OLIVE'S RECOLLECTIONS
The last battle of the Civil Wars was fought. Or rather the
battle-field was changed, and the long contest of the Commonwealth
began, between Oliver governing and all the rest of parties and men
who wished England otherwise governed, who wished it ungoverned, or
who wished to govern it themselves.
The Royalists, Prelatical or Presbyterian, necessarily against him,
the classical Republicans, the Anabaptist levellers, and, in their
passive way, the Quakers. Indeed, it seemed as if all parties, as
parties, were against him. The wonder was, that the arm which kept
them all at bay should be strong enough at the same time to keep the
world at bay, for England; and to keep England so ordered, that many
of those who hated the Protector's rule confessed that the times--"by
God's merciful sweetening (said they) of bitter waters"--had never
been so prosperous as under it.
I confess that the change from Kidderminster to our home in London
was in some measure a relief. It was like coming from a walled
garden (admirably kept, indeed, and watered) into the open fields.
It had not been my wont to live in a place so pervaded by one man as
Kidderminster, or at least what I saw of it, was at that time by Mr.
Baxter. He was so very active and self-denying and good, that do
what I would whilst there, I could never get over the feeling of
being, in some way, a transgressor if I happened to differ from him.
His writings and sermons were certainly mainly directed against the
great permanent evils of ungodliness and unrighteousness. But he
wrote so many controversial books on every kind of ecclesiastical
topic, and was so convinced that they were all convincing to all
sound minds, that it was difficult, while in the Kidderminster world,
to regard oneself, if not convinced, as having anything but a very
sound mind.
So that it did feel like getting into a large room, to meet and
converse again with people who did not think Mr. Baxter's judgment,
moderate and wise as it doubtless was, the one final standard of
truth in the universe. Not, certainly, that London at that time was
a world free from debate and controversy of the fiercest kind. A
Commonwealth in which, during the eleven years of its existence,
thirty thousand controversial pamphlets of the fiercest and most
contradictory kind were battering each other, each regarded by its
author and his particular friends as absolutely convincing to all
sound minds, was not likely to be that.
From our home, however, such debates were mostly absent. My father
fled from controversy to the Bible, and to the Society for the
promotion of the new experimental philosophy, which met at Gresham
College; the revelation of God in His Word and in His world. Aunt
Gretel had the happy exemption of a foreigner from our English
debates, political and ecclesiastical, and tranquilized herself at
all times by her knitting, her hymns, and the making of possets
acceptable to sick people of all persuasions. And my husband had
what he regarded as the advantage of differing on some theological
questions from the good men with whom he acted in religious work (he
having a leaning rather to Dr. Thomas Goodwin, in his "Redemption
Redeemed," than to Dr. Owen, or even to Mr. Baxter); so that he had
to avoid the intermediate debatable grounds, and keep to those
highest heights of adoration where Christianity is incarnate in
Christ, or to those lowly duties where it is embodied in kindnesses.
So much of his time, moreover, was spent in what the Protector vainly
endeavoured to persuade his Parliaments to keep to, namely, the "work
of healing and settling" that he had little left for the
"definitions" of all things in Church and State, into which those
unhappy Parliaments were so continually, to the Protector's vexation,
straying.
Then there were the children, Maidie and Dolly, and the two boys who
came after them, renewing one by one, in their happy infancy, the
golden age; the joyous little ones, around whom it was manifestly our
duty to gather as many relics of Eden, and foretastes of the thousand
years of peace, as were to be had in a world where thirty thousand
fiery pamphlets were flying about.
The spirit of Annis Nye, meantime, abode, listening and looking
heavenward, on lofty heights far above all debate, though ready for
any lowly service. And in a house in our garden, on the river bank,
enlarged for his accommodation, lived our High Church friend, Dr.
Rich, with his eleven children, his spirit also loftily looking down
on the strifes of the present, not from the heights of immediate
inspiration, but from those of history; while his eleven children,
lately orphaned of their mother, made no small portion of my world,
with its many interests and cares.
So that, in spite of the wide divergences of judgment in our
household concerning matters political and ecclesiastical (perhaps
rather in consequence of the mutual self-restraint they rendered
necessary), our home came to be looked on by many as a kind of haven
where people might meet face to face on the common ground of humanity
and Christianity.
The mere meeting face to face on common ground, if it be pure and
high, or helpful and lowly, the mere taking and giving the cups of
cold water in the Master's name, the mere looking into each others'
faces and grasping each others' hands as kindred, has in itself, I
think, something almost sacramental. How much, indeed, of the depth
and sacredness of the Highest Sacrament consists in such communion
union through what we are in Him instead of agglomeration through
what we think; union in Him who is to us all the Way, the Truth, the
Life, but of whom the best we can think is so dim, and poor, and low.
In those years we learned to know and revere many whose memories (now
that so many of them are gone, and that we so soon must be going),
shining from the past we shared with them, throw a sacred yet
familiar radiance on the future we hope to share.
Dr. Owen, coming now and then from his post as Vice-chancellor of
Oxford to preach before the Parliament on state occasions.
Mr. John Howe, the Protector's chaplain, living on radiant lofty
heights, far above the thirty thousand controversial pamphlets,
himself a living temple of the living truth he adored.
Colonel Hutchinson and Mistress Lucy, with that lofty piety of
theirs, which, as she said, "is the blood-royal of all the virtues."
He with his republican love of liberty, and stately chivalry of
character and demeanour: she with her pure and passionate love; with
her earnest endeavours to judge men and things by high impartial
standards; and her success in so far as that standard was embodied in
her husband. Much of their time, however, during the Commonwealth
they spent on the Colonel's estate, collecting pictures and
sculpture, planting trees, "procuring tutors to instruct their sons
and daughters in languages, sciences, music, and dancing, whilst he
himself instructed them in humility, godliness, and virtue."
And Mr. John Milton, blinded to the sights of this lower world by his
zeal in writing that Defence of the English People which wakened all
Europe like a trumpet; and by his very blindness, it seemed, made
free of higher worlds than were open to common mortals. Whitehall, I
think, was not degraded by his dwelling there, nor its chambers made
less royal by his eyes having looked their last through those windows
on
"Day, or the sweet approach of morn or even,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, and herds, and human face divine,"
before his
.....light was spent,
Ere half his days, in this dark world and wide."
For his life was indeed the pure and lofty poem he said the lives of
all who would write worthily must be.
The Society of our Puritan London in those Commonwealth days was not
altogether rustical or fanatical. Discourse echoes back to me from
it which can, I think, have needed to be tuned but little higher to
flow unbroken into the speech of the City, where all the citizens are
as kings, and all the congregation seers and singers.
The first public event after our return to London was the funeral of
General Ireton, Bridget Cromwell's brave husband, who had died at his
post in Ireland.
He was buried in Henry the Seventh's Chapel. The concourse was
great. Dr. Owen preached the funeral sermon. There was no pomp of
funeral ceremonial, of organ-music or choir. The Puritan funeral
solemnities were the pomp of solemn words, and the eloquent music of
the truths which stir men's hearts.
The text was, "But go thou thy way till the end be; for thou shalt
rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days." (Dan. xii. 13).
"It is not the manner of God," Dr. Owen said, "to lay aside those
whom He hath found faithful in His service. _Men indeed do so_; but
God changeth not.
"There is an appointed season wherein the saints of the most eminent
abilities, in the most useful employments, must receive their
dismission. There is a manifold wisdom which God imparteth to the
sons of men; there is a civil wisdom, and there is a spiritual
wisdom: both these shone in Ireton.
