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The Origins of the Second
World War

Now in its fifth edition, The Origins of the Second World War explores the
reasons why the Second World War broke out in September 1939 and why
a European conflict developed into a war that spanned the globe.
This book argues that the global conflict was not just ‘Hitler’s War’
but one that had its roots and origins in the decline of the old empires of
Britain and France and the rise of ambitious new powers in Germany, Italy
and Japan who wanted large empires of their own. Richard Overy covers
the origins of the war from its background in the First World War to its
expansion to embrace the Soviet Union, Japan and the United States by
the end of 1941. Creating a comprehensive and analytical narrative while
remaining a succinct overview of the subject, this book takes a thematic
approach to the complex range of events that culminated in global warfare,
discussing factors such as economic rivalry, rearmament and domestic
politics and emphasizing that any explanation of the outbreak of hostilities
must be global in scope. This new edition includes more discussion of the
role of empire and the imperial background to the war.
Containing several new primary source documents alongside a glossary, a
chronology of key events and a who’s who of important figures, this book is
an invaluable introduction for any student of this fascinating period in
history.

Richard Overy is Professor of History at the University of Exeter. He has

authored and edited more than thirty books on the European dictators, the
Second World War and the history of air power.
Introduction to the series

History is the narrative constructed by historians from traces left by the

past. Historical enquiry is often driven by contemporary issues and, in
consequence, historical narratives are constantly reconsidered, reconstructed
and reshaped. The fact that different historians have different perspectives
on issues means that there is often controversy and no universally agreed
version of past events. Seminar Studies was designed to bridge the gap
between current research and debate, and the broad, popular general
surveys that often date rapidly.
The volumes in the series are written by historians who are not only
familiar with the latest research and current debates concerning their topic,
but who have themselves contributed to our understanding of the subject.
The books are intended to provide the reader with a clear introduction to a
major topic in history. They provide both a narrative of events and a critical
analysis of contemporary interpretations. They include the kinds of tools
generally omitted from specialist monographs: a chronology of events, a
glossary of terms and brief biographies of ‘who’s who’. They also include
bibliographical essays in order to guide students to the literature on various
aspects of the subject. Students and teachers alike will find that the selection
of documents will stimulate the discussion and offer insight into the raw
materials used by historians in their attempt to understand the past.
Clive Emsley and Gordon Martel
Series Editors
The Origins of the Second
World War

Fifth Edition

Richard Overy
Cover image: Shawshots/ Alamy Stock Photo
Fifth edition published 2022
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
an informa business
© 2022 Richard Overy
The right of Richard Overy to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
First edition published by Pearson Education Limited 1987
Fourth edition published by Routledge 2017
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-0-367-62083-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-62082-0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-10785-9 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003107859
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents

List of figures viii

List of tables ix
List of maps x
Preface xi
Chronology xiii
Who’s who xvii

PART I
Background1

1 Explaining the Second World War 3

PART II
Analysis11

2 The international crisis 13

3 Economic and imperial rivalry 33

4 Armaments and domestic politics 48

5 War over Poland 64

6 From European to world war 85

PART III
Assessment99

7 Hitler’s war? 101

vi Contents
PART IV
Documents105

1 The Treaty of Versailles and Germany 107

2 The Covenant of the League 108
3 The search for a settlement 108
4 American ‘appeasement’ 109
5 Stalin anticipates war 109
6 The ‘Hossbach memorandum’ 110
7 Preparation for war before Munich 111
8 The Munich Conference 112
9 The Munich Agreement 113
10 Imperialism and war 114
11 Economic pressure on Japan 114
12 Mussolini’s vision of empire 115
13 Hitler’s ‘Second Book’: Lebensraum and the Jews 116
14 Economic appeasement 117
15 The Four-Year Plan 118
16 Economic dangers for Britain 118
17 The crisis in France 119
18 ‘Peace for our time’ 119
19 The change of mood in the west 120
20 Hitler plans to crush Poland 120
21 Chamberlain guarantees Poland 121
22 The Franco-British ‘war plan’, 1939 122
23 British intelligence on Germany 122
24 Stalin warns the west after Munich 123
25 The Franco-British failure in Moscow 123
26 The Soviet reaction to German advances, 1939 125
27 The German-Soviet Pact 125
28 Britain’s probable attitude 126
29 Hitler gambles on western weakness 127
30 Bonnet’s doubts about war 128
31 Poland in the middle 128
32 The last days of peace 129
33 Chamberlain’s ‘awful Sunday’ 130
34 Berlin proposes peace 131
35 A British demand for peace 131
36 The Three-Power Pact 132
37 ‘Arsenal of Democracy’ fireside chat 132
38 The Barbarossa Directive 133
 Contents vii
39 The German attack on Russia 134
40 Russia raises the price for co-operation 134
41 Japan decides on war 135
42 Creating the new world order 136

Glossary 137
Bibliography 142
Index 153
Figures

2.1 A Japanese tank in 1938 somewhere on the front line in the

war with Nationalist China 15
2.2 A Republican poster from the Spanish Civil War,
‘Comrades of the rearguard’ 28
3.1 The Palace of Beauty at the Wembley Empire Exhibition in
London in 1924 36
4.1 Hermann Goering, Commander-in-Chief of the German
Air Force, announces the launch of the Four-Year Plan for
economic self-sufficiency to an audience in Berlin on 28
October 193651
5.1 Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of Great Britain, and
Edouard Daladier, Prime Minister of France, at the Munich
Conference in September 1938 65
5.2 A meeting to discuss a Franco-Soviet agreement in 1935
between the Soviet leader, Josef Stalin, and the French
Prime Minister, Pierre Laval 75
5.3 A German propaganda photograph of murdered German
civilians in the Polish town of Bydgoszcz (Bromberg) on 4
September 193983
6.1 Battleships of the United States Navy on fire in the docks
at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, after the Japanese air attack on 7
December 194196
Tables

4.1 Military expenditure of the major powers, 1932–9 56

4.2 Aircraft production of the major powers, 1933–40 56
Maps

1 The British and French Empires between the two world wars xxiii
2 The Japanese Empire by 1941 xxiv
3 Germany and Central Europe 1933–39 xxv
Preface

