CHAPTER XII
FIGHTING A WOMAN. FORMING THE TRENCHES. PUPPETS. A FALSE MOVE. “DO NOT RECKON THAT LATHOM WILL 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
That Lord Fairfax was reluctant to attack Lathom House is very certain, whatever his reasons may have been. By some these are attributed to shame at employing force against a woman; by others they are set to the wholesome remembrance of what his deputies had beheld within the precincts of the old mansion on that February morning.
Meantime the weeks fled on, the trenches were nearly completed. Close on three months had passed, and the garrison, far from showing signs of being starved, made their evidences of strength and activity very conspicuous and troublesome by shooting at the trench-makers, and harassing them in every possible way, so that the work proceeded very slowly. It was only towards the end of April that the circle of ditchwork began to meet. About this time, one more attempt to dissuade Lady Derby from holding out any longer was made; ostensibly by six of her neighbours, gentlemen of rank and distinction. When they asked an interview with her, she received them with gracious courtesy, and, still more, credited them with intentions of real goodwill towards herself. Notwithstanding, she saw with her usual clearness of perception, that they were but the puppets worked by the strings in the hands of the Parliamentarians, and had been made to see the matter in their light. These worthy delegates conjured her ladyship “by love of their country, not to expose herself to great personal dangers, or the whole land to destruction, which she could easily avoid, by relaxing the rigour of her resolutions, and by lending an ear to their propositions.”
The Countess evinced none of the haughty contempt to these gentlemen which she had shown the Parliamentarian officers. She vouchsafed a reasonable explanation of the course which she had adopted, and then added that they would do better to expostulate with the men who pillaged and ravaged the country, rather than with her, who “asked as the one favour that she might be left in peace in her own house.”
The little band retired, shouting as they went, “Long live the King, and the Earl of Derby!” and the Parliamentarians knew that they had taken another false step.
Still holding back, Sir Thomas Fairfax made one more forlorn attempt to bring the indomitable lady to reason; and now, in the person of Colonel Ashurst, substituted gentleness and some courtesy. He was bidden to tell the Countess that, cancelling all the former conditions, she and all those with her in the house might depart whither they would, with their arms and baggage, artillery included, giving the house into the hands of Sir Thomas Fairfax. This was on condition that the arms should not be employed against the Parliament; and that “everyone in the house should depart immediately, excepting one hundred persons who should go at the end of ten days.”
To this proposal the Countess’s answer was: “Tell your general that I have not yet lost my veneration for the Church of England, my allegiance to my King, and my fidelity to my husband; I cannot therefore render up this house until I have lost that respect and fidelity, or given my life in their defence. Do not reckon, then, that Lathom will be yours.”
The siege was now determined on. The trenches encircled the house. The blockade commenced. “The leaders had the courage to starve a woman; but not to fight with her.”[[13]]
[13]. Halsall.
Yet once more Sir Thomas Fairfax stayed his hand, seemingly with little regret. A letter reached him from Lord Derby. The Earl wrote from the Isle of Man, demanding the right for his wife and children to have perfect freedom to leave Lathom, and thus to spare their weakness the horrors of a siege. He feared the brutality of the besiegers, and believed that the house could be but scantily supplied with provisions. When the Countess heard of this letter to Sir Thomas Fairfax, it had only the effect of adding fuel to the flame of her courage.
“Tell Sir Thomas Fairfax that I thank him for his courtesy,” she said to the messenger, a preacher in the employment of Captain Rigby. “I shall always obey the commands of my lord, and the general can treat with him; but until I am certain of his good pleasure, I shall not give up his house, and I will not forsake it; I await the issue of these events, as God may will it to be.”
Meantime, Lord Derby had returned from the Isle of Man, and the Countess contrived to send him a dispatch, which found him at Chester, occupied in an endeavour to muster troops to march to her assistance; but as yet the Earl had a mere handful of men only, and three thousand soldiers surrounded Lathom.
Notwithstanding, the sorties from the house continued; cannon commenced to fire upon the walls, but thanks to the configuration of the ground, very ineffectually. The garrison was interested in watching the manipulation of a mortar which was planted on a little mound at the distance of half a musket range from the house. The first grenadoes from it passed over the roof of the house, to the great joy of the besieged, whom the Countess had supplied with the skins of the beasts slaughtered for the daily food of the soldiers, in order that they might extinguish the flames with these if the house should catch fire.
Four days of prayer and pious exercises interrupted the operations of the besiegers, four days of “sleep,” says the Royalist chronicler, profoundly incredulous in the matter of Colonel Rigby’s piety. At the expiration of this time the garrison determined to waken the besiegers by an angry sortie; they spiked several of their cannon, and took a number of men prisoners. The Countess, proud of having left hardly any of her own men in the hands of the enemy, would have surrendered these in exchange; and she offered to render up all the prisoners she had made, if the Parliamentarians would release some of the King’s friends detained at Manchester, Preston, and Lancaster. This Colonel Rigby promised to do; but he was wanting to his promise. “It was part of their religion,” says the narrator of the siege of Lathom, “to observe faith neither with God nor men; and there ensued a sad massacre of the prisoners at Lathom, whom the Countess could neither keep or release.”[[14]]
[14]. Halsall.
