The King's Henchman

by Anthony Adolph

  ‘Had the Prince ever stood as a fully-grown man…’ Charles II’s startling dissimilarity to his parents is discussed by Antonia Fraser in King Charles II, pp. 9-12.

  ‘the King was a bastard and his mother was Jermyn’s whore…’ 4 August 1660, imputed to one John Wilson of Newcastle on Tyne, S.P. Dom., vol. 10.

  ‘all the royal children were Jermyn’s bastards…’ 13 August 1660, Captain Francis Robinson to Nicholas relating Nicholas Angelo’s allegations, S.P. Dom., vol. 10.

  ‘Had so wholly made over…’ Thomas Carew, Gentlemen of the bedchamber, S.P. Dom, 1628-9, p. 393, quoted in Sharpe, Charles I, p. 171.

  ‘petulant and fleering…’ March 1633, S.P. Dom. ‘Fleering’ means sniffy or sneering.

  ‘I liked Eleanor well enough…’, Fiona Mountain, Cavalier Queen, Preface, 2011, p. 268.

  ‘there never passed one word between us touching marriage…’ c. May 1633, Jermyn to Charles I. H.M.C., Coke MSS.

  ‘she hath herself confessed to me…’ c. May 1633, Jermyn to Charles I. H.M.C., Coke MSS.

  ‘ever after [be]… reputed to have forfeited their modesty…’ Hastings MS, Legal Box 5, quoted on Sharpe, p. 190.

  ‘with deep oaths…’ Quoted without source in Oman.

  ‘my cousin…’ P.C.C. will of Mrs Eleanor Dakin, written 20 April 1689, proved 129, 1694, 152.

  ‘When Jermyn stepped ashore there [in Jersey] in 1634…’ I analysed the Jermyn family’s very patchy relations with the inhabitants of their governorship of Jersey in ‘Henry Jermyn, (1605-1684), Earl of St Alban, K.G., Governor of Jersey’, Société Jersiaise, Annual Bulletin for 2000, 27(4), pp. 636-652.

  SIR WILLIAM D’AVENANT’S DREAM OF MADAGASCAR 1635 –1637

  ‘valiant in a strange bed…’ Nethercot, D’Avenant.

  ‘Turtle shells… dragons’ blood and diverse sorts of other gums…’ Richard Boothby, A Briefe Discovery… of… Madagascar, 1646.

  ‘may well be compared to the Land of Canaan…’ Richard Boothby, A Briefe Discovery… of… Madagascar, published in 1646.

  ‘romance some would put into Rupert’s head…’ 4 April 1636, Elizabeth of Bohemia to Sir Thomas Roe, S.P. Dom. Car. I, 16, 317 no. 12: 6 April 1637, S.P. German.

  ‘they may be for Madagascar…’ Paris, 15 January 1655, Jermyn to Charles II, Clar. S.P. no. 22. In fact, Penn’s fleet sailed to America.

  ‘In 1640, Jermyn and Henrietta organised a survey…’. The appointment of the commissioners to perform this are c. 1640 appears in S.P. Dom., vol. 470.

  ‘SPEAK WITH MR JERMYN ABOUT IT’ 1637-1640

  ‘full of soup and gold’, Last Instructions to a Painter (1681), attributed to Andrew Marvell.

  ‘had engaged her…’ 16 January 1639, Castle to Bridgewater, Ellesmere MS 7818.

  ‘How shall I recognise her?…’ Quoted in Marshall p. 78.

  ‘Such beggarly snakes…’ quoted from Dalrymple by Roots, p. 26.

  ‘are not so settled as was to be wished…’ London, 19 July 1639, Jermyn to Captain George Carteret, S.P. Dom. vol. 426.

  ‘spoke much, and appeared to be the most leading man…’ Hyde, Rebellion, quoted in Nichol Smith, pp. 132-6.

  ‘Appointed to the lucrative position…’ Sharpe p. 839, quoting from 9 June 1640 Ellesmere MS 7837 and 7819.

  ‘After supper they would lock themselves away with Jermyn…’ Jermyn was ‘now so great with the King as he and the Queen are locked up alone with him many hours together. It is not unlikely, if our affaires settle, but that he may prove a great favourite. He hath laid a shrewd foundation, and, in my judgement, advances apace towards it, holding secret intelligence with the new officer that shall be made’ (January 1641, HMC 77 Sir John Temple to Leicester).

