The history of Henry Esmond, esq., a colonel in the service of Her Majesty Queen Anne

Introduction

- POPULAR Jiving writer of fiction on being asked to name his favourite novelist and that novelist’s greatest work, replied indirectly but eloquently with the statement that he was in the habit of re-reading Thackeray’s Esmond once every year. This testimony to the perennial freshness and excellence of the book would find many readers to endorse it, for there seems a fair concensus of opinion among capable critics that this delightful romance is not only the best which Thackeray has left us, but that it is one of the very finest books of its kind which the world possesses. In Thackeray’s pages the days of Queen Anne live for us as vividly as they do in those of the best of contemporary writers ; and this may be said with full consciousness of the galaxy of classic authors of the time — Addison, Pope, Steele, Swift, and their fellows. The novelist has, indeed, as one writer puts it, become a classic himself with this story.

Writing to his mother towards the close of 1850, on the day on which he had completed Pendennis, Thackeray said, “ I’ve got a better subject for a novel than any I’ve yet had.” On June 2nd, 1852, we learn from Edward FitzGerald’s correspondence that “ Thackeray finished his novel last Saturday.” During the intervening eighteen months the novelist had worked hard, but to such good purpose that he had produced a masterpiece. Masterpieces are not always recognisable at a first glance, and two such diverse writers as George Eliot and Mary Russell Mitford found the work “ uncomfortable ” and painful.” There were not wanting, however, more discerning critics, for Charlotte Bronte, after reading (in February 1852) the first volume, had written, ‘Mf the continuation be an improvement upon the commencement, if the steam gathers force as it rolls, Thackeray will triumph.” The second portion the same outspoken critic found contained ‘‘ too much History — too little Story,” while in the third there was “ the most

IV

Introduction sparkle, impetus, and interest.” Charlotte Bronte was right, for assuredly by the completion of Esmond did the author triumph, while the half century that has elapsed since the work was first issued has only served to strengthen its hold upon the great world of readers. That same half century, it may be affirmed with very little fear of contradiction, has seen the publication of nothing finer in the whole range of fictional literature, nothing that is at once so admirable as a work of art and so true as a study of human nature.

William Makepeace Thackeray has now been dead for five-and-thirty years, but his story is as fresh and as absorbingly attractive as ever — and that even though read and re-read many times. Esmond is, indeed, one of those books in giving voice to one’s enthusiasm about which we may run the risk of becoming incoherent; ‘‘of this book,” as Mr F. T. Marzials says, “it is difficult to speak in language that shall not seem to savour of exaggeration and hyperbole.” All discerning readers have recognised in it a masterly presentation of eighteenth-century life and manners, a presentation so subtly thorough that the illusion as to its being written by a man who had lived through its scenes is complete ; and this despite certain anachronisms discoverable by the patient student.* In preparing his series of lectures on The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century the author had so saturated his mind with the thought and mode of expression of the j time that he came well prepared to the writing of his new novel ; and that preparation if not responsible for the bent of the romance is, we may feel safely assured, responsible for the period in which it was placed. Indeed, in the lecture on Steele — the most successful, perhaps, of all the historical individuals that appear in the story — Thackeray had a passage which if it may not be looked upon as the} shadow of an event which was to come in the shape of his book may at least be applied to The History of Henry Esmond : “ Out of the fictitious book I get the expression of the life of the time ; of the manners, of the movements, the dress, the pleasures, the laughter, the ridicules of society

* As, for example, when Thackeray makes Beatrix and Esmond quote from Peter Wilkins in 1712, whereas the story was not published until 1751.

