Characters from the Histories & Memoirs of the Seventeenth Century Part 27

Reliquiae Baxterianae: or, Mr. Richard Baxter's Narrative of The most Memorable Pa.s.sages of his Life and Times. Faithfully Publish'd from his own Original Ma.n.u.script, By Matthew Sylvester. London: MDCXCVI.

(Lib. I, Part I, pp. 98-100.)

The interest of this character lies largely in its Presbyterian point of view. It is a carefully balanced estimate by one who had been a chaplain in the Parliamentary army, but opposed Cromwell when, after the fall of Presbyterianism, he a.s.sumed the supreme power.

Page 144, ll. 19-24. See the article by C.H. Firth on 'The Raising of the Ironsides' in the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 1899, vol. xiii, and its sequel, 'The Later History of the Ironsides', 1901, vol. xv; and the articles on John Desborough (who married Cromwell's sister) and James Berry in the _Dictionary of National Biography_. 'Who Captain Ayres was it is difficult to say ... He left the regiment about June 1644, and his troop was given to James Berry ... the captain-lieutenant of Cromwell's own troop'. (R.H.S. Trans., vol. xiii, pp. 29, 30). Berry subsequently became one of Cromwell's major-generals. His character is briefly sketched by Baxter, who calls him 'my old Bosom Friend', _Reliquiae_, 1696, p. 57. For Captain William Evanson, see R.H.S. Trans., vol. xv, pp. 22-3.

Page 146, l. 12. A pa.s.sage from Bacon's essay 'Of Faction' (No. 51) is quoted in the margin in the edition of 1696. 'Fraction' in l. 12 is probably a misprint for 'Faction'.

Page 148, ll. 7-10. The concluding sentence of the essay 'Of Simulation and Dissimulation'. Brackets were often used at this time to mark a quotation.

40.

Reliquiae Baxterianae, 1696, Lib. I, Part I, p. 48.

Much the same opinion of Fairfax was held by Sir Philip Warwick and Clarendon. Warwick says he was 'a man of a military genius, undaunted courage and presence of mind in the field both in action and danger, but of a very common understanding in all other affairs, and of a worse elocution; and so a most fit tool for Mr. Cromwel to work with'

(_Memoires_, p. 246). Clarendon alludes to him as one 'who had no eyes, and so would be willinge to be ledd' (p. 138, l. 24). But Milton saw him in a different light when he addressed to him the sonnet on his capture of Colchester in August 1648:

_Fairfax_, whose name in armes through Europe rings Filling each mouth with envy, or with praise,...

Thy firm unshak'n vertue ever brings Victory home,...

O yet a n.o.bler task awaites thy hand; For what can Warr, but endless warr still breed, Till Truth, & Right from Violence be freed, And Public Faith cleard from the shamefull brand Of Public Fraud. In vain doth Valour bleed While Avarice, & Rapine share the land.

Fairfax's military capacity is certain, and his private virtues are unquestioned. Writing in 1648, Milton credited him with the power to settle the affairs of the nation. But Fairfax was not a politician. He broke with Cromwell over the execution of the king, and in July 1650 retired into private life. Baxter, Warwick, and Clarendon all wrote of him at a distance of time that showed his merits and limitations in truer perspective.

Milton addressed him again when singing the praises of Bradshaw and Cromwell and other Parliamentary leaders in his _Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio Secunda_, 1654. As a specimen of a contemporary Latin character, and a character by Milton, the pa.s.sage is now quoted in full:

'Sed neque te fas est praeterire, _Fairfaxi_, in quo c.u.m summa fort.i.tudine summam modestiam, summam vitae sanct.i.tatem, & natura & divinus favor conjunxit: Tu harum in partem laudum evocandus tuo jure ac merito es; quanquam in illo nunc tuo secessu, quantus olim Literni Africa.n.u.s ille Scipio, abdis te quoad potes; nec hostem solum, sed ambitionem, & quae praestantissimum quemque mortalium vincit, gloriam quoque vicisti; tuisque virtutibus & praeclare factis, jucundissimum & gloriosissimum per otium frueris, quod est laborum omnium & humanarum actionum vel maximarum finis; qualique otio c.u.m antiqui Heroes, post bella & decora tuis haud majora, fruerentur, qui eos laudare conati sunt poetae, desperabant se posse alia ratione id quale esset digne describere, nisi eos fabularentur, coelo receptos, deorum epulis acc.u.mbere. Verum te sive valetudo, quod maxime crediderim, sive quid aliud retraxit, persuasissimum hoc habeo, nihil te a rationibus reipublicae divellere potuisse, nisi vidisses quantum libertatis conservatorem, quam firmum atque fidum Anglicanae rei columen ac munimentum in successore tuo relinqueres' (ed. 1654, pp. 147-8).

Page 149, l. 9. The Self-denying Ordinance, discharging members of Parliament from all offices, civil and military, pa.s.sed both Houses on April 3, 1645.

l. 18. He succeeded his father as third Lord Fairfax in 1648.

l. 21. See p. 118, ll. 8 ff.

41.

Clarendon, MS. Life, p. 103; _History_, Bk. III, ed. 1702, vol. i, pp.

148-9; ed. Macray, vol. i, pp. 247-9.

Baxter has an account of Vane in his Autobiography: 'He was the Princ.i.p.al Man that drove on the Parliament to go too high, and act too vehemently against the King: Being of very ready Parts, and very great Subtilty, and unwearied Industry, he laboured, and not without Success, to win others in Parliament, City and Country to his Way.