  ‘looked upon by the whole court…’ May 1641, Robert Browne to Sir Francis Ottley, Ottley Papers p. 30.

  ‘speak with Mr Jermyn about it…’ Paris, 26 February/ 8 March 1641, Robert Reade to Thomas Windebank, S.P. Dom., vol. 477.

  ‘he does with great dexterity bring all his pieces together…’ 4 March 1641, Sir John Temple to the Earl of Leicester, H.M.C., 77.

  ‘he planned a new government incorporating staunch Royalists…’ Jermyn’s proposed ‘cabinet reshuffle’ is described in Temple’s letter to Leicester, 21 January 1640/1, HMC 77.

  ‘by making him a Secretary of State…’ On 24 December 1640 the Earl of Northumberland wrote to Lord Leicester ‘Your Lordship makes a right use and judgment of H. Jermyn, for certainly he both believes and wishes some person Secretary, over whom he hopes to have more power and interest then he can expect from the Earl of Leicester’: his proposal for Nicholas’ appointment is noted in his ‘cabinet reshuffle’.

  ‘DO SOMETHING EXTRAORDINARY’ 1637 – 1641

  ‘do something extraordinary…’1641, A Copy of a Letter found in the Privy Lodgings at Whitehall.

  ‘For several months Jermyn waited…’ This period of indecision is described in great detail in Temple’s letters to Leicester, HMC 77.

  ‘a plot to bring the northern army…’ The main sources for the Army Plot are (1) Nathaniel Fiennes’s report of the depositions of the conspirators to the Commons Close Committee, 14 June 1641, published in 1642; (2) notes made by Verney on a letter of confession written by Harry Percy, ‘Notes of Proceedings in the Long Parliament by Sir Ralph Verney, Camden Society, 1845 and (3) Percy’s confession, printed version SP 16/481/41 and MS version (Alnwick Castle MSS 15, f 223a-b).

  ‘a matter of greater consequence…’, Chudleigh’s deposition, Braye MSS 2, 147v, House of Lords Record Office.

  ‘the parliament was so in love with the Scots…’, Chudleigh’s deposition in Fiennes’s report.

  ‘…if the army merely declared its open support for the King…’, specifically, in terms of preserving the bishop’s votes in the Lords, maintaining the army in Ireland and allowing the King his much needed finance.

  ‘desired Goring and Jermyn…’ Percy’s confession in Brenan, A History of the House of Percy, p. 247.

  ‘set my army into a good posture…’ This and the preceding incidents are from Fiennes’s interrogation of Goring, Marquis of Salisbury’s Mss, H.M.C. 9 pt 22, London, H.M.S.O. 1971 pp. 356-9 and Brenan, A History of the House of Percy, p. 247.

  ‘Jermyn then revealed…’ In Fiennes’s report, Pollard asserted that ‘There were propositions made by Goring and Jermyn about bringing up the army hither’ but Goring made the more plausible assertion that ‘Jermyn first proposed the bringing up the army’.

  ‘We disliked…’ Pollard’s account, in Fiennes’s report.

  ‘vain and foolish…’ Percy’s confession, SP 16/481/41 and Brenan, A History of the House of Percy, p. 247.

  ‘Professor Russell has argued…’ Russell, ‘Army Plot’, p. 101.

  ‘The day set for the plot was May Day…’ Besides the records of the interrogation of the plotters, the foregoing paragraphs also rely on Samuel Gardner’s article in the English Historical Review, in which he discusses to Rossetti’s account in Nunziatura di Colonia vol. 21.

  ‘Jermyn toyed briefly with the idea of staying in Portsmouth…’ According to Sir Symonds D’Ewes’s diary, the King excused himself to Parliament by claiming that Jermyn’s warrant to leave England had been made prior to 4 May. The warrant for Jermyn’s arrest at Portsmouth was issued on 6 May (H.M.C., Miss C. Griffiths’ Mss). The often-quoted reference to Jermyn escaping in his black satin suit and white boots is from an attributed quote in the old

  D.N.B. COLONEL LORD JERMYN 1641 – 1643

  ‘that the fortunes of the most exalted…’ d’Aulnoy.

