“3rdly. The Countess, with all her servants, could reside at Knowsley House, and maintain there twenty men-at-arms for her defence, or she would be permitted to rejoin her husband in the Isle of Man.
“4thly. For the present, and until Parliament should further inquire into the matter, the Countess should receive for her maintenance the revenues of the estates and land of the Earl, her husband, in the hundred of Derby; and Parliament would be called upon to preserve this revenue to her.”
The Countess rejected these proposals. She found them neither honourable nor certain. “Since Parliament has not given its pronouncement on these points, you are not in a position to carry out your own propositions, gentlemen,” she said, with a lofty sarcasm. “It would be more prudent for you first to ascertain its good pleasure. As to myself, my good gentlemen,” she added, “I will not embarrass you by petitioning for me. I should regard it as a far greater favour if you will leave me in my humble condition.”
The two colonels did not press their points. They were in no mood for doing so. Colonel Rigby burned to wipe off the score of some insult which he fancied he had once received from the Earl, and both the deputies saw from the first strong determination in the eyes of the Countess. All the same, they did not care to allow themselves to be conquered by a woman, and both sought to represent to her the error of her ways, and to reproach her with the evils visited on the country by her party, and by her own friends and adherents. “I know,” gravely replied the Countess, “how to take heed to my ways, and to those of my people. You will do well to do as much for your ministers and your religious helpers, who go about sowing discord and trouble in families, and whose ill-conditioned tongues do not even always spare the sacred person of his Majesty.”
Henry Martin had said to Parliament, “It is certain that the ruin of one family is better than that of many families,” and when he was asked of whom he spoke, he replied without hesitation, “Of the King, and of his children.”
The lieutenants of Fairfax, “the two solemn personages,” disappointed, baffled, and brow-beaten, were forced to go back, with what comfort they might, to the camp of the Parliamentarians.
Sunday was a day of rest for the besiegers, as for the besieged. While they were being preached against in the camp of Fairfax, probably with equal sincerity the Countess of Derby assisted with her children, and the greater part of her garrison, at divine service in the chapel of her mansion, where four times a day during the siege she caused prayers to be read by her chaplain, always herself attending, and gathering fresh strength for her heavy task at the feet of Him who has willed Himself to be called The Lord of Battles.[[12]]
[12]. De Witt.
On Monday Colonel Rigby again arrived at Lathom, to receive and to carry back to his general the proposed conditions of Lady Derby. There were four in the articles of their summing-up, and ran thus:—
“I demand to remain another month in peace at Lathom. The duties confided to me here are of a double nature. I owe my fidelity and my loyalty to my husband; my allegiance and my service to my Sovereign. Since I have not obtained their consent, I cannot render up this house without manifestly wanting in my duty towards both. If they consent, I will peaceably yield up this house, asking only a free egress for myself and my children, with my friends, my soldiers, my retainers, my belongings, my ammunition, and my artillery, in order to go to the Isle of Man. I shall maintain a garrison in my house for my defence.