Although Queen Henrietta Maria had disapproved of Newcastle’s marriage with her maid-of-honour, she showed him considerable kindness. She invited him to a great Council which was held at St. Germains, attended by the Prince of Wales, Prince Rupert, the Marquesses of Worcester and of Ormond, the Earl of St. Albans, Lord Jermyn and others. At the Council, Newcastle[130] “delivered his sentiment, that he could perceive no other probability of procuring Forces for His Majesty, but an assistance of the Scots; But Her Majesty was pleased to answer my Lord, That he was too quick”. An unpleasant expression; but Her Majesty was quite right! For the King, unfortunately, did seek “an assistance of the Scots,” with a result only too well known.

The Queen did Newcastle a much greater service than the empty compliment of an invitation to a Council at which he was snubbed. She gave him £2000! Fortunately at that time, she still had some money. She received 12,000 crowns a month from Anne of Austria, and she obtained help from some of her relations; but she sent very large sums to her husband in England, and she made handsome donations to distressed cavaliers—such as Newcastle—in France and Belgium, selling her jewels for the same purposes. When the wars of the Fronde began, those who were helping her became in want themselves, and they could do nothing more for her. She then found herself in sore straits.

Mademoiselle de Montpensier says in her Memoirs: “The Queen of England appeared, during a little while, with the splendour of royal equipage, she had a full number of ladies, of maids of honour, of running footmen, coaches and guards. All vanished, however, by little and little, and at last nothing could be more mean than her train and appearance.” And so things went on, from bad to worse, until, about three years after the time with which we are now dealing, Cardinal de Retz found her, with her last loaf eaten, her last faggot burned, and her little daughter in bed at mid-day, because there was no fire on the hearth and snow was falling heavily.

Things were a long way from being so bad as that, however, when she gave Newcastle £2000. Having got that money, and having squeezed a little more cash out of his creditors, instead of economising, Newcastle left his lodgings and took a good house, resolving, as his wife says, “for his own recreation and divertisement in his banished condition, to exercise the Art of Mannage, which he is a great lover and Master of”. He gave £160 for one horse, and what is now vulgarly termed an “I.O.U.” for £100, for another. To estimate these prices as £480 and £300 of our money would be to undervalue them. But men in debt always seem to buy the longest-priced horses.

Soon after he had made these purchases, the Queen desired Newcastle to go to the Prince of Wales in Holland; but his ungrateful creditors made a difficulty about their debtor leaving Paris, whereupon the Queen most generously made herself responsible for his Parisian debts. On the morning of the day on which he left Paris, his creditors, says his wife, showed “so great a love and kindness for him” that they came to “take their farewell of him”. No wonder! It is easy to understand that they would be anxious, to have a few words with him—perhaps a good many words—and to come to a very clear understanding, before losing sight of him. Love and kindness indeed!

For about six months Newcastle lived at Rotterdam, as his wife tells us, “at a great charge keeping an open and noble table for all comers”; although he was heavily in debt and seemed to have little prospect of ever repaying his creditors.

In addition to the large sums he owed in Holland and in Paris, he borrowed £2000, while in Rotterdam, from Lord Hertford and Lord Devonshire, all of which he spent there, as well as another £1000 which he borrowed; “his expense being the more, by reason he lived freely and nobly,” which, of course, he had no business to do.[131]

While at Rotterdam, he made visits to the Prince of Wales at the Hague. Finding that he could be of no help to the Prince, and probably also finding that he could borrow no more money in Rotterdam, he went to Antwerp, where he took a house[132] “that belonged to the widow of a famous Picture-drawer, Van Ruben”. Here, however, was a difficulty, for the Widow Rubens’s house was “to be let unfurnished,” and Newcastle had no cash with which to buy furniture. Happily he was a past-master in the art of borrowing.