Introduction

V the old times live again, and I travel in the old country of England. Can the heaviest historian do more for me ? ”

Since this story was first published it has appeared in many successive editions, and in various forms, now as part of the “ Works ” and now by itself, here with the aid of illustrations and there in typographical simplicity. English readers abroad can get it in the familiar paper-covered volumes of the Tauchnitz Library ; while French, Hungarian, Swedish, and other translations of it have appeared. That there are no signs of diminution in its popularity — that indeed it is becoming even more widely appreciated, may best be indicated by the statement that at least three new editions of the story have been published in London this year. Fortunate, indeed, are those readers who have yet to make the acquaintance of Rachel, Lady Castlewood, of her daughter Beatrix, and her son the young lord, of their kinsman, champion, and lover, Henry Esmond, of loveable Dick Steele, of the Jesuit spy. Father Holt (who by the way had a historical prototype of the same name during the latter part of the 1 6th century), and the other good, bad and indifferent — but all intensely human — characters of this perfect story ; especially fortunate are such readers who first meet these people in pages t^^at include Mr Bedford’s fine representations of scenes in the story.

WALTER JERROLD.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

WILLIAM BINGHAM, LORD ASHBURTON

My dear Lord,

The writer oj a hook which copies the manners and language of Queen Anne's time^ must not omit the Dedication to the Patron ; and I ask leave to inscribe this V olume to your Lordshipy for the sake of the great kindness and friendship which I owe to you and yours.

My volume will reach you when the Author is on his voyage to a country where your name is as well known as here. Wherever I am, I shall gratefully regard you ; and shall not be the less welcomed in America because I am

Tour obliged friend and servant^

W. M. THACKERAY.

London, October i8, 1852.

The Esmonds of Virginia

The estate of Castlewood, in Virginia, which was given to our ancestors by King Charles the First, as some return for the sacrifices made in His Majesty’s cause by the Esmond family, lies in Westmoreland county, between the rivers Potomac and Rappahannoc, and was once as great as an English Principality, though in the early times its revenues were but small. Indeed, for near eighty years after our forefathers possessed them, our plantations were in the hands of factors, who enriched themselves one after another, though a few scores of hogsheads of tobacco were all the produce that, for long after the Restoration, our family received from their Virginian estates.

My dear and honoured father. Colonel Henry Esmond, whose history, written by himself, is contained in the accompanying volume, came to Virginia in the year 1718, built his house of Castlewood, and here permanently settled. After a long stormy life in England, he passed the remainder of his many years in peace and honour in this country ; how beloved and respected by all his fellow-citizens, how inexpressibly dear to his family, I need not say. His whole life was a benefit to all who were connected with him. He gave the best example, the best advice, the most bounteous hospitality to his friends ; the tenderest care to his dependants ; and bestowed on those of his immediate family such a blessing of fatherly love and protection as can never be thought of, by us, at least, without veneration and thankfulness ; and my son’s children, whether established here in our Republic, or at home in the always beloved mother country, from which our late quarrel hath separated us, may surely be proud to be descended from one who in all ways was so truly noble.

My dear mother died in 1736, soon after our return from

Vlll

England, whither my parents took me for my education ; and where I made the acquaintance of Mr Warrington, whom my children never saw. When it pleased Heaven, in the bloom of his youth, and after but a few months of a most happy union, to remove him from me, I owed my recovery from the grief which that calamity caused me, mainly to my dearest father’s tenderness, and then to the blessing vouchsafed to me in the birth of my two beloved boys. I know the fatal differences which separated them in politics never disunited their hearts ; and as I can love them both, whether wearing the King’s colours or the Republic’s, I am sure that they love me and one another, and him above all, my father and theirs, the dearest friend of their childhood, the noble gentleman who bred them from their infancy in the practice and knowledge of Truth, and Love, and Honour.

My children will never forget the appearance and figure of their revered grandfather j and I wish I possessed the art of drawing (which my papa had in perfection), so that I could leave to our descendants a portrait of one who was so good and so respected. My father was of a dark complexion, with a very great forehead and dark hazel eyes, overhung by eyebrows which remained black long after his hair was white. His nose was aquiline, his smile extraordinary sweet. How well I remember it, and how little any description I can write can recall his image ! He was of rather low stature, not being above five feet seven inches in height ; he used to laugh at my sons, whom he called his crutches, and say they were grown too tall for him to lean upon. But small as he was, he had a perfect grace and majesty of deportment, such as I have never seen in this country, except perhaps in our friend Mr Washington, and commanded respect wherever he appeared.

