Earl of Derby

“ The Earl of Derby, the representative of one 17of the most illustrious families of the English nobility, was lord paramount of the counties of Cheshire and Lancashire, and hereditary sovereign of the Isle of Man.
His eldest son, who took the title of Lord Strange, was only twenty years of age at the time of his marriage. Handsome, high-minded, brave, intellectual, he was worthy of the wife who shared so faithfully in the fortunes of his troubled existence. A marriage less of choice than of convenience, it was to prove a union that could put to shame many a love match ”

“ Earl of Derby is now the veriest political weathercock of modern times—in fine, he has done more in the short space of a single session to destroy confidence in public men, than all the political Apostates of the present century. ”

“ Disraeli has his weaknesses of manner and of action; but he is a keen talker, and can make such show of brilliant repartee as will terribly irk the leaders of the Left.
The Earl of Derby, notwithstanding his fine and gentlemanly bearing, comes in for his share of the Punch caricature. Few British statesmen are so accomplished and graceful speakers as the Earl of Derby; and, with the burden of the Government upon his shoulders, to spur his efforts, we shall confidently look for such strong pleading, as will surpass any thing yet heard from Lord Stanley. ”

“ On 13 Oct. he was removed to Bolton, where he was executed on the 15th. ‘Among the sufferers for King Charles the First none cast greater lustre on the cause’ (Walpole, Royal and Noble Authors, iii. 37) . He was buried in Ormskirk church, and became known as the ‘martyr Earl of Derby.’
Two portraits of Derby, painted by Vandyck, belong to the present Earl of Derby (Cat. First Loan Exhib. 1866, Nos. 689, 691) . A copy of the first, painted while he was Lord Strange, was presented in 1860 to the National Portrait Gallery, London, by the fourteenth Earl of Derby. ”

“ On, on we go with a screech and a roar, rattling over viaducts, rumbling through rocky cuttings, rushing along steep embankments; then rolling rapidly again over the level country, from whence we can look back upon the dingy town of Bolton, [3] memorable in the annals of the great civil war as the place where the martyr Earl of Derby sealed his loyalty with his life. The changing aspect of the country now becomes manifest. Every mile brings a fresh picture, and the variety itself adds to the interest of the journey. ”

“ The Earl pointed to Charles and said to William, "This is the King; thou must have a care of him, and preserve him as thou didst me." For the Earl of Derby had already tested the hospitality and security of Boscobel as a hiding-place, and it was he who recommended it to the King as they rode from St. Martin's Gate, Worcester, on the eve of that fatal battle. The Earl had raised a force in Lancashire in support of the royal cause, but he had been routed in an engagement with the Roundheads at Wigan. ”

“ The Earl treats these calumnies with the contempt they merited. It suffices that his son knows and understands him. “As to the others,” he writes, “it matters little to me whether they understand or not.”
Lord Derby delayed only long enough to return to Lathom, where he mustered all the men, and got together all the money and ammunition possible “to defend and protect my wife and children against the insolence of the enemy.” Then he embarked for the Isle of Man. ”

“ Some days have elapsed since we penned the preceding pages of this article; and during that interval, having carefully watched the current of events, we declare that all our previous conclusions, not hastily arrived at, are confirmed—that the Earl of Derby will surmount his difficulties, and baffle his desperate, and, we regret being forced to say it, unscrupulous parliamentary opponents. His spirit is thoroughly English. As a people, we love courage, hate injustice, and despise trickery ”

“ They presently fix thee to them, and drive the other out of thy thoughts. They always receive thee with the same kindness.”
With many other noblemen and gentlemen of that time, the Earl of Derby fell in with this sound advice. “His life,” says Walpole, [9] “was one of virtue, accomplishments, and humanity.” 72Neither firebrand, busybody, nor time-server—too high of rank to desire to be higher—James, seventh Earl of Derby, nearing on to middle life at the time of his father’s death, lived chiefly on his own estates, and these preferably at Lathom House. ”