When the Earl of _Strafford_ was accused, he got a Paper out of his Father's Cabinet (who was Secretary of State) which was the chief Means of his Condemnation: To most of our Changes he was that _within_ the House, which _Cromwell_ was _without_. His great Zeal to drive all into War, and to the highest, and to cherish the Sectaries, and especially in the Army, made him above all Men to be valued by that Party ... When Cromwell had served himself by him as his surest Friend, as long as he could; and gone as far with him as their way lay together, (_Vane_ being for a Fanatick Democracie, and _Cromwell_ for Monarchy) at last there was no Remedy but they must part; and when _Cromwell_ cast out the Rump (as disdainfully as Men do Excrements) he called _Vane_ a Jugler' (_Reliquiae Baxterianae_, Lib. I, Part I, p.

75). This account occurs in Baxter's description of the sectaries who were named after him 'Vanists'.

Clarendon and Baxter both lay stress on the element of the fanatic in Vane's nature; and in a later section of the _History_ Clarendon speaks of it emphatically: ... 'Vane being a man not to be described by any character of religion; in which he had swallowed some of the fancies and extravagances of every sect or faction, and was become (which cannot be expressed by any other language than was peculiar to that time) _a man above ordinances_, unlimited and unrestrained by any rules or bounds prescribed to other men, by reason of his perfection.

He was a perfect enthusiast, and without doubt did believe himself inspired' (vol. vi, p. 148).

Milton's sonnet, to Vane 'young in yeares, but in sage counsell old'

gives no suggestion of the fanatic:

besides to know Both spirituall powre & civill, what each meanes What severs each thou 'hast learnt, which few have don.

The bounds of either sword to thee wee ow.

Therfore on thy firme hand religion leanes In peace, & reck'ns thee her eldest son.

There was much in Vane's views about Church and State with which Milton sympathized; and the sonnet was written in 1652, before Cromwell broke with Vane.

See also Pepys's _Diary_, June 14, 1662, and Burnet's _History of His Own Time_, ed. Osmund Airy, vol. i, pp. 284-6.

Page 150, ll. 13, 14. _Magdalen College_, a mistake for Magdalen Hall, of which Vane was a Gentleman Commoner; but he did not matriculate.

See Wood's _Athenae Oxonienses_, ed. Bliss, vol. iii, col. 578.

l. 17. He returned to England in 1632; he had been in the train of the English amba.s.sador at Vienna.

ll. 25 ff. He transported himself into New England in 1635. He was chosen Governor of Ma.s.sachusetts in March 1636 and held the post for one year, being defeated at the next election. He retransported himself into England in August 1637.

Page 151, ll. 27-9. 'In New Hampshire and at Rhode Island. The grant by the Earl of Warwick as the Governor of the King's Plantations in America of a charter for Providence, &c., Rhode Island, is dated March 14, 164-3/4; _Calendar of Colonial State Papers_, 1574-1660, p. 325.

The code of laws adopted there in 1647 declares "sith our charter gives us power to govern ourselves ... the form of government established in Providence plantations is democratical." _Collections of the Ma.s.sachusetts Hist. Soc._, second series, vol. vii, p.

79.'--Note by Macray.

Page 152, ll. 2, 3. He married Frances, daughter of Sir Christopher Wray, of Ashby, Lincolnshire.

ll. 5, 6. He was made joint Treasurer of the Navy in January 1639, and was dismissed in December 1641.

ll. 10 ff. Strafford was created Baron of Raby in 1640. At the conclusion of Book VI Clarendon says that the elder Vane's 'malice to the Earl of Strafford (who had unwisely provoked him, wantonly and out of contempt) transported him to all imaginable thoughts of revenge'.

Cf. p. 63, l. 25.

42.

Clarendon, MS. History, p. 486 (first paragraph) and Life, p. 249 (second paragraph); _History_, Bk. VII, ed. 1703, vol. ii, p. 292; ed.

Macray, vol. iii, pp. 216-17.

Clarendon added the first paragraph in the margin of the ma.n.u.script of his earlier work when he dovetailed the two works to form the _History_ in its final form.

Page 152, l. 27. _this Covenant_, the Solemn League and Covenant, which pa.s.sed both Houses on September 18, 1643: 'the battle of Newbery being in that time likewise over (which cleared and removed more doubts than the a.s.sembly had done), it stuck very few hours with both Houses; but being at once judged convenient and lawful, the Lords and Commons and their a.s.sembly of Divines met together at the church, with great solemnity, to take it, on the five and twentieth day of September' (Clarendon, vol. iii, p. 205).

43.

Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson, Governor of Nottingham Castle and Town ... Written by His Widow Lucy, Daughter of Sir Allen Apsley, Lieutenant of the Tower, &c. Now first published from the original ma.n.u.script by the Rev. Julius Hutchinson ... London: 1806.

(pp. 4-6.)

The original ma.n.u.script has disappeared, and the edition of 1806 is the only authoritative text. It has been many times reprinted. It was edited with introduction, notes, and appendices by C.H. Firth in 1885 (new edition, 1906).

The Memoirs as a whole are the best picture we possess of a puritan soldier and household of the seventeenth century. They were written by his widow as a consolation to herself and for the instruction of her children. To 'such of you as have not seene him to remember his person', she leaves, by way of introduction, 'His Description.' It is this pa.s.sage which is here reprinted.

44, 45, 46, 47, 48.