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THE FAIRFAX CORRESPONDENCE.*

"THE Fairfax Correspondence" has a tempting sound to those who are curious as to the secret history of the stirring events of the great civil war. The purchasers of these neat but costly volumes will, however, find their curiosity only partially gratified, and will be mortified to find themselves in possession of an imperfect work, to complete which they must buy an indefinite number of succeeding volumes. We know not whether booksellers regard a deceptive title-page like this within the limits of fair trading, but we suppose there will not be two opinions on the subject amongst their customers. The Fairfaxes so far are somewhat put into the shade by their editor, his "History" occupying a larger proportion of the two volumes than their " Correspondence.' Now, if there be, as the historical and biographical Memoir informs us, "an enormous quantity of MSS." in this Correspondence, and it all has to be diluted after the manner of this specimen by the unwearied editor, the Fairfax Correspondence will rival Hume and Smollett in bulk.

The Correspondence of which we are now offered an instalment extends over two centuries, but chiefly concerns the affairs of the civil war and the period of the Restoration. It was discovered in Leeds Castle, near Maidstone. Mr. Fiennes Wykeham Martin, its present possessor, on making certain alterations in the Castle in 1822, offered some useless furniture for sale.

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'Amongst the lumber which was thus to be swept away, was an old oaken chest filled apparently with Dutch tiles. It was purchased for a few shillings by Mr. Gooding, a shoemaker, in the neighbouring village of Lenham. Upon the inspection of its contents, expecting perhaps to light upon treasures of another kind, Mr. Gooding found an enormous quantity of MSS., carefully arranged and deposited beneath the Dutch tiles which were piled up to the lid of the box."

These treasures were fortunately soon after secured by Mr. Newington Hughes, a banker residing at Maidstone. The papers, once evidently valued by the family, but concealed with some care lest they should bring them into trouble, were, it is conjectured, removed from Yorkshire to Leeds Castle when the fifth Lord Fairfax allied himself in marriage with the daughter of Lord Culpepper.

The family of Fairfax is of Saxon origin, and, at the time of the Conquest, was seated in Northumberland. In the thirteenth century, it is found established in Yorkshire. In the fifteenth century, it contributed a Judge to the Court of King's Bench, and in the following century one to that of the Common Pleas. In the early part of the seventeenth century, Edward, a younger son of Sir Thomas Fairfax, distinguished himself as the translator into English verse of Tasso. His elder brother, Sir Thomas Fairfax, received the honour of Knighthood from the Earl of Essex, before the camp at Rouen, 1591, and was afterwards sent by Queen Elizabeth on a diplomatic mission to Scotland. He was raised to the peerage by King James in 1627. He had, in 1621, lost four sons in service abroad. The peerage was the reward, however, of

The Fairfax Correspondence. Memoirs of the Reign of Charles the First. Edited by George W. Johnson, Esq., Barrister-at-Law. Two Vols. LondonRichard Bentley. 1848.

something in addition to public services, viz., a payment to the King of £1500. He lived chiefly at Denton, and maintained a character for "good sense and honourable dealings." He lived to be eighty years of age. Ferdinando, his son, succeeded to the title in 1640. Early in life he sat for Boroughbridge, and united himself in Parliament with the Protestant party. Upon the breaking out of the civil war, he received the appointment of General, in his county, of the Parliamentary forces. He distinguished himself during the war; and after the battle of Marston Moor, at which he commanded, was appointed Governor of York. The Correspondence includes several of his letters. He died of a gangrene in his left foot, March 13, 1648, and was buried at Bolton Percy. He was succeeded in the title by his son, Thomas Lord Fairfax, born Jan. 17, 1611. The part taken by this the third Baron Fairfax, far outshone that of his father. He was invested with the chief command of the army, and the defeat of the King at Naseby ensued. The events of his career will form the principal materials of Vols. III. and IV. of the Correspondence." Reserving further reference to the stirring events of his life till we are in possession of that portion of the "Correspondence" which more immediately relates to him, we now proceed to give an account of those portions of the volumes already published which appear to be most interesting, and to select a few extracts, particularly those that bear on the religious history of the times.

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The Fairfax MSS., the editor states, go back as far as 1535; but the more valuable portions of them are dated from the accession of Charles I. in 1625. Sir Thomas Fairfax, in conjunction with his cousin Mallory and the celebrated Wentworth (afterwards Lord Strafford) stood an election, in 1625, for the county of York, on the popular interest, against the Saviles. From a letter of Wentworth's, dated July 16, 1625, it would seem that freeholders were thirsty souls then, as, to their cost, the houses of Wentworth and Harewood have found them to be two centuries later. Sir Thomas Wentworth writes,

"The freeholders must be thoroughly dealt with, not to stir out of York before they be polled. It were very fit, in my opinion, that two hogsheads of wine and half a score of beer were laid in within the Castle, for the freeholders, who will be forced to stay long, to refresh themselves with, this hot season." —Vol. I. p. 10.

