Chapter II. Relates How Francis, Fourth Viscount, Arrives At Castlewood
'Tis known that the name of Esmond and the estate of Castlewood, com.Hants, came into possession of the present family through Dorothea,daughter and heiress of Edward, Earl and Marquis of Esmond, and Lord ofCastlewood, which lady married, 23 Eliz., Henry Poyns, gent.; the saidHenry being then a page in the household of her father. Francis, son andheir of the above Henry and Dorothea, who took the maternal name which thefamily hath borne subsequently, was made knight and baronet by King Jamesthe First; and, being of a military disposition, remained long in Germanywith the Elector-Palatine, in whose service Sir Francis incurred bothexpense and danger, lending large sums of money to that unfortunateprince; and receiving many wounds in the battles against the Imperialists,in which Sir Francis engaged.
On his return home Sir Francis was rewarded for his services and manysacrifices, by his late Majesty James the First, who graciously conferredupon this tried servant the post of Warden of the Butteries and Groom ofthe King's Posset, which high and confidential office he filled in thatking's, and his unhappy successor's, reign.
His age, and many wounds and infirmities, obliged Sir Francis to performmuch of his duty by deputy; and his son, Sir George Esmond, knight andbanneret, first as his father's lieutenant, and afterwards as inheritor ofhis father's title and dignity, performed this office during almost thewhole of the reign of King Charles the First, and his two sons whosucceeded him.
Sir George Esmond married rather beneath the rank that a person of hisname and honour might aspire to, the daughter of Thos. Topham, of the cityof London, alderman and goldsmith, who, taking the Parliamentary side inthe troubles then commencing, disappointed Sir George of the propertywhich he expected at the demise of his father-in-law, who devised hismoney to his second daughter, Barbara, a spinster.
Sir George Esmond, on his part, was conspicuous for his attachment andloyalty to the royal cause and person, and the king being at Oxford in1642, Sir George, with the consent of his father, then very aged andinfirm, and residing at his house of Castlewood, melted the whole of thefamily plate for his Majesty's service.
For this, and other sacrifices and merits, his Majesty, by patent underthe Privy Seal, dated Oxford, Jan., 1643, was pleased to advance SirFrancis Esmond to the dignity of Viscount Castlewood, of Shandon, inIreland: and the viscount's estate being much impoverished by loans to theking, which in those troublesome times his Majesty could not repay, agrant of land in the plantations of Virginia was given to the lordviscount; part of which land is in possession of descendants of his familyto the present day.
The first Viscount Castlewood died full of years, and within a few monthsafter he had been advanced to his honours. He was succeeded by his eldestson, the before-named George; and left issue besides, Thomas, a colonel inthe king's army, that afterwards joined the Usurper's government; andFrancis, in holy orders, who was slain whilst defending the house ofCastlewood against the Parliament, anno 1647.
George, Lord Castlewood (the second viscount) of King Charles the First'stime, had no male issue save his one son Eustace Esmond, who was killed,with half of the Castlewood men beside him, at Worcester fight. The landsabout Castlewood were sold and apportioned to the Commonwealth men;Castlewood being concerned in almost all of the plots against theProtector, after the death of the king, and up to King Charles theSecond's restoration. My lord followed that king's Court about in itsexile, having ruined himself in its service. He had but one daughter, whowas of no great comfort to her father; for misfortune had not taught thoseexiles sobriety of life; and it is said that the Duke of York and hisbrother the king both quarrelled about Isabel Esmond. She was maid ofhonour to the Queen Henrietta Maria; she early joined the Roman Church;her father, a weak man, following her not long after at Breda.
On the death of Eustace Esmond at Worcester, Thomas Esmond, nephew to myLord Castlewood, and then a stripling, became heir to the title. Hisfather had taken the Parliament side in the quarrels, and so had beenestranged from the chief of his house; and my Lord Castlewood was at firstso much enraged to think that his title (albeit little more than an emptyone now) should pass to a rascally Roundhead, that he would have marriedagain, and indeed proposed to do so to a vintner's daughter at Bruges, towhom his lordship owed a score for lodging when the king was there, butfor fear of the laughter of the Court, and the anger of his daughter, ofwhom he stood in awe; for she was in temper as imperious and violent as mylord, who was much enfeebled by wounds and drinking, was weak.
