the Queen of the Fairies, she writes:—

In her poem, “Mirth and Melancholy,” both Mirth and Melancholy try to attract the poetess. Mirth promises her amusement and sneers at her rival, Melancholy, in these lines:—

Melancholy, on the other hand, states that her life and surroundings, if subdued and retired, are tranquil and beautiful. It may be remembered that a few pages back the Duchess said that she herself was always addicted to “melancholy rather than mirth”.

One of the greatest admirers of the Duchess of Newcastle’s literary labours was Charles Lamb, who calls her, in The Essays of Elia,[171] “that princely woman, the thrice noble Margaret Newcastle,” whose writings contain:—

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In another of the Essays[172] he writes about “the intellectuals of a dear favourite of mine, of the last century but one—the thrice noble, chaste, and virtuous, but again somewhat fantastical and original brained, generous Margaret Newcastle”.

And of her Life of her husband he says: “No casket is rich enough, no casing sufficiently durable, to honour and keep such a jewel”. Lamb had a special admiration also for the Duchess’s “Two Hundred and Eleven Sociable Letters,” platitudinous epistles, any extracts from which the reader shall be spared.

A favourable, but more moderate criticism of her abilities is that of D’Israeli, who, in his Curiosities of Literature, says: “Her labours have been ridiculed by some wits; but had her studies been regulated, she would have displayed no ordinary genius. Her verses have been imitated by Milton.”

The latter is an amazing assertion; but D’Israeli is a literary authority of high standing, and, as a rule, he was careful in his statements.

The same idea is implied in The Connoisseur:[173] [257]“As I fell asleep my fancy presented to me the following dream. I was transported, I know not how, to the regions of Parnassus.... Pegasus was brought out of the stable and the Muses furnished him with a side-saddle.... A lady advanced, who, though she had something rather extravagant in her air and deportment, yet she had a noble presence that commanded at once awe and admiration. She was dressed in an old-fashioned habit, very fantastic, and trimmed with bugles and points, such as was worn in the time of King Charles the First. This lady, I was informed, was the Duchess of Newcastle. When she came to mount, she sprang into the saddle with amazing agility; and giving an entire loose to the reins, Pegasus directly set out at a gallop, and ran with her out of sight.”

On her return she repeated, at request, her lines on Melancholy: “Her voice is low and gives a hollow sound, etc.” quoted above: whereupon Milton, who, with Shakespeare, had helped her to dismount, “seemed very much chagrined, and it was whispered by some that he was obliged for many of the thoughts in his ‘L’Allegro’ and ‘Il Penseroso’ to this lady’s dialogue between Mirth and Melancholy”.

Well! Who knows? But what a contrast to the blinking lamps, tapers small, and shadows against the wall, of the Duchess, is Milton’s—

Or, again, the Duchess’s summers hot, fresh green grass, and music the buzzing of a fly, to Milton’s— [258]

An apology is due for this very facile criticism, but D’Israeli and The Connoisseur rendered it irresistible.

Grainger says:[174] “We are greatly surprised that a lady of her quality should have written so much, and are little less surprised that one who loved writing so well, has writ no better”. He considers, as well he may, that certain critics were far too lavish in their praises of the Duchess’s literary efforts. He says:—

“There is a very scarce folio volume of ‘Letters and Poems’ printed in 1678. It consists of 182 pages, filled with the grossest and most fulsome panegyric on the Duke and Dutchess of Newcastle, especially her Grace. I know no flattery, ancient or modern, that is, in any degree, comparable to it, except the deification of Augustus and the erection of altars to him in his lifetime. Incense and adoration seem to have been equally acceptable to the Roman god and English goddess.”

MARGARET, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE

From an engraving by G. P. Harding, after a painting by Diepenbeck

Before proceeding to the lighter works of the Duchess, it may be well to give a specimen of her [259]philosophy. The reader shall be left to judge for himself whether the following extract contains great truths; if it contains great truths, whether it presents them in clear language, and whether it explains them in the fewest possible words.

The extract is taken from the first chapter of a work entitled:—

Observations upon Experimental Philosophy.

