CHARLOTTE DE LA TREMOILLE, COUNTESS OF DERBY.* [SECOND NOTICE.] BESIDES

the defence of Lathom House by the Countess of Derby, the chief points in the family history during the Civil Wars are the chivalrous devotion of the Earl to the Royal cause, notwithstanding the discouragements and insults he received from the King arid his counsellors ; the slaughter in cold blood of several hundred Puritans at the taking of Bolton, at the order, it is said, of the Earl,—though be himself earnestly denies this,—and his arbitrary government of the Isle of Man, where he abolished the old tenures and liberties of the islanders, throwing those who resisted into prison. Here one at least of his victims, Edward Christian, lingered from 1643 to 1650, when he died (in Peel Castle). We cannot follow the fortunes of the Earl and Countess in detail, but one curious illustration of their character must not be omitted. The vehement antagonism of the Earl to the Parliament caused him to be named in their Propositions for Peace among the exceptions to the general amnesty. In March, 1647, we find the Countess at Chelsea, trying to negotiate with the HOUS3 of Peers to omit the Earl's name, he giving her written authority that "whatever she might do for his submission to Parliament he would subscribe to." The Lords did ultimately omit the name, and the Parliament, without any concession in acts on the Earl's part, settled on his children for their personal maintenance a fifth of their father's revenue, and two of the daughters were sent to Knowsley by the Earl. The Countess returned to her husband in the Isle of Man in March, 1648, and the Earl was summoned in 1649 by Ireton to surrender the island, with a promise of restoration of the remainder of his estates. But he returned a haughty and insulting reply, threatening if more messages were sent he would barn the paper and hang the bearer. This defiance is dated July 22nd, and on the 27th we find the Countess writing to her sister-in-law, "I believed, as you did, that our business [the pardon of her husband] was accomplished, and the person who had hitherto managed it brought us the news, with the congratulations natural in the circumstances. His stay here was only for a few days, but when he got back to England he found everything in worse condition than ever, and some of our estates already given away—a thing which has never yet been done. No reason was given for this alteration, but I hear it was occasioned by petitions full of false representations having been presented to Parliament by law people, and although numbers know and say how false are these statements, they will not hear reason." "The only cause of their to us," she

adds, "is their desire to have this island, and when they have got us into their power, to take our lives and our property. My wish

is to be protected by some foreign state or prince." This letter, taken in connection with the Earl's defiance, gives some idea of the thorough wrong-headedness of both husband and wife where their personal interests were concerned, and the one explains and gives a very different significance to the other. Their daughters continued to live unmolested, and maintained a good position at Knowsley.

The Countess frequently pours forth her horror at the strange doctrines put forth in England, and her dread of the growth of the Catholic power. In one letter she adds, "There is a sorcerer now in prison in Edinburgh, who affirms that he was present when Cromwell renounced his baptismal vow." In June, 1650, she has to announce the removal from Knowsley and detention of her daughters in "a small town called Liverpool," by the Governor, "a man of the name of Birch." The reason, she hears, is that "they are thought to be too much liked, and that people were beginning to make application to the Parliament, in the hope that their father might come to terms, of which I see no chance." The young ladies appealed to Fairfax, who wrote to the Earl that if he would surrender the Isle of Man his children should be released, and he himself be allowed to return to England and enjoy a moiety of his estate. But the Earl once more refused, though in a less arrogant and more manly style. The cause of the King of Scots appeared just then to be prospering in Scotland.

About this time the young Lord Strange's marriage took place, and he still further angered his father and mother by going over from Holland to England, at the instance of his friends, and try ing to negotiate for himself, intending, as he says, that his father should enjoy the recovered property in his name.

Then came the unfortunate expedition of the Earl himself to England in 1651. There is a little note in the Tanner Papers in the Bodleian Library (published in Carey's Memorials of the Civil Wars), written from the Isle of Man at this time, by the Earl's eldest surviving daughter, Lady Henriette-Marie Stanley, in her father's name, to one of his officers, Sir Thomas Tilsley, which may, perhaps, be acceptable to readers of Madame de Witt's volume, as proceeding from one of the Stanley family circle, and as a specimen of young-lady letter-writing in the seventeenth century:—

Sin—Not a minute since, as I was passing the bridge I met with your letter, and do not a little admire your goodness, when I consider so great an indisposition was not capable to divert you from so troublesome an employment. Nothing can please me better than to hear from you my lord's gallant resolutions ; they are so well seconded by you, and the rest of the noble persons with him, that I do not doubt of a happy success in all your enterprises, though the wind is so unmercifully cruel. I am just now told it begins to be fair, which makes me believe this will not reach you, and that I have in some part acquitted myself of what I owe you, without exposing to your view the absurdities of

Sir, your affectionate servant,

August 11, 1651. HENRIETTE MARTZ STANLEY.

"My lady commands me to assure you of her service. Mine, I beseech you, Sir, to Colonel Roscarrock and Mr. Tilsley Sandes. Let the first know that I am sorry that any of my concernments should give him the least trouble wherefor I desire him to forget the book, and only remember how much I am his servant."