"He ever counted it his wisdom to look after the will of God in all
wherein he was called to serve. For _this_ were his wakings,
watchings, inquiries. When that was made out, he counted not his
business half done, but even accomplished, and that the issue was
ready at the door. The name of God was his land in every storm; in
the discovery whereof he had as happy an eye, at the greatest seeming
distance, when the clouds were blackest and the waves highest, as any.
"Neither did he rest here. Some men have wisdom to know things, but
not seasons. Things as well as words are beautiful in their time.
He was wise to discern the seasons. There are few things that belong
to civil affairs but are alterable upon the incomprehensible variety
of circumstances. He that will have the garment, made for him one
year, serve and fit him the next, must be sure that he neither
increase nor wane. Importune insisting on the most useful things,
without respect to alterations of seasons, is a sad sign of a narrow
heart. He who thinks the most righteous and suitable proposals and
principles that ever were in the world (setting aside general rules
of unchangeable righteousness and equity) must be performed as
desirable, because once they were, is a stranger to the affairs of
human kind.
"Some things are universally unchangeable and indispensable: as that
a government must be. Some again are allowable merely on the account
of preserving the former principles. If any of them are out of
course, it is a vacuum in _nature politic_, which all particular
elements instantly dislodge and transpose themselves to supply. And
such are all forms of government among men.
"In love to his people Ireton was eminent. All his pains, labour,
jeopards of life, and all dear to him, relinquishments of relatives
and contents, had sweetness of life from this motive, intenseness of
love to his people.
"But fathers and prophets have but their season: they have their
dismission. So old Simeon professeth, _Nunc dimittis_. They are
placed of God in their station as a sentinel on his watch-tower, and
then they are dismissed from their watch. The great Captain comes
and saith, Go thou thy way; thou hast faithfully discharged thy duty;
go now to thy rest. Some have harder service, harder duty, than
others. Some keep guard in the winter, others in the summer. Yet
duty they all do; all endure some hardship, and have their appointed
season for dismission; and be they never so excellent in the
discharging of their duty, they shall not abide one moment beyond the
bounds which He hath set them who saith to all His creatures, 'Thus
far shall you go and no further.'
"The three most eminent works of God in and about His children in the
days of old were His giving His people the law, and settling them in
Canaan; His recovering them from Babylon; and His promulgation of the
gospel unto them. In these three works he employed three most
eminent persons. Moses is the first, Daniel is the second, and John
Baptist is the third; and none of them saw the work accomplished in
which he was so eminently employed. Moses died the year before the
people entered Canaan; Daniel some few years before the foundation of
the temple; and John Baptist in the first year of the baptism of our
Saviour, when the gospel which he began to preach was to be published
in its beauty and glory. I do not know of any great work that God
carried out, the same persons to be the beginners and enders thereof.
Should He leave the work always on one hand, it would seem at length
to be the work of the instrument only. Though the people opposed
Moses at first, yet it is thought they would have worshipped him at
the last; and therefore God buried him where his body was not to be
found. Yet, indeed, he had the lot of most who faithfully serve God
in their generation--despised while they are present, idolized when
they are gone.
"God makes room, as it were, in His vineyard for the budding,
flourishing, and fruit-bearing of other plants which He hath planted.
"You that are employed in the work of God, you have but your allotted
season--your day hath its evening. You have your _season_, and you
have _but_ your season; neither can you lie down in peace until you
have some persuasion that your _work_ as well as your _life_ is at an
end.
"Behold here one receiving his dismission about the age of forty
years; and what a world of work for God did he in that season. And
now rest is sweet to this labouring man. Provoke one another by
examples. Be diligent to pass through your work, and let it not too
long hang upon your hands; yea, search out work for God. You that
are entrusted with power trifle not away your season. Is there no
oppressed person that with diligence you might relieve? Is there no
poor distressed widow or orphan whose righteous requests you might
expedite and despatch? Are there no stout offenders against God and
man that might be chastised? Are there no slack and slow counties
and cities in the execution of justice that might be quickened by
your example? no places destitute of the gospel that might be
furnished?
"God takes His saints away (among other reasons) to manifest that He
hath better things in store for them than the _best_ and _utmost_ of
what they can desire or aim at here below. He had a heaven for
Moses, and therefore might in mercy deny him Canaan. Whilst you are
labouring for a handful of _first-fruits_, He gives you the _full
harvest_.
"You that are engaged in the work of God, seek for the reward of your
service _in the service itself_. Few of you may live to see that
beauty and glory which perhaps you aim at. God will proceed at His
own pace, and calls us to go along with Him; to wait in faith and not
make haste. Those whose minds are so fixed on, and swallowed up
with, some end (though good) which they have proposed to themselves,
do seldom see good days and serene in their own souls. There is a
sweetness, there is wages to be found in the work of God itself. Men
who have learned to hold communion with God in every work He calls
them out unto, though they never see the main harvest they aim at,
yet such will rest satisfied, and submit to the Lord's limitation of
their time. They bear their sheaves in their own bosom.
"_The condition of a dismissed saint is a condition of rest_. Now
rest holds out two things to us; a freedom from what is opposite
thereunto, and something which satisfies our nature; for nothing can
rest but in that which satiates the whole nature of it in all its
extent and capacity.
"They are at rest from sin, and from labour and travail. They sin no
more; they wound the Lord Jesus no more; they trouble their own souls
no more; they grieve the Spirit no more; they dishonour the gospel no
more; they are troubled no more with Satan's temptations, no more
with their own corruption; but lie down in a constant enjoyment of
one everlasting victory over sin. They are no more in cold
communion. They have not one thought that wanders from God to all
eternity. They lose Him no more.
"There is no more watching, no more fasting, no more wrestling, no
more fighting, no more blood, no more sorrow. There tyrants pretend
no more title to their kingdom; rebels lie not in wait for their
blood; they are no more awakened by the sound of the trumpet, nor the
noise of the instruments of death; they fear not for their relations;
they weep not for their friends. The Lamb is their temple, and God
is all in all unto them.
"Yet this cessation from sin and labour will not complete their rest;
something further is required thereto; even something to satisfy and
everlastingly content them. Free them in your thoughts from what you
please, without this they are not at rest. _God is the rest of their
souls_. Dismissed saints rest in the bosom of God; because in the
fruition of Him they are everlastingly satisfied, as having attained
the utmost end whereto they were created, all the blessedness whereof
they are capable.
"Every man stands in a threefold capacity--natural, civil, religious.
And there are distinct qualifications unto these several capacities.
To the first are suited some seeds of those _heroical virtues_ as
courage, permanency in business. To the civic capacity, ability,
faithfulness, industry. In their religious capacity, men's peculiar
ornament lies in those fruits of the Spirit which we call Christian
graces. Of these, in respect of usefulness, there are three most
eminent, faith, love and self-denial. Now all these were eminent in
the person deceased. My business is not to make a funeral oration,
only I suppose that without offence I may desire that in courage and
permanency in business (which I name in opposition to that unsettled,
pragmatical, shuffling disposition which is in some men), in ability
for wisdom and counsel, in faithfulness to his trust and in his
trust, in indefatigable industry, in faith in the promises of God, in
love to the Lord Jesus and all His saints, in a tender regard to
their interest, delight in their society, contempt of himself and all
his for the gospel's sake, in impartiality and sincerity in the
execution of justice, that in these and the like things we may have
many raised up in the power and spirit wherein he walked before the
Lord and before this nation. This I hope I may speak without offence
here upon such an occasion as this. MY business being occasionally
to preach the Word, not to carry on a part of a funeral ceremony, I
shall add no more, but commit you to Him who is able to prepare you
for your eternal condition."
