The Life-Story
of
Charlotte de la Trémoille
Countess of Derby
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration:
_Charlotte de la Tremouille._
(_Countess of Derby._)
_From the painting by Vandyke._
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Life-Story
of
Charlotte de la Trémoille
Countess of Derby
By
Mary C. Rowsell
Author of
“The Friend of the People,” “Thorndyke Manor,” “Traitor or
Patriot?” “Love Loyal,” “Richard’s Play” (comedietta), etc. etc.
London
Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., Ltd.
Dryden House, Gerrard Street, W.
1905
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contents
----------
CHAPTER I
PAGE
Birth. Parentage. Descent. Peaceful Times. A 1
Gallant Soldier. Huguenots and Catholics.
More Storm-clouds. A Stately Home. The Idle
Sword. A Royal Summons; and a Death
Summons. A Troubled Wife and Mother. An
Unfortunate Princess. A Doubtful Honour.
Roundhand and Ruled Paper. A Naughty Little
Girl. Sisters indeed. Happy Days. The
Rubens Portrait
CHAPTER II
At the Hague. A Dreary Court. A Marriage of 16
Convenience. A Lady-of-Honour. Home. The
Firstborn. Cloudy Sunshine
CHAPTER III
“Res Angusta Domi.” A White Elephant. 32
Gathering Clouds. Keeping a Brave Heart. A
Grand Function. Royal Gifts. Fresh
Anxieties. Baron Strange. National
Grievances. “Shortcoats.” A Contract
CHAPTER IV
Lathom House. Orm the Saxon. The Ancestry of 40
the Earls of Derby. A Family Legend. “Sans
Changer.” A Stately Old Home. The Royal
Guest, and the Fool. The Baron’s Retainers.
A Goodly “Checkrowle.” Public Troubles. The
Siege of Rochelle. “The Villain has killed
me.” National Grievances. An Earnest
Request
CHAPTER V
A Chapter of Correspondence 56
CHAPTER VI
_Otium cum Dignitate._ The New Earl. A Royal 62
Water Journey to Hampton Court. “Merrie
England.” Cavaliers and Roundheads.
“Household Words.” The New Letter-Post.
Hackney Coaches. Linen. Faithful Friends. A
Lordly Home
CHAPTER VII
Manx Land. The Son of Leir. St. Patrick. 73
Prehistoric Man. King Orry and his
Highroad. The House of Keys. Public Penance
in Manx Land. A Fortunate File. Breast Laws
and Deemsters. The Little People. A Haunted
Castle. A Thorough Bad Dog. Cats’ Tails. “A
Ship in her Ruff.” A Contested Prize. The
Three Legs. The Lord of Man
CHAPTER VIII
A Fatal Choice. Strafford and Laud. Huguenots 84
and Anglicans. Royal Prodigality. Pleasant
Hours in the Pillory. Ship-money. A
Patriot. Moderate Men. No more Peaceful
Days at Lathom. “The Red Horse of the
Lord.” Virgil under Difficulties. Edgehill.
“Come like Shadows, so Depart”
CHAPTER IX
The Fate of Kings. Only once again. The Crown 95
Jewels. A Loyal Vassal. “The Vain Shadow of
a King.” Slander. Temptation scorned. More
Ardour than Discretion
CHAPTER X
No Rest. The Queen’s Journey to Holland. A 107
Friend in Need. “Master, go on, and I will
follow Thee.” The Green-Eyed Monster astir.
Through Good Report and Ill. An Indignant
Refusal. Back at Lathom. A Boisterous
Friend
CHAPTER XI
Charlotte of Derby. A Journey to London in 114
Olden Days. Queen of her Home. Learned
Ladies. “His Reverence.” Lady Derby spells
Lancashire. A Demand, and a Refusal.
Defence, not Defiance. “A Nest of
Delinquents.” The Sermon Text. Orders to
March. Demands and Terms. Surprises. Worthy
of a Painter’s Brush. The Astute
Ecclesiastic and Roundhead Friend. More
Conditions. “Look to your own Ways.” A Day
of Rest. No Surrender
CHAPTER XII
False Move. “Do not reckon that Lathom will 133
be yours.” A Letter from the Earl.
Ineffectual Fires. At Prayers, or Asleep? A
Sad Massacre. Hospital Nurses. Unwelcome
Visitors. In the Eagle Tower. Brave
Maidens. A Change for the Worse. Threats.
