Then with some hopes I went to London, intending to leave my little girl Nan, the companion of my troubles, there, and so find out my husband wheresoever he was carried. But upon my coming to London, I met a messenger from him with a letter, which advised me of his condition, and told me he was very civilly used, and said little more, but that I should be in some room at Charing-cross, where he had promise from his keeper that he should rest there in my company at dinner-time: this was meant to him as a great favour. I expected him with impatience, and on the day appointed provided a dinner and room, as ordered, in which I was with my father and some of our friends, where, about eleven of the clock, we saw hundreds of poor soldiers, both English and Scotch, march all naked on foot, and many with your father, who was very cheerful in appearance, who after he had spoken and saluted me and his friends there, said, 'Pray let us not lose time, for I know not how little I have to spare. This is the chance of war; nothing venture, nothing have; so let us sit down and be merry whilst we may.' Then taking my hand in his and kissing me, 'Cease weeping, no other thing upon earth can move me: remember we are all at God's disposal.'
Then he began to tell how kind his Captain was to him, and the people as he passed offered him money, and brought him good things, and particularly Lady Denham, at Borstal-house, who would have given him all the money she had in her house, but he returned her thanks, and told her he had so ill kept his own, that he would not tempt his governor with more, but if she would give him a shirt or two, and some handkerchiefs, he would keep them as long as he could for her sake. She fetched him two smocks of her own, and some handkerchiefs, saying she was ashamed to give him them, but, having none of her sons at home, she desired him to wear them.
Thus we passed the time until order came to carry him to Whitehall, where, in a little room yet standing in the bowling-green, he was kept prisoner, without the speech of any, so far as they knew, ten weeks, and in expectation of death. They often examined him, and at last he grew so ill in health by the cold and hard marches he had undergone, and being pent up in a room close and small, that the scurvy brought him almost to death's door.
During the time of his imprisonment, I failed not constantly to go, when the clock struck four in the morning, with a dark lantern in my hand, all alone and on foot, from my lodging in Chancery Lane, at my cousin Young's, to Whitehall, in at the entry that went out of King Street into the bowling-green. There I would go under his window and softly call him: he, after the first time excepted, never failed to put out his head at the first call: thus we talked together, and sometimes I was so wet with the rain, that it went in at my neck and out at my heels. He directed me how I should make my addresses, which I did ever to their general, Cromwell, who had a great respect for your father, and would have bought him off to his service upon any terms.
Being one day to solicit for my husband's liberty for a time, he bade me bring the next day a certificate from a physician, that he was really ill. Immediately I went to Dr. Bathurst, that was by chance both physician to Cromwell and to our family, who gave me one very favourable in my husband's behalf. I delivered it at the Council Chamber, at three of the clock that afternoon, as he commanded me, and he himself moved, that seeing they could make no use of his imprisonment, whereby to lighten them in their business, he might have his liberty upon four thousand pounds bail, to take a course of physic, he being dangerously ill. Many spake against it, but most Sir Henry Vane, who said he would be as instrumental, for aught he knew, to hang them all that sat there, if ever he had opportunity, but if he had liberty for a time, that he might take the engagement before he went out: upon which Cromwell said, 'I never knew that the ENGAGEMENT [Footnote: Cromwell probably meant to pun upon this word.—In Ireland, "engagement" means an ISSUE; "an engagement in the neck," arm, &c., i.e., an issue in those places.] was a medicine for the scorbutic.' They, hearing their General say so, thought it obliged him, and so ordered him his liberty upon bail. His eldest brother, and sister Bedell, and self, were bound in four thousand pounds; and the latter end of November he came to my lodgings, at my cousin Young's. He there met many of his good friends and kindred; and my joy was inexpressible, and so was poor Nan's, of whom your poor father was very fond. I forgot to tell you, that when your father was taken prisoner of war, he, before they entered the house where he was, burned all his papers, which saved the lives and estates of many a brave gentleman.
