Loyalty unto death – of a gallant man and the First Jacobite Rising

by Anna Belfrage

In July of 1689, the first battle of the Jacobite rebellion took place up in Scotland. I see some of you wrinkling your brows: for most people, the Jacobite rebellion is an 18th century thing involving Bonnie Prince Charlie and the brave Highlanders. Well, before there was a bonny prince there was an ousted king, grandfather to the young man who led the clans to their death at Culloden.

James II

In 1688, James II of England was faced with a most unpalatable challenge: seven of his Protestant grandees had offered the English crown to James’ son-in-law, William of Orange, and his daughter, Mary. Why? Well, the Protestant powers-that-were had been made most nervous back in June of 1688, when James II’s second wife, Mary of Modena, presented him with a healthy son.

One would assume the birth of a prince would have been greeted with joy. Problem was, James II and his wife were Catholics. The baby boy was therefore a vile papist, and England in the late 17th century was not exactly tolerant when it came to papists. The birth of little James Francis Edward was, according to the good Anglicans, a catastrophe. Prior to his birth, James’ heir was Mary, safely married to that most staunch of Protestants, Dutch William. With the baby prince, the English could potentially face a dynasty of Catholic kings, a fate to be avoided at all costs, even if the cost was treason.

No sooner was baby James Francis Edward born but the rumours started: the baby was obviously a changeling, smuggled in via a warming pan to replace the stillborn babe Mary of Modena had birthed. Anyone who has seen a warming pan and compared it size wise with a living baby would realise transporting a newborn child in one was risking the baby’s life, but people were more than happy to believe this lurid tale. Poor James. Poor Mary of Modena. This was a couple who’d seen more than their fair share of babies die away from them and now, when at last there was a healthy son, they had to listen to all this evil gossip. Even worse, it seemed it was James’ two eldest daughters who had fanned these rumours into life.

In November of 1688, William landed in England. Upon his arrival, there was a general stampede among James’ closest men, all of them falling over their feet in their eagerness to declare themselves for William.

Not all Protestants sided against James. Very many remained loyal to their king. James was a proven general and as his army was superior to that of William, one would have thought he’d chase his son-in-law straight back into the North Sea.

Mary of Modena and James Francis Edward

Problem was, James lost his nerve. First, he had no desire to submerge England into yet another civil war—he remembered well the terrors of the previous war. Secondly, too many of the men he had trusted and believed in had turned their backs on him. So James dithered. Never a good thing to do. William did not dither. Come December, James was a prisoner of his son-in-law, but William found all this rather uncomfortable so he obligingly looked the other way when James “escaped” and fled to France, where his wife and baby son were waiting.

Back in England, those loyal to James regrouped. Among these was a certain James Graham of Claverhouse, a Scotsman who had served both Charles II and James. In Ayrshire, John Graham went by “Bluidy Clavers”, held responsible for the brutal oppression of the Covenanter movement. This is probably not entirely correct: James Graham was married to Jean Cochrane, daughter to a very Presbyterian family, and in his letters he generally advocated leniency, not violence.

James Graham

Whatever the case, James Graham was a competent man. Among the last things James II did before fleeing England was to raise John Graham to the viscountcy by making him Viscount Dundee. In many ways an empty gesture, but James II also made Dundee commander-in-chief of the Scottish forces. This was not quite as empty a gesture—Dundee had quite the reputation as a soldier and inspired loyalty among the men who served with him.

In the beginning of 1689, Dundee did his best to convince his fellow Scotsmen that they should fight for their Stuart king. At one point, he even climbed up the extremely steep castle rock to ensure the Duke of Gordon, governor of Edinburgh Castle, remembered to whom he owed his loyalty. Gordon did, and for some months more he held the castle for the king—albeit with waning enthusiasm. To be fair to Gordon, his situation was precarious: James was nowhere close (he was in Ireland at the time) and William’s forces under Hugh Mackay were advancing north. Public opinion in Lowland Scotland was firmly with William, no matter how “Scottish” the Stuart dynasty may have been. Most Lowland Scots were suspicious of papists in general, and William of Orange had proved himself a capable defender of the Protestant faith.

William III

In April of 1689, the Scottish Estates decided to acclaim William as their king. Some days later, Dundee raised the Scottish Royal Standard, calling for all men loyal to their true king to join him. Many men did. Not quite as many as Dundee had hoped for, however, and his situation was made precarious when the Scottish Estates declared him a traitor and attempted to arrest him. Dundee entrusted his pregnant wife into the care of his father-in-law and took to the hills.

Over the coming months, Dundee breathed fire into the Highland hearts. Clan Cameron under Ewen Cameron of Lochiel brought a further 1800 men to the Jacobite cause, but leading an army of Highlanders was a challenge—as was keeping them fed. It is testament to Dundee’s leadership skills that he managed to keep his troops together throughout late spring and the summer of 1689. Meanwhile, Mackay marched in pursuit, his ranks swelled by eager volunteers. For a while there, Mackay and Dundee played a complicated game of hide-and-seek, neither of them willing to commit to a full out confrontation.

Things were to come to a head at Killiecrankie, a pass south-east of Blair Atholl. Blair Castle was under Jacobite control, thereby barring access to the Highland north and Mackay led his troops north to offer support to John Murray, at present besieging the castle. (This is all very complicated: Blair Castle was the seat of the Duke of Atholl and in an attempt to keep his options open no matter who won the ongoing conflict, Atholl himself retired to England, bemoaning the Jacobite garrison holding his castle while leaving his son, Murray, to “besiege” the castle. Thing is, the garrison was commanded by one Patrick Stewart, one of Atholl’s loyal retainers. A rather elegant way of hedging one’s bets…)

James Graham - not quite as dashing
as in the first pic

When Dundee heard Mackay was trundling north and making for the pass at Killicrankie, he mobilised with speed. Here was a golden opportunity to wreak havoc on Dutch William’s men, and Dundee intended to make the most of it. Killicrankie was a two-mile pass, on one side bordered by the river Gerry, on the other by steep hills. Mackay must have been aware of the risk he took, but his information was probably not entirely up to date so it must have come as quite a surprise when Mackay’s army emerged from the pass only to find the slopes facing them bristling with Jacobite soldiers.

Retreating down the narrow track was the equivalent of suicide and so Mackay did the only thing he could do: he prepared for battle. He deployed his men, had his artillery move forward and then he waited for the Highlanders to charge. After all, everyone knew that once the Highlanders charged, discipline went out their head and Mackay was probably gambling on them becoming so disorderly he’d be able to fight back.