His wife says:—

“About this time my Lord was much necessitated for Money, which forced him to try several ways for to obtain so much as would relieve his present wants. At last Mr. Alesbury, the onely Son to Sir Th. Alesbury, Knight and Baronet, and Brother to the now Countess of Clarendon, a very worthy Gentleman, and great Friend to my Lord, having some Moneys that belonged to the now Duke of Buckingham, and seeing my Lord in so great distress did him the favour to lend him 200£. (which money my Lord since his return hath honestly and justly repaid).” No doubt! But that was some dozen years later, and the delay may have been inconvenient to the Duke of Buckingham. “This relief came so seasonably, that it got my Lord Credit in the City of Antwerp, whereas otherwise he would have lost himself to his great disadvantage; for my Lord having hired the house aforementioned, and wanting Furniture for it, was credited by the Citizens for as many Goods as he was pleased to have, as also for Meat and Drink, and all kind of necessaries and provisions, which certainly was a special Blessing of God, he being not onely a stranger in that Nation, but to all appearance, a Ruined man.”

While at Antwerp, Newcastle was exempted from all taxes and excise dues. In 1650 he was made a member of the Privy Council of Charles II, and he urged the King to make an agreement with Scotland on any terms and to go there in person. Hyde opposed the Scotch policy advocated by Newcastle, whom he describes in one of his letters “as a most lamentable man, as fit to be a general as to be a bishop”.[133] Yet Hyde and Newcastle remained on good terms, and, when Hyde was accused in 1653 of betraying the King’s Councils, Newcastle wrote him “a very comfortable letter of advice”.[134]

At Antwerp Newcastle’s chief amusement was riding the two horses which he had bought for £160 and £100, until they both, unfortunately, suffered premature death. This is remarkable; for tittupping round a riding-school was a gentle form of exercise more likely to lengthen than to shorten a horse’s existence. Being desperately hard up, it might naturally be expected that he would give up riding and economise. Not a bit of it! On the contrary, finding himself horseless, “though he wanted present means to repair these his losses, yet he endeavoured and obtained so much Credit at last that he was able to buy two others, and by degrees so many as amounted in all to the number of 8. In which he took so much delight and pleasure, that though he was then in distress for Money, yet he would sooner have tried all other ways, then parted with any of them; for I have hear’d him say, that good Horses are so rare, as not to be valued for Money.” He had excellent offers for two of these horses; but, poor as he was, nothing would induce him to sell either of them.

So difficult did Newcastle find it to keep eight horses and himself, to say nothing of his wife, with scarcely any money in hand, and a rapidly diminishing credit, that it became necessary, not to reduce his stud, but to send his wife to England to try to raise the wind. He could spare her, but not his horses. With Lady Newcastle went Newcastle’s brother, Sir Charles Cavendish, whose property, which had been sequestered since he left England, was to be sold outright if he did not quickly compound for it.

Lady Newcastle and Sir Charles had so little money for their journey that they were obliged to stay at Southwark, until Sir Charles had pawned his watch to pay for their night’s lodging and for the very short remainder of their journey into London, where they found lodgings in Covent Garden. The Duchess’s book relates what followed.

“Having rested our selves some time, I desired my Brother the Lord Lucas, to claim, in my behalf, some subsistence for my self out of my Lords Estate (for it was declared by the Parliament, That the Lands of those that were banished, should be sold to any that would buy them, onely their Wives and Children were allowed to put in their Claims:) But he received this Answer, That I could not expect the least allowance, by reason my Lord and Husband had been the greatest Traitor of England (that is to say, the honestest man, because he had been most against them).”

Newcastle had felt some compunction about compounding with traitors to his King. Henrietta Maria very kindly wrote to him, saying that she had heard of his scruples from Lord Jermyn, adding: “I am sufficiently assured of your affection and fidelity to tell you, that I think the king cannot be displeased that you should do what the late king his father”—it was after the death of Charles I—“permited those to do who had served him, when he was not in a condition to assist them.... And I cannot forbear pitying you, knowing well your repugnance to treat with these abominable villains.”

