“Very true,” said she, “but what of the white peaches?”
“A basket of little peaches came to me without plea or condition attached to them,” I replied, “and had I known that they were intended for a bribe, I should never have eaten of them.”
“Well,” said she, “I trust you are not simpleton enough, Mistress, to believe that in these days peaches are given away for nothing?”
“No,” said I, “I am not; but I fear I can give your Ladyship no better reward for them than my thanks and sincere praise for their excellence. I had not eaten a peach since the second year of the war, and then one only, for the soldiers of Sir Timothy’s own regiment stole the rest.”
My mother was continually urging me to speak to my husband about the unjust seizure of our household goods at Forest Hill, and of the bestowal by Parliament upon the citizens of Banbury of timber which was not in its gift. She herself would not speak to my husband, because her soul loathed the books that he wrote; but she instructed me in my duty as his wife and her daughter, which was to see justice done. I therefore did speak to him, but he answered that what he would not do for one person he would not do for another. Then, though I told him that it would plainly be to his own benefit (for he still harped upon that one string of my unpaid marriage portion) to put my mother in the way of recovering what was by Law due to her, all he would answer was: “Wife, I am deaf of that ear.”
The most persistent of pleaders was Mrs. Royston, wife to Mr. Royston the printer who was put into Newgate Jail for the publishing of books against the Government; for there was now a very severe Act against the printing of seditious or treasonable pamphlets, books or diurnals. Even a person who bought such a book or paper was liable to a fine of 20s., and all ballad-singers and hawkers of books and papers, whatsoever, were forbidden to ply their trade. This Mrs. Royston continually beset our lodgings and followed my husband every morning to his work, were the weather never so foul or rose he never so early; and every night she waited outside the Palace gate, against his return; but made no plea of him, only saying each time, with a curtsey, “I am Mr. Royston’s wife; you remember the unfortunate Mr. Royston.” At last her importunity conquered him and one day he spoke to the Lord President and Mr. Royston was released from Newgate upon an assurance of good behaviour.
It was while we were in these lodgings that my husband got me with child for a third time; but now he had neither leisure nor inclination to supervise my diet or order the conditions of my life, but left it to Nature, and prayed to God to give him a boy.
It was here too that I first noticed that he was losing the sight of his left eye: for he began to blunder in his gait and by experiment I found that I might make signs to him, or reach him dishes, as I sat on his left side at table, and he would not know what I did. But he said nothing to me on the matter, since with the right he yet had clear enough vision; until one day he told me that our lodgings must assuredly be damp, for the candle had always a misty iris of coloured light about it. I told him that I saw no such iris, and Johnny said the same. Then he confessed that a gross mist had for some time clouded the left part of his left eye, and objects seen only through that eye appeared smaller; and now there was a light mist in his right eye too, and both eyes, when he read before breakfast, ached and refused their office.
We warned him that he must omit some part of his work, if he Wished the mist to be dispelled; but he refused to do any such thing. Nor when I recommended plaintain-water to him as sovereign for weak eyes would he accept of it, but asked humorously of what women’s university was I a Doctor of Physic? He worked the more assiduously, even on Sundays, when he continued with his Methodical Digest of Christian Doctrine; and wholly intermitted his accustomed exercise of afternoon walking. So it was that, eating and drinking voraciously but without any relaxation of mind—for he would now bring pen and ink to table—he was much troubled with the wind, and with binding of the bowels. The gout also had fastened on him—for without exercise the noxious humours continue within the body to poison it, and are not cast out at the pores as sweat—and he grew splenetic and evil-tempered and lost five or six of his teeth, having until then a perfect array of teeth. Yet the work was so much to his liking that he made no complaint and is still a very proper man, with no wrinkles upon his skin, and a fresh complexion and lustrous hair which he combs while he reads. He looks nearer to thirty-four than to forty-four, which is his true age. As for the gout, he said (about this time) that it was a salutary distemper, being a known prophylactic or protection against virulent diseases: a gouty man seldom dies of a sudden fever, and though the gout may kill him in the end, yet he can expect to live long.
