Read My Heart: Dorothy Osborne and Sir William Temple, A Love Story in the Age of Revolution. Jane Dunn

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СКАЧАТЬ their king or their elected parliament. This choice could be a matter of life and death, placing their fortunes, their lives and the lives of their retainers at the disposal of their masters at war. There was no doubt that Dorothy’s father was one of the king’s men. Her immediate family seems to have been solidly royalist, with four brothers at least available to serve their king, two of whom were sacrificed in the process.

      So it was that loyal Sir Peter Osborne was called upon once more to defend Castle Cornet, the only royalist stronghold in Guernsey, an independent-minded island long attached to its Presbyterianism, which had declared quickly for parliament. By comparison, its larger neighbour, Jersey, remained royalist largely due to the pervasive influence of the all-powerful Carteret family. Lieutenant governor of the island at the time was Captain Carteret, later Sir George Carteret, who was a man of outstanding courage and capability as a naval commander but also acquisitive and ambitious for himself. He had freedom of movement and action while Sir Peter stoically endured real privation in his attempt to hold Castle Cornet against a hostile populace. Carteret’s opportunism and Sir Peter’s incorruptible and ingenuous nature, together with his reliance on Carteret for much of the provisions needed by his garrison, meant conflict between the two governors was inevitable.

      When Sir Peter Osborne returned to Guernsey in 1642 the inhabitants were already ill-disposed towards him. They had long memories of the unwelcome garrison he had brought over during the fear of invasion in 1627 and imposed on them for two years. There was natural antipathy anyway towards the mainland and previous governors who had looked to help themselves to the lion’s share of island revenues. The inhabitants’ independence was also fostered by the republican sensibilities of many of their clergy, some of whom were French Calvinists escaping from the cruel persecutions of their own king. Although there were no hostilities at first, from the beginning of the civil war Sir Peter seems to have lived in the castle almost entirely separate from the townspeople and islanders. This they resented, eventually listing their complaints against him the following year in a letter to the Earl of Warwick, whom Cromwell had appointed as governor of Jersey and Guernsey. The gist of these complaints was Osborne’s aloofness from the islanders and his misuse of the king’s grants by building promenades and genteel accommodation within the castle rather than bolstering its fortifications and providing extra billets for the soldiers.

      By the spring of 1643, parliament had issued instructions to the newly appointed commissioners in Guernsey to seize Sir Peter Osborne and convey him back to them to answer for his disobedience and various other misdemeanours. When the commissioners attempted to fulfil this order, Sir Peter refused all compromise and threatened to destroy the town, firing several cannon shots over it and even some into it, terrifying the inhabitants. He was defiant, truly believing that no human agency could challenge King Charles’s right to rule the British Isles, and determined to expend whatever blood or fortune it took in defending his particular belief through the agency of his governorship of this one fort in a very small island. Sir Peter Osborne’s answer to the parliamentarian governor of the islands was morally clear, eloquent and quintessential of old royalist sentiment:

      these islands being no ways subordinate to other jurisdiction, but to his majesty alone, as part of his most ancient patrimony enjoyed by those princes, his glorious predecessors, before that, by claim or conquest, they came to have interest in the crown of England, – no summons, by virtue of what power soever, hath command here, nor can make me deliver it up to any but to him by whom I am trusted, and to whom I am sworn, that have never yet made oath but only to the king. And God, I hope, whose great name I have sworn by, will never so much forsake me but I shall keep that resolution (by yourself misnamed obstinacy) to maintain unto my sovereign that faith inviolate unto my last.²³

      In a time of conflict and upheaval many decisions of allegiance were made out of opportunism or self-preservation, but there were just as many men and women who stood by their passionately held principles and suffered the consequences. This statement of resolve epitomised the conservative loyalty and unshowy courage of the idealised cavalier spirit. Sir Peter did not just mouth ringing sentiments, he intended to live by them. He stockpiled what ammunition and provisions he could in preparation for a long siege. He attempted to instil a military discipline in his garrison by threatening draconian punishments for any insubordination. A brawling soldier would have his right hand chopped off, and a similar punishment would be meted out to anyone who merely threatened to punch an officer: whosoever actually struck his superior ‘shall be shot to death’.²⁴

Although Sir Peter maintained his royalist stronghold, parliament deposed the island’s royalist bailiff and dissolved the royal court, placing the government of Guernsey in the hands of twelve commissioners. The exploits of three of these, Careye, de Beauvoir and de Havilland, became the stuff of legend when in October 1643 they were captured through trickery and brought to Castle Cornet as prisoners, only to effect a miraculous escape some six weeks later and within hours of being hanged. Careye’s memoir is interesting in evoking the high state of tension between the island and its governor, the daily alarms and dangers that the garrison and islanders endured, the shortage of food,^* the hunger for news from the mainland. He also mentioned that Sir Peter had both his sons with him in late October when the commissioners were first brought into the castle as prisoners.

      The news of the war that filtered back to Sir Peter in his isolated keep at first looked hopeful for the royalist cause. By the end of 1644 a loyal optimist could consider Charles had gained the upper hand and was well placed to take London. The following February, however, saw the establishment of parliament’s New Model Army and by early summer the royalist momentum was slammed into reverse. The new army’s comprehensive defeat of Charles I and Prince Rupert in the Battle of Naseby in June 1645 marked the beginning of the end for the king.

      In the face of the debacle on the mainland, Sir Peter Osborne’s struggle to hold Castle Cornet was low on the list of royalist priorities and the defence of the strategic fort for the king was largely financed by his own resources. He set his family to work raising extra funds against his own property in support of the crown’s interest. Dorothy’s mother had already been employed in support of her embattled husband. By the beginning of 1643 Lady Osborne had travelled from Chicksands to Jersey to try to negotiate support from Sir George Carteret. This involved raising bonds against the Osborne estate to pay for any provisions that might be forthcoming.

      The period of the civil war propelled women from the domestic sphere into political activity, even war, providing many opportunities to exhibit their courage and executive abilities while their men were away fighting or already dead. Stories were commonplace of remarkable women who resisted the opposing armies’ sieges of their houses and castles, one of the most notable being the royalist Countess of Derby who, refusing safe conduct from Latham House in Lancashire, withstood a three-month siege there in 1644, only surrendering the house at the end of the following year when the royalist cause was all but lost. However she then, with her husband, held Castle Rushen on the Isle of Man for the king. Again, with the earl away fighting in England, she attempted to withstand parliamentary forces, eventually having the distinction of being probably the last person in the three kingdoms to submit to the victorious parliament in October 1651.

      The defence of Castle Cornet and the attempt to deliver practical assistance to the besieged lieutenant governor involved all Sir Peter Osborne’s immediate family. His letters mention his sons John, Henry and Charles who were variously visiting the castle, supporting the garrison, organising funds and provisions and running messages to the king or his followers. His wife, and on some occasions certainly Dorothy herself, were frantically pawning the family’s silver and begging for gifts and loans to finance Sir Peter’s defence. Dorothy suggested that her recoil from being pitied and the more melancholy aspects of her nature dated from this time of fear, uncertainty and danger. In the summer of 1645 Dorothy’s father sent word to their mother, via her brother John, that since her departure he and his men had had no more to eat than one СКАЧАТЬ