The Countess’s Answer. “Long Live the
King!” A Terrible Monster, and his Ignoble
End. Rigby’s Irritation. Gleams. Good News.
Decamping. Victory! And Prince Rupert’s
Homage
CHAPTER XIII
At Castle Rushen. An Honourable Surrender. 149
The Maudlin Well. Correspondence
recommences. Disappearance of Lord Strange.
A Price on Lord Derby’s Head. Holmby House.
Miss Orpe again. A Lawsuit. Divisions among
the Parliamentarians. A Lull in the Storm.
A Noble Author. At Knowsley. The Substance
and the Shadow. The Sectaries. “A Good
Exchange”
CHAPTER XIV
An Indignant Refusal. Illness of Lady Derby. 163
The Great “Tabouret” Question. A
Misalliance. A Pitiable Story. After
Dunbar. The Fatal Fight of Worcester. The
Royal Exile. Wounded and Spent. Lord Derby
taken Prisoner. A “Court-Martial.” Farewell
Letters. A Friendly Service? Leave-takings.
_Finis Coronat Opus_
CHAPTER XV
Bearing the Burden alone. The 180
Parliamentarians demand the Isle of Man.
Lady Derby a Prisoner. Cast on Cromwell’s
Mercy. Fair-haired William and his Fate.
The Tide turns. “I must depart.” The King
has his own again. Marriages, and Giving in
Marriage. Peaceful Times at Knowsley.
“Swift to its Close ebbs out Life’s Little
Day.” Court Fairness. The Last Letter. An
Honoured Memory
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Life-Story of
Charlotte de la Trémoille
Countess of Derby
----------
CHAPTER I
BIRTH. PARENTAGE. DESCENT. PEACEFUL TIMES. A GALLANT SOLDIER. HUGUENOTS
AND CATHOLICS. MORE STORM-CLOUDS. A STATELY HOME. THE IDLE SWORD. A
ROYAL SUMMONS; AND A DEATH SUMMONS. A TROUBLED WIFE AND MOTHER. AN
UNFORTUNATE PRINCESS. A DOUBTFUL HONOUR. ROUND-HAND AND RULED PAPER.
A NAUGHTY LITTLE GIRL. SISTERS INDEED. HAPPY DAYS. THE RUBENS
PORTRAIT
Charlotte de la Trémoille was born at Thonars in Poitou in 1601. The
fine old château[1] in which the first days of her eventful life dawned
upon her was the heritage of her ancestors, and now by right of birth
belonged to her father, Claude de la Trémoille. The château is
beautifully situated upon a hill, around whose base the river Thone runs
so far as to give it the appearance of an island.
Footnote 1:
Now the Mairie.
Charlotte was the second child of her parents, whose style and title are
thus described in their contract of marriage signed at Chatelhéraut in
1598:—
_Claude de la Trémoille, Duke de Thonars, peer of France, Prince
de Tarente and de Talmont, with the very noble and gracious Dame
Charlotte Brabantine de Nassau, daughter of William the Silent,
Prince of Orange, and of his third wife, Charlotte de Bourbon
Montpensier._
Thus the noblest blood of France and of Nassau ran in the veins of the
child who was destined to play such an heroic part in the land of her
adoption, and whose romantic story stands enshrined in England’s
historic annals.
She was born in days of comparative peace: the Wars of the League were
at an end, the accession of Henri IV. to the crown of France had
silenced the clash of martial strife. Catholic and Calvinist no longer
fought at the sword’s point. The Edict of Nantes, extending liberty of
conscience and civil rights to the Protestants, had brought at least
outward tranquillity. The act of Henri IV. in abjuring the Reformed
faith and entering the Roman Communion had justified the hopes of all
moderate minds. The Reformed party, with Henri’s lifelong friend and
good genius—the minister Sully—at its head, had seconded the wishes of
the Catholics, and advised him to the change.
The effect was magical, restoring tranquillity to distracted France. The
ravaged fields and hillsides were once more clothed with growing grain
and vines. “Husbandry and pastures,” said Sully, “were the true
treasures of Peru, and the paps which nourished the kingdom.”
Claude de la Trémoille, a Huguenot by birth, had always concerned
himself less about politics and polemics than fealty to his royal
master. A certain sturdy, loyal singleness of mind seems to have been a
distinguishing characteristic of his race. The Duke was a born soldier.
