I was born in St. Olave's, Hart-street, London, in a house that my father took of the Lord Dingwall, father to the now Duchess of Ormond, in the year 1625, on our Lady Day, 25th of March. Mr. Hyde, Lady Alston, and Lady Wolstenholme, were my godfather and godmothers. In that house I lived the winter times till I was fifteen years old and three months, with my ever honoured and most dear mother, who departed this life on the 20th day of July, 1640, and now lies buried in Allhallow's Church, in Hertford. Her funeral cost my father above a thousand pounds; and Dr. Howlsworth preached her funeral sermon, in which, upon his own knowledge, he told before many hundreds of people this accident following: that my mother, being sick to death of a fever three months after I was born, which was the occasion she gave me suck no longer, her friends and servants thought to all outward appearance that she was dead, and so lay almost two days and a night, but Dr. Winston coming to comfort my father, went into my mother's room, and looking earnestly on her face, said "she was so handsome, and now looks so lovely, I cannot think she is dead"; and suddenly took a lancet out of his pocket and with it cut the sole of her foot, which bled. Upon this, he immediately caused her to be laid upon the bed again and to be rubbed, and such means as she came to life, and opening her eyes, saw two of her kinswomen stand by her, my Lady Knollys and my Lady Russell, both with great wide sleeves, as the fashion then was, and said, Did not you promise me fifteen years, and are you come again? which they not understanding, persuaded her to keep her spirits quiet in that great weakness wherein she then was; but some hours after she desired my father and Dr. Howlsworth might be left alone with her, to whom she said, "I will acquaint you, that during the time of my trance I was in great quiet, but in a place I could neither distinguish nor describe; but the sense of leaving my girl, who is dearer to me than all my children, remained a trouble upon my spirits. Suddenly I saw two by me, clothed in long white garments, and methought I fell down with my face in the dust; and they asked why I was troubled in so great happiness. I replied, O let me have the same grant given to Hezekiah, that I may live fifteen years, to see my daughter a woman: to which they answered, It is done; and then, at that instant, I awoke out of my trance;" and Dr. Howlsworth did there affirm, that that day she died made just fifteen years from that time. My dear mother was of excellent beauty and good understanding, a loving wife, and most tender mother; very pious, and charitable to that degree, that she relieved, besides the offals of the table, which she constantly gave to the poor, many with her own hand daily out of her purse, and dressed many wounds of miserable people, when she had health, and when that failed, as it did often, she caused her servants to supply that place.
She left behind her three sons, all much older than myself. The eldest, John, married three wives: by his last, who was the daughter of Mr. Ludlow, a very ancient and noble family, he left two daughters, who are both unmarried. My second brother, William, died at Oxford with a bruise on his side, caused by the fall of his horse, which was shot under him, as he went out with a party of horse against a party of the Earl of Essex, in 1643. He was a very good and gallant young man; and they are the very words the king said of him, when he was told of his death: he was much lamented by all who knew him. The third, Abraham, hath left no issue; I was the fourth, and my sister Margaret, the fifth, who married Sir Edmund Turner, of South Stock, in Lincolnshire, a worthy pious man.
My father, in his old age, married again, the daughter of Mr. Shatbolt, of Hertfordshire, and had by her a son, Richard, and a daughter, Mary. The son married the eldest daughter of the now Lord Grandison, and the daughter married the eldest son of Sir Rowland Lytton, of Knebworth, in Hertfordshire. My father lived to see them both married; and enjoyed a firm health, until above eighty years of age. He was a handsome gentleman of great natural parts, a great accomptant, vast memory, an incomparable penman, of great integrity and service to his prince; had been a member of several Parliaments; a good husband and father, especially to me, who never can sufficiently praise God for him, nor acknowledge his most tender affection and bounty to me and mine; but as in duty bound, I will for ever say, none had ever a kinder and better father than myself. He died on the 28th day of September, 1670; and lies buried by my mother in his own vault in Allhallows Church, in Hertford.
My father was born at Bemond, in Lancashire; the twelfth son of his father, whose mother was the daughter of Mr. Hippom, cousin german to the old Countess of Rivers. I have little knowledge of my father's relations more than the families of Aston, Irland, Sandis, Bemond, and Curwen, who brought him to London and placed him with my Lord Treasurer Salisbury, then Secretary of State, who sent him into Sir John Wolstenholm's family, and gave him a small place in the Custom- house, to enable him for the employment. He, being of good parts and great capacity, in some time raised himself, by God's help, to get a very great estate, for I have often heard him say that, besides his education, he never had but twenty marks, which his father gave him when he came to London, and that was all he ever had for a portion. He made it appear with great truth that, during the time of the war, he lost by the rebels above one hundred and thirty thousand pounds, and yet he left his son sixteen hundred pounds a year in land, and gave his daughter above twenty thousand pounds.