This is now the fifth preface to this volume in the Seminar studies series, and
it follows closely on the last edition. This is due largely to the constant flow
of new published material on the background to the war. While the overall
shape of the argument has been less affected, there is much more available
now on the unstable new imperialism of the 1930s, and indeed on the his-
tory of imperialism in general. It is now difficult to avoid linking the longer
period of imperial expansion from the 1870s onwards with the imperial
global order of the inter.war years, and the ambition of leaders in Japan,
Italy and Germany to have a ‘new order’ territorial empire of their own.
These were radical new empires, brutally based on racial hierarchy and the
subjection of the conquered peoples.
The shift to an imperial context is one of many changes in emphasis and
argument over the past decade. The roles of Italy and Japan in the approach
to war have been subject to much re-evaluation, and indeed a good argu-
ment can now be made to date the onset of the crisis that resulted in global
war from 1931, with Japanese occupation of Manchuria. There are still
revelations about Soviet policy in the 1930s, including serious studies of
Soviet rearmament and war preparation, while an ongoing debate explores
whether the Stalin was the ‘honest broker’ of the 1930s, seeking collective
security, or a dangerous revisionist, partly to blame for the onset of war
in 1939. Neither approach is entirely convincing. The appeasement policy
of Britain and France has attracted more sophisticated historical attention
than the older anti-appeasement literature and Chamberlain in particular
has emerged as a less feeble politician than the conventional image. This has
still not prevented Russian president Vladimir Putin from publicly arguing
in 2020 that the Western powers were responsible for war in 1939 because
of their hostility to communism and irresponsible pandering to Hitler.
In general, the approach to the subject has not changed substantially
since the last edition. Historians, whether they are sympathetic or not to the
choices made by Britain and France in the 1930s, are generally agreed that
domestic constraints played an important part in shaping those decisions,
and to these inhibiting factors – economic crisis, popular anti-war sentiment –
have been added the many headaches provided by global empires difficult
xii Preface
to defend adequately. These problems were exacerbated by facing threats
in three regions, Europe, the Mediterranian and Africa, and in East Asia,
where Germany, Italy and Japan sought to build new regional empires and
economic zones to rival Britain and France. The new pursuit of empire was
a difficult challenge to meet, but it was at the heart of the global crisis that
unfolded from the early 1930s, and it eventually dragged the Soviet Union
and the United States into a world war from 1941 onwards. This was an
outcome that none of the ‘new order’ states wanted, and it created the con-
ditions for their defeat.
As in the past editions, I would like to render a general acknowledge-
ment of my debt to the many historians whose work I have compressed and
simplified here, but not, I hope, distorted. My thanks also go to the many
colleagues and students who over the years have argued out the issues raised
here, disagreeing as often as not. I would like to thank Geoffrey Roberts
for his kind assistance in improving the history of Soviet foreign policy in
these pages. I was recruited to write this volume more than 35 years ago by
the late Roger Lockyer, who died in 2017, the year the fourth edition was
published. I remain grateful for all his encouragement and helpful editorial
advice when the book went through its first editions.
Richard Overy
September 2021
Chronology

1914
28 June Archduke Franz Ferdinand assassinated.
28 July Austria declares war on Serbia.
4 August All major European states at war.
1917
2 March Tsar Nicholas abdicates.
25 October Bolshevik Party seizes power in Russia.
1918
11 November Armistice ends Great War.
1919
28 June Signature of the Versailles Treaty (Paris Treaty) with
Germany.
1920
10 January League of Nations Organization begins its operations.
1922
6 February Washington Naval Treaty signed.
28 October March on Rome, Mussolini becomes Prime Minister.
1923
9 November Hitler stages failed coup in Munich.
15 November German currency collapses, end of hyperinflation.
1925
1 December Locarno Treaty signed between Britain, France,
Germany, Italy and Belgium.
1926
24 April German-Soviet Treaty of Berlin.
10 September Germany joins the League of Nations.
xiv Chronology
1928
29 August Kellogg-Briand Pact signed in Paris outlawing war.
1929
29 October Start of ‘great crash’ on US stock exchange.
1931
September Japanese Kwantuing army seizes Manchuria.
1932
2 February Disarmament Conference convenes at Geneva.
9 July End of Lausanne Conference on reparations.
July/August British Commonwealth Ottawa Conference.
1933
30 January Hitler appointed German Chancellor.
12 June World Economic Conference in London.
15 July Four-Power Pact signed in Rome.
16 October Germany withdraws from League and from the
Disarmament Conference.
1934
17 September Soviet Union admitted to the League of Nations.
5 December Franco-Soviet Pact.
1935
6 February Government of India Act gives limited autonomy.
16 March Hitler announces German rearmament.
11 April Italy, Britain and France agree common front at
Stresa Conference.
18 June Anglo-German Naval Agreement.
3 October Italy invades Abyssinia (Ethiopia).
1936
13 March German forces remilitarize the Rhineland provinces.
9 May Mussolini declares defeat of Abyssinia and new
Italian empire.
17 July Start of Spanish Civil War following failed military
coup.
18 October German Second Four-Year Plan launched.
25 November Anti-Comintern Pact signed between Germany and
Japan.
1937
26 April German aircraft bomb Basque city of Guernica.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 CHAPTER XIII
AT CASTLE RUSHEN. AN HONOURABLE SURRENDER. THE MAUDLIN WELL.
CORRESPONDENCE RECOMMENCES. DISAPPEARANCE OF LORD STRANGE. A
PRICE ON LORD DERBY’S HEAD. HOLMBY HOUSE. MISS ORPE AGAIN. A
LAWSUIT. DIVISIONS AMONG THE PARLIAMENTARIANS. A LULL IN THE
STORM. A NOBLE AUTHOR. AT KNOWSLEY. THE SUBSTANCE AND THE
SHADOW. THE SECTARIES. “A GOOD EXCHANGE”

On the conclusion of the siege of Lathom House, the Countess of

Derby went with her children to the Isle of Man. This appears to
have been done by the advice of Prince Rupert, who well knew, not
only the animosity of the Parliamentarians against the Earl, and
therefore against his family, but also the jealousy entertained against
him by the King’s party.
In the old castles of Rushen and of Peel, Lady Derby spent the
ensuing years of King Charles Ist’s stormy reign, for the most part in
peace, compared with the turmoil and anxiety of the previous
months.
As for the brave old mansion, it remained for some time in the
charge of the garrison left in it. Finally, by the desire of the King,
whose fortunes were now too low to come to its assistance when
again it was attacked by the Roundheads, it yielded, but with
honours for all it contained, and the garrison marched forth with
their arms and baggage. Neither were they called upon to take the
oath to Parliament.
 Whether it would even have yielded when it did is more than
questionable, had it not been for an Irish soldier, “the one traitor the
garrison contained, who swam the moat and informed the enemy of
the deplorable condition of the besieged—at the end of their food
and ammunition.” The matter was now easy to compass—brute
strength against weakness. The doors were burst open, the house
sacked, its towers thrown down, and its walls levelled with the
ground. Three little pieces of the battlements alone remained to tell
of the long, brave defence it had made. Cromwell’s sequestrators
sold its doors, its floors, and all else of it, and the receipts of sale are
still to be found in the Ormskirk parish records.[19] Finally, the
peasants of West Derby were invited to take away the stones and
timbers without any charge.[20]

