“W. Marquis of Newcastle to (the Prince of Wales).
“1644(5) February 4. Hamburg.—After the great misfortunes and miseries I have suffered, the first joy and only comfort I received was to hear of your Highness’s health and your being a general, both which I congratulate with my soul, and I dare say your Highness believes me. And it is no small comfort to me and mine that we have lived to see you a man; and could I see but peace in our Israel, truly then I care not how soon death closes my eyes. But whilst I crawl here in this uneven world your Highness must be troubled with me as my first master, and now it is your turn to take care of me. Could your Highness forget me, I would forgive you, and my last breath would be a prayer for your happiness, and glory that I fell ruined in your service!”
[123] Portland MSS., at Welbeck Abbey.
One of the first things that Newcastle had had to do, on reaching Hamburg, was to raise money—no easy task under the circumstances. He was so short of cash that, as the Duchess tells us, “when his occasions drew him abroad,” he was obliged to travel in a wagon, “for want of a coach”. Having succeeded in borrowing some money, a little later, he bought nine horses for £160, and he also purchased a coach. Of his subsequent proceedings, the Duchess has this to tell us:—
“After my Lord had stay’d in Hamborough from July 1644, till February 16, he being resolved to go into France by Sea went from Hamborough to Amsterdam, and from thence to Rotterdam, where he sent one of his Servants with a Complement and tender of his humble Service to Her Highness, the then Princess Royal, the Queen of Bohemia, the Princess Dowager of Orange, and the Prince of Orange, which was received with much kindness and civility.”
After describing the rest of his journey, she says:—
“My Lord being arrived at Paris, which was in April, 1645, immediately went to tender his humble duty to Her Majesty, the Queen-Mother of England, where it was my Fortune to see him the first time, I being then one of the Maids of Honour to Her Majesty.”
Upon this seeing of Newcastle by one of the Maids of Honour to Her Majesty a good deal depended, and it will be best to deal with the matter in a fresh chapter.
CHAPTER XV.
Of the Duchess of Newcastle’s writings we have already seen a good deal, and the time has now arrived for introducing her in person. Perhaps it may be best to begin by quoting Cibber’s statement[124] that the future “Duchess herself in a book entitled ‘Nature’s Pictures, Drawn by Fancy’s Pencil to the Life,’ has celebrated both the exquisite beauty of her person and the rare endowments of her mind”. False modesty is a vice from which the Duchess was perfectly free.
[124] Lives of the Poets, II, 162.
MARGARET DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE
From an engraving by Alais, after a painting by Diepenbeck
Margaret Lucas was a daughter of Sir Thomas Lucas, of whom she says: “though my father was not a peer of the realm, yet there were few peers who had much greater estates, or lived more noble therewith”. She does not mention the fact that her great-grandfather had been town-clerk of Colchester.[125] Her two brothers, Sir John, who was created Lord Lucas by Charles I in 1644, and Sir Charles, were both distinguished cavaliers; and she mentions another brother, Sir Thomas, of whom Burke—not the Duchess—says he “was illegitimate, having been born prior to the marriage of his parents”. For this trifling confusion of dates, the excellent Lady Lucas endeavoured to atone by the prudishness upon which she insisted in her children. The Duchess tells us that—
“She was of a grave Behaviour, and had such a Majestic Grandeur, as it were continually hung about her, that it would strike a kind of an awe to the beholders, and command respect from the rudest.... She had a well favoured loveliness in her face, a pleasing sweetness in her countenance, and a well-temper’d complexion, as neither too red nor too pale.... Also she was an affectionate Mother, breeding her children with a most industrious care, and tender love, and having eight children, three sons and five daughters, there was not any one crooked, or any ways deformed, neither were they dwarfish, or of a Giant-like stature, but every ways proportionable; likewise well featured, cleer complexions, brown haires, but some lighter than others, sound teeth, sweet breaths, plain speeches, tunable voices, I mean not so much to sing as in speaking, as not stuttering, nor wharling in the throat, or speaking through the nose, or hoarsely, unless they had a cold, or squeakingly, which impediments many have; neither were their voices of too low a strain, or too high.” Negatively, a truly remarkable family!