When he came out of Scotland, he left behind him a box of writings, in which his patent of Baronet was, and his patent of additional arms, [Footnote: A coat of augmentation was granted to Richard Fanshawe, Esq., Remembrancer of the Exchequer, and to his family, by patent, dated at Jersey, 8th of February, 2 Car. II. 1650, being "Cheeky Argent and Azure, a Cross Gules." Grants of that kind to persons who distinguished themselves in the service of the King were very common, and consisted, in most cases, either of the lion of England, a fleur- de-lis, or, as in the instance of Mr. Fanshawe, of the Cross of St. George. Sir Richard was created a Baronet on the 2nd of September 1650.] which was safely sent after him, after the happy restoration of the King. You may read your father's demeanour of himself in this affair, wrote by his own hand, in a book by itself amongst your books, and it is a great masterpiece, as you will find.
Within ten days he fell very sick, and the fever settled in his throat and face so violently, that, for many days and nights, he slept no more but as he leaned on my shoulder as I walked: at last, after all the Doctor and Surgeon could do, it broke, and with that he had ease, and so recovered, God be praised! In 1652, he was advised to go to Bath for his scorbutic that still hung on him, but he deferred his journey until August, because I was delivered on the 30th of July of a daughter.
At his return, we went to live that winter following at Benfield, in Hertfordshire, a house of my niece Fanshawe's. In this winter my husband went to wait on his good friend the Earl of Strafford, in Yorkshire; and there my Lord offered him a house of his in Tankersly Park, which he took, and paid 120 l. a year for. When my husband returned, we prepared to go in the spring to this place, but were so confined, that my husband could not stir five miles from home without leave. About February following, my brother Neuce died, at his house at Much Hadham, in Hertfordshire. My sister, Margaret Harrison, desired to go to London, and there we left her: she soon after married Mr. Edmund Turner, afterwards Sir Edmund.
In March we with our three children, Anne, Richard, and Betty, went into Yorkshire, where we lived a harmless country life, minding only the country sports and country affairs. Here my husband translated Luis de Camoens; and on October 8th, 1653, I was delivered of my daughter Margaret. I found all the neighbourhood very civil and kind upon all occasions; the place plentiful and healthful, and very pleasant, but there was no fruit: we planted some, and my Lord Strafford says now, that what we planted is the best fruit in the North.
The house of Tankersly and Park are both very pleasant and good, and we lived there with great content; but God had ordered it should not last, for upon the 20th of July 1654, at three o'clock in the afternoon, died our most dearly beloved daughter Ann, whose beauty and wit exceeded all that ever I saw of her age. She was between nine and ten years old, very tall, and the dear companion of my travels and sorrows. She lay sick but five days of the smallpox, in which time she expressed so many wise and devout sayings, as is a miracle for her years. We both wished to have gone into the same grave with her. She lies buried in Tankersly church, and her death made us both desirous to quit that fatal place to us; and so the week after her death we did, and came to Hamerton, and were half a year with my sister Bedell. Then my husband was sent for to London, there to stay, by command of the High Court of Justice, and not to go five miles from that town, but to appear once a month before them. We then went again to my cousin Young's, in Chancery Lane: and about Christmas my husband got leave to go to Frog-Pool, in Kent, to my brother Warwick's; where, upon the 22nd of February 1655, I was delivered of a daughter, whom we named Ann, to keep in remembrance her dear sister, whom we had newly lost. We returned to our lodgings in Chancery Lane, where my husband was forced to attend till Christmas 1655; and then we went down to Jenkins, to Sir Thomas Fanshawe's; but upon New Year's Day my husband fell very sick, and the scorbutic again prevailed, so much that it drew his upper lip awry, upon which we that day came to London, into Chancery Lane, but not to my cousin Young's, but to a house we took of Sir George Carey, for a year. There by the advice of Doctor Bathurst and Doctor Ridgley, my husband took physic for two months together, and at last, God be praised! he perfectly recovered his sickness, and his lip was as well as ever.