19. Seacome.

20. Heywood.
“Nothing remained of the old place,” says a later chronicler, “along
whose banks knights and ladies have a thousand times made resort,
harking to stories as varied as those of Boccaccio. The Maudlin Well,
where the pilgrim and the lazar devoutly cooled their parched lips—
the brewing-house—the training round—all now are changed, and a
modern mansion and a new possessor fill their places.”
The new mansion which a later Earl raised upon the honoured
ashes of the old is a splendid house; but with it our story has not to
do. The noble presence of Charlotte de la Trémoille never graced its
Ionic colonnades and spacious chambers; and it is to her once more
that we will turn, in her old feudal stronghold in the Kingdom of
Man.
Yet one more word, before biding adieu to Lathom, as to the
Maudlin Well mentioned. A question arises which suggests itself for
antiquarian solving. In later times a “Lathom Spaw” came into some
repute in that neighbourhood. Was this “Spaw” the old Maudlin Well
of the Stanleys’ famous home?
 For the first time after several years, Charlotte de la Trémoille’s
correspondence recommences. Probably from time to time, during
the siege of Lathom, and the first year or two of her sojourn in the
Isle of Man, she wrote to her relatives in France, but these letters
have been lost or stolen. It is only in the month of August 1646 that
she writes from the Isle of Man in no small anxiety. Her eldest son,
Lord Strange, had secretly left the island to go, no one knew
whither. “We are told that he is in Ireland,” she writes to her sister-
in-law, “but the letters he left behind with us say that he was going
to you.” She adds that if this be the case, and the Duchess receives
him graciously, forgiveness from both parents for his escapade will
not be long withheld from him.
Lord Strange had, in fact, made his way to Paris, where the
Duchess de la Trémoille, his aunt, had received him kindly, and
treated him with maternal solicitude. On learning this gratifying
intelligence, it is Lord Derby who writes to thank Madame de la
Trémoille in terms of almost enthusiastic courtesy for her obligations.
“No service which I could humbly render you, madame, would be
too difficult for me,” he writes, “so that I might prove to you with
what devotion I am, madame, your very humble and very obedient
brother and servant, Derby.”
The Earl was probably glad that the youthful heir of his home was
out of the country; for the Royalist cause was growing desperate. It
was death now to anyone who should have to do with the King. The
Parliament sent proposing an amnesty. Its terms were: his
acceptance of the Scottish Covenant, the abolition of the Anglican
Church, and the entire relinquishment of power into the hands of
Parliament. Thirty-six persons were excluded from this amnesty, and
a price set upon the heads of seven of them. Third on the list, after
Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice, stood the name of Lord Derby;
and in the next letter of the Countess she speaks of a proposed
journey to London to intercede for the Earl, “after a journey from
the Isle of Man, which lasted forty-eight hours, upon a dangerous
sea, in a wretched boat; but if God blesses my efforts, as I have
prayed Him to do, I can bear anything.”
 She further speaks hopefully of obtaining her husband’s pardon.
“The Lords,” she writes, “will, I think, easily grant it.” From the
Commons she looks for more obduracy. “But God will give me
wisdom and prudence. The King continues to refuse to do what
Parliament desires, and declines to listen to the preaching of its
ministers.” There are natures which can meet martyrdom; but flinch
at slow torture, and spiritual discourses in those days were nothing if
they did not stretch to a good hour at the least. The sword of the
Spirit was a long one. On the 25th March the King had been sold by
the Scotch to the Parliament. He was now at Holmby House in
Northamptonshire, only to go thence upon the road which
terminated on the scaffold of Whitehall.
In addition to all these grave cares Lady Derby was burdened with
the settlement of her brother’s affairs. He had recently died, and his
title and estates were claimed by Miss Orpe, who asserted that she
had been privately married to him. Lady Derby complains bitterly of
the part which the Queen took in this matter. She openly gave
countenance to Miss Orpe’s pretensions. Notwithstanding, Lady
Derby and the Duke de la Trémoille gained their suit; and his estate
was shared between them.
From this time it was that the opponents of the King became
divided against themselves. The Independents and the Presbyterians
had little in common sympathy. The Independents formed the
majority in the army, and the Presbyterians, jealous of their power,
were now anxious to disband the army. In this difference the
Independents, gaining the day, formed a military Parliament, and
took possession of the King; but the hope that this raised in the
minds of the Royalists, and among them the hopes of the Earl and
Countess of Derby, was doomed to be disappointed. The King in the
hands of the Independents was merely a puppet to play off against
the Presbyterians.
The Earl of Derby was all this time being treated with comparative
leniency, considering that his loyalty to his party amounted to a
passion which no terrors or threats could ever quench. Total inaction
was imposed upon him; and policy prompted him to compliance.
“Reculer pour mieux sauter” was the watchword now for the ardent-
spirited Earl. To attempt to do anything for his royal master’s
defence at this time was but to hurry him the faster to his doom;
though there was a gleam of hope in the treatment which the King
was now receiving. During some months which he spent at Hampton
Court, the semblance of kingly state and of loyal respect surrounded
him. It was the calm and deceptive tranquillity which precedes the
tempest. Like the old trève de Dieu of mediæval days—the oasis
which travellers come upon in the desert, and perforce must leave
again—those few little months at Hampton Court, with his children
once more about him, must have been very blessed to the King.
Despite the gloom on all sides of the horizon, sunshine was
overhead, sweetness was in the air.
Lord Derby during his enforced inactivity took up his pen, and
began his “History and Antiquities of the Isle of Man.” He wrote it for
the instruction of his son, and its title in extenso explains his
intentions in writing it. “With an account of his own proceedings,
and losses in the Civil War; interspersed with sundry advises to his
son.”
The advice is excellent. After some details concerning the early
history of the island, its noble chronicler writes: “Sir John Stanley,
who was the first of our family to possess it, took out in letters-
patent the name of the King of Man. His successors did the same
until the time of Thomas, second Earl of Derby, who, for good and
wise reasons, decided to relinquish this title.
“I know no subject who owns a dominion as important as this,”
and then the Earl adds that, lest it may be found to be too
important, his son will do well to observe this rule, which will enable
him to keep the kingdom uncontested: “Fear God, and honour the
King.”
Further on, the Earl takes blame to himself for not having seen
how he might have added to the prosperity of the Manx folks by
turning the island to more profitable account, “for he who is not
careful of what he has, is not worthy to possess it.” He advises that
manufactories and more trade be established in Man. “Then the sea
will be covered with ships, and the land with inhabitants, to the
great advantage of the whole country.” He further gives excellent
advice as to the selection of a bishop for the island. He must be one,
he says, who is a pious and worthy person, seeing that the clergy do
their duty, and therefore one who must reside in the island, and
have no benefice elsewhere. Further, the Earl would have a
university, which, from the great natural advantages of the island,
might be maintained at moderate cost and be serviceable to many,
“finishing by putting something into the purse of its suzerain lord.
But of this I will talk with you more, if it please God that I see you
again, and have a quiet mind.”
He adds more good counsel for personal conduct, and for the
general business of life. This work was never finished, as the Earl
intended it, but is published as he left it in Peck’s Desiderata Curiosa.
[21]