She was always engaged with her two daughters, Mary and Catherine, superintending everything, providing for the nourishment of the soldiers, seeing to the distribution of powder, tending the wounded, frequently upon the ramparts, always in chapel at prayer time, and smiling disdainfully when a bullet happened to fall into her sleeping-chamber. She did not even deign to change her apartment until she had received such a visit three or four times. “I will hold this house while there is a bit of wall to shelter me, and a corner of roof to cover my head,” she said, when she installed herself in the Eagle Tower in the middle of the building. A bomb had fallen and burst in the dining-hall during dinner, breaking all the casement panes, and smashing the furniture, but not wounding anyone. The children were beside their mother, but they had not stirred; scarcely had they changed colour. The Countess bestowed a glance of approval on them. That was all, and the repast was proceeded with.
Sir Thomas Fairfax, who from the beginning had never been heartily with his task, discovered towards the end of April that his presence was indispensable at York; and he delegated the command of the siege of Lathom House to Colonel Rigby. With the departure of Fairfax, the entire face of matters was changed. Lady Derby had no longer to do with “a gentleman, a sincere patriot, but a well-reared man, with a noble heart, and of pure hands. Her chief assailant now was an old attorney, a wretched lawyer, a pilferer, a thief, a hypocrite, determined not to be beaten by a woman.” He so little understood his new trade, that he allowed his plentiful supply of powder to be so flung about and wasted, that the besieged were able to renew their supplies of it from the trenches.[[15]]
[15]. De Witt.
There was no letting “I dare not wait upon I would” with this Roundhead warrior; and no sooner had he assumed the command than he announced his intention of attacking the house with mortar and cannon. The Countess was however, permitted the alternative of “giving up her house, garrison, arms and ammunition next day before two o’clock in the afternoon.” She was in the courtyard when the drummer who brought the summons presented himself at the gates. She took the letter, and, having glanced at it, said to the Parliamentarian: “You deserve to hang at these gates. But you are only the foolish tool of a traitor’s vanity. Therefore convey this answer to Rigby,” and she tore the paper in two. “Tell this insolent rebel that he will have neither our persons, goods, nor house. When our resources are exhausted, we shall find a fire more supportable than Rigby’s. If God’s providence does not come to the rescue, my house and my possessions shall burn before his eyes; and I, my children and my soldiers, sooner than fall into his hands, will seal our religion and our loyalty in the flames.”
She spoke in a loud, firm, and resonant voice. Her soldiers pressed round her. “We will die for his Majesty, and for our honour!” shouted they with one accord. The drummer departed from Lathom to cries of “Long live the King!”
The mortar to which the Parliamentarians pinned their faith was indeed a terrible engine of destruction. It was a monster which vomited forth flame and bombs with somewhat impartial energy to both besieged and besiegers. It was invaluable, of course, to the Parliamentarians; but it refused to be humoured, and while serving their turn upon their enemies, had done themselves no small damage. It might be, and was, the terror of the garrison; but it was a dangerous friend to those whom it served. It was capable of throwing stones thirteen inches in diameter and of eighty pounds’ weight, and also grenadoes, balls of iron filled with powder and lighted by fuses.
On Easter Monday it lodged a twenty-four pounder in the Countess’s chamber in the Eagle Tower, where she was having breakfast with her two daughters.
“The little ladies,” says the chronicler, “had stomach to digest cannon; but the strongest soldiers had no hearts for grenadoes, and might not they at once free themselves from the continual expectation of death?”
At all events they determined to try; and at four o’clock next morning a small contingent of twenty-four soldiers stole noiselessly forth, creeping under the shadow of the cannon until they reached the little fort which commanded the mansion. At the same time Captain Fox, issuing by another door, was in possession of the earthworks which guarded the mortar. To reach this point, a deep ditch and a high rampart had to be scaled. The first care of the two captains was to mount the ditch, while the soldiers were prepared to defend themselves against the enemy, if it should try to regain the position.
All the household of the Countess sallied forth and crowded round the mortar, eager to give a hand to the ropes which were now passed about it to drag it within the walls.
Captain Ogle, with a detachment of soldiers, protected the men who pulled the ropes, and very soon, amidst the joyful shouts of the whole garrison, and to the consternation of the besiegers, the savage monster went rolling into the courtyard to the feet of the Countess, who forthwith summoned Chaplain Rutter, and, in company with all her people, rendered thanks to Heaven in the chapel.
The soldiers wanted to take the artillery as well, but the pieces were too heavy, and they contented themselves with spiking them, as they had vainly striven many times to do with the mortar.
“This action cost the Lathom men two soldiers; the loss of the enemy was more considerable.”[[16]] All the time it was going on, the gunners on the walls never ceased peppering the Parliamentarians, and did great havoc among those who were near the fort and the trenches. The ditch was levelled in this sally.