Sir Thomas Fairfax was defeated on the poll, and Sir Thomas Wentworth was put out on petition. Fairfax consoled himself with his son's election for Boroughbridge, and with purchasing for himself a Scottish peerage. The whole circumstances of this purchase of a peerage appear in a letter from Fairfax to Lord Colville. Nothing could be more barefaced than the bargaining, unless it were the attempt on the part of the King's servants afterwards to violate the bargain, and to extort under several pretences a further payment from the new Lord. "Upon receipt of which (viz., the patent) I did deliver unto them to your Lordship £1500, for which I have their acquittances. I did accommodate them with bags and other commodities to pack the moneys in. I sent my horses and servants to Boroughbridge to carry the money and attend them, for which Mr. Colville promised me some remembrances of pistols and other things which I am careless to mention." (P. 16.) The "remembrances" had the usual fate of courtier's promises.

The first letter, from which we propose to make a considerable extract, is dated "From the Pied Bull in the Strand, this 5th of February, 1628," i.e. 1629. It is to Lord Fairfax from his son Ferdinando :

"My late coming and a few days I have had in the Parliament, make me a stranger yet to what has been done or is intended; but I find his Majesty's earnestness to have the Bill of Tonnage and Poundage pass, he much suffering in the mean time for its want; and on the other side, that the House (conceiving the danger by the growth of Arminianism and countenancing of the professors, to an insensible subversion of the religion now established) intend to prefer that before the other, which doth not a little displease, and portends a long work, or short and abrupt conclusion. I was in hope the mists that formerly hindered our light were cleared, but I fear the times may prove more clouded. Mr. Montague, now Bishop of Chichester, Doctor Mainwaring, Doctor Sibthorpe, and Mr. Cosens, who have disquieted the peace of the Church, the first by his books, the two second by their sermons, and the last by his daily practice, have all of them got their pardon under the Great Seal, drawn in that ample manner as themselves or learned counsel could devise, for so were the express words of the warrant to the Attorney-General. This hindrance of their questioning and encouragement (as may seem) to divines to walk those steps to preferment, has occasioned the House to declare some explanations of the Thirty-nine Articles, formerly confirmed in Parliament, especially of the seventeenth, which is most against Arminius, and yet so understood by many of these divines as not to be any way repugnant to their tenets; the Articles themselves I send herewith. This work in discussing and explaining these high points displeaseth the Convocation, to whom it chiefly belongs; but that body consisting of Bishops, and such as are chosen by them, promiseth small help in this strait we now are; how we shall get off, God knows. This is now the great business, and indeed the greatest that can concern this kingdom. How it shall work I shall be bold to make you acquainted, though the slow motions of it will perhaps afford matter for these weekly messengers."-I. 155, 156.

Montague, referred to in this letter, was under the censure of Parliament for his writings in favour of Popery. Mainwaring was imprisoned, fined £1000, and suspended from his ministry for three years, by a sentence of the House of Lords, on account of his sermons before the King at Oatlands, in which he declared that the King's will was superior to the laws of the realm. Dr. Sibthorp had, in a Lent assize sermon at Northampton, advocated passive obedience even in things against the laws of God, &c. These were the persons whom Charles not only protected against Parliament, but loaded with honours. This was the policy of Laud, which proved in the end equally fatal to himself and his royal master.

The next extract exhibits Wentworth in deep affliction at the sudden death of his wife, Arabella, second daughter of the Earl of Clare, whom he had married in 1625. To her he alluded on his trial with tears, as "that departed saint now in heaven." She had borne him three children. The letter is to Lord Fairfax from his son Ferdinando, and bears date York, Oct. 8, 1631.

"I waited yesternight on my Lord President, whom I found in a very pensive case, and sufficiently sensible of his loss, which at that instant was more stirred by reason of those newly returned that attended the body to its burial, which was embalmed, and the child taken out and wrapt beside it, and sent to Woodhouse to be buried. His lordship told me the occasion, much after the manner it was related to you by my brother. The strange fly he brought out

of the garden upon his breast unperceived into my lady's chamber, who hastening to wipe it off, it spread a pair of large wings, somewhat fearful to her, at which she stepped back and gave a little wrench of her foot; but my lord did not think that any occasion of her sickness, but rather the fright, not being used to the sight of such vermin. I staid above half an hour with him, and would have staid longer, but that the discourse of his loss bred but his further sorrow, and after I had seen his sweet children I came away. I presented your service to him, and made known your intentions, had there been any possible means, of coming to wait on him. He gives you many thanks, and said he could not expect it, and did wish me to remember his service. In truth he is much cast down by this great loss, and the whole city generally has a face of mourning; never any woman so magnified and lamented, even of those that never saw her face."-I. 237, 238.

The account contained in the above extract of Strafford's grief for his deceased wife, and of the circumstances that preceded her death, may be taken as a satisfactory defence of him against the foul Presbyterian calumny upon his memory propagated by his Scottish contemporary Baillie, who attributed her death to the effects of a blow with which she was struck by the Earl under the provocation of her reproaches, extorted by a discovery on her part of the worst wrong that a husband can inflict upon a wife. The passage in his Letters and Diaries is too gross for extract in our pages; but a portion of the context is worth quoting, as shewing the strong impression of ability and oratorical art which the Earl of Strafford's defence made even on his enemies. We wonder the passage escaped the notice of the editor of the Fairfax Correspondence, indebted as he is so very largely to Baillie for his facts respecting the trial of the Earl.

