CHARLOTTE OF DERBY. A JOURNEY TO LONDON IN 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
For more than half a score of years following the earliest years of
her married life, records concerning Lady Strange are scanty. It is
only a short time before she becomes Countess of Derby that she begins
to live in history. Till then, she passed the ordinary existence of a
highborn lady of her time—those ladies notably who affected home life
more than Court life. Her provincial rearing at Thonars, coupled with
her simple Huguenot education, no doubt conduced to this preference.
Another reason which made a country lady of Charlotte de la Trémoille
was probably the remoteness of Lathom from the capital. No doubt she
occasionally appeared at Court; but a journey then from the North to
London, for women at all events, called for serious consideration
before its undertaking. The choice of locomotion lay between a
pillion-ride on horseback, in fair weather or foul, as it might be,
and a clumsy springless wooden coach occupying a good week upon the
road, provided all went well, and that the huge wheels did not wedge
themselves into the ruts or the mire of the King’s highway, or the
Flanders mares did not stumble or cast a shoe five miles from a
smithy. For such were some of the mishaps which befell travellers in
the good old times, not to speak of the attacks of highwaymen. Just
however, as the blessings of penny post have their shadows, conversely
the lack of facilities for travelling had its brighter side.
Gentlefolks were apt to be more quiet-minded in those days. The
imperative necessity for constant “change” had not come to be
recognised. If ladies were troubled with the migraine or the spleen,
or ailments of the sort, they had to seek their remedies from the
local apothecary, supposing he lived anywhere within hail; or, better,
select some mint tea or tansy drink or other herbal concoction out of
their own stillrooms; or, better than all, shake off the distemper in
a goodly game of “Hoodman Blind,” or “Hunt-the-slipper.” The home of
the good wife in any rank was her kingdom, and her daughters were
reared in her own creed of domesticity, although it is a heresy to
imagine that the women of those times were mere household drudges.
Allowing for the scarcity of books, the average of educated matrons
and maids stood high. A knowledge of the classics and of the dead
languages can be by no means claimed as a monopoly by Girton and
Newnham and kindred modern shrines of female erudition. Again and
again in the abstracts and chronicles of the time we come upon
references to Mistress this and Dame the other, who read and wrote
both Greek and Latin, and could quote you a passage from Virgil, or
explain you the form of elegiac verse, and above all found real
enjoyment in such pursuits; yet, judging from their correspondence,
there was little or no pedantry mixed up with their classical
knowledge. Such Gorgons of learning as Margaret Duchess of Newcastle
do not come into this or any category; they are simply warnings and
terrible examples of the “weaker sex.”
There is small question that many of these gentlewomen were indebted for
their attainments in classical literature to the chaplains, who
continued to be regarded as indispensable part and parcel of the
households of the nobility and wealthier gentlemen of the kingdom.
Generally speaking, the post was almost a sinecure. The lay members of
the Anglican Establishment were not unduly eager to take advantage of
the privileges permitted by their spiritual mother, of making
confession, or of seeking direction from their clergy; and when my
lord’s chaplain had put in an appearance to read morning, and possibly
also evening, prayers, and to give thanks at meal-times, he had done
pretty well all that was required of him; and indeed was not
unfrequently given to understand that his withdrawal from table when the
sweets and cakes were placed upon it would not be hindered. His salary
might not be princely, but his duties were certainly light; and to a
studious-minded man, who did not set undue value on worldly
considerations, the house chaplain might enjoy a comfortable learned
leisure in the seldom-invaded library of his patron’s mansion. If sons
and daughters were included in the domestic circle, he probably was
called upon to complete his round of service by giving them instruction;
but in those times of hawk and hound and bowling-greens and tennis,
average youths were apt to throw learning to the dogs as soon as they
dared, and it was the maidens who mostly profited by his instructions.
Hence such women as “Sidney’s sister,” Lady Russel, the Countess of
Pembroke—who erected a monument to her sometime tutor, Samuel Daniel,
the poetic historian—and many more who could at once ply the needle
exquisitely, understood brewing and baking and the mysteries of the
still-room, and were well-informed “_gentlewomen_” in the most
pronounced acceptance of the term. The style of the correspondence even
of those who followed up their classical acquirements less closely,
reveals unconsciously as it were, an intimacy with the ground-work, so
that through quaintnesses and archaic expressions the educated mind
shines distinctly; and beside those old letters and pieces of
composition the scrawl of many a latter-day college and school miss who
owns a smattering of half a dozen ologies, would make a sorry figure,
with its misbegotten face.
This is the case with the letters of the Countess of Derby. In her there
was not the slightest trace of _précieuse_ taint; her mode of expression
is as clear as it is elegant and eloquent. To be sure, after twenty
years’ residence in England, we find her spelling Lancashire
_Lenguicher_, for which she deserves no quarter; but this appalling
exception only proves the rule of her graceful diction.