“ The Duke was not able to sell his acres of arable and pasture land, and consequently could not send his sister the money which was hers by right. The Earl of Derby was likewise impoverished by the loss of certain moneys which, hitherto appertaining to the male heirs of his family, had now become alienated and divided: yet upon these reduced incomings the Earl was expected still to maintain all the old state and magnificence of the house of Stanley.
The Isle of Man was, moreover, a possession of exceedingly doubtful value to its suzerain lords. ”

“ That most deserving Earl of Derby, we prefer Henry's third valiant son, the Earl of Lancaster. That only Mars of men.
Dayton, Polyolbion, xviii. (1613) .
Derby (Countess of) , Charlotte de la Tremouille, Countess of Derby and Queen of Man.
Philip (earl of Derby) , King of Man, son of the countess.—Sir W. Scott, Peveril of the Peak (time, Charles II.) .
Daniel Deronda, pure young fellow whose influence for good over men and women is marvellous, and explicable only upon the principle that virtue is mightier than vice. ”

“ Tindal has the following remark in a note, "What reward his son had for this famous Earl's loyalty, will appear by the following inscription, fixed by the present Earl of Derby on a building erected at Knowsley, in Lancashire—James, Earl of Derby, Lord of Man, and the Isles, Grandson of James, Earl of Derby, and Charlotte, daughter of Clande Duke de la Tremonille, in France; whose husband James was beheaded at Bolton, on the 15th. ”

“ In the Isle of Man Derby established himself at Castle Rushen, and there he remained six years, entertaining fugitive royalists and resolutely refusing to make his peace with parliament. He was summoned to surrender a second time in July 1649, and was offered terms which he rejected in an indignant letter to Ireton (printed in Collins, Peerage, iii. 67; cf. A Declaration of the ... Earl of Derby ... concerning his resolution to keep the Isle of Man for his Majesties service against all force whatsoever, 1649, 4to) . ”

“ When a youth of fourteen he acted as page to Henry, Earl of Derby, and held up his train when he made a visit of ceremony to the town of Liverpool, and seven years later he was in the same Earl's suite as "one of his gentlemen waiters," when, as Elizabeth's ambassador, he went to invest the King of France with the Order of the Garter. In September, 1585, four months after he had entered at Gray's Inn, he married Margaret, daughter of Sir Gilbert Gerard, of Bromley, Master of the Rolls. For some cause or other the marriage had been delayed, as the settlement bears date 1st June, 1579. ”

“ The Earl of Derby sent every day to let them know, that, if they suffered the town to be stormed, every one would be put to the sword; but, if they would render obedience to the King of England, he would pardon them, and treat{102} them like friends. The townsmen would cheerfully have surrendered, and they went to the governor to consult him, and to sound his intentions; who answered them by ordering them to the battlements, for that he had provision of every sort in sufficiency to hold out for half a year if it were necessary. ”

“ Whither, the majority of the men were far from being certain. The attachment of the Northerners of Derby, Cheshire, and Lancashire was very strong for the ancient race of Stanley. To go against an Earl of Derby was hardly less than actual laying of rough hands on their anointed King, and to that pass only the fiercest malignants had as yet desired; thus for a while the soldiers were permitted to suppose that they were bound for Westmoreland. ”

“ His cultivated mind, and endearing manners, reconciled, in a short time, the noble house of Derby to his stolen union with Lady Charlotte Stanley: her father, the late Earl of Derby, acknowledged him for his son-in-law; while the present Earl considered him, not only as his uncle, but his friend 1.
The author was, at that period, but a subaltern in the army. The patronage of his new relations, more [4] than his own merit, it is probable, obtained him higher rank. He was, however, possessed of talents for a general, and those talents were occasionally rewarded with success. ”

“ That he excelled in every talent of the orator, in debate no less than in declamation, is established by the universal consensus of his contemporaries. But he may be said to belong to an earlier period, the records of which can be better traced elsewhere.
Fifteenth Earl of Derby.I recall very clearly his son, the fifteenth Earl of Derby Foreign Minister in Disraeli's second administration. He was a frigid and monotonous but powerful speaker who seemed the embodiment of intellectual common-sense. ”