In all bodily exercises he excelled, and showed an extraordinary quickness and agility. Of fencing he was especially fond, and made my two boys proficient in that art ; so much so that when the French came to this country with Monsieur Rochambeau, not one of his officers was superior to my Henry, and he was not the equal of my poor George, who had taken the King’s side in our lamentable but glorious War of Independence.

IX

Neither my father nor my mother ever wore powder in their hair ; both their heads were as white as silver, as I can remember them. My dear mother possessed to the last an extraordinary brightness and freshness of complexion ; nor would people believe that she did not wear rouge. At sixty years of age, she still looked young, and was quite agile. It was not until after that dreadful siege of our house by the Indians, which left me a widow ere I was a mother, that my dear mother’s health broke. She never recovered her terror and anxiety of those days, which ended so fatally for me, then a bride scarce six months married, and died in my father’s arms ere my own year of widowhood was over.

From that day, until the last of his dear and honoured life, it was my delight and consolation to remain with him as his comforter and companion ; and from those little notes which my mother hath made here and there in the volume in which my father describes his adventures in Europe, I can well understand the extreme devotion with which she regarded him — a devotion so passionate and exclusive as to prevent her, I think, from loving any other person except with an inferior regard ; her whole thoughts being centred on this one object of affection and worship. I know that, before her, my dear father did not show the love which he had for his daughter ; and in her last and most sacred moments, this dear and tender parent owned to me her repentance that she had not loved me enough ; her jealousy even that my father should give his affection to any but herself ; and in the most fond and beautiful words of affection and admonition, she bade me never to leave him, and to supply the place which she was quitting. With a clear conscience, and a heart inexpressibly thankful, I think I can say that I fulfilled those dying commands, and that until his last hour my dearest father never had to complain that his daughter’s love and fidelity failed him.

And it is since I knew him entirely — for during my mother’s life he never quite opened himself to me — since I knew the value and splendour of that affection which he bestowed upon me, that I have come to understand and pardon what, I own, used to anger me in my mother’s lifetime, her jealousy respecting her husband’s love. ’Twas a gift so precious, that

X no wonder she who had it was for keeping it all, and could part with none of it, even to her daughter.

Though I never heard my father use a rough word, ’twas extraordinary with how much awe his people regarded him ; and the servants on our plantation, both those assigned from England and the purchased negroes, obeyed him with an eagerness such as the most severe taskmasters round about us could never get from their people. He was never familiar, though perfectly simple and natural ; he was the same with the meanest man as with the greatest, and as courteous to a black slave-girl as to the Governor’s wife. No one ever thought of taking a liberty with him (except once a tipsy gentleman from York, and I am bound to own that my papa never forgave him) : he set the humblest people at once on their ease with him, and brought down the most arrogant by a grave satiric way, which made persons exceedingly afraid of him. His courtesy was not put on like a Sunday suit, and laid by when the company went away ; it was always the same ; as he was always dressed the same, whether for a dinner by ourselves or for a great entertainment. They say he liked to be the first in his company ; but what company was there in which he would not be first ? When I went to Europe for my education, and we passed a winter at London with my half-brother, my Lord Castlewood, and his second lady, I saw at Her Majesty’s Court some of the most famous gentlemen of those days ; and I thought to myself none of these are better than my papa ; and the famous Lord Bolingbroke, who came to us from Dawley, said as much, and that the men of that time were not like those of his youth : — ‘‘Were your father. Madam,” he said, “ to go into the woods, the Indians would elect him Sachem ; ” and his Lordship was pleased to call me Pocahontas.