Mackay waited. And waited. He waited some more. His men were beginning to fidget. It was a nerve-wracking experience to stand in front of the slope, knowing full well the Highlanders had all the advantages on their side. Mackay’s men had the Gerry at their back, they couldn’t run left or right and before them the Highlanders had their muskets and swords at the ready.

The July afternoon waned. Men were thirsty and hungry and probably in need of a human break or two. Still, the Highlanders did not move. Guns roared, but Mackay’s cannon were too far away to cause any damage, nor did the shots provoke the Highlanders into doing something. Dusk began to seep upwards from the ground. The sun dipped out of sight. At last, Dundee ordered his men to attack. Wave after wave of Highlanders came rushing down the slope.

Mackay’s men did not stand a chance. Many of them were untrained, few had seen real action and here they were, staring at a horde of roaring men wielding swords. Many turned and fled. Most of these drowned in the Gerry. Some tried to jump across, but the river was too wide, and man after man fell to die in the waters. Others were hewn down, incapable of withstanding the sheer momentum of the Highlanders who came leaping down the hill.

There was blood, there was gore, there were screams. Men died, men fell. Bodies were trampled underfoot as the Highlanders rushed onwards. Approximately 2000 of Mackay’s 3500 men died. The Jacobite army had won the day and one would have thought the coming night would have been spent in rejoicing.

But it wasn’t only Mackay’s men that died. The Jacobites had losses of their own. In the final minutes of the battle, Dundee was hit by a musket ball just below his breastplate. By the time the battle dust had settled, Dundee was dead. He had won the battle but lost his life. Even worse, the Jacobite army had lost its general. The victory at Killiecrankie was therefore flavoured with the bitter taste of crushed hope. Without the gallant and talented Dundee, the Stuart cause in Scotland was a dead duck in the water.

Mackay's men defending Dunkeld

Mackay and 500 or so of his men managed to escape when the victorious Highlanders turned to looting Mackay’s baggage train. Desperate and exhausted, they made it to Stirling Castle, there to regroup. Some months later, Mackay led his troops to a decisive victory over the Jacobites at Dunkeld. The First Jacobite Rising had come to an end, but over the coming six decades or so the men of the Scottish Highlands would die repeatedly on behalf of the Stuarts—right up to the crushing defeat at Culloden.

Dundee was buried in St Bride’s crypt, Blair Castle. Some months later, his wife gave birth to a son—Dundee’s only known child.  By then, Dundee was already becoming a legend, a valiant man who would rather die than betray his king. Not much of a comfort to his widow, I imagine.

Many, many years ago, a man chose to hold to the oath he had sworn to always serve and protect his king. To this day, the memory of James Graham lives on. In the words of Sir Walter Scott:

"Away to the hills, to the caves, to the rocks
Ere I own an usurper, I'll couch with the fox;
And tremble, false Whigs, in the midst of your glee,
You have not seen the last of my bonnet and me!"

Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can,
Come saddle the horses, and call up the men,
Come open your gates, and let me gae free,
For it's up with the bonnets of Bonny Dundee!

He waved his proud hand, the trumpets were blown,

The kettle-drums clashed and the horsemen rode on,

Till on Ravelston's cliffs and on Clermiston's lee

Died away the wild war-notes of Bonny Dundee.

Come fill up my cup, etc. 

And just so you know, James Graham rides, fights and dies in the eight book of The Graham Saga. Such a gallant man deserves some air-time...

