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. 

The Commons Decides: Strafford Must Die

by Annie Whitehead

Last month, I wrote an overview of the careers of William, Archbishop Laud (1573-1645) and Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford (1593-1641), who were both executed. This time I'm going to look at why the House of Commons was so determined to secure Strafford's execution.

Wentworth c. 1639

Thomas Wentworth, himself a long-serving parliamentarian, nevertheless feared absolute rule by parliament and believed in constitutional monarchy. In 1628, he was in effect the leader of the house, yet he suddenly changed sides.

He had been part of the parliamentarian stonewall which had opposed Charles I's attempts to muzzle the commons in 1626 after the Earl of Buckingham's' disastrous war policy and the incident at La Rochelle, after which the wheels were set in motion for Buckingham's impeachment. The following March parliament was recalled, and Wentworth was the man who brokered a deal by which charges against Buckingham would be dropped if Charles assented to the Petition of Right, which would, in Wentworth's words, enforce their "ancient , sober and vital liberties."

When he changed sides, leading members of parliament never forgave him for his volte face, and renowned parliamentarians Eliot, Hampden and Pym in particular were very strongly opposed to him.

Wentworth's character made him enemies too; he was arrogant and ruthless and a proponent of the Policy of Thorough - a belief that a higher standard of efficiency and honesty was needed to put the country in order. He was a puritan, but approved the Arminian idea of order and discipline and became a great friend of Laud's. People distrusted Laud, fearing that he was moving England back to Rome, i.e. towards Catholicism. Ergo, by association, Wentworth was distrusted too.

Because he had angered parliament, he was moved by Charles I away from London and appointed President of the Council of the North. Wentworth proved to be an able administrator, but this alone was enough to secure him unpopularity in the north, where great families had hitherto enjoyed a fair amount of autonomy.

Van Dyck painting of Strafford with his secretary, Mainwaring

Wentworth was determined to enforce respect not only for the king, but for himself as the king's representative. He set about reviving the decaying administration and was successful in making the council an efficient governing body. But he was high-handed, and through the council's efficiency the great families thus lost their power, losing any profit from corrupt practices. Furthermore, he saw to it that the Yorkshire weavers worked to rule, obeying all regulations. He would not tolerate any production of sub-standard cloth, causing production rates to slow down, and thus in effect, reducing wages.

On paper, though, his appointment was a success, and Charles I was pleased. He appointed him Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1631, but here Wentworth was to make even more enemies.

The previous incumbent, Lord Falkland, had been recalled and the Irish administration had deteriorated badly. The man nominally in charge was Lord Justice Kilmallock, who was being aided by corrupt Protestant colonists, the Earl of Cork and the Earl of Loftus, who were also on friendly terms with the Catholic queen, Henrietta Maria.

Wentworth arrived in Ireland in 1633 and began establishing the king's authority, using the Policy of Thorough. However, influenced by the nobles Wentworth was ruining, the queen developed a dislike of Wentworth and began working against him.

Wentworth built up the court of Castle Chamber and used it as a prerogative court; he fined the Earl of Cork £40,000 for corruption and dishonesty and dismissed Loftus as Chancellor with the aid of the Council of Ireland. He upset the landowners by setting up a commission to investigate defective titles and rights of ownership of land. It caused landowners to increase rents they paid to the crown, and some had to restore tithes to the Church.

The official State religion was a sort of 'Calvinist Anglicanism', and there were a vast number of Scottish Presbyterians in Ulster who did not approve of bishops. In 1639 Wentworth forced the bishops of Ireland to accept the 39 Articles of the English, and he forced many Anglican ideas onto the Irish which were at odds with their Calvinist ideas.

Wentworth also proved to be extremely efficient at collecting taxes, and this won him few friends, especially among the old nobles who had been making money out of Ireland; few of them sympathised with his attempts to introduce order.

In 1640, Wentworth was recalled to London as his help was needed with the 'Scottish Problem'. He was made Earl of Strafford and became the king's supreme counsel. It was he who persuaded Charles to call the 'Short' Parliament, and he had meant to dominate it. It was to be his enemy, John Pym, however, who was to have that pleasure.

Strafford's Trial

The Short Parliament, under Pym's leadership, would vote no money for a military campaign. When it became clear that Pym was in touch with the Scots, or at least acting in concert with them, Strafford gave up any hope of a constitutional or legal solution, and at a meeting on May 5th, he urged Charles to dissolve parliament, telling him that he was "loosed and absolved from all rules of government." Upon the dissolution, three Members were imprisoned and their houses searched, mob rioting was punished by vigilante justice, and two youths were summarily hanged, one having been tortured first. When the City Aldermen declined Charles' request for a loan, Strafford committed four of them to prison and told the king, "Unless you hang up some of them, you will do no good with them."