As the price of coals and provisions continued high, so other prices rose conformably. Nothing that we used, ate, drank or wore was free from taxes. There was an excise of 1d. a gallon put upon salt, and our cups, spits, washing-bowls, powdering tubs, pots, kettles, hats, stockings, shoes, and all wearing apparel must pay our public debts incurred in the wars. These taxes were imposed by Parliament, and put me in mind of the outcry raised, in the brave old days, because the King had levied ship-money, a trifle by comparison, without consent of Parliament.
It was in these same lodgings that the blow was struck from Ireland that I thought at first had slain me; but I live yet, as this writing proves, though indeed I am not the brisk Marie Powell (or Mary Milton) who wrote such hot and intemperate sentences in the vellum book, which I have again by me. Let this evil news from Ireland close this chapter; then I shall write one more and make an end.
In August of this year 1649 a report reached England that Colonel Sir Edmund Verney, Knight (my Mun) was slain near Dublin, in a sally by the Parliament men of the garrison; but in my soul I knew it for false, though the details of his death and burial were very exact. Then on September 15th, as I was out walking with Trunco, and within sight of Thomson’s, whither I was returning, I cried out suddenly “Oh” and sank to the ground; but little Mary, whom I carried in my arms, escaped hurt. It was as though a sharp knife were driven into my heart.
Trunco called upon some by-standing women for help and together they took me into our lodgings and carried me upstairs and laid me on my bed, where for three days and nights I continued as dead, in a trance. What things I did and saw in that trance are out of natural law and improper to be told here; only let me confess that I spent those three days with Mun, a lifetime of happiness it seemed, so that when I awoke again I would not believe that so short a time had in truth passed.
My husband had been fearful lest I should miscarry, for I was in the fourth month of my account, and so cheat him of the son that he again expected. But I rose sound in mind and body, very hungry, and informed of secrets so great that I warrant my husband would have sold his whole library of books to learn them.
In October he came upstairs one evening and asked: “Were you not once acquainted with Sir Edmund Verney, lately Colonel of a regiment in Ireland?”
“Yes, Husband,” I answered composedly. “Colonel Verney was the only man that ever I wholly loved, or that ever wholly loved me. Yet, since you will certainly press me upon this point, he never knew me carnally during the whole of our acquaintance.”
My husband was silent and astonished for a moment and then he said: “This is an honest confession; and I am content to know that the power to love is not wholly lacking in you, as I had supposed; and being your husband I do not loathe to bring you news of your lover’s death. Now, it may be, there will be no more of this unmarital romantic perverseness.”
“It is no news to me,” said I. “He was stabbed to the heart, as I have known since the middle of last month.”
“Then you were misinformed,” said he, “for the news only came in to-day. The Lord General Cromwell has written a dispatch to Mr. Speaker Lenthall, in whose company I happened to be this afternoon when he broke the seals.”
“Nevertheless, I knew it perfectly,” said I, “at the very instant that Sir Edmund was slain. And I ca
n tell you more: that it was at Tredah that this took place, and that Sir Edmund surrendered to General Cromwell and was promised quarter, and was walking in his company when an old acquaintance comes up to him, one Captain Ropier, a cousin of the Lord Ropier’s and ‘Sir Mun,’ says he, ‘I fain would have a word with you,’ and then he draws a tuck and stabs him to the heart. And I can tell you more,” said I, “yet do not ask me more!”
My husband knew not what to say, for I spoke the evident truth. Yet he told me of General Cromwell’s letter, who was persuaded that “this mercy of Tredah” as he called it, was a marvellous great mercy, a righteous judgment of God (for the officers and soldiers of the garrison were the flower of the army); and who gave all the glory to God. My husband added: “The Lord General writes positively that Lieutenant Colonel Verney was slain at the storming of the town, not murdered afterwards as you pretend.”
“Ay,” said I, “for I make no doubt but that it lies upon his saintly conscience.”
***
It passed wonder how barbarously the English soldiers conducted themselves in Ireland, even against their own countrymen, when in England their decent orderly behaviour had been an example to the world. There was a scholar of Christ Church, Thomas Wood, a tall, black swarthy fellow, who was a friend of my brother James, and often walked out to Forest Hill in my youth, to play the buffoon about the house. He became a trooper in Captain Sir Thomas Gardiner’s company and a stout soldier; and presently was made a lieutenant. He returned after the First Civil War to Oxford and there made up his arrears and was created a Master of Arts; and afterwards turned his coat and obtained a major’s commission in the Parliament Army, and was at the storming of Tredah.
