.... pious, temperate, and grave,
Just, gentle, constant, merciful, brave.
All this, and more, he was not pleased to be,
Without the woman’s virtue, Chastity,
most unlike Solomon, who was wise, yet
.... did incline
To worship idols, for a concubine.
Lord Dorset himself took an active part in the fighting. At Edgehill he recaptured the Royal Standard which had been lost to the enemy, and to his answer during the same battle James II later testified:
The old Earl of Dorset, at Edgehill [he wrote], being commanded by the King my father to carry the Prince [Charles II] and myself up a hill out of the battle, refused to do it, and said he would not be thought a coward for ever a King’s son in Christendom.
I think also that one of his speeches is worth printing, made at the Council table in reply to one of Lord Bristol’s which urged the continuance of the war. It is honest, enlightened, bold, and, considering his personal grievances, very dignified: