“The Same to (the Same).
“1659, November 15.—I give you hearty thanks for preserving the remnants of those goods.... The pictures there are most rare, and if you think they are a little spoiled I will send over the painter to you again.
“If ever I see you I will make W(elbeck) a very fine place for you. I am not in despair of it, though I believe you and I are not such good architects as your worthy grandfather. If I am blessed with the happiness of seeing you it will be many thousand pounds a year better for you than if I should die before.”
The change of title from Duke to Prince, if he ever made it, did not soften the hearts of Newcastle’s creditors. Their generosity steadily decreased, until the poor men appeared to be losing their nerve altogether. Newcastle, says his wife, “was put to great plunges and difficulties”. Her chief fear was that her husband “for his debts would suffer imprisonment, where sadness of mind, and want of exercise and air, would have wrought his destruction”. However, when the yet unrestored Charles II “was pleased to accept of a private dinner at” Newcastle’s house in Antwerp, “he did merrily and in jest” tell Lady Newcastle “that he perceived her Lord’s Credit could procure better Meat than His own”.
The Newcastles also gave Charles something more than “a private dinner”. Sir Charles Cotterell wrote to Nicholas:—[141]
“At the ball at Lord Newcastle’s was the Duchess of Lorraine and her son and daughter, with the King and his brothers and sister, several French people, and some of the town. The King was brought in with music, and all being placed, Major Mohun, the player, in a black satin robe and a garland of bays, made a speech in verse of his lordship’s”—Newcastle’s—“own poetry, complimenting the King in his highest hyperbole. Then there was dancing for two hours, and then my Lady’s Moor, dressed in feathers, came in and sang a song of the same authors, set and taught him by Nich. Lanier. Then was the banquet brought in, in eight great chargers, each borne by two gentlemen of the court, and others bringing wines, drinks, etc. Then they all danced again two hours more, and Major Mohun ended all with another speech, prophesying his Majesty’s Re-establishment.”
[141] S. P., Feb. 1657-8, pp. 296, 311, quoted in Mr. Firth’s splendid and admirably annotated ed. of The Life of Newcastle.
The report of all this magnificence must have made Newcastle’s creditors feel a little anxious.
Shortly afterwards, with the help of the remainder of his brother Charles’s estate, Newcastle “sprinkled something amongst his Creditors, and borrowed so much of Mr. Top and Mr. Smith (though without assurance) that he could pay such scores as were most pressing, contracted from the poorer sort of Tradesmen, and send ready mony to Market, to avoid cozenage (for small scores run up most unreasonably, especially if no strict accounts be kept, and the rate be left to the Creditors pleasure) by which means there was in a short time so much saved, as it could not have been imagined”.
Thus, by borrowing from new creditors to pay old ones, the Newcastles contrived to live in luxury for a good many years; in short until the Restoration.
Newcastle’s correspondence with Nicholas, among the Egerton Manuscripts in the British Museum, reveals his alternate hopes and fears as to the probability of that event. It is amusing to find a General, who rightly or wrongly fled from his country, cavilling at others for doing the same thing. In January, 1659, he wrote from Antwerp to Nicholas: “There are many noblemen, or at least lords, that are comed over to Paris, it is true, but those lords that can take such sudden apprehensions of fears so far off, I doubt will hardly have the courage to help our gracious Master to his throne—woful people—and the next generation of lords they tell me are fools. It will be a brave Upper House!”[142]
[142] Firth’s Newcastle, p. 358.
CHAPTER XVII.
At last the long-looked-for Restoration actually took place, and Newcastle determined to sail for England, which he could then do in perfect safety, as he would now be a loyal subject in that country instead of a traitor specially excepted from any possibility of pardon.
The only difficulty in returning to his country was the objection made by his creditors to his leaving Holland until his debts were paid. But Newcastle was a resourceful debtor; and he surmounted the difficulty by the very simple expedient of pawning—not his wife’s clothes this time, but his wife herself! Being in another part of Holland, says that lady, “my Lord declared his intention of going for England, withal commanding me to stay in that city (Antwerp), as a Pawn for his debts, until he could compass money to discharge them”.
“Being in another part of Holland!” Yes! It is certainly pleasanter to express desires of such a nature to one’s wife by letter rather than in person.
