Read My Heart

by Jane Dunn

  Dorothy showed little appetite for such a public challenge of the status quo but in private she lacked neither judgement, influence nor will. Her obstinate resistance to her family’s wishes and her discussions of friendship, family and marriage in her letters to William revealed a lively intellect, self-confidence and a remarkable desire for equality in her dealings with the men who mattered in her life. And William, at least, showed a lasting respect for her philosophy and point of view.

  William too was equally respectful of his father’s wishes but less concerned about being discovered pursuing his relationship with Dorothy or protective of their reputations, in part because a man’s honour was less fragile than a woman’s. He was kicking his heels in London during the year or so since his return from his second trip abroad, as his sister Martha recalled: ‘[he] liv’d two or three years about the Towne in the usual entertainements of young and Idle men, but never without passing a great deal of it alone, where he read much & writt, both verses and some other short Essays upon severall subjects.’ He also frequently visited Sir Richard Franklin* at Moor Park, a beautiful house and garden in Hertfordshire that William would always consider the most romantic place of his acquaintance, write about in his essay on gardening and himself try to replicate one day. In his restlessness, full of longing for resolution in his love for Dorothy, he scratched a poem into the glass of one of the windows of the house that looked out over a statue of Leda and the swan:

  Tell me Leda, which is best

  n’ear to move or n’ere to rest

  Speak that I may know there by,

  Who is happier you or I.69

  While William travelled in search of distraction, Dorothy remained becalmed in the country at Chicksands and at the mercy of her family’s blandishments. With her characteristic skill at skewering character and incident with a few telling details she transported her reader, with no conception of this being anyone other than William alone, to Chicksands to join her and her brother Henry in one of their regular impassioned arguments about her marriage prospects. Dorothy surprised herself with her strength of character in resisting his authority and parrying his verbal threats in what was a wearing duel for them both. It was sparked off by the news that Sir Justinian Isham had renewed his interest and Dorothy had once again parried his suit. Henry’s intensity of feeling and evident frustration at his sister’s obstinacy literally made him sick. And he spewed forth all her past ingratitude, failure of judgement and disloyalty to him and the family:

  when I had spoke freely my meaning, it wrought soe much with him as to fetch up all that lay upon his stommack, all the People that I have Ever in my life refused were brought againe upon the Stage, like Richard the 3rd Ghosts* to reproach mee withall, and all the kindenesse his discovery’s could make I had for you was Layed to my Charge, my best quality’s (if I had any that are good) served but for agravations of my fault, and I was allowed to have witt and understanding, & discretion in other things, that it might apear I had none in this.

  In fact everything became so heated that they decided to call a truce, with much elaborate bowing from Henry and curtseying from her, ‘as before wee were thought the kindest brother & sister wee are certainly now the most Complementall [ceremonius] Couple in England’.70

  None of this was reassuring to William. He knew that it was entirely expected that Dorothy should comply with her family’s wishes as to which suitors were satisfactory and could be entertained. It was normally the parents who exerted the greatest moral pressure but if they were dead or ill then a young woman’s brothers stood in loco parentis. While her father lingered on in ill health she was under relentless pressure from Henry to conform. William had to keep his distance, unable to argue his case in person, so seldom did they manage a secret meeting. Powerless to protect Dorothy or bolster her resistance, he was never sure that she would not buckle and give in. He must have written that he feared the hold that Henry had over her, for in an attempt to console him she replied: ‘I cannot bee more yours then I am. You are mistaken if you think I stand in Awe of my B[rother]: noe I feare nobody’s Anger, I am proofe against all Violence.’