From the moment he could wield a sword, it had been employed for France
and the King. Henri had need of his valiant subject, and did not forget
to reward his services. It was after his brave fighting at
Fontaine-Française, 1595, that the King raised the territory of Thonars
to the rank of a peerage; and three years later, Claude de la Trémoille
married the daughter of William the Silent.
Still, though peace and prosperity once more smiled upon the face of the
country, the bitterness of religious difference rankled. Mutual jealousy
further aggravated the soreness. The Catholics were arrogant in their
triumph, and never lost sight of the fact that it was Henri’s policy
which had drawn him into their ranks. The Protestants, on the other
hand, lost their inspiration when the King became a Catholic. Their
allegiance to the sovereign remained; but their devotion to the man
cooled. Theoretically, civil prerogative might be extended to them; but
practically, their advice in the guidance of the State was not sought.
The Court party was not slow to let them understand this fact, in
defiance of the King’s goodwill and affection which he never lost for
his old co-religionists. Already the clouds of the sad and troubled
future were beginning to gather for the Huguenots. Sullen and
disappointed, their leaders retired from the Court, and with them went
the Duke de Thonars, to occupy himself exclusively with the affairs of
his own estate and the interests of his family.
He had four children—two sons and two daughters. He lived in great state
at Thonars; and when Monsieur de Rosny, the Duke de Sully, came to
Poitou to assume the governorship of the province, he received him with
great magnificence.
Still, though he had hung up his sword, the Duke regarded it longingly,
and at the smallest incitement was ready to take it down. The chance
came before a very few years had passed. The great Protestant leader,
the Duke de Bouillon, who, by his second marriage with a daughter of
William the Silent, was the brother-in-law of the Duke de Thonars, had
compromised himself in the matter of the Maréchal Biron’s treasonable
correspondence with Spain; and Biron’s consequent disgrace with the King
sorely troubled the peace of the family at Thonars.
The minister Sully, as full of goodwill towards de Thonars as of a
desire to secure the services of so brave and tried a soldier, sent de
Thonars a message to come to Paris. “The King,” he wrote, “contemplates
war, and has need of you to fight against the Spaniards.”
De Thonars, who was still a young man of barely thirty-eight, had let
fall to Sully a few words of dissatisfaction at his enforced inactivity,
when the minister had been his guest at Thonars; and Sully now reminded
him of these expressions. “Henri,” he wrote, “liked to see his
Protestant servants about him, and objected to such powerful lords
remaining long at a time in their own provinces. They might be lending
themselves to the hatching of plots.”
Monsieur du Plessis Mornay, the great Huguenot leader and governor of
Saumur, of which he had made a powerful Protestant stronghold, did his
utmost to dissuade de la Trémoille from going to Court. “Excepting,” he
said, “for those words which escaped you, I see no reason for your
going.”
“But if I can be employed?” rejoined the more than willing de la
Trémoille.
Du Plessis replied only by a stern, half-scornful silence, and went back
to his château at Bonmoy near Saumur; but hardly had he arrived there,
than he received a letter from Madame de la Trémoille, informing him
that her husband had been seized with gout in the arm, and praying that
if there should be no speedy improvement in his condition, du Plessis
would come to him. On the following night, she further wrote that if he
desired to see his friend alive, he must come quickly.
Du Plessis immediately hastened to Thonars, to find Monsieur de la
Trémoille exhausted with fever, and gasping with semi-suffocation. He,
however, rallied sufficiently to evince great pleasure at the sight of
Monsieur du Plessis, “uttering with effort a few words, in which he
displayed all his ordinary sense and judgment.” He was further able to
recommend to his friend’s care his wife and four children, who were thus
losing him while still so young. But the distractions of this life were
fast slipping away from the dying man, and it was chiefly upon his
soul’s welfare that Du Plessis conversed with him.
“It is not for me,” said de la Trémoille, “to speak of anything but
that”; and, unheeding all else, he mustered his remaining strength and
speech to discuss the life to come—replying always with words that
showed his courage in the face of death, the assurance of his faith in
Christ, and displaying the sound judgment which had distinguished him in
the days of his health.
While de la Trémoille was thus struggling in the agonies of death, his
daughter Charlotte lay ill with an attack of smallpox; and the
distracted Duchess only left her husband’s bedside to tend the suffering
child.