The Duchess continues:—

“Then Sir Charles intrusted some persons to compound for his Estate; but it being a good while before they agreed in their Composition, and then before the Rents could be received, we having in the mean time nothing to live on, must of necessity have been starved, had not Sir Charles got some Credit of several Persons, and that not without great difficulty; for all those that had Estates, were afraid to come near him, much less to assist him, until he was sure of his own Estate. So much is Misery and Poverty shun’d!” No novel discovery.

“But though our Condition was hard, yet my dear Lord and Husband, whom we left in Antwerp, was then in a far greater distress than our selves.”

In fact his creditors had become very “impatient”—who can wonder?—and he wrote to his wife that, unless some money were sent to him immediately, he would starve. With very great difficulty Sir Charles Cavendish raised £200, which he sent out at once to his brother. We need not enter into the details of Sir Charles’s compounding for his estates, or of his saving Welbeck and Bolsover for Newcastle.

During her stay in England, Lady Newcastle consoled herself in her anxieties with pens and paper, of which we shall hear a good deal later.

It was probably not very long before Lady Newcastle’s visit to London that King Charles I was beheaded, an incident unmentioned in her memoirs. But perhaps she regarded it as a tragedy too well known to require notice.

After being in England a year and a half, having heard that her husband was “not very well,” and having but “small hopes” of raising money out of his estates, Lady Newcastle returned to him. Sir Charles Cavendish was prevented from accompanying her by ague, and she had reached her husband only a short time, when news came of Sir Charles’s death.

Clarendon[135] describes Sir Charles Cavendish as Newcastle’s “brave brother, who was a man of the noblest and largest mind, though the least, and most inconvenient body that lived”. Almost the only words at all approaching disparagement of her husband, occurring in the Duchess’s story of his life, are in her already quoted statement that he had “not so much of scholarship and learning as his brother Sir Charles Cavendish”.

As we have seen, Newcastle had written to his wife, in England, that unless she or his brother sent him money immediately, he would starve; therefore it might be reasonably supposed that he had sold the last of his horses. Such was very far from being the fact. When Lady Newcastle returned, she found her starving husband with “the Mannage of his horses,” as she calls it, so splendid that “all strangers that were Persons of Quality” came to see it.

It was at Antwerp that Newcastle wrote his famous book on horsemanship, which we will notice when we consider his literary works in a later chapter.

Ben Jonson had written, concerning Newcastle’s horsemanship:—

Of his book on horsemanship, Newcastle wrote to Secretary Nicholas from Antwerp, on 15 February, 1656: “I am so tormented about my book of horsemanship as you cannot believe, with a hundred several trades I think, and the printing will cost above £1,300, which I could never have done but for my good friends, Sir H. Cartwright and Mr. Loving; and I hope they shall lose nothing by it, and I am sure they hope the like”. Only the impecunious can afford to embark upon literary extravagances of this sort.

Lady Newcastle’s return had one very inconvenient effect. It had been generally known at Antwerp that her expedition to England had been for the purpose of raising money to pay her husband’s debts, and it was naturally, though most erroneously, assumed that she had returned with that money. In consequence, there was a general rush of Newcastle’s creditors to his house, crowding and clamouring for a settlement of their little accounts. Wonderful to relate, when Newcastle “had informed them of the truth of the business, and desired their patience somewhat longer,” they were “willing to forbear”. This, says the pious Duchess, “was a work of Divine Providence”. Undoubtedly it was; but did not Newcastle tempt Providence very hard, when he lived in what she admits to have been “so much Splendor and Grandure” on borrowed money, with only a very problematical prospect of ever being able to repay it?

It would seem, from the following letter, written by Buckingham, that Newcastle had asked him to beg on his account from Charles II; that Charles had promised some money, and had been persuaded to break his promise by Newcastle’s enemies. Buckingham also advises Newcastle to make the best terms he can with the Government of the Commonwealth about his property.[136]

“G. Duke of Buckingham to the Marquis of Newcastle.