That Charlotte de la Trémoille however, while possessing such command of
her pen, was preeminently a woman of ready wit and of prompt action, the
great crisis in her stormy life amply testified. Lord Derby had scarcely
set foot in the Isle of Man when a message reached the Countess at
Lathom House from Lord Holland, the Parliamentary governor of
Manchester, requiring her to accede to the conditions which he offered
her, or to surrender Lathom House. Her reply was given without loss of
time. It did not become her, she said, to give up her house, nor to
purchase repose at the price of honour. That was the answer which Lord
Holland’s deputy took back. The Countess, nevertheless, was conscious of
her weakness. The supply of provisions and of ammunition within the
walls of the house was utterly inadequate for withstanding a siege. More
than all, it was not sufficiently garrisoned. Lady Derby therefore,
offered no defiance; she sought only leave to defend herself and her
household, by retaining a company of her own men of the Royalist party
for protection against the molestation of the Parliamentary soldiery;
but leaving the estate and the surrounding park at their mercy. Consent
to this request was grudgingly accorded. “Thus she remained through
eight months, a prisoner in her own domain,” says her biographer,
“rarely leaving the house for fear of meeting some affront, deprived of
her revenues, blamed alike by friends and foes; by these, for not having
defended possessions and liberty; by those, for not yielding up the
house as she had the surrounding estate; but she waited with patience
for the moment when she might openly resist, working unceasingly and
secretly at collecting provisions and ammunition; one by one getting in
the men and barrels of powder under cover of the night, repressing the
zeal of her garrison, which burned to revenge the insults she daily
received, and in all ways silently preparing for the siege which she
anticipated. A noble patience which, in such a high heart as Lady
Derby’s, called for more courage than even that which she exercised in
the midst of the fray itself; the courage of a woman and of a general,
which knew how to endure all, while waiting to see how to dare all.” So
the still waters ran deep, so under the white ash the fiery coal
smouldered and glowed, and despite the keen vigilance of the
Parliamentary Colonel Rigby, who was in command of the troops stationed
in the neighbourhood, the Countess succeeded in mustering a garrison of
three hundred men within those old towered and moated walls, and
sufficient provision to sustain it under a lengthy siege. Ammunition was
less plentiful, and would have to be husbanded; but throughout defence,
not defiance, was the watchword.
The Countess took the command-in-chief; but her want of military
experience was supplied by Captain Farmer, a Scottish gentleman, whom
she nominated major at the head of six lieutenants chosen from among the
neighbouring gentlemen who came to offer their services.
Of all these preparations the rebel party had not the vaguest
conception. Matters might have continued for some time longer in this
condition, had it not been for a sudden small encounter which took place
between the soldiers of the opposing sides. Colonel Rigby then resolved
to annihilate this “nest of delinquents” without further delay; and
orders were given to march. Whither, the majority of the men were far
from being certain. The attachment of the Northerners of Derby,
Cheshire, and Lancashire was very strong for the ancient race of
Stanley. To go against an Earl of Derby was hardly less than actual
laying of rough hands on their anointed King, and to that pass only the
fiercest malignants had as yet desired; thus for a while the soldiers
were permitted to suppose that they were bound for Westmoreland. On
Sunday however, when a halt was made at Wigan, and a large contingent of
the soldiers attended service in the church, the preacher took for his
text the 14th verse of the 50th chapter of Jeremiah: “Put yourselves in
array against Babylon round about; all ye that bend the bow, shoot at
her, spare no arrows; for she hath aimed against the Lord.”
Then in the course of the sermon which followed, the preacher compared
the Countess of Derby to the great city of Babylon; and finally this
messenger of the Gospel of Peace announced that he reserved the verse
which followed—“Shout against her round about; she hath given her hand;
her foundations are fallen, her walls are thrown down”—for the text of
the sermon which was to celebrate the victory over Lathom.
The next day all lingering doubts came to an end; for the order to halt
was given within two miles of Lathom House, and on the 28th February
Captain Markland arrived to demand an audience of the Countess. He
brought with him a letter from Sir Thomas Fairfax, and a Parliamentary
decree promising pardon to the Earl of Derby if he would make his
submission. Sir Thomas, promising to abide faithfully by his part of the
contract, further required the Countess to deliver Lathom House into his
hands. The letter was couched in courteous terms. The Countess responded
in the same spirit of outward calmness and moderation. She expressed
herself greatly astonished at being called upon to render up her
husband’s house, without her having given the Parliament any offence;
but that, in a matter of such importance, and one which at the same time
touched on her religion and this present life, concerning moreover her
Sovereign, her husband and lord, and all her posterity, she asked a week
for reflection, to settle her doubt of conscience, and to take counsel
on the questions of right and of honour which it involved.