All pictures in public domain and/or licensed under Wikimedia Creative Commons

~~~~~~~~~~~

Had Anna Belfrage been allowed to choose, she’d have become a professional time-traveller. As such a profession does not exist, she became a financial professional with two absorbing interests, namely history and writing.

Anna's most recent series is The King’s Greatest Enemy, a series set in the 1320s featuring Adam de Guirande, his wife Kit, and their adventures and misfortunes in connection with Roger Mortimer’s rise to power.  The fourth instalment, The Cold Light of Dawn, was published in February 2018.

When Anna is not stuck in the 14th century, she's probably visiting in the 17th century, specifically with Alex(andra) and Matthew Graham, the protagonists of the acclaimed The Graham Saga. This is the story of two people who should never have met – not when she was born three centuries after him. The ninth book, There is Always a Tomorrow, was published in November 2017.

Anna has recently published the first book in a new series, The Wanderer. A Torch in his Heart tells the time-spanning story of Jason, Sam and Helle who first 3 000 years ago and have since then tumbled through time, trapped in a vicious circle of love, hatred and revenge.

Society in 17th Century England

By Trisha Hughes

This is the beginning of ‘Early Modern Britain’. It was a time of Renaissance, English and Scottish Reformation and the debilitating English Civil War. And as always, to the victor goes the spoils. It was a time of rulers who were vain, greedy and downright corrupt. It was a time of adulterers, swindlers and cowards. And it was a time in British history when war would tear the country apart.

At the time of Elizabeth I’s death, England was changing dramatically. Let’s take a quick walk around London in this era. Imagine it’s been a rainy day and you’re out for a walk. Water puddles in dark alleys and the drains have overflowed down the middle of the cobbled streets as people huddle in their bedraggled hats and cloaks under dripping eaves. A horse-drawn carriage with clattering wheels speeds past on the uneven stones and carelessly splashes water on anyone who has braved the inclement weather. Normally the streets are packed with people and carriages and most days a blanket of smoke hangs over the city. The pollution gets in your eyes and the stonework of every building is blackened with it. Many of the houses are hundreds of years old and their timbers are deeply scarred with rat holes teaming with life. The houses are so close in the narrow alleys that occupants can reach out and touch hands with their neighbours if they chose to.

London Bridge 1616 - public domain image

But there is a reason you’re out and about on this day. After a downpour, you get the clearest view of the city with the sky washed clean of smog although the city air still smells of coal smoke. But it’s not just the burning coal that affects your nostrils. There are noxious fumes coming from the parts of the city where tanning is taking place and aromatic horse dung still lies in piles in the streets. As the day wears on, the smells are intensified by the stench from cesspits in cellars and from the carts filled with dung-pots left in the streets by rakers, whose business it is to empty private cesspits. Pigeons fly out from under the eaves of the old houses and their dropping leave white streaks on everything below. Rats scavenge behind crates avoiding the rubbish collectors in their horse-drawn carts collecting rotting matter from kitchens. You will be able to smell the flocks of sheep and herds of cattle driven by hoof to the abattoirs where their dung and blood add to the aroma on the streets.

Very soon, the streets will fill, not just with permanent residents who contribute to the overcrowding feeling, but hundreds of thousands of people who come to town daily to go to markets, fairs and to do business in the city. Very soon there will be crowds of people and animals everywhere so you know not to linger.

And then you listen to the sounds of London. Oxen are led into the city and slaughtered every day and the squeals and bellows they make in their pens is considerable and disturbing. There is the sound of iron wheels of coaches grinding over the cobbles and the hammering of blacksmiths and candlestick makers. There are the bells of rakers driving their dung-carts, the yelling of those gathering around a cockfight, the shouting of vendors pushing their carts, householders leaning out their windows and shouting to neighbours and you would hear the hourly chimes of more than a hundred churches. This London is so crowded, smelly and noisy you will barely be able to hear yourself think.

Map of London 1593 - public domain image

With the increase in population, diseases lurked around every corner and in every shadow. Everyday life meant being aware of the flu, dysentery, typhoid and smallpox and then there were always outbreaks of plague to be aware of. If you had a swelling in your armpits, if you were exceedingly thirsty, had a headache and if you were vomiting, you knew you were in serious trouble. You also knew to air your bedding in case there were fleas. You were certainly aware that fleas caused the disease but if you found any or you had been bitten, it was already too late because nobody had any idea how to treat it.

Plague broke out in London in 1603, 1636 and in 1665. Each time it killed a significant part of the population but each time London recovered. Of course, other towns as well as London were also periodically devastated by the plague. However, the plague of 1665, which affected London and other towns, was the last recorded outbreak and no one is very sure why because rats still scurried through the dark streets and people were still throwing dirty water and other rubbish from their windows into those same streets.

Great Plague - public domain image

17th century London was a dangerous place to live if you were poor but if you were rich, you were lucky. Transportation was no problem for you. You could easily walk from one street to another or you could travel by boat along the Thames. You could even hire a horse-drawn carriage called a ‘hackney carriage’ to take you around London if you desired. The streets were lit for the first time and an oil lamp was hung outside every tenth house. Not that the oil lamps gave you much light but they were certainly better than nothing at all, which was a fact of life on the other side of town.

The poor lived in houses east of the city where the streets were narrow and dark, well away from the wealthy people. Unfortunately, in these overcrowded, heavily populated areas, crime and danger was ever present and in a place where so many had so little, it’s not so surprising.  Tempers and alcohol produced volatile situations and you made sure you kept a dagger close by to protect yourself. You learnt to keep your wits about you on the way home from the local pub especially as ale was the only available liquid to drink due to the unsanitary condition of the water. Looking at the rivers running with excrement, they had a good point.

London Bridge over the Thames 1632 - public domain image

However, improvements were on the way and a piped water supply was being created. Water from a reservoir travelled along elm pipes through the streets then along lead pipes to individual houses. Unfortunately, you had to pay to be connected to the supply and it was not cheap.

Because of the state of the water, keeping yourself clean wasn’t an easy task. You did that, not by washing, but by rubbing linen cloths over your body and through your hair to soak up the sweat. To take care of our body odour, you used perfume to improve the smell of your clothes.  After taking care of your body odours, you had to take care of your breath. Thankfully, the Chinese had invented the toothbrush in 17th century and it had been introduced to England so there wasn’t as much need to chew cumin seeds or aniseed anymore. However, after brushing, you still rinsed out your mouth with white wine.

In the Middle Ages, ordinary people's homes were usually made of wood. Most of the poor lived in huts of two or three rooms while some families managed to survive in just one room. Your furniture, such as it was, remained very plain and basic because enhancements in furniture were not a part of your life.

But there were some more improvements on the horizon. In the 16th century, chimneys had been a luxury only the well-off could afford. Windows however took a little longer to become commonplace. Glass was definitely a luxury so those who could not afford it made do with linen soaked in linseed oil. However, during the 17th century glass became cheaper and by the late 17th century everyone had glass windows, sometimes casement windows (ones that opened on hinges). Later on, sash windows that slid up and down vertically to open and shut, were being introduced.

In the early 17th century people began eating with forks for the first time. New foods were being introduced into England such as bananas and pineapples and new drinks such as chocolate, tea and coffee had arrived. By late 17th century, coffee houses had popped up all around town and merchants and professional men alike could meet to read newspapers and talk shop.

17th Century coffee house - public domain image

But not everyone was so lucky. Ordinary people existed on food like bread, cheese and onions and they ate pottage each and every day. This kind of strew was made by boiling grain in water to make a kind of porridge to which you added vegetables and pieces of meat or fish, if you could afford it.

Everyday life was a challenge and a hazard so it’s not surprising that the average life span in the 17th century was considerably shorter than today. Average life expectancy at birth was only 35 and many people died while they were still children. Out of all the people born, between one third and one half died before the age of about 16. However, if you could survive to your mid-teens you would probably live to your 50s or early 60s.

Stagecoaches were running regularly between the major English towns from the middle of the 17th century although the wealthy were still being carried around in sedan chairs while out and about in town. You paid dearly for the luxury of a stagecoach, and to top it off, they were very uncomfortable on the rough roads because none of them had springs. And of course, there was always the danger of highwaymen.

Dick Turpin - public domain image

The word ‘highwaymen’ conjures up characters like Dirk Turpin but these men were not so polite. If you were unlucky enough to come across these ruffians, there would also be another group cutting off your retreat. They would not only take your money and jewels, they took your clothes as well. Some killed their victims but most were left tied up in the forest in such a way that you could work yourself lose in an hour or two and make your way to the nearest inn or town in your underwear. If you survived the trip, you would be grateful to arrive unharmed but even these establishments housed thieves and unsavoury characters.

Heaven help you if you needed to see a doctor because barber-surgeons were still performing operations. Their knowledge of anatomy was improving but still left a lot to be desired. In 1628 William Harvey published his discovery of how blood circulates around the body and doctors had discovered how to treat malaria with bark from the cinchona tree.

William Harvey - public domain image

But even with these improvements, medicine was still handicapped by wrong ideas about the human body. Most doctors still thought that there were four fluids or 'humors' in the body - blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. Illness resulted when you had too much of one humor. When that happened, you needed to be bled. Nevertheless, during the 17th century, a more scientific approach to medicine emerged and some doctors thankfully began to question traditional ideas.

The 17th century would contain the most religious decade Britain had ever seen since the Middle Ages and society would be dominated by Christian beliefs and a willingness to severely punish people for ungodly behaviour. Puritanism was on the horizon


~~~~~~~~~~

Trisha Hughes is an Australian author living in Hong Kong. She is the author of her memoir ‘Daughters of Nazareth’ and she has completed the first two books in her V2V trilogy, ‘Vikings to Virgin - The Hazards of being King’ and ‘Virgin to Victoria - The Queen is dead. Long live the Queen’. This second in the series is due for release on 28th April this year.