“Written by The Thrice Noble, Illustrious and Excellent Princesse The Duchess of Newcastle. Printed by A. Maxwell, London 1666.”

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“Reason reforms and instructs sense, in all its actions; But both the rational and sensitive knowledge and perception, being divideable as well as composeable, it causes ignorance, as well as knowledge amongst Nature’s Creatures; for though Nature is but one body and has no share or copartner, but is intire and whole in itself, as not composed of several parts or substances, and consequently has but one Infinite natural knowledge and wisdom, yet by reason she is also divideable and composeable, according to the nature of a body, we can justly and with all reason say, that as Nature is divided into infinite several parts, so each several part has a several and particular knowledge and perception both sensitive and rational, and again that each part is ignorant of the others knowledge and perception; when as otherwise, considered altogether and in general, as they make up but one infinite body of Nature, so they make also but one infinite general knowledge. And thus Nature may be called both Individual, as not having single parts subsisting without her, but all united in one body; and Divideable, by reason she is partable in her own several corporeal figurative motions, and not otherwise; for there is no Vacuum in Nature, neither can her parts start or remove from the Infinite body of Nature, so as to separate themselves from it, for there is no place to flee to but body and place are all one thing, so that the parts of Nature can only joyn and disjoyn to and from parts, but not to and from the body of Nature.”

After a careful study of the above lucid passage, it may not greatly astonish the reader to learn that Grainger says:—

“James Bristow, of Corpus Christi college in Oxford, undertook to translate a volume of her philosophical works into the same language,” i.e. into Latin; “but he was forced to desist from the undertaking. Such was the obscurity and perplexity of the subject, that he could not find words where he had no ideas.”

In writing about this book, the Duchess gives vent to the following smoothly flowing lines:—

And certainly there are unmistakably symptoms of broken brains in that work.

As we have already observed, D’Israeli has informed us that Milton imitated the verse of the Duchess; and, after reading the above extract from one of her books on philosophy, people devoid of legal [261]knowledge may possibly be inclined to think that certain other scribes have imitated her prose, namely lawyers in drawing up deeds and wills.

At the end of one of her books, entitled Philosophical Opinions, the Duchess wrote:—

Probably few authors, after re-reading the manuscripts, correcting the proofs, and again correcting the revised proofs of their books, ever find “sweet company” in them again. In most cases the only printed things they read in connexion with them, in the future, are reviews. Nor do these invariably prove “sweet company”.

The Duchess wrote books on all sorts of subjects. Not the least curious are her Orations of Divers Sorts Accommodated to Divers Places, a work which, strange to say, went through two editions. It contains orations suited, or professing to be suited, for weddings, funerals, and battlefields, loyal speeches and seditious speeches, speeches in favour of taxation and speeches against taxation, and after-dinner speeches both for “a quarter-drunk gentleman” and for “a half-drunken gentleman”. The Duchess writes the heaviest stuff of all when she tries to be funny. She is even heavier as a Wit than as a Philosopher.

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CHAPTER XXI.

In facing the formidable array of the Duchess of Newcastle’s plays, it may be well to begin with their Prologue, or rather with part of that Prologue. It is not the happiest of her poetical efforts, but as we have already mentioned even Dryden failing in a Prologue, we may well make excuses for the Duchess.

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CHAPTER XXII.

Monsieur Emile Montégut, in his essay[187] on the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle, has dealt with the question of the Duchess’s religion, at some length; and the following is a very free translation of a part of what he has written on the subject. A certain author has [274]“belauded the great piety of the Duchess; but, after studying all the available evidence on this point, we are inclined to think that her piety must have been but moderate and we feel doubtful as to the nature of her faith and the extent of her religious fervour. This much is certain, that she was not devout enough for a Catholic or interior enough for a Protestant.... When she writes of religion, she is dignified, but dry, without the least affection in her language or humility in her mind. She shows no liking for any particular ceremony, or pious rite or practice; nor does she seem to attach any importance to things connected with exterior worship; although she belonged to that Anglican Church in which controversies over such matters have always occupied so important a place. She had some disposition towards mysticism; but prayer, the most natural of all religious actions, was almost distasteful to her. She liked prayers to be short and few, and anything like repetitions in devotion she considered irreverent if not impious; but it should be remembered that, in those times, the Puritans made prayers of prodigious length, far longer than any made by Catholics.” Her “cool calculation of the relative values of prayer and good works at any rate exhibits considerable originality and piquancy”.