“ Scarcely had he arrived with his soldiers before the place over which he anticipated an easy victory, than the King summoned him to join his army at Shrewsbury, since the Parliamentarians were marching upon them under Lord Essex. Full of regret at being called off, Lord Derby obeyed this mandate, to find himself once more the object of mistrust and of jealousy. Directly he arrived his command was taken from him, the King telling him that he was now wanted in Lancashire to keep watch there upon the rebels.
“Worms will turn.” The Earl was a man, though one of very equable temperament ”

“ On 15 April 1336 Edward III, who was his cousin, appointed him to command an army against the Scots (Fœdera, ii. 936) ; the king went to Scotland in person, and Henry, who was then a knight-banneret, was with him at Perth, and on 12 Dec. was named as a commissioner for the defence of England against the French (ib. p. 953) . On 16 March 1337 Edward created him Earl of Derby, one of the titles borne by his father, who was still living, as the heir of Earl Thomas, and assigned him a yearly pension from the customs. ”

“ The Earl of Derby of the earlier years of Charles’s reign presented Lathom House to his eldest son and heir, James, Lord Strange, the Earl himself making his home at Chester. Concerning her father-in-law, Lady Strange writes to her mother in the following terms—after premising that her epistle is merely the replica of one previously written, but which had gone astray in transit ”

“ But it was too serviceable an instrument to be parted with, and he was by no means its last victim. A detailed account of his death was published by his friend Francis Buckley. It is curious to note that this narrative was reproduced, almost word for word, in a pamphlet professing to relate the particulars of the execution of the Earl of Derby in October 1651. ”

“ In a moment he is in motion again, and has shaken hands with half a dozen peers. Undeterred by the supernaturally solemn countenance of the Marquis of Normanby, he has actually addressed a joke to that dignified fossil, and has passed on without waiting to observe its effect. A few words with Earl Derby, a little animated talk with the Earl of Ellenborough, and he has made the circuit of the House, everywhere received with a welcoming smile and a kindly grasp of the hand, and everywhere finding willing and gratified listeners. ”

“ 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 165letter 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. ”

“ The struggle between Richard II and the baronial opposition began in the parliament of October 1386, when Henry was not of age to receive a summons. Yet when, after Easter 1387, Richard withdrew to Wales to take counsel with Robert de Vere, duke of Ireland [q. v.] , Derby was one of the persons obnoxious to the king and his favourites (Walsingham, Hist. Anglic. ii. 161) . Derby now definitely joined his uncle Gloucester, Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel (1346–1397) [q. v.] , and Thomas Beauchamp, earl of Warwick [q. v.] . Thomas Mowbray [q. v.] ”

“ But these wild counsels did not altogether prevail. The more steadily that matters were looked at by long-headed people, the more embarrassing was found the position which had been occupied. If the Earl of Derby should succeed in presenting himself to the people in his own way, and if they should think fit to say, “We will have no return to protective duties, but we feel that there is a great derangement of financial affairs which we believe you capable of rectifying ”

“ It may seem paradoxical, but I at least [Pg 127] am unable to get out of my mind the conviction that there is a solid basis of stupidity in the mind of the great Conservative Chief, Lord Derby. Let me explain what I mean. The Earl of Derby is in one sense a highly accomplished man. He is a good classical scholar, and can make a speech in Latin. He has produced some very spirited translations from Horace; and I like his version of the Iliad better on the whole than any other I know. He is a splendid debater—Macaulay said very truly that with Lord Derby the science of debate was an instinct. ”

“ In 1640 Lord Strange was appointed to share with his father in the office of Lord Chamberlain of Chester. Two years later the old Earl died; and his son succeeding him, “Madame Strange,” as her French and Dutch relatives called her, became Countess of Derby.
In the course of time, since the murder of the 63Duke of Buckingham, the affairs of the country had gone from bad to worse, and year by year the breach between Royalists and Parliamentarians widened. Outwardly the kingdom not only seemed to prosper, but was in a manner flourishing. ”