[125] Burke’s Dormant and Extinct Peerages, 335.
Of her father the Duchess says: “He unfortunately killed one Mr. Brooks in a single Duel; for my father by the Laws of Honour could do no less than call him to the field, to question him for an injury he did him, where their Swords were to dispute, and one or both of their lives to decide the argument, wherein my Father had the better; and though my Father by Honour challenged him, with Valour fought him, and in Justice killed him, yet he suffered more than any Person of Quality usually doth in cases of Honour; for though the Laws be rigorous, yet the present Princes most commonly are gratious in those misfortunes, especially to the injured. But my Father found it not, for his exile was from the time of his misfortunes to Queen Elizabeth’s death; for the Lord Cobham being then a great man with Queen Elizabeth, and this Gentleman, Mr. Brooks, a kind of a Favourite, and as I take it Brother to the then L. Cobham, which made Queen Elizabeth so severe, not to pardon him: but King James of blessed memory graciously gave him his Pardon, and leave to return home to his Native Country.”
The description of the education and family life of herself and her sisters, given by the Duchess, is not altogether uninteresting.
“As for tutors, although we had for all sorts of vertues, as singing, dancing, playing on musick, reading, writing, working, and the like, yet we were not kept strictly thereto, they were rather for formality than benefit, for my Mother cared not so much for our dancing and fidling, singing and prating of severall languages, as that we should be bred virtuously, modestly, civilly, honourably, and on honest principles.”
As to the habits of this edifying family, she says:—
“But to rehearse their Recreations. Their customs were in Winter time to go sometimes to Plays, or to ride in their Coaches about the Streets to see the concourse and recourse of People; and in the Spring time to visit the Spring garden, Hide park, and the like places; and sometimes they would have Musick; and sup in Barges upon the Water; these harmless recreations they would pass their time away with; for I observed, they did seldom make Visits, nor never went abroad with Strangers in their Company, but onely themselves in a Flock together agreeing so well, that there seemed but one Minde amongst them: And not onely my own Brothers and Sisters agreed so, but my Brothers and Sisters in law, and their Children, although but young, had the like agreeable natures, and affectionable dispositions; for to my best remembrance I do not know that ever they did fall out, or had any angry or unkind disputes. Likewise, I did observe, that my Sisters were so far from mingling themselves with any other Company, that they had no familiar conversation or intimate acquaintance with the Families to which each other were linkt to by Marriage, the Family of the one being as great Strangers to the rest of my brothers and Sisters, as the Family of the other.”
How far such an education and such surroundings would be conducive to breadth of mind, sociability, and success in the world, the reader must judge for himself.
Although she had been exceedingly anxious to become a Maid of Honour, Margaret does not appear to have enjoyed the two years which she spent in that capacity. She says: “I had heard that the world was apt to lay aspersions even on the innocent, for which I durst neither look up with my eyes, nor speak, nor be any way sociable, insomuch as I was thought a Natural Fool”. Being “fearfull and bashfull, I neither heeded what was said or practic’d, but just what belong’d to my loyal duty, and my own honest reputation; and, indeed, I was so afraid to dishonour my Friends and Family by my indiscreet actions, that I rather chose to be accounted a Fool, then to be thought rude or wanton; in truth, my bashfulness and fears made me repent my going from home to see the World abroad”.
Ballard says:[126] “Her person was very graceful, her temper naturally reserved and shy, and she seldom said much in company, especially among strangers”. She herself confesses and deplores her own bashfulness; but she declares it to be a better thing than rudeness on the ground that “a rude nature is worse than a brute nature, by so much more as man is better than beast, but those that are of civil natures and gentle dispositions, are as much nearer to celestiall creatures, as those that are of rude or cruell are to Devils”.
