“Madam,” said he, “hearty as my wishes are that you may obtain what you want, I dare not flatter you with any such hope, for that marble (laying his hand on the chimneypiece at which he was standing) is as capable of feeling compassion as the King’s heart.”
After her marriage Hannah exercised a great deal of influence in the Cromwell family. She was of a strong Evangelical cast of mind and a Dissenter. Through her the Dowager Lady Cromwell was induced to substitute a Baptist minister for the Anglican clergyman she had been accustomed to have about her as chaplain.
Divers have been the parts which women of the middle classes have played in politics in days gone by. Even when it was a part involving a good deal of publicity they did not shrink, and their practical common sense was unclouded by any sentimental haze of doubt as to their “proper sphere.” Everything that concerned their families or the commonweal they felt to be within their sphere, and they did not conceive the idea that politics were the concern of one sex alone. That complex creation of to-day, the “New Woman,” to whom is ascribed, among other things, an unfeminine taste for politics, is not so modern after all. History is repeating itself, and the progenitors of the political woman are to be found far back in the days of the Lancastrians.
CHAPTER VII.
HEROINES OF THE CIVIL WAR.
Nature of the struggle—Position of Queen Henrietta Maria—Activity of women on both sides—Mrs. Hutchinson at Nottingham—Defence of Lathom House by the Countess of Derby—Lady Arundel at Wardour Castle—Lady Bankes besieged in Corfe Castle—Lady Lettice Digby defends Greashill Castle—Lady Fanshawe’s visits to her husband in prison—Experiences of a gentlewoman in the West of England—Lady Musgrave and the Parliament—Lady Halkett assists the Duke of York to escape—Lady Rochester and the elections—The Jacobite rising—Flora McDonald.
The great constitutional struggle of the seventeenth century was a struggle in which the whole nation was engaged. Every move on either side sent a thrill of hope or fear, of joy or indignation, throughout the kingdom. The brave defence of castle and home by the women, the patient endurance of hardship, the courage in presence of danger, the quick wit which could avert misfortune, make the Civil War of the seventeenth century peculiarly rich in striking incident. Every family of importance was ranged on one side or the other, and many a one that could lay claim to no special distinction acquired fame during the struggle, while a fierce additional interest was lent by the religious element. All classes, in fact, were affected. None could stand aloof. The civil war became not only a national but also a domestic question, a matter of the deepest personal concern to hundreds who had no interest in statecraft. It was remarkable for the absence of any foreign element. The contest lay between King and people, or rather between royal prerogative and the liberty of the subject. The Queen herself, Henrietta of Nance, though as a Roman Catholic she was the source of contention, played but an insignificant part in the war. She had not the spirit of Margaret of Anjou, and, on account of her alien creed, commanded the sympathies of neither side. The Queen never formed a party strong enough to change the current of events. She was one of the dramatis personæ in the great tragedy, but not a leading actor. It was a people’s war. The influence of foreign allies, the factions of court favourites, were as nothing. In former periods when civil war had raged, the flame had been kindled and fed by disputes for power among sovereigns and princes; the struggle had always assumed something of an imperial character. In the seventeenth century it was a purely internal dissension. Hence the overwhelming interest felt in the struggle by both women as well as men, of all classes.
Women both on the Royalist and the Puritan side were in the thick of the fray, sometimes actually taking part in the fight, as in the case of the Countess of Derby, whose defence of Lathom House against the Parliamentarians is among the most noted incidents of the war; or like Lucy Hutchinson, playing an equally important rôle in attending to the wounded. Mrs. Hutchinson, strong Puritan as she was, regarded Cromwell as a usurper and a despot, though she admitted his greatness, and his family excited her scorn and derision.
“His wife and children were setting up for principality which suited no better with any of them than scarlet on the ape; only to speak the truth of himself, he had much natural greatness and well became the place he had usurped.”