  ‘The people who are faithful to our service…’ Strickland.

  ‘poor traitors…’ 6/16 July 1642, Henrietta Maria to Charles I, Harl. Ms 3797 f. 83b, qu. Green, Letters.

  ‘I have nobody in the world…’ 2 June 1642, Henrietta Maria to Charles I, qu. Green, Letters.

  ‘the Queen’s coach clattered down the Staedt-Straat…’ Three Letters of dangerous Consequence; Read
at a Conference of Both Houses of Parliament, In which appears a desperate design of the L. Digby, Cap. Hide, Sir Lewis Dives, M. Jermyn, M. Percy, and divers Cavaliers, against the Parliament of England. With the names of Ships, number of Men and Ammunition now in readiness to be transported into the North; H. Elsynge Cler. Parl. D. Com., London, E.G. for E. Husbands, and J. Francke, 1642 (at Harvard Library; Gay 642.1710); first letter, the Hague 20 June/1 July 1642 states that they came seven nights ago. Interestingly, Wilmot in York wrote to William Crofts in the Hague on 12/22 June, ‘Pray if Master Jermyn be with you, present my most humble service to him’, indicating that Jermyn’s arrival there was known to Charles I.

  ‘It is a great trouble to me…’ 13/23 July 1642, Henrietta Maria to Charles I, Harl. Ms. 7379 p. 47 qu. Green, Letters.

  ‘Live still, the pleasure of each other’s sight…’ D’Avenant, ‘To The Lord D.L.’, Madagascar, with Other Poems.

  ‘They settled down to sleep…’ Their adventures at sea and at Bridlington are described by Henrietta Maria herself in her letters to her husband, though the incident involving Mitte she kept back, only telling it years later to her friend Madame de Motteville.

  ‘she-majesty generalissima…’ 27 June 1643, Henrietta Maria to Charles I, Harl. Ms 7379.

  ‘Generalissima…’ King’s Cabinet, Opened p. 33 qu. Green, Letters.

  ‘and at Nottingham…’ 27 June 1643, Henrietta Maria to Charles I, Harl. Ms 7379.

  ‘It is not a great matter…’ 25 June 1643, Henrietta Maria to Newcastle, Harl. Ms 6988 f. 46 qu. Green, Letters.

  ‘graceful and beautiful…’ Hyde, Life, quoted in Nichol Smith p. 120.

  ‘the excellent temper of his arms…’ Hyde, Rebellion.

  ‘he charged it through…’ Abraham Cowley, The Civil War, part 3 (Cowley, Works).

  ‘my troopes…’ 1 September 1645, Saint-Germain, Jermyn to Digby, State Papers Foreign, Ciphers (S.P.106) 10, no 6, deciphered by Richards.

  ‘THE STRONGEST PILLAR IN THE LAND’ 1644

  ‘There is a story that exists in several incarnations…’ 29 January 1672, ‘Dr Edward Lake’s Diary’, Camden Miscellany, vol. 1.

  ‘for if a person [like Percy] speaks to you boldly…’ 27 May 1643, Henrietta Maria to Charles I, Harl. Ms 7379 f. 62b.

  ‘This of more trouble to me…’ February 1644, Trevor to Rupert, qu. Morrah.

  ‘I find prince Rupert…’ Oxford, 19 February 1644, Arthur Trevor to Ormond, Carte, vol. 6 p 38.

  ‘most violent ambition to have her husband created a Baron…’ Holles, Gervase, ‘Memorials of the Holles Family’, Camden Society 1937; the warrant was dated 6 April 1644.

  ‘I was never more against any thing…’ Oxford, 12 March 1643/4, Jermyn to Rupert, B.L. Add. Ms 18,981 f. 86.

  ‘there being provisions and ammunition…’ Exeter, 14 June 1644, Jermyn to Rupert, B.L. Add. Ms 21,506 f. 29.

  ‘it was not possible…’ Exeter, 30 June 1644, Jermyn to Digby, S.P. Dom., vol. 502.

  ‘riding by her, and upon every stop…’ 10 July-20 July, The Court Mercury no. 3, B.L. Pamphlets, Tomason Tracts E93; it also mistakenly reported that the Cornish had forced them to turn back to Exeter.

