Monsieur Emile Montégut, in his essay[187] on the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle, has dealt with the question of the Duchess’s religion, at some length; and the following is a very free translation of a part of what he has written on the subject. A certain author has “belauded the great piety of the Duchess; but, after studying all the available evidence on this point, we are inclined to think that her piety must have been but moderate and we feel doubtful as to the nature of her faith and the extent of her religious fervour. This much is certain, that she was not devout enough for a Catholic or interior enough for a Protestant.... When she writes of religion, she is dignified, but dry, without the least affection in her language or humility in her mind. She shows no liking for any particular ceremony, or pious rite or practice; nor does she seem to attach any importance to things connected with exterior worship; although she belonged to that Anglican Church in which controversies over such matters have always occupied so important a place. She had some disposition towards mysticism; but prayer, the most natural of all religious actions, was almost distasteful to her. She liked prayers to be short and few, and anything like repetitions in devotion she considered irreverent if not impious; but it should be remembered that, in those times, the Puritans made prayers of prodigious length, far longer than any made by Catholics.” Her “cool calculation of the relative values of prayer and good works at any rate exhibits considerable originality and piquancy”.
[187] Le Maréchal Davout—Le Duc et la Duchesse de Newcastle, 1895, p. 335.
Be all this as it may, she attained that Highest Heaven of British ambition, a grave and a monument in Westminster Abbey, and who can doubt that one who was so very much a Duchess has gone where Duchesses go?
Certainly the readers, and as certainly the compiler, of this book must be deeply conscious that it is now high time to let fall the curtain. And we will let it fall without fatal illnesses or deathbed scenes. That people who lived considerably more than two hundred years ago are dead by this time may be taken for granted; and it should be enough to say that the Duchess of Newcastle was buried in Westminster Abbey on 17 January, 1673; and that the Duke was laid beside her on 22 January, 1677.
MONUMENT OF THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY
The scribe who has collected and copied out the evidence concerning this illustrious pair, while deeply conscious of the many faults in his work, is not aware that excessive flattery of his subjects is one of them. The characters of both the Duke and the Duchess were certainly open to criticism, perhaps also to ridicule. Yet much may be said in favour of each.
Newcastle was a dignified, cultivated, and courageous English gentleman. He was a most loyal subject; he cheerfully bore greater financial losses, for the sake of his King, than perhaps any other cavalier; and he fought bravely in the civil war. He excelled in horsemanship and he was a fine swordsman. Although not a scholar, he wrote a standard work; and he was an appreciative and critical patron of art, science, and literature. If only a very minor poet, he could write verses of considerable spirit; if not a great playwright, he could write plays which succeeded.
No sensible reader would take Shadwell’s dedication of “The Libertine” to Newcastle as pure gospel; but there may be a few grains of truth in it. He says: “By the great honour I had to be daily admitted into your Grace’s private and public conversation, I observed that admirable experience and judgment surmounting all the old, and that vigorousness of wit and smartness of expression, exceeding all the young, I ever saw, and not only in sharp and apt replies, but, which is much more difficult, by giving easy and unforced occasions, the most admirable way of beginning one, and all this adapted to men of all circumstances and conditions”.