The Letters of Dorothy Osborne: What Price Loyalty to Love?

By Sally A. Moore

The English Civil War in the 1640’s fired many passions on both sides of the conflict, often making for strange bedfellows with shifting loyalties. Women were the displaced heroes, left to defend estates, protect their family’s possessions and honour, raise money for the cause, and mend the shattered fences of broken alliances. Letter writing filled the void left by absent loved ones, elevating communication in some instances to an art form.

Dorothy, Lady Temple by Gaspar Netscher
National Portrait Gallery NPG3813

Dorothy Osborne was the daughter of Sir Peter Osborne, Lieutenant Governor of the Isle of Guernsey, a confirmed and passionate royalist. Charged by Charles I with defending the harbour fortress of Castle Cornet against the Parliamentarians who had seized the island, Sir Peter lost his fortune, his men, his estate, and the health of his wife carrying out this duty. In addition, two of his surviving four sons died in the Civil War conflict.

Chicksands Priory: Ashley3D via Visual hunt / CC BY-SA

A stalwart example to his youngest child, Dorothy, Sir Peter demonstrated the value of loyalty, even in the face of seemingly lost causes. Left behind at Chicksands, their country estate in Bedfordshire, Dorothy experienced the kind of loss to family and fortune that heavily impacts one’s formative years. She was just fifteen in 1642 when the war broke out, and by the time the conflict was over, her status and prospects had changed forever.

“I was so altered, from a cheerful humour that was always alike, never over merry, but always pleased, I was grown heavy, and sullen, forward and discomposed.” Dorothy Osborne

But against this tumultuous and ruinous background, Dorothy fell in love. Her choice was a good one, for he was a charming, intelligent, handsome and amiable young man who quickly fell for her as well.

“…as those romances are best which are likest true stories, so are those true stories which are likest romances.” William Temple to Dorothy Osborne

Dorothy Osborne met William Temple at the age of twenty-one in 1648 on progress to France with her youngest brother, Robin. The Royalist cause was a lost one and the Osborne estates forfeit to Parliament. Moving his family to France seemed like the only option for Sir Peter.

Sir William Temple
National Portrait Gallery NPG3812

William’s family had fought on the Parliamentary side, which had similarly depleted their resources. At twenty years old, he was on progress to Europe for his education, and found himself in the company of Dorothy and her brother Robin. Dorothy was immediately impressed with this captivating fellow traveller.

According to biographer Jane Dunn in her book, “His easy manners, interest in others and natural charm were so infectious that his sister Martha claimed that on a good day no one, male or female, could resist him.”

While William awaited departure by boat to France with Dorothy on the Isle of Wight, Dorothy’s brother Robin got into a bit of trouble. Infuriated by the imprisonment of King Charles I in Carisbrooke Castle, Robin ran back to their inn and etched an incendiary quotation in Latin into the windowpane, implying a reversal in current political circumstances. According to Dunn, the last line of the well-known quotation was, “Then was the King’s wrath pacified.”

Robin was arrested by Parliamentary officials and taken to trial in the name of Governor Robert Hammond. Dorothy came forward to claim the deed was hers, not Robin’s, hoping the officials would be more lenient with a woman. William, moved by Dorothy’s loyalty and love for her brother, spoke on her behalf, and since Governor Hammond was his cousin and son of the man who had educated William in his home as a boy, the officials relented and let the brother and sister go.

William, now falling in love with Dorothy, delayed his European tour to stay on with the Osborne family in St. Malo, France, where Sir Peter Osborne and his wife were exiled. After a month, however, William’s father, Sir John Temple, heard of his son’s delay and sternly ordered him by letter to depart on his tour. William obeyed, but his passion for Dorothy and hers for him was such that promises were made, and thereafter, Dorothy Osborne and William Temple were devoted to each other.

For the next seven years, Dorothy and William would fight familial duty, ardent suitors, an unfriendly regime, and family supporters to keep their pact to marry only each other. Their constancy in uncertain times and against such pressure is remarkable, and theirs is one of the truly great romances of the seventeenth century. The letters they shared over these years, coupled with infrequent and surreptitious meetings, served to maintain a dedicated bond that only grew stronger the more opposition they encountered. 