21. Vol. ii. lib. ii.

In September of 1647 Parliament at last definitely made allowance
for the maintenance of the Earl’s children. It was one-fifth of his
revenue, the same as they meted to the rest of the “delinquents.”
The allowance was made upon Knowsley, and thither two of the
Earl’s three daughters, Catherine and Mary, were at once sent. Lord
Fairfax issued orders that Major Jackson, who had established
himself with his family in the mansion, should clear out, and the
guardians were further enjoined to see “that the said Major Jackson”
did no damage to house or park before he went. Lady Derby writes
from London, 14th March 1648: “I am advised to go to Lancashire,
and live there on the little which has been allowed to my children;
for I receive nothing; and I hope that I may be able to make it go
further if I am on the spot. One must live economically, and make
the best of what one has.”
 There seems to have been no false sentiment about Lady Derby’s
nature. And if the theories of Lavater are in any way correct, it is
easiest to recall her living personality through the portrait of
Vandyke, who, mighty portrayer that he was, gives Charlotte de la
Trémoille on his canvas the frank and happy face of a good wife and
a good mother, if not as specially beautiful or striking, as Scott has
depicted the widowed Countess of Derby and “Queen in Man” in his
Peveril of the Peak. Scott claims his rights as a romancer to give us
the famous Countess of Derby as it suited his great novel to depict
her. The Wizard has indeed drawn a curiously different personality
from the real wife of James Stanley. On the other hand, her
wifehood was almost past before Julian Peveril of the Peak was born.
It is the woman advancing in years, with the memory of dead joys
and loves and countless bitter wrongs heavy upon her, whom Scott
characterises. When Charles II. was king, Charlotte de la Trémoille
must have been greatly changed; but it is in having changed her
creed that Scott misses the strong individuality in which he might
have clothed her, without overleaping fact by a hair’s-breadth. No
one comprehended better than he the play of light and shadow upon
every act and word of man, woman, or even child, which is cast by
religious conviction or the lack of it. Scott, while apologising for the
dereliction, has transformed the born Huguenot, the staunch
Anglican of twoscore years’ profession, into an ardent, even fanatical
Roman Catholic. How completely she stood between the Scylla and
Charybdis of Rome and the Sectaries, the extract from the following
letter illustrates with striking emphasis:—
“For my husband and myself, in the matter of religion, it is, thank
God, so deeply graven in our hearts, that nothing by His grace can
take it from us; and if Parliament really held the interests of religion
and the glory of God, which you think they entertain, they would not
have the cruelty and injustice which signalise all their actions. And
for religion, they have misled the people of this nation, until now
they see their error, and groan under the burden of tyranny. Those
even, who are most attached to their party, deplore their own misery
and ours, and would find it difficult to tell you what their belief is,
there being as many religions as there are families. The Test is
publicly maintained; books are printed denying the existence of the
Holy Spirit. Those who do this are not punished for it. God’s
commandments are scorned—even the Creed itself. Sunday worship
is neglected, and not constrained to be celebrated anywhere. The
sacraments are administered according to each person’s fancy; the
ministry is neglected. Anyone who considers himself capable of
preaching, may do so without any licence or examination; even
women may do it. Baptism is neglected, and not given to children;
and there are other things still worse, which make those who have
any religion left in them shudder to see such abuses.
“For our ill-wishers, we have them, but not more than the Lords in
Parliament have them, it being the desire of the Commons to have
no Lords, but to make all equal. That is understood by the Lords, but
not the remedy for it. If you could hear the prevailing discontent,
you would hardly be able to credit it. I speak of those who have
ventured all for Parliament, and are enemies of the King’s party. This
has reached such a point, that if the Scotch come, as we are led to
think they may, there are not many who would not join them. This
has of late led to changing all the leaders who were most affected to
Parliament; replacing them by men who only regard their own
faction; and though it was decreed in Parliament that if the army did
not approve of this, it was to be changed, one day undoes what the
other has done.
“This is not credible, excepting to those who see it all; and while I
was away, they had a difficulty in persuading me that it was true. If I
had the honour of seeing you, and speaking with you for a little
while, I know you would soon be convinced of the truth, and would
regret to see the Protestant religion suffering, and the Papists
turning it to their advantage.”
National affairs were now in a state of hopeless entanglement—
Presbyterian against Independent, and both against the King and all
who had held by him through fortune good and ill. There could be
no quarter for the Royalists. “There is no doubt,” writes the Countess
in March of 1648, “that affairs will settle themselves.”
She wrote prophetically when she added:
“There is such discontent prevailing, that those who are in authority
say—in confidence—that things cannot remain long without a change.”

On the next 30th January King Charles I. made his “good

exchange” upon the scaffold at Whitehall; penalties of high treason
were declared against all who acknowledged Charles Stuart as king;
the House of Peers was abolished; and Cromwell was at the head of
public affairs.
 CHAPTER XIV
AN INDIGNANT REFUSAL. ILLNESS OF LADY DERBY. THE GREAT “TABOURET”
QUESTION. A MIS-ALLIANCE. A PITIABLE STORY. AFTER DUNBAR. THE FATAL
FIGHT OF WORCESTER. THE ROYAL EXILE. WOUNDED AND SPENT. LORD
DERBY TAKEN PRISONER. A “COURT-MARTIAL.” FAREWELL LETTERS. A
FRIENDLY SERVICE? LEAVE-TAKINGS. FINIS CORONAT OPUS

No letters of either Lord Derby or his wife now exist written during
the passing of that sad time. If any were written by them, they were
lost, or not preserved.
In July following the King’s execution, Lord Derby, now in the Isle
of Man, wrote his memorable letter to Ireton, who offered him
tempting bait, no less than the free restoration of all his other
estates and lost power, if he would deliver up the island to
Parliament:—
“I received your letter with indignation, and with scorn return you this
answer: that I cannot but wonder whence you should gather any hopes
that I should prove like you, treacherous to my Sovereign; since you
cannot be ignorant of my former actings in his late Majesty’s service,
from which principles of loyalty I am no whit departed. I scorn your
proffers; I disdain your favour; I abhor your treason; and am so far from
delivering up this island to your advantage, that I shall keep it to the
utmost of my power to your destruction. Take this for your final answer,
and forbear any further solicitations: for if you trouble me with any more
messages of this nature, I will burn the paper and hang up the bearer.
This is the immutable resolution, and will be the undoubted practice of
him who accounts it his chiefest glory to be his Majesty’s most loyal and
obedient subject,
 Derby.
“From Castletown, this
12th of July, 1649.”