In the midst of all this trouble a message was brought her that her
sister-in-law, the Princess de Condé, desired to speak with her. The
Princess, she was told, had met with a mishap in the breaking-down of
her coach upon the road near Thonars, and she asked her sister-in-law
for the loan of her carriage. Little cordiality existed at this time
between the Princess and her brother. Damaging reports of her had
recently circulated. She was suspected in the first place of having
poisoned her husband. She had, moreover, found difficulty in
establishing proofs of the legitimacy of the son born to her after the
Prince’s death. In addition to this, she had forsworn the Reformed
faith, and given up her son, the little Prince de Condé, into the hands
of the King to be reared in the Catholic creed.
Whether the Princess really wanted the coach in order to proceed on her
journey, or whether she magnified the accident for the reason of the
opportunity it afforded her of becoming reconciled to her brother,
probably she alone knew; but in any case her visit was too late for
that. Monsieur de la Trémoille was already speechless. “I cannot see
her,” cried the Duchess, and she piteously entreated Monsieur du Plessis
not to allow the Princess to enter the château. Du Plessis hesitated. He
knew that the poor wife’s hopes that her husband might recover were
vain. He thought it possible that the solemnity of the scene of her
brother’s death-bed might exercise a salutary effect upon his sister’s
mind; but the distress of the Duchess conquered him; and he wrote a
respectful letter to the Princess begging her to defer her visit.
Thus Madame de Condé continued her journey to Paris without coming to
Thonars; but she laid the blame of the refusal on Monsieur du Plessis,
who found some difficulty in clearing himself with the King, for the
affront that she considered she had received.
In the meantime, the Duke expired, aged only thirty-eight years. He left
his wife and children under the guardianship of the Elector-palatine, of
Prince Maurice of Nassau, of the Duke de Bouillon, and of Monsieur du
Plessis. He desired on his death-bed that his children should be brought
up in the Reformed faith.
Scarcely was he in his grave than the fulfilment of these dying wishes
was gravely imperilled. The Huguenots had sunk into almost complete
disfavour at Court. Death and disaffection had played sore havoc with
the leaders of their party. Du Plessis was in disgrace; one reason for
this, among others, being his close friendship with de Thonars, who, in
his turn, was a connection of the Duke de Bouillon, still in rebellion.
Why, demanded the Court party, did he mix himself up with such persons?
On the other hand, the disquiet of the Protestants increased when the
King gave orders for the little Duke de Thonars to be brought to Court,
so that he might be educated with the Dauphin.
This was a great blow to Madame de la Trémoille; the child was only five
years old, and she had just lost her daughter Elizabeth. To part with
the boy now, was to lose him for ever. He would be severed alike from
every domestic tie, as entirely as he would be estranged from
Protestantism. She would sooner see him laid in his coffin than this.
Monsieur du Plessis bestirred himself to resist the project. He
represented to the King that its carrying out would create a real
grievance for the Protestants. Already the Prince de Condé had been
taken from them, and was it worth while, for the mere sake of having the
boy about the Court, to irritate the Huguenots further?
Henri yielded the point, and the child was allowed to remain at Thonars,
under his mother’s care. At the end of her first year of widowhood,
however, Madame de la Trémoille, in obedience to the repeated commands
of the King, repaired to Paris, leaving her children at Thonars.
The mother’s heart was doubtless not a little cheered during this
enforced separation by the letters which reached her from her little
daughter, who was now about six years old. “In the midst,” says her
biographer, “of grave family documents relating to the family of de la
Trémoille—side by side with parchments filled with pompous titles, or
lengthy enumerations of estates and seignorial rights—one feels a
curious stirring of the heart at sight of the big round-hand characters,
written on ruled paper, which commemorate the first attempts of a child
destined to do great deeds.”
Here is one of the letters:—
“MADAME,—Since you have been gone, I have become very good, God
be thanked. You will also find that I know a great deal. I know
seventeen Psalms, all Pibrac’s quatrains, and the verses of
Zamariel: and more than that, I can talk Latin. My little
brother[2] is so pretty, that he could not be more so; and when
people see him, they are able to talk of nothing else but of
him. It seems a long time since we had the honour of seeing you.
Madame, I pray you to love me. Monsieur de Saint Christophe
tells me that you are well, for which I have thanked God. I pray
heartily to God for you. I humbly kiss the hands of my good
aunt, and of my little cousins.
Footnote 2:
The Count de Laval.
