(4) The only confirmation of Anthony à Wood's statement is the poem (vol. ii., p. 289) taken by Dr. Grosart from the Eucharistica Oxoniensia (1641), and signed "H. Vaughan, Jes. Col." If I am right, this may be by Vaughan's namesake. He has indeed another poem in that volume signed "Hen. Vaugh., Jes. Soc." but that is in Latin, and it is not unexampled for one man to contribute more than one poem, especially in different tongues, to such collections. Or it may be by Herbert Vaughan, who was a Gentleman-commoner of the College in 1641, and has, with Henry Vaughan the Fellow, verses in the προτέλεια Anglo Batava of the same year.
(c) VAUGHAN IN THE CIVIL WAR.
There are several passages which make it probable that Vaughan, like his brother Thomas, bore arms on the King's side in the Civil War. The most important is in the poem To Mr. Ridsley (vol. ii., p. 83), where he speaks of the time
"when this juggling fate
Of soldiery first seiz'd me."
In the same poem he mentions
"that day, when we
Left craggy Biston and the fatal Dee."
"Craggy Biston" is clearly Beeston Castle, one of the outlying defences of Chester, situated on a steep rock not very far east of the Dee. This castle was besieged on several occasions during the Civil War, especially during the campaign of 1645, when Chester was also besieged by the Parliamentarians.[12] Between Beeston and the Dee was fought, on September 24, 1645, the battle of Rowton Heath, after which Charles the First, who had hoped to raise the siege of Chester, was obliged to retreat to Denbigh.[13] The following lines from Vaughan's Elegy on Mr. R. W. (vol. ii., p. 79), who fell in that battle, seem to have been written by an eye-witness:
"O that day
When like the fathers in the fire and cloud
I miss'd thy face! I might in ev'ry crowd
See arms like thine, and men advance, but none
So near to lightning mov'd, nor so fell on.
Have you observ'd how soon the nimble eye
Brings th' object to conceit, and doth so vie
Performance with the soul, that you would swear
The act and apprehension both lodg'd there?
Just so mov'd he: like shot his active hand
Drew blood, ere well the foe could understand.
But here I lost him."
This appears to me pretty conclusive evidence; against it, however, must be set the passage on the Civil War in the autobiographical poem Ad Posteros (vol. ii., p. 51).
Vixi, divisos cum fregerat haeresis Anglos
Inter Tysiphonas presbyteri et populi.
His primum miseris per amoena furentibus arva
Prostravit sanctam vilis avena rosam.
Turbarunt fontes, et fusis pax perit undis,
Moestaque coelestes obruit umbra dies.
Duret ut integritas tamen, et pia gloria, partem
Me nullam in tanta strage fuisse, scias;
Credidimus nempe insonti vocem esse cruori,
Et vires quae post funera flere docent.
Hinc castae, fidaeque pati me more parentis
Commonui, et lachrimis fata levare meis;
Hinc nusquam horrendis violavi sacra procellis,
Nec mihi mens unquam, nec manus atra fuit.