Lord Castlewood would have had a match between his daughter Isabel and hercousin, the son of that Francis Esmond who was killed at Castlewood siege.And the lady, it was said, took a fancy to the young man, who was herjunior by several years (which circumstance she did not consider to be afault in him); but having paid his court, and being admitted to theintimacy of the house, he suddenly flung up his suit, when it seemed to bepretty prosperous, without giving a pretext for his behaviour. His friendsrallied him at what they laughingly chose to call his infidelity. JackChurchill, Frank Esmond's lieutenant in the royal regiment of foot guards,getting the company which Esmond vacated, when he left the Court and wentto Tangier in a rage at discovering that his promotion depended on thecomplaisance of his elderly affianced bride. He and Churchill, who hadbeen _condiscipuli_ at St. Paul's School, had words about this matter; andFrank Esmond said to him with an oath, "Jack, your sister may beso-and-so, but by Jove, my wife shan't!" and swords were drawn, and blooddrawn, too, until friends separated them on this quarrel. Few men were sojealous about the point of honour in those days; and gentlemen of goodbirth and lineage thought a royal blot was an ornament to their familycoat. Frank Esmond retired in the sulks, first to Tangier, whence hereturned after two years' service, settling on a small property he had ofhis mother, near to Winchester, and became a country gentleman, and kept apack of beagles, and never came to Court again in King Charles's time. Buthis uncle Castlewood was never reconciled to him; nor, for some timeafterwards, his cousin whom he had refused.
By places, pensions, bounties from France, and gifts from the king, whilsthis daughter was in favour, Lord Castlewood, who had spent in the royalservice his youth and fortune, did not retrieve the latter quite, andnever cared to visit Castlewood, or repair it, since the death of his son,but managed to keep a good house, and figure at Court, and to save aconsiderable sum of ready money.
And now, his heir and nephew, Thomas Esmond, began to bid for his uncle'sfavour. Thomas had served with the emperor, and with the Dutch, when KingCharles was compelled to lend troops to the States, and against them, whenhis Majesty made an alliance with the French king. In these campaignsThomas Esmond was more remarked for duelling, brawling, vice, and play,than for any conspicuous gallantry in the field, and came back to England,like many another English gentleman who has travelled, with a character byno means improved by his foreign experience. He had dissipated his smallpaternal inheritance of a younger brother's portion, and, as truth must betold, was no better than a hanger-on of ordinaries, and a brawler aboutAlsatia and the Friars, when he bethought him of a means of mending hisfortune.
His cousin was now of more than middle age, and had nobody's word but herown for the beauty which she said she once possessed. She was lean, andyellow, and long in the tooth; all the red and white in all the toy-shopsin London could not make a beauty of her--Mr. Killigrew called her theSibyl, the death's-head put up at the king's feast as a _memento mori_,&c.--in fine, a woman who might be easy of conquest, but whom only a verybold man would think of conquering. This bold man was Thomas Esmond. Hehad a fancy to my Lord Castlewood's savings, the amount of which rumourhad very much exaggerated. Madam Isabel was said to have royal jewels ofgreat value; whereas poor Tom Esmond's last coat but one was in pawn.
My lord had at this time a fine house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, nigh to theDuke's Theatre and the Portugal ambassador's chapel. Tom Esmond, who hadfrequented the one as long as he had money to spend among the actresses,
now came to the church as assiduously. He looked so lean and shabby, thathe passed without difficulty for a repentant sinner; and so, becomingconverted, you may be sure took his uncle's priest for a director.
This charitable father reconciled him with the old lord his uncle, who ashort time before would not speak to him, as Tom passed under my lord'scoach window, his lordship going in state to his place at Court, while hisnephew slunk by with his battered hat and feather, and the point of hisrapier sticking out of the scabbard--to his twopenny ordinary in Bell Yard.
Thomas Esmond, after this reconciliation with his uncle, very soon beganto grow sleek, and to show signs of the benefits of good living and cleanlinen. He fasted rigorously twice a week to be sure; but he made amends onthe other days: and, to show how great his appetite was, Mr. Wycherleysaid, he ended by swallowing that fly-blown rank old morsel his cousin.There were endless jokes and lampoons about this marriage at Court: butTom rode thither in his uncle's coach now, called him father, and havingwon could afford to laugh. This marriage took place very shortly beforeKing Charles died: whom the Viscount of Castlewood speedily followed.
The issue of this marriage was one son, whom the parents watched with anintense eagerness and care; but who, in spite of nurses and physicians,had only a brief existence. His tainted blood did not run very long in hispoor feeble little body. Symptoms of evil broke out early on him; and,part from flattery, part superstition, nothing would satisfy my lord andlady, especially the latter, but having the poor little cripple touched byhis Majesty at his church. They were ready to cry out miracle at first(the doctors and quack-salvers being constantly in attendance on thechild, and experimenting on his poor little body with every conceivablenostrum)--but though there seemed from some reason a notable ameliorationin the infant's health after his Majesty touched him, in a few weeksafterward the poor thing died--causing the lampooners of the Court to say,that the king in expelling evil out of the infant of Tom Esmond andIsabella his wife, expelled the life out of it, which was nothing butcorruption.
The mother's natural pang at losing this poor little child must have beenincreased when she thought of her rival Frank Esmond's wife, who was afavourite of the whole Court, where my poor Lady Castlewood was neglected,and who had one child, a daughter, flourishing and beautiful, and wasabout to become a mother once more.
