“MY LORD,--I have perused the propositions sent out by your
commissioners, which I find such as deserve no answer. I have
offered your lordship and the rest conditions which you may yet
have, if you accept in time. If there be any thing in them obscure,
needing explanation, or wanting circumstantials, for the better
performing of the things intended therein I shall be willing to
appoint commissioners on my part to treat with yours to that
purpose upon these propositions of mine; provided you send
commissioners instructed with power to treat and conclude, and
return your resolution herein by six of the clock in the
evening.--Yours, &c.,
“THO. FAIRFAX.
“August 14, 1646.”
[Illustration]
In the meantime the besiegers went on with their approaches toward the
Castle--their main works being not above some sixty yards distant--and
had planted four mortar pieces in one place, and two mortar pieces at
another, each mortar piece carrying a grenade shell twelve inches
diameter.
Towards the end of the siege, whilst the cannon of Fairfax was playing
upon the Castle from the neighbouring height, and when casualties within
the walls were of hourly occurrence, an incident occurred, which shows
that in these perilous times even ladies deemed it necessary to
apologise for being afraid of leaden bullets. “One evening, during the
hottest period of the cannonade,” says Dr. Bayly, “there came a musket
bullet in at the window of the withdrawing room, where my lord used to
entertain his friends with his pleasant discourses after dinners and
suppers, which, glancing upon a little marble pillar of the window, and
from thence hit the Marquess upon the side of his head, and fell down
flattened upon the table, which breaking the pillar in pieces, it made
such a noise in the room, that his daughter-in-law, the Countess of
Glamorgan, who stood in the same window, ran away as if the house had
been falling down upon her head, crying out--‘O Lord! O Lord!’ But at
length finding herself more afraid than hurt, she returned back again,
no less excusing her--as she was pleased to call it--rudeness to her
father, than acknowledging her fears to all the company. To whom the
Marquess said: ‘Daughter, you had reason to run away when your father
was knocked on the head.’ Then pausing some little while, and turning
the flattened bullet round with his finger, he further said: ‘Gentlemen,
those who had a mind to flatter me, were wont to tell me that I had a
_good head_ in my younger days; but if I don’t flatter myself, I think I
have a good head-piece in my old age, or else it would not have been
_musket proof_.’”
Of the exemplary good order observed by the household, before the
establishment of a garrison within the Castle, an eye-witness has
transmitted the following testimony:--
“I have lived in Raglan Castle,” said he, “three years, and in all that
time I never saw man drunk, nor heard an oath, amongst any of all his
(the Marquess’s) servants; neither did I ever see a better ordered
family; and that which was most wonderful unto me was, that the servants
of his house, being half Papists and half Protestants, were never at
variance in point of religion--which was brought about by prohibiting
disputations.[267] Neither was any man the less accepted for his
religion, if his _service_ were acceptable. But when the Castle was
filled with officers and soldiers, he used to be more grieved to hear
and witness the drunkenness that was then and there too much practised:
insomuch, that when some of his chief officers had told him, how that
they had fortified such and such a place so and so; and that the enemy
could not come; and that there it was impossible. ‘Ay, ay,’ said my
Lord; ‘but you have left the main place open and unprotected. You have
no fortifications against Heaven. For there is so much swearing and
drunkenness amongst you, that from thence I fear me will come our
greatest enemy, and you have made no provision against _him_.’ And,
indeed, he said justly; for, in truth, the royalists were grievously
addicted to many vices, to which, on the contrary, the companions and
followers of Cromwell were comparatively strangers.”
The importance attached by the Parliament to the reduction of Raglan
Castle is shown by the following report from their commissioner:[268]--
“Your assured friend and servant, W. C.,” (as the letter is signed,)
writes to the Parliament man from “Usk, August 15, 1646.--I shall now
give you an account how near our approaches are made unto the Castle.
