Newcastle was much liked at Court. ‘The King esteemed him highly, as did Wentworth, but Buckingham was jealous of him.’ His manner of living was splendid; indeed, it was said of him later in life, that he went to battle in a coach-and-six. He entertained the King and Queen at his dwelling-houses of Welbeck and Bolsover in so sumptuous a manner as to make a great noise.
When the war broke out with the Scots, he was one of those loyal nobles who contributed large sums towards levying troops for the Royal service, and he raised a regiment at his own expense, which he named the Prince of Wales’s Own. It was on account of a question of precedency for this regiment, (in which many members of the Cavendish family held commissions,) that Newcastle quarrelled with Lord Holland, General of the Horse, and no sooner was the army disbanded, than he sent that General a challenge, but the King having gained intimation of the impending duel, prohibited the same, upon which some of Newcastle’s enemies accused him of avoiding the encounter from want of personal courage, a statement ill borne out by his proverbial valour.
Shortly after this he resigned his post at Court, and retired to his own estates; but, on the breaking out of the Civil War, he once more buckled on his armour, and resumed the military career for which Clarendon tells us ‘he had neither talent nor inclination, but pursued from sheer loyalty.’ Collins gives a very different version, enumerating manifold victories which Newcastle was mainly instrumental in gaining, in the north of England, more especially the battle of Bradford, where the rebels were defeated, and where he took twenty-two great guns, and many colours.
In 1642 he met the Queen at Burlington, when she landed with supplies, and escorted her to Oxford, where the King then was, for which and other services he was made Marquis of Newcastle and Knight of the Garter.
In 1643 his first wife died. Newcastle had a stormy time of it in that most stormy period, not only through the vicissitudes of war, not only in the battlefield, but through bickerings and jealousies in the army, and ‘slanderous pens,’ which often tempted the Marquis to throw up his command in disgust. This design he carried into effect, immediately after the battle of Marston Moor, where he commanded the right wing of the Royal army. He took ship at Scarborough, and, accompanied by several relatives and friends, sailed for Hamburgh. He spent many years on the Continent, frequently visiting his royal master Charles II. in Holland, and when the King was invited to Scotland, his faithful servant asked permission to attend him, but was refused by the Scots. While abroad the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle (for he had married a second time) were in most straitened circumstances, and were often compelled to pawn their clothes to procure the necessaries of life, the English Parliament having seized upon most of his estates and revenues, and cut down his timber, which caused the Duchess to go over to England, as we shall presently see. The noble exiles, after many wanderings, had settled in the City of Antwerp—‘my Lord choosing it for the pleasantest and quietest place to retire himself and his ruined fortunes in.’ It was here he wrote that splendid work on Horsemanship which adorns most of our finest libraries, and by which the name of the Marquis of Newcastle will ever be remembered.
At the Restoration they returned to England, when he received a dukedom, but he resolved to have no more to do with public life, and retired to the shade of the few ancestral trees his enemies’ axes had spared him. The Duke’s remaining years were spent in the society of his beloved wife and valued friends, and in the pursuit of his favourite occupations. He died at an advanced age, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, where stands a monument to him, on which are represented the forms of William, Duke of Newcastle, the ‘loyall Duke,’ and his wife, side by side. He was brave and accomplished, loved riding, dancing, singing, and was so devoted to poetry, that he was said to have made Sir William Davenant his Lieutenant-General of Ordnance, more on account of his proficiency as a poet, than for any knowledge of military affairs. ‘His courage,’ says Sir Philip Warwick, ‘was invincible, but his edge had too much of the razor in it.’ He was a strong upholder of monarchy and the Church, though not very nice as to points of creed. We have no room for one hundredth part of the eulogiums pronounced on him by his Duchess, but of his exterior she tells us that ‘his shape was exactly proportioned, his stature of a middle size, his complexion sanguine, his behaviour a pattern to all gentlemen, courtly, civil, and fine, without formality,’ and so forth; while another account of him was, ‘a fantastic general and a virtuoso on horseback!’ From the heading of one of the chapters in his book, it is evident he was very proud of his proficiency as an equestrian, for he says, ‘Some, seeing, imitate, and imagine they ride as well as I do.’
His first wife was Margaret Basset of Blore, county Stafford, relict of Henry Howard, son to the Earl of Suffolk, by whom he had a very large family, and of whom her successor records that ‘she was a kind, virtuous, and loving lady, who blessed her husband with dutiful and obedient children, who did all in their power to relieve and support their father in his banishment.’
Margaret Lucas, Newcastle’s second wife, is better known to fame. Her epitaph says ‘she was youngest sister to Lord Lucas of Colchester, a noble familie, for all the brothers were valiant, and all the sisters virtuous. This Duches was a wise, wittie, and learned lady, which her manie books doe testifie. She was a most loving, virtuous, and careful wife, and was with her lord all the time of his banishment and miseries, and when he came home, never parted from him in his solitary retirement.’ She was a voluminous writer in a quaint and high-flown style, and a great favourite of Charles Lamb’s, whose mention of her in Elia causes her perhaps to be better known than her own literary merits may lay claim to. Elia says, ‘where a book is good and rare, such a book, for instance, as the life of the Duke of Newcastle, by his Duchess, no casket is sufficiently durable to honour and keep safe such a jewel.’
In 1643, the year in which Lord Newcastle lost his first wife, Margaret Lucas went to the Court of Henrietta Maria, where, she tells us, her gravity, reticent, and virtuous timidity, which ill assorted with the courtly manners of the period, caused her to be regarded as a simpleton. She did not relish the life, but remained on, by her mother’s wish; and when the Queen fled to France, Margaret Lucas accompanied her.
In 1645, Newcastle, being in Paris, saw, and loved the Maid of Honour, who became his wife. The union was most happy. ‘They loved each other truly, and had many pursuits and tastes in common, notwithstanding which a story is told that the Duke, being once complimented on the talent of his wife, replied, ‘Sir, a wise woman is a very foolish thing.’