Lord Derby further promulgated an announcement to similar

effect, “inviting all his allies, friends, and acquaintance, all his
tenantry in Lancashire, and Cheshire, and other places, as well as all
his Majesty’s faithful and loyal subjects,” to repair to the Isle of Man,
as a refuge and a rallying-place. No menaces or dangers, added the
Earl in the proclamation, could trouble him, nor dangers deter him. A
letter written by Lady Derby, the year of the King’s death, bitterly
complains of the duplicity of Parliament dealings in respect of the
disposal of their property. “As to the sects, their numbers daily
increase, and their tenets are enough to make the hair stand on
end.”
She has been very ill for weeks past, and would be more than
content to die and be at rest, but for the loved ones she would leave
behind. Once more she descants upon the aberrations of the hydra-
headed fanaticism which made such rampant strides in the last half
of the seventeenth century, and once more, on the other hand, is
amazed at the freedom which Roman Catholics are permitted. Only
for the Church of England breathing space is not allowed; but her
husband, she assures the Duchess de la Trémoille, who appears to
entertain fears lest Lord Derby might waver, is more “Protestant”
than ever.
In the midst of all these real trials, she discusses with great
interest a point of Court etiquette: the mighty question of the
tabouret; and it is with as intense gratification that the Countess
hears finally that the tabouret has been accorded to her niece on her
marriage, as it had once been given to herself.
Another domestic incident of a disagreeable nature took place
about this time, in the marriage of the heir of the Stanleys, Edward
Lord Strange, with a Mademoiselle de Rupa, a German lady of
neither position nor fortune. His parents never forgave this offence,
and, to crown all, Lord Strange entertained some dreams of
compounding with Parliament, fearing that hope for the Royalists
was utterly gone, and that they would all be left at last to starve.
Truly trouble was heavy on the friends of the murdered King’s son,
who was now wandering in Scotland, after the execution of
Montrose. Bradshaw’s hatred against the Earl of Derby was intense,
and, with the ingenuity bred of spite and cruelty, he attacked him in
the part most sensitive in such a man, through his children. For two
years the two daughters, Catherine and Amelia, had been left in
peace at Knowsley. “Now,” writes Lady Derby, 8th June 1650, “one
Birch, governor of a little town called Liverpool, has taken them
prisoners, and carried them there, where they are under guard.”
The Countess attributes this treatment to the pressure Parliament
intends putting upon the Earl. “That is all, dear sister, which I can
tell you of this pitiable story,” she concludes. “I pray God to protect
them, and do not fear that He will do so. It is said that they endure
bravely. I am less troubled for the elder, but my child Amelia is
delicate and timid, and was under treatment from M. de Mayerne [a
doctor in whom Lady Derby placed great confidence]. The place
where they are is very ugly, and has bad air, and they are very
wretchedly lodged.
“But these barbarians think of nothing but pursuing their
damnable plans; one might think that if all the demons of hell had
devised them, they could not have been worse.”
The sufferings of these two innocent girls increased. They had not
bread enough to eat, and must have starved but for the charity of
the poor Royalists and the fidelity of their attendants, who went
begging for them from house to house. They complained at last to
Fairfax, who wrote thereupon to the Earl: “If his lordship would
place the Isle of Man at Parliament’s good pleasure, his children
should be liberated, and enjoy half of his revenues.” The Earl replied
that he was deeply afflicted at the sufferings of his children. It was
not the custom of noble minds to punish innocent children for their
parents’ faults. He begged Sir Thomas Fairfax to give them back to
him, or to let them pass free to France or to Holland; but if this were
not possible, they must trust in the mercy of the Most High, for he
could never deliver them by an act of treachery.
The contest between King and Parliament, or, more truly, between
King and Cromwell, was raging in Scotland. Of that country Charles
II. was now crowned King. He should be crowned King of England
too, while a Royalist lived. That was the Royalist determination, and
Cromwell’s sudden illness favoured hope, in addition to the prevailing
disaffection in the opposite camp; for betwixt Covenanter and
Presbyterian and Independent, and all the myriad political and
religious sectaries, little love was lost. Cromwell, however, recovered,
and attacked Perth. Charles announced his intention of going to
England. The Duke of Argyle sought to dissuade him from this, and
withdrew his aid. Cromwell followed the King to Carlisle in pursuit.
Charles immediately summoned Lord Derby, and the Countess
writes, 1st September 1651:—
“We are still here (Isle of Man), by the goodness of God, who has
safely guided my husband to the King his sovereign.... I learn that
the King has received him with great joy and proofs of affection, and
I await special details with impatience; though I fear they cannot
reach me quickly, because of the vessels of the enemy, which are all
round our shores.”
Charles informed Lord Derby, in a letter in his own hand, that the
Presbyterians of Lancashire were ready to join under his leadership.
This Lord Derby found to be true only cum grano salis, and that no
small grain. He had brought with him three hundred gentlemen, for
the most part Roman Catholics, from the Isle of Man; these, the
Covenanting partisans of the King insisted, were to be sent back
again, before they joined issue in the struggle. This equally Lord
Derby refused. He demanded for these gentlemen the same latitude
and liberty the Lancashire Presbyterians required for themselves;
and if they could not accord it, though he despaired of success
without their aid, he had no voice but to dispense with it; and,
mounting his horse, the Earl rode away with his little band of
Royalists to encounter Colonel Robert Liburne, close by Wigan, a
town which had always remained true to the Royal cause. A hand-to-
hand struggle ensued. Two horses were killed beneath the Earl, and
were replaced at the peril of his own life by a faithful French servant.
Finally, in the confusion Lord Derby escaped into the town, finding
refuge in a poor woman’s cottage. She drew the door bolts, and
maintained such a stout defence of her little domain, that the Earl
had time to escape by the back of the house, and rejoined his
friends; but he was fearfully wounded, and scarcely able to sit his
horse for weakness.
As soon as he could stir, he made his way in disguise to Worcester,
where the King’s forces were mustered, and on 3rd September 1651,
in the battle of Worcester, which ended in the routing of the
Royalists, Lord Derby, with Lord Cleveland and Colonel Wogan,
protected their royal master, when all was over, through the enemy’s
ranks with their own swords and bodies, and then conducted him to
Whiteladies, safe with the loyal Giffards and Pendrells. Thence,
followed by some of his friends, he found his way to the coast, and
escaped to France.
With Lord Lauderdale, Lord Derby took his way back to the North,
his noble heart well-nigh broken, and his body weak and torn with
wounds. At Wigan his course was stopped by a detachment of the
victorious Parliamentarians, under Major Edge. The Earl and his
friends gave their names, and surrendered, under condition of
receiving quarter. This was promised on condition of their yielding up
arms, and considering themselves prisoners. Lord Lauderdale was
conducted to another part of the country. Lord Derby was taken
direct to Chester. Arrived there, he wrote a long letter to his wife,
which he obtained leave to be transmitted to her by Mr Bagalay, a
prisoner of war in the city—a long letter, full of solicitude for his wife
and family, and for all in any way dependent on him. He tells her
that though a prisoner in body, his heart is free and at peace, having
“no other sadness in it than the regret at knowing her suffering and
sorrow, and that of his poor children.” Colonel Duckenfield, he
informs her, will proceed in the name of Parliament to take
possession of the Isle of Man. Once more, not as from a prisoner,
but as from one “whose soul is his own, as in his best days,” he will
give her his advice how to receive Duckenfield, but that he will
transmit by word of mouth to his trusty messenger.
“Take care of yourself, my dearest heart, and of my dear Mall and
Ned and Billy. As to those who are here, I will give them the best
advice I can. My son,[22] with his wife, and my nephew Stanley have
been to see me.... I will only say now that my son shows me much
affection, and that he is gone to London with an ardent desire to
serve me.”

