THE FAIRFAX MANUSCRIPTS.*

THE discovery of a large collection of unpublished letters and other documents illustrative of the reign of Charles I., the Civil War, and the Restoration, is an incident as remarkable in itself as it is important in reference to historical literature. The first object of curiosity upon opening these volumes is to ascertain how and when these papers were brought to light. The writer of the memoir of the Fairfaxes prefixed to the work, keeps back this revelation for his closing pages, where it falls in properly in the order of time; but, as Sir Walter Scott observes in developing the dénouement of a novel at the opening of a criticism, our readers" have an interest the reverse of this."

From the time of the first Lord Fairfax, who obtained his title early in the seventeenth century, the family was seated at Denton, in Yorkshire; but they afterwards removed to Leeds Castle, in Kent, which came into the possession of the fifth Lord Fairfax upon the occasion of his marriage with the daughter of Lord Culpepper. The seventh lord, dying without issue, bequeathed Leeds Castle to the Reverend Denny Martin, at whose death it passed into the hands of his brother General Martin, who, cutting off the entail, bequeathed it to Mr. Fiennes Wykeham Martin, its present possessor. This gentleman, on making some alterations in the castle in 1822, sold off a quantity of old furniture, amongst the rest an oak chest, apparently filled with Dutch tiles, beneath which the purchaser, a shoemaker in the neighbourhood, discovered a large collection of MSS. carefully arranged. Not knowing their value, he threw them aside for waste paper, from which destiny they were rescued by Mr. Hughes, of Maidstone; afterwards passing from that gentleman's executors into the hands of Mr. Bentley.

These records were, no doubt, removed from Yorkshire, and deposited in Leeds Castle by the fifth Lord Fairfax. That they were not afterwards given to the world is accounted for by the dispersion of the Fairfax family, and by the fact that the subsequent possessors of Leeds Castle were ignorant of the existence of the treasure they possessed. The history of the Fairfaxes, compiled from hitherto unpublished documents, opens a singular chapter in the romance of the peerage, and constitutes one of the most interesting portions of the present publication.

The family were originally staunch Roman Catholics, and, at the period of the Reformation, the then heir was disinherited by his father for having espoused the side of Luther in Italy. The son thus punished for exercising the liberty of conscience, occupies an interesting position in the Fairfax genealogy. The estate of Denton descended to him in right of his mother, and became the seat of that branch of the family which acquired such historical celebrity through its distinguished representative in the time of the Civil Wars. His son, Sir Thomas Fairfax, ascended to the peerage under the title of Baron Fairfax, of Cameron, in Scotland. The account of this transaction is characteristic of the age and the man. The King wanted money, and Fairfax was willing to dispense a handsome sum for a title. The affair was

The Fairfax Correspondence. Memoirs of the Reign of Charles I. 2 vols. London. Richard Bentley. 1848.

conducted on the strict principles of a bargain on both sides; Fairfax agreeing to pay 1500l. on the express condition that he should be exempted from all demands in the way of fees. He had scarcely secured his patent, however, when they came down upon him for fees, requiring, moreover, that he should get himself naturalized in Scotland, and contribute towards the plantation of another Scotland in the New World. His letters to Lord Colville, in which he complains of these impositions, and the faithlessness of the agents to whom he had not only paid over the money he had agreed for, but to whom he had lent bags, horses, and other commodities to enable them to convey it away, exhibit a strange glimpse of the way in which nobility has been sometimes bought and sold behind the curtain of royalty.

Notwithstanding, however, the way in which he obtained his title, Lord Fairfax turned out a very respectable nobleman after all. He was evidently a man of the world, and knew how to buy other things to as much advantage as peerages. Having a large family, over whose welfare he watched with much forethought and anxiety, he availed himself of every favourable opportunity of extending his connections and increasing his property. Altogether, his lordship made a considerable figure in his day, was a man of ability and courage, gave useful hostages to the state, and left behind him a name not unworthy of the founder of a house destined to occupy, for a brief interval, a conspicuous place in history.

Connected with the biography of a prodigal kinsman of his, Sir Philip Fairfax, there is a little love letter which deserves to be noticed, for the sake of the tender spirit in which it is written, and which contrasts remarkably with the stern duties to which the writer of it was afterwards called. Sir Philip had a daughter, Ursula, to whom the following letter was addressed :