That which is our maine work is about sixty yardes from theirs, and
that’s the most. We have planted four mortar pieces, each of them
carrying a grenado shel twelve inches diameter; and two mortar peeces
planted at another place carrying shels about the like compas; soe that
in case the treatye doe breake off, we are then ready to show by what
extremitye they must expect to be reduced. This we are very confident,
that the grenadoes will make them quit their workes and outhouses, and
solely betake themselves into the Castle, which indeed will be a worke
of time before we are able to undermine it, in regard we must mine down
a hill[269] under a moate, and then the workes, before we can come to
the Castle; yet we conceive it feasible to be done with some losse. Our
engineer, Captain Hooper, a painful and honest man, proceeding, as he
hath begun, with exact running trenches, which we made so secure as if
they were workes against a storme, will, with God’s blessing, come
within ten yards in a few dayes; and then, I believe, we shall make
galleries, mines, and many batteries. The General is every day in the
trenches, and yesterdaye appointed a new approache, which the engineer
of this army, who is now returned from Worcester, is to carry on with
all expedition. He has already broken the ground, throwne up approaches
of about an hundred yardes in length and circuit, and is within sixty
yards of the under part of their workes.”
The writer then proposes that the Parliament should agree to moderate
terms, and accept of an honourable answer. That the plan might succeed
he deems quite certain, though not without farther loss; and he adds, in
terms less courteous than characteristic of the times, that “it would
not be worth while to gaine this old man’s carkasse at so dear a
rate.”[270]
AUG. 14.--Fairfax appointed a new approach, which the engineer, Captain
Hooper, had so far proceeded in as to throw up approaches of an hundred
yards in circuit, making exact running trenches (as secure as if they
were works against a storm), coming within sixty yards of their works.
AUG. 15.--The Marquess sent forth his desire to treat upon the General’s
propositions; whereupon the treaty was appointed at Mr. Oates’s house,
(about a mile and a half from Raglan,) to begin at two of the clock that
afternoon. Fairfax’s commissioners were Colonel Birch, Mr. Herbert,
Quartermaster-General Grosvenor, Lieutenant-Colonel Ashfield, and Major
Tulida.
By Monday the 17th of August, two days after the date of this report,
the preliminaries for capitulation were finally arranged.[271]
<g>Surrender.</g>--During the blockade of Raglan, the Parliamentary General
fixed his head-quarters at Kevantilla House,[272] the residence of Mr.
Oates, about a mile and a half from Raglan; and there the treaty for the
surrender of the Castle was finally adjusted and prepared for signature.
The commission deputed for the occasion by Fairfax, were Colonel Birch,
Quarter-Master Herbert, General Grosvenor, Lieutenant-Colonel Ashfield,
and Major Tuliday. The meeting, as previously arranged, took place at
two o’clock in the afternoon of Saturday, August the fifteenth; and, on
the Monday following, the document was ratified, by appending to it the
signatures of the authorized commissioners. The capitulation was agreed
to on the following conditions:--
<g>Article</g> the First. The garrison, ammunition, and artillery of Raglan, to
be surrendered to General Fairfax on the third day after the
ratification of the said treaty; namely, at ten o’clock on the morning
of the Wednesday following, being the nineteenth day of August.
<g>Article</g> the Second, stipulated that all the officers, soldiers, and
gentlemen of the garrison, should march out with horses and arms;
colours flying; drums beating; trumpets sounding; matches lighted at
both ends; bullets in their mouths; and every soldier with twelve
charges of powder and ball; with permission to select any place, within
ten miles of the Castle, for the purpose of delivering up their arms to
the general in command; after which the soldiers were to be disbanded
and set at liberty.
<g>Article</g> the Third, engaged the General’s safe conduct and protection to
all the gentlemen and others who had sought refuge within the walls of
Raglan Castle to their respective homes.
<g>Article</g> the Fourth, was an enlargement of the preceding article, by
which three months’ protection was guaranteed to certain other
gentlemen, until they should either have made their peace with
Parliament, or departed the realm.
<g>Article</g> the Fifth, guaranteed the protection and care of the sick and
wounded left in the Castle.
<g>Article</g> the Sixth, was an indemnity for all words and acts of the
garrison during the siege of the Castle.
On Wednesday the nineteenth of August, in pursuance of these
arrangements, the Castle and Garrison of Raglan were duly surrendered to
Sir Thomas Fairfax, for the use of both Houses of Parliament. The
garrison, which at first had mustered eight hundred men, was now reduced
to less than half that number; and as certain of the warlike muniments
were becoming so diminished as to expose them at last to the chances of
seeing the Castle entered by storm, a prolonged resistance must have
been attended with disastrous consequences.
