The Adventure of Living Part 5

Wild as they are, accept them, so we're wee; To make them civill will our honour be; And if good worcks be the effects of myndes, Which like good angells be, let our designes, As we are Angli, make us Angells too; No better worck can state--or church-man do.

The Campion connection interests me personally because Campion was the protagonist of unrhymed lyrical verse--my special metrical hobby. I like to think that William Strachey may have supported Campion in his controversy with Gabriel Harvey, who, by the way, lived at Saffron Walden, from which town came also William Strachey. There is danger, however, in such speculation. Before long someone may prove that it was not Bacon who wrote Shakespeare but Strachey who wrote both Bacon and Shakespeare.

The following example of my father's family lore was still more interesting and exciting to us. John Strachey, son of William Strachey, married a Miss Hodges of Wedmore, an heiress in the heraldic sense, through whom we can proudly claim to represent the Somersetshire family of Hodges, whose arms we have always quartered. This lady's grandfather, or great-grandfather--I am not quite sure which--was of the very best type of Elizabethan soldiers-errant. He was killed at the Siege of Antwerp in 1583.

He had the good fortune to be commemorated in one of the most spirited epitaphs of his age. On the wall of Wedmore Church in Somersetshire is a bra.s.s tablet bearing a heart surrounded by a laurel-wreath. The inscription of the memorial runs thus:

Sacred to the memory of Captain Thomas Hodges, of the County of Somerset, esq., who, at the siege of Antwerp, about 1583, with unconquered courage won two ensigns from the enemy; where, receiving his last wound, he gave three legacies: his soule to the Lord Jesus, his body to be lodged in Flemish earth, his heart to be sent to his dear wife in England.

Here lies his wounded heart, for whome One kingdom was too small a roome; Two kingdoms therefore have thought good to part So stout a body and so brave a heart.

I have often wondered how a poet could have been found in Somersetshire in those days to produce such spirited verse. The Elizabethan age, so splendid in great poetry, was apt to be tortured and affected in what Dr. Johnson called "lapidary inscriptions."

Little did I think when, as a boy, I first read those lines how closely linked England was to remain with the soil where Thomas Hodges fell, how many thousand stout bodies and brave hearts would again be laid in Flemish earth, and how many true soldiers would in my own day deserve my forbear's epitaph.

It seems most likely that Thomas Hodges's armour was preserved by the Hodges and brought to Sutton by Miss Hodges. In an old Hodges inventory which is still among the papers at Sutton there is mentioned "an armour of proof." My father also used to tell us how he had seen two or three sets of armour hanging on the brackets which supported the Minstrels'

Gallery in the Hall at Sutton. My father's uncle, alas, was born in the eighteenth century and bred in India till about 1820. He was therefore little affected by Scott and the Gothic revival. When he came back to England, though full of interest in his house and family, he not only removed the Minstrels' Gallery from the Hall, but allowed the armour that had hung on it for some hundred and fifty years to be destroyed.

The Estate mason was seen mixing mortar in the breastplate, and the coachman washed the carriage with his legs in the Cromwellian jack- boots. Oddly enough, when we were quite small children, my eldest brother, by pure accident, discovered half a steel helmet behind one of the greenhouses.

Two swords, however, were allowed to remain at Sutton, and are there to this day. They are, however, probably Cromwellian and not Elizabethan.

We know very little of what happened to the Stracheys during the Civil War, for at the crisis of the conflict John Strachey was only a boy. He was born in 1634 and therefore was only twenty-six at the end of the Commonwealth, and would have been only fifteen years old at the time of the King's execution. That the family were good Roundheads, however, cannot be doubted, for John Strachey when he grew up became a close friend of John Locke. Further, Captain Thomas Hodges, whose daughter was later married to John Strachey, raised a troop of horse to fight on the side of the Commonwealth. My father was always very proud of the fact that the intellectual father of the Whigs was so closely united with our ancestor. A propos of a deferred visit to Spain, Locke says in one of his letters that he is glad he is not going, because he will now be able to pay his visit to Sutton Court; "a greater rarity than my travels have afforded me, for, believe me, one may go a long way before one meets a friend."

Of all my father's stories those which delighted and thrilled us most were his anecdotes of Clive. Clive, one might almost say, was the patron saint of the family, and some day I hope to make a further and better collection of legends in regard to him and other relations and connections of my family with India.

But first I must explain why we Stracheys regard Clive as our patron saint. It will be remembered how, after Clive had won Pla.s.sey, he came home full of riches and honours, obtained his peerage and bought his unique collection of rotten boroughs. He did not, however, remain long at home. He was soon sent out to India again to reform the Civil Service and to place the affairs alike of the Company and of the King, _i.e._ the British Government and Parliament, on a sound basis. The moment Clive left India, the Company's government had begun to degenerate on all sides, military, naval, and civilian. In two years corruption was destroying what Clive's statesmanship and military genius had won.

