“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,”
were ever, from first to last, realised by him to the full. Till that head lay severed from his body in its coffin at Whitehall, it found no rest. One by one he lost, by circumstances—generally the circumstance of violent death—the friendship and counsel of those dearest to him. Strafford and Laud had perished on the scaffold, and now he was called upon to part with the Queen. In 1642, on the 10th of January, he left his palace of Whitehall, whose doors he never again entered but to step upon the scaffold. A little later he was at Windsor, and from thence it was arranged her Majesty should repair to Holland, ostensibly for the purpose of taking over her daughter, Henrietta Maria—still but a child—to the Prince of Orange, who had married her six months previously. The real object of the journey was however, to purchase arms and ammunition, and to seek the aid and support of the Continental Powers. The Queen took with her the Crown jewels to pawn or to sell, in order to raise money for the purchase of war supplies. After accompanying her to Dover, where she embarked for the Continent, Charles had gone northwards, and established himself at York, there to wait the issue of negotiations. That the issue of these could be doubtful, the most earnest desirers of peace could hardly hope. The breach, daily widening for so long, left no choice but to declare civil war; but both parties shrank from the blame of throwing down the gauntlet. Finally, it was done by the Parliamentarians, in the person of Sir John Hotham, who refused, as “governor to the Parliament,” to open the gates of Hull. It is at this juncture that the Earl of Derby, in absolute fact still only Lord Strange, first came forth from his retirement to bear his loyal, unswerving part on the King’s side of the contention. He was one of the first to present himself at the Court at York, prepared in deed as by word to give his life’s blood and the last penny in his purse for his royal master and the legitimate cause.
It was now proposed to form a royal guard at York from among the nobility of the neighbourhood. Fifty gentlemen refused to join his company, and at their head was Sir Thomas Fairfax, who further contrived, at great risk of being crushed by the feet of the King’s horse, to fasten upon the pommel of Charles’ saddle a widely-signed petition against war, and an entreaty that his Majesty would live in peace with his Parliament. On the 1st June the propositions for accommodation arrived at York from Westminster. They embodied demands for the complete abolition of royal prerogative, and exercise of supreme power for the Parliament. “If I granted your demands,” cried the King, in a burst of indignation, “I should be nothing but an image—the vain shadow of a king;” and he refused to listen further. The very terms rendered it obvious that the Parliamentarians expected no other response, any more than they desired it. Forty members only of the Lower House voted against war, and one member, the Earl of Portland, in the Lords. An army of the Parliamentarian party was at once organised, over which Lord Essex was nominated commander-in-chief.
On the King’s side, his faithful subjects rallied quickly round him; and Lord Strange appears in their foremost ranks with a contingent of three thousand well-accoutred and well-provisioned men, raised from among his own people. On finding however, that the King, isolated as it were at York, was destitute of all assistance, and knew not where to obtain weapons, Lord Strange placed at his disposal everything the arsenals of his mansions contained.
Such generosity and self-devotion on the part of so powerful a nobleman was hardly likely to go uncontested by the sycophants and time-servers who swarm in royal courts. The Earl himself speaks of “the envy and malice against which he had to defend his honour.” This jealousy found its opportunity when, the hasty preparations made, the question became in what county of the north the royal standard should be raised. After listening “with a grave and serene dignity,” relates his biographer, “to the several suggestions and reasons for the uplifting of the standard in five or six of the more northern counties, Lord Strange begged the King to turn his considerations upon Lancashire. Its neighbouring counties were equally favourably disposed towards the royal cause. The people were robust, and well fitted for good soldiers. For himself, Lord Strange added, he was but an unworthy lieutenant of his Majesty; but he would undertake to find, at his own expense, three thousand foot soldiers and five hundred horse. Further, he would use his best endeavour to enlist and enroll seven thousand men of the county, thus furnishing his Majesty out of Lancashire alone a force of ten thousand men. From thence, access was easy to the neighbouring counties. His Majesty would find himself at the head of a powerful army, and be able to march upon London before the rebels had had time for raising troops to resist.”