The Countess thus replied for the purpose of gaining a little longer
time. Each day was showing more and more a splendid promise of the
courage and fidelity of her garrison; but they needed more experience
and instruction from their skilful leaders. Sir Thomas Fairfax refused
the concession thus demanded, and sent her a summons to repair at once
in her coach to New Park, a house belonging to the Earl not far from
Lathom, for the purpose of an interview with him there, in order to
discuss the whole affair at length.
The pride of the highborn lady now rose beside the courage of the heroic
woman. “Say to Sir Thomas Fairfax,” was her answer to this message,
“that notwithstanding my present condition, I remember my lord’s honour
as I remember my birth, and that it appears to me more fitting that he
should come to me than that I should go to him.” After two days spent in
messages and replies, the general demanded a free and safe entry into
Lathom House for two of his colonels, and the Countess promised to let
them come and depart again in safety.
In due course the two colonels arrived. The sight which met their gaze
as they neared Lathom House must have caused them some astonishment. The
old house bristled with arms. The Parliamentarian assumption that an
easy victory was about to be obtained over a houseful of women,
children, a few men-at-arms and old servants, was dispersed to the four
winds by the sight of these towers and walls manned with soldiers, and
the batteries and ordnance facing at all points. Whether the Countess
desired to inspire the ambassadors with respect and awe, or whether she
feared a sudden attack, she was there to meet the Parliamentarian
deputies in formidable battle array. They were conducted to the mistress
of the mansion between lines of armed men drawn up on each side, from
the gates of the outer court to her presence in the Great Hall, each
company ranged under its lieutenant. At the upper end of the hall, her
two little daughters at each side, and her women round her, stood the
Countess. With a majestic air she bade the officers be seated, and
waited to hear them unfold what their general, Sir Thomas Fairfax, had
to propose.
The brush of the painter who should succeed in depicting that scene
would have to be skilful indeed. Words might bring to the mind’s eye the
ancient hall, bright with the hues of the women’s attire, the cuirassed
buff coats tied with their fringed silken scarves, the gleaming arms of
the Royalist soldiery—and in their midst the plainly clad
Parliamentarian officers in their linen bands, close-cropped hair, and
the tight-fitting head-gear which has earned the enemies of Charles I.
their eternal sobriquet of Roundhead. All this and much similar detail
of that scene in the old presence chamber of Lathom House rises to the
imagination like a brilliant and stately dream of pageantry; but it
would be another matter to picture faithfully the repression of varying
and contrasting mental agitation working in that assemblage—the courage
and the dauntless bearing of the stately lady, the inquiring gaze of her
young daughters, the eager, attent gaze of her women amid the rugged and
resolute soldiers of their own side, and the endeavours of the
emissaries to maintain an unruffled and undiscomfited aspect in the face
of the surprise they were experiencing. Their astonishment could only
have been of a very complete kind, and the Countess owed no small debt
of gratitude at this crisis and later on, to her chaplain, the Rev. Mr
Rutter. “All is fair in love and war,” says the old adage, and this
faithful and astute ecclesiastic contrived to hoodwink an officer of the
Parliamentarians who was among the besiegers. This person was an old
friend of Mr Rutter’s from early childhood, and the clergyman had given
him to understand that Lathom House was in no way prepared for
sustaining a prolonged siege. Possibly at the time Mr Rutter confided to
his gossip this particular bit of information it was true to the letter,
but “tempora mutantur,” and during those stirring days at Lathom the
times changed very quickly indeed.
The conditions brought by the emissaries of Sir Thomas Fairfax were as
follows:—
“1st. All the arms and ammunition at Lathom should be delivered over to
Sir Thomas Fairfax.
“2nd. The Countess of Derby and all living in Lathom House should be at
liberty to retire with their belongings to Chester or to any other town
occupied by the enemy. If they thought proper to submit to Parliament,
they might retire to their own homes.
“3rdly. The Countess, with all her servants, could reside at Knowsley
House, and maintain there twenty men-at-arms for her defence, or she
would be permitted to rejoin her husband in the Isle of Man.
“4thly. For the present, and until Parliament should further inquire
into the matter, the Countess should receive for her maintenance the
revenues of the estates and land of the Earl, her husband, in the
hundred of Derby; and Parliament would be called upon to preserve this
revenue to her.”
The Countess rejected these proposals. She found them neither honourable
nor certain. “Since Parliament has not given its pronouncement on these
points, you are not in a position to carry out your own propositions,
gentlemen,” she said, with a lofty sarcasm. “It would be more prudent
for you first to ascertain its good pleasure. As to myself, my good
gentlemen,” she added, “I will not embarrass you by petitioning for me.
I should regard it as a far greater favour if you will leave me in my
humble condition.”
