Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges

family through Dorothea, daughter and heiress of Edward, Earl and Marquis of Esmond, and Lord of Castlewood, wh

James the First; and, being of a military disposition, remained long in Germany with the Elector-Palatine, in whose service Sir Francis incurred both expense an

e First, who graciously conferred upon this tried servant the post of Warden of the Butteries and Groom of the

mond, knight and banneret, first as his [pg 022] father's lieutenant, and afterwards as inheritor of his father's title and dig

the city of London, alderman and goldsmith, who, taking the Parliamentary side in the troubles then commencing, disappointed Sir George

n, and the king being at Oxford in 1642, Sir George, with the consent of his father, then very aged and inf

f Viscount Castlewood, of Shandon, in Ireland: and the viscount's estate being much impoverished by loans to the king, which in those troublesome times his Majesty could no

y his eldest son, the before-named George; and left issue besides, Thomas, a colonel in the king's army, that afterwards joined the Usu

ncerned in almost all of the plots against the Protector, after the death of the king, and up to King Charles the Second's restoration. My lord [pg 023] followed that king's Court about in its exile, having ruined himself in its service. He had but one daughter, who was of no great comfort to her father; fo

Castlewood was at first so much enraged to think that his title (albeit little more than an empty one now) should pass to a rascally Roundhead, that he would have married again, and indeed proposed to do so to a vintner's daughter at Bruges, to whom his lordship

lity. Jack Churchill, Frank Esmond's lieutenant in the royal regiment of foot guards, getting the company which Esmond vacated, when he left the Court and went to Tangier in a rage at discovering that his promotion depended on the complaisance of his elderly affianced bride. He and Churchill, who had been condiscipuli at St. Paul's School, had words about this matter; and Frank Esmond said to him with an oath, "Jack, your sister may be so-and-so, but by Jove, my wife shan't!" and swords were drawn, and blood drawn, too, until friends separated them on this quarrel.

nt in the royal service his youth and fortune, did not retrieve the latter quite, and never cared to visit Castlewood, or repair it

g. In these campaigns Thomas Esmond was more remarked for duelling, brawling, vice, and play, than for any conspicuous gallantry in the field, and came back to England, like many another English gentleman who has travelled, with a character by no means improved by his fo

ke a beauty of her-Mr. Killigrew called her the Sibyl, the death's-head put up at the king's feast as a memento mori, &c.-in fine, a woman who might be easy of conquest, but whom only a very bold man would think of conquering. This bold man w

had frequented the one as long as he had money to spend among the actresses, now came to the church as assiduously. He looked so lean and shab

passed under my lord's coach window, his lordship going in state to his place at Court, while his nephew slunk by with his

s on the other days: and, to show how great his appetite was, Mr. Wycherley said, he ended by swallowing that fly-blown rank old morsel his cousin. There were endless jokes and lampoons about this marriage at Court: b

ld satisfy my lord and lady, especially the latter, but having the poor little cripple touched by his Majesty at his church. They were ready to cry out miracle at first (the doctors and quack-salvers being constantly in attendance on the child, and experimenting on his poor little body with every conceivable nostrum)-but though there seeme

rival Frank Esmond's wife, who was a favourite of the whole Court, where my poor Lady Castlewood was neglect

was constantly sending over to Hexton for the doctor, and announcing to her friends the arrival of an heir. This absurdity of hers was one amongst many others which the wags used to play upon. Indeed, to the last days of her life, my lady visco

s jealousy of Frank Esmond's wife: others, that she was forced to retreat after a great battle which took place at Whitehall, between her ladyship and Lady Dorchester, Tom Killigrew's daughter, whom the king delighted to honour, and in which that ill-favoured Esther got the better of our elderly Vashti. But her ladyship for her part always averred that it was her husband's quarrel, and not her own, which occasioned the banishment of the two into the country; and the cruel ingratitude of the sovereign in giving away, out of the family, that place of Warden of [pg

s, and furniture, brought from the house in London. My lady meant to have a triumphal entry into Castlewood village, and expected the people to cheer as she drove over the Green in her great coach, my lord beside her, her gentlewomen, lap-dogs, and cockatoos on the opposite seat, six horses to her carriage, and servants armed and mounted, following it and preceding it. But 'twas in the height of the No-Popery cry; the folks in the village and the neighbouring town were scared by the sight of her ladyship's painted face and eyelids, as she bobbed her head out of the coach window, meaning no doubt to be very gracious; and one old woman said, "Lady Isabel! lord-a-mercy, it's Lady [pg 028] Jezebel!" a name by which the enemies of the right

them in private, too, and slept with them round her neck; though the writer can pledge his word that this was a calumny. "If she were to take them off," my Lady Sark said, "Tom E

loudly amongst his flock. As for my lord, he gave no great trouble, being considered scarce more than an appendage to my lady, who as daughter of the old lords of Castlewood, and posse

g