"DEAR MISTRESS,

66 TO MRS. URSULA FAIRFAX.

"NOTWITHSTANDING my many employments, which might plead an exemption from weekly travail in writing, I cease not to woo you as seriously and more affectionately than when I first became your petitioner, and for your part with as much tacitness when I consider my five to one, as when I was (as then I was) no better than odious. I would fain, if I knew how, salve the interruption of content which this silence of yours has bred in my mind. I frame many causes; but, because there is no infallibility depends upor conjectural fancies, I remain restless, thoughtful, discontented: not that I fear any coldness in thee, having had evident proof of thy temper, thy love; but that which troubles me is chiefly, that thou thinkest I suppose that I should value the frequency of letters (as tradesmen do a plentiful commodity) at a low rate. No, sweet mistress, if you conceive so, you will mistake; for, if such things as conduce to a man's happiness can be entertained with satiety or loathing, then verily you may conclude with your practice. But I know you have a rational brain, and a constant kindness of disposition towards me, which will neither permit you to err nor forsake. In assurance whereof, and with a longing desire to hear weekly from thee, though but a word at a time, so that it be a living one, I rest, "Your most faithful, most obedient, and most affectionate servant, "London, 18th. Nov. 1633. "JAMES CHALONER."

This letter, which owes so much of its charm to refinement and gentleness of feeling, was written by one of the Chaloners who afterwards sat in judgment upon Charles I. That he should have been

appointed upon the Commission, may be accepted as a proof of the zeal with which he served on the popular side in the memorable struggle of the Long Parliament; and that a man capable of the iron resolution which was called into exercise throughout that fierce conflict, should also possess such sweetness of character as this little address to his mistress evinces, shews with what exquisite harmony nature reconciles the sternest and the tenderest qualities. In the end, it seems, the latter predominated; for although Mr. Chaloner attended at the beginning of the proceedings, he withdrew from the latter sittings, and declined to attach his signature to the warrant for his Majesty's execution; an act of forbearance for which his life was spared at the Restoration.

Ferdinando Fairfax, who succeeded to the title, was the father of Thomas, Lord Fairfax, the Parliamentary general to whose brilliant exploits the result of the civil war may be exclusively attributed.

Lord Fairfax was in some respects a remarkable man. His passion for a military life was an instinct. We are not aware that there is a similar instance on record of the development at so early an age of a great capacity for command on the field of battle. He learned the art of war under Lord Vere, whose daughter he afterwards married, but soon outstripped the example of his preceptor. There was a saying amongst the soldiers, that Lord Vere was remarkable for doing great things with a few men; but to Fairfax was ascribed the higher merit of doing great things with the loss of a few men. If the engagements in which he was concerned afforded few opportunities of exhibiting subtle strategy in the disposition of large forces, they were the more remarkable for the extraordinary skill and headlong valour with which he contended against overwhelming numbers in situations of unprecedented peril. Nor was it by the courage and energy he displayed on such occasions that his career is chiefly distinguished, but by the number and rapidity of his victories. No general ever achieved such a breathless succession of triumphs in so short a space of time.

The number of actions he crowded into a few months, is almost incredible. He overran the whole country, subdued every town and garrison that yet lingered in its loyalty to the unfortunate monarch, hunted the King into Scotland, and forced the Prince of Wales to fly into France; and, after extinguishing the last resources of the throne, literally found himself master of the kingdom. This moment, crested with the spoils of a hundred victories, was the crisis of his fame and his fate. But he had no sooner quitted the field, than his power fell away from him. The master-mind of Cromwell subjugated him in the cabinet; and Fairfax not only sank into insignificance, but exhibited the miserable spectacle of a man who had wielded irresistible authority in one direction, suddenly degraded into a passive instrument in another. This was the grand defect of his character, the only blot on his life. It is here fairly contrasted with those heroic qualities which procured him a renown as suddenly won as lost.

"Lord Fairfax is described as having had a tall and commanding figure, with a character of face which was gloomy in repose, but capable of vivid expression when lighted up by sudden emotion. He was of a retreating disposition, and generally very silent, which might have been attributed to a slight stammer in his speech,-a defect that spoiled all his attempts at oratory. The reserve and modesty of his bearing were the more remarkable in a man whose decision and courage were unquestionable. At the counciltable he bore himself with a humility that almost amounted to diffidence,

pose.

and spoke little; but when his resolution was taken (often in direct opposition to the opinions of the council), no appeal could move him from his purIn the field, the great qualities which raised him so rapidly to eminence, showed themselves in a sort ecstasy. He was as reckless of his person in battle, as he was of his own interest in political affairs. He appeared like a man inspired in the midst of his troops, and was so elevated and absorbed by the movements around him, that, at such moments, his officers rarely ventured to speak to him. His genius revelled in these scenes. But it failed quite as conspicuously in the business of statesmanship. Up to the close of the war, his military talents secured him the loftiest considerations; but from the time when it became necessary to reconstruct the government, and repair the evils of that long and unnatural hostility, he suddenly fell into obscurity, from his total unfitness for the wants of the times."