22. Lord Strange, now arrived in England.

That he hopes little from this filial devotion is evident. “The cold
and the wind of the coming winter are more easy to be borne than
the malicious attacks of a venomous serpent, or an obstinate and
perfidious enemy.... May the Son of God, whose blood was shed for
us, preserve our life, so that by God’s mercy and goodness we may
see each other once again on this earth, and then in the kingdom of
Heaven, where we shall be safe from rapine, theft, and violence!—I
remain ever your faithful

“Derby.”
There could be but little quarter for the noble prisoner. With the
son of Bradshaw, Colonel Birch, and Colonel Rigby, the vanquished
hero of Lathom House, among his judges, his doom was virtually
pronounced.
When brought before the tribunal of these men and of one or two
others, who from one cause or another were little inclined in his
favour, and styling itself a court-martial, he was voted guilty of a
breach of the Act passed 12th August 1651, which prohibited all
correspondence with Charles Stuart or his party. Consequently he
had committed high treason and sentence of death was pronounced.
When he heard himself called traitor, he cried: “I am no traitor—I
——” “Silence, sir,” said the President. “Your words are of no
account. Hear the act of accusation to the end.”
Neither books nor counsel were allowed him, and he defended
himself. This he did with skill, pleading in the first place that quarter
had been promised. A show of consideration was vouchsafed to
what he said; but, with casuistry which would have done credit to
the Sorbonne, his representations were overruled, and his execution
fixed for the 15th October at Bolton.
On Monday, 13th October, Mr Bagalay was permitted to wait upon
him. “He discoursed his own commands to me. With many
affectionate protestations of his honour and respect for my lady,
both for her birth, and goodness as a wife, and much tenderness of
his children.
“Then in came one Lieutenant Smith, a rude fellow, and with his
hat on; he told my lord he came from Colonel Duckenfield, the
Governor, to tell his lordship he must be ready for his journey to
Bolton. The Earl replied, ‘When would you have me to go?’ ‘To-
morrow about six in the morning,’ was the man’s answer. The Earl
desired to be commended to the Governor, and for him to be
informed by that time he would be ready. Then said Smith, ‘Does
your lordship know any friend or servant that would do the thing
your lordship knows of? It would be well if you had a friend.’ And the
Earl replied, ‘What do you mean? Would you have me find one to cut
off my head?’
“‘Yes, my lord,’ said Smith. ‘If you could have a friend——’
“‘Nay, sir,’ interrupted the Earl; ‘if those men that would have my
head will not find one to cut it off, let it stand where it is. I thank
God my life has not been bad, that I should be instrumental to
deprive myself of it.... As for me and my servants, our ways have
been to prosecute a just war by honourable and just means, and not
by these ways of blood, which to you is a trade.’”
When Smith was gone, the Earl called for pen and ink, and wrote
his farewell letters to his family; and while he wrote, Paul Morceau,
his lordship’s servant, went out and bought a number of rings, which
they wrapped in parcels, and these were addressed as parting gifts
to his children and servants.
The Earl’s letter to his wife began in these terms:—
 “My dear Heart—Hitherto I have been able to send you some
consolation in my letters, but alas! I have now none to offer you.
There only remains for us our last and best refuge, the Almighty, to
whose will we must submit; and when we see how it has pleased
Him to dispose of this nation and of its Government, there is nothing
for us to do, but to put our finger on our lips, and bring ourselves to
confess that our sins, with those of others, have drawn these
misfortunes upon us, and with tears implore Him to have pity on us.”
Having given up their beloved little last stronghold to Duckenfield,
the Earl advises the Countess to retire to some peaceful spot; then,
“having leisure to think of your poor children, you will be able in
some way to provide for their subsistence, and then prepare to
rejoin your friends above in that happy place where peace reigns, far
from differences of opinion.
“I entreat you, dearest heart, by all the grace God has given you,
to use your patience in this great and cruel trial. If any evil befall
you, I should, as it were, be dead; but till then I live in you, who are
truly myself’s better part. When I am no more, think of yourself and
of my poor children. Have courage, and God will bless you.