  ‘Here is the woefullest spectacle…’ Francis Basset’s account, qu. Marshall.

  ‘Clinging to the sides of their ship’s longboats…’ The story of their journey and its surprising conclusion is based on Bossuet’s Vie de Reine Henriette, as related in Strickland but this, rather like a lot of literature about Henrietta Maria, takes no account of the fact that the Queen was surrounded by her servants – ‘the queen, exhausted as she was, was forced to explain to them who she really was’. But Queens tended not to do such things when they had loyal Lord Chamberlains to do so for them.

  ‘SOME SUCCOUR FOR ENGLAND’ 1644 – 1645

  ‘But to this end your Highness…’ Jermyn to Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, 6/16 August 1644, S.P. Dom., 502.

  ‘country air…’ Paris, 2/12 May 1645, Jermyn to Charles I, H.M.C. 6, House of Lords Mss – see H.M.C. 1, Appx 6.

  ‘is gone from Dunkirk three weeks since…’ Paris, 9/19 May 1645, Jermyn to Digby, S.P. Dom., vol. 507.

  ‘too much levity…’ Burnet’s History of his own Times, 1 pp. 94-5.

  ‘You will make an inconsiderable contemptible benefit…’ Saint-Germain, 19 August 1645, Jermyn to Hyde, Clar. Mss 1940.

  ‘withal commanded [me] to make overture…’ 6/16 August 1644, Jermyn to Prince of Orange, S.P. Dom., vol. 502.

  ‘it might happen that before this campaign…’ 6/16 August 1644, Jermyn to Prince of Orange, S.P. Dom., vol. 502.

  ‘He dares not offend the Cardinal’s dog…’ Paris, 23 March 1655, Hatton to Nicholas, Nicholas Papers 2 pp. 228-230.

  ‘You must call him my cousin…’ Paris, 3 December 1644, Jermyn and Henrietta Maria, Harl. Ms 7379 f. 45 qu. Green, Letters.

  THE ‘GREAT HELL-CAT’ 1645 – 1646

  ‘The torment of misfortunes…’ Cardiff, 5 August 1645, George Digby to Jermyn, B.L. Add. Ms 33,596 f. 11.

  ‘his linen was plain, not very clean…’ Sir Philip Warwick, Memories of the Reigne of King Charles I, 1707, pp. 247-8, quoted in Nichol Smith, p. 141.

  ‘with great torment and agony…’ Hyde, Rebellion, quoted in Nichol Smith, pp. 132-6.

  ‘great Hell-cat…’ Paris, 29 March 1661, Venetian Ambassador to Doge and Senate, S.P. Ven., reporting a conversation he had just had with Jermyn.

  ‘I can say this of Naseby…’ quoted without reference in Adair, J. (ed.), By the Sword Divided, pp. 192-4. The original says ‘smite out’, which I have interpreted as ‘cry out’.

  ‘for the insensible engaging…’ Saint-Germain, 26 July/5 August 1645, Jermyn to Lord Digby. S.P. Dom., Vol. 510.

  ‘Mazarin also paid for Moray…’ The machinations of Moray, Montereuil, Jermyn and the others involved in this episode are extremely hard to fathom from contemporary correspondence: the best attempt, from which I took my lead here, was made by Robertson in his biography of Moray.

  ‘My Dear Cousin Harry’,… n.d., c. June 1646, Jermyn to Sir Henry Killigrew, qu. Tregellas, Walter H. Some Cornish Worthies, Elliot Stock, London, 1884.

  ‘send mine and thine…’ Charles I to Henrietta Maria, Clar. S.P. vol. 2 p. 230.

  ‘tell Jermyn, from me…’ 23 July 1646, Charles I to Henrietta Maria, Bruce.

  ‘THE LOUVRE PRESBYTER’ 1646 – 1649

  ‘the Louvre Presbyter…’ 5/15 January 1650, Hatton to Nicholas, Nicholas Papers.

  ‘If he were ever affected with melancholy…’ Clar. MS 122, qu. Ollard, who argues effectively (and I agree with him) that Hyde’s biographical sketch originally to have been about Arlington was really about Jermyn.