The two colonels did not press their points. They were in no mood for
doing so. Colonel Rigby burned to wipe off the score of some insult
which he fancied he had once received from the Earl, and both the
deputies saw from the first strong determination in the eyes of the
Countess. All the same, they did not care to allow themselves to be
conquered by a woman, and both sought to represent to her the error of
her ways, and to reproach her with the evils visited on the country by
her party, and by her own friends and adherents. “I know,” gravely
replied the Countess, “how to take heed to my ways, and to those of my
people. You will do well to do as much for your ministers and your
religious helpers, who go about sowing discord and trouble in families,
and whose ill-conditioned tongues do not even always spare the sacred
person of his Majesty.”
Henry Martin had said to Parliament, “It is certain that the ruin of one
family is better than that of many families,” and when he was asked of
whom he spoke, he replied without hesitation, “Of the King, and of his
children.”
The lieutenants of Fairfax, “the two solemn personages,” disappointed,
baffled, and brow-beaten, were forced to go back, with what comfort they
might, to the camp of the Parliamentarians.
Sunday was a day of rest for the besiegers, as for the besieged. While
they were being preached against in the camp of Fairfax, probably with
equal sincerity the Countess of Derby assisted with her children, and
the greater part of her garrison, at divine service in the chapel of her
mansion, where four times a day during the siege she caused prayers to
be read by her chaplain, always herself attending, and gathering fresh
strength for her heavy task at the feet of Him who has willed Himself to
be called The Lord of Battles.[12]
Footnote 12:
De Witt.
On Monday Colonel Rigby again arrived at Lathom, to receive and to carry
back to his general the proposed conditions of Lady Derby. There were
four in the articles of their summing-up, and ran thus:—
“I demand to remain another month in peace at Lathom. The duties
confided to me here are of a double nature. I owe my fidelity
and my loyalty to my husband; my allegiance and my service to my
Sovereign. Since I have not obtained their consent, I cannot
render up this house without manifestly wanting in my duty
towards both. If they consent, I will peaceably yield up this
house, asking only a free egress for myself and my children,
with my friends, my soldiers, my retainers, my belongings, my
ammunition, and my artillery, in order to go to the Isle of Man.
I shall maintain a garrison in my house for my defence.
“_2ndly._ I promise, during my residence in this county, and
when I shall be in the Isle of Man, that my arms shall not be
employed against Parliament.
“_3rdly._ While I remain in this county, no Parliamentarian
soldier must be quartered in the lordship of Lathom. After my
departure no garrison is to be put into Lathom, nor at Knowsley
House.
“_4thly._ None of my tenants, neighbours, or friends, now in the
house with me, shall be molested, nor suffer in their person or
their property, after my departure, for having come to my aid.”
Fairfax was not deceived by these conditions. He read between the lines
of clause 2, and knew perfectly well that _his_ Parliament and Lady
Derby’s Parliament were very different things. His Parliament might be
what it might, and at Westminster; the Countess’s was composed as
heretofore, of three estates, King, Lords, and Commons, then assembled
at Oxford; and his counter-propositions went back for the last time to
the Lady of Lathom. She would be permitted all the time she wished, with
liberty to transport her arms and possessions to the Isle of Man, with
exception of the cannon, which must remain for defending the place.
Further, to-morrow morning Lady Derby would have disbanded all her
soldiers excepting her own servants, and she would receive a
Parliamentarian officer and forty Parliamentarian soldiers to serve her
as guards.
“I refuse utterly,” said Lady Derby to the messenger, this time a fresh
man, one Morgan, a Welshman, “a little man, short and peremptory, who
met with a great staidness to cool his heat, and he had the honour to
carry back this last answer; for her ladyship could screw them to no
more delays.”
“Though a woman, and a foreigner, far from my friends, and despoiled of
my property, I am prepared to endure all your utmost violence, trusting
in God, both for protection and deliverance.”
All temporising being at an end, the Parliamentarians, in a council of
war, decided to open the siege. Some were for attempting the place by
assault, and bringing the matter to rapid conclusion; but perhaps the
sight beheld by those two colonels within the walls of Lathom deterred
the general from this course, and led him to adopt _festina lente_ for
his watchword. Here the tactics of the Rev. Mr Rutter served the
Royalists to good purpose. The worthy parson’s Parliamentarian crony now
came forward advising for the siege, and assigning his good and
sufficient reason therefor. He had, he said, been in conversation with
his old friend the chaplain of Lathom House, and that veracious
clergyman had allowed him clearly to understand that the supplies within
the house were very small, and not sufficient to feed the garrison for a
fortnight. Upon this valuable and authoritative information the siege
was determined on; and the enemy began to dig trenches, to aid in which
work the people of the neighbouring villages were compelled to give
their services.
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