Once the extent of their attachment was discovered, William’s family forbade him to communicate with Dorothy, but he disobeyed them. Few of his letters to her have survived, as the couple promised to destroy all their letters to each other to avoid detection. He did write French-style romances for her, which he knew she admired, and told her to read them as letters from him.

“Madam, I count all that time but lost which I lived without knowing you . . . it is impossible to tell you how much I have died since I left you, for I have done it as often as I have thought of you, and thought of you as often as I have breathed.” Sir William Temple

Dorothy, in the face of abuse and histrionics from her possessive brother, Henry, who lived with her after the Osborne estates were restored at Chicksands, duly destroyed her precious letters, but her desperation to receive them was clear.

“O if you do not send me long letters then you are the cruellest person that can be. If you love me you will and if you do not I shall never love my self.”

William, blessed with more physical freedom from his disapproving father, could not bear to destroy her words, and so Dorothy’s letters to him were lovingly preserved.

At times, his devotion and terror at losing her shows in her response to his letters:

“I know your humour is strangely altered from what it was, and I am sorry for it,” she wrote. “Melancholy must needs do you more hurt . . . therefore if you loved me you would take heed of it. Can you believe that you are dearer to me than the whole world besides and yet neglect yourself?”

The couple, secretly pledged to each other but forbidden to wed, fended off a number of suitors brought forth by their families. Sir John Temple, determined that his only son and heir should marry well, grew increasingly impatient with his son’s stubborn attachment to an unsuitable woman from a disgraced family with no dowry.

Dorothy, a known beauty, fended off many suitors, some encouraged by her irate brother Henry, and some who sought Dorothy out on their own. These included such illustrious personages as her cousin, Thomas Osborne, Lord Danby and later 1st Duke of Leeds; Henry Cromwell, second son of Lord Protector of the Commonwealth Oliver Cromwell; and Justinian Isham, English scholar and royalist advisor. 

Justinian Isham by Peter Lely
[Public Domain] Wikimedia Commons

 Dorothy seems to have been on good terms with some of them, in spite of her arguments with her brother and ailing father over her constant refusals. Henry Cromwell remained a lifelong friend, and made a present of two Irish greyhounds she wanted. William, not to be undone, sent her another, charging her with loving this single devoted animal the most.

Dorothy was quick to reassure him:

“I have defended him from the envy and the malice of a troupe of greyhounds that used to be in favour with me, and he is so sensible of my care over him that he is pleased with nobody else and follows me as if we had been of long acquaintance.”

William’s fear that Dorothy would take a better offer and break their covenant stayed with him throughout their courtship, as he struggled to find the income and position that would allow him marry and support a family with the woman he loved.
William’s melancholy reached a fever in 1654, as Dorothy, nearing 28 years of age, began to hint that she might release him from their pact. Considering the waning fortunes of her family, her dwindling prospects on the marriage market with her many refusals, and William’s frustration that endangered his health, Dorothy may have been trying to do the right thing for them both.

William panicked and fell so despondent that Dorothy begged him to protect himself from his own nature, the “Violence of your passion.” She wrote:

“Let me beg then that you will leave off those dismal thoughts. I tremble at the desperate things you say in your letter.”

William’s father, seeing the suffering of his son, and the devotion of William’s heart, finally relented. He and Dorothy’s brother (her ailing father had passed away) wrangled over the terms, but the couple joyously made plans to marry in October of 1654, heedless of the settlement.

“Nothing can alter the resolution I have taken of setting my whole stock of happiness upon the affection of a person that is dear to me whose kindness I shall infinitely prefer before any other consideration whatsoever.” Dorothy Osborne to William Temple

Dorothy came to London with her aunt, Elizabeth Danvers, as chaperone, and the lovers were reunited. One can only imagine the soaring joy as they stood together, finally embraced in each other’s arms. Sadly, tragedy struck this long-suffering couple. Dorothy fell seriously ill with smallpox.