“I thank the great goodness of God, who gave me such a wife as

you, the honour of my family, and for me the most excellent of
companions, so pious and deserving, so entirely all the good that
can be said, that it is impossible to say enough. I beg, with all my
soul, God’s forgiveness if I have not sufficiently recognised this great
benefit, and with clasped hands I equally entreat you to pardon
anything I may ever have done to offend you. I have no time to say
more. I implore the Most High to bless you, as well as my dear Mall,
Ned, and Billy. Amen! Lord Jesus!”
Then followed the few touching lines to—
“My dear Mall, my Ned, and my Billy—I remember how sad you were
to see me go away; but I fear that your grief will be redoubled when
you learn that you will never see me more in this world. It is my
advice to all of you to conquer down your grief. You are all of a
nature for that to do you much harm. My desire and my prayer to
God is that your life may be happy. Strive to lead it as purely as
possible, and shun sin as much as is in your power.
 “I am able now to give you this advice, having such
remembrances of the vanities of my own life that my soul is full of
grief.... Love the Archdeacon well; he will give you good counsel.
Obey your mother cheerfully, and do not be troublesome to her. She
is your example, your guardian, your counsellor, your all after God.
There never has been, and never will be, one to surpass her worth. I
am called, and this is the last letter that I shall write you. May the
Lord my God bless you, and keep you from all ill; that is what your
father asks in a moment when his pain is so great at leaving Mall,
Neddy, and Billy. Think of me.
Derby.”
He spent the rest of that day with his two other daughters, and
his son, Lord Strange, who had returned from his fruitless journey to
London to obtain his father’s pardon. It was refused by the members
of the House leaving one by one, so that not enough were left to
vote. In the morning before his execution they started for Bolton.
When he came to the castle gate, four Royalist gentlemen, who
were also condemned, came out of the dungeon (by the Earl’s
request to the marshal) and kissed his hand, and wept on taking
their leave. Giving them his blessing, and a few brave farewell and
comforting words, the Earl passed on, not on his own horse, for it
was feared the people might rescue him, but upon a little nag.
“After we were out of the town,” continues Mr Bagalay, “people
weeping, my lord, with an humble behaviour and noble courage,
about half a mile off, took leave of them, then of my Lady Catherine
and Amelia, and there prayed for them and saluted them, and so
parted. This was the saddest hour I ever saw, so much tenderness
and affection on both sides.”
“Once,” said the Earl, on that last night of lying down to rest on
earth, “the thought of dying sword in hand in the fight would not
have troubled me; it would something have startled me, tamely to
submit to a blow on the scaffold; but now I can as willingly lay down
my head upon a block, as ever I did upon a pillow.”
The clean shirt he put on next morning, he gave orders was to be
his winding-sheet. “I will be buried in it,” he said to Morceau.
 Then he called for Lord Strange to put on his order, telling him
that he should receive it again, and so “return it to my gracious
sovereign, ... and say I sent it in all humility and gratitude, as I
received it spotless and free from any stain.”
The scaffold—which by one of the delicate refinements of
Puritanism was fashioned of the old wood from Lathom House—was
not ready till three in the afternoon, for the people, with tears and
protestations, refused to drive a nail into it.
At last, when it was ready, the Earl ascended the ladder, and,
standing at the east end, addressed the people. It was a long
address, and full of noble and just and eloquent thoughts. Still,
when he had done, the block was not ready.
The delay now began to fret him. At last the executioner seemed
to be prepared, and, turning once more to the people, Lord Derby
said: “Good people, I thank you for your prayers and for your tears.
I have heard the one, and seen the other, and our God sees and
hears both. Now the God of Heaven bless you all. Amen.”
“How must I lie?” he then asked. “Will anyone show me? I never
yet saw any man’s head cut off.”
Then, after much delay and bungling on the headman’s part, Lord
Derby “laid him down again, and blessing God’s name, he gave the
signal by raising his hands.
“The executioner did his work; and no other manner of noise was
then heard, but sighs and sobs.”
 CHAPTER XV
BEARING THE BURDEN ALONE. THE PARLIAMENTARIANS DEMAND THE ISLE OF
MAN. LADY DERBY A PRISONER. CAST ON CROMWELL’S MERCY. FAIR-HAIRED
WILLIAM AND HIS FATE. THE TIDE TURNS. “I MUST DEPART.” THE KING HAS HIS
OWN AGAIN. MARRIAGE, AND GIVING IN MARRIAGE. PEACEFUL TIMES AT
KNOWSLEY. “SWIFT TO ITS CLOSE EBBS OUT LIFE’S LITTLE DAY.” COURT
FAIRNESS. THE LAST LETTER. AN HONOURED MEMORY

With the death of the Earl perished the happiest and noblest part of
Charlotte of Derby. For all its storms, their married life had been a true
union. The alliance, which originally could not have been more than one
of consent on the part of a marriageable young man and woman, had
developed into a gracious, healthy life which sorrow and death itself
had no power to destroy. The bud of the mariage de convenance had
proved a more glorious flower than many a passionate love-match has
culminated in. But now the noble heart of James Stanley beat no more
with its patriotic devotion, and henceforth Lady Derby had to bear the
burden of the endless contest alone. That for good or for evil, life in its
fullest sense was over for her, she tells her friend of years, the Duchess
de la Trémoille, in a letter dated 25th March of 1652. The Duchess’s
letters to her are, she says, so full of sympathy and kindness, that if her
sorrows could be consoled, Madame de la Trémoille would console
them. “But alas! dear sister, I am no longer able to complain or to
weep, since all my happiness is in the grave; and I am astonished at
myself that I have been able to endure all my misfortunes, and be still
in the world; but that has been the will of God, who has helped me so
powerfully, that I do not know myself in having survived all my
miseries. The last letters of that glorious martyr give me proof of his
affection being beyond all that I deserved to hope; and his dying
commands bid me live, and take care of his children....”
The body of the Earl of Derby had already been laid by Lord Strange
and Mr Bagalay to its rest in the tomb of his ancestors at Ormskirk
before Lady Derby knew that the blow had really fallen; and it is
doubtful whether the first intelligence of it reached her by the mouth of
friend or foe. When the Earl was executed, the Countess was busy
fortifying the Castle of Rushen, to defend the last possession left them
of all their broad territories.
Castle Rushen contained the insignia of the Stanley sovereignty over
the Isle of Man—the leaden crown.
When Captain Young landed from the President frigate, and,
presenting himself before her, commanded her to render up the island
in the name of Parliament, she refused, saying, as she had ever done,
that she waited her husband’s orders.
The Earl was dead.
Even after that, knowing the worst, she still refused. She held the
island now for her King. Then treachery came to the help of the enemy.
William Christian, the Receiver-General of the Earl, won over the
garrison, and surrendered the island to the Parliamentarian fleet, which
completely surrounded the coasts.
These Christians had long occupied high positions under the rulers of
Man, being deemsters and controllers of special departments of public
government. But already more than once the Earl had had good
grounds for displeasure and mistrust against them. He had some time
before deprived Edward Christian of authority in favour of one Captain
Greenhaigh; (though he had not withdrawn his countenance from the
family of Christian), who, in the meantime, had died. When Lord Derby
left Man to go to the assistance of Charles II. he confided the forces of
the island to William Christian, this unfaithful Edward’s son. Never was
confidence more misplaced. William Christian allowed himself to be
corrupted; he admitted the Parliamentary troops into the island at dead
of night, and daybreak found Lady Derby and her children prisoners in
Castle Rushen. For two months she was detained prisoner in the island;
then they let her go free, in a forlorn quest of justice from Cromwell.
“She who had brought to this country fifty thousand pounds sterling
had not so much as a morsel of bread to eat, and was indebted for all
to her friends, almost as unfortunate as herself.”
This William Christian is a great hero with Manxmen. Iliam Dhône, or
“Fair-haired William,” is the subject of a long and doleful ballad, which is
still popular in the island. Eleven years later, when the King had his own
again, and the murdered Earl’s son Edward was once more the Lord of
Man, a day of retribution came to William Dhône. He was tried for that
day’s work of giving up the Isle of Man to the Parliamentarians, and
shot for a traitor on Hango Hill. The young Earl met with great blame
for his part in this act. There were extenuating circumstances for
William Christian’s actions. The trial was a mock proceeding. A tale goes
that a pardon was sent him on the day before the one fixed for his
execution, and that it was laid hands on, and intercepted by an enemy,
being afterwards found in the foot of an old woman’s stocking.
“Protect,”

runs the ballad,

“every mortal from enmity foul,
For thy fate, William Dhône, sickens our soul.”