“The garrison had no sooner marched out,” says an eye-witness, “than
Fairfax entered the Castle, took a view of it, had some conversation
with the Marquess, and then, quitting the scene of his last operation in
the way of siege, proceeded to Chepstow, where he was received in
triumph by the committee; and, after a brief halt in the Castle,
returned to his head-quarters at Bath,”
“A conqueror; and blushing on his sword
The stains of blood, by loyal Raglan pour’d.”
Yet Fairfax, as far as lay in his power, was very exact in observing
every condition to which he was a party. It is recorded to his honour,
that, “far from allowing violence, he would not even permit insults, or
expressions of triumph over the unfortunate Royalists.” Something of
this generous bearing towards his opponents may be observed in his
correspondence with the Marquess of Worcester. He is painted by
historians as equally eminent for personal courage and for humanity; and
though strongly infected with prejudices, or principles derived from
religious and party zeal, he never seems, in the course of his public
conduct, to have been diverted, by private interest or ambition, from
adhering strictly to these principles. Sincere in his professions,
disinterested in his views, open in his conduct, “he had formed,” says
Hume,[273] “one of the most shining characters of his age, had not the
extreme narrowness of his genius in everything but in _war_, and his
embarrassed and confused elocution on every occasion but when he gave
orders, diminished the lustre of his merit, and rendered the part which
he acted, even when vested with the supreme command, but secondary and
subordinate.”
With this just tribute to his merits as a man and a soldier, we take
leave of the Conqueror of <g>Raglan</g>, annexing the following
<g>Anecdotes.</g>--When Fairfax, as we learn from the same authority, laid
siege to Raglan Castle, and fair terms were offered to all the garrison,
the Marquess only excepted, the generous old Nestor entreated his
friends to accept the proposal, and allow _him_ to be the ‘Jonas.’ But
this proposition, it may be readily believed, had the opposite effect,
of strengthening their determination to stand by him to the last man. In
thanking his officers for their devotedness, he added, in his own
peculiar way, “I do not much like that way of embalming neither--to be
served up to my audit as a thing newly taken out of the cost of many
friends’ blood.”
In the conversation above alluded to, when Fairfax took possession of
the Castle, the Marquess is said to have made a jocular request,
bespeaking the General’s indulgence in favour of some pigeons that still
kept possession of their ancient haunt. To which he gravely replied,
that he was glad to perceive his Lordship in so ‘merrie’ a frame of
mind. Whereupon the Marquess told him the following story:--
“There were two rogues once going up Holborn in a cart to be hanged; but
the one being very jocund on so serious an occasion, gave offence to his
companion, who, being very downcast, reproved him. ‘Tush, man,’ said the
other, ‘thou art a fool; thou wentest a thieving, and never once
thoughtest of what would become of thee; wherefore, being on a sudden
surprised and taken, thou fallest into such a shaking fit, that I am
ashamed to see thee in such a pitiful condition. Whereas I was resolved
to be hanged before I fell to stealing, which is the reason I go so
composedly unto my death.’ So, in my own case,” continued the Marquess,
“I resolved to undergo whatsoever--even the worst--evils that you were
able to lay upon me, before I took up arms for my sovereign; and,
therefore, wonder not that I am so _merrie_.”
<g>The fall of Raglan</g> Garrison was a source of much triumph and
congratulation to the Parliamentary forces. “There were delivered up
with it,” says Rushworth, “twenty pieces of ordnance, but only three
barrels of gunpowder; for within the walls they had a mill with which
they could make a barrel a day. There was found, however, ‘great store
of corn and malt, wine of all sorts, and beer in abundance;’ but hay and
forage for their horses had been so completely exhausted, that these
noble animals were almost starved to death, and ‘had like to have eaten
one another for want of meat, had they not been tied with chains.’”
The captors found also great store of goods and rich furniture in the
Castle, which Fairfax committed to the care and custody of Mr. Herbert,
commissioner of the army, Mr. Roger Williams, and Major Tuliday, or
Tulida, to be inventoried. And in case any inhabitants of the country
could make a just claim to them--as having been violently taken from
them, or they compelled to bring them thither--that they should have
them restored.