William stayed by her side, refusing to leave, and helped nurse his love. Her condition was dire, and she was expected to perish, but William would not give up. So strong was Dorothy’s determination to live and be joined with her love, that she stayed the course and through a terrible ordeal she fought for her life.

William rejoiced when her condition suddenly improved. “He was happy when he saw [her life] secure, his kindness having greater ties than that of her beauty,” his sister Martha, Lady Giffard, later recalled. “William had long recognised that Dorothy’s beauty sprang from a deeper source than an unblemished creamy skin.” (Jane Dunn, Read My Heart).

William and Dorothy were married on Christmas Day, 1654, and while their life together was fraught with challenges—her brother’s continued objections, financial difficulties due to the delayed settlement of her dowry and William’s inheritance, multiple miscarriages and infant deaths, and numerous separations with the changing political landscape—their love remained constant and unwavering.

After seven long years, the anguish and determination of two people desperately in love was rewarded, and is a testament to the true love and loyalty of William Temple and Dorothy Osborne. Most of us should be so lucky.

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Sources:

The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple (1888) edited by Edward Abbott Parry

Dorothy Osborne’s 77 surviving letters (now held in the British Library ADD. MSS. 33975)

Read My Heart A Love Story in England’s Age of Revolution, by Jane Dunn, 2008, Harper Collins Publishers Ltd.

The Constant Desperado by Sir William Temple

Sally A. Moore is a freelance writer and an award-winning poet and novelist from Kingston, Ontario in Canada. Represented by The Rights Factory Literary Agency in Toronto, her writing credits include articles and creative fiction, as well as poetry prizes from the Ontario Poetry Society and the Montreal International Poetry Prize competition. Sally is Past President of the Writers’ Community of Durham Region (WCDR), a member of the Historical Novel Society, and the recipient of the Len Cullen Writing Scholarship. Sally holds certificates of achievement from Humber School for Writers and a diploma with Distinction in Commercial Communications. Excerpts of her historical fiction/fantasy trilogy, Legend of Three Crowns, a work in progress, can be seen on her web site. www.samoorewrites.com

Connect with Sally:
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Dorothy Osborne

Dorothy Osborne, Lady Temple

by Anita Davison

Whilst working on my latest 17th century novel, I am researching trivia about my heroine's friends. One of these was a lady called Dorothy Osborne, who lived at Shene, and who warrants a mention for her observation of Elizabeth Murray’s character in the latter’s biography.

Born in 1627, Dorothy’s father was Lieutenant-Governor of the Isle of Guernsey under Charles I, and held out for the royalist cause. Sir Peter Osborne took his family to France in 1648 and on the journey, stopped off on the Isle of Wight where William Temple met Dorothy Osborne, and these two nineteen-year-olds fell in love.

At the time, Charles I was a prisoner at Carisbrooke castle, and these three were arrested for scratching royalist graffiti on a window-pane. Dorothy apparently took the blame, relying on the Roundheads' gallantry, and secured their release.

Their families did not approve of the alliance on financial grounds, so the couple wrote to each other in secret, the letters carried back and forth by servants while William travelled in Europe. William’s letters are lost but some of Dorothy’s are still in print.

The defeat of the Royalists forced Sir Peter to surrender the fortress, and he and his family returned to their estate at Chicksands Priory in Bedforshire, where they lived in near penury until the Restoration. The building was once a Gilbertine priory which the Osborn family had owned since 1576, after the Dissolution of the Monasteries. It was only one of nine religious houses in England that housed both nuns and canons. They lived in different buildings and were separated in church by a screen. Ghostly nuns, monks and horsemen have been seen at Chicksands; amongst whom a nun who was rumoured to have been pregnant kept locked up in her room until her death.

Dorothy’s family presented her with a line of suitors, among whom were her cousin Thomas Osborne, afterwards Earl of Danby, Henry Cromwell, son of Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, and Sir Justinian Isham, whom she refers to as an ‘elderly man’ when he was forty-two.  Dorothy refused them all until after the deaths of both hers and William’s fathers, after which the families finally agreed to them marrying.