“In the end, after some lashness and fagging, he made such a pathetic oration for one half-hour as ever comedian did upon a stage. The matter and expression was exceeding brave: doubtless, if he had grace or civil goodness, he is a most eloquent man. The speech you have it here in print. One passage made it most spoken of; his breaking off in silence and weeping when he spoke of his first wife. Some took it for a true defect of his memory; others, and the most part, for a notable part of his rhetorick; some, true grief and remorse at that remembrance had stopped his mouth; for they say," &c.

Amongst the correspondents of Lord Fairfax is a Mr. Bladen, who appears to be a kind of agent or useful friend. There is a letter from him bearing date July 2, 1634, written from Dublin, and giving a very clear, though concise, account of Wentworth's able but most arbitrary government of Ireland. We have space only for a very short extract, but the whole letter is one of the more valuable portions of the Correspondence.

"The management of religion and that course is directed by Dr. Bramhall, Bishop of Derry; the arms by Colonel Farrar, wherein my Lord is exceeding happy that he hath such noble and expert men in their several ways, being himself such an one as hateth an ill-conditioned man, and drinkers, that affect such humours. As he is very severe in the punishment of offences, so is he careful that as well his family as himself shall be exemplary in practice and ambition of good and honourable actions and employments. This envy might have said, and in truth, saving that nature hath not given him generally a personal affability, wherein he seems to those who have suffered by him, in

Letters and Journals of Robert Baillie, A.M., Principal of the University of Glasgow, 1737-1762, Vol. I. p. 347.

justice or power, implacable; yet those who are familiar to his discourse, say that he is exceeding noble. He is not forward in the advancement of his servants, having disposed little, as yet to the most deserving. He hath no favourite but his council, which keeps off curtain and chamber motions, which he detests; he concludes nothing by petition, but reference, and that to two for the most part."-I. 251, 252.

There are two brief and unimportant letters from Anne Clifford, then Countess of Pembroke. There is also a brief memoir, taken from the Fairfax MSS., of this celebrated woman. Her spirited letter to Sir Joseph Williamson, one of Charles the Second's Secretaries of State, who had ventured on the impertinence of recommending to her a candidate for her borough of Appleby, can scarcely be surpassed:

"I have been bullied by an Usurper, I have been neglected by a Court, but I will not be dictated to by a Subject; your man shan't stand.

ANNE DORSET, PEMBROKE AND MONTGOMERY."

There follow many letters respecting the treaty of marriage between Lord Fairfax's grandson Thomas (afterwards the celebrated Lord Fairfax) and Mary, daughter of the widowed Countess Vere. There was hard bargaining on both sides, and some delay, but it issued in a marriage in 1637. Of this courageous but not lovely woman we shall probably have occasion to speak in noticing the future volumes of the Correspondence.

We must insert entire the letter to Lord Fairfax from Benjamin More, a Puritan clergyman of Guisley, who served that cure sixty-three years. It gives us a little insight into the discipline pursued by the Puritan clergy, and the harsh restraints put upon them by Laud. The Puritan clergy and lecturers were much followed by the people, and the churches becoming unduly crowded, galleries, called in this letter "lofts," appear to have been put up. These were much disliked by Laud, both for the circumstance which occasioned their erection, and because they interfered with the assimilation, which he was desirous of effecting, of the parish churches to mass-houses.

"My very Honourable Good Lord,-My long experience of your godly and Christian care of the peaceable and happy estate of God's church in all places, causeth me to offer to your consideration the hopeful state of God's people about Bradford, furnished with two worthy preachers, and a right able and honest schoolmaster, and a very sufficient clerk both for learning and life, as I know any in all this country; all which helps that part of our country hath many happy years enjoyed to their great comfort and increase of religion, till now very lately some malignant spirits have blown up some sparks of contention into the sudden conceits of the Archbishop's commissioners about their lofts, and about repeating sermons in their church; the lofts heretofore allowed, as others at Halifax and Leeds, and hurting no others, either of the liberty of sight, light or hearing, and the repeating of sermons (wherein this clerk is chief, called Richard Horn) being an open exercise used freely, sitting or walking, or standing in the church after noon, long used, never forbidden. Yet now, this third week of September, nothing from Dr. Wickham and Dr. Eastdale but pulling down of lofts, and threatenings of imprisonment, of fines, and losing his place, to the utter undoing of the honest poor harmless clerk, his wife and children for ever, whom they took bound at Bradford to appear at the High Commission Court upon Thursday next, being also the scene day. "The decrees are gone out, the execution only dependeth; your lordship seeth the mark of my pen, and the sum of my humble suit here is the opportunity for your lordship's grave and honourable moderation to obtain a tem

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