Having left his wife in pawn at Antwerp, Newcastle started in excellent spirits for England.[143]
[143] A Cavalier in Exile, p. 83.
“My Lord (who was so transported with the joy of returning into his Native Countrey, that he regarded not the Vessel) having set Sail from Rotterdam, was so becalmed, that he was six dayes and six nights upon the Water, during which time he pleased himself with mirth, and pass’d his time away as well as he could; Provisions he wanted not, having them in great store and plenty. At last being come so far that he was able to discern the smoak of London, which he had not seen in a long time, he merrily was pleased to desire one that was near him, to jogg and awake him out of his dream, for surely, said he, I have been sixteen years asleep, and am not thoroughly awake yet. My Lord lay that night at Greenwich, where his Supper seem’d more savoury to him, than any meat he had hitherto tasted; and the noise of some scraping Fidlers, he thought the pleasantest harmony that ever he had heard.”
It is gratifying to learn that thoughts of his absent wife in dreary exile did not lessen the spirits, the merriness, or the transports of joy, of the Marquess.
Collins[144] gives us the following information about Newcastle after the Restoration. Newcastle, on his return to England, “finding his estate much entangled, was obliged to borrow £5,000 whereof his cousin, the Earl of Devonshire, lent him £1,000.... His Lordship lived at Dorset House, during his stay in London.”
[144] Historical Collections, etc., by Arthur Collins, ed. 1752, p. 41.
“The King had made him a Knight of the Garter on Jan. 12, 1651; but he does not appear to have received the insignia until ten years later. By a warrant of April 10, 1661, the King ordered Lord Sandwich, Master of the Great Wardrobe, to give Newcastle ‘18 yards of blue velvet for an upper robe, 10 yards of crimson velvet for an under robe or surcoat, together with 16 yards of white taffata to line them both’. The King also ordered Sir Gilbert Talbot, Master of the Jewels, to give him a collar of gold, ‘containing the usual number of garters,’ ‘likewise one rich George on horseback’. After the Restoration, his Majesty made him one of the Gentlemen of his Bed-Chamber.”
Lady Newcastle says that her husband “at last” borrowed enough money to redeem her out of pawn; or rather nearly enough; for even then the amount he sent over was £400 short, and she had to borrow that sum from a Sir John Shaw, in Antwerp, to make it up. After sundry adventures, she sailed for England in a Dutch man-of-war. When she had joined her husband, she was rather disappointed at finding him in circumstances which she did not consider befitting his rank. “After I was safely arrived at London, I found my Lord in Lodgings; I cannot call them unhandsome; but yet they were not fit for a Person of his Rank and Quality, nor of the capacity to contain all his Family: Neither did I find my Lord’s Condition such as I expected.”
Some historians hint that her ladyship found herself mocked and derided by the gay ladies and the flippant gallants at the licentious Court of Charles II, where she felt out of her element, and that this was her chief reason for wishing to retire to Welbeck. She continues: “Wherefore out of some passion I desir’d him to leave the Town, and retire into the countrey; but my Lord gently reproved me for my rashness and impatience”.
She got her way, however, before long; and Newcastle obtained the King’s leave to retire to Welbeck. The only account we have of his financial affairs, after the Restoration, is that of his wife; therefore, part of it shall be given here; although even that part is wearisome, lengthy, and far from lucid; indeed it may be skipped without serious loss.[145]
[145] A Cavalier in Exile, p. 88 seq.
Newcastle “kissed His Majesty’s hand, and went the next day into Nottinghamshire, to his Manor-house call’d Welbeck; but when he came there, and began to examine his Estate, and how it had been ordered in the time of his Banishment, he knew not whether he had left any thing of it for himself, or not, till by his prudence and wisdom he inform’d himself the best he could, examining those that had most knowledge therein. Some Lands, he found, could be recover’d no further then for his life, and some not at all: Some had been in the Rebels hands, which he could not recover, but by His Highness the Duke of York’s favour, to whom His Majesty had given all the Estates of those that were condemned and executed for murdering his Royal Father of blessed memory, which by the Law were forfeited to His Majesty; whereof His Highness graciously restor’d my Lord so much of the Land that formerly had been his, as amounted to 730£ a year. And though my Lord’s Children had their Claims granted, and bought out the life of my Lord, their Father, which came near upon the third part, yet my Lord received nothing for himself out of his own Estate, for the space of eighteen years, viz., During the time from the first entring into Warr, which was June 11, 1642, till his return out of Banishment, May 28, 1660; for though his Son Henry, now Earl of Ogle, and his eldest Daughter, the now Lady Cheiny, did all what lay in their power to relieve my Lord their Father, and sent him some supplies of moneys at several times when he was in banishment; yet that was of their own, rather then out of my Lord’s Estate; for the Lady Cheiny sold some few Jewels which my Lord, her Father, had left her, and some Chamber-Plate which she had from her Grandmother, and sent over the money to my Lord, besides 1000£ of her Portion: And the now Earl of Ogle did at several times supply my Lord, his Father, with such moneys as he had partly obtained upon Credit, and partly made by his Marriage.