  Her courage, though, deserted her when she was confronted by her brother’s tears. Not only did she hate being pitied herself, she mentioned on a variety of occasions how vulnerable she was to the pathos of another’s suffering: ‘When hee [brother Henry] raunt’s and renounces mee I can dispise him, but when hee askes my pardon with tear’s pleades to mee the long and constant friendship between us and call’s heaven to wittnesse that nothing upon Earth is dear to him in comparison of mee, then, I confesse I feel a strange unquietnesse within mee, and I would doe any thing to avoyde his importunity [burdensome pleas].’71

  They both knew they were up against everyone, and most powerfully the social convention that supported the family’s hierarchical authority. To marry without permission was to accept ostracism and the withdrawal of all means of support. This made Dorothy and William isolated and secretive, relying inordinately on each other’s letters and the few snatched visits they managed to make behind their families’ backs, a state of affairs that particularly distressed Dorothy who prided herself on her honesty and compliance with family wishes. She recognised this powerlessness to decide their own destinies was ‘soe common a Calamity that I dare not murmur at it’.72

  William, on the other hand, was less resigned and expressed his frustration and anger at their impotence in the personalised romance he sent to Dorothy: ‘[their marriage was] unlikely to bee approov’d of by the friends [and family] of either party, both of them designing that their childrens merits should advance them to a much greater fortune then their owne could expect. this made theese lovers disguise their intentions and their kindness from all other eyes but their owne, resolving to attend till time or chance might bring forth some favourable conjuncture for the owning their designs [until the occasion arose when they could admit their desires].’73

  At the end of a letter to her love, full of the trials of separation and the frustration of their dreams, Dorothy summed up the painful uncertainties of fate: ‘I was borne to bee very happy or very miserable, I know not which, but I am certaine that as long as I am any thing I shall be your most faith full freind and Servant.’74 Both felt they were at the mercy of some greater force of destiny but, at this point in their lives, neither had any idea what that might be. However, they still had hope, what William called the ‘balsam of life’, a placebo that cost nothing and could cure every ill.

  * * *

  * Louis XIV, ‘The Sun King’ (1638–1714). He became King of France in 1643 when he was not yet five but did not assume personal power until Cardinal Mazarin, his first minister, died in 1661.

  † The word fronde means ‘sling’ and referred to the throwing of stones at the windows of the supporters of Cardinal Mazarin by Parisian ‘revolutionaries’ (alternatively the Paris mob). This unrest lasted for some five years (1648–53) and was then followed by the Franco-Spanish War (1653–9).

  ‡ Jules Cardinal Mazarin (1602–61) was an Italian politician who, having been naturalised as a French citizen, served as chief minister of France from 1642 until his death. His Italian blood, his clandestine and overt influence and his wealth were all sources of slanderous rumour, dislike and fear.

  * Sir Thomas Osborne (1631–1712) was three years younger than his cousin Dorothy and a rival suitor for her hand. He had inherited his father’s baronetcy when he was sixteen, his elder half-brother having been killed by a falling chimney. A meteoric political career began in the treasury, survived a time in prison and he ended up as chief minister under William and Mary. His appetite for wealth and honours made him enemies but did not stop his rise: he became Earl of Danby, Marquess of Carmarthen and eventually Duke of Leeds.

  † Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) was a French Renaissance thinker whose Essais broke new ground with their personal subject matter. By describing himself, he was exploring the truth about mankind. A sceptic and humanist,
he was highly influential: a copy of his Essais is thought to have been in Shakespeare’s library and Nietzsche declared that Montaigne’s writing augmented for everyone the joy of living on earth.

  * Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea (1661–1720), was one of the earliest published poets in England. Her poetic voice was direct, personal and full of wit. She was born the third child to Anne and Sir William Kingsmill, a man who believed in educating daughters. Anne became a maid of honour to Mary of Modena (James II’s wife) in 1682 and married Heneage Finch, a soldier and courtier, in 1683. It was a long and happy marriage, celebrated by her in verse.