Often I had longed, if only for once, to hear the organ rolling its
grand surges of music through the aisles of the Abbey. But when that
grave voice ceased, and left a hush through that great assembly, I
felt no music could be more worthy of the solemn place than those
nobly reticent words of lamentation and praise; nor could England
raise a nobler statue to any of her heroes than that Puritan picture
of a Christian statesman.
Indeed, the public pomps of the Commonwealth which have engraven
themselves most deeply on my memory were of the funereal kind.
In 1650, five years after Ireton's death, for once, by the
Protector's command, the dear, long-unfamiliar sound of the old
Prayer-book was heard in the Abbey, as the funeral service was read
over the remains of good Archbishop Usher, buried at the Protector's
expense in the great mausoleum of the nation and her kings.
In November, 1654, three years after the funeral of Ireton, Mistress
Cromwell, the Protector's mother, was buried beside him among the
kings.
She was ninety-four years of age. She died on the 15th of November.
A little before her death (we heard) she gave the Protector her
blessing, saying, "The Lord cause His face to shine upon you, and
comfort you in all your adversities, and enable you to do great
things for the glory of your most high God, and to be a relief unto
His people. My dear son, I leave my heart with thee. Good-night!"
She, living wellnigh all those fifty-five years of his beside him,
knew well that his life had been no triumphal procession, but a
toilsome march and a sore battle, little indeed changed by the
battle-field being transferred from moors and hill-sides to palaces
and parliament-houses. At sound of a gun she was wont to tremble in
that stately home at Whitehall, fearing lest some of the many plots
of assassination had at last succeeded in proving to the assassin
that killing her son was no murder, And once at least every day she
craved to see him, if only to know that he lived.
They laid her to rest reverently among the kings in Henry the
Seventh's Chapel. And so the consecrating presence of
tenderly-reverenced age passed from that English home, which during
the years of the Commonwealth was at the head of all the homes of the
land.
And five years after came that last funeral, which was, indeed, the
funeral of the Commonwealth itself.
These are the state ceremonies of the Commonwealth which have left
the deepest mark on my memory. Its thanksgivings for victories, its
inauguration, installation, and enthronization of the Lord Protector
in Westminster Hall were not without a certain sober republican
grandeur, nor did the ermine and the sceptre misbecome the true
dignity of his bearing; but they did not, I think, enhance it.
Clothes need some mystical links to the unseen and the past to make
them glorious; and Oliver certainly did not need clothes to make him
glorious. The brow, furrowed with thought for England, was his
crown; the sceptre seemed a bauble in the hand that had ruled so long
without it; and the robes of state that fitted him best were the
plain armour of the Ironsides. Roger, however, thought otherwise.
He would have had every symbol of the royalty within our "chief of
men" outwardly gathered around him, even to the crown and title of
king. Whatever may be the case in religion, in politics (he
thought), the common people are taught by ceremonial. As the
Protector said "The people love that they do know; they love
settlement and know names." If Oliver, he thought, had been
proclaimed king, no Stuart would have returned to proclaim him
traitor.
Be that as it might, it was not done; and the omission seemed (to
many) to make the rest of the state ceremonials of the Commonwealth
ragged and incomplete. Crowned, Oliver might have become in the eyes
of the people King Oliver; uncrowned, he seemed but Mr. Cromwell of
Huntingdon, with a sceptre in his hand which did not belong to him.
But after all, the great solemnities of the Commonwealth were the
sermons. Great sermons and great congregations to hear them. They
were our state-music, our military-music, our church-music, all in
one. The _Te Deum_ of our thanksgiving days for victories, our
coronation anthems, our requiems.
The sermons which so moved the heart of Puritan England were no empty
sound of words harmoniously arranged,--a lower music, I think, than
that of any true musician;--for words have a higher sphere than mere
melodious tones; and, like all orders in creation, if they do not
rise to the height of their own sphere, fall below the sphere below
them.
It was the eloquence of men speaking to men, of things which most
deeply concerned all men; of the ablest men in England speaking to
her ablest men; of the loftiest spirits in England speaking to all
that was loftiest in the spirit of man.
Dr. Owen's appearances in London were only occasional.
The sermons that come back on me across the years like the voice of a
great river resounding with deep even flow through all the petty or
tumultuous noises of the times, are those of Mr. John Howe, chaplain
to the Protector.
He came to London as a country minister from his parish of
Torrington, somewhere about 1654, and went to hear the preaching in
Whitehall Chapel. But Oliver, "who generally had his eyes
everywhere," and whose eyes had such a singular faculty for seeing
men's capacity, discerned something more than ordinary in his
countenance, and sent to desire to speak with him after the worship
of God was over. The interview satisfied him he had not been
mistaken. The great heart that so singularly honoured the worth his
eyes were so quick to discern, whether those he honoured honoured him
or not; and the will so strong to bend all men's wills, would not
rest until he had induced the parson of Torrington, though somewhat
reluctantly, to become his own chaplain.
The choice might reflect some light on the nature of the Protector's
own piety.
There was abundance of vehement fiery eloquence to be had among the
Puritan preachers, and (I doubt not) there could have been found too
many flatterers.
But Mr. Howe so little flattered the Protector, that he deliberately
preached against the doctrine of a particular persuasion in prayer,
which was one of the Protector's strongholds.
And so far was his eloquence from being vehement, that its very glory
was a majestic evenness of flow, which, while it swept the whole soul
irresistibly on to his conclusion, seldom tossed it up and down with
those changeful heavings of emotion that are the luxuries of popular
orations. Any preacher who was less of a fiery declaimer and of a
fanatic, or less of a brilliant popular orator than John Howe,
Oliver's chosen chaplain, can, I think, scarcely be found in the
history of preaching. If he had a fault, it is the difficulty of
detaching any word, image, or pointed sentence from the grand sweep
of his argument sufficiently to give any conception of its power to
those who did not hear him. If his eloquence was a river, it was one
without the dash and sparkle of rapids and eddies, steadily deepening
and broadening, in a majestic current to its end. If it was a fire,
it was no mere spark or flame to make the heart glow for a moment,
but a steady furnace enkindling principles into divine affections.
If it was a flight, it was no mere darting hither and thither, as of
smaller birds; scarcely even the upward musical mounting of the lark
to descend on her nest; but the soaring of the eagle with his eye on
the sun. He strengthened you for duty by transporting you to the
divine spring of all duty. He strengthened you against earthly care
simply by lifting you above it to "the holy order of God." "Do not
hover as meteors; do not let your minds hang in the air in a
pendulous, uncertain, unquiet posture," he said; "a holy rectitude,
composure, and tranquillity in our life, carries with it a lively,
sprightly vigour. Our Saviour says that life consists not in things,
but in a good healthy internal habit of spirit. What a blessed
repose, how pleasant a vacancy of diseasing, vexatious thoughts, doth
that soul enjoy which gives a constant, unintermittent consent to the
divine government, when it is an agreed, undisputed thing, that God
shall always lead and prescribe, and it follow and obey. Discontent
proceeds from self-conceit, self-dependence, self-seeking, all which
despicable idols (or that one great idol _self_ thus variously
idolized) one sight of God would bring to nothing."
He strengthened men for death, not by fortifying them against it as a
sleep, but by regarding life as the sleep and death the waking. "It
fares with the sluggish soul as if it were lodged in an enchanted
bed. So deep an oblivion hath seized it of its own country, of its
alliance above, of its relation to the Father and world of spirits,
it takes this earth for its home where 'tis both in exile and
captivity at once, as a prince stolen away in his infancy and bred up
in a beggar's shed. Being in the body, it is as with a bird that
hath lost its wings. The holy soul's release from its earthly body
will shake off this drowsy sleep. Now is the happy season of its
awaking into the heavenly vital light of God. The blessed morning of
the long-desired day hath now dawned upon it; the cumbersome
night-veil is laid aside, and the garments of salvation and immortal
glory are now put on." "The greatest enemy we have cannot do us the
despite to keep us from dying." To one whose spirit was thus itself
a living Temple, even the great Abbey seemed an earthly house. The
incense, the ritual, and the music of the heavenly city were around
Him. "The sacrifice of Christ," he said, "is of virtue to perfume
the whole world."