I did not see our other relative. Bishop Tusher’s lady, of whom so much is said in my papa’s Memoirs — although my mamma went to visit her in the country. I have no pride (as I showed by complying with my mother’s request, and marrying a gentleman who was but the younger son of a Suffolk Baronet), yet I own to a decent respect for my name, and wonder how one who ever bore it should change it for that of Mrs

XI

Thomas Tusher, I pass over as odious and unworthy of credit those reports (which I heard in Europe, and was then too young to understand), how this person, having left her family and fled to Paris, out of jealousy of the Pretender, betrayed his secrets to my Lord Stair, King George’s Ambassador, and nearly caused the Prince’s death there ; how she came to England and married this Mr Tusher, and became a great favourite of King George the Second, by whom Mr Tusher was made a Dean, and then a Bishop. I did not see the lady, who chose to remain at her palace all the time we were in London ; but after visiting her, my poor mamma said she had lost all her good looks, and warned me not to set too much store by any such gifts which nature had bestowed upon me. She grew exceedingly stout ; and I remember my brother’s wife. Lady Castlewood, saying : “ No wonder she became a favourite, for the King likes them old and ugly, as his father did before him.” On which papa said : ‘‘ All women were alike ; that there was never one so beautiful as that one; and that we could forgive her everything but her beauty.” And hereupon my mamma looked vexed, and my Lord Castlewood began to laugh ; and I, of course, being a young creature, could not understand what was the subject of their conversation.

After the circumstances narrated in the third book of these Memoirs, my father and mother both went abroad, being advised by their friends to leave the country in consequence of the transactions which are recounted at the close of the volume of the Memoirs. But my brother, hearing how the future Bishop's lady had quitted Castlewood and joined the Pretender at Paris, pursued him, and would have killed him. Prince as he was, had not the Prince managed to make his escape. On his expedition to Scotland directly after, Castlewood was so enraged against him that he asked leave to serve as a volunteer, and join the Duke of Argyle’s army in Scotland, which the Pretender never had the courage to face ; and thenceforth my Lord was quite reconciled to the present reigning family, from whom he hath even received promotion.

Mrs Tusher was by this time as angry against the Pretender as any of her relations could be, and used to boast, as I have heard, that she not only brought back my Lord to the Church

Xll of England, but procured the English peerage for him, which the junior branch of our family at present enjoys. She was a great friend of Sir Robert Walpole, and would not rest until her husband slept at Lambeth, my papa used laughing to say. However, the Bishop died of apoplexy suddenly, and his wife erected a great monument over him ; and the pair sleep under that stone, with a canopy of marble clouds and angels above them — the first Mrs Tusher lying sixty miles off at Castlewood.

But my papa’s genius and education are both greater than any a woman can be expected to have, and his adventures in Europe far more exciting than his life in this country, which was passed in the tranquil offices of love and duty ; and I shall say no more by way of introduction to his Memoirs, nor keep my children from the perusal of a story which is much more interesting than that of their affectionate old mother,

RACHEL ESMOND WARRINGTON.

Castlewood, Virginia, November 3 , 1778 .

Book I The early youth of Henry

Esmond^ up to the time of his leaving Trinity College, in Cambridge

CHAP.

I. AN ACCOUNT OF THE FAMILY OF ESMOND OF CASTLEWOOD HALL

II. RELATES HOW FRANCIS, FOURTH VISCOUNT, ARRIVES AT CASTLE- ^VOOD

III. WHITHER, IN THE TIME OF THOMAS, THIRD VISCOUNT, I HAD

PRECEDED HIM AS PAGE TO ISABELLA

IV. I AM PLACED UNDER A POPISH PRIEST AND BRED TO THAT

RELIGION VISCOUNTESS CASTLEWOOD . . . .

V. MY SUPERIORS ARE ENGAGED IN PLOTS FOR THE RESTORATION

OF KING JAMES THE SECOND . . . . .

VI. THE ISSUE OF THE PLOTS THE DEATH OF THOMAS, THIRD

VISCOUNT OF CASTLEWOOD ; AND THE IMPRISONMENT OF HIS VISCOUNTESS .......

VII. I AM LEFT AT CASTLEWOOD AN ORPHAN, AND FIND MOST KIND PROTECTORS THERE ......

VIII. AFTER GOOD FORTUNE COMES EVIL . . . . .

IX. I HAVE THE SMALL-POX, AND PREPARE TO LEAVE CASTLEWOOD

X. I GO TO CAMBRIDGE, AND DO BUT LITTLE GOOD THERE

XI. I COME HOME FOR A HOLIDAY TO CASTLEWOOD, AND FIND A

SKELETON IN THE HOUSE . . . . .