Agreeably to the terms of surrender, as recorded in the history of the
siege, there marched out of the Castle--“The Marquess of Worcester, then
in the eighty-fourth year of his age; the Lord Charles, the Marquess’s
sixth son, Lieutenant-Governor of the Castle under his father: [he
subsequently retired to Flanders, and died a canon of Cambray;] the
Countess of Glamorgan; the Lady Jones; Sir Philip Jones; Dr. Bayly, so
often quoted in the preceding narrative; Commissary Gwilliam; four
Colonels; eighty-two Captains; sixteen Lieutenants; six Cornets; four
Ensigns; four Quartermasters; fifty-two Esquires and Gentlemen.”
It is worthy of record in this place, that, of all the forts and
garrisons in the King’s interest, those of Raglan and Pendennis endured
the longest sieges, and held out the last of any forts or castles in
England--being bravely defended by two persons of very great age--and
were at length delivered up within a day or two of each other. “<g>Raglan</g>,”
says Lord Clarendon, “was maintained with extraordinary resolution and
courage by the old <g>Marquess of Worcester</g> (then 85) against Fairfax
himself, until it was reduced to the greatest necessity. Pendennis
refused all summons; admitting no treaty till all their provisions were
so far consumed that they had not victuals left for four-and-twenty
hours; and then they treated, and carried themselves in the treaty with
such resolution and unconcernedness, that the enemy concluded they were
in no straits, and so gave them the conditions they proposed, which were
as good as any garrison in England had accepted. The governor of
Pendennis was <g>John Arundel</g> of Trerice, in Cornwall, an old gentleman of
near fourscore years of age, who, with the assistance of his son
Richard, afterwards made a baron in memory of his father’s service, and
his own eminent behaviour throughout the war, maintained and defended
the same to the last extremity.”[274]
Returning to the subject of Raglan, we must not overlook the following
predictions, as calculated to excite no little attention in times when
witchcraft, sorcery, and apparitions, were admitted as articles of
popular belief.
<g>Prophecies.</g>--Of the prophetic warnings which, from time to time, and
particularly during the siege, had taken possession of the vulgar mind
regarding the fall of Raglan and its hereditary lords, the following
passage is sufficiently characteristic:--One evening, during the
progress of the siege, one of his officers was relating to the Marquess
how strangely the narrator, Dr. Bayly, had escaped a shot by means of
the iron bar of a window that looked out upon the leaguer. Standing, for
example, in a window of the castle, there came a musket bullet and hit
full against the edge of an iron bar of a chamber window, so that it
parted the bullet in halves, the bar expatiating itself by degrees
towards the middle; “one half of the bullet,” said he, “flew by me on
the one side, and the other half on the other side; so that, by God’s
providence, I had no hurt.”
“The Marquess hearing this, asked me in what chamber it was. I told him.
His Lordship then said, as I remember, ‘The window was cross-barred; and
you will never believe me,’ said he emphatically, ‘how safe it is to
stand before the <g>Cross</g>, when you face your enemy!’”
But returning to the subject of predictions:--“Never,” says the family
historian, “never was there a noble house so pulled down by
_prophecies_--ushered into its ruin by predictions, and so laid hold
upon by signes and tokens! I shall tell you no more,” he continues, “but
what I have both read and seen long before the fall of that proud
fabric, which had the honour to fall the last of any that stood upon the
tearmes of honour. Now there was one old book of prophecies that was
presented to the Marquess, because it so much concerned <g>Raglan</g> Castle,
wherein there were these predictions: namely, That there should come an
Earl that should first build a _white_ gate before the castle-house, and
after that should begin to build a _red_ one; and before that red one
should be finished, there should be wars over all the land.”
Now all this was fulfilled in the Marquess’s own day, who, having built
the one gate and begun the other, yet by reason of the distractions of
the time, was forced to discontinue the latter, which at the time of the
siege remained unfinished. Some one standing by while this prophecy was
mentioned, exhorted the Marquess--half in jest, half in earnest--to make
haste and finish his red-gate house, because we should have no quiet
until that were up.