Clive, when he agreed to return to Bengal was a Member of Parliament, and like a wise man he knew that anyone who has to deal with great affairs must be sure of a good Private Secretary. He looked round, therefore, for an able and trustworthy young man, and lighted upon Henry Strachey, who had just reached years of discretion. But I had better quote Clive's own ringing words in regard to his selection. They will serve to show, among other things, that Clive was not the kind of inspired savage that he is sometimes portrayed, but a man with an extraordinary command of the English language. In the speech in the House of Commons in which Clive flung back the accusations made against him in regard to the grants and presents which he took from Meer Jaffir, not only after the Battle of Pla.s.sey but in the final settlement which concluded his Indian career, he described the members of his official family--the men whom he had taken out to India with him on that occasion. As Strachey had become a Member of the House of Commons he could not refer to him by name. Here are Clive's actual words:

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Close, Sutton Court, Somerset]

Another gentleman was my Secretary, now a Member of this House. He was recommended to me by one of the greatest men in this Kingdom, now no more, Mr. Grenville. Many and great are the obligations I have been under to him (Grenville), but the greatest of all the obligations was his having recommended to me this gentleman. Without his ability and indefatigable industry I could never have gone through my great and arduous undertaking, and in serving me he served the Company.

Curiously enough, we have no idea how Henry Strachey came across George Grenville, or why George Grenville was able to give him so high a character. In any case, Clive was a shrewd judge of men, and though very good to his subordinates, would never tolerate inefficiency. His approval meant much.

But Clive did more for us as a family than merely appoint Henry Strachey to be his private secretary. It happened that at the time of his appointment Henry Strachey was very much in the position in which Clive was when he first went out to India. Henry Strachey was the eldest son of a hopelessly embarra.s.sed country gentleman of old family. John Strachey, the friend of Locke, had been very well off, and so had his son John, the Fellow of the Royal Society. Besides Sutton and an estate at Elm and Buckland, near Frome, he owned a considerable amount of property in Westminster. There are many interesting and amusing things to tell of him, but here I will only say that the said John Strachey the second had two wives and nineteen children, consequently at his death the family estates were heavily "dipped." His son, Hodges Strachey, who succeeded him, added to these pecuniary troubles, and then died; the property descended to a younger brother, Henry Strachey. Though he married into a rich Edinburgh family, the Clerks of Pennycuick, and so was kinsman not only of the Clerks but of the Primroses, he did nothing to redeem the fortunes of the family. Indeed, things had gone so far by his time that the Strachey estates had actually pa.s.sed to the mortgagees in discharge of a sum of twelve thousand pounds. A year's grace was, however, given. If the 12,000 could not be paid within the twelve months, Sutton, and the whole of the land, would have pa.s.sed for ever from the family.

When Clive heard of this predicament, he, with extraordinary generosity, advanced the money in antic.i.p.ation of the remuneration which Strachey was to receive for his services in India. Thus Sutton Court was saved.

Thanks to Clive there are still Stracheys at Sutton and I am here to tell the tale. In those days twelve thousand pounds was a very big sum of money indeed to an impecunious country gentleman, and a considerable sum even to a man as rich as Clive. The modern equivalent would be over 30,000. But Clive was not a man who hesitated to do things in a big way, and he was well repaid. Henry Strachey was not only devoted to him throughout his life, but acted as his executor and as the guardian to his infant son and heir.

One of three or four pictures which Dance, the portrait-painter, painted of Clive hangs to this day in the Hall at Sutton. It always thrilled me to look at this picture, when a boy, because of the background, where, surrounded by the smoke of battle, a company of hors.e.m.e.n with drawn swords charge an invisible Oriental foe. If I remember rightly, the British Cavalry played no part at Pla.s.sey, but probably the artist thought that historical accuracy might quite legitimately be subordinated in this instance to the demands of art.

I could fill this book with stories of Clive which my father had heard from his father and from his uncle and from other contemporaries. I will only mention one here, however, and I choose it because it further ill.u.s.trates the wonderful power of Clive's prose style, a power which always impressed me, even as a boy. Just before Clive died by his own hand, he addressed a letter to Henry Strachey, who had now become a close friend as well as an ex-secretary, and who had married Lady Clive's first cousin. He was thus a member of the actual as well as of the official family of his Chief. Here are the words which Clive addressed to Strachey:--

How miserable is my condition! I have a disease which makes life insupportable, but which my doctors tell me won't shorten it one hour.

If ever man conveyed the sense of physical suffering, deep melancholy, and utter despair by the medium of the written word, it was Clive in this pa.s.sage. He had, it will be remembered, attempted suicide before, as a young man. When the pistol refused to go off, he considered it an omen that he was reserved for greater things.

My father used to tell us (whether on good medical evidence or not I do not know) that it was supposed that Clive suffered from a very painful form of dyspepsia accompanied by vertigo, and that when these attacks came on they depressed him beyond measure. He lived in constant dread of their recurrence, and it was upon a sudden sense that an attack was impending that he cut his throat. He could not face again what might have been an agony of three or four months' duration.

It was natural that, as boys, we liked especially to hear the story of the suicide in Berkeley Square. There was plenty of blood and mystery in the tale.

Some eight years before his death, I got my father, who was a very accurate and careful man, to put down, partly from family papers and partly from memory, as exact an account as he could of the actual suicide. This, the authentic version of the suicide, I published in the _Spectator_.