You can contact Trisha via her websites: www.trishahughesauthor.com    www.vikingstovirgin.com or via
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Ralph Josselin: A 17th Century Vicar

by Cryssa Bazos

Every diarist leaves a little of themselves behind for the next generation. Samuel Pepys gave us insight into his city diversions and business in the shipyards, John Evelyn a political perspective, and Lady Fanshawe, her love for her husband. All three were political insiders, with a privileged front row seat to the royal entanglements and comings and goings. But from Ralph Josselin’s diary, we see a different aspect of 17th century Stuart society: the life of a middle class country vicar and family man.

Life and Times

Ralph Josselin - unknown artist

Ralph Josselin was born at Roxwell in Essex on January 26, 1617. About his beginnings, he wrote:

"I was the eldest son in our whole Family and yet possessed not a foot of land in which yet I praise god I have not felt inward discontent and grudging, god has given me himself, and he is [all] and will make up all other things to me."

Though his grandfather was a wealthy yeoman who left an estate valued at £1,000, Josselin’s father did a poor job of farming and whittled his inheritance away. But the elder Josselin did leave his son something more valuable—an education.

Ralph Josselin entered Cambridge in 1633 and earned his Bachelor of Arts in 1637 and his Masters three years later. It took him longer than most to complete his education as he had to juggle shortages in funds and take on various posts, including a stint as a schoolmaster. During this time, he discovered an aptitude for sermons which spoke to his keen spirituality. After graduating, he became a curate in Olney.

Now that Josselin had a living and was set for his life’s work, he looked to starting a family. A local Olney girl, Jane Constable, attracted his attention and on October 28, 1640, the young couple married. They eventually settled in Earls Colne where Josselin served as vicar for the rest of his life. Over the next twenty-three years, Ralph and Jane welcomed ten children into their family, six girls and four boys. Two of their children were infants when they died, and their oldest, Mary, died at the age of 8. Only five of their children survived him.

Earls Colne Church

Josselin sided with Parliament during the English Civil War and in 1645 he joined as a chaplain. He was a moderate in his politics and looked upon the more revolutionary factions, like the Levellers and the Quakers, with concern. When Charles II was restored to throne in 1660, he obtained the King’s pardon, which allowed him to continue living in peace.

Historical Anthropologist, Alan MacFarlane, conducted a thorough analysis of Josselin’s diary by recording quantifiable details about his sources of income and his wealth during the years of the diary and even more intriguing, qualitative information about his attitudes toward his life, society and his children. The study is fascinating and invaluable.

Marriage

It was the norm during Stuart England for middle class couples to marry on average between the ages of twenty-three and twenty-five, far later than their aristocratic counterparts. Most men would not even consider getting married until they had their career firmly established.

Contrary to modern assumptions, marriage was not expected to be a loveless transaction. It was expected, even hoped, that couples would find a good match in personality and temperament. Ralph and Jane shared a loving marriage, though not without their ups and downs.

“You can consider, here I was won’t to see my dear Wife; here to enjoy her delightsome imbraces [sic]; her counsel, spiritual Discourses, furtherance, encouragement in the waves of God, I was won’t to fine her an help to ease me of the burthen and trouble of household-affaires, whose countenance welcomed me home with joy.”

Nor was theirs a one-sided marriage with Ralph making all the decisions and Jane merely obeying. The couple consulted over important decisions, such when they needed to consider suitors for their daughters. There was one situation where one young man came calling, and while Ralph favoured him, Jane didn’t agree. In the end, the suitor was turned away and their daughter ended up marrying someone else.

Children

Josselin was a Puritan and that alone conjures up images of a stern and authoritarian father, however his relationship with his children, even his daughters, was warm and caring, not to mention involved. Josselin worried over their welfare and their health, grieving as much as his wife over their premature deaths. Even after they married, he did not stop worrying about their welfare.

Curiously, Josselin did not limit his observations to his children after they were born. He diligently recorded the progress of his wife’s pregnancy, when she weaned their children and most of her miscarriages. Breastfeeding ranged between twelve and nineteen months and often weaning perfectly coincided with the onset of the next pregnancy.

Apprenticeship and Education

Education was not limited to the boys. Josselin was at one time the schoolmaster at Earls Colne school and ensured all his children received a good education. The Josselin children were taught there between the ages of 4 to 10, and their education included numbers and reading, though writing appeared to be a skill taught later in their education. For instance, Josselin received his daughter’s first letter when she was fourteen.

It was a common practice to send away children to be educated (including apprenticeship) around the time of adolescence, girls included. Most of them were sent to London either as apprentices or in the case of the daughters, to serve in a household, and rarely to relatives. These arrangements can be seen as an extension of their education and not as a way to shift the financial obligation to his children’s care to someone else. For Josselin reciprocated this arrangement and took in apprentices from other families, providing them food and shelter. He approached his duties very seriously accepting the boys as part of his extended family. This was a highly efficient and affective way to expand social reach and alliances to beyond one’s family.

Income

Not only did Josselin serve as a vicar, he was also a yeoman farmer and kept very detailed records of his income, expenditures and sources of wealth. The weather was the greatest source of worry and concern, and his diary also addresses the growing season, the weather conditions and the crop yields. February and September were the two months where he commented the most about the weather. The worst years for his crops were between 1646 to 1648 due to excessive rain. Interestingly, this happened between the first and second civil war, following years of food shortages due to free quarter by both Royalist and Parliamentarian armies.

Jocelyn’s source of income was varied. Income earned as a vicar provided a steady living, but he was able to supplement this through the rents he received on leased land (which he had either purchased over the years or had inherited), his farming, and for a brief time, his position as schoolmaster. Based on his diary notes, over the course of his working lifetime, approximately half of his income was derived from his ecclesiastical duties and just over a third from land (leases and farming).

Ralf Josselin’s diary gives us a much-needed insight into the personal life of a middle class family in the 17th century, and through his observations, the life of the women in his family.  I’ve only scratched a thin surface of what we can glean from his writings. If you’re interested in learning more, I would recommend the historical anthropological study, The Family Life of Ralph Josselin: A Seventeenth-Century Clergyman, by Alan MacFarlane.

Media:

East Colne Church: 'Plate 108: Church Towers', in An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Essex, Volume 3, North East (London, 1922), p. 108. British History Online.

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Cryssa Bazos is historical fiction author and 17th century enthusiast with a particular interest in the English Civil War. She is a member of the Historical Novel Society, the Romantic Novelist Association and is a co-editor and contributor of the English Historical Fiction Authors blog. Her award winning debut novel, Traitor's Knot, is published by Endeavour Media.

Connect with Cryssa through her blog cryssabazos.com, Facebook, Twitter (@CryssaBazos), and Instagram (@cryssabazos). Traitor's Knot is available through Amazon.

