Daniel Defoe is, perhaps, best known to us as the author of _Robinson
Crusoe_, a book which has been the delight of generations of boys and
girls ever since the beginning of the eighteenth century. For it was
then that Defoe lived and wrote, being one of the new school of prose
writers which grew up at that time and which gave England new forms
of literature almost unknown to an earlier age. Defoe was a vigorous
pamphleteer, writing first on the Whig side and later for the Tories
in the reigns of William III and Anne. He did much to foster the
growth of the newspaper, a form of literature which henceforth became
popular. He also did much towards the development of the modern novel,
though he did not write novels in our sense of the word. His books
were more simple than is the modern novel. What he really wrote were
long stories told, as is _Robinson Crusoe_, in the first person and
with so much detail that it is hard to believe that they are works of
imagination and not true stories. "The little art he is truly master
of, is of forging a story and imposing it upon the world as truth." So
wrote one of his contemporaries. Charles Lamb, in criticizing Defoe,
notices this minuteness of detail and remarks that he is, therefore,
an author suited only for "servants" (meaning that this method can
appeal only to comparatively uneducated minds). Really as every boy
and girl knows, a good story ought to have this quality of seeming
true, and the fact that Defoe can so deceive us makes his work the
more excellent reading.
The _Memoirs of a Cavalier_ resembles _Robinson Crusoe_ in so far as
it is a tale told by a man of his own experiences and adventures. It
has just the same air of truth and for a long time after its first
publication in 1720 people were divided in opinion as to whether it
was a book of real memoirs or not. A critical examination has shown
that it is Defoe's own work and not, as he declares, the contents of
a manuscript which he found "by great accident, among other valuable
papers" belonging to one of King William's secretaries of state.
Although his gifts of imagination enabled him to throw himself into
the position of the Cavalier he lapses occasionally into his own
characteristic prose and the style is often that of the eighteenth
rather than the seventeenth century, more eloquent than quaint. Again,
he is not careful to hide inconsistencies between his preface and the
text. Thus, he says in his preface that he discovered the manuscript
in 1651; yet we find in the _Memoirs_ a reference to the Restoration,
which shows that it must have been written after 1660 at least. There
is abundant proof that the book is really a work of fiction and that
the Cavalier is an imaginary character; but, in one sense, it is a
true history, inasmuch as the author has studied the events and spirit
of the time in which his scene is laid and, though he makes many
mistakes of detail, he gives us a very true picture of one of the most
interesting periods in English and European history. The _Memoirs_
thus represent the English historical novel in its beginnings, a much
simpler thing than it was to become in the hands of Scott and later
writers.
The period in which the scene is laid is that of the English Civil
War, in which the Cavalier fought on the side of King Charles I
against the Puritans. But his adventures in this war belong to the
second part of the book. In the first part, he tells of his birth and
parentage, the foreign travel which was the fashionable completion
of the education of a gentleman in the seventeenth century, and his
adventures as a volunteer officer in the Swedish army, where he gained
the experience which was to serve him well in the Civil War at home.
Many a real Cavalier must have had just such a career as Defoe's hero
describes as his own. After a short time at Oxford, "long enough for
a gentleman," he embarked on a period of travel, going to Italy by
way of France. The Cavalier, however, devotes but little space to
description, vivid enough as far as it goes, of his adventures in
these two counties for a space of over two years. Italy, especially,
attracted the attention of gentlemen and scholars in those days,
but the Cavalier was more bent on soldiering than sightseeing and he
hurries on to tell of his adventures in Germany, where he first really
took part in warfare, becoming a volunteer officer in the army of
Gustavus Adolphus, the hero King of Sweden, and where he met with
those adventures the story of which forms the bulk of the first part
of the _Memoirs_.
To appreciate the tale, it will be necessary to have a clear idea
of the state of affairs in Europe at the time. The war which was
convulsing Germany, and in which almost every other European power
interfered at some time, was the Thirty Years' War (1618--1648), a
struggle having a special character of its own as the last of the
religious wars which had torn Europe asunder for a century and the
first of a long series of wars in which the new and purely political
principle of the Balance of Power can be seen at work. The struggle
was, nominally, between Protestant and Catholic Germany for, during
the Reformation period, Germany, which consisted of numerous states
under the headship of the Emperor, had split into two great camps. The
Northern states had become Protestant under their Protestant princes.
