[52] Hist., vol. II, part II. book viii.
We come next to a general of a very different character, the general in command of Newcastle’s artillery. It might be expected that a general would be chosen to command artillery on account of his knowledge of guns and their management; but Sir Philip Warwick says that Newcastle chose Davenant as his General of Artillery because he was a poet.
Aubrey has something to tell us about this warbling warrior. He says[53] that Shakespeare stayed “once a yeare” at the public-house kept by Davenant’s father and mother, and the old scandal-monger adds that, “when he was pleasant over a glasse of wine with his most intimate friends,—e.g., Sam Butler (author of Hudibras) etc.”—Davenant would say that he considered he wrote with the very spirit of Shakespeare “and seemed contented enough to be thought his son”. He was very intimate with Newcastle’s friend, Sir John Suckling; and, long after the time with which we are dealing in this chapter, he became Poet Laureate.
[53] Lives of Eminent Men.
Like Goring, Davenant to some extent obtained his appointment by the help of the Queen; for when she sent[54] “over a considerable quantity of military stores, for the use of the Earl of Newcastle’s army, Mr. Davenant came over with them, offered his services to that noble Peer, who was his old friend and patron, and was by him made Lieutenant-General of his Ordnance, to the no small dislike of some, who thought that a post very unfit for a poet; in which, however, they made no great compliment to their General” (Newcastle) “who wrote poems and plays as well as Mr. Davenant”.
[54] Biog. Brit., p. 1605.
To make his staff complete, Newcastle appointed, “The Revd. Mr. Hudson,” a “very able Divine,” “Scout Master General of the army,” as we learn from the same authority.
We find the army of the North, therefore, under a Commander-in-Chief who was utterly inexperienced, a General of infantry who had[55] “the unavoidable prejudice, in this conjuncture, of being a Scots-man,” a drunkard for General of cavalry, a poet for General of Artillery, and a very able divine for “Scout Master-General”. What could be expected of a campaign in which, at any critical moment, the Commander-in-Chief might have “retired to his softer pleasures” and refused to see anybody, while one of his Generals might be getting drunk, another, not exactly drunk, but “pleasant with a glass of wine,” reciting his poems or boasting of his illegitimate birth, and a third writing a sermon?
[55] Clarendon.
During the winter Newcastle was not idle. The Duchess says: “And though the season of the year might well have invited my Lord to take up his Winter-quarters, it being about Christmas; yet after he had put a good Garison into the City of York, and fortified it, upon intelligence that the Enemy was still at Tadcaster,” a town about eight miles south-west of York, “and had fortified that place, he resolved to march thither”.