With their mutual dreams fulfilled, Dorothy contracted smallpox, which not only disfigured her, but delayed the wedding, which took place on Christmas Day, 1654, seven years after they met. Between 1655 and the Restoration, they lived quietly in Ireland, at the house of Sir John Temple, who had made his peace with Oliver Cromwell, and resumed his official position.
         
The accession of King Charles II rescued Temple from obscurity and he sat in parliament at Dublin as member for Carlow. After a visit to England in 1661, as commissioner from the Irish parliament, he finally removed to there in 1663 and took Dorothy to live at Sheen.

Reputed to be a ‘distant and egotistical man’, William Temple was created a baronet and negotiated the 1666 Triple Alliance of England, Sweden, and Holland, to establish a balance of power against France, as well as negotiating, in 1673, the peace which concluded the Second Dutch War.

Temple was charged with cultivating good relations with Spain, threatened by the claims of Louis XIV on the Spanish Netherlands when he marched on Flanders in Spring 1667.

Sir William Temple was made Ambassador to The Hague twice and lived for two years on good terms with the young Prince of Orange, afterwards William III. The Prince was fond of speaking English and of English habits, constantly dined and supped once or twice a week at Temple’s house. Dorothy had no desire to accompany her husband on diplomatic missions: she left this to her sister-in-law Martha Giffard who went everywhere with William and managed his household at The Hague.

Sir William helped arrange the marriage negotiations of Prince William to Mary Stuart, daughter of the Duke of York. Dorothy was an important figure in the negotiations because of her friendship with the royal couple, one that lasted until Queen Mary’s death in 1694.

Among Temple's chief achievements was the peace of Breda and the January 1668 Triple Alliance between England, the United Netherlands, and Sweden.

Sir William Temple

Samuel Pepys records public opinion on the treaty saying: "the only good public thing that hath been done since the king came into England."

In August 1671, Lord Arlington let the royal yacht Merlin, with Dorothy Osborne aboard, sail through the Dutch fleet at anchor off Den Briel for maintenance. The Dutch ships duly struck their flag in salute, as was mandatory under treaty, but their commander refused to salute firing white smoke, because they were doubtful the Merlin counted as a real warship.

Charles ordered the intriguer George Downing demand that the admirals responsible would be severely punished, which the States-General of the Netherlands refused.  Thus Dorothy was jokingly reputed to have helped provoke another Anglo-Dutch war.

Dorothy had nine children, all but two of whom died in infancy. A daughter, Diana, succumbed to smallpox at age fourteen, and a son, John, took his own life in his twenties, but not before he had married and fathered two children, providing Sir William and Lady Temple with two granddaughters: Elizabeth and Dorothy.

With King William and Queen Mary on the throne, Sir William was pressed to be Secretary of State three times, but he refused, preferring to retire to his property in Moor Park, Surrey. Jonathan Swift lived with the Temples as secretary during the last ten years of his life.

Sir William had been encouraging his son, John, to accept the office of Secretary at War, but within a week of accepting this post, John took a boat saying he wished to go to Greenwich; when he had gone a short distance, he ordered the waterman to set him ashore, dropped a shilling in the boat for the waterman, before throwing himself into the Thames at London Bridge.

He left a note in the boat too saying:
"My folly in undertaking what I was not able to perform has done the King and kingdom a great deal of prejudice. I wish him all happiness and abler servants than John Temple."

Dorothy died in early 1695 and is buried with her husband and children, on the north side of the nave of Westminster Abbey, close to the door leading to the organ gallery. Sir William died four years later.

Sir William Temple  1st Baronet 1628 –1699 -  “When I pray, coincidences happen, and when I don’t, they don’t.”

Dorothy Osborne -  1627 – 1695 - "But ‘tis a sad thing that all one’s happiness is only that the world does not know you are miserable.” 

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Anita Davison is a Historical Fiction Author whose latest release, Royalist Rebel, is published under the name Anita Seymour by Claymore Press.