The Southern states had remained, for the most part, Catholic or had
been won back to Catholicism in the religious reaction known as the
Counter-Reformation. As the Catholic movement spread, under a Catholic
Emperor like Ferdinand of Styria, who was elected in 1619, it was
inevitable that the privileges granted to Protestants should be
curtailed. They determined to resist and, as the Emperor had the
support of Spain, the Protestant Union found it necessary to call in
help from outside. Thus it was that the other European powers came to
interfere in German affairs. Some helped the Protestants from motives
of religion, more still from considerations of policy, and the long
struggle of thirty years may be divided into marked periods in which
one power after another, Denmark, Sweden, France, allied themselves
with the Protestants against the Emperor. The _Memoirs_ are
concerned with the first two years of the Swedish period of the war
(1630--1634), during which Gustavus Adolphus almost won victory
for the Protestants who were, however, to lose the advantage of his
brilliant generalship through his death at the battle of Lützen in
1632. Through the death of "this conquering king," the Swedes lost the
fruits of their victory and the battle of Lützen marks the end of what
may be termed the heroic period of the war. Gustavus Adolphus stands
out among the men of his day for the loftiness of his character as
well as for the genius of his generalship. It is, therefore, fitting
enough that Defoe should make his Cavalier withdraw from the Swedish
service after the death of the "glorious king" whom he "could never
mention without some remark of his extraordinary merit." For two years
longer, he wanders through Germany still watching the course of the
war and then returns to England, soon to take part in another war at
home, namely the Civil War, in which the English people were divided
into two great parties according as they supported King Charles I or
the members of the Long Parliament who opposed him. According to the
_Memoirs_, the Cavalier "went into arms" without troubling himself "to
examine sides." Defoe probably considered this attitude as typical
of many of the Cavalier party, and, of course, loyalty to the king's
person was one of their strongest motives. The Cavalier does not enter
largely into the causes of the war. What he gives us is a picture of
army life in that troubled period. It will be well, however, to bear
in mind the chief facts in the history of the times.
From the beginning of his reign, Charles had had trouble with his
parliaments, which had already become very restless under James I.
Charles's parliaments disapproved of his foreign policy and their
unwillingness to grant subsidies led him to fall back on questionable
methods of raising money, especially during the eleven years
(1629--1640) in which he ruled without a parliament. Charles had no
great scheme of tyranny, but avoided parliaments because of their
criticism of his policy. At first the opposition had been purely
political, but the parliament of 1629 had attacked also Charles's
religious policy. He favoured the schemes of Laud (archbishop of
Canterbury 1633--1649) and the Arminian school among the clergy, who
wished to revive many of the old Catholic practices and some of the
beliefs which had been swept away by the Reformation. Many people
in England objected not only to these but even to the wearing of the
surplice, the simplest of the old vestments, on the use of which Laud
tried to insist. This party came to be known as Puritans and they
formed the chief strength of the opposition to the King in the Long
Parliament which met in 1640. For their attack on the Church led many
who had at first opposed the King's arbitrary methods to go over to
his side. Thus, the moderate men as well as the loyalists formed a
king's party and the opposition was almost confined to men who hated
the Church as much as the King. The Puritans who loved simplicity
of dress and severity of manners and despised the flowing locks and
worldly vanities which the Cavaliers loved were, by these, nicknamed
Roundheads on account of their short hair. Defoe, in the _Memoirs_,
gives us less of this side of the history of the times than might have
been expected. The war actually began in August, 1642, and what
Defoe gives us is military history, correct in essentials and full
of detail, which is, however, far from accurate. For instance, in his
account of the battle of Marston Moor, he makes prince Rupert command
the left wing, whereas he really commanded the right wing, the left
being led by Lord Goring who, according to Defoe's account, commanded
the main battle. He conveys to us, however, the true spirit of the
war, emphasizing the ability and the mistakes on both sides, showing
how the king's miscalculations or Rupert's rashness deprived the
Royalist party of the advantages of the superior generalship and
fighting power which were theirs in the first part of the war and how
gradually the Roundheads got the better of the Cavaliers. The detailed
narrative comes to an end with the delivery of the King to the
Parliament by the Scots, to whom he had given himself up in his
extremity. A few lines tell of his trial and execution and the
_Memoirs_ end with some pages of "remarks and observations" on the
war and a list of coincidences which had been noted in its course.
The latter, savouring somewhat of superstition, appear natural in
what purports to be a seventeenth century text, but the summing up of
conclusions about the war is rather such as might be made by a more or
less impartial observer at a later date than by one who had taken an
active part in the struggle. In reading the _Memoirs_ this mixture of
what belongs to the seventeenth century with the reflections of Defoe,
in many ways a typical eighteenth century figure, must be borne in
mind. The inaccuracies are pointed out in the notes, but these need
not prevent us from entering with zest into the spirit of the story.