Strafford returned to Ireland and was later called back to lead the army against the Scots in the Second Bishops' War. However, the northern earls were not inclined to be led into battle by Strafford, no doubt disliking him more than the Scots whom they were supposed to be fighting. The Bishops' War was lost, and Parliament was called. It was determined to punish those responsible for Charles I's eleven years of personal rule, which meant, in effect, Laud and Strafford.

Strafford on his way to execution, being blessed by Laud

The king's ministers were blamed for the defeat by the Scots, and Strafford was accused of treason because he had offered the Irish army to Charles for use against the Scots. Although he argued his defence and eliminated most of the charges against him, it was John Pym who won this particular battle. Strafford had made himself so unpopular - with the people because of his efficiency, with the nobles because of his efforts to wipe out corruption - that Pym's efforts to impeach him were supported by most people. By this time, Strafford was a hated man.

The decision to impeach Strafford was one driven by personal hatred. Parliament had never forgiven Strafford for changing sides and had certainly never trusted him again. He dismissed almost all the charges against him, and still they pushed for his execution, this turncoat who had become a king's man, a traitor to their cause against the monarchy.

Previous article on Laud & Strafford

Further Reading:

Archbishop Laud - Hugh Trevor-Roper
Archbishop Laud - Arthur Stuart Duncan-Jones
Strafford - C.V. Wedgwood
Strafford in Ireland 1633-1641: A Study in Absolutism - Hugh F. Kearney
The King's War, 1641-47 - C.V. Wedgwood
The Stuarts - JP Kenyon