The King determined to abide by this counsel. The standard was to be unfurled at Warrington in Lancashire; and Lord Strange was commissioned to levy forces and supplies, and to stir the population to the contest. He rallied the Royalists at three points—at Preston, Ormskirk, and Bury. That done, he prepared to go southward with the same object, first to Cheshire, and then into North Wales, of which he was lieutenant. At this point, the malignant spirit of the so-called Court party interfered; in every probability to their own downfall, as to the ruin of the Royal cause. Had the vacillating King remained true to himself and to this powerful supporter at the difficult crisis, the whole tide of affairs might have turned in the royal favour. Time, at least, would have been obtained, and the disaffected party would have been forced to reconsider its demands; but this was not to be. Hardly was Lord Strange gone on his arduous mission than the slanderers set to work to prejudice Charles against him. The old Earl, said they, was dying; Lord Strange was ambitious, little favourable to the Court or conforming to its views. What if all this levying of troops should be a cover for mischievous designs? Was not Lord Strange allied to the blood-royal? The Stanleys had not been always faithful to the party they seemed to favour—to wit, that Stanley, his ancestor, who marched at Richard’s side to Bosworth field, and remained to crown Henry of Richmond, his stepson, king. Had not Earl Ferdinand, this Lord Strange’s uncle, openly declared his claims upon the throne? This man—this James Stanley—had married a Frenchwoman, a Huguenot, reared in the pernicious doctrines of the Low Countries, one of the house of Nassau, which had stirred the United Provinces to revolt. In such hands his Majesty could not be safe.
These arguments touched the characteristic weakness of Charles’s nature. Prone to look upon the less hopeful and more shadowy side of a question, he lent an ear to these representations of a jealous faction, and gave orders for the raising of the standard at Nottingham. Lord Strange was suddenly and unceremoniously deprived of his lieutenancy of Cheshire and of Wales.
When he heard of these decisions of the King, he was greatly disturbed for the moment. Then, “recovering himself with that greatness of soul which belonged to his fine character,” he replied to the messenger of the news: “May my master prosper—my poor self is of no consequence. If this counsel be good for him, I shall not trouble myself more for what happens to me. My wife, my children, and my country are very dear to me; but if my prince and my religion are safe, I shall bless the enemies who work their good, though it be at the price of my ruin.”
By the advice of the friends whom he was accustomed to consult in cases of perplexity, he despatched a messenger to the King with assurances of his fidelity, declaring that it was in vain that his enemies strove to hinder him in serving him to the best of his power; that he would never draw the sword against him; that he placed his lieutenancies of Cheshire and of Wales at his Majesty’s disposal; and that he begged him also to take back that of the county of Lancashire, so that no one could accuse him more of pretentions against the King.
These frank assurances exercised their due effect upon Charles, who now recognised the true value of so loyal and powerful a servant; but the doubts thus cast upon Lord Strange had given great offence to his friends and adherents, and materially injured the Royal cause in Cheshire and Lancashire. Many of the country gentlemen, who had been ready to risk life and money for their King, retired to their estates once more; others went over in large numbers to the Parliamentarian side. This exodus was such a large and important one, that its leaders offered Lord Strange the command of their forces, or whatever other position he might prefer. The offer was indignantly refused, and Lord Strange prepared to join the King, who had now written him a letter with his own hand, calling him to join; and the Royal standard was raised at Nottingham on the 28th August 1642. Though things were no longer as they were, the ardour for the King having cooled on account of his suspicious treatment of the Earl—for such he now was, his father having just died—Lord Derby did his utmost, and rallied around him from among his own tenantry and friends a goodly force of three regiments of infantry and three squadrons of horse. With these he was ordered to make an attack on Manchester, which was now in the hands of the rebels. Scarcely had he arrived with his soldiers before the place over which he anticipated an easy victory, than the King summoned him to join his army at Shrewsbury, since the Parliamentarians were marching upon them under Lord Essex. Full of regret at being called off, Lord Derby obeyed this mandate, to find himself once more the object of mistrust and of jealousy. Directly he arrived his command was taken from him, the King telling him that he was now wanted in Lancashire to keep watch there upon the rebels.