Characters from the Histories & Memoirs of the Seventeenth Century Part 25

Page 112, l. 9. _Lord Portland_, Sir Richard Weston: see No. 5.

l. 13. _white staff_, see p. 21, l. 7 note.

28.

Clarendon, MS. Life, pp. 152-3; _History_, Bk. IV, ed. 1702, vol. i, pp. 332-3; ed. Macray, vol. i, pp. 563-5.

This is the first of three characters of Hertford in Clarendon's _History_. The others, in Bk. VI (MS. Life) ed. Macray, ii. 528, and Bk. VII (MS. History) iii. 128, are supplementary.

Page 114, l. 10. _disobligations_, on account of his secret marriage with James's cousin, Arabella Stuart, daughter of Charles Stuart, Earl of Lennox, brother of the Earl of Darnley. She died a prisoner in the Tower; he escaped to France, but after her death was allowed to return to England in 1616. He succeeded his grandfather as Earl of Hertford in 1621. He lived in retirement from the dissolution of Parliament in March 1629 to 1640, when he was made a Privy Councillor.

Page 115, l. 5. He was appointed Governor to the Prince of Wales in May 1641, in succession to the Earl of Newcastle. He was then in his fifty-third year. In the following month he was made a Marquis. See his life in Lady Theresa Lewis's _Lives of the Friends of Clarendon_, vol. ii, pp. 436-42.

Page 116, l. 2. _attacque_, an unexpected form of 'attach' at this time, and perhaps a slip, but 'attack' and 'attach' are ultimately the same word; cf. Italian _attaccare_. The _New English Dictionary_ gives an instance in 1666 of 'attach' in the sense of 'attack'.

29.

Clarendon, MS. History, Transcript, vol. iv, pp. 440-2; _History_, Bk.

VIII, ed. 1703, vol. ii, pp. 391-3; ed. Macray, vol. iii, pp. 380-3.

The original ma.n.u.script of much of Book VIII is lost. The text is taken from the transcript that was made for the printers.

This is the portrait of a great English n.o.bleman whose tastes lay in music and poetry and the arts of peace, but was forced by circ.u.mstances into the leaders.h.i.+p of the Royalist army in the North.

He showed little military talent, though he was far from devoid of personal courage; and he escaped from the conflict, weary and despondent, when other men were content to carry on the unequal struggle. He modelled himself on the heroes of Romance. The part he tried to play could not be adjusted to the rude events of the civil war.

His romantic cast of mind is shown in his challenge to Lord Fairfax to follow 'the Examples of our Heroick Ancestors, who used not to spend their time in scratching one another out of holes, but in pitched Fields determined their Doubts'. Fairfax replied by expressing his readiness to fight but refusing to follow 'the Rules of _Amadis de Gaule_, or the Knight of the Sun, which the language of the Declaration seems to affect in appointing pitch'd battles' (Rushworth, _Historical Collections_, third part, vol. ii, 1692, pp. 138, 141).

Warwick's short character of Newcastle resembles Clarendon's: 'He was a Gentleman of grandeur, generosity, loyalty, and steddy and forward courage; but his edge had too much of the razor in it: for he had a tincture of a Romantick spirit, and had the misfortune to have somewhat of the Poet in him; so as he chose Sir William Davenant, an eminent good Poet, and loyall Gentleman, to be Lieutenant-Generall of his Ordnance. This inclination of his own and such kind of witty society (to be modest in the expressions of it) diverted many counsels, and lost many opportunities; which the nature of that affair, this great man had now entred into, required' (_Memoires_, pp.

235-6).

His life by the d.u.c.h.ess of Newcastle--the 'somewhat fantastical, and original-brain'd, generous Margaret Newcastle', as Charles Lamb calls her--was published in 1667. The edition by C.H. Firth, 1886, contains copious historical notes, and an introduction which points out Newcastle's place as a patron and author.

Page 116, ll. 15-22. Newcastle had been besieged at York. He was relieved by Prince Rupert, who, against Newcastle's advice, forced on the disastrous battle of Marston Moor (July 2, 1644) without waiting for reinforcements. In this battle Newcastle was not in command but fought at the head of a company of volunteers. The next day he embarked at Scarborough for the continent, where he remained till the Restoration.

l. 24. He published two books on horsemans.h.i.+p--_La Methode et Invention Nouvelle de Dresser les Chevaux_, written originally in English, but printed in French at Antwerp in 1658, and _A New Method and Extraordinary Invention to Dress Horses_, 1667. The former was dedicated to Prince Charles, whom, as Governor, he had taught to ride. On his reputation as a horseman, see C.H. Firth, _op. cit._, pp.

xx-xxii.

Page 117, l. 20. He was Governor of the Prince from 1638 to 1641: cf.

note on p. 115, l. 5.

l. 29. Newcastle-upon-Tyne (from which he took his t.i.tle) was 'speedily and dexterously' secured for the King at the end of June 1642 'by his lords.h.i.+p's great interest in those parts, the ready compliance of the best of the gentry, and the general good inclinations of the place' (Clarendon, vol. ii, p. 227).

Page 118, l. 17. Henry Clifford (1591-1643) fifth Earl of c.u.mberland.

He had commanded the Royalist forces in Yorks.h.i.+re, but was 'in his nature inactive, and utterly inexperienced'. He willingly gave up the command (Clarendon, vol. ii, pp. 282, 464-5). He died shortly afterwards.

l. 28. _this last_, Marston Moor.