From him, when presently he returned to England, James had an account of the massacre: how, in revenge of the losses that General Cromwell’s men had suffered in two attempts to storm the works, 3,000 at least of the garrison, besides women and children, were put to the sword after they had surrendered. Thomas Wood also witnessed the death of Sir Arthur Aston, the Governor, whose brains were beaten out with blows of his own wooden leg, and his body thereafter hacked into pieces, as though he were an Agag. There was fierce dispute among the soldiers for this leg, which was reported to be of gold; yet it proved to be wholly of wood.
He told James that when his men were to make their way up to the lofts and galleries of St. Peter’s Church steeple, and up the stairs of the strong round tower, next St. Sunday’s Gate (where the enemy had fled), some of the assailants catched up children and used them as bucklers of defence. But the enemy in these posts were not to be dislodged and General Cromwell himself ordered the Church steeple to be fired with a great bonfire made of the Church seats, which was done. Then was heard a lamentable cry from the midst of the flames above their heads: “God damn me, God confound me, I burn, I burn!” And presently steeple, men and bells came all down together at once. And after they had burned or killed all in the nave and chapels of St. Peter’s Church, near 1,000, with a great many Papist priests and friars, whom they knocked on the head promiscuously, they went down into the vaults where a few of the choicest of the women had hid themselves and plundered and murdered these too, and Major Wood confessed that he, too, had his part in the plunder, though not in the murder.
Major Wood was not by when Mun was slain, but he confirmed the treacherous manner of it, and it grieved him almost more than anything that passed that day, for Mun and he had been comrades together in many battles and sieges on the King’s side. A few months ago he himself died in the same town of Tredah, of the flux, and is buried in the very Church where this unnatural business was done.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
My Husband Buys Fame at a High Price
Since Mun’s death I have lived somewhat more harmoniously with my husband; for once my secret was told him, my frame of spirit became understandable, and though he loves me no better, yet he has showed me more indulgence, for which I have punctually repaid him by a studied civility and care. In November of the year 1649 the Council awarded him large, airy, well-furnished rooms in Whitehall Palace, in the part which lies towards Scotland Yard, which I found more convenient by far for the accommodation of my children than Thomson’s had been. They gave upon a pleasant private garden and had before been occupied by Sir John Hippesley, M.P. In these rooms at about half-past nine at night, on March 16th, 1650, was born my third child, a son, who was named John after his father; him I love with a wonderful love, that I have never had for either of my daughters. Nor do I love him, as might be supposed, because he is a boy and they are girls, for in general I have ever preferred girl children to boys, as being cleanlier and more loving and more mannerly. Nay, the reason that I love this boy is—
This reason, however, I will refrain from disclosing as yet; for I knew it not certainly myself until the child could walk and prattle and until his features had formed clearly. I will write of other matters and leave that to the last.
First, of my mother and her affairs. In November, 1649, she employed Mr. Christopher Milton in a suit for the recovery (from the Committee of Sequestrators for the County of Oxfordshire) of the household goods and timber stolen from us three years beforehand at Forest Hill; and in June of the next year the Commissioners for Relief upon Articles of War signed a decree in her favour, declaring that a violation of my father’s rights had been made, and that therefore the Committee of Sequestrators, namely Mr. Thomas Appletree and his crooked-minded fellows, were answerable for the whole amount of the loss.