Now it is necessary to say something of my mother's education of me, which was with all the advantages that time afforded, both for working all sorts of fine works with my needle, and learning French, singing, lute, the virginals and dancing, and notwithstanding I learned as well as most did, yet was I wild to that degree, that the hours of my beloved recreation took up too much of my time, for I loved riding in the first place, running, and all active pastimes; in short, I was that which we graver people call a hoyting girl; but to be just to myself, I never did mischief to myself or people, nor one immodest word or action in my life, though skipping and activity was my delight, but upon my mother's death, I then began to reflect, and, as an offering to her memory, I flung away those childnesses that had formerly possessed me, and, by my father's command, took upon me charge of his house and family, which I so ordered by my excellent mother's example as found acceptance in his sight. I was very well beloved by all our relations and my mother's friends, whom I paid a great respect to, and I ever was ambitious to keep the best company, which I have done, I thank God, all the days of my life. My father and mother were both great lovers and honourers of clergymen, but all of Cambridge, and chiefly Doctor Bamberge, Doctor Howlsworth, Broanbricke, Walley, and Mickelthite, and Sanderson, with many others. We lived in great plenty and hospitality, but no lavishness in the least, nor prodigality, and, I believe, my father never drank six glasses of wine in his life in one day.
About 1641, my brother, William Harrison, was chosen Burgess of ——, and sat in the Commons' House of Parliament, but not long, for when the King set up his standard he went with him to Nottingham; yet he, during his sitting, undertook that my father should lend one hundred and fifty thousand pounds to pay the Scots who had then entered England, and, as it seems, were to be both paid and prayed to go home, but afterwards their plague infected the whole nation, as to all our sorrows we know, and that debt of my father's remained to him until the restoration of the King. In 1642 my father was taken prisoner at his house, called Montague House, in Bishopgate Street, and threatened to be sent on board a ship with many more of his quality, and then they plundered his house, but he getting loose, under pretence to fetch some writings they demanded in his hands concerning the public revenue, he went to Oxford in 1643, and thereupon the Long Parliament, of which he was a member for the town of Lancaster, plundered him out of what remained, and sequestered his whole estate, which continued out of his possession until the happy restoration of the King.
My father commanded my sister and myself to come to him to Oxford where the Court then was, but we, that had till that hour lived in great plenty and great order, found ourselves like fishes out of the water, and the scene was so changed, that we knew not at all how to act any part but obedience, for, from as good a house as any gentleman of England had, we came to a baker's house in an obscure street, and from rooms well furnished, to lie in a very bad bed in a garret, to one dish of meat, and that not the best ordered, no money, for we were as poor as Job, nor clothes more than a man or two brought in their cloak bags: we had the perpetual discourse of losing and gaining towns and men; at the windows the sad spectacle of war, sometimes plague, sometimes sicknesses of other kind, by reason of so many people being packed together, as, I believe, there never was before of that quality; always in want, yet I must needs say that most bore it with a martyr-like cheerfulness. For my own part, I began to think we should all, like Abraham, live in tents all the days of our lives. The King sent my father a warrant for a baronet, but he returned it with thanks, saying he had too much honour of his knighthood which his Majesty had honoured him with some years before, for the fortune he now possessed: but as in a rock the turbulence of the waves disperses the splinters of the rock, so it was my lot, for having buried my dear brother, William Harrison, in Exeter College Chapel, I then married your dear father in 1644 in Wolvercot Church, two miles from Oxford, upon the 18th day of May. None was at our wedding but my dear father, who, at my mother's desire, gave me her wedding-ring, with which I was married, and my sister Margaret, and my brother and sister Boteler, Sir Edward Hyde, afterwards Lord Chancellor, and Sir Geoffry Palmer, the King's Attorney. Before I was married, my husband was sworn Secretary of War to the Prince, now our King, with a promise from Charles I. to be preferred as soon as occasion offered it, but both his fortune and my promised portion, which was made 10,000 pounds, were both at that time in expectation, and we might truly be called merchant adventurers, for the stock we set up our trading with did not amount to twenty pounds betwixt us; but, however, it was to us as a little piece of armour is against a bullet, which if it be right placed, though no bigger than a shilling, serves as well as a whole suit of armour; so our stock bought pen, ink and paper, which was your father's trade, and by it, I assure you, we lived better than those that were born to 2OOO pounds a year as long as he had his liberty. Here stay till I have told you your father's life until I married him.
