The Earl of Bristol has delivered his opinion; and, my turn being next to speak, I shall, with the like integrity, give your Lordships an account of my sentiments in this great and important business. I shall not, as young students do in the schools, argumentandi gratia, repugn my Lord of Bristol’s tenets; but because my conscience tells me they are not orthodox, nor consonant to the disposition of the Commonwealth, which, languishing with a tedious sickness, must be recovered by gentle and easy medicines in consideration of its weakness rather than by violent vomits, or any other kind of compelling physic. Not that I shall absolutely labour to refute my Lord’s opinion, but justly deliver my own, which, being contrary to his, may appear an express contradiction of it, which indeed it is not; peace, and that a sudden one, being as necessary betwixt his Majesty and his Parliament as light is requisite for the production of the day, or heat to cherish from above all inferior bodies; this division betwixt his Majesty and his Parliament being as if [by miracle] the sun should be separated from his beams, and divided from his proper essence. I would not, my Lords, be ready to embrace a peace that would be more disadvantageous to us than the present war, which, as the Earl of Bristol says, “would destroy our estates and families.” The Parliament declares only against delinquents; such as they conjecture have miscounselled his Majesty, and be the authors of these tumults in the Commonwealth. But these declarations of theirs, except such crimes can be proved against them, are of no validity. The Parliament will do nothing unjustly, nor condemn the innocent; and certainly innocent men had not need to fear to appear before any judges whatsoever. And he, who shall for any cause prefer his own private good before the public utility, is but an ill son of the Commonwealth. For my particular, in these wars I have suffered as much as any; my house hath been searched, my arms taken thence, and my son-and-heir committed to prison. Yet I shall wave these discourtesies, because I know there was a necessity it should be so; and as the darling business of the kingdom, the honour and prosperity of the King, study to reconcile all these differences betwixt his Majesty and his Parliament; and so to reconcile them, that they shall no way prejudice his royal prerogative; of which I believe the Parliament being a loyal defender [knowing the subject’s property depends on it; for, if sovereigns cannot enjoy their rights, their subjects cannot] will never endeavour to be infringed; so that, if doubts and jealousies were taken away by a fair treaty between his Majesty and the Parliament, no doubt a means might be devised to rectify these differences—the honour of the King, the estate of us his followers and counsellors, the privileges of Parliament, and property of the subject, be infallibly preserved in safety: and neither the King stoop in this to his subjects, nor the subjects be deprived of their just liberties by the King. And whereas my Lord of Bristol observes, “that in Spain very few civil dissensions arise, because the subjects are truly subjects, and the Sovereign truly a Sovereign”; that is, as I understand, the subjects are scarcely removed a degree from slaves, nor the Sovereign from a tyrant; here in England the subjects have, by long-received liberties granted to our ancestors by their Kings, made their freedom resolve into a second nature; and neither is it safe for our Kings to strive to introduce the Spanish Government upon these free-born nations, nor just for the people to suffer that Government to be imposed upon them, which I am certain his Majesty’s goodness never intended. And whereas my Lord of Bristol intimates the strength and bravery of our army as an inducement to the continuation of these wars, which he promises himself will produce a fair and happy peace; in this I am utterly repugnant to his opinion; for, grant that we have an army of gallant and able men, which, indeed, cannot be denied, yet we have infinite disadvantages on our side, the Parliament having double our number, and surely [though our enemies] persons of as much bravery, nay, and sure to be daily supported, when any of their number fails; a benefit which we cannot bestow, they having the most populous part of the kingdom at their devotion; all, or most, of the cities, considerable towns and ports, together with the mainest pillar of the kingdom’s safety, the sea, at their command, and the navy; and, which is most material of all, an inexhaustible Indies of money to pay their soldiers, out of the liberal contributions of coin and plate sent in by people of all conditions, who account the Parliament’s cause their cause, and so think themselves engaged to part with the uttermost penny of their estates in their defence, whom they esteem the patriots of their liberties. These strengths of theirs and the defects of ours considered, I conclude it necessary for all our safeties, and the good of the whole Commonwealth, to beseech his Majesty to take some present order for a treaty of peace betwixt himself and his high court of Parliament, who, I believe, are so loyal and obedient to his sacred Majesty, that they will propound nothing that shall be prejudicial to his royal prerogative, or repugnant to their fidelity and duty.
It is, of course, not at all to my purpose to follow the course of the Civil War, but only to say that after the execution of the King Lord Dorset made a vow, which he is believed to have kept, that he would never again stir out of his house until he should be carried out of it in his coffin. He did not, in point of fact, survive the King by very many years, but died in 1652 and was buried at Withyham.
CHAPTER VI
Knole in the Reign of Charles II
CHARLES
6th
Earl of Dorset
§ i
Edward Sackville was succeeded by his son Richard, married to Lady Frances Cranfield, a considerable heiress, who, on the death of her brother, inherited the fortune and property of their father, Lionel Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex, sometime Treasurer to James I. I mention this marriage especially, because it brought to the Sackvilles the house called Copt Hall in Essex and its contents, which included much of the finest furniture now at Knole, some of the tapestry, the many portraits of the Cranfields by Mytens and Dobson, the series of historical portraits in the Brown Gallery, and the Mytens copies of Raphael’s cartoons. There are a number of receipts at Knole to no less than six different carriers, for wagon-loads of effects removed from Copt Hall to Knole at the cost of £2. 5s. per load. From Copt Hall also came the carved stone shield now in the Stone Court on the roof of the Great Hall. The Copt Hall estate was sold in 1701 for the approximate sum of twenty thousand pounds. The draft of the marriage settlement is at Knole:
January 25th, 1640
The Earl of Middlesex is to assure ten thousand pounds to the Earl of Dorset in marriage with the Lady Frances Cranfield to the Lord Buckhurst to be paid in times and manner following:
He is to retain the money in his hands, paying yearly to the young couple towards their maintenance by equal portions at Michaelmas and our Lady Day £800 per annum until a jointure be made of £1500 per annum, by the Lord Buckhurst joining with the Earl of Dorset when he shall come to full age.
And if the Lord Buckhurst [which God forbid] shall decease before the said lady, or a jointure so made, then the ten thousand pound shall be the sole use of the said lady. But if the said lady [which God forbid] should die before the Lord Buckhurst without children, the said portion or so much shall remain not laid out by consent of the Earl of Dorset in purchasing in lands or leases, shall be paid to the said Earl of Dorset.
And in the same connection there are some notes from Edward, Lord Dorset to Lord Middlesex, one written “this Thursday morning at 5 of the clock,” apologising for the “bad character” which Lord Middlesex must decipher—and indeed the writing is all but illegible—but he is obliged to write as he must go presently into Kent to dispose some bargains and sales.