“Hark’ye,” said the Marquess, “nobody shall ever prophesy so much money
out of my purse in such times as these! Besides, the prophet does not
say _until_, but _before_--‘before the red gate is up;’ and, for aught I
know, if I should make haste with that building, I should hasten the war
to my own sorrow; for the prophet says, ‘before the red-gate house shall
be finished, there shall be wars all over the land.’ But what if I had
built neither the one nor the other, how could this prophecie have
concerned me?”
“Oh, my Lord,” said one of the company, “it is done; and you could not
otherwise choose but to do what you did.”
“Ay; but I can choose,” said the Marquess, “whether I will _believe_ the
prophet or not.”
“Another prophecie there was,” continues our authority, “that the king
of the country should lose a great battle, [Naseby,] and afterwards fly
to Raglan Castle for safety; that the enemy should pursue him; and that
after a short time he should leave the Castle, and that the enemy should
besiege and set fire to the Castle wall. All of which was literally
fulfilled.”
Moreover it was said, that “an eagle should come into the park and be
there slain, which should be a forerunner to the destruction of that
house; which I saw literally performed; but yet executed by one that
_never_ heard of the prophecie. It was furthermore foretold, that a
cloud of bats should hang over the Castle before its final demolishment;
this, three days before, all the Castle beheld to their no small
astonishment, and it continued a quarter of an hour, about twilight, so
thick that you could not, towards the middle of them, see the sky,
though clear. Being shot at with hail-shot, some of them fell down, and
the rest flew away.
“The Marquess being told of this, asked what those kind of creatures
might signify. Some about him answered, that they were scripture emblems
of ruin and desolation.[275] He then asked if they were all gone. It was
told him that they were. Whereupon the Marquess asked us whether or no
the enemy had begirt us round. It was answered that they had. ‘Then,’
said his Lordship, ‘I am glad of it; for then those emblems of ruin
cannot fly away from us, but they must also fly over the heads of the
enemy.’”
The Chaplain then proceeds, according to the superstitious belief of the
times, to relate the following prediction regarding the King
himself:--“The strangest prophecie of all,” he affirms, “both for
signification and accomplishment, is this, which I read before I saw it
in this book, and fourteen years before the war.” He then gives it in
the Welsh language, and explains that _fab-anne_, as it is one word,
signifies a baby, and joined to another Welsh word, should imply a
crowned infant, that, on growing up to man’s estate, and ruling these
realms for a season, should at last “fall by the stroke of an _axe_,”
or, “he shall be slain with an axe.” We shall not detain our readers by
following the Chaplain through the various arguments by which he appears
to establish the truth of this singular prediction; but, referring them
to the “Apophthegms,” in which it is recorded, we proceed to another
portion of our history.
As soon as the Castle was fairly occupied by the new garrison, the work
of demolition began. The peasantry were summoned to their aid; but on
the great tower their united labours made but slight impression. So,
“after battering the top with pickaxes,” they resolved to effect their
purpose more expeditiously, and, transferring their implements to the
foundation, succeeded in undermining it. As they proceeded, the gaps
were propped up with timber, and when the personal risk became too
imminent to continue the work, they set fire to the timber, and the
instant the charred props gave way, down came a solid mass of the
<g>Tower of Gwent</g>, half filling the moat, where it now lies; a specimen of
as firmly compacted a structure as ever was framed by the hand of man.
The mortar, indeed, seems harder and more durable than the materials
which it cements together. Of its massive construction the annexed
woodcut, showing the staircase in the centre of the wall, and the
engravings opposite, give a very clear and distinct notion.
[Illustration]
Much treasure, it was conjectured, had been thrown into the moat during
the siege, while under the apprehension of being given up to plunder; so
the people were set to work with axes, shovels, and pickaxes, to drain
off the water, and collect the treasure. But nothing valuable being
discovered in the moat, they were next set to cut the stanks of the
fish-ponds, where they had store of very large carp and other fish. From
these reservoirs, during many generations, the family had drawn an
abundant supply for the table; and in times when the fasts of the Church
were rigorously observed, fish-ponds were indispensable to every large
establishment. The artificial oak roof of the great hall, already
noticed in the introductory sketch, could not be removed with advantage;
it was therefore allowed to remain full twenty years after the siege.
But the sheet-lead with which it was covered was found to be a very
“convertible material,” and was therefore rolled up, sent to market, and
the product paid over to the Parliamentary Exchequer.
Above thirty <g>vaults</g> of all sorts of rooms and cellars, and three arched
bridges, are yet standing; but the most curious arch of the chapel, and
rooms above, with many others, are totally destroyed. Many coins of
Queen Elizabeth have been found, but none deserving of preservation from
the crucible of the silversmith, to whom they were speedily consigned by
the finders.
These dreary “souterrains,” in the present day, are, of course, haunted
by goblins, or other beings with lungs not likely to be affected by the
damp and mephitic gases, which they are said to exhale. Never was place
better adapted for unearthly visitants; and wherever blood has been
spilt or treasure concealed, the spirits of vengeance or avarice seize
upon the spot as their own exclusive territory. As it appeared to us,
however, the _genii loci_ were spirits of a very different stamp--beings
with whom the painter, the philosopher, and the poet, would choose to
make their abode. Not so the cicerone who showed these mysterious
caverns to Bloomfield. “Look down there,” said she, pointing to the
great cellar; “something very awful; candles wont burn there! Some
people says it’s because the damp chokes ’em. For my part, I think it’s
the devil himself; and not much fancying to be seen at his work, he
blows ’em out. Well, sir, you may smile as you please; but one puff of
brimstone’s enough for me. Let’s step into the Fountain Court. All the
wine’s gone; so a cellar with only bad spirits in it, is hardly worth
notice.”
Passing from the cellar to the dairy, we may observe that during the
siege, and for many generations previously, the fine meadows on the
banks of the Olwy, in the adjoining parish of Llandenny, were
appropriated as the dairy-farm of the Castle.
The Marquess’s <g>Library</g> was considered one of the best selected, and most
extensive in Europe; and we cannot doubt that the <g>Gallery</g> of Paintings
bore equal and corresponding testimony to the liberality and taste of
the noble owner.[276]
The loss sustained by the family in the immediate destruction of the
castle and woods, according to the printed statement, was computed at
one hundred thousand pounds; besides enormous sums furnished to his
Majesty for the raising and equipment of two armies, and the maintenance
of a numerous garrison, of which the daily expenses alone must have
required a princely revenue. With this evidence of the Marquess’s
resources, it is not surprising that he should be described by Clarendon
as “the most moneyed man of the kingdom.” The siege was followed by the
sequestration and sale of the whole estate, which, by the parliamentary
audit of 1646, amounted to twenty thousand pounds per annum, and
remained in the hands of Cromwell till the Restoration, a period of
fourteen years. All the old timber in the parks adjacent was cut down
and sold; the lead was stript from the roof of the great hall, and sold
for six thousand pounds; and a quantity of the timber was carried to
Bristol, and there used in rebuilding the wooden houses upon the old
bridge, which had recently been destroyed by fire. But the loss of the
library was in every sense a national loss, for in this, among many rare
invaluable manuscripts, were the archives of Gwent, with the earliest
records of Welsh literature. “One of these manuscripts,” says the late
Mr. Thomas,[277] “was an interesting work by Geraint Bardd Glass y
Cadair, an illustrious Welshman, who flourished about the ninth century.
He was the first who composed a Welsh grammar, a work that was revised
by Einion and Edeyrn, which form and arrangement are now extant; but the
original MS. was in the Raglan library at its capitulation.”
In his palmy days, long before he was created Marquess, the good Earl
lived in princely state in this Castle. Surrounded by faithful friends,
numerous retainers, and a household that, by its daily expenditure,
bespoke almost unlimited resources, he enjoyed in age all the happiness
to which men look forward as the reward and solace of a virtuous youth;
for, though long practised in the offices of Court, he could still
relish the sweets of domestic retirement, the humanizing influence of
science, and the conversation of pious and learned men. He was a friend
of literature, a pattern of religious consistency, an example of loyalty
which no reverses could shake; and when at last plunged into the deepest
adversity, stript of his property, bent down with years, and suffering
from bodily pain, he maintained a degree of mental serenity that
softened the remembrance of his wrongs, showed the true foundation of
his faith, and enabled him to view every dispensation of good or evil as
coming from God, and intended, by weaning his thoughts from this world,
to give him nearer and clearer views of heaven. Reduced in four short
years from the height of prosperity into the very abyss of
adversity--his home desolate, the prospects of his family blasted, his
friends hopeless or in prison, himself an inmate of the Tower--it is
impossible to withhold our sympathy from a man who, in no circumstances,
forgot the true nobility of his nature, and the obligations of his
creed; but in every trial could exclaim, in the words of his own
motto--_Mutare vel timere sperno_.