Upon the death of Cromwell, Lord Fairfax was foremost in the movement for effecting the Restoration. He was even more prompt in the avowal of his sentiments than Monk, who acted with a reserve and caution that shook the confidence of the Parliamentary general, who was now nearly fifty years of age, living in close retirement, and devoured by infirmities.-Monk called upon him on his way from Scotland, and endeavoured to sound the opinions of Lord Fairfax, without committing his own; and it was not until his lordship, who was habitually as silent a man as Monk himself, had broken the ice, that they came to a mutual understanding as to the plan of action to be adopted.

Having lived to see the Restoration accomplished, and having received from Charles II. ample acknowledgments of the services he rendered on that occasion, by which the memory of his Parliamentary campaigns appears to have been effectually obliterated, he died in seclusion in the sixtieth year of his age. There being no male heir, his lordship's estates devolved on his cousin, and from him descended to the fifth Lord Fairfax, who married the daughter of Lord Culpepper, and settled at Leeds Castle. A large property in America came into the hands of the Fairfax family by this marriage, but, in order to release the Culpepper estates, which were bound up in mortgages, Denton and the other Yorkshire possessions of the Fairfax's, were sold. Nothing, therefore, ultimately remained to them but their American lands; and the sixth lord, mortified by this compromise of the independence of his house, and suffering also, it is said, under a severe disappointment of his affections at home, emigrated to America, where he died, and where the name of Fairfax still survives in the person of an exile, Charles Snowden, the tenth and present Lord Fairfax.

Dismissing the memoir (which, in addition to letters from the Fairfax collection, contains several original documents from other sources), we now turn to the correspondence.

The actual historical interest of these papers opens with the general election in 1625, upon the accession of Charles I.; the previous portion, which runs back over a period of ninety years, being chiefly occupied with local and family affairs. The struggle between the King and the Parliament began at once. There was no disguise as to the objects of either party. The demand for supplies on the one side, and for the redress of grievances on the other, disclosed without reserve the whole case at issue between them. The field of battle was plainly marked out, and the contest was maintained, as long as it lasted, with extraordinary obstinacy by the King, and with calm and

unfaltering perseverance by the Commons. The principles with which they set out were resolutely sustained to the end by both; and up to the very moment when sentence was about to be pronounced, his majesty still stood upon his prerogative, and the Commons upon the rights of the people. There was a sort of steadfastness in the conduct of the King which, blind and misjudging as it was, gave a personal interest to his fall which could hardly have been anticipated from the antecedents of his career. Of him it might be said, as it was of another remarkable man, that nothing in his life became him so well as his leaving it.

The way in which this protracted struggle was carried on, shews with what sagacity the Commons adapted their means to their end. The privileges of Parliament were not yet defined; the constitution was as yet a chaos of elements, which Pym and Eliott, and the rest, had undertaken to liberate and set in order. The King possessed the right of dissolving this Parliament at his own caprice; while, on the other hand, the only recognized power wielded by the Parliament was a control over the supplies. With this instrument the battle was fought in the first instance. Applying to the Parliament over and over again for supplies, the Parliament again and again replied that they would willingly grant the supplies, on condition that his majesty would grant a redress of grievances; and for this reply, they were again and again dissolved.

Outside the walls of Parliament the power of the King was supreme. He could raise troops; he could control the whole machinery of government. Had the popular leaders attempted, at this early period of the struggle, to move the country to insurrection, had they gone back to their constituents to complain of the treatment they had received, they must have ruined their cause. They knew that the floor of Parliament was not only the safest, but the only legitimate field for the contest; and to this constitutional arena they confined the operations of the great battle they were fighting in the defence of constitutional principles. It was not until the King, in open contempt of his subjects and their representatives, attempted to overawe them with military force, that they advanced beyond the line within which they had hitherto restrained their defence. The conduct of the Parliament throughout this period is justly described in the following passage:

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"Adapting their weapons to every new emergency; addressing themselves with consummate skill and sleepless vigilance to the evasive shapes into which the royal despotism glided from session to session, never compromising a fraction of their demands, standing always firmly on their privileges, and faithfully resisting the encroachments of the throne at all hazards, and in the face of an authority which possessed and exercised the prerogative of extinguishing their deliberations, the Parliament steadily pursued their purpose, until at length they succeeded in bringing one great culprit [Strafford to the block. Previous Parliaments had done, and could do, little more than assert popular principles and fall by them. They presented a series of popular martyrdoms. Buckingham triumphed over them to the last. Their power had not acquired the requisite concentration to enable them to grapple with him successfully. The career of the King had been a career of impunity, fretted, no doubt, by constant impediments and unwearying protests; yet still shewing a vitality which it often seemed hopeless to oppose. But the constancy of Parliament lived down all obstacles. If hitherto they had been unable to accomplish tangible results, they had systematically prepared the public mind to expect them. They had developed public opinion. They had