Yet I feel that these extracts give as little idea of the power of
his preaching, as a phial of salt-water of the sea. You perceive
from it that the water of the sea is salt and clear, but of the sea
itself, heaving in multitudinous waves from horizon to horizon, you
have no more idea than before.
The very titles of his books read like arguments of a divine poem--a
Paradise Lost and Regained. "The Living Temple;" "The Blessedness of
the Righteous;" "Of Delighting in God;" "The Redeemer's Tears wept
over lost Souls;" "The Love of God and our Brother;" "The Carnality
of Religious Contention;" "Of Reconciliation between God and Man;"
"The Redeemer's Dominion over the Invisible World."
Far indeed his spirit dwelt above the small controversies of the
time, engaged in the great controversy of light against darkness.
"Holiness," he said, "is the Christian's armour, the armour of light:
strange armour that may be seen through." "A good man's armour is
that he needs none; his armour is an open breast. Likeness to God is
an armour of proof. A person truly like God is far raised above the
tempestuous stormy region, and converses where winds and clouds have
no place. Holy souls were once darkness, but now they are light in
the Lord--_darkness_, not in the dark, as if that were their whole
nature, and they were nothing but an impure mass of conglobated
darkness. So '_ye are light_,'--as if they were that and nothing
else. How suppose we such an entire sphere of nothing else but pure
light? What can raise a storm with it? A calm serene thing,
perfectly homogeneous, void of contrariety. We cannot yet say that
thus it is with holy souls, but thus it will be when they awake.
Glory is revealed to them, transfused through them; not a
_superficial skin-deep glory_, but a transformation, changing the
soul throughout; _glory, blessedness, brought home and lodged in a
man's own soul_."
Blessedness, to Mr. Howe, consisted in godliness, and godliness
manifested itself in goodness--as high a conception of Christian
religion, I think, as has been realized before or since. His
learning was not as fragments of a foreign language, intertwined for
purposes of decoration with his own, but as a translation into the
language of day of the converse he had held, on the high places of
the earth, with his kindred among the lofty souls of the past, in the
language native to them all, concerning the infinite heavens above
them all. This was the kind of eloquence we listened to at Whitehall
and St. Margaret's during the days of the Commonwealth. And among
all the great Puritan preachers this was the one whom Oliver chose
for his chaplain.
We never intruded ourselves on the Protector during his greatness.
There were so many to claim his notice then. And we needed it not;
having work enough to occupy us and means enough to do it, and
happiness enough in it, what with the sick and the prisons and the
children in the home.
But Roger was always in his service, and he brought us word
continually what a burden and toil that rule was to the ruler.
Above the noisy strife of parties, men like Howe could dwell in the
purer air; beneath it the people and the churches were silently
prospering. But Oliver's way lay through the thick of the strife,
with little intermission, from the beginning to the end. If ever "I
serve" was justly a prince's motto, it was his. "Ready to serve," as
he said, "_not as a king but as a constable_; if they liked it, often
thinking indeed that he could not tell what his business in the place
he stood in was, save that of a good constable set to keep the peace
of the parish." Oliver's parish (Roger said) being England with all
her parties, and Europe with her Protestants and Catholics, ready at
a word to fly on each other. He kept the peace of his parish well.
Others might concern themselves with the _well-being_ of the nation
(as he said)--"he had to consider its _being_." The ship which the
mixed crew of Anabaptists, Levellers, classical Republicans, and
Royalists, were debating in Parliament and out of it how to work
according to most perfect rules, had meantime _to be worked_, being
not in harbour but on the stormiest sea, amidst hostile fleets.
Parliament after parliament met, debated, did nothing, and was
dissolved. But still the ship of the nation sailed majestically and
triumphantly on, breasting stormy waves and scattering hostile
fleets, with that one hand on the helm, and the eyes of that one man
on the stars and on the waves.
Roger was full of hope throughout those years. The time must come,
he said, when the nation would see what the Protector was doing for
her. All Europe had seen it long. Ambassadors came from Spain,
France, Denmark, Sweden, Austria.
All Europe felt England a power, and knew who made her so. England
herself could not fail to see it soon. Then, instead of taking her
greatness sullenly from Oliver's hands, she would acknowledge him as
the "single person" to whom the parliaments and people owed
allegiance--her sovereign by divinest right--suffer him to rule in
accordance with her ancient order instead of in spite of it--grant
what he passionately craved, the privilege of making her as free as
he had made her strong; rise herself to be the queen of the
Protestant nations.
And then the glorious day would dawn, Roger thought, for England and
the world. What tender sweet hopes lay deep in his heart, as one of
the roses strewn by this Aurora, I knew well. What England and the
world said, one maiden's heart would surely be blind to no more!
So the years passed on. Our fleets, with Blake in command, were
ranging the Mediterranean Sea, Rumours came of victories over Italian
and Mussulman, of compensation for wrong, of slaves set free.
In the late king's reign the Barbary Pirates had carried off our
countrymen from our shores near Plymouth Sound. Under Oliver, our
fleets battered down the forts of the Pirates on their own shores,
and set the captives free.
All nations courted his alliance. And from the plantations of New
England (through Mr. John Cotton and others) came joyful voices of
congratulation on the liberties and glories which these children of
Old England felt still to be theirs.
All seemed advancing, Roger thought, like a triumph. Righteousness
springing out of the earth, Truth looking down from heaven--when
tidings burst upon us which stirred the heart of England to its
depths, from sea to sea.
From the far-off valleys of the Alps of Piedmont came the cry of
wrong. How a whole race of our fellow-Protestants, "men otherwise
harmless, only for many years famous for embracing the purity of
religion," had been tortured, massacred, and driven from their homes,
to perish naked and starving on the mountains.
Never, since the Irish massacre at the beginning of the Civil Wars,
had England been so moved with one overwhelming tide of indignation
and pity. But with the indignation at the Irish massacre meaner
feelings of selfish terror had been mingled. This wrong touched
England only in her noblest part. For the time we seemed to reach
the depths beneath all our divisions and turmoils. England felt
herself one, in this common sympathy; and what was more, the
Protestant Church glowed into a living unity through this holy fire
of indignation and pity, which, being true, failed not to burst forth
in generous deeds of succour. "For," as Milton wrote, "that the
Protestant name and cause, although they differ among themselves in
some things of little consequence, is nevertheless the same, the
hatred of our adversaries alike incensed against Protestants very
easily demonstrates."
The massacre began in December, 1654, that merciless "slaughter on
the Alpine mountains cold." Six regiments were engaged in it, three
of them the Irish "Kurisees," from whom the Protector had delivered
Ireland.
It was the 3rd of June before the cry of distress reached Oliver at
Whitehall. The hills had been flashing it for five months to heaven.
For five months our brethren and their families had been wandering
destitute, afflicted, tormented, on the mountains above their ruined,
desolated homes.
Much frightful wrong had been wrought irrevocably, past all the
remedies of earth. What remedy was still possible there was no delay
in finding, and no lack of generous tenderness in applying.