“Go, empty joyes,
With all your noyse,
And leave me here alone,
In sweet sad silence to bemoane
Your vaine and fleet delight;
Whose danger none can see aright,
Whilst your false splendour dims his sight.
Go, and insnare,
With your false ware,
Some other easie wight,
And cheat him with your flattering light;
Rain on his head a shower
Of honours, favour, wealth, and power--
Then _snatch it from him in an hour_.”[278]
On his melancholy departure from these ancestral halls, which he was
never more to behold, the venerable Marquess--accompanied by certain
members of his family and a few tried friends, among whom was the
devoted Bayly--was conducted to London, and placed under the custody of
the Black Rod. Expecting to be treated as a declared enemy of
Parliament, notwithstanding the terms of capitulation, his lordship was
agreeably surprised to find the severity, with which such cases were
usually visited, was relaxed in his favour. “Lord bless us,” said he to
Dr. Bayly, who never left him, “what a fearful thing was this Black Rod
when I heard of it first! It did so run in my mind, that it made an
infliction out of mine own imagination. But when I spoke with the man
himself, I found him a very civil gentleman; and I saw no black rod! So,
methinks, if we would not let these troubles and apprehensions of ours
be made worse by our own fears, no rods would be black.” And although--
“The pride of life has vanished,
And here I stand alone,
Degraded, stript, and banished
From all that was mine own;
Yet in dreams, when friends surround me
With the loyal and the true,
The youthful links that bound me,
Seem all riveted anew.
When I hear their loyal voices,
I half forget my wrongs,
And again my heart rejoices
In our good old loyal songs.
Pent up in these dark regions,
The only gems I boast,
Are my _honour and allegiance_--
All else of earth is lost.”[279]
But we shall leave the worthy Marquess for a time, to observe what is
passing in that dearly beloved, but now desolate mansion, the gates of
which were now closed upon him for ever.
[Illustration]
The woodcut here introduced represents one of the richly ornamented, but
now dilapidated, windows of the front range of the Castle.
Of the settling of some portion of the Marquess of Worcester’s estates
upon Cromwell, we take the following particulars from a popular writer
of our own times:--“The Commons,” he observes, “now dealing with
delinquents, do not forget to reward good servants--to ‘conciliate the
grandees,’ as splenetic Walker calls it. For about two years (writing
after the conclusion of the war) there has been talk and debate about
settling £2,500 a year on Lieutenant-General Cromwell; but difficulties
have arisen. First, they tried Basinghouse lands, the Marquis of
Winchester’s, whom Cromwell had demolished; but the Marquis’s affairs
were in disorder. It was generally found that the Marquis had only a
life-rent there--only Abbotson and Itchin in that quarter could be
realized. Order thereupon to settle lands of papists and delinquents to
the requisite amount wheresoever convenient. To settle especially what
lands the Marquis of Worcester had in that county of Southampton; which
was done, though still with insufficient result. Then came the army
quarrels, and an end of such business. But now, in the Commons’
Journals, March 7th, this is what we read:--‘An ordinance for passing
unto Oliver Cromwell, Esquire, Lieutenant-General, certain lands and
manors in the counties of Gloucester, Monmouth, and Glamorgan, late the
Earl of <g>Worcester’s</g>, was this day read third time; and, upon the
question, passed and ordered to be sent unto the Lords for their
concurrence.’” <g>Oliver</g> himself, we shall find, has been dangerously sick;
and the following is what Clement Walker reports upon the matter of the
grant:--“The sixth of March brought an ordinance to settle two thousand
five hundred pounds a year of land out of the Marquis of Worcester’s
estate--the old Marquis of Worcester at Raglan--father of the Lord
Glamorgan, who, in his turn, became Marquis of Worcester, and wrote the
‘Century of Inventions.’ But £2,500 a year out of the old Marquis’s
estate upon Lieutenant-General Cromwell! I have heard some gentlemen,
that knew the manor of Chepstow and the other lands, affirm that in
reality they are worth £5,000, or even £6,000 a year. You see,”
continues he, “though they have not made King Charles a ‘glorious king,’
they have settled a crown revenue upon Oliver, and have made _him_ as
glorious a king as ever John of Leyden was.”[280]
* * * * *
<g>In</g> addition to the personal anecdotes, or ‘pithy sayings,’ already
introduced, the following are too original and piquant to be
overlooked:--“We were talking one day,” says the family chronicler, “of
an old drunken fellow, who having used his body to sad disorder in
drinking all his lifetime, and at last giving it over, he presently
died. The fact being thus brought before him, the Marquis observed,
‘there was nothing to be wondered at in such a termination of the man’s
life; for if you take a brand,’ said he, ‘out of the fire that is
thoroughly burnt, it will fall to pieces; but if you let it lie there
still, it may remain a pretty while before it is turned to ashes.’”