The overshadowed brother

by Anna Belfrage

Rupert 

It is difficult to study the period of the English Civil War without encountering Prince Rupert of the Rhine. This handsome nephew to King Charles pops up here, he pops up there, one of his uncle’s most loyal and competent commanders. So often does Rupert appear one could be forgiven for believing he was King Charles’ only loyal nephew. That, however, is not true. Rupert had an equally dashing and loyal brother, Maurice.

Rupert and Maurice came from a large family. Their mother, Princess Elizabeth Stuart, had wed Frederick of the Palatinate back in 1613 and for a little while the newlyweds had also been King and Queen of Bohemia, a venture that ended rather disastrously when the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand II, decided to oust the Protestant pretender from Prague. Whatever hopes Frederick and Elizabeth may have had of remaining on the Bohemian throne were ground to dust at the Battle of the White Mountain in November of 1620. (Read more about Elizabeth here)

Elizabeth

In effect, Frederick and Elizabeth thereby became homeless, a royal couple without a throne. Catholic forces had invaded Frederick’s hereditary lands so they really had nowhere to go. Must have caused some concern, especially as Elizabeth was a most fertile lady. Baby Maurice was born in 1621, the fifth of thirteen children. By then, the family was installed in The Hague, which is probably why the baby was named after the then Prince of Orange.  Some say Elizabeth named her fourth son after the brave and ferocious Prince of Orange because he too would have to grow up to be a soldier and fight for what he wanted.

A very young Frederick

In 1632 Frederick rode off to join the Swedish warrior king Gustavus Adolphus on the battlefield, hoping to enlist his help in regaining his hereditary lands. A not-so-successful meeting ended with Frederick deciding to return to The Hague, but along the way he sickened and died. Elizabeth was left with a huge brood (albeit somewhat decimated: three had already died) to raise. By all accounts, she was utterly devastated by the loss of her husband. Her brother, Charles I, offered her a home in England but Elizabeth refused. She had to stay on the continent and fight for the rights of her eldest surviving son, Charles Louis.

Charles Louis and Rupert

Our Maurice grew up in The Hague. Where Charles Louis and Rupert were shipped off to their English royal uncle for extended visits, Maurice was mostly kept at home by his doting mama. Maurice had a habit of partying too hard which did not please the upright citizens of The Hague, even less so when on one occasion Maurice ended up fighting a duel which led to the death of one of his assailants. Elizabeth decided it was time her son learnt manners and sent him off to Paris to study at the University. I’m not all that sure this worked – partying in Paris must have been much more fun than in The Hague- and two years later Maurice decided he wasn’t cut out for studies and went to join the Swedish Army instead.

Over the coming years, Maurice saw a lot of action. He distinguished himself on the field, was considered a brave and competent leader of men. He was only seventeen when he served at the Siege of Breda, a resounding triumph for the Protestant forces. He fought for years under the Swedish Field Marshal Johan Banér. By the time the English Civil War began, our Maurice was a very young but battle-hardened warrior, as competent as his much more famous older brother.

Maurice

King Charles welcomed Maurice to England with open arms. He needed commanders – loyal commanders – and in Rupert and Maurice he had two such men, experienced enough to be able to face the Parliamentarian forces. The older brother, Charles Louis, was, however, persona non grata at the English Court. Where both Rupert and Maurice were royalists to their core, Charles Louis found much merit in the Parliamentarian cause, going so far as to sign the Solemn league and Covenant in 1644. (As to why he did this, I imagine Charles Louis had his eyes on the bigger prize, hoping the Parliamentarians might enthrone him instead of his uncle. To give Charles Louis his due, though, he was utterly shocked when Charles was executed in 1649)

Maurice served his king capably and loyally. Often in the company of Rupert, he was dismissed as being nothing but his older brother’s shadow, a good-for-nothing that lacked the skills to act independently. This was not the case, and there are various occasions during the Civil War when Maurice’s command and personal bravery resulted in won battles.

No matter how bravely and effectively Maurice fought, his reputation in England was destroyed by the debacle of the Siege of Lyme in 1644. Prince Maurice had been in the west for some time, successfully regaining ground from the Parliamentarian forces until only Plymouth, Poole and Lyme remained under Parliamentarian control.

Maurice was ordered to besiege and take Lyme – a walk in the park according to the other royalist officers. Turns out it wasn’t. Not only was Lyme kept in food and water by Parliamentarian ships sneaking into its harbour, but it was defended by men who fervently believed in the Parliamentarian cause. Maurice’s mercenaries were not as passionate, and things weren’t helped by nature itself, steep cliffs making it difficult for Maurice to deploy his artillery. In desperation, Maurice ordered the town to be stormed. Didn’t work. He did it again. Didn’t work. By now, Maurice’s men were less than enthusiastic about the whole thing and when they had news of the Earl of Essex advancing to relieve the town, Maurice had no choice but to pull back.

Demoted and humiliated, Maurice still continued to fight for his uncle, now mostly under the command of his brother, like at the Battle of Naseby.  He was also with Rupert at the disastrous Siege of Bristol where Rupert had to give up. King Charles angrily accused his nephew of cowardice and borderline treason and ordered Rupert to leave his service—immediately.

Rupert wasn’t having it. Neither was Maurice. Somehow they made their way back to the king where Rupert demanded he be court-martialled for the events at Bristol. He was cleared of any duplicitous behaviour but the relationship between the king and his fiery nephew was permanently damaged – even more so when both Rupert and Maurice tried to make King Charles see he had no choice but to negotiate with the Parliamentarians.
“Over my dead body,” Charles likely said (most unfortunately, given how things turned out) but he grudgingly allowed the brothers to remain in his service which they did until they were exiled by the Parliamentary forces in 1646.

Maurice didn’t exactly twiddle his thumbs once he’d left England. He found a new army to serve, new battles to fight, joining the French in Flanders. But when big brother Rupert suggested he return to serve under him in 1648, Maurice eagerly did so, enamoured, no doubt, by Rupert’s plans to crush the Parliamentarian forces at sea now that most of the Parliamentarian vessels had defected to the royalist cause.

Things didn’t work out quite as intended, mainly because fighting at sea was a totally different animal than fighting on land, and neither Rupert nor Maurice had any experience in managing naval forces. Plus, of course, the Parliamentarian navy had one of the better admirals around, a Robert Blake who soon enough had Rupert’s fleet fleeing for its life, away from England, away from Europe.

By the time 1650 rolled in, Rupert and Maurice were down to six ships or so but determined to regroup and return in force to England, there to push the claim of their young cousin, Charles II. Their uncle was dead, beheaded no less, and the royalist cause had little going for it. There was no money, no men, no leadership. It was Rupert’s hope that his ships would be able to sort the money issue by resorting to piracy, and for a while there things went rather well. Until a storm sank one of the ships and most of the treasure. Maurice almost drowned in the debacle but was pulled to safety at the last moment.
 