The Protector at once gave £2,000 from his private purse. A day of
humiliation was appointed throughout the country, "such a fast as God
hath chosen, to undo the heavy burdens, to break every yoke, to deal
bread to the hungry, and cover the naked." Thirty-seven thousand
pounds were contributed to the suffering brethren in the Valleys.
Secretary Milton wrote six State letters in the Protector's name to
the princes of Europe and the Switzer Republic. Oliver showed
plainly to France that he cared more for the righting of this wrong
than for the most profitable alliances in the world. The Catholic
world perceived for once that Protestantism meant more than mere
doubt and denial, that it meant a common faith and a common life.
And as far as might be the wrong was set right, the exiles were
relieved from their destitution and restored to their homes.
It was something to be an Englishwoman then.
Roger was appointed to accompany the envoys sent by the Protector to
Paris. He came to take leave of us with a face all alit with hope.
"England is beginning to acknowledge her deliverer," he said. "All
Europe is flashing back on her his kingly likeness, as if from a
thousand mirrors. She must acknowledge him at last."
And with a farewell which had the joyous ring of a welcome in it, he
went.
The joyful confidence of his tones and hope made them linger on my
heart long, like music. "She must acknowledge him at last." They
mingled with my dreams, and woke with me when I woke, but with a
double meaning subtilely intertwined into them; as if England were
personated, as in some royal festive masque, in the form of Lettice
Davenant, no more weeping and downcast, as when I had seen her last,
but her bright face, and her dear joyous eyes full of serene
determination and unquenchable hope.
LETTICE'S DIARY.
"_Paris, Twelfth Night_, 1655.--My birth-day. More than four years
since I wrote a word in this book. The pages begin to look faded,
like my youth. I scarcely know why I have left such an interval,
except that it is so difficult not to look on the whole of this life
of exile as an interval; a blank space, or an impertinent episode in
the history of life, which, by-and-by, when the true history begins
again, we just tear out or seal together.
"All this time I have heard nothing from the old friends in England,
except two letters; one from Mistress Dorothy, wherein she gave me a
terrible picture of the wrong-doings and thinkings of certain
religious people of an entirely new kind, whom she calls 'Quakers.'
It seems that Olive brought one to her house at Kidderminster, which
Mistress Dorothy thought a great wrong. As far as I can make out,
Olive has no thought of becoming a Quaker; nor can I find out
distinctly what the Quakers are or do, except that every one seems
enraged against them, and that on that ground Olive and Dr. Antony
took this Quaker maiden under their wing. Poor sweet Olive, she
always had a way of getting entangled into defending people under
general ban; from witches downward or upward. I suppose Annis Nye is
Olive's present Gammer Grindle. In which case, Olive at least seems
little changed. But that letter was written before the Battle of
Worcester. From Mistress Dorothy's account they appear to be a new
kind of sect, with a new elaborate ceremonial or ritual, to which
they adhere very strictly. Mistress Dorothy speaks of their refusing
to take off their hats, and to bow or courtesy. This must evidently
be a ritual observance; because people would scarcely be sent to
prison simply for keeping on their hats and not courtesying.
"Mistress Dorothy spoke, too, by the way, of Olive's two children,
Maidie and the babe.
"The babe must be now a prattling child of five, and Maidie probably
a little person invested with the solemn responsibilities of the
eldest sister. I fancy her with Olive's fair, calm face, thinking it
her greatest honour to share her mother's household occupations, or
to run by her side with a basket of food to supplement Dr. Antony's
medicines. I fancy Mistress Gretel smiling at the babes, and letting
them entangle her knitting with the feeblest of remonstrances, and in
a serene way undermining all Olive's 'wholesome' discipline. I fancy
Mr. Drayton a little older, a little graver, not quite satisfied with
the fruits of the war, wishing Mr. Hampden back, and Lord Falkland,
and England as they might have made it; and taking refuge with the
stars and his grand-children. I fancy--till I am angry with myself
for fancying anything, as if it made shadows out of realities. For
they live; _they live_, in the old solid living England. If any are
shadows, it is we, poor helpless, voiceless exiles on this shadowy
shore; not they. And then I begin to think not of what I fancy, but
what I know. I know they are good, and kind, and godly still. And I
know--yes, I know--they have not forgotten; they still love and think
of me.
"Only sometimes it troubles me a little that they are going on
thinking of me as the young Lettice they knew so long ago; which is
scarcely the same as thinking of the middle-aged Lettice Davenant who
has reached her twenty-ninth birth-day to-day.
"I think sometimes now of the scorn with which I was wont to speak of
middle-states of things, saying there was no poetry in mid-day,
mid-summer, middle-station, middle-age. And often and often the
answer comes cheerily back, how _he_ spoke of 'manhood and womanhood,
with their dower of noble work, and strength to do it;' and how he
could not abide 'to hear the spring-tide spoken pulingly of, as if it
faded instead of ripening into summer; and youth, as if it set
instead of dawned into manhood.' 'It was but a half-fledged poetry,'
he said, 'which must go to dew-drops and rosy morning clouds for its
similes and could see no beauty in noon-tide with its patient toil or
its rapturous hush of rest.'--It comes back to me like an
invigorating march music, now that the joyous notes of the reveille
have died away, and the vesper hymns are not yet ready, and the march
of noon-tide life has fairly begun.
"What, then, makes evening and morning, spring and autumn, the
delight of poets? The light then blossoms or fades into colour. The
light itself then is a fair picture to look at. At noon it sinks
deeper no longer on the surface of clouds, but into the chalices of
flowers and into the heart of fruits; it is painting pictures on the
harvest-fields and orchards; it is ripening and making the world
fair, and enabling us to see it. It is light not to look at, but to
work by. Its beauty is in making things beautiful. And so I think
it is with middle-age. Its beauty is not in itself; but in loving
thought for others, and loving work for others. Looking at ourselves
in middle-life, we see only the glow faded, the dewy freshness
brushed away. Therefore we must not look at ourselves, but at the
work the Master gives us to do, the brothers and sisters the Father
gives us to love. In Olive's heart, no doubt, the thought of youth
passing away scarcely arises. She sees her children growing around
her, and works and plans for them, and counts the hours again as
morning, not as evening hours, renewing her life in the morning of
theirs. And although that lot is not mine, I have scarcely more
temptation to 'talk pulingly of morning fading into noon' than she.
Madame la Mothe takes me close to her heart. With her I am her
friend's child. Then these revenues which come to us so much more
regularly than to most of the Cavaliers, give us so many means of
helping others, that this alone is an occupation. Especially as
these revenues are, after all, not unlimited, and my father and
Walter believe they are (as the wants of the Cavaliers certainly
are), so that it requires some planning and combining to make things
go as far as they can. Which in itself is a great occupation to
Barbe and me, and makes our daily house-keeping as interesting as a
work of charity. And since the English Service has been prohibited
at the Louvre, as it has been since the Battle of Worcester, I have
some happy work in a kind of little school of young English girls,
amongst whom it is sweet to do what I can, that when they go back,
the Holy Scriptures and the prayers of the dear old Prayer-book may
not be unfamiliar to them.
"Then my father is wonderfully forbearing with me. For it has vexed
him that I could not listen to some excellent Cavaliers, who wished
for our alliance.
"Madame la Mothe also sometimes lectures me a little on this score
with reference to a nephew of hers. But as the project was primarily
hers and not his, this little proposal was much easier to decline.
Only sometimes she shakes her head and says,--
"'There has been a history, my poor child! Every woman's heart has
its history. But heaven forbid that I should seek to penetrate into
thy secret. Yet thou art not like thy mother in all things. She
suffered. Thou wilt conquer. Her eyes were as those of Mater
Dolorosa by the Cross. Thine are as those of Regina Cœli above
the storms.'"
