With the King at Oxford: A Tale of the Great Rebellion, Page 2

  CHAPTER I.

  OF MY BIRTH AND BRINGING-UP.

  My father was the son of a gentleman of Oxfordshire that had a smallestate near to the town of Eynsham, in that county. The monks ofEynsham Priory had the land afore-time; and 'twas said that here, aselsewhere, there was a curse upon such as held for their own uses thatwhich had been dedicated to God's service. How this may be I know not,though there are notable instances--as, to wit, the Russells--in whichno visible curse has fallen on the holders of such goods; but it iscertain that my father's forbears wasted their estate grievously.Being but the third son, he had scarce, in any case, tarried at home;but, matters being as they were, the emptiness of the family pursedrove him out betimes into the world. Being of good birth and breedinghe got, without much ado, a place about the Court, which was not,however, much to his liking. I have heard him say--and this, though,as will be seen hereafter, he was a great lover of monarchy--that,between a weak king and villainous courtiers, Whitehall was no placefor an honest gentleman. Robert Carr, that was afterwards Earl ofSomerset, he liked little, and George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, heliked yet less, being, as he was wont to say, by so much a greatervillain than Somerset as a duke is greater than an earl. He was rightglad, therefore, to leave the "sunshine of the Royal presence;" for sodid men speak of the Court in the hyperbolical language of thosetimes, even for so dismal and outlandish a part as Ireland. But I knownot whether he did not wish himself back, for of Ireland he wouldnever afterwards speak with any measure of patience, declaring that heknew not which were the worse, the greediness and cruelty of theEnglish conquerors, or the savagery and unreason of the native people.Here he tarried for some three or four years, having, indeed, hadbestowed upon him an estate, which, for its boundaries, at least, wasof considerable magnitude, but from which he received nothing buttrouble. Who hath it now I know not; and, indeed, he charged me tohave nought to do with it, saying--for I remember his very words--"Ifthey will give thee the whole island in fee, say them nay, for it isfit for nothing but to be drowned under the sea." Yet his next venturewas not one whit happier, as will be readily concluded, when I saythat he took service with Sir Walter Raleigh, whom he chanced to fallin with at Cork, at which place Sir Walter touched on his way to theIndies in search of gold. Gold got they none, but of hard blows not afew, and of pains and sickness still more. My father was with theboats that sailed up the river Orinoco, and caught in his arms, I haveheard him say, Walter Raleigh the younger, when this last was slain bya bullet from a Spanish arquebuse. From this voyage he came backbeggared in and purse not a little broken in health; to the end of hisdays indeed he suffered much at times from the fever that hecontracted in those parts. The year following that wherein Raleigh wasbeheaded, came what seemed at the first sight good news, namely, thatthe Bohemians had bestowed the crown of their country upon the Electorof Bavaria, husband to the Princess Elizabeth, the king's daughter.Thereupon there arose such a tumult of joy throughout the country asthe oldest man living scarce remembered to have heard before. Therewas nothing too good to be hoped for as about to come from thispromotion. Indeed, I have heard my father say that he was himselfpresent when the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Abbott) preached asermon wherein he declared that this event was foretold in Scripture,naming even the chapter and verse, which were, if I remember right, inthe Book of the Revelation. My father was carried away with the rest,and having, as may well be thought, a special gift for choosing forhis own that which should be the losing side, forthwith took servicewith the Elector, to whom King James, though scarce approving of thecause, sent at this time auxiliaries to the number of four thousand.In this army my father had a captain's commission, with pay to theamount of four shillings by the day--handsome wages, only that henever received of them so much as a doit. Nor did the campaignrecompense the defect of gains by any excess of glory. It was, indeed,as barren of laurels as of gold; and my father, who, being favourablyknown of old time by the Princess, was appointed to command the guardof the Elector, arrived in his Highness's company at the Hague withouta penny in his pocket, and scarce a coat to his back.

  But now behold a turn of Fortune's wheel. While he lingered inHolland, not from choice, indeed, but from compulsion, seeing that hedid not possess the wherewithal to pay his passage to England, camenews of an inheritance that had fallen to him, being nothing less--or,may be, I should rather say, considering its poverty, nothingmore--than the family estate. This fell to my father by the death ofhis two elder brothers, who both expired of a fever on the same day.And this day, so strangely do things fall together in this world, wasthe very same as that on which all his worldly hopes seemed to havebeen overset, that is, the 8th of November, in the year 1620, when theElector Palatine was utterly defeated by the Duke of Bohemia. Myfather then, coming, as I have said, to Holland, this same winter withthe Elector, there heard of his inheritance, not, indeed, without somenatural regret for the cause that had brought it to him, yet, becausehis brothers were older by far, and akin by half-blood only, andstranger's by long interruption of acquaintance, not sorrowfulovermuch.