XII. MY LORD MOHUN COMES AMONG US FOR NO GOOD

XIII. MY LORD LEAVES US AND HIS EVIL BEHIND HIM

XIV. WE RIDE AFTER HIM TO LONDON . . . . .

PAGE

106 1 19 1 29

Book II Contains Mr Esmond^ s military life, and other matters appertaining

to the Esmond family

I. I AM IN PRISON, AND VISITED, BUT NOT CONSOLED THERE . 1 60

II. I COME TO THE END OF MY CAPTIVITY, BUT NOT OF MY

TROUBLE

XIV

Contents

CHAP.

III. I TAKE THE QUEEn’s PAY IN QUINTS REGIMENT .

IV. RECAPITULATIONS ........

V. I GO ON THE VIGO BAY EXPEDITION, TASTE SALTWATER, AND

SMELL POWDER .......

VI. THE 29TH DECEMBER .......

VII. I AM MADE WELCOME AT WALCOTE . . . . .

VIII. FAMILY TALK ........

IX. I MAKE THE CAMPAIGN OF 1 7O4 . . . . .

X. AN OLD STORY ABOUT A FOOL AND A WOMAN

XI. THE FAMOUS MR JOSEPH ADDISON . . . . .

XII. I GET A COMPANY IN THE CAMPAIGN OF I706 .

XIII. I MEET AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE IN FLANDERS, AND FIND MY

mother’s grave and my own cradle there .

XIV. THE CAMPAIGN OF I7O7, I 708 . . . . .

XV. GENERAL WEBB WINS THE BATTLE OF WYNENDAEL

PAGE

•195

23*

Book III Containing the end of Mr Esmond's adventures in England

I. I COME TO AN END OF MY BATTLES AND BRUISES

II. I GO HOME, AND HARP ON THE OLD STRING

III. A PAPER OUT OF THE “SPECTATOR” . . . .

IV. Beatrix’s new suitor .......

V. MOHUN APPEARS FOR THE LAST TIME IN THIS HISTORY

VI. POOR BEATRIX ........

VII. 1 VISIT CASTLEWOOD ONCE MORE . . . . .

VIII. I TRAVEL TO FRANCE, AND BRING HOME A PORTRAIT OF

IX. THE ORIGINAL OF THE PORTRAIT COMES TO ENGLAND .

X. WE ENTERTAIN A VERY DISTINGUISHED GUEST AT KENSINGTON

XI. OUR GUEST QUITS US AS NOT BEING HOSPITABLE ENOUGH .

XII. A GREAT SCHEME, AND WHO BALKED IT .

XIII. AUGUST 1 ST, 1714

4^7 43 ‘

List of Illustrations

FAGH

DEA CERTE ........ Frontispiece

ASSAILED BY THE MOB . . . . . . . .32

“ D N ! ’’ CRIED MY LORD CASTLEWOOD, OUT OF ALL PATIENCE.

“ask lord MOHUN what I SAID TO HIM, FRANCIS ’’ . . I 32

BENEDICTI BENEDICENTES . . . . . . . 1 59

AND AS SHE SPOKE SHE LOOKED AT HIM WITH A GLANCE SO FOND

AND IN THE STALLS, STILL IN HER BLACK WIDOw’s HOOD, SAT

Esmond’s dear mistress, her son by her side . . 206 so she came holding her dress with

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The History of Henry Esmond

Book I

The Early Youth of Henry Esmond, up to the Time of his Leaving Trinity College, in Cambridge