  ‘Lord Jermyn kept an excellent table…’ Clarendon, 13, 129.

  ‘Harry, this is chiefly to chide you…’ Droitwich, 14 May 1645, Charles I to Jermyn, H.M.C. 6, House of Lords Mss.

  ‘Jermyn had a furious argument…’ 7 October 1645, Sir Robert Honeywood to Sir Harry Vane, S.P. Dom. 511.

  ‘Lord Jermyn knows nothing about religion!…’ Hyde, Rebellion.

  ‘a king of Presbytery, or no king at all…’ Saint-Germain, 18/28 September 1646, Jermyn and Colepeper to Charles I, Clar. S.P. no. 2313, endorsed, ‘Recd 5/15 Oct’.

  ‘From Paris, they sent Jack Ashburnham and Jermyn’s own cousin Sir John Berkeley…’ Berkeley and Ashburnham’s memoirs.

  ‘We must look upon your endeavours that are abroad…’ Kilkenny, 24 January 1648/9, Ormond to Jermyn, Carte vol. 6 p. 598-9.

  ‘OUR OWN CONDITION IS LIKE TO BE VERY SAD’ 1649 – 1656

  ‘Jermyn in whom united doth remain…’ Abraham Cowley, The Civil War, part 3 (Cowley, Works).

  ‘Our own condition is likely to be very sad…’ Paris, 8 January 1648/9, Cowley to Arlington, Cowley, Works.

  ‘Lord Jermyn took this opportunity…’ Gamache. ‘Jermyn’ has been substituted here for ‘Lord St Albans’.

  ‘le Favori…’ Motte
ville.

  ‘shameful attachment…’ Le caducée d’état (1652) qu. Knachel.

  ‘made a clandestine marriage…’ Mme Baviere’s memoirs.

  ‘her being married to my lord…’ 22 November 1662, Pepys’ Diary.

  ‘Cowley witnessed the wedding…’ The Life and Death of Henrietta Maria de Bourbon, Queen to That Blessed King and Martyr Charles I, London, 1685.

  ‘signatures were subsequently – and most conveniently – cut off…’ In 1820, the antiquarian George Smeeton, in a footnote to his reprint of The Life and Death of Henrietta Maria de Bourbon, claimed that “the late Mr. Coram, the printseller, purchased of Yardly (a dealer in waste paper and parchment) a deed of settlement of an estate, from Henry Jermyn, Earl of St Albans, to Henrietta Maria as a marriage dower; which besides the signature of the Earl, was subscribed by Cowley the Poet, and other persons as witnesses. Mr. Coram sold the deed to the Rev. Mr. Brand for five guineas, who cut off many of the names on the deed to enrich his collection of autographs; at the sale of this gentleman’s effects, they passed into the hands of the late Mr. Bindley”.

  ‘solemnly married together…’ The Secret History of the Reigns of Charles II and James II with a True Portraiture of William Henry of Nassau, 1690.

  ‘Historians remain divided over whether Jermyn and Henrietta Maria became husband and wife…’ Amongst the books which record the marriage as a statement of fact are Rev. William Betham (Baronetage of England, 1803); W.D. Christie’s notes to Letters of Sir Joseph Williamson (Camden Society) and Sir Philip Francis (1740-1818) in his manuscript notes to Hyde’s Rebellion, in which he wrote – inaccurately – of the Queen’s desire that Hyde should call on Jermyn before she accepted Anne’s marriage to James and commented, ‘No man can read it without believing that this vain bedlam, who makes such a rout about her son’s marriage and mesalliance, was married to St. Alban’s. On what other grounds than his being the husband of the queen-mother could the Earl of Clarendon, Lord High Chancellor of England, be called on to pay the first visit to that upstart?’; Adamson and Dewar (Adamson, D. & Dewar, P. de Vere Beauclerk; The House of Nell Gwyn, London, Kimber) infer that the mere couple of days which elapsed between Jermyn’s death and the creation of Charles II’s son Charles Beauclerk as Duke of St Albans implied a family tie. On the other hand Strickland and also Gillow in his Biographical Dictionary of the English Catholics, believed firmly there was no marriage, founding their belief in their perception of the flawless morality of the Queen.