Some time later the Royalist affairs were going very badly.[137]

“G. Duke of Buckingham to the Marquis of Newcastle.

Among other correspondence of Newcastle’s of the same period, is a letter from Clarendon, then Sir Edward Hyde, asking him to try to prevent a duel.[138]

“Sir Edward Hyde to the Marquis of Newcastle.

Newcastle appears to have called himself, or at least to have had some idea of calling himself, by the title of Prince on the Continent. A letter from so high an authority as Garter-King-at-Arms, at the Herald’s College, asserted him to be justified in so doing.[139]

“Sir Edward Walker, Garter, to the Marquis of Newcastle.

Towards the end of his exile, Newcastle put his son, who had succeeded in obtaining an income, probably by his marriage, into his old home at Welbeck, as will be seen by the following letters.[140]

“Robert Deane (the Marquis of Newcastle) to (Viscount Mansfield).

“The Same to the Same.

“The Same to (the Same).

The change of title from Duke to Prince, if he ever made it, did not soften the hearts of Newcastle’s creditors. Their generosity steadily decreased, until the poor men appeared to be losing their nerve altogether. Newcastle, says his wife, “was put to great plunges and difficulties”. Her chief fear was that her husband “for his debts would suffer imprisonment, where sadness of mind, and want of exercise and air, would have wrought his destruction”. However, when the yet unrestored Charles II “was pleased to accept of a private dinner at” Newcastle’s house in Antwerp, “he did merrily and in jest” tell Lady Newcastle “that he perceived her Lord’s Credit could procure better Meat than His own”.

The Newcastles also gave Charles something more than “a private dinner”. Sir Charles Cotterell wrote to Nicholas:—[141]

“At the ball at Lord Newcastle’s was the Duchess of Lorraine and her son and daughter, with the King and his brothers and sister, several French people, and some of the town. The King was brought in with music, and all being placed, Major Mohun, the player, in a black satin robe and a garland of bays, made a speech in verse of his lordship’s”—Newcastle’s—“own poetry, complimenting the King in his highest hyperbole. Then there was dancing for two hours, and then my Lady’s Moor, dressed in feathers, came in and sang a song of the same authors, set and taught him by Nich. Lanier. Then was the banquet brought in, in eight great chargers, each borne by two gentlemen of the court, and others bringing wines, drinks, etc. Then they all danced again two hours more, and Major Mohun ended all with another speech, prophesying his Majesty’s Re-establishment.”

The report of all this magnificence must have made Newcastle’s creditors feel a little anxious.

Shortly afterwards, with the help of the remainder of his brother Charles’s estate, Newcastle “sprinkled something amongst his Creditors, and borrowed so much of Mr. Top and Mr. Smith (though without assurance) that he could pay such scores as were most pressing, contracted from the poorer sort of Tradesmen, and send ready mony to Market, to avoid cozenage (for small scores run up most unreasonably, especially if no strict accounts be kept, and the rate be left to the Creditors pleasure) by which means there was in a short time so much saved, as it could not have been imagined”.

Thus, by borrowing from new creditors to pay old ones, the Newcastles contrived to live in luxury for a good many years; in short until the Restoration.

Newcastle’s correspondence with Nicholas, among the Egerton Manuscripts in the British Museum, reveals his alternate hopes and fears as to the probability of that event. It is amusing to find a General, who rightly or wrongly fled from his country, cavilling at others for doing the same thing. In January, 1659, he wrote from Antwerp to Nicholas: “There are many noblemen, or at least lords, that are comed over to Paris, it is true, but those lords that can take such sudden apprehensions of fears so far off, I doubt will hardly have the courage to help our gracious Master to his throne—woful people—and the next generation of lords they tell me are fools. It will be a brave Upper House!”[142]