[187] Le Maréchal Davout—Le Duc et la Duchesse de Newcastle, 1895, p. 335.

Be all this as it may, she attained that Highest Heaven of British ambition, a grave and a monument in Westminster Abbey, and who can doubt that one who was so very much a Duchess has gone where Duchesses go?

---

Certainly the readers, and as certainly the compiler, of this book must be deeply conscious that it is now high time to let fall the curtain. And we will let it fall without fatal illnesses or deathbed scenes. That people who lived considerably more than two hundred years ago are dead by this time may be taken for granted; and it should be enough to say that the Duchess of Newcastle was buried in Westminster Abbey on 17 January, 1673; and that the Duke was laid beside her on 22 January, 1677.

MONUMENT OF THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY

The scribe who has collected and copied out the evidence concerning this illustrious pair, while deeply conscious of the many faults in his work, is not aware that excessive flattery of his subjects is one of them. [275]The characters of both the Duke and the Duchess were certainly open to criticism, perhaps also to ridicule. Yet much may be said in favour of each.

Newcastle was a dignified, cultivated, and courageous English gentleman. He was a most loyal subject; he cheerfully bore greater financial losses, for the sake of his King, than perhaps any other cavalier; and he fought bravely in the civil war. He excelled in horsemanship and he was a fine swordsman. Although not a scholar, he wrote a standard work; and he was an appreciative and critical patron of art, science, and literature. If only a very minor poet, he could write verses of considerable spirit; if not a great playwright, he could write plays which succeeded.

No sensible reader would take Shadwell’s dedication of “The Libertine” to Newcastle as pure gospel; but there may be a few grains of truth in it. He says: “By the great honour I had to be daily admitted into your Grace’s private and public conversation, I observed that admirable experience and judgment surmounting all the old, and that vigorousness of wit and smartness of expression, exceeding all the young, I ever saw, and not only in sharp and apt replies, but, which is much more difficult, by giving easy and unforced occasions, the most admirable way of beginning one, and all this adapted to men of all circumstances and conditions”.

The great misfortune of Newcastle’s life was to be suddenly forced into the position of a Commander-in-[276]Chief, without any previous training, or personal inclination; and perhaps the great error of his life may have been his flight to Holland after the battle of Marston Moor; but, as was shown on the pages dealing with the incident, a good deal has been urged, and may justly be urged, in defence of his conduct on that occasion.

If he made many mistakes as a General, he never showed want of courage as a soldier. If he asked for appointments and honours from the King, he amply paid for them, both with money and with services. If his wife said that he was too great an admirer of the fair sex, there is nothing to show that he was immoral. If he was somewhat eccentric, he had a good deal of originality. If he was extravagant when young, he was economical when old. If he was ambitious, he never intrigued. If his literary work is open to criticism, he himself is said to have been an excellent critic.

Although a loyal, a stately, a polished and a handsome courtier, he was no hanger-on at Court; and his dignified retirement to Welbeck, when the licentious Court of Charles II had been established, showed at least good taste. He always appears to have had enemies near the King, both in the reign of Charles I and in that of Charles II; but he must have been very popular in the country, or he would not have been able to raise such large forces for the army of the North, during the civil war.

Lastly, he is to be admired for his business-like [277]perseverance in retrieving his ruined fortunes after the Restoration, when they were in a condition which would have broken the heart of a man of meaner spirit.

As to the Duchess of Newcastle, let us at once get rid of the idea, held by M. Montégut, and apparently also by other people, that she was the first of the Blue Stockings. The origin of that term is well known. Quite a hundred years after the death of our Duchess, the leader of a coterie of learned ladies invited a clever but ill-clad scholar to attend their social gatherings. He always wore breeches and the usual bluish-grey stockings of the cheaper kind; and when he pleaded lack of suitable attire, his hostess said: “Oh! Come in your blue-stockings”. The little gatherings of these ladies were afterwards called the meetings of the Blue Stockings.