A short-lived reprieve as it would turn out. In 1652, the little fleet was hit by a hurricane in the West indies and one of the ships went down. This time, Maurice went down with it and no matter how his brother searched for him, he was never found. A devastated Rupert returned home to Europe. For years, he held out hope that Maurice had somehow survived, but Maurice never did reappear, stuck no doubt in a very watery grave somewhere in the Caribbean.

Maurice

Maurice was thirty-one when he died, a veteran of military campaigns on the Continent, in England and at sea. He never married, left no children, and in the history books his life is forever overshadowed by that of the gallant and charming Prince Rupert. But Maurice was more than a shadow, as gallant and brave as his brother. And in my opinion he was also by far the handsomest of the two – but that is neither here nor there.

All pictures in public domain and/or licensed under Wikimedia Creative Commons

~~~~~~~~~~~

Had Anna Belfrage been allowed to choose, she’d have become a professional time-traveller. As such a profession does not exist, she became a financial professional with two absorbing interests, namely history and writing.

Presently, Anna is hard at work with The King’s Greatest Enemy, a series set in the 1320s featuring Adam de Guirande, his wife Kit, and their adventures and misfortunes in connection with Roger Mortimer’s rise to power. And yes, Edmund of Woodstock appears quite frequently. The first book, In The Shadow of the Storm was published in 2015, the second, Days of Sun and Glory, was published in July 2016, and the third, Under the Approaching Dark, was published in April 2017.

When Anna is not stuck in the 14th century, she's probably visiting in the 17th century, specifically with Alex(andra) and Matthew Graham, the protagonists of the acclaimed The Graham Saga. This is the story of two people who should never have met – not when she was born three centuries after him.

More about Anna on her website or on her blog!

A Royalist Highwayman

by Cryssa Bazos

Late one Sunday night on November 9, 1651, a company of dragoons descended upon a barber’s house on Fleet Street to arrest one of his lodgers. The soldiers burst into the man’s quarters, pistols drawn, and hauled him to the Speaker of the House of Commons, William Lenthall. The next day, they brought their prisoner to Whitehall to be questioned.

The state had finally captured Captain James Hind, notorious highwayman, but their interest in him went beyond common thievery. He had become a political figure.

James Hind by Unknown artist.
NPG D29227 (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

James Hind was born in the Oxfordshire town of Chipping Norton in July of 1616, the tenth of thirteen children. His father was a respectable saddler and served as a churchwarden. Hind married Margaret Rowland on February 24, 1638, and their affectionate marriage produced four children: Alice, James, Samuel and Charles. But Hind’s domesticity masked a nearly twenty year run as a highwayman.

The seeds of Hind’s nefarious career had started in the local grammar school. His father had recognized his son’s sharp mind and diverted a portion of his income to educate the boy. Unfortunately, Hind preferred the study of pranks to letters, and he loved tales of high adventure, particularly crime stories. By the age of fifteen, Hind had outstayed his welcome in school. His father apprenticed the lad to a butcher, but subservience did not suit Hind. Fed up by the beatings he received for his impertinence, he ran away to London.

Imagine the world of corruption that suddenly opened up for this clever Chipping Norton lad: drinking, carousing, and visiting houses of ill repute (he hadn’t married to Margaret yet). His life took on a new direction, or rather an inevitable one, when he met Thomas Allen in a holding cell following a drunken spree. Allen, also known as Bishop Allen, led a gang of highwayman working the London suburbs. Allen took the young Hind under his wing and introduced him to life on the highway.

During his coming-out robbery at Shooter’s Hill, Hind held up a gentleman and stole £10. To the dismay of his new crew, he returned part of the booty, a sum of forty shillings, to see the gentleman safely back to London.

Hind’s wit and generosity became his calling card and he developed a reputation as a gentleman robber, often jesting with his “clients” and giving good sport. Not surprising many of his exploits had a Robin Hood feel to them. Once, when travelling through Warwickshire, Hind came upon two bailiffs and a usurer who were trying to collect from an innkeeper a debt of £20. Hind intervened to save the landlord and settled the bond on his behalf. After the bailiffs received their due, Hind ambushed the usurer and stole back not only his £20 but also another twenty for good measure. When he returned to the inn, he gave the innkeeper £5 and said that he “had good luck by lending to honest men.”

James Hind by Unknown artist.
NPG D29226 (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

Then in 1642, the English Civil War broke out, and Hind turned his talents for the benefit of the King. Together with other members of the Bishop Allen gang, he joined the Royalist army. Hind’s leadership and courage drew the attention of his superiors, and he became particularly attached to Sir William Compton, third son of the Earl of Northampton of Warwickshire. In 1647, Hind received his captain’s commission from Compton at Colchester. In later years, Compton would found the Sealed Knot, a secret society that conspired to place Charles Stuart (later Charles II) on the throne.

Following the end of the second civil war (1647-48), Hind began to operate alone, for sometime in 1648, Allen and most of his crew were captured after a foiled attempt to assassinate Oliver Cromwell. Hind had managed to escape and returned to highway robbery with a new purpose: harassing Roundheads, and his preferred quarry were regicides when he could get them.

According to legend, Hind held up the man who presided over the King’s trial, a regicide by the name of John Bradshaw. Hind caught the judge on the road in Dorsetshire. When Bradshaw tried to intimidate the highwayman with his reputation, Hind retorted, “I have now as much power over you as you lately had over the King, and I should do God and my country good service if I made the same use of it.”

Hind had become more than a highwayman; he was now a symbol of resistance for the Royalists and a burr in the saddle of Parliament. But he didn’t stop there. At one point, he must have realized that he could contribute more to the Crown than stealing from Roundheads.

On May 2, 1649, Hind sailed for The Hague and stayed there for three days before continuing to Ireland laden with the “King’s goods”, supplies destined for the Royalists' resistance against Cromwell. Not surprising, the Earl of Northampton, William Compton’s eldest brother, spent his exile in The Hague.

Hind remained in Ireland for nine months and served as corporal in the Marquess of Ormonde’s Life Guard. He eventually arrived in Scotland and presented himself to Charles Stuart. In Hind’s declaration, he “sent a letter to His Majesty acquainting His Highness of my arrival, and represented my service, &c, which was favourably accepted of, for no sooner had the King notice of my coming but immediately I had admittance to his chamber and kissed his hand.”

While Charles may have been desperate for men, this special treatment stands out as unusual. Were the King’s actions a result of his relief over receiving the services of a courageous, resourceful soldier or had Hind arrived with a recommendation? Though naturally audacious, that he dared send a letter to the King suggests he expected to be received.

