Your faithful friend.
Letter 31.—Dorothy is in mourning for her youngest brother, Robert, who died about this time. As she does not mention his death to Temple, we may take it that he was, though her brother, practically a stranger to her, living away from Chicksands, and rarely visiting her.
General Monk's brother, to whom Dorothy refers, was Mr. Nicholas Monk, vicar of Kelkhampton, in Cornwall. General Monk's misfortune is no less a calamity than his marriage. The following extract from Guizot's Life of Monk will fully explain the allusion: "The return of the new admiral [Monk] was marked by a domestic event which was not without its influence on his public conduct and reputation. Unrefined tastes, and that need of repose in his private life which usually accompanies activity in public affairs, had consigned him to the dominion of a woman of low character, destitute even of the charms which seduce, and whose manners did not belie the rumour which gave her for extraction a market stall, or even, according to some, a much less respectable profession. She had lived for some time past with Monk, and united to the influence of habit an impetuosity of will and words difficult to be resisted by the tranquil apathy of her lover. It is asserted that she had managed, as long since as 1649, to force him to a marriage; but this marriage was most certainly not declared until 1653." M. Guizot then quotes a letter, dated September 19, 1653, announcing the news of General Monk's marriage, and this would about correspond with the presumed date of Dorothy's letter. Greenwich Palace was probably occupied by Monk at this time, and Dorothy meant to say that Ann Clarges would be as much at home in Greenwich Palace as, say, the Lord Protector's wife at Whitehall.
SIR,—It was, sure, a less fault in me to make a scruple of reading your letter to your brother, which in all likelihood I could not be concerned in, than for you to condemn the freedom you take of giving me directions in a thing where we are equally concerned. Therefore, if I forgive you this, you may justly forgive me t'other; and upon these terms we are friends again, are we not? No, stay! I have another fault to chide you for. You doubted whether you had not writ too much, and whether I could have the patience to read it or not. Why do you dissemble so abominably; you cannot think these things? How I should love that plain-heartedness you speak of, if you would use it; nothing is civil but that amongst friends. Your kind sister ought to chide you, too, for not writing to her, unless you have been with her to excuse it. I hope you have; and pray take some time to make her one visit from me, and carry my humble service with you, and tell her that 'tis not my fault that you are no better. I do not think I shall see the town before Michaelmas, therefore you may make what sallies you please. I am tied here to expect my brother Peyton, and then possibly we may go up together, for I should be at home again before the term. Then I may show you my niece; and you may confess that I am a kind aunt to desire her company, since the disadvantage of our being together will lie wholly upon me. But I must make it my bargain, that if I come you will not be frighted to see me; you think, I'll warrant, you have courage enough to endure a worse sight. You may be deceived, you never saw me in mourning yet; nobody that has will e'er desire to do it again, for their own sakes as well as mine. Oh, 'tis a most dismal dress,—I have not dared to look in the glass since I wore it; and certainly if it did so ill with other people as it does with me, it would never be worn.
You told me of writing to your father, but you did not say whether you had heard from him, or how he did. May not I ask it? Is it possible that he saw me? Where were my eyes that I did not see him, for I believe I should have guessed at least that 'twas he if I had? They say you are very like him; but 'tis no wonder neither that I did not see him, for I saw not you when I met you there. 'Tis a place I look upon nobody in; and it was reproached to me by a kinsman, but a little before you came to me, that he had followed me to half a dozen shops to see when I would take notice of him, and was at last going away with a belief 'twas not I, because I did not seem to know him. Other people make it so much their business to gape, that I'll swear they put me so out of countenance I dare not look up for my life.
I am sorry for General Monk's misfortunes, because you say he is your friend; but otherwise she will suit well enough with the rest of the great ladies of the times, and become Greenwich as well as some others do the rest of the King's houses. If I am not mistaken, that Monk has a brother lives in Cornwall; an honest gentleman, I have heard, and one that was a great acquaintance of a brother of mine who was killed there during the war, and so much his friend that upon his death he put himself and his family into mourning for him, which is not usual, I think, where there is no relation of kindred.
I will take order that my letters shall be left with Jones, and yours called for there. As long as your last was, I read it over thrice in less than an hour, though, to say truth, I had skipped some on't the last time. I could not read my own confession so often. Love is a terrible word, and I should blush to death if anything but a letter accused me on't. Pray be merciful, and let it run friendship in my next charge. My Lady sends me word she has received those parts of Cyrus I lent you. Here is another for you which, when you have read, you know how to dispose. There are four pretty stories in it, "L'Amant Absente," "L'Amant non Aimé," "L'Amant Jaloux," et "L'Amant dont La Maitresse est mort." Tell me which you have most compassion for when you have read what every one says for himself. Perhaps you will not think it so easy to decide which is the most unhappy, as you may think by the titles their stories bear. Only let me desire you not to pity the jealous one, for I remember I could do nothing but laugh at him as one that sought his own vexation. This, and the little journeys (you say) you are to make, will entertain you till I come; which, sure, will be as soon as possible I can, since 'tis equally desired by you and your faithful.
Letter 32.—Things being more settled in that part of the world, Sir John Temple is returning to Ireland, where he intends taking his seat as Master of the Rolls once again. Temple joins his father soon after this, and stays in Ireland a few months.
Lady Ormond was the wife of the first Duke of Ormond. She had obtained her pass to go over to Ireland on August 24th, 1653. The Ormonds had indeed been in great straits for want of money, and in August 1652 Lady Ormond had come over from Caen, where they were then living, to endeavour to claim Cromwell's promise of reserving to her that portion of their estate which had been her inheritance. After great delays she obtained £500, and a grant of £2000 per annum out of their Irish lands "lying most conveniently to Dunmore House." It must have been this matter that Dorothy had heard of when she questions "whether she will get it when she comes there."
Francis Annesley, Lord Valentia, belonged to an ancient Nottinghamshire family, though he himself was born in Newport, Buckinghamshire. Of his daughter's marriage I can find nothing. Lord Valentia was at this time Secretary of State at Dublin.