"And I cannot tell her. Because I can never look on that love as a
history. I know so well he could not change. It is scarcely
betrothal, for there is neither promise nor hope. It is simply
belonging to each other in life and in death.
"Then sometimes she smiles and kisses me and says, 'There is some
little comfort even in thy being of "the religion." On that rock of
thine, no torrent of Port-Royalist eloquence will sweep thee away
from us into a convent. And for the rest, God is merciful; and
having made islands, it is possible He has especial dispensations
suited to islands.'"
"For Madame la Mothe has entirely relinquished my conversion. Seeing
that I can honour the ladies of Port Royal from the bottom of the
heart, without being attracted to Port Royal, she has given me up.
"She says I have no restless cravings, no void to fill, and it is to
the restlessness of the heart that the repose of religion appeals.
"In one way she is right. Thank God she is right. Or rather my
whole heart is one great craving unfathomable void. But Christianity
fills it. Christ fills it. He Himself; satisfying every aspiration,
meeting every want, being all I want. Pitying, forgiving, loving,
_commanding_ me. The commanding sometimes most satisfying of all.
Always, always; all through my heart. Redeemer, that is much;
Master, that (afterwards) is almost more. Father! that is all.
"There have been sorrows. After Worcester, my father was so terribly
cast down and gentle. I remember it was almost a relief the first
time he was really a little angry after that; although it was with me
he was angry; and quite a relief to hear him begin to storm at the
French Court again, when they suppressed our English Service at the
Louvre, and did what they could with any civility to suppress or
dismiss us, and began to pay court to the Arch-Traitor.
"Since then the success of the Usurper in making England great, and
the baseness of some of the attempts to assassinate him (not
discouraged, alas, by some of our Court)! have strained my father's
loyalty to the utmost.
"But the sorrow is Walter; the wrong which sometimes makes us ready,
in desperation, to pay our allegiance anywhere but there whence the
evil came, is the sore change in him. We made some sacrifices in old
times to the royal cause. But what were poor Dick, and Robert, and
George, slain on the field, or even Harry laying down his life at
Naseby, or even that precious mother stricken into heaven by his
death, compared with a life poisoned in its springs like Walter's at
this selfish wicked Court? All the fair promise of his youth turned
into corruption; his very heart slain!
"Our martyred king required the lives of our dearest, and they were
given willingly for him. But this king takes their souls,
themselves, their life of life, not as a living sacrifice, but to be
trampled, and soiled, and crushed in the dust and mire of sin, till
their dear familiar features are scarcely to be distinguished by
those who love them best.
"The gladness of heart my mother delighted in changed into a fickle
irritability, or frozen into mockery at all sacred things human or
divine. The generous spirit degraded into mere selfish lavishness,
caring not at what cost to others it buys its wretched pleasures.
"And then the miserable reactions of regret and remorse which I used
to rejoice in, until I learned to know they were the mere irritable
self-loathing of exhausted passion, as little moral as when (at other
times) the same irritation turned against my father or me instead of
against himself. Until at last I dare not profane the sacred names
of mother and of God, by using them as a kind of magic spell to
unseal the springs of maudlin sentimental tears. Oh, how bitter the
words look! Walter, Walter, my brother! tenderly committed by my
mother to me, living in the house with us day by day, yet farther
off--more out of reach (it seems) of pleading or prayer than those
who lie on the cold slopes of Rowten Heath and Naseby! Is there no
weapon in God's armoury to reach thy heart? Good Mistress Gretel
used to say God had so many weapons we knew not of in His
storehouses. In mine, alas, there seem none; none except going on
loving. And perhaps after all that is the strongest in His.
"Going on loving. Yes; our Lord surely did that, does that. When
'He turned to the woman' in Simon's house, it was not the first time
He had so turned to her. Not the first. How many times from the
first! Yet at last she turned and came and looked on Him. And she
was forgiven. And in loving Him a new fountain of purity was opened
in her heart, the only purity worth the name, the purity of love; the
purity not of ice but of fire. Yes; in Him there is the possibility
of restoration.
"But, oh, for these desecrated wasted years, for the glory of the
prime turned into corruption, for all that might have been and never
can be, for this one irrevocable life ebbing, ebbing so fast away,
for the terrible possibility of there being no restoration. For some
looked, and listened, and longed, but never came!
"_May_.--Barbe came into my chamber this morning, weeping and
wringing her hands.
"'Ah, mademoiselle!' she said; 'another St. Bartholomew--a second St.
Bartholomew!'"
"'Have they risen against the Protestants in Paris?' I said. And my
first thought was of Walter,--a wild thought, whether this might be
the angel's sword to drive him back into the fold. If we were to be
hunted hither and thither, who could say but in the severe
destitution of some den or cave of refuge, or even in the prison of
the Inquisition, sacred old words might come back to him, and he
might turn and be saved? And then another flash of thought! If we
were seized as Protestants, England would rise; Cromwell, Englishman
and Protestant that he was, would demand us back. We should no more
be Royalist and Rebel, but all English and Protestant; and return to
England, to Netherby, and Walter with us, and a new life begin. Wild
hopes, flashing through my mind between my question and Barbe's
answer, delayed, as it was, by her tears.
"'Not in Paris yet, mademoiselle; that is to come. No doubt, the
tyrants will not end where they began. It is the people of the
valleys--the Vaudois--men of the religion, before France knew what
the religion was. My mother's kindred came thence,--quiet, loyal
peasants, tilling their poor patches of field and vineyard among the
savage mountains. The Duke of Savoy would have them all foreswear
the religion in three days. They held firm. He sent six
regiments--herds of monsters, wild beasts, among the people. They
tortured, killed, wrought horrors I cannot name, but which those
faithful men and women had to bear.' And her sobs choked her words;
until by degrees she told me all she knew of the dreadful story of
outrage and wrong.
"'And is there none to help?' I said.
"'There is none;--unless it be this Mr. Cromwell,' she said, with a
little hesitation, knowing how abhorred the name was amongst us.
'These poor, exiled, outraged Christians have appealed to him.'
"_June_ 8.--My father says all the world is ablaze about this letter
of Mr. John Milton, the Usurper's Latin secretary, concerning these
persecuted exiles from the valleys. Its words are very strong. It
seems not unlikely the French Court may be moved to interfere an
their behalf. 'It is some comfort,' said my father, 'to see that the
old country has a voice which must be listened to, even though she
speaks through the mouth of this murderous Usurper.'
"_June_ 9.--My father came in, with his eyes enkindled with a look of
triumph such as I had not seen in them for years.
"'We must have a rejoicing, Lettice, cost what it may. There is no
help for it, but an English gentleman's heart must be glad at such
news! Robert Blake has been pounding them right and left--Pope and
Turk, Duke and Dey. The Blakes of Somersetshire--a good old family:
I knew them well. The English fleet calls at Leghorn, and the Pope
and his Italians eagerly grant whatever they demand. The English
fleet calls at Tunis, demanding justice from the Dey and his pirates.
The Dey refuses: Blake batters down his forts, and burns his fleet in
the harbour. The Dey will not refuse us our rights again. The world
begins to know what the name of an Englishman means. Already these
French courtiers practise a little civility. The very rascal boys in
the streets seem less impudent. We must have a merry-making,
Lettice. What can we do? At home we would have all the village to a
feast, set all the ale-barrels flowing, and all the bells in the
country ringing. But here the people, poor half-starved creatures,
drink nothing but vinegar. And as to these everlasting bells, that
are always dropping and trickling, no one knows why; it would do
one's heart good if one could wake them up for once, and set them
free all together, to burst out in the torrent of a grand old English
peal. But we cannot. Who can we give a feast to, Lettice? One
cannot exactly have a Cavalier dinner, because it might look like
celebrating the victory of the Usurper. Yet somebody or other must
be made the merrier, that the old country has done such a good stroke
of work. Whom can we have?'
