The jester was an important personage at Lathom, as in all great families of the time. The homes of the nobility were each in themselves royal courts in miniature, and the quips and cranks of these “strange caperers” must have been, not merely acceptable and welcome, but in a manner indispensable to the many—from my lord himself to the kitchen scullion—when books were rare, even for those who possessed the accomplishment of reading them. The wise saws and modern instances too often wrapped up in the quips of a clever fool must have kept awake many a brave gentleman when he had laid aside baldrick and hunting horn, and the falcon slept upon his perch. Moreover, as extremes so frequently do meet, in justice to all concerned the fact should never be lost sight of that the fool so called was often furnished with a very superior if fantastic headpiece beneath his cap and bells, and in many instances was a poet of a high order. To wit, one such a “fool” as Master John Heywood, King Henry VIII.’s jester, would be nowadays as acceptable as half a score of savants.
In a catalogue, or, as it is called, a “Checkrowle of my Lord of Darby’s householde,” drawn up in 1587, “Henry ye ffoole” is enumerated last indeed, but obviously as a very distinctive member of the establishment. At this time the steward of Lathom had three servants, the controller three, and the receiver-general three. Seven gentlemen waiters had each a servant, and the chaplain, Sir Gilbert Townley, had one. Then came nineteen yeomen ushers, six grooms of the chamber, two sub-grooms, thirteen yeomen waiters, two trumpeters, and inferior servants: making the total number to feed, one hundred and eighteen persons. As will be seen, a spiritual teacher figures in this list, in the person of Sir Gilbert Townley; but neither physician nor surgeon, nor, for that matter, a barber. Possibly, these indispensable members of a large household are both included in the person of “a conjurer,” kept in his lordship’s service, “who cast out devils and healed diseases.”
The weekly consumption of food at Lathom in the sixteenth century was an ox and twenty sheep; and in the way of liquor, fifteen hogsheads of beer, and a fair round dozen tuns of wine, yearly. In addition to the above enumerated comestibles were consumed large quantities of deer from the park, game from the woods, and fish from the ponds. For magnificence and hospitality, Lathom House in the time of the Stanleys surpassed all the residences of the north; and its possessors were regarded with such veneration and esteem, that the harmless inversion, “God save the Earl of Derby and the King,” was as familiar as household words.
And if in the days of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth this was held no treason, still less was it so in the days of Charles I. in the time of the Lord and Lady of Lathom whom peril and death itself could not render disloyal to their King, or a mockery to their motto, “Sans changer.”
This was the home in which Lady Strange spent the best part of the years of her married life, happily enough in the domestic relations of wife and mother, but hampered by the public and political complications in France, which were for ever hindering the payment of the money supplies belonging to her by inheritance, and troubled by yearly increasing anxiety for the disturbed condition of her adopted country.
Charles, from the beginning of his reign, had given great offence to the nation by the taxations which he strove to impose upon it for the carrying on of his foreign wars. This discontent was aggravated by the favour which he showed to the Duke of Buckingham. The Duke had not merely a voice in every question of State affairs, for which privilege he did his royal master the doubtful service of defending him against the Parliamentary attacks which daily gathered in angry strength, but he crowned all by aspiring to and obtaining the command set on foot for the assistance of the Huguenots against the forces of Richelieu, which were beleaguering the city of la Rochelle. Buckingham’s religious convictions were however considerably less strong than his anger against the Cardinal, to whom his behaviour had begun to give offence ever since the day when he first set foot in the French Court and had cast amorous eyes upon Anne of Austria, the beautiful wife of Louis XIII. Buckingham took his fleet to Rochelle, having persuaded Charles that the expedition would be regarded with special favour by the English nation, since it was to contend for Protestantism and Protestants against the proud Romanist arch-priest. This might in a measure have proved to be the case had the undertaking been successful; and, since there is nothing that succeeds like success, it might have turned the whole course of subsequent events for Charles. But George Villiers was not of the stuff to measure arms with Armand de Richelieu, whose axiom was that there was “no such word as fail”—and the expedition was a total fiasco. Buckingham returned to England to organise a second attempt; but while waiting at Portsmouth for this purpose, he died by the hand of the assassin Felton.
Charles was now left to bear alone the bitter complaints of his people, who had been taxed for the expenses of the fleet, the ill-success of which had cast ridicule not only on England, but on the Protestant cause, and simply enhanced the growing triumphs of the Catholics in France. The King furthermore, was giving great offence to Protestants of all denominations by the toleration which he granted the papists. From the Independents, the growing party of the Puritans, and almost without exception from the Episcopalians, the Roman Catholics of the country met with no quarter. Many patriotic and loyal English men and women had remained faithful to the old creed, keeping spiritual and political conviction absolutely apart; but upon these, baleful reflections were cast by the foreign Jesuit party, and suspicion fell on the most unbigoted and inoffensive. Charles’s leniency towards his Roman Catholic subjects was far less the effect of any sympathy with their doctrines than that of a mistaken policy. His idea in coming to any sort of entente cordiale with them was to make terms for dispensations from the severity of the penal laws existing against them. He wanted the benevolences of them, and forced loans, for the purpose of carrying on his war against Spain, since he could not obtain the needful supplies from Parliament; and the nation objected on the double score of the illegality of such a measure, and the inadvisability of keeping up warfare with the Continent at all.
These offences on the King’s part crowned the grievances he had caused by his levy of tonnage and poundage, and the new Parliament which was now summoned inaugurated proceedings by an inquiry into the “national grievances.” In 1628 all this resulted in the bill known as the Petition of Rights, which, after some demur in the Upper House, was finally passed by the lords, and received the royal assent. This bill required the consent of both Houses to the furnishing by anyone of tax, loan, or benevolences. It claimed for the people exemption from enforced quartering upon them of soldiers and seamen. Martial law was to be abolished, and no person to be arbitrarily imprisoned.
Matters might now have improved; but Charles sprang a new mine by the tenacity with which he clung to the disputed right of tonnage and poundage. The Commons, unfaithful to their promise to look into the justice of the claim, arrived at the decision that anyone paying it should be held a traitor to his country. The offended King, calling the members of the Commons all “vipers,” once more dissolved Parliament, made peace with France and Spain, and proceeded to act upon his declaration that he would govern without the aid of Parliament.
The blame of all these disputes was laid to the Duke of Buckingham. The sanction given by the King to the Bill of Rights did little to appease the storm of discontent. Five months after the prorogation of Parliament (23rd August 1628) Buckingham was assassinated by one of his disbanded officers.