Lucy Hutchinson’s father, Sir Allen Aspley, was governor of the Tower during the time of Sir Walter Raleigh’s imprisonment. Her mother was in the habit of visiting Sir Walter, and helping him with the chemical experiments with which he wiled away the hours when not engaged in writing his “History of the World.” It has been suggested that Mrs. Hutchinson obtained from her mother some knowledge of the properties of medicine, for during the siege of Nottingham she proved most helpful in dressing the soldiers’ wounds, and her plasters and balsams were found most efficacious even in dangerous cases. Mrs. Hutchinson was not the only member of her sex who proved herself able and ready for action in the city of Nottingham. After the siege was practically over, and the royalist forces had departed, the town was constantly being fired. Thereupon the women banded themselves together, and in parties of fifty patrolled the streets every night.
Mrs. Hutchinson was of great service, at the beginning of 1660, in assisting to quell the disturbances which arose over the elections. There was a strong party in the city for the King, and much ill feeling aroused between the townsmen and the soldiers of the Commonwealth. Just as matters were coming to a crisis and the soldiers were preparing to take vengeance on the citizens, Mrs. Hutchinson opportunely arrived—
“and being acquainted with the captaines perswaded them to doe nothing in a tumultuary way, however provok’d, but to complain to the generall, and lett him decide the businesse. The men, att her entreaty, were content so to doe, the townsmen alsoe consenting to restreine their children and servants and keepe the publick peace.”
It was in the year 1643 that the Countess of Derby began her memorable defence of Lathom House. The Countess was a Frenchwoman, a daughter of the Duc de Tremouille, and a descendant of Count William of Nassau. Negotiations began in May with a summons from Mr. Holland, Governor of Manchester, to Lady Derby to subscribe to the propositions of the Parliament or yield up Lathom House. The Earl was then away, fighting for the King. Her ladyship refused either to subscribe or to give up her house.
“From this time she endured a continual siege, being, with the exception of the gardens and walks, confined as a prisoner within her own walls, with the liberty of the castle-yard, suffering the sequestration of the whole estate, besides daily affronts and indignities from unworthy persons.”
The Countess was very circumspect, putting a restraint upon her soldiers, and giving no provocation to her foes, “and so by her wisdom kept them at a more favourable distance for the space of almost a whole year.”
In the following February Sir Thomas Fairfax wrote demanding surrender, to which the Countess replied that—
“she much wondered that Sir Thomas Fairfax should require her to give up her lord’s house without any offence on her part done to the Parliament, desiring that in a business of such weight which struck both at her religion and at her life, and that so nearly concerned her sovereign, her lord, and her whole posterity, she might have a week’s consideration.”
The Parliamentarian general then proposed a conference at a house about a quarter of a mile distant from Lathom House, but the Countess refused with dignity, saying she conceived it “more knightly that Sir Thomas Fairfax should wait upon her than she upon him.” After further parleyings with Parliamentarians, she finally sent the following spirited message:—
“That she refused all their articles, and was truly happy that they had refused hers, protesting she had rather hazard her life than offer the like again. That though a woman and a stranger, divorced from her friends and robbed of her estate, she was ready to receive their utmost violence, trusting in God both for protection and deliverance.”