He was but seven years old when his father died, and his mother, my Lady, designed him for the law, having bred him first with that famous schoolmaster Mr. Farnaby, and then under the tuition of Dr. Beale, in Jesus College in Cambridge, from whence, being a most excellent Latinist, he was admitted into the Inner Temple; but it seemed so crabbed a study, and disagreeable to his inclinations, that he rather studied to obey his mother than to make any progress in the law. Upon the death of his mother, whom he dearly loved and honoured, he went into France to Paris, where he had three cousins german, Lord Strangford, Sir John Baker of Kent, and my cousin Thornhill. The whole stock he carried with him was eighty pieces of gold, and French silver to the value of five pounds in his pocket; his gold was quilted in his doublet; he went by post to lodgings in the Fauxbourg St. Germain, with an intent to rest that night, and the next day to find out his kindred; but the devil, that never sleeps, so ordered it, that two friars entered the chamber wherein he was, and welcoming him, being his countrymen, invited him to play, he innocently only intending diversion, till his supper was ready; but that was not their design, for having engaged him, they left him not as long as he was worth a groat, which when they discovered, they gave him five pieces of his money until he could recruit himself by his friends, which he did the next day: and from that time forward never played for a piece. It came to pass, that seven years after, my husband being in Huntingdonshire, at a bowling-green, with Sir Capel Bedells, and many other persons of quality, one in the company was called Captain Taller. My husband, who had a very quick and piercing eye, marked him much, as knowing his face, and found, through his peruke wig, and scarlet cloak and buff suit, that his name was neither Captain nor Taller, but the honest Jesuit called Friar Sherwood, that had cheated him of the greatest part of his money, and after had lent him the five pieces; so your father went to him, and gave him his five pieces, and said, 'Father Sherwood, I know you, and you know this:' at which he was extremely surprised, and begged of your father not to discover him, for his life was in danger. After a year's stay in Paris, he travelled to Madrid in Spain, there to learn that language; at the same time, for that purpose, went the late Earl of Caernarvon, and my Lord of Bedford, and Sir John Berkeley, and several other gentlemen. Afterwards, having spent some years abroad, he returned to London, and gave so good an account of his travels, that he was about the year 1630 made Secretary of the Embassy, when my Lord Aston went Ambassador. During your father's travels, he had spent a considerable part of his stock, which his father and mother left him: in those days, where there were so many younger children, it was inconsiderable, being 50 pounds a year, and 1,500 pounds in money. Upon the return of the ambassador, your father was left resident until Sir Arthur Hopton went Ambassador, and then he came home about the year 1637 or 1638; and I must tell you here of an accident your father had coming out of Spain in this journey post: he going into a bed for some few hours to refresh himself, in a village five leagues from Madrid, he slept so soundly, that notwithstanding the house was on fire, and all the people of the village there, he never waked; but the honesty of the owners was such, that they carried him, and set him asleep upon a piece of timber on the highway; and there he awaked, and found his portmanteau and clothes by him, without the least loss, which is extraordinary, considering the profession of his landlord, who had at that time his house burnt to the ground. After being here a year or two, and no preferment coming, Secretary Windebank calling him Puritan, being his enemy, because himself was a Papist, he was, by his elder brother, put into the place of the King's Remembrancer, absolutely, with this proviso, that he should be accountable for the use of the income; but if in seven years he would pay 8,000 pounds for it to his brother, then it should be his, with the whole revenue of it; but the war breaking out presently after, put an end to this design; for, being the King's sworn servant, he went to the King at Oxford, as well as his fellows, to avoid the fury of this madness of the people, where, having been almost a year, we married, as I said before; and I will continue my discourse where we left.
Now we appear on the stage, to act what part God designed us; and as faith is the evidence of things not seen, so we, upon so righteous a cause, cheerfully resolved to suffer what that would drive us to, which afflictions were neither few nor small, as you will find. This year the Prince had an established Council, which were the Earl of Berkshire, Earl of Bradford, Lord Capel, Lord Colepeper, Lord Hopton, and Sir Edward Hyde, Chancellor of the Exchequer. My husband was then, as I said, newly entered into his office of secretary of the Council of War, and the King would have had him then to have been sworn his Highness's Secretary, but the Queen, who was then no friend to my husband, because he had formerly made Secretary Windebank appear in his colours, who was one of her Majesty's favourites, wholly obstructed that then, and placed with the Prince Sir Robert Long, for whom she had a great kindness; but the consequence will show the man.
The beginning of March 1645, your father went to Bristol with his new master, and this was his first journey: I then lying-in of my first son, Harrison Fanshawe, who was born on the 22nd of February, he left me behind him. As for that, it was the first time we had parted a day since we married; he was extremely afflicted, even to tears, though passion was against his nature; but the sense of leaving me with a dying child, which did die two days after, in a garrison town, extremely weak, and very poor, were such circumstances as he could not bear with, only the argument of necessity; and, for my own part, it cost me so dear, that I was ten weeks before I could go alone; but he, by all opportunities, wrote to me to fortify myself, and to comfort me in the company of my father and sister, who were both with me, and that as soon as the Lords of the Council had their wives come to them I should come to him, and that I should receive the first money he got, and hoped it would be suddenly. By the help of God, with these cordials I recovered my former strength by little and little, nor did I in my distressed condition lack the conversation of many of my relations then in Oxford, and kindnesses of very many of the nobility and gentry, both for goodness sake, and because your father being there in good employment, they found him serviceable to themselves or friends, which friendships none better distinguished between his place and person than your father.