Audi alteram bartem. The Christians and those they represented of

the Manx people had had grievances against certain high-handed
doings of the late Earl, but, the tale all told, sympathy for fair-haired
William’s fate is not easy to muster; and if it be true that the Countess
of Derby had a share in hastening his end, it is not necessary to be
blind to the fact that she would, if she could have compassed it, have
visited similar lynch-law justice on those “court-martial” judges who
condemned her husband to the block. In her virtues and in her failings
—sins, if so they were—there was nothing small about Charlotte of
Derby when great crises hung over her.
These past, she was just again the ordinary grande dame of her time.
The daily round and common task of existence pleased her well
enough. Henceforth the remaining years of her life were devoted to two
primary ends—the placing in life of her children, and the recovery of
her money and lawful possessions. For this last, her fortunes ran side
by side with those of the exiled King and of many another devoted
Royalist family; but they were at their lowest ebb on the days
succeeding Worcester fight. Steady, but so gradual as to be for long
imperceptible, was the inflow of the tide; and only the passing years
really marked the turn of national affairs.
Parliamentary differences, jealousies of political parties, sectarian
bitterness, which it pleased them to call religious opinion, were all
seething to the great issue. The powerful mind of Cromwell was not for
ever to be proof against myriad influences. If he desired the Crown, he
dared not accept it: as he dared not do many things which appealed to
his own inclinations.
Having abolished the Anglican Church, he would have reinstated it.
Anything was better than the wild fanaticism that was overrunning the
land—Anabaptists, Quakers, Muggletonians, Fifth Monarchy Men, et hoc
genus omne, who, all claiming the one divine spirit, seemed animated
by a million devils of hatred, pride, and malice. Haunted by memories,
saddened by domestic sorrows and bereavements, grown fearful of the
pitfalls for his own death lying in his path, the existence of the Lord
Protector was one he must have been well willing to break with. Colonel
Titus promulgating his views of “Killing no Murder” in his tract; Ralph
Syndercombe plotting his bloody deed in the little Shepherd’s Bush
cottage; and how many more biding their time? But it was not so the
end came to Oliver Cromwell.
When he had prayed for peace—the much-needed peace—for the
people and for himself, “Lord, pardon them all,” he went on, “and
whatever Thou mayst do with me, grant them Thy mercy, and me also.
Give them peace.” The dawn of 3rd September broke—the
anniversaries of Dunbar and of Worcester, Cromwell’s “lucky day.”
Parched with the thirst of his aguish fever, they put a cup of drink to his
lips. “I will neither drink nor sleep,” he said. “I am thinking only of
making haste. I must depart.” And so he died.
And so when Richard Cromwell had just tasted of the cup of dignities
his father had left him, and but too gladly set it down again, and retired
to his quiet country home in the lanes of Cheshunt, Charles II. was
brought in triumph to Whitehall.
That home-coming is a tale told too often to tell again here—even
though Lady Derby has much to say about it in her graphic
correspondence. Many details of how gracious his Majesty was to her,
how handsome but for this or that his Queen would be, are mixed up
with those of her children’s marriages. When those sons and daughters
reached marriageable years, the worst of the Royalist troubles were
past. There was no difficulty in their making suitable alliances. Amelia
was married to the Earl of Athole. Catherine, less happy in her union,
became Marchioness of Dorchester. Mary, “dear Mall,” became Lady
Strafford. Two of her sons died while still children.
Of absorbing interest to herself—as indeed they all might well be—
the incidents of Court life, and the doings of her children and friends,
drag somewhat heavily for us, like the more commonplace though
dazzling groupings in some stirring drama whose curtain is about to fall.
Her own little day of life was nearing its setting. She died at a fitting
time. The son was not the father. The rebound from Puritanism and
religious hypocrisy o’erleaped itself. The licence of Court life soon came
to be a scandal and a grief to many of Charles II.’s most loyal servants,
as assuredly it might have made the stately martyred King turn in his
grave. To the Mistress Nellys and my Lady Castlemaynes nothing was
sacred; and when these frail “beauties” had contrived to humble their
Queen in her own presence-chamber, or to secure a Clarendon’s
downfall, they were well pleased with their day’s work.
With some prescience of this, the Countess of Derby, no longer
compelled to remain in London, spent much of her time at Knowsley.
Chancellor Clarendon, who had been negotiating arrangements for the
restitution of her pension, had left England in disgust at the indifference
of the Court and the ingratitude of the King, who was prone to make a
hand-clasp and a “God bless you, my old friend,” do duty for more
substantial repayments to impoverished Royalists.
On 6th February 1663 the Countess was ill, and writes thus:—
“If the winter is as bitter where you are as it is here, it is a
miracle to think your health has improved. Mine has been very
 indifferent for more than a month; but God has preserved it for me.
I pray Him to enable me to use it to better account than I have
done in the past, and it is that which impels me to hasten to tell
you that it has pleased his Royal Highness to give to your nephew
Stanley the post of first and sole gentleman of the bedchamber,
which is a very desirable one, and, what is of more importance,
that it is the voluntary act of his Highness, to whom, and to the
Duchess, he owes all the obligation. His youngest brother has a
cornetcy in the King’s Guards. His Majesty has done him the honour
to tell him that this is only a commencement. Therefore I have
hope.... All that I have to add is that I pray God to give you many
long and happy years, with all the content you can desire. Permit
me to say also as much to my brother.”
Here the Countess of Derby lays down her pen for ever. On the 31st
March 1664 she died.
The chaplain of Knowsley, after inscribing her name in his death
register, wrote after it: “Post funera virtus”; and her memory and her
works will live on in the hearts of the English people.
This noble friend, true wife and mother, loyal subject, Charlotte de la
Trémoille, was the embodiment of all the significance of the motto of
her house,
“Je maintiendrai.”

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 The Dryden House Memoirs.
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Written by his Widow, Lucy (1615-1664).
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4. MEMOIRS AND TRAVELS OF MAURITIUS AUGUSTUS,
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 and confined his destructive criticism to an introduction.
Benyowski’s wanderings included visits to Kamchatka, Japan, and
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so that he was one of the most considerable of the eighteenth-
century travellers.”—Bookman.

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