But, even taking the term in its wider sense, as including the learned ladies of any, or of all ages, we might find women far more learned than Margaret Newcastle in the depths of antiquity. As to her own country, a century before her time Erasmus wrote: “The monks, famed in times past for learning, are become ignorant; and women love books. It is pretty enough that this sex should now at last betake it self to antient examples.” In the sixteenth century, very literary ladies were to be found in the families of Sir Thomas More and Sir Anthony Cooke, and to give Henry VIII his due, it must be acknowledged that he took good care his daughters should be [278]thoroughly educated and cultivated women. Nor was our Duchess by any means the first of her sex to rush into print in the seventeenth century; moreover, much as she wrote for the press, little print did she read except her own, and she seems to have been almost entirely devoid of scholarship.

Again, in the first half of the century in which lived the Duchess of Newcastle, unlike that Duchess Lady Jane Grey knew Latin and Greek and studied Plato. At the same time, in Italy, the notorious courtesan, Tullia of Aragon, was a poetess; and, like several of her contemporary courtesans, knew, as says Aretino, “all Petrarch and Boccaccio by heart, beside innumerable fine Latin verses by Virgil, Horace, Ovid, etc.” Any of these ladies could have taught the Duchess lessons and put her in the corner as a dunce.

In another sense, Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, was unlike what are generally known as literary ladies; for she was no patroness of literary people; she was not the leader of any literary set, she started no literary school; she led a retired life, was nervous in society, and was so much absorbed in her own writings that she seems to have taken no interest in those of anybody else, either ancient or modern.

Had she but spent a larger proportion of her time in learning instead of in teaching, she might have become a successful author; for undoubtedly she had talent, although not genius. The fatal idea that all her “conceptions,” as she called them, were worthy of paper, and in most cases worthy of print, was the chief cause of her literary ruin.

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The finest feature of her character was her devotion to her husband. Although she declares herself to have been devoid of any “passion,” or “amourous love,” a study of her biography of Newcastle inclines one to think that on this point she deceived herself; unless, as is possible, the place of passionate love was supplied by unqualified hero-worship. She had a profound admiration for his talents. Exaggerated as is her praise in the following lines, it at least shows an affectionate devotion. They occur at the end of her book of poems:—

A Poet I am neither born nor bred,

But to a witty poet married,

Whose brain is fresh, and pleasant as the Spring,

Where fancies grow, and where the Muses sing;

There oft I lean my head, and listening hark,

T’observe his words, and all his fancies mark,

And from that garden flowers of fancy take,

Whereof a posy up in verse I make:

Thus I that have no garden of my own

There gather flowers, that are newly blown.

And she did indeed “there gather flowers,” if there is any truth in the pretty general idea that the best lines in her poems were the work of her husband.

Her expedition to England to try to wrest something for Newcastle from his worst enemies was a noble action, and her murmurless endurance of the pawn-shop, where her husband left her when he returned to his own country, was a splendid example of self-sacrifice and patience.

Her lengthy and carefully drawn up statements of [280]her husband’s financial affairs testify to her capacity for business, and suggest the probability that she was of great help in restoring his fortunes. Indeed it may be that her talents were more suited for the high-stool of a clerk than for the arm-chair of a poet.

Walpole’s notice of the later years of the Newcastles’ life is severe. “What a picture of foolish nobility was this stately poetic couple, retired to their own little domain, and intoxicating one another with circumstantial flattery on what was of consequence to no mortal but themselves.” In all this there is a measure of truth; but unless they had retired to their own domain, which, by the way, was not “little,” and unless they had lived there economically, they could never have restored the fortunes of their family. Surely the atmosphere of Welbeck Abbey was more wholesome than that of the vicious and intriguing Court of Charles II; and, if they chose to amuse themselves with pens and paper, it can truly be said of them that how much soever they may have injured their own literary reputations by a rather injudicious use of those dangerous instruments, they did not injure those of other people, which is more than can be said of many other writers, both ancient and modern.

ABERDEEN: THE UNIVERSITY PRESS