The Court, as I have heard, only laughed the more because the poor lady,who had pretty well passed the age when ladies are accustomed to havechildren, nevertheless determined not to give hope up, and even when shecame to live at Castlewood, was constantly sending over to Hexton for thedoctor, and announcing to her friends the arrival of an heir. Thisabsurdity of hers was one amongst many others which the wags used to playupon. Indeed, to the last days of her life, my lady viscountess had thecomfort of fancying herself beautiful, and persisted in blooming up to thevery midst of winter, painting roses on her cheeks long after theirnatural season, and attiring herself like summer though her head wascovered with snow.
Gentlemen who were about the Court of King Charles and King James, havetold the present writer a number of stories about this queer old lady,with which it's not necessary that posterity should be entertained. She issaid to have had great powers of invective; and, if she fought with allher rivals in King James's favour, 'tis certain she must have had a vastnumber of quarrels on her hands. She was a woman of an intrepid spirit,and it appears pursued and rather fatigued his Majesty with her rights andher wrongs. Some say that the cause of her leaving Court was jealousy ofFrank Esmond's wife: others, that she was forced to retreat after a greatbattle which took place at Whitehall, between her ladyship and LadyDorchester, Tom Killigrew's daughter, whom the king delighted to honour,and in which that ill-favoured Esther got the better of our elderlyVashti. But her ladyship for her part always averred that it was herhusband's quarrel, and not her own, which occasioned the banishment of thetwo into the country; and the cruel ingratitude of the sovereign in givingaway, out of the family, that place of Warden of the Butteries and Groomof the King's Posset, which the two last Lords Castlewood had held sohonourably, and which was now conferred upon a fellow of yesterday, and ahanger-on of that odious Dorchester creature, my Lord Bergamot(6); "Inever," said my lady, "could have come to see his Majesty's posset carriedby any other hand than an Esmond. I should have dashed the salver out ofLord Bergamot's hand, had I met him." And those who knew her ladyship areaware that she was a person quite capable of performing this feat, had shenot wisely kept out of the way.
Holding the purse-strings in her own control, to which, indeed, she likedto bring most persons who came near her, Lady Castlewood could command herhusband's obedience, and so broke up her establishment at London; she hadremoved from Lincoln's Inn Fields to Chelsey, to a pretty new house shebought there; and brought her establishment, her maids, lap-dogs, andgentlewomen, her priest, and his lordship, her husband, to CastlewoodHall, that she had never seen since she quitted it as a child with herfather during the troubles of King Charles the First's reign. The wallswere still open in the old house as they had been left by the shot of theCommonwealth men. A part of the mansion was restored and furnished up withthe plate, hangings, and furniture, brought from the house in London. Mylady meant to have a triumphal entry into Castlewood village, and expectedthe people to cheer as she drove over the Green in her great coach, mylord beside her, her gentlewomen, lap-dogs, and cockatoos on the oppositeseat, six horses to her carriage, and servants armed and mounted,following it and preceding it. But 'twas in the height of the No-Poperycry; the folks in the village and the neighbouring town were scared by thesight of her ladyship's painted face and eyelids, as she bobbed her headout of the coach window, meaning no doubt to be very gracious; and one oldwoman said, "Lady Isabel! lord-a-mercy, it's Lady Jezebel!" a name bywhich the enemies of the right honourable viscountess were afterwards inthe habit of designating her. The country was then in a great No-Poperyfervour, her ladyship's known conversion, and her husband's, the priest inher train, and the service performed at the chapel of Castlewood (thoughthe chapel had been built for that worship before any other was heard ofin the country, and though the service was performed in the most quietmanner), got her no favour at first in the county or village. By far thegreater part of the estate of Castlewood had been confiscated, and beenparcelled out to Commonwealth men. One or two of these old Cromwelliansoldiers were still alive in the village, and looked grimly at first uponmy lady viscountess, when she came to dwell there.
She appeared at the Hexton Assembly, bringing her lord after her, scaringthe country folks with the splendour of her diamonds, which she alwayswore in public. They said she wore them in private, too, and slept withthem round her neck; though the writer can pledge his word that this was acalumny. "If she were to take them off," my Lady Sark said, "Tom Esmond,her husband, would run away with them and pawn them." 'Twas anothercalumny. My Lady Sark was also an exile from Court, and there had been warbetween the two ladies before.
The village people began to be reconciled presently to their lady, who wasgenerous and kind, though fantastic and haughty, in her ways; and whosepraises Dr. Tusher, the vicar, sounded loudly amongst his flock. As for mylord, he gave no great trouble, being considered scarce more than anappendage to my lady, who as daughter of the old lords of Castlewood, andpossessor of vast wealth, as the country folks said (though indeednine-tenths of it existed but in rumour), was looked upon as the realqueen of the Castle, and mistress of all it contained.