“I am, Madame, your very humble and very obedient and good
daughter,
“CHARLOTTE DE LA TRÉMOILLE.”
In learning the Psalms by heart, Charlotte was taught to follow the
custom of all Protestant families of the time. For her Latin attainments
she had doubtless to thank the still older custom of teaching the
language to quite young children, in order that they should be able to
follow the celebration of the Mass and the other services of the Roman
Church; and though for young Huguenots the knowledge for this purpose
was not necessary, Latin was still regarded as indispensable to the
polite education of both sexes.
The children of Madame de la Trémoille occasionally accompanied her in
her frequent absences from Thonars at this time, but generally they
remained at home when she resided at Court or visited her relations in
Holland. Yet, although separated from them, she took care to be informed
of all their doings, so that she knew about their faults as well as the
progress they made; for when she is at the Hague, in 1609, her daughter,
then no more than eight years old, writes to her as follows:—
“MADAME,—I am exceedingly sorry to have disobeyed you; but I
hope henceforth you will not have occasion to complain of me,
although hitherto I have not been too good: but I hope in future
to be so very much so, that you will have reason to be
satisfied, and that my Grandmama and my uncles will not find me
ungrateful any more, as I hope to be obedient, and mindful of
them. They have shown me their great kindness in having given me
some beautiful New Year’s presents: that is to say, Madame (the
Princess of Orange) has given me a carcanet of diamonds and
rubies; the Princess of Orange, a pair of earrings; his
Excellency, three dozen pearl and ruby buttons. My Uncle has
given me a gown of cloth of silver. Monsieur Suart has done what
you wished him to do.
“I beg you to love me always, and I shall all my life remain,
Madame, your very humble and very obedient daughter and servant,
“CHARLOTTE DE LA TRÉMOILLE.”
In 1609 Charlotte and her mother were together again, without being
separated for any length of time for the next ten years. During this
period, all the letters extant are written to the Duke de la Trémoille,
her brother, who was generally absent from his family.
The young Duke was not such a good correspondent as his sister; and to
the great annoyance of his mother, frequently delegated the writing of
his letters home to some good-natured friend. He married his cousin,
Marie de la Tour d’Auvergne, the daughter of the Duke de Bouillon and of
Elizabeth of Nassau. In the young wife Charlotte found a true sister,
and their mutual affection lasted through life.
Charlotte remained with her brother and sister-in-law at Thonars, and
Monsieur du Plessis paid them occasional visits from his château of
Forêt-sur-Sèvres. Although by nature and from circumstance a reserved
and somewhat stern-mannered man, he seems to have been regarded with
affection as well as with reverence by the family of his old friend.
Charlotte, when about nineteen years old, does not appear to have been
strong in health. Her spirit, even in girlhood as throughout her life,
was stronger than the flesh. It is unfortunate that her zeal as a
correspondent frequently outruns her caligraphic powers, since her
voluminous letters to her mother are full of interesting gossip; so much
of them, that is to say, as are decipherable. The paper however, is no
longer ruled, and the writing is not, as heretofore, done under the eyes
of “Ma Mie,” the careful governess. Equally without heed to writing and
spelling, she pours forth details of neighbouring doings, tells who
comes to and from the château, and of what Monsieur du Plessis has said.
Always a very woman, the liking for dress occupies a prominent place in
her mind—if its expression on paper does not belie her. Madame de la
Trémoille’s mind’s eye is treated with word-pictures, infinite in detail
and variety, of her daughter’s gowns “of cloth of silver, trimmed with
gold fringe.” Mademoiselle’s jeweller and mantua-maker are important
members of the household at sumptuous Thonars; and the young Duke de la
Trémoille is no whit behind his sister in his taste for magnificence.
A portrait by Rubens of Charlotte, painted at the time of her marriage,
shows us a bright, graceful girl. She wears a bodice of scarlet satin,
and her hat is adorned with white plumes; she is looking over her
shoulder with an arch smile.
The letters to her mother, though written in terms of the formal respect
which the times exacted, are full of gaiety and lively sallies, and show
that she enjoyed existence, sweetened as it was by close intercourse
with her brother’s wife, who still, when the sea divided them, and the
clouds of Charlotte de la Trémoille’s stormy life grew dense and almost
without a ray of hope, remained the recipient of her confidences, till
death severed the sisterly tie.
------------------------------------------------------------------------