29.
Clarendon, MS. History, Transcript, vol. iv, pp. 440-2; History, Bk.
VIII, ed. 1703, vol. ii, pp. 391-3; ed. Macray, vol. iii, pp. 380-3.
The original manuscript of much of Book VIII is lost. The text is taken from the transcript that was made for the printers.
This is the portrait of a great English nobleman whose tastes lay in music and poetry and the arts of peace, but was forced by circumstances into the leadership of the Royalist army in the North. He showed little military talent, though he was far from devoid of personal courage; and he escaped from the conflict, weary and despondent, when other men were content to carry on the unequal struggle. He modelled himself on the heroes of Romance. The part he tried to play could not be adjusted to the rude events of the civil war.
His romantic cast of mind is shown in his challenge to Lord Fairfax to follow 'the Examples of our Heroick Ancestors, who used not to spend their time in scratching one another out of holes, but in pitched Fields determined their Doubts'. Fairfax replied by expressing his readiness to fight but refusing to follow 'the Rules of Amadis de Gaule, or the Knight of the Sun, which the language of the Declaration seems to affect in appointing pitch'd battles' (Rushworth, Historical Collections, third part, vol. ii, 1692, pp. 138, 141).
Warwick's short character of Newcastle resembles Clarendon's: 'He was a Gentleman of grandeur, generosity, loyalty, and steddy and forward courage; but his edge had too much of the razor in it: for he had a tincture of a Romantick spirit, and had the misfortune to have somewhat of the Poet in him; so as he chose Sir William Davenant, an eminent good Poet, and loyall Gentleman, to be Lieutenant-Generall of his Ordnance. This inclination of his own and such kind of witty society (to be modest in the expressions of it) diverted many counsels, and lost many opportunities; which the nature of that affair, this great man had now entred into, required' (Mémoires, pp. 235-6).
His life by the Duchess of Newcastle—the 'somewhat fantastical, and original-brain'd, generous Margaret Newcastle', as Charles Lamb calls her—was published in 1667. The edition by C.H. Firth, 1886, contains copious historical notes, and an introduction which points out Newcastle's place as a patron and author.
Page 116, ll. 15-22. Newcastle had been besieged at York. He was relieved by Prince Rupert, who, against Newcastle's advice, forced on the disastrous battle of Marston Moor (July 2, 1644) without waiting for reinforcements. In this battle Newcastle was not in command but fought at the head of a company of volunteers. The next day he embarked at Scarborough for the continent, where he remained till the Restoration.
l. 24. He published two books on horsemanship—La Méthode et Invention Nouvelle de Dresser les Chevaux, written originally in English, but printed in French at Antwerp in 1658, and A New Method and Extraordinary Invention to Dress Horses, 1667. The former was dedicated to Prince Charles, whom, as Governor, he had taught to ride. On his reputation as a horseman, see C.H. Firth, op. cit., pp. xx-xxii.
Page 117, l. 20. He was Governor of the Prince from 1638 to 1641: cf. note on p. 115, l. 5.