The actors in the old tragedies, as we read, piped their iambics to a tune, speaking from under a mask, and wearing stilts and a great head-dress. ’Twas thought the dignity of the Tragic Muse required these appurtenances, and that she was not to move except to a measure and cadence. So Queen Medea slew her children to a slow music : and King Agamemnon perished in a dying fall (to use Mr Dryden’s words) : the Chorus standing by in a set attitude, and rhythmically and decorously bewailing the fates of those great crown persons. The Muse of History hath encumbered herself with ceremony as well as her Sister of the Theatre. She too wears the mask and the cothurnus, and speaks to measure. She too, in our age, busies herself with the affairs only of kings ; waiting on them obsequiously and stately, as if she were but a mistress of court ceremonies, and had nothing to do with the registering of the affairs of the common people. I have seen in his very old age and decrepitude the old French King Lewis the Fourteenth, the type and model of kinghood — who never moved but to measure, who lived and died according to the laws of his court-marshal, persisting in enacting through life the part of Hero; and, divested of poetry, this was but a little wrinkled old man, pock-marked, and with a great periwig and red heels to make him look tall — a hero for a book if you like, or for a brass statue or a painted ceiling, a god in a Roman shape, but what more than a man for Madame Maintenon, or the barber

A who shaved him, or Monsieur Fagon, his surgeon ? I wonder shall History ever pull ofF her periwig and cease to be courtridden ? Shall we see something of France and England besides Versailles and Windsor ? I saw Queen Anne at the latter place tearing down the Park slopes, after her staghounds, and driving her one-horse chaise, a hot, red-faced woman, not in the least resembling that statue of her which turns its stone back upon St Paul’s, and faces the coaches struggling up Ludgate Hill. She was neither better bred nor wiser than you and me, though we knelt to hand her a letter or a wash-hand basin. Why shall History go on kneeling to the end of time ? I am for having her rise up off her knees, and take a natural posture : not to be for ever performing cringes and congees like a court chamberlain, and shuffling backwards out of doors in the presence of the sovereign. In a word, I would have history familiar rather than heroic : and think that Mr Hogarth and Mr Fielding will give our children a much better idea of the manners of the present age in England, than the Court Gazette and the newspapers which we get thence.

There was a German officer of Webb’s with whom we used to joke, and of whom a story (whereof I myself was the author) was got to be believed in the army, that he was eldest son of the hereditary Grand Bootjack of the Empire, and the heir to that honour of which his ancestors had been very proud, having been kicked for twenty generations by one imperial foot, as they drew the boot from the other. I have heard that the old Lord Castlewood, of part of whose family these present volumes are a chronicle, though he came of quite as good blood as the Stuarts whom he served (and who as regards mere lineage are no better than a dozen English and Scottish houses I could name), was prouder of his post about the court than of his ancestral honours, and valued his dignity (as Warden of the Butteries and Groom of the King’s Posset) so highly, that he cheerfully ruined himself for the thankless and thriftless race who bestowed it. He pawned his plate for King Charles the First, mortgaged his property for the same cause, and lost the greater part of it by fines and sequestration : stood a siege of his castle by Ireton, where his brother Thomas capitulated (afterward making terms with the Commonwealth, for which the elder brother never forgave him), and where his second brother Edward, who had embraced the ecclesiastical profession, was slain on Castlewood Tower, being engaged there both as preacher and artilleryman. This resolute old loyalist, who was with the King whilst his house was thus being battered down, escaped abroad with his only son, then a boy, to return and take a part in Worcester fight. On that fatal field Eustace Esmond was killed, and Castlewood fled from it once more into exile, and henceforward, and after the Restoration, never was away from the Court of the monarch (for whose return we offer thanks in the Prayer-Book) who sold his country and who took bribes of the French king.

What spectacle is more august than that of a great king in exile ? Who is more worthy of respect than a brave man in misfortune ? Mr Addison has painted such a figure in his noble piece of “ Cato.” But suppose fugitive Cato fuddJing himself at a tavern with a wench on each knee, a dozen faithful and tipsy companions of defeat, and a landlord calling out for his bill •, and the dignity of misfortune is straightway lost. The Historical Muse turns away shamefaced from the Vulgar scene, and closes the door — on which the exile’s unpaid drink is scored up — upon him and his pots and his pipes, and the tavern-chorus which he and his friends are singing. Such a man as Charles should have had an Ostade or Mieris to paint him. Your Knellers and Le Bruns only deal in clumsy and impossible allegories ; and it hath always seemed to me blasphemy to claim Olympus for such a wine-drabbled divinity as that.