CHAPTER XI
HERMETIC THOUGHTS
“A Monarch may command my Life or Fortune but not my opinion: I cannot command this myself; it arises only from the Nature of the Thing I judge of.”—Robert Boyle.
“... A general chemical council, not far from Charing Cross, sits often, and hath so behaved itself hitherto, that things seem now to hasten towards some settlement.... They are about an universal laboratory, to be erected after such a manner as may redound, not only to the good of this island, but also to the health and wealth of all mankind.”—Samuel Hartlib to Robert Boyle, May 1654.
Lord Broghill had laid aside his Parthenissa. The story goes that in the autumn of 1649 he was meditating, under cover of a course of treatment for the gout, a visit to Spa, which would take him into the neighbourhood of the “royal orphan”; and one account, at least, of how Cromwell intercepted Broghill in London is too picturesque to be discarded.
Nobody—so runs the story—was in the secret of Broghill’s little plan except his wife, Lady Pegg, and perhaps his sister Ranelagh, at whose house, in the Old Mall, Broghill arrived on a certain day in the dusk, with only four servants in attendance, to take leave of her before setting out on his journey to Spa.
“My Lord came, and was no sooner housed but heard a voice ask for my Lord Broghill: he thereupon charged his faithful sister with treachery; but her protestation of being innocent tempered him.” The messenger proved to be a “sightly Lieutenant,” sent by the Lord General to know when and where he might interview Broghill; and, after a good deal of parleying, a meeting was arranged for early next morning in St. James’s Garden. Cromwell was there first, with a group of his officers about him, and Broghill soon learnt that his correspondence with the “royal orphan” was discovered, and that he must make his choice. “The dilemma is short,” Cromwell is reported to have said; “if you go with me in this expedition to reduce the Irish rebels, you may live, otherwise you certainly die.”[169]
Whatever the details, the fact remains that Broghill accepted Cromwell’s offer, and returned to Ireland with some sort of understanding that, while he would serve Cromwell and the cause of Protestantism under the Parliament, he was not to be required to fight against any but the Irish.[170] Accordingly, in December 1649, “dear Broghill” was in Ireland again, and Robert Boyle was writing to congratulate him on a brilliant series of successes at Kinsale, Cork, Bandon and Youghal. “And truly that which most endears your acquisitions to me is that they have cost you so little blood.”[171] Cromwell had known his man; a veritable son of the old soldier-statesman, whose name was alive yet in Munster. There could have been no Rebellion in Ireland, said Cromwell, if every county had contained an Earl of Cork.
Other members of the Boyle family were back in Ireland. The eldest brother, Dungarvan, now Earl of Cork, the good-natured head of the family, and his no less good-natured Countess were living at Lismore or in Dublin. Frank and “black Betty,” as Robert Boyle had dubbed the little sister-in-law, were living near Castle Lyons; and there also was Lady Barrymore, whose “wild boy,” so lately Milton’s pupil in the Barbican, was now a very young married man. To his mother’s discomfiture, and sorely against her wishes, young Barrymore had married another of the fascinating Killigrews; and the same batch of Irish letters that carried Robert Boyle’s congratulations to Broghill took also a very wise letter, written from London, to his eldest sister, Lady Barrymore.[172] He had known nothing about the marriage till it was over.
“Without pretending to excuse or extenuate what is past, having minded you that there is a difference betwixt seasonable and just, I shall venture only to represent to you that the question is not now whether or no the marriage be a thing fit to be done, but how it is to be suffered; and that as the best gamesters have not the privilege of choosing their own cards, but their skill consists in well playing the game that is dealt them, so the discreetest persons are not allowed the choice of conditions and events, but their wisdom consists in making the best of those accidents that Providence is pleased to dispense them.” And he reminds his sister that, as she has declared openly for the Royalist party, the mediation of a “crowned intercessor” in this matter is not to be disregarded. Moreover, some of her nearest friends, “though they think the match very unhappy, think it unfit the married pair should be so.”[173]