The report of all this magnificence must have made Newcastle’s creditors feel a little anxious.
Shortly afterwards, with the help of the remainder of his brother Charles’s estate, Newcastle “sprinkled something amongst his Creditors, and borrowed so much of Mr. Top and Mr. Smith (though without assurance) that he could pay such scores as were most pressing, contracted from the poorer sort of Tradesmen, and send ready mony to Market, to avoid cozenage (for small scores run up most unreasonably, especially if no strict accounts be kept, and the rate be left to the Creditors pleasure) by which means there was in a short time so much saved, as it could not have been imagined”.
Thus, by borrowing from new creditors to pay old ones, the Newcastles contrived to live in luxury for a good many years; in short until the Restoration.
Newcastle’s correspondence with Nicholas, among the Egerton Manuscripts in the British Museum, reveals his alternate hopes and fears as to the probability of that event. It is amusing to find a General, who rightly or wrongly fled from his country, cavilling at others for doing the same thing. In January, 1659, he wrote from Antwerp to Nicholas: “There are many noblemen, or at least lords, that are comed over to Paris, it is true, but those lords that can take such sudden apprehensions of fears so far off, I doubt will hardly have the courage to help our gracious Master to his throne—woful people—and the next generation of lords they tell me are fools. It will be a brave Upper House!”[142]
[142] Firth’s Newcastle, p. 358.
CHAPTER XVII.
At last the long-looked-for Restoration actually took place, and Newcastle determined to sail for England, which he could then do in perfect safety, as he would now be a loyal subject in that country instead of a traitor specially excepted from any possibility of pardon.