My father's stories of the first Sir Henry, as we were wont to call him, Clive's Private Secretary, were many, and all of them poignant or amazing. As a child, however, though I always delighted in them I did not fully realise their historical interest. They gave a vivid picture of the mind and actions of a Whig Member of Parliament from about 1770 to 1812, the period during which Henry Strachey was continuously in Parliament. In the course of his forty years of public life, Henry Strachey held a number of important offices, for he was a much-trusted man. He played, indeed, a part more like that of one of the great permanent officials of the present day than that of a politician. I take it that he had not a powerful gift of speech and that he was not a pushing man, otherwise, considering his brains and the way in which he was trusted, he would have gone a good deal higher than he did. A story which testifies to his influence is curious. When Burke began his attacks in the Commons upon Warren Hastings, he tried to enlist support from Henry Strachey, who does not seem to have thrown in his lot especially with Hastings. All he would do, however, was to tell Burke that he would be neutral--provided that, in the course of the attacks on Hastings, Burke cast no aspersions upon the name and fame of Lord Clive.

If Clive's memory was a.s.sailed he, Strachey, would hit back. Whether it was due to this fact or to some other, it is certain that Burke was always careful to draw a clear distinction between the cases of Clive and of Hastings.

Perhaps the most vivid story of all is the following. Strachey had been in office in the ill-starred Coalition under Fox and North. When the Ministry broke up, the King sent for Lord Shelburne, a member of the Coalition, who, it will be remembered, at once formed a Government of his own. While the Ministry was in the making, Henry Strachey met Fox on Hay Hill, that minute yet "celebrated acclivity" which runs from the corner of Berkeley Square into Dover Street. The smiling demagogue, who, by the by, was a fellow member of Brooke's, hailed his ex-colleague with a--

"Hullo, Strachey, what's going to happen to you?"

"Oh, Lord Shelburne says he wants me to keep my office."

"Then, by G.o.d, you're out!" n.o.body, at that time, believed in Shelburne's good faith. He was alleged by both sides to be a man on whose word no dependence could ever be placed--a man who would tell you that he wanted your a.s.sistance on the very day he had struck your name out of the list of his Cabinet.

Things, however, turned out differently in Strachey's case, and Shelburne kept his word. In all probability, indeed, he was a man who was very much maligned.

In any case, Shelburne trusted Strachey, and when he began the negotiations for the Peace of Versailles which ended the war with America, and recognised the United States, Strachey was sent as a negotiator. Originally a Member of Parliament named Oswald had been employed at Paris, but he had not proved to be a match for the able American delegates, Franklin, Jay, and Adams. Accordingly Strachey was sent over to give tone and vigour to the British Delegation. As a family we are exceedingly proud of the account of Strachey given by that great man, John Adams, later President of the United States. It is contained in his secret report sent to Washington from Paris:

Strachey is as artful and insinuating a man as they could send; he pushes and presses every point as far as it can possibly go; he has a most eager, earnest, pointed spirit.

That is a certificate of character of which any statesman or diplomat might be proud.

But Strachey, I am glad to say, was more than a mere skilful agent. It is now fully recognised by Canadian historians who have made a special study of the question, that Strachey was the one man at Paris who stood up for the United Empire Loyalists and did his very best to get for them proper recognition and proper compensation. Unfortunately the British Ministry was tired and callous, and Strachey's efforts did not prevail, but he fought for the United Empire Loyalists to the end. Without his help, things would have been worse than they were.

One thing that helped to make Strachey a good peace negotiator was the fact that a year before he had gone to America as Secretary to Lord Howe and Admiral Howe when they were sent out either to carry on the war by sea and land, or else to make peace with the insurgent colonies.

As a result of this official visit to America, Strachey had a very large number of confidential papers left in his possession, and some of these have escaped the burning which was the fate of most of his correspondence. He was one of the men who made it a practice to destroy private papers as soon as they were done with. The story of these American papers is, again, one which must be reserved for another occasion. But, though the time has come to cut Henry Strachey off at the main, and though I must reluctantly forego the account of his dealings with George III, when he, Strachey, was Master of the Household, I cannot resist giving one family doc.u.ment which my father was very fond of reading to us and which was, I honestly think, regarded by the family as the most priceless of all the papers kept in the strong-room at Sutton Court. It went by the name of the "Head Munky" letter.

Lady Strachey, the first Sir Henry's wife, was a widow with children when she married. She also had children by her second marriage and, as several of these married, she had at the end of her life a large number of grandchildren. Anyway, she was evidently a lady who thoroughly understood what children want at a children's party. She fully appreciated, that is, the value of bears, monkeys, crocodiles, and Punch as entertainers of the young--witness the letter which follows:

WATER MARK 1804.

To Lady Strachey, 9 hill street Berkeley square.

MY LADY,

agreebel to order James Botton and Company will attend Tomorrow evening at 8 But begs to inform That the Bear being Laim am afeard cant perform But the doggs and munkees is in good condishon and will I hopes be aprooved with the music

my tarms is as toilers pr nite