At Antwerp Newcastle’s chief amusement was riding the two horses which he had bought for £160 and £100, until they both, unfortunately, suffered premature death. This is remarkable; for tittupping round a riding-school was a gentle form of exercise more likely to lengthen than to shorten a horse’s existence. Being desperately hard up, it might naturally be expected that he would give up riding and economise. Not a bit of it! On the contrary, finding himself horseless, “though he wanted present means to repair these his losses, yet he endeavoured and obtained so much Credit at last that he was able to buy two others, and by degrees so many as amounted in all to the number of 8. In which he took so much delight and pleasure, that though he was then in distress for Money, yet he would sooner have tried all other ways, then parted with any of them; for I have hear’d him say, that good Horses are so rare, as not to be valued for Money.” He had excellent offers for two of these horses; but, poor as he was, nothing would induce him to sell either of them.
So difficult did Newcastle find it to keep eight horses and himself, to say nothing of his wife, with scarcely any money in hand, and a rapidly diminishing credit, that it became necessary, not to reduce his stud, but to send his wife to England to try to raise the wind. He could spare her, but not his horses. With Lady Newcastle went Newcastle’s brother, Sir Charles Cavendish, whose property, which had been sequestered since he left England, was to be sold outright if he did not quickly compound for it.
Lady Newcastle and Sir Charles had so little money for their journey that they were obliged to stay at Southwark, until Sir Charles had pawned his watch to pay for their night’s lodging and for the very short remainder of their journey into London, where they found lodgings in Covent Garden. The Duchess’s book relates what followed.
“Having rested our selves some time, I desired my Brother the Lord Lucas, to claim, in my behalf, some subsistence for my self out of my Lords Estate (for it was declared by the Parliament, That the Lands of those that were banished, should be sold to any that would buy them, onely their Wives and Children were allowed to put in their Claims:) But he received this Answer, That I could not expect the least allowance, by reason my Lord and Husband had been the greatest Traitor of England (that is to say, the honestest man, because he had been most against them).”
Newcastle had felt some compunction about compounding with traitors to his King. Henrietta Maria very kindly wrote to him, saying that she had heard of his scruples from Lord Jermyn, adding: “I am sufficiently assured of your affection and fidelity to tell you, that I think the king cannot be displeased that you should do what the late king his father”—it was after the death of Charles I—“permited those to do who had served him, when he was not in a condition to assist them.... And I cannot forbear pitying you, knowing well your repugnance to treat with these abominable villains.”
The Duchess continues:—
“Then Sir Charles intrusted some persons to compound for his Estate; but it being a good while before they agreed in their Composition, and then before the Rents could be received, we having in the mean time nothing to live on, must of necessity have been starved, had not Sir Charles got some Credit of several Persons, and that not without great difficulty; for all those that had Estates, were afraid to come near him, much less to assist him, until he was sure of his own Estate. So much is Misery and Poverty shun’d!” No novel discovery.
“But though our Condition was hard, yet my dear Lord and Husband, whom we left in Antwerp, was then in a far greater distress than our selves.”
In fact his creditors had become very “impatient”—who can wonder?—and he wrote to his wife that, unless some money were sent to him immediately, he would starve. With very great difficulty Sir Charles Cavendish raised £200, which he sent out at once to his brother. We need not enter into the details of Sir Charles’s compounding for his estates, or of his saving Welbeck and Bolsover for Newcastle.