Hind joined the King’s army and stayed with him through the invasion of England in August 1652, which ended with defeat at the Battle of Worcester on September 3, 1652. At the battle, Hind “kept the field until the King was fled” then headed for the anonymity of London, lying under hedges and in woods. When he arrived in London, rumours were already circulating that the infamous highwayman, Captain Hind, had helped the King escape Worcester. He managed to elude capture for five weeks, but eventually the dragoons found and arrested him.

Over the next several months, Hind went through three sensational trials. The bizarre twists would have today earned him round the clock media coverage.

His first trial occurred on Dec 12, 1651 at the Old Bailey. Hind admitted to a few ‘pranks’ and even confessed to fighting with the King at Worcester. Though they could have charged him with High Treason, no Bill of Indictment or witnesses were brought against him. But he remained in close custody at Newgate.

"Old Newgate". Licensed under 
Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Hind’s second trial was held in Reading on March 1, 1652. The state charged him with the murder of a local man who had once tried to stop Hind in Maidenhead Thicket. In fact, this was the only reported murder attributed to him throughout his long career as a highwayman. Hind stated that he fired on the man in self-defence.

At this point, Hind claimed benefit of clergy, a legal loophole that dated back to 1170 when the clergy were considered outside the jurisdiction of secular courts. To succeed, the defendant would need to read the scripture given to him (because in the 12th century, few except the clergy could read). Unfortunately, Hind failed the test, and they sentenced him to death. He must have regretted not applying himself better in school.

But reprieve came from the most unlikely source. The next day, before the sentence could be carried out, the Act of Oblivion came into force. The Act allowed for many crimes committed prior to September 3, 1651 (the Battle of Worcester) to be pardoned as an act of war, all except High Treason.

Now Parliament became desperate. Chapbooks and broadsheets tallying Hind’s exploits flooded London. One local publisher even released The Declaration of James Hind, an official account of his service to the King. All this publicity made Parliament look bad.

The gloves came off. The state turned to the Act of Oblivion for their cue and indicted Hind with High Treason for his participation at Worcester. For Parliament, the third trial was the charm. The court found Hind guilty and sentenced him to be hanged, drawn and quartered.

On September 24, 1652, Captain James Hind, royalist and notorious highwayman, climbed the scaffold and addressed the gathered crowd. With his typical courage, he pledged his continued loyalty to the King. His last words were, “I value it not threepence to lose my life in so good a cause. God’s will be done. If it were to do again, I protest I would do the like.”

So ended the life of Captain James Hind, Royalist Highwayman.

This is an Editor's Choice and was originally published on November 3, 2014. 

References:

·         Declaration of Captain James Hind, printed for G. Horton 1651

·         The Adventures of Captain James Hind of Chipping Norton: The Oxfordshire Highwayman by O.M. Meades

·         No Jest like a true Jest

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Cryssa Bazos is an award winning historical fiction writer and 17th century enthusiast with a particular interest in the English Civil War. Her debut novel, Traitor's Knot, is published by Endeavour Press and placed 3rd in 2016 Romance for the Ages (Ancient/Medieval/Renaissance). 

For more stories, visit her blog cryssabazos.com or connect with her through Facebook, Twitter (@cryssabazos) or Instagram. 

Traitor’s Knot is available:
eBook through Amazon. http://mybook.to/TraitorsKnot
Paperback through Amazon US (including Canada) http://amzn.to/2sgTpYv, or Amazon UK http://amzn.to/2sr5ASt

The Infamous Countess of Carlisle

by Cryssa Bazos

One of the most intriguing characters in historical fiction is Milady de Winter of the Three Musketeers. Alexandre Dumas depicted her as a lethal spy whose loyalties were sold to the highest bidder, notably the Cardinal Richelieu.

The inspiration for Milady was a socialite and renowned beauty of her day, Lucy Hay, Countess of Carlisle. Though Lucy was not an agent of Cardinal Richelieu, she held court at a time of social upheaval when men were drawing battle lines against King Charles I. The real woman was even more fascinating than the fictional one.

Lucy Percy, by Anthony van Dyck
[Public Domain] via Wikimedia Commons

Lucy Hay was born Lucy Percy in 1599 to Lady Dorothy Devereux and Henry Percy, the 9th Earl of Northumberland. Lady Devereux was the daughter of the Earl of Essex and Lettice Knollys whose second husband, Robert Dudley the Earl of Leicester, had once been a favourite of Queen Elizabeth, that is until he and Lettice married without the Queen’s permission. Through her maternal line, Lucy was the great, great granddaughter of Mary Boleyn, sister to Anne Boleyn.

On Lucy's father's side, the Percys were an old and respected bloodline having first arrived with William the Conqueror, and later, descendants of King Henry III. The family stood for centuries as the bulwark against Scottish and Welsh invasion of England. Given Lucy's stellar connections, she was well poised to be a courtly influence.

Unfortunately, her early years were marked by notoriety and not the favourable kind. When Lucy had been six years old, her father had been implicated in the Gunpowder Plot (to blow up Parliament and murder King James I) due to his kinship with one of the leading conspirators, Thomas Percy. For the next seventeen years, Lucy’s father was a prisoner of the Tower of London (along with famous prisoner Sir Walter Raleigh) and during this time Percy indulged his interest in alchemy and chemistry. He was committed to his experiments (even lost the hearing of one ear) and everyone called him the "Wizard Earl."  

While Henry languished in the Tower, Lucy’s mother tried to secure her husband’s release. She appealed to her friend Queen Anne, who put in a good word with her husband, King James I, but unfortunately the King levied a crippling fine that the Percys couldn’t afford and they found their estates seized. This was Lucy’s early introduction to the influence women could yield in politics as well as the fickleness of royal prerogative [1].

Sometime around 1617, Lucy Percy caught the eye of James Hay, who would become the 1st Earl of Carlisle. At the time he was a baron and a widower. Her father was furious. His imprisonment put him at a disadvantage to squelch his daughter's choice, particularly since his wife favoured the match. Henry Percy did not have a high opinion of the Scottish faction at court, the courtiers who had followed King James to England upon his ascension of the English throne, and James Hay was one of the King’s more extravagent favourites. Henry Percy had been reputed to say, “I am a Percy and I cannot endure that my daughter should dance any Scottish jig.”

James Hay, 1st Earl of Carlisle, by Unknown
National Portrait Gallery: NPG 5210
[Public Domain] via Wikimedia Commons

James Hay was not considered a handsome man, but he was suave, charismatic and knew how to entertain in style. He introduced Lucy to a sophisticated set, lavished her with courtly masques, fine music and theatre. For an ambitious woman like Lucy, James Hay was irresistible. More importantly, he pulled her from the shadow of her father’s disgrace straight into the royal limelight.

