Clarendon continues: “But the substantial part, and fatigue of a General, he did not in any degree understand (being utterly unacquainted with war), nor could submit to; but referred all matters of that nature to the discretion of his Lieutenant-General King”. Clarendon then says that when there was a battle he was always present, if it was possible, and that, on such occasions, he “gave instances of an invincible courage and fearlessness in danger, in which the exposing himself notoriously did sometimes change the fortunes of the day, when his troops (had) begun to give way”. But “such actions were no sooner over than he retired to his delightful company, music, or his softer pleasures, to all of which he was so indulgent, and to his ease, that he would not be interrupted upon any occasion soever; insomuch as he sometimes denied admission to the chiefest officers of the army, even to General King himself, for two days together; from whence many inconveniences fell out”. As indeed may easily be imagined.
Sir Philip Warwick supports this evidence. He says that Newcastle’s “edge had too much razor in it; for he had a tincture of a romantic spirit, and had the misfortune to have somewhat of the poet in him.... This inclination of his own and such kind of witty society (to be modest in the expression of it) diverted many counsels, and lost many opportunities, which the nature of that affair”—the campaign in the North—“this great man had now entered into, required.”
CHAPTER VII.
Having said something of the Commander-in-Chief, it may be well to notice his principal officers. King, the Lieutenant-General, whom he placed over his infantry, was a soldier of considerable experience. Clarendon says that he “had exercised the highest commands under the King of Sweden with extraordinary ability and success”. We saw in the last chapter that Newcastle left a great deal to the discretion of King, and, considering our hero’s total inexperience of war, it was probably well that he did so. Some readers of these pages may feel inclined to add: Then probably, also, any merits that were earned by Newcastle’s army were due to King and not to Newcastle. This may, or may not, have been the case; but, if they were due to King, he did not get the credit for them. In fact, the result was the other way about. As everybody knows, Newcastle finally met with disaster, “when,” says Clarendon, “those who were content to spare” Newcastle blame, poured upon the head of the unfortunate General King bitter accusations of “infidelity, treason and conjunction with his country-men” (the Scots), “without the least foundation or ground for any such reproach”. “Throughout the whole course of his life,” he had “been generally reputed as a man of honour”. Elsewhere Clarendon says that, under Newcastle, King “ordered the Foot with great wisdom and dexterity”.
We will notice next the general in command of Newcastle’s cavalry, General Goring, who had obtained that appointment chiefly through the influence of the Queen. When he took it up, he was bitterly chagrined at not having been made Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the North, instead of Newcastle. Goring also owed Newcastle a grudge over the Governorship of the Prince of Wales. Goring had set his hopes upon that appointment, and, as we have seen, Newcastle got it.
Of General Goring, Bulstrode says:[51] “If his conscience and integrity had equalled his wit and courage, he had been one of the most eminent men of the age he lived in: but he could not resist temptations, and was a man without scruple, and loved no man so well, but he would cozen him, and afterwards laugh at him, as he did at the Lord Kimbolton; and of all his qualifications (which were many) dissimulation was his master-piece, in which he so much excelled, with his great dexterity, seeming modesty and unaffectedness, etc.”
[51] Memoirs and Reflections upon the Reign and Government of Charles I, by Sir Richard Bulstrode, President at Brussels to the Court of Spain from Charles II, p. 71.
Clarendon says[52] that he was a hard drinker, and that “he was not able to resist the temptation, when he was in the middle of” the enemy, “nor would decline it to obtain a victory: as, in one of those fits, he had suffered the horse to escape out of Cornwall; and the most signal misfortunes of his life in war had their rise from that uncontrollable license”. Goring “in truth, wanted nothing but industry (for he had wit, and courage, and understanding, and ambition uncontrolled by any fear of God or man) to have been as eminent and successful in the highest attempt of wickedness, as any man in the age he lived in, or before”.