A CHAPTER OF CORRESPONDENCE
About this time a fresh trouble arose for Lady Strange, and for her
mother and sister-in-law, in the defection of the Duke de la Trémoille
from Protestantism. He went to Rochelle; not, however, to take part in
the defence of the Huguenots against Richelieu’s attacks, but to join
the besiegers. Being received into the Church of Rome by the Cardinal
himself, he was at once nominated to the command of the light cavalry.
“I cannot get over my astonishment at my brother’s change of religion,”
writes Lady Strange to her mother. “There has been a report of it for
this long time past; and even the Queen was told that it was quite
certain; but she, finding that you Madame, were included in the
defection, said she believed nothing at all about it. That led me also
to doubt about my brother; but God has thought fit to send this
affliction upon you Madame, and upon our house. It distresses me
greatly, and even more than I could have believed. The letter from him
which you have been pleased to send me shows his thoughts; but I cannot
believe in what he says, that ‘a worldly mind would have done
differently.’ The Catholics always talk so.”
In writing to her sister-in-law, who had just given birth to a little
girl, she adds:—
“I honour and love you with all my heart; and that makes me
doubly disturbed at the change in your husband. It has
marvellously astonished me; and I can hardly credit it, but I
trust in the goodness of God to change his heart. Certainly,
scarcely anyone will believe that it is out of anything but a
mere human consideration: and truly, when one regards only that,
it does lead one to lose no time in abandoning one’s religious
profession. I pity very much the pain you will suffer in not
following his example; but nevertheless dear heart, I doubt not
that you will resist. God give you strength above your own, and
we shall see you doubly serving the advancement of His glory,
since you have now no help.—I am told that if my brother could,
he would have asked for my fortune: but that the law of the
country did not permit it.—I must confess to you Madame, that
save from respect to you, I do not know what I should be driven
to, by the contempt with which he treats us.”
She concludes by imploring her mother’s forgiveness of her second
brother, the Count de Laval, who had taken refuge in Holland after some
escapades in France.
During the sitting of Parliament, Lord and Lady Strange were in London,
where she gave birth to a daughter, who died very soon after, suffocated
in the nurse’s bed. For a time this accident greatly troubled her; the
child, however, was a very young infant when it happened. The little boy
was well and flourishing, and the mother appears to have found
consolation before very long. Towards the close of the year 1629 she
returned to Lathom, and no further correspondence is to be found of hers
until October 1631. Then she writes in profound grief, for her mother
had died, at Château Nonard, in the preceding August.
“DEAR SISTER,—It would have been a consolation in my extreme
affliction to have been honoured by letters from you, and above
all, to know that I continue to live in your friendship, which
is one of the things I most desire in this world to be honoured
by; and I am sure that you will always keep it for me—not that I
deserve it, but for the sake of the love of her whom we mourn,
since you did not doubt of the affection she bore for me; and as
I have always loved you best after her, at this time, when God
has taken her from us, I put you in her place, to give you all
the respect, duty, and friendship which I entertained for her.
God has taken her for our punishment, and to render her happy. I
never liked this residence of Château Nonard, because it was so
far from all her children; but Heaven decreed that should be so,
in order to detach her from earthly things. As for me, I confess
that I have no longer any pleasure in them. Touching what you
bid me tell you of the feelings of my brother de Laval, I did
not see him until three days after the news arrived, and I saw
him shed a few tears; but soon after, he was as merry as before.
For me, I own that were I in his place, I should never have any
happiness again; but I cannot say whether he conceals grief
beneath. At all events, he shows no sorrow for the past. He only
comes to see me now and again, and displays great impatience in
my company, and a desire to be going again. He is so diversely
spoken of, that I do not know what to believe of it all.”
This letter is dated from Chelsea, where she had been staying for some
time.
At this place she gave birth to a daughter, who was baptized Henrietta
Maria, the Queen probably being its godmother. About the same time, a
second daughter was born to Madame de la Trémoille—Marie Charlotte.
In the month of March 1632, Lady Strange arrived in London, on her way
to the Hague—probably with the object of settling the affairs of
Charlotte of Nassau’s inheritance. Differences were now beginning to
arise between the Duke de la Trémoille and the Count de Laval, which
gave their sister great concern.
“I hope that your husband will acquiesce in the last wish of her who
brought us into the world,” she writes. “For you dear sister, I do not
doubt that your goodness and generosity will override all other
considerations.”
The generosity and indulgence of the Duchess de la Trémoille was to be
put more than once to the test by the Count de Laval.
A certain Englishwoman, Miss Orpe, with whom he had entangled himself,
pretended that she was married to him, and took the name of Countess de
Laval. Lady Strange was greatly disturbed at this; but her chief anxiety
was always the money from France, which either did not come at all, or
arrived much diminished in transit. The rents of Christmas were not paid
by midsummer.
“I beg your forgiveness, dear sister,” she writes on the 2nd October
1638, “if I speak to you so freely, but I know you to be so reasonable
and so just, that you cannot approve of what is not so. I have no doubt
that your son has arrived safely in Holland. He will not have found it
so prosperous there as usual. Pray God that he may have found the Prince
of Orange in good health.”
Here the correspondence ceases for eight years—with the exception of one
letter written in 1640, on the occasion of the death of Mademoiselle de
la Trémoille. Letters in those troublous days frequently got lost upon
the road, and those for a long time preserved in the family archives
finally suffered many rude vicissitudes. These years were the most
momentous ones in the life of Charlotte de la Trémoille. In those
letters she made few allusions to the events which have rendered her
name illustrious. She saw nothing extraordinary in what she did; simply
doing the duty which came next. The duty accomplished, all her thoughts
reverted to the past.
Fortunately, this grand life of a modest, noble-minded woman here takes
its place in history; and the documents of the time enable us to
supplement the silence of Lady Strange, now very soon to be Countess of
Derby.
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