“After my Lord had begun to view those Ruines that were nearest, and tried the Law to keep or recover what formerly was his, (which certainly shew’d no favour to him, besides that the Act of Oblivion proved a great hinderance and obstruction to those his designs, as it did no less to all the Royal Party) and had settled so much of his Estate as possibly he could, he cast up the Summ of his Debts, and set out several parts of Land for the payment of them, or of some of them (for some of his Lands could not be easily sold, being entailed)....”
From this we learn that, so soon as he was able, Newcastle sold property to pay the large debts which he incurred during his sixteen years of exile. With cumulative interest their amount must have been very great.
“His two Houses Welbeck and Bolsover he found much out of repair, and this later half pull’d down, no furniture or any necessary Goods were left in them, but some few Hangings and Pictures, which had been saved by the care and industry of his Eldest Daughter the Lady Cheiny,[146] and were bought over again after the death of his eldest Son Charles, Lord Mansfield; for they being given to him, and he leaving some debts to be paid after his death, My Lord sent to his other Son Henry, now Earl of Ogle, to endeavour for so much Credit, that the said Hangings and Pictures (which my Lord esteemed very much, the Pictures being drawn by Van Dyke) might be saved; which he also did, and My Lord hath paid the debt since his return.”
[146] Or, as we should now say, Lady Jane Cheiny, or Cheney, the wife of Charles Cheney, Esq., of Chesham-Boys, Bucks.
After giving a number of figures, including the former rent-roll of all his estates, she says: “The Loss of my Lords Estate, in plain Rents, as also upon ordinary Use, and Use upon Use, is as followeth:—
“The Annual Rent of My Lords Land, viz. 22,393£. 10s. 1d. being lost for the space of 18 years, which was the time of his acting in the Wars, and of his Banishment, without any benefit to him, reckoned without any Interest, amounts to 403,083£. But being accounted with the ordinary Use at Six in the Hundred, and Use upon Use for the mentioned space of 18 Years, it amounts to 733,579£.”
Six in the hundred, or six per cent. and use upon use, or cumulative interest, sounds fairly high.
Farther on, she says: “The Lands which My Lord hath lost in present possession are 2,015£. per annum, which at 20 years’ purchase come to 40,300£. and those which he hath lost in Reversion, are 3,214£. per annum, which at 16 years’ purchase amount to the value of 51,424£.
“The Lands which my Lord since his return has sold for the payment of some of his debts, occasioned by the Wars (for I do not reckon those he sold to buy others) come to the value of 56,000£. to which out of his yearly revenue he has added 10,000£. more, which is in all 66,000£.
“Lastly, The Composition of his Brothers Estate was 5,000£. and the loss of it for eight years comes to 16,000£.
“All which, if summ’d up together, amounts to 941,303£.
“These are the accountable losses, which My Dear Lord and Husband has suffered by the late Civil Wars, and his Loyalty to his King and Country.”
Certainly her ladyship had “an eye to the main chance,” nor did she wish her husband to lose credit for one penny that he had sacrificed in the loyalist cause; but even if we allow for considerable exaggeration in her statement and object to six per cent. at “use upon use,” his sacrifices must still have been enormous.
To descend from very great matters to very small, it may be remembered that we found Newcastle having a quiet pipe immediately before the battle of Marston Moor; and, from the following extract from a letter, he evidently intended to solace his retirement at Welbeck by the use of tobacco.[147]
[147] Welbeck MSS., p. 143.