In November 1617, Lucy became James Hay’s second wife. Her wedding was attended by the fashionable and the powerful, including Charles, Prince of Wales and George Villiers (later the Duke of Buckingham).

In the early days of Lucy’s marriage, her husband served as a Privy Councillor and a Groom of the Stool. Between 1618 and 1622, Hay travelled to foreign courts on behalf of the King, counselled the King on the growing troubles in Germany and recommended England’s support for the Protestants in Bohemia and the Palatinate. He was a voice for the Huguenots in France though not a successful one. In 1622, the King made him the 1st Earl of Carlisle and Lucy became a Countess.

Lucy flourished in the years to come, greatly celebrated for her  beauty and accomplishments. She had a gift for politics and intrigues, enjoyed poetry and theatre, and cultivated admirers by the score. In later years when she contracted small pox, the entire court feared that she would be disfigured. For a time, she wore masks to hide her healing face and managed to turn them into a fashion statement. Fortunately for Lucy, the disease did not leave lasting scars.

Men waxed poetic over Lucy’s charms. One admirer, John Suckling, wrote a risqué poem about the bewitching Countess of Carlisle in the form of a dialogue between himself and another admirer of hers, Thomas Carew. The poem was entitled, Upon My Lady Carlisle’s Walking in Hampton Court Gardens. Here is one of the stanzas:

“Twas well for thee she left the place;
There is great danger in that face.
But hadst thou viewed her leg and thigh,
And upon that discovery
Searched after parts that are more dear”

Lucy and James Hay’s star continued to rise after the ascension of the new king, Charles I, and the growing influence of his favourite, George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham. Lucy was rumoured to have been Buckingham’s mistress, and through Buckingham’s influence, she was appointed Lady of Queen Henrietta’s Bedchamber, while her husband received a similar honour for the King. 

It suited Buckingham to install Lucy as a companion to Queen Henrietta Maria, in order to be informed of the Queen’s visitors and activities. The Queen was passionately against Lucy's appointment. After all, Lucy was beautiful, witty and entirely Buckingham’s creature, and as her duties brought her in close contact with the King, Henrietta feared that Buckingham worked to install Lucy as the King's mistress. Charles was not so easily led astray and resisted Lucy’s charms; he even refused the Queen's petition to get rid of her. Over time, Lucy overcame the Henrietta's suspicions and became a close confident to her. Through her proximity to the Queen, Lucy became the centre of fashionable society, gathering poets and politicians within her circle. 

 

George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham
By Michiel van Mierevelt
[Public Domain] via Wikimedia Commons

It was around this time when the story of the French Queen’s diamonds surfaced, made famous by Alexandre Dumas in The Three Musketeers. A 17th century French diarist, Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (Prince de Marcillac) wrote in his memoirs that Lucy stole the diamond studs that Anne of Austria, Queen of France, had given to her admirer Buckingham. Lucy's motives were reputed to be revenge for having been jilted by Buckingham by his obsession with the Queen. Dumas borrowed heavily from Rochefoucauld’s memoirs and created the  character of Milady de Winter in Lucy's image. 

James Hay meanwhile continued his diplomatic service for Charles I, engaging in intrigues against Cardinal Richelieu of France and was even named Governor of the Caribbees. Eventually his health failed, and he died in 1636.

Now Lucy found herself a wealthy widow, and it gave her a degree of freedom that she had never previously enjoyed before. Though she would not be shy of male companionship, she never remarried and so maintained her independence. During this chapter of her life, she fell in love with Thomas Wentworth, the Earl of Strafford. Intense, serious and ambitious, Strafford was the exact opposite of Lucy’s late husband.

Strafford had at one point been a vocal supporter for the rights of Parliament against royal prerogative, but he eventually switched sides to become one of the King’s most ardent supporters. As discontent against the King grew and the country headed toward civil war, Strafford became a scapegoat for the country's ills, and Parliament called for his impeachment. The impeachment failed but a bill of attainder was passed against him, and Charles I had no choice than to sign the attainder and seal Strafford's death. To read more about Strafford’s trial, see Strafford Must Die by Annie Whitehead.

Politically astute, Lucy managed to distance herself from Strafford so she was not brought low by his ruin. Lucy Hay was a survivor, after all. She switched sides and started passing information to one of Parliament’s most ardent advocates, John Pym. Some even said she became his mistress. Perhaps one of the most important pieces of information that she passed to Pym, and which was credited with igniting the spark of civil war, was a warning that the King was planning to arrest Pym and four of his companions. Pym managed to escape, and a week later, he returned triumphant to Parliament to resume his crusade against the King.

When the English Civil War broke out in 1642, Lucy favoured Parliament, though she took care to not entirely burn her bridges on the other side. She had a growing aversion to royal prerogative. Lucy favoured moderation, where the nobility retained their privilege instead of being irrelevant by the whims of the king. By the end of the 1st civil war, when it became apparent that Parliament was being circumvented by a fanatic Puritan faction, moderate Lucy switched sides to help spy for the Royalists. 

During the second civil war (1647-1648), Lucy raised funds for the king and acted as a go-between the Royalists in the north and Queen Henrietta. In the end, all her efforts were for naught. The King was captured and in January 1649, executed.

Two months later, Parliament arrested Lucy and sent her to the Tower of London for questioning. They threatened her with torture but could not break her. Lucy remained in the Tower for eighteen months, ironically not far from where her father had been kept all those years. Eventually she was paroled and released.

In the final years of Cromwell’s Protectorate, Lucy became a Royalist agent, joining others who worked to restore Charles II to his father's throne. A few short months after the Restoration, on November 5, 1660, Lucy Hay, Countess of Carlisle quietly passed away. 

Femme fatale, informant, spy, Lucy Hay was a fascinating character. Alexandre Dumas obviously agreed.


Further reading:

Court Lady and Country Wife: Royal Privilege and Civil War (Two Noble Sisters in 17th century England), by Lita-Rose Betcherman.

[1] The English Civil War: A People’s History, by Diane Purkiss

Poem of the week: Upon My Lady Carlisle’s Walking in Hampton Court Gardens by John Suckling.

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Cryssa Bazos is historical fiction writer and 17th century enthusiast with a particular interest in the English Civil War. Her debut novel, Traitor's Knot, will be published by Endeavour Press and will be released in 2017. For more stories about the English Civil War and the 17th century, visit her blog cryssabazos.com. Follow Cryssa on Twitter (@CryssaBazos) and on Facebook.