"I could think of no one but Barbe, her father and mother, and the
seven hungry little brothers and sisters she helped to support.
Accordingly the next day we made them a supper in honour of the
victory over the Turks, an attention which seemed to gratify our
guests much, although my father was not a little dissatisfied at
having to entertain guests on what he scornfully termed 'broth,
vinegar, and sugar-plums.' But I think to the end Barbe and her
family remained in a very misty state of mind as to what they were to
rejoice about; and but for my father's imperfect acquaintance with
the French language, I am afraid the closing speech of Barbe's
father, who was an old gentleman with political theories, and of a
lofty and florid style of eloquence, might have caused an explosion.
For the point of it was:
"'Excellent Monsieur and amiable Mademoiselle, your country is a
great country; though sometimes to us Frenchmen a little difficult to
understand. No doubt, this Monseigneur Cromwell has not the
advantage of a descent as pure as could be wished; but he has the
advantage of making himself understood in all languages. The Turks
seem to have understood Mr. Blake. There is, also, Mr. Milton, who
writes Latin with the elegance of the renowned Tully. The Duke of
Savoy will have to understand him. The poor exiled Vaudois are to be
restored to their valleys. Monseigneur Cromwell has insisted on it.
He has also sent two thousand pounds of his own for their relief, and
your nation has added more than thirty thousand;--a sum scarcely to
be calculated by simple people. It is a pity Monseigneur should be
out of the legitimate line of your country's kings. But such changes
must happen at times in dynasties. Our own has changed more than
once. And, no doubt, your magnanimous nation understands her own
affairs, and ere long will arrange herself to the satisfaction of all
parties. Monsieur and mademoiselle, I thank you in the name of my
family. Such hospitality is a proof of a tender and generous heart,
worthy of the great nation which has sent this princely succour to
the oppressed.'
"'What does he say, Lettice?' whispered my father.
"'That England is a great nation,' I replied; 'and that it is a pity
Oliver Cromwell was not of the house of Stuart.'
"For a moment my father's eyes flashed; but then, shaking his head
compassionately, he only said: 'Of course, these poor foreigners
cannot be expected to understand our politics. We must make
allowances, Lettice; we must make allowances. Every man cannot,
after all, be born an Englishman.'
"_June_ 10.--The meaning of Barbe's father's speech is plain. The
Usurper has sent an Embassy Extraordinary to the French Court and to
Savoy, and all the redress he demands for the Vaudois is to be made.
They are to be restored to their mountain homes, and protected from
future ill usage. He styles himself 'Oliver, Protector.' The poor
Vaudois, at least, are likely to think the title not undeserved.
"_June_ 11.--My father says Roger is here. If any one in the world
could help Walter, he might. Walter has been terrible lately. His
reckless, mocking ways drive my father wild. He storms in righteous
anger. Walter recriminates with cool, reckless jests. My father
commands him to go. Walter goes; does not come back for days. My
father grows more and more restless and wretched during his absence;
reproaches himself; taps at my door at night, and says: 'Lettice, I
shall never rest any more. I have driven the lad to destruction. I
will go and seek him.' In a few hours he returns with Walter,
destitute and affectionate. He returns as a prodigal; but, alas! not
come to himself; aggrieved against the husks--against the beggarly
citizens, who would not give him any--but chiefly against the father,
who, having given him his own portion, refused him his brother's.
And so, for the hundredth time, we welcome him, weep over him, make
much of him, and provide him with such best robes and portions of our
living as we can possibly spare. And in a day or two he meets his
old associates, has some good-natured message from the king, and,
before long, is drawn off into the old tide of riotous living. Away
from us, heart and soul, in the far country, where we at the old home
are mere shadows to him. We mere shadows to him; and he the core of
our hearts to us!
"I feel that these tender changes of feelings of my father's, the
very anger springing from affection, and the affection making him
repent of his just anger as of a sin, are not good for Walter. I
cannot help, sometimes, telling him what sacrifices my father makes
for him; how ungrateful and unjust he is in return. But he merely
laughs, and talks as if women were creatures with quite another
edition of the Ten Commandments from men; or, sometimes, he says my
Puritan friends have taken the spirit out of me; or that I should
have married, and then I should have understood the world a little,
and had something else to do than to educate my brothers. But when
he says such things to me, he is always, or often, sorry afterwards,
and tries to expiate them by some little extra gift or attention.
"And often my father also is vexed rather with me than with Walter,
when he and Walter have differed. He seems to think I ought in some
way to have made life more cheerful to them both. But this I know he
does not mean. Such words are only as an inarticulate cry of pain.
He means it no more than he means what he says far oftener and more
vehemently, that he will never waste another groat, nor hazard a drop
of blood again, for the heartless, faithless family ('Scottish and
French not English,' saith he, in his bitterest moments), which fate
has smitten England with; when I know that, at the next glimpse of a
hope of Restoration, he would spend his fortune to the uttermost
farthing, and his blood to the last drop, to see the young king enjoy
his own again.
"_June_ 12th.--We have met, Roger and I, for a few minutes, but those
minutes, seemed to have bridged over all the years between, and it is
as if our lives had been lived side by side all the time, Yet we said
scarcely a connected sentence that I can recall.
"It was in one of the little tumults which now and then arise in the
narrow streets out of disputes for precedence.
"I was in Madame la Mothe's coach, when we met a coach which happened
to belong to a seigneur, whose lands are close to Madame la Mothe's
in the country. Neither of the coachmen would give way and back his
horses. It was a rivalry of centimes. As happens in so many
contests, the immediate interests of the chiefs were lost sight of in
the vehemence of their followers. Madame la Mothe and I were left
solitary and uneasy in the coach, while the servants contended for
our dignity in the street. At length the tumult of voices grew
fierce, the hoofs of the horses clattered on the stones as the
postillions urged them with a defiant crack of their whips, and it
seemed as if the two coaches and their inmates were to charge each
other bodily, as if we had been batteries or battalions.
"'There will be bloodshed,' exclaimed Madame la Mothe, 'bloodshed for
a title, for my title!' and pushing open the door, she sprang on the
pavement, and threw herself among the combatants with words of peace.
"The lady in the other coach seeing her descend, did the same.
Advancing rapidly towards each other they made reverences to each
other.
"Madame la Mothe held out her hands. 'Let us make a compromise,
madame,' she said; 'we will both reascend one coach with my young
friend, Let it be yours. We will then proceed together, while my
coach retires. Bloodshed will be avoided. The loyal rivalry of our
people will be satisfied. Your side will gain the victory, but it
will be in my service.'
"The ladies embraced, and hand in hand entered the other coach. The
retainers shouted long life to both the illustrious houses; and the
little drama was ending in a general embrace, when an obstacle
presented itself in the determination of one of Madame la Mothe's
horses, which absolutely refused to sacrifice his own sense of
dignity by retreating.
"The perplexity was great when Madame la Mothe, turning to me,
exclaimed, 'My child, you will excuse my making you the victim of a
slight _ruse de guerre_, to avoid wounding the honour of these
excellent people. We will make it a question of national courtesy.'
And having obtained the other lady's consent, leaning from the
window, she said to one of the young gentlemen in attendance, in a
voice that all round might hear: 'See, this young lady is of a noble
English house, in exile for loyalty to the unfortunate king. All
noblesse yields to noblesse sacrificing itself for royalty. Conduct
Mademoiselle Davenant, I pray you, to my carriage, aid let us retire
before her.'