[all above illustrations are in the public domain, and sourced from Wiki Commons]

~~~~~~~~~~

Annie Whitehead is an historian and novelist who writes about the Anglo-Saxon era, although she has a keen interest in the seventeenth-century. The author of two award-winning novels set in Anglo-Saxon Mercia, she was also a contributor to 1066 Turned Upside Down, a re-imagining of the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings. She is a member of the Royal Historical Society and an editor of the EHFA blog. Currently she is working on a contribution to a non-fiction book to be published by Pen & Sword Books in the summer of 2017.
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An Overview of Laud and Strafford – Charles I’s ‘Evil Councillors’

by Annie Whitehead

William Laud and Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford: these men are perhaps less well-known than some other characters during the time of political upheaval which ultimately led to the first of the English Civil Wars, and the intention of this article is to give, in the constraints of a blog post, only an overview of their careers.

Both Laud and Strafford did much good for England, but their attitudes and characters contributed greatly to their unpopularity and ultimately towards their downfall. Their careers invite comparison.

William Laud (7 October 1573 – 10 January 1645) was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1633, until his execution in 1645. His career began in the reign of James I, but progressed slowly. James said of him that "He hath a restless spirit, and cannot see when matters are well, but loves to toss and change, and to bring things to a pitch of reformation floating in his own brain." It has been said of Laud that he did more than any other single man to provoke the Civil War. Charles I shared many of his 'qualities', and once Charles acceded, Laud's rise was rapid. In 1626 he became Bishop of Bath and Wells, in 1628 Bishop of London and Chancellor of Oxford University in 1630.

Along with Strafford, Laud dominated Charles' government during the eleven years' personal rule, and his chief aim was to 'stop the rot' in the Church of England, suppressing all traces of Puritanism.

William Laud

Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford (13 April 1593– 12 May 1641) served in Parliament and from 1632–40, served as Lord Deputy of Ireland; he was condemned to death by parliament and executed in 1641. Early in his political career he was an opposition MP. He joined in the attacks on the king's favourite, Buckingham, and he was imprisoned in the Marshalsea 1627-8 as one of the 76 who refused to contribute to the forced loan for Buckingham's pro-Spanish policy. His career changed direction after the assassination of Buckingham, and when given the choice between increasing the power of the king or the people, he chose the king.

Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford

Archbishop Laud was an Arminian, and this religious attitude alone was enough to gain him unpopularity. He was feared by the parliamentarians, who believed that he intended to lead the king and the country back to Catholicism. Laud brought about further conflict when he declared that bishops should have more political power, and that they should become involved in local government as Justices of the Peace.

Laud was not a popular man with parliament, and he went on to upset the bishops when he decided to reform the Church. He declared that the Church was dishonouring God, and he wanted the Church to work towards uniformity and conformity. Laud was determined to stamp out Church abuses such as: Simony (the buying of offices), Nepotism (obtaining positions for relatives) and Pluralism (holding more than one office, which led to non-residence). He made himself unpopular with the bishops who were opposed to his reforms. They would not earn as much, and they could no longer put people who would support them in influential positions. Some of Laud's ideas were less contentious; he ordered closer examination of candidates for the priesthood and encouraged more honest and dedicated clergymen.

Unfortunately for Laud, his religion made him unpopular, and his reforms of the Church led people to fear him. Laud was stubborn and would take advice from nobody, and parliamentarians felt justified in believing him evil. It was reported that he was unable to keep a check on his temper during meetings.

Strafford had very similar problems to those of Laud’s. He upset parliament when in 1628 he changed sides, because he was not fully committed to the radical ideas of parliament, who were at the time totally opposed to the monarchy. He was never trusted by the parliamentarians or the king and, like Laud, his character made him enemies. He was arrogant, stubborn, and ruthless. He was an efficient administrator, and Charles moved him from London, appointing him President as the Council of the North. He revived the decaying administration there and rooted out corruption. In 1632 Strafford went to Ireland as Lord Deputy, and there he removed corruption and set up a prerogative court. He encouraged industry and investigated land ownership.

Unfortunately, whatever the merits of their ideas for reform, Laud and Strafford  were not likeable as characters, and they were feared by parliament for the power they held. Their reforms, necessary or not, would never have been welcomed by parliament, the landowners, or the clergy.

The trial of Laud

Besides facing almost impossible tasks, Laud and Strafford were ruthless to the point of cruelty while they were carrying out their plans. They both pursued the Policy of Thorough, which consisted of a belief that a higher standard of efficiency and honesty was needed to put the country in order.

The trial of Strafford

In 1630, Leighton, a clergyman, published Sion’s Plea against Prelacy, an attack on the bishops. For this, he was punished by Laud; he was tried in Star Chamber, imprisoned, and he lost his ear. In 1637, William Prynne, John Bastwick, Henry Burton, and John Lilburne were involved in writing and publishing an attack against the bishops. Laud had Lilburne flogged through the streets of London, while the other three men lost their ears and were sent to the Tower.

John Lilburne

Strafford was perhaps less cruel than Laud, but he was certainly determined to achieve his aims no matter what. While he was President of the Council of the north, he humbled the great northern families and ordered the Yorkshire weavers to work according to rule, which brought less money in for the workers. In Ireland, Strafford forced the convocation [of bishops] to accept the 39 Articles* of the English, although the Irish Church had remained predominantly Catholic.

Laud and Strafford were not likeable characters. Their ideas were bound to have been met with resentment. No Englishman would welcome efficient administration and tax collection, and many influential men would resent the reform of the Church and the government of the North and Ireland.

Strafford on his way to execution, being blessed by Laud

Strafford was impeached by the Long Parliament, but despite numerous complaints against him, including from those with whom he'd had dealings in Ireland, there was no proof of treason. His enemies then issued a Bill of Attainder, and Strafford was executed on 12th May 1641.

Laud was accused of treason by the Long Parliament and was imprisoned in the tower. Prynne, with good reason, was a personal enemy, but others were inclined to let old age despatch the unpopular archbishop. Like Strafford before him, he faced a trial in which it proved impossible to prove any specific act of treason, but Laud was executed on Tower Hill on 10th January, 1645.

*Read about the 39 Articles Here

and for further detail about the careers of these two men:

Archbishop Laud - Hugh Trevor-Roper

Archbishop Laud - Arthur Stuart Duncan-Jones

Strafford - C.V. Wedgwood

Strafford in Ireland 1633-1641: A Study in Absolutism - Hugh F. Kearney

The King's War, 1641-47 - C.V. Wedgwood

[all above illustrations are in the public domain, and sourced from Wiki Commons]

~~~~~~~~~~

Annie Whitehead is an historian and novelist who writes about the Anglo-Saxon era, although she has a keen interest in the seventeenth-century. The author of two award-winning novels set in Anglo-Saxon Mercia, she was also a contributor to 1066 Turned Upside Down, a re-imagining of the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings. She is a member of the Royal Historical Society and an editor of the EHFA blog. Currently she is working on a contribution to a non-fiction book to be published by Pen & Sword Books in the summer of 2017.

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