  The said inheritance was, as may be gathered from what has beenwritten above, a mighty poor thing, being, after all debts andencumbrances were paid, but of sixty pounds value by the year at themost. Nevertheless, for a poor, battered soldier that had no way toearn his bread, 'twas by no means to be despised. Veterans that havepassed through the wars--if my father, that was but just thirty yearsof age, may be so called--do commonly love the quietude of a countryretreat (and it was thus that Augustus Caesar and others did rewardtheir legions); and my father affected this manner of life as readilyas did ever old soldier in the world, and, being a man of usefulparts, he turned his sword into a ploughshare with good result, andthis not only of profit of money, but of health also. Being thus setup, both in body and estate, he took courage to ask in marriage amaiden of those parts, Cicely Harland by name. She was the daughter ofa gentleman that had a like estate with my father, only it was withoutencumbrance, so that Mistress Cicely was not ill-provided with aportion. My father, whose name--for this I have not yet mentioned--wasPhilip Dashwood, married Mistress Cicely Harland in the month ofSeptember, 1623. Of this marriage were born two children; first, mysister Dorothy, in August, 1624, and secondly myself, a Philip also,who came into this troublesome world on Christmas Day, 1625, having asmy birthright, as the gossips say, the gift of seeing spirits, thoughthis I have never yet, to my knowledge, enjoyed. My first teaching,save the very rudiments which my dear mother did impart to me, wasfrom Master William Hearnden, parson of the parish, to which, indeed,he had been presented by my father in the vacancy before described.They had been close friends in that luckless campaigning in Bohemia,where Master Hearnden was chaplain to the English regiment--ay, and onoccasion also, I have heard say, captain also; for he was, as thecountry folk say, "a man of his hands." Not the less was he a virtuousand godly clerk, and a sound scholar also, and with a rare gift whichscholars, be they ever so sound, have not always--of teaching thatwhich he knew.

  On January the 6th, 1633, being then twelve days past my eighthbirthday, I was entered of the Merchant Taylors' School, at LaurencePountney, in the City of London, by the presentation of WilliamHarford, kinsman to my mother, that was one of the Court of the saidCompany. Mr. Edwards was then master of the school, and remained soduring the time of my continuance there.

  At the first I lodged in the house of Master William Rushworth, thatwas a merchant of timber, and dwelt in the Strand, of whom and ofwhose house more hereafter.

  Within a few weeks of my coming I saw what my elders told me was thefinest spectacle that had been seen in London within the memory ofman, that is, a mighty grand masquerade, with which the gentlemen ofthe four Inns of Court entertained their Majesties King Charles, andHenrietta of France, his Queen. I was yet too much of a child to haveany clear understanding of what I saw, though the number of men andhorses, the splendour of scarlet and purple, of gold and silver, andall the magnificence of the show made a notab
le mark on my mind. But Iheard much talk about it in after times; and, indeed, till the latetroubles came upon the country, there was nothing of which there wasmore frequent mention than of this same masquerade. Thus it came topass that, filling up what I observed at the time with that which Iheard afterwards, I came to have such a notion of the matter as mighthave been conceived by one much older than I then was. If, therefore,I may join together what was afterwards told to me with what Iremember of myself, this masquerade was shown on Candlemas Day, whichis the second day of February, the procession starting from ChanceryLane when it was now dusk. First came twenty footmen in scarletliveries, with silver lace, each carrying a torch. These were theMarshal's men that cleared the way, and with them came the Marshalhimself, an extraordinary proper handsome gentleman, riding one of theKing's horses, with two lackeys, each carrying a torch, and a pagethat bare his cloak. After these came a hundred gentlemen, five andtwenty from each Inn of Court, riding on horses, the finest that couldbe found in London, and apparelled as bravely as men could be. Afterthese again came what was styled the antimasque, cripples and beggarson horseback, mounted on the poorest, leanest jades that could begotten out of the dirt-carts and elsewhere. These had their propermusic of keys and tongs, making the queerest noise that can beimagined, but yet with a sort of concert. Then followed anotherantimasque, this time of birds. The first portion was men onhorseback, playing on pipes and whistles, and other instruments bywhich the notes of birds may be imitated; the second was the birdsthemselves, among which I specially noted an owl in an ivy bush. Whatthese creatures were I knew not at the time, but learnt afterwardsthat they were little boys put into covers of the shapes of the birds.After these came that which pleased the people mightily, and at whichI laughed heartily myself, though not knowing why: this was a satireon the projectors and monopolisers from whom the realm had longsuffered. First there was a man riding on a very mean steed that had agreat bit in his mouth; and on the man's head was a bit, with reinsand headstall fastened to it, and a petition written for a patent thatno one in the kingdom should ride their horses save with such bits asthey might buy of him. Second to him was another with a bunch ofcarrots on his head and a capon in his fist, and he had a petitionalso for a patent, that none should fatten capons save with carrotsand by his licence. Behind these came other horsemen, and last of allfour chariots, one for each Inn of Court, these being the mostsplendid of all. The King and Queen were so mightily pleased with thispageant that they desired to see it again. Thereupon the Lord Mayorinvited their Majesties to a banquet in the Merchant Taylors' Hall,and the same masque was there again performed, the procession havinggone eastward this time. And we scholars of the school were privilegedto see it from a gallery that was set apart for us.