Page 119, l. 8. _unacquainted with War_. Clarendon expressed himself privately on this point much more emphatically than the nature of his _History_ would allow: 'you will find the Marquis of Newcastle a very lamentable man and as fit to be a General as a Bishop.' (Letter to Sir Edward Nicholas, dated Madrid, June 4, 1650: _State Papers_, 1786, vol. iii, p. 20.)

l. 10. James King (1589?-1652?), created Baron Eythin and Kerrey in the Scottish peerage in 1643. He had been a general in the army of the King of Sweden, and returned to this country in 1640. He left it with Newcastle after Marston Moor. He entirely disapproved of Rupert's plans for the battle; his comment, as reported by Clarendon, was 'By G.o.d, sir, it is very fyne in the paper, but ther is no such thinge in the Feilds' (vol. iii, p. 376).

30.

Clarendon, MS. Life, p. 136; _History_, Bk. IV, ed. 1702, vol. i, pp.

270-1; ed. Macray, vol. i, pp. 461-3.

The references to Digby in various parts of the _History_ show the interest--sometimes an amused interest--that Clarendon took in his strange and erratic character. 'The temper and composition of his mind was so admirable, that he was always more pleased and delighted that he had advanced so far, which he imputed to his virtue and conduct, than broken or dejected that his success was not answerable, which he still charged upon second causes, for which he could not be accountable' (vol. iv, p. 122). 'He was a person of so rare a composition by nature and by art, (for nature alone could never have reached to it,) that he was so far from being ever dismayed by any misfortune, (and greater variety of misfortunes never befell any man,) that he quickly recollected himself so vigorously, that he did really believe his condition to be improved by that ill accident' (_id._, p.

175). But the interest is shown above all by the long study of Digby that he wrote at Montpelier in 1669. It was first printed in his _State Papers_, 1786, vol. iii, supplement, pp. li-lxxiv. The ma.n.u.script--a transcript revised by Clarendon--is in the Bodleian Library, Clarendon MS. 122, pp. 1-48.

Page 120, l. 8. _the other three_, Sir John Culpeper, or Colepeper; Lord Falkland; and Clarendon.

Page 121, l. 2. _sharpe reprehension_. 'He was committed to the Fleet in June 1634, but released in July, for striking Mr. Crofts in Spring Garden, within the precincts of the Court. _Cal. Dom. State. Papers_, 1634-5 (1864), pp. 81, 129'--Macray, vol. i, p. 461.

Shaftesbury gives a brief sketch of him at this time in his fragmentary autobiography: 'The Earl of Bristoll was retired from all business and lived privately to himself; but his son the Lord Digby, a very handsome young man of great courage and learning and of a quick wit, began to show himself to the world and gave great expectations of himself, he being justly admired by all, and only gave himself disadvantage with a pedantic stiffness and affectation he had contracted.'

l. 19. As Baron Digby, during the lifetime of his father; June 9, 1641.

Page 123, l. 5. _a very unhappy councell_, the impeachment and attempted 'Arrest of the Five Members', January 3 and 4, 1642. Compare Clarendon, vol. i, p. 485: 'And all this was done without the least communication with any body but the Lord Digby, who advised it.'

31.

Clarendon, MS. Life, p. 389, and MS. History, p. 25 (or 597); _History_, Bk. XI, ed. 1704, vol. iii, pp. 210-11; ed. Macray, vol.

iv, pp. 510-11.

This admirable character was not all written at the same time. The first sentence is from Clarendon's Life, and the remainder from the History, where the date, '21 Nov. 1671', is appended. 123, l. 15.

_Crumwells owne character_,--in the debate in Parliament on carrying out the sentence of death, March 8, 1649. Clarendon had briefly described Cromwell's speech: 'Cromwell, who had known him very well, spake so much good of him, and professed to have so much kindness and respect for him, that all men thought he was now safe, when he concluded, that his affection to the public so much weighed down his private friends.h.i.+p, that he could not but tell them, that the question was now, whether they would preserve the most bitter and the most implacable enemy they had' (vol. iv, p. 506).

l. 22. He married in November 1626, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Charles Morrison, of Ca.s.siobury, Hertfords.h.i.+re, and granddaughter of the first Viscount Campden. Their daughter Theodosia was the wife of the second Earl of Clarendon.

Page 124, l. 13. _an indignity_, probably a reference to Lord Hopton's command of the army in the west; see vol. iv, p. 131.

32.

Clarendon, MS. Life, p. 273; _History_, Bk. VIII, ed. 1703, vol. ii, pp. 427-8; ed. Macray, vol. iii, pp. 443-5.

The four generals in this group are described on various occasions in the _History_. In this pa.s.sage Clarendon sums up shortly what he says elsewhere, and presents a parallel somewhat in the manner of Plutarch.

Page 125, l. 23. Clarendon has a great pa.s.sage in Book VII (vol. iii, pp. 224-6) on the value of Councils, even when the experience and wisdom of the councillors individually may not promise the right decisions. The pa.s.sage is suggested by, and immediately follows, a short character of Prince Rupert.

Page 126, ll. 15, 16. Clarendon refers to the retreat of the Parliamentary Army at Lostwithiel, on August 31, 1644, when Ess.e.x embarked the foot at Fowey and escaped by sea, and Sir William Balfour broke away with the horse. In describing it, Clarendon says that 'the notice and orders came to Goring when he was in one of his jovial exercises; which he received with mirth, and slighting those who sent them, as men who took alarms too warmly; and he continued his delights till all the enemy's horse were pa.s.sed through his quarters, nor did then pursue them in any time' (vol. iii, p. 403; cf. p. 391). But Goring's horse was not so posted as to be able to check Balfour's.

See the article on Goring by C.H. Firth in the _Dictionary of National Biography_ and S.R. Gardiner's _Civil War_, 1893, vol. ii, pp. 13-17.

Clarendon was misinformed; yet this error in detail does not impair the truth of the portrait.