[16]. Halsall.
The joy at the capture of the mortar knew no bounds in the house. The monster whose flames had so often threatened to burn the older parts of the house, which were constructed mainly of wood, now lay in the courtyard silent and impotent. The soldiers indulged their feelings by bestowing on it a kick when they passed it, for all the terror it had caused in its time. Everybody was the more delighted from the fact coming to their knowledge that Captain Rigby had invited his friends and neighbours that same day to assemble to witness either the ceding or the burning of Lathom House. They were invited to be there at two o’clock.
“And they punctually arrived in time to console Rigby, who was sick with shame and rage at finding himself beaten by a woman and a handful of soldiers.”[[17]]
[17]. Halsall.
The besiegers now began to lose heart. Captains and men deserted the camp; the rain, which fell incessantly that spring, destroyed their trenches, and the undertaking throughout had brought them little credit. On the 23rd May the Countess was once more required, in insolent terms, to capitulate, “and to submit to the mercy of Parliament.” Lady Derby replied with a bitter smile, “You mistake. You mean the cruelties, not the mercies.”
“No, madam,” replied the puzzled delegate, “the mercies of Parliament.”
“The mercies of the wicked are cruel,” quickly responded she. Then she added that it was not Parliament, but its corrupt agents with whom she refused to treat. “Let them make terms with my lord,” she went on; “failing that, they will have neither me nor my friends while there is life in us.” When the deputy persisted, she said: “This insolent rebel shall make no more proposals. If he does, his messenger shall hang at my gates.”
For the last time the ambassador retired. Nothing daunted the Countess. She paid no heed to all the gloomy rumours which reached her of the Royalist reverses. Prince Rupert, on the other hand, had vanquished the rebels at Newark, and was now marching to the assistance of Lord Newcastle, who was at York, menaced on all sides. The Earl of Derby implored the Prince to take his way by Lancashire, and relieve Lathom House and his wife and children. He promised the troops £3000, which he had borrowed on the jewels of his wife, she having contrived to find a way of conveying them to him during the siege.
A few hours after the departure of the discomfited Parliamentarian delegate late at night, one of Lady Derby’s couriers arrived at Lathom House. To obtain his entrance he had killed the enemy’s sentinel. The news which he brought the Countess was that Prince Rupert was on the way to the relief of Lathom House, and that my Lord Derby accompanied him.
Deep thankfulness pervaded all hearts in Lathom House. The Countess however, annexing a leaf from the enemy’s book of axioms, trusted in God, “but kept her powder dry.” While rendering heartfelt thanks to Heaven, she abated not one tittle of her unceasing vigilance.
In silence now the Parliamentarians guarded their trenches. The sound of their mocking rhymes and songs was heard no more. The prowess and successes of Cromwell and of Fairfax were no longer vaunted. No more was said about taking the King in a mouse-trap. On the evening of the 26th May the guard was so carelessly mounted, that Lady Derby resolved on a grand sally next day, beginning at three o’clock in the morning.
But Prince Rupert was at hand—Prince Rupert, the terror of his foes, if not also, like that Parliamentarian mortar, the terror of some of his friends—and at one o’clock the Parliamentarian soldiers took up their arms, folded their tents, and silently departed from Lathom, after a four months’ fruitless siege, the loss of five hundred men, against the loss of six of the besieged, and the expending of one hundred barrels of gunpowder. Like a wise man, economical of his blood, Rigby stood no longer upon much order of going, but went at once.
Still foresight and prudence detained the Prince and the Earl to punish the enemy upon the way, and to destroy chances of any speedy or sudden return to the attack; but it was not long before the victorious Lady of Lathom stood at her gates to receive her husband, and to bid him welcome to the home which she had so gallantly defended.
Sir Richard Crane attended the Earl, laden with twenty-two trophies taken by her kinsman Prince Rupert at Bolton and Liverpool, to present in homage to his “fair relative and companion in arms.” These banners, after floating proudly in the breeze on the towers of Lathom, Lady Derby hung in the chapel in reverent “gratitude to the God in whom she had put her trust, and in memory of the deliverance which He had sent to her.”[[18]]
[18]. De Witt.
Captain Roshern and Captain Chisenhall were raised by Prince Rupert, at Lady Derby’s request, to the rank of colonel. The first was made governor of Lathom House, the other followed the Prince’s fortunes.
The occasion ended, Charlotte de la Trémoille was now once more but a gracious gentlewoman, a loving wife and mother. No word in her correspondence makes the slightest allusion to her brave actions and heroic endurance. Home and her children once more engrossed her thoughts.
“Take good care of them,” said Prince Rupert, ere he bid his hostess farewell; “the children of such a father and such a mother will one day do their King such service as their parents have done theirs.” And indeed “Faithful unto death” would have been the only motto for that seventh Earl of Derby and his wife, Charlotte de la Trémoille, had they ever needed to replace the one graved on their unsullied shield of “Sans changer.”