This clearly shows that his Lordship was not a novice in the science of
pathology; for, had he made the ‘anatomy of drunkenness’ his particular
study, he could not have expressed himself by a figure that more
completely illustrates the case. The burnt log may not only last longer,
but also preserve its shape, and diffuse light and heat through the
whole apartment, while it remains in the fire; but if suddenly removed,
and the fire extinguished, it is soon transformed into a heap of black
ashes. The comparison applies very forcibly to those in whom the
pernicious habit of spirit-drinking has been long a rooted evil. If they
suddenly reform, the constitution--to use the same figure--has been so
thoroughly carbonized, that, on the artificial temperature being
withdrawn, it breaks down like the charred firebrand and is
extinguished; but if cautiously and gradually withdrawn, before the
charring process has reached the core, it may live to furnish a better
light than any that could be expected from it while in the furnace of
dissipation. In the Marquess’s time, as already noticed, the habit of
drinking was carried to a most fatal excess; and we may readily believe
that the ‘apophthegm’ here recorded, was the result of personal
observation among the troops of his own garrison, who--
“Red-hot with drinking;
So full of valour that they smote the air
For breathing in their faces.”
As the preceding anecdote shows the venerable Marquess as a pathologist,
so the following exhibits him in the more congenial character of a
quaint theologian:--“I was walking one day with his lordship,” says the
narrator, “in the private walk about the Great Tower,[281] and there we
spied where a bird had made her nest, whom we disturbed from hatching
her young ones, and sitting upon her eggs; which act of nature my lord
compared to the manner of the creation: ‘For,’ said he, ‘God having made
his nest in the world, and brought forth his young at first imperfected,
did by his Spirit _incubate_, and by his wings of prudence spread over
them, he gave them life and power; and by his word he brake the
shell--_et sic pullulavit mundum_.’” This method of giving a quaint and
solemn turn to the most familiar incidents of life was characteristic of
the times, and often introduced into their homilies by the clergy, who
made use of the most homely figures to illustrate some of the highest
questions in theology. But from the Marquess of Worcester, then at a
very advanced age, the effort to extract a moral, or to expound a
scriptural text, came very gracefully; and he omits no opportunity, as
we perceive, of improving others, by directing their thoughts to those
passages of scripture with which his own mind was familiar. It is almost
impossible, however, to resist the ludicrous ideas which religious
sentiment is made to conjure up when employed by the Parliamentary
leaders, and those irreverent applications of scripture which are to be
found, not only in their daily conversations, but in their speeches, and
even dispatches. _Cant_ was the fashion of the day; and where a letter
was not profusely interlarded with the language and figures of Holy
Writ, the author was liable to be suspected of indifference or
disaffection to the cause.
“An evil soul, producing holy witness,
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek----”
“And thus he clothes his naked villany
With old odd ends stol’n forth of Holy Writ.”
The Marquess’s contempt of hypocrisy and deception is exemplified in
another apophthegm:--“A Roman Catholic being sorely pressed to take the
oath of supremacy, and being acquainted with another gentleman, who was
a Protestant, and so like unto him that you could hardly distinguish
them whilst they were together, much less asunder,--this _imago
sui_--this lifelike
[Illustration: _The Keep Tower, from the Moat._