  * Richard Lovelace (1618–78), the heir of a wealthy aristocratic Kentish family, was handsome and witty, embodying the ideal of a cavalier poet. Aubrey called him ‘an extraordinary handsome Man, but prowd’. Tragedy overtook his promise: two spells in prison and his support of the royalist cause ruined him financially, and his love Lucy Sacherevell, the muse of his ‘Lucasta’ poems, broke his heart when, believing he had died of his wounds, she married another. He died in abject poverty.

  * Just after the civil wars had ended duelling was an increasing menace thanks to the disbanded soldiers and young bloods (known as Hectors) continually looking for fights. Consequently an ordinance was issued that anyone sending or receiving a challenge would be imprisoned for six months, unless they informed the authorities within twenty-four hours. Anyone killing another in a duel would be charged with murder and even if no death occurred both assailants and their seconds would be banished for life.

  * Henry Cromwell (1628–74). Most of his career was spent in Ireland where he brought religious tolerance and a bluff honesty to a difficult situation. From 1654 he was major-general of the forces in Ireland and a member of the Irish council of state. His father was reluctant to promote his sons but sought his advice on numerous occasions. A popular man, he apparently refused a gift of property worth £1,500 a year due to the poverty of the country. In 1657 he was made Lord Deputy of Ireland and then on his father’s death and eldest brother Richard’s succession to the protectorate he reluctantly became lieutenant and governor general. He dreaded the restoration of Charles II: ‘any extreme is more tolerable than returning to Charles Stuart. Other disasters are temporary and may be mended; those not,’ and retired from public life at thirty-two to live quietly in Cambridgeshire, dying fourteen years later.

  * Expensive by our modern Royal Mail’s standard at about 88 pence.

  * Samuel Cooper (1609–72) and his uncle John Hoskins (c.1595–1665) were exceptional miniaturists. Cooper is now considered the greatest portrait miniaturist of the seventeenth century. Dorothy mentions that his fee for a portrait was £15 (about £1,770) and by the time Pepys had his wife Elizabeth painted fifteen years later in 1668, when Cooper was at the height of his fame and powers, his fee was double. He was a talented musician and a charming man who lived in Henrietta Street, Convent Garden in London.

  * The Cambridge-educated doctor, physician to Elizabeth I, William Gilbert (1540–1603) had published his book de Magnete in 1600. He was responsible for the science of magnetism being studied in earnest when he understood that the earth was a giant magnet and speculated whether it was magnetic attraction that kept the moon circling the earth, always with the same face towards it.

  * Abraham Cowley (1618–67), a precocious poet, playwright, essayist and scholar who rose to fame in his teens with his first book of poems published at fifteen. Also interested in scientific discovery he supported the foundation of the Royal Society for which he wrote an ode. Davideis, A Sacred Poem of the Troubles of David was the first neoclassical epic in English and a precursor and influence on Milton’s Paradise Lost. He finished only four out of the proposed twelve books. Dorothy’s first editor, Edward Abbott Parry, identified the lines Dorothy referred to as being from Book II.

  * It remained a capital offence until 1861 and was not decriminalised until 1967. For much of the seventeenth century homosexuality was perceived as somehow un-British, more an alien import from Italy and Turkey specifically. However with the sexual incontinence of Charles II’s court after his restoration in 1660, there was a greater recognition of its place in society. Pepys commented in 1663 ‘that buggery is now almost grown as common among our gallants as in Italy’.

  * Sir Richard Franklin was a distant cousin of Dorothy’s through marriage to Elizabeth Cheke, youngest daughter of Sir Thomas Cheke from his second marriage. He bought Moor Park mansion and park in 1652 from the Earl of Monmouth and lived there for the next eleven years, eventually selling it to James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde, who became a friend and diplomatic colleague of William Temple’s after the restoration of Charles II.