"I wad being reconducted to Madame la Mothe's carriage, pale, perhaps
a little anxious, for there were murmurs of discontent among the
retainers of the adverse company, when suddenly Roger appeared before
me, and in a moment my hand was in his before I knew how, and I was
alone in the carriage, slowly advancing, while he walked beside the
window.
"'A friend of mademoiselle's father! Move forward!' he said to the
attendants, in slightly broken French, with that quiet expectation of
obedience which always gave credentials to his commands. He was
obeyed; and we moved slowly on.
"'You excuse me?' he said to me. His hand was on the edge of the
window. 'I heard your name, and saw you looking alarmed, and before
I had time to question my right to do it, I found myself taking care
of you.'
"He said no more. And I said nothing. It was one of those moments
which seemed not to belong to the hour but to the ages; because ore
does not think of looking backward or forward while they last, the
rest they bring is so complete.
"But as we came to the end of the narrow street, and were about to
turn into a broader place, there was again a little tumult which
delayed us. Looking out, I saw it was caused by a company of young
cavaliers arrogantly pushing the crowd aside. Among them I saw the
faces of one or two whom I recognized as friends of Walter's, and I
thought I caught a glimpse of Walter himself.
"Then I forgot everything but Walter, the longing I had so often had
that he could know Roger and the possibility of Roger saving him.
"'Roger,' I said, 'you remember Walter the youngest of us, the boy my
mother thought so much of. Those are some of our king's courtiers.
They are Walter's friends. They are bad friends. They are ruining
him for life and for ever. I have thought sometimes if you could
have been his friend, it might have been different.'
"'I will do all what I can, Lettice,' he said, and that was all. But
his 'what I can,' and his 'Lettice,' are volumes that need no
commentary.
"Madame la Mothe re-appeared.
"I introduced Roger as best I could.
"She lavished thanks on him, and kept him some little time in
conversation, while the men were setting something right about the
harness.
"But he replied only in monosyllables.
"For some time after he had taken leave we drove on in silence.
"I was thinking whether I had done right. In committing my brother
to Roger had I not, as it were, made him my knight, set him forth on
a sacred enterprise for my sake, which he might interpret into an
atonement for that terrible deed which separated us?
"That terrible deed which all the blood in the world, and all the
good deeds in the world cannot expiate, which nothing but repentance
can blot out! And Roger will never repent.
"They came sweeping back on my heart with his voice, all the old
familiar sacred recollections, my mother's affection for him, the
touch of her hand clasping ours, the sound of her voice blessing us.
And far away, like a ghost, at cock-crowing, glided that dreadful
scaffold. 'Politics!' did not every one say; 'what have women to do
with politics?'
"And after all, what had Roger to do with that terrible deed? He had
sat near on horseback, as a soldier of Parliament, while it was done.
As a soldier of the Parliament, what could he do otherwise? As a
man, would he not rather have risked his life to save the royal
sufferer's life? All the consequences of rebellion are involved in
the first act of rebellion. War means life or death, victory or
death to all involved. All the terrible results were unfolded in the
first fatal lifting up of the rebel standard at Edgehill; a shot
might have ended His Majesty's life then as easily as the axe years
afterwards. Roger's loyalty is to England, and, for her sake, to
whomsoever he believed will rule and serve her best. That first act
of disloyalty once committed, in the choice of a wrong leader, the
more loyal the character the more disloyal must be the acts ever
after. It was Roger's fatal hereditary misbelief which had enlisted
him in Cromwell's army. And that my mother knew, and knowing, had
sanctioned his love. But once enlisted, it was the very loyalty of
heart which would have led him to die with Montrose for the king's
cause, however hopeless, which had lead him thus to guard the king's
scaffold, however he hated to be there. For I know he did hate to be
there! If he would but once confess that his heart had bled at the
sight, as I am sure it did! But I knew too well how that fatal
loyalty of nature which had prevented his resisting the worst deed of
his traitorous leader, would keep his lips sealed for ever from
disclaiming his share in it, when done.
"But if I knew his heart, ought I not to accept the reverent pity
which I knew must have moved him, and made his presence at the
martyrdom a torture to him, in place of any mere words which a heart
less true than his would have uttered so easily? Indeed, whether I
accepted it or not, had not it been already understood and accepted
above? As the mistakes of Port Royal were understood and forgiven,
and of Aunt Dorothy, and, as we trust, our own mistakes will be.
"Then came the thought,--
"'You are getting sophistical. Right and wrong are right and wrong
for all and for ever. If you try to put yourself into the place, and
feel the temptations of every criminal, as he feels them, you will
end in condemning no crime.'
"Thus as I sat silent by Madame la Mothe's side, while in a few
moments all those arguments rushed in conflict through my heart,
there was anything but silence within.
"At last Madame la Mothe spoke. Very quietly she laid her hand on
mine, and without looking at me, said,--
"'My child, forgive me. I shall never ask what your secret is again,
nor wonder why you keep your heart sealed like the doors of Port
Royal.'
"'It is no secret, madame,' I said. 'We were betrothed by my
mother's sanction. Only this dreadful war has separated us.'
"'Your young Cavalier is not on the king's side?' she said. 'It is a
pity. He has the manners of the ancient chivalry. Deferential and
stately, his politeness has something at once protecting and lofty in
it, as if he were a king, and all women as queens to him. Alas, for
these English politics and these consciences!'
"'It is not politics that separate us, madame,' I said, almost
mechanically; 'it is the king's death.'
"'Surely the young Cavalier was too noble to be concerned in that!'
she said.
"'He was a soldier of the Commonwealth, madame,' I said, 'and as a
soldier had to obey.'
"I found myself defending him in spite of myself.
"'The king's death was not the work of the soldier, was it?" she
said, 'but of the headsman.'
"'The soldiers guarded the scaffold,' I said.
"'This young Cavalier was among those who guarded the scaffold,' she
said. 'Was that all? Being a soldier, what would you have had him
do? Surely there is absolution on earth and in heaven for such a
mistake as that.'
"'He does not repent, madame.'
"'Ah, my child,' she said, 'see what it is to be a Protestant; you
have to be your own Supreme Tribunal, even when your conscience is on
the Judgment-seat, and your own heart at the bar, to be broken by the
sentence. Now, if you would only believe the Pope and the Church,
whatever the unavoidable pain of the sentence, you would at all
events escape the torture of at once inflicting and enduring it.'
"'Alas, madame,' I said, 'can the sisters of Port Royal escape the
torture of being their own tribunal? Can they believe a fact is a
fact because a Pope says it? They distinguish, indeed, between fact
and right; but are not rights really but facts of a higher sphere, if
we only knew them? And as unalterable? We only want to know what is
right, madame. It seems to me no decision on earth, or in heaven,
can make a thing right, any more than it makes it true.'
"'My poor child,' she said tenderly, 'heaven guide you. Only take
care your heart does not get into the judgment-seat, and persuade
your conscience that the very anguish of the sentence is a proof of
its justice. Noble hearts have made such mistakes ere now. One, I
think, very dear to thee and to me.'
"She was silent some minutes, and then said in a more cheerful tone,--
"'He was silent, this young Cavalier. His character is perhaps
rather grave?'
"'It is a way of all the men of our nation who are worth anything,
madame,' I said. 'Your countrymen have a natural eloquence. Feeling
enkindles them into speech. With us it oftener fuses men into
silence. An Englishman who has no dumbness in him is not to be
trusted.'
"She smiled.
"'Ah, my friend,' she said, 'if I defend, you attack; if I attack,
you defend. I will leave you to defend your own cause against
yourself.'"