The Earl alludes pleasantly to his young secretary in a letter to Sir Thomas on the following day. "Since my wife and I commanded our dear daughter to be our secretary, I have observed the wind to turn fair."

The Earl, it is well known, was defeated while gathering forces in Lancashire, made his way to Worcester just in time to share in that disastrous battle, and was captured in his flight, and executed at Bolton. Madame de Witt, however, and other biographers of the family, seem unacquainted with the letter (now in the Bodleian Library) which he wrote to the Speaker of the Parliament, with the view of averting his fate ; so we give it from Carey's Memorials :—

Srn,—Being now, by the will of God, for aught I know, brought to the last minutes of my life, I once more most humbly pray the Parliament will be pleased to hear me before my death. "I plead nothing in vindication of my offences, but humbly cast myself down at the Parliament's feet, begging their mercy. I liars several times addressed my humble petitions for life, and now again crave leave to submit myself to their mercy, with assurances that the Isle of Man shall be given up to such hands as the Parliament entrust to receive it ; with this further engagement (which I shall confirm by sureties), that I shall never act or endeavour anything against the established power of this nation, but end my days in prison or banishment, as the House shall think fit.

"Sir, it is a greater affliction to me than death itself, that I am sentenced to die at Bolton ; so that the nation will look upon me as a sacrifice for that blood which some have unjustly cast upon me, and from which I hope I am acquitted in your ?pinions and the judgment of good men, having cleared myself by undeniable evidence.

"Indeed, at my trial it was never mentioned against me, and yet they

adjudge one to suffer at Bolton, as if indeed I had been guilty. I beg a respite for my life upon that issue, that if I do not acquit myself from that imputation, let me die without mercy. "But, sir, if the Parliament have not this mercy for me, I humbly pray the place appointed for my death may be altered ; and that if the Parliament think it not fit to give me time to live, they will be pleased to give me time to die, in reviling my life for some time, whilst I may fit myself for death ; since thus long I have been persuaded by Colonel Duckenfield the Parliament would give me my life.

"Sir, I submit myself, my family, wife, and children to the mercy of Parliament; and shall live or die, "Sir, your contented and humble servant,

"October 11, 1651. Danny. "Sir, I humbly beg the favour that the petition of a dying man, here inclosed, may by your favour be read in the House."

Of course, we lay no stress on the abjectness of this submission. Such documents are often found, written at the entreaty, if not dictation, of relatives and friends, and giving no true impression of the character of the supposed author. We only give this one as a companion and set-off to the foolish bragging letter to Ireton. Neither expresses the true character of the Earl, a brave and honourable, though somewhat wrong-headed and violent, man.

The Countess, after her husband's death, still tried to hold out the Isle of Man against the Parliament, but was obliged to surrender, the islanders, as might be expected, rising against her. 4'It has been said and printed everywhere," Madame de Witt remarks, "that the Countess was kept a prisoner in an unhealthy dwelling in the Isle of Man ; that she there lost two of her children; and that she was not released from captivity till the Restoration of Charles II. So far from this being the case, we see, from the indisputable evidence of her own letters, that although poor and deprived of all the luxuries natural to her rank, she was at least free, living in London, demanding justice and, in a measure, obtaining it ; sending her son to Paris with suitable attendants, and marrying her daughters in a rank worthy their birth." Our young letter-writer, Lady lienriette Marie, married the son of the celebrated Earl of Strafford. It is only justice to the Countess to state that though she could endure nothing short of a great match, she confined herself to a negative on unsuitable proposals. Speaking of the Earl of Atholl as a most desirable suitor for her youngest daughter's hand, she writes to her sister-in-law, "I do not yet know your niece's opinion of him. She is so obedient and gentle that I know she will do,what I wish ; but I would desire nothing that she disliked. God will direct me for her good." On the other hand, when her eldest son engaged in Sir George Booth's unsuccessful Royalist rising on the eve of the Restoration, and was thrown into prison, the Countess Dowager exerted herself in his behalf, took charge of his children, but still never could forgive his misalliance.

Our limits prevent our noticing the brief life of the Countess after the Restoration,—how the old love of Court gaieties and Court position reawoke in her breast to a curious extent, how she managed matters in the difficult question of the marriage of the Duke of York with Anne Hyde, and how she, like so many others, felt, for the moment at least, quite repaid by Charles II. for all her loyal devotion by a most gracious visit from the King himself. She had no share in the trial and execution of William Christian in the Isle of Man, which was the disgraceful act of her son the Earl ; but we are afraid her own spirit was too much in harmony with his on such subjects, if we may judge from the following remarks in one of her letters :—" I am engaged, dear sister, in pursuing the pretended judges of monsieur, my late husband, and I hope to have Justice on them, which I do not desire so much for my own satisfaction as to draw God's blessing on the King and his people, by the punishment of those who spilt that dear and innocent blood with so much cruelty. I have already made some progress in the matter, and I hope to-morrow to have the issue as I desire it. I leave all to God, and I shall, at least, have the consolation of having done my duty. Many who have undergone similar losses have followed my example."

Such in the strength and weakness of her character was Charlotte de la Tremoille, and we sincerely thank Madame de Witt for having placed in our hands the means of obtaining such an interesting insight into that character.