[126] Memoirs of British Ladies, Celebrated for their Writings, etc., p. 213.
This particular “celestiall creature” favours us with some more details of her own character. “I am gratefull, for I never received a curtesie but I am impatient, and troubled untill I can return it; also I am Chaste, both by Nature and Education, insomuch as I do abhorre an unchast thought; likewise I am seldom angry,” yet “when I am angry, I am very angry, but yet it is soon over, and I am easily pacified, if it be not such an injury as may create a hate”;—a highly significant reservation—“neither am I apt to be exceptious or jealous; but if I have the lest symptome of this passion, I declare it to those it concerns, for I never let it ly smothering in my breast to breed a malignant disease in the minde.” “I am neither spitefull, envious nor malicious; I repine not at the gifts that Nature or Fortune bestows upon others.” “My God,” she would almost seem to have said, “I thank Thee that I am not as other women are.”
Newcastle had heard a good deal of Margaret Lucas before he met her. He had been a friend and a patron of her brother, whom Charles I had made a peer. Lord Lucas had been in Newcastle’s army, and when Newcastle had asked him in what manner he could best serve him, Lucas had replied that he had no desires on his own account, being ready to suffer exile or death in the royal cause; but that he was anxious about his sister Margaret, at Queen Henrietta’s little Court in Paris, as her beauty exposed her to danger, and, owing to his losses through the civil war, he had no dowry to bestow upon her. At the same time he expatiated upon her character and virtues to such an extent as to arouse the curiosity of Newcastle.[127]
[127] Biog. Brit., Kippis’s Ed., vol. III, 337; Cibber’s Lives, II, 162-3.
With the paragon of perfection self-described in the preceding pages, the exiled Newcastle fell in love. The lady herself shall describe what happened:—
“My Lord ... was pleased to take some particular notice of me, and express more than an ordinary affection for me; insomuch that he resolved to chuse me for his Second Wife; for he, having but two Sons, purposed to marry me, a young Woman that might prove fruitful to him and encrease his Posterity by a Masculine-Offspring. Nay, He was so desirous of Male-Issue, that I have heard him say, He cared not (so God would be pleased to give him many Sons) although they came to be persons of the meanest Fortunes; but God (it seems) had ordered it otherwise, and frustrated his Designs”—here the Duchess becomes very plain-spoken—“which yet did never lessen his Love and Affection for me.”
Several of Margaret Lucas’s love-letters are in existence at Welbeck Abbey.[128] Let us look at a few of them.
[128] Welbeck MSS.
“Margaret Lucas to the Marquis of Newcastle.
“(1645, November.) I fear others foresee we shall be unfortunate though we see it not ourselves, or else there would not be such pains taken to untie the knot of our affection. I must confess that as you have had good friends to counsel you, so I have had good friends to counsel me and tell me they hear of your professions of affection to me, which they bid me take heed of, for you had assured yourself to many and were constant to none. I said my Lord Newcastle was too wise and too honest to engage himself to many. I heard the Queen would take it ill I did not make her acquainted before I had resolved.”
From this it is evident that Newcastle’s friends had been trying to dissuade him from the marriage, and that Margaret’s friends were also trying to prevent it. It is not surprising that they should have done so. Newcastle was then living entirely on credit and was borrowing wherever he could. However agreeable a man’s conversation may be, if it ends in his saying, “By the way, I wonder whether you would kindly lend me £ ... for a few days,” he is not likely to be very popular.
As Margaret writes that the Queen would take it ill unless informed before Margaret “resolved,” the engagement was probably not yet definitely made. In her next letter Margaret begins to fear that she may have been immodestly forward in her flirtations with Newcastle. Yet, under cover of ostentatious bashfulness, she takes the opportunity of asking Newcastle to propose his suit to the Queen.