Now, my mother had learned from Tom Messenger, when he came to her with the present from our former tenants, that Lawrence Farre, Sir Robert Pye’s servant, had lied that day when my father came to him at the Manor-house. The truth was, Mr. Thomas Appletree’s brother Matthew had purchased all the goods for the sum of £335, paying earnest money of twenty shillings, but had removed no more than what had been valued at £91 11s. 10d. His intention was that when he should have sold these goods in London, for three times this amount, and thus earned ready money to pay for another load—forasmuch as the twenty shillings that he had paid down was almost all the money he had in the world—why, then, he would come back again. But on the day that my father had come to the house only the choice furniture and hangings from the little parlour and the hall had been removed in the carts; together with the grain, hops, wool, planks and suchlike in the wain. The remainder of the furniture and hangings had been left (as also the coaches, for the lack of cattle to draw them) and all the timber except that which was afterwards taken off by the citizens of Banbury. Farre lied to my father from a fear that he would try to break into the house and violently seize some of his goods again, for which loss Farre would be called to account by the Sequestrators. A few days later Farre reported to Sir Robert Pye the Elder what had been done; whereat Sir Robert was angry, for he perceived that the sale was fraudulent, and gave Farre an order that not another thing was to be removed from the house or yard. When, therefore, Matthew Appletree returned with the carts to fetch away a second load, he was told by Farre to go about his business quickly because the fraud was discovered; and he made off at once, leaving the carts behind, and did not return.
All the goods remaining in or about the Manor-house (where Goodman Mason, one of our tenants, was in present occupation) now came, by the aforesaid decree of the Commissioners for Relief, into my mother’s possession, subject nevertheless to the fine of £180 which had been imposed on my father’s estate when he compounded. Matthew Appletree was also ordered by the Commissioners to pay back to the estate the sum of £91 11s. 10d.—though it should have been at least £250—which he had unjustly taken, and then he should be given back his twenty shillings of earnest money. Yet this rascal resisted the order and did not pay back the money, and continued to make excuses until, at the end of that year, the power of the Court that had ordered payment lapsed, and so he could laugh at her. Moreover, my mother was powerless to take back the goods awarded her, for she had not even so much as ten
pounds in ready money to pay towards the fine. Besides, she considered the fine an extortion, for it was calculated upon an assessment of the estate that was too heavy by far, even were the wrong righted that had been done (by Parliament itself) in the matter of the timber awarded to the citizens of Banbury.
There was another vexation: that in August of this same year, 1650, was passed an Act which touched all persons who, by virtue of a debt or mortgage, had since the outbreak of the Civil War entered upon the estate of any delinquent, for which no composition had been made: by this Act they were ordered to compound themselves, paying such sums of money as would have been paid had the delinquent remained in possession. This was a means of annulling a deal of neighbourly kindness: for often a Parliament family would pretend to hold a mortgage on an estate and would take possession for awhile, so that their Royalist friends and kinsmen might be spared the expense of compounding; and afterwards the pretended bond was torn up and the rightful owners invited to return. This Act seemed likely to help my mother; for since my husband had taken possession of the Wheatley freehold upon a mortgage he was obliged to compound, and was ordered by the Commissioners to pay a proportion of the fine fixed upon my father’s whole estate, namely £130; after which he might remain in enjoyment of this property until both his original debt and the fine of £130 had been wiped out by the moneys brought in, namely £80 a year. Thus (as I understand the matter) my mother was left to pay no more than £50 for the recovery of the Forest Hill goods, namely one-tenth of their value of £500.
My husband when he compounded pleaded to be allowed for the “widow’s thirds” of £26 13s. 4d., which until then he had paid to my mother from the rents that he collected. But in the Order which fixed the fine at £130, the Commissioners made no particular mention of the widow’s thirds, and my husband therefore discontinued the payment of them; for he said that it was unjust that, when he paid a fine which was beyond reason heavy, he should also continue to allow my mother the thirds, having been granted no relief on account of them. Yet, as my mother said, he had come off lightly, forasmuch as the legal fine upon the Wheatley freehold ought to have been £160 (being two years’ rents at £80) rather than £130; and, since in any event my husband would recover this £130 within a few years, as well as the remainder of his debt, she held that the Commissioners had, in fact, tacitly granted him the relief for which he had pleaded, and that he therefore should in equity continue to pay her the thirds, which she depended upon. My mother put this argument into writing, and gave it to me to show my husband, which I did. But all that he would answer was that if he were ordered by the Commissioners to pay my mother the thirds, and if this amount were remitted from his fine, then he would do so, but not otherwise. The fine of £130 had come upon him very inconveniently, he said, and deprived him of any income from the estate for near two years.
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