  * Dorothy was referring to the scene in Shakespeare’s Richard III, V, iii, where the ghosts of all those he has had killed visit him before the Battle of Bosworth Field and utter their various imprecations which end with the chilling, ‘despair, and die!’.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Shall Wee Ever Bee Soe Happy?

  how much more sattisfied should I bee if there were noe need of these [letters], and wee might talke all that wee write and more, shall wee Ever bee soe happy. Last night, I was in the Garden till Eleven a clock, it was the Sweetest night that ere I saw, the Garden looked soe well, and the Jessomin smelt beyond all perfumes, and yet I was not pleased. The place had all the Charmes it used to have when I was most sattisfied with it and had you bin there I shold have liked it much more than Ever I did, but that not being it was noe more to mee then the next feilde, and only served mee for a place to resve [dream] in without disturbance.

  DOROTHY OSBORNE, letter to William Temple, July 1653

  BY 1652, THE WARS in all the kingdoms were over. The royalist Scots had proclaimed Charles II king on 1 January 1651 but on 3 September Cromwell had defeated his invading Scottish army at Worcester. Charles then escaped to France and it was left to General George Monck to mop up the last royalist resistance in Scotland by taking Dunnottar Castle near Aberdeen at the end of the following May. The same month, Galway had surrendered to the English parliamentary forces in Ireland and thereby marked the end of all royalist armed resistance. The fighting might be over but fear and exhaustion gave way to a deep unease: what kind of government would there be now that ultimate authority was no longer vested in a monarch or the peers? The established Church too had been decapitated with the abolition of the bishops. The Rump Parliament continued to sit, attempting to progress various religious and judicial reforms, but their squabbles and procrastination, and in some cases outright corruption, made the army, a still powerful and radical presence, increasingly impatient for change.

  The year anyway was full of ill omen. The country was in the grip of a freakish drought that lasted from the end of February through to the end of June. Life was still closely connected to the land and its resources and everyone was affected by the natural rhythms of the seasons and the unnatural extremes that unsettled them. The drought finally ended with a prodigious storm ‘as no man alive had seene the like in this age’ with hailstones as large as cannon balls that ‘brake all the glasse about Lond[on]’.1 Rumour even had it that some of the stones fell in the shape of crowns and the Order of the Garter, in an obvious reproach to the destruction of the old regime.

  The general uneasiness was increased by a sense of impending doom as astrologers and stargazers harped with ominous rhetoric upon the remarkable activity in the heavens. What so inflamed the soothsayers and terrified the populace was a series of three eclipses, two lunar and one solar, occurring within a period of just six months; 1652 was the ‘dark year’ or Annus Tenebrosus, as William Lilly* called the book he published that year about the phenomenon. Lilly, the most famous English astrologer of the seventeenth century, was considered a prophet by many and his predictions were enormously influential across all social classes at a time when astrological predictions carried as much force and authority as religious dictates. He was dubbed by his supporters ‘the English Merlin’ and de
cried by his enemies as ‘that juggling Wizard and Imposter’.

  Like many thousands before and after her, Dorothy visited Lilly at least once. He had a house in the Strand and in his heyday was seeing nearly 2,000 clients a year, charging for a consultation an average of half a crown* a time. On the particular occasion when Dorothy visited him, in the company of a young widowed cousin, she reported to William, ‘I confesse I always’s thought him an imposture but I could never have imagin’d him soe simple a one as wee founde him.’2 This judgement showed a striking independence of mind, for this was a time when most people were highly superstitious about omens and the supernatural, and astrology, as a respectable art of divination, was thought to be as much founded on fact as many of the emergent sciences. Dorothy, nevertheless, had previously credited Lilly with certain powers of prediction and on her return home could not resist taking his advice as to how to discover the name of her future husband. She placed a peasepod of nine peas under the door and somehow it was divined from this that she would marry a man called Thomas – much to her puzzlement because, despite her current roll call of suitors, none could claim that name. Lilly’s timing might have been out by a few years, since Dorothy had in fact had two appropriately named suitors, her brother-in-law Sir Thomas Peyton and her cousin Sir Thomas Osborne who married in 1653.