a
nation not so well amalgamated with its neighbour a hundred years ago as
it is now. The protests of Scotland against foreign administration were
pretty well expressed in the history of Mary of Medici and the fate of La
Bastie. We have seen that Albany failed as Governor of Scotland because he
had too much of the Frenchman in him, and we have also seen that he and
his father, though they had still more of the Scot—the father, indeed, was
a pure native—had great influence at the French Court. In peering into the
minute specialties of his position, it is suggestive to find him acting
the part of the statesman on an occasion when there was outbreak against
some illegitimate influence being at work in the state, while his own,
though that of a foreigner, seems to have passed unquestioned. We are told
by Felibien, in his profuse circumstantial History of Paris, that Louis de
Berquin was sacrificed as the person who introduced des Livres
dangereux de Leuther, and that there was an insurrection in the
streets of Paris, with bloodshed, because the municipality thought fit to
resist the royal decree raising to the great office of Lieutenant-General
of the Isle of France, a prelate and a courtier of the Pope—Pierre Filhoti,
archbishop of Aix. Then we are told the King held a Lit de Justice, in
which the Duke of Albany, Prince of Scotland, was inaugurated, and sat
between the Duke of Alençon and the Bishop duke of Langres. On that
occasion, the King spoke of removing the Parliament to Poictiers, on
account of the turbulence of the Parisian mob, and the perversity of the
municipality. It would be difficult, as we read the story in Felibieils
circumstantial narrative, to invent a closer parallel to the scene in
Edinburgh, some fifty years later, when James VI. was scared away by the
vehement clergy, and threatened to take the Parliament, with its
appurtenances, to that quiet and decorous place, Stirling. At the crisis
of the battle of Pavia, Albany was sent on a mission to bring over Naples
to the cause of France; or perhaps it might more accurately be said, to
create a revolution there in favour of the French interest.
These things took place in one of
France’s many periods of difficulty and danger. We have seen that, in the
time of her greatest strait of all—the Hundred Years’ War—the Constable
Buchan, and Douglas Duke of Touraine, had great influence in the national
councils. At periods subsequent to the history of the Ancient League, the
destinies of France were occasionally ruled by foreigners, and among these
Scotland had, as we shall presently see, a good share—more, perhaps, than
Italy, deemed the workshop of statesmen,
had in Cardinal
Mazarin; unless, indeed, we shall count that the empire is at present
under the rule of an Italian dynasty.
Oliver Cromwell has the reputation
of disliking Scotland, but he was in some respects a good friend to the
country. True, he closed the door of the General Assembly, and placed a
couple of troopers to keep it shut; but there are other statesmen who
would do the same service to ecclesiastical bodies if they had the power.
A service it was, for it prevented two opposite protesting and detesting
parties from rushing into contest, and tearing away till the one had
annihilated the other. It is usually said that he put Scotland under the
English judges; but, on finding that the Court of Session was thoroughly
corrupt, what he really did was to appoint a commission of justice to
supersede it. On this commission there were some English names; but that
was part of his system of amalgamation. He professed to fill his offices
impartially from the United Protectorate, and, in fact, made one of the
Scots judges, Johnston of Warriston, chairman of his House of Lords.
Within his deep mind he had shaped
the policy of appointing a Scotsman to represent the Commonwealth at the
Court of France. It was the best tie that he could establish between the
new republic and the ancient monarchy, that one from the nation who had
ever been so much at home in France should now go thither. He found the
proper man in Sir William Lockhart, the brother of that Lord President
Lockhart who was slain in the High Street by Chiesly of Dalry, for
compelling him to support his family. The ambassador had a turn of
character still more haughty, brave, and independent, even than the judge.
He was on his way to France to seek his fortune, disgusted by what he
considered the conversion of his country into a mere province, when Oliver
caught him up. He probably thought it a very fair acknowledgment of the
equality and independence of his countrymen, that he should be himself
chosen for the most important mission which the Protector had to give. He
came afterwards into closer alliance with his master by marrying Miss
Rubina Sewster, a niece of the Protector. The authorship of the following
testimony to the character of the ambassador, in a recent work on
Cromwell, will be at once recognised. It is what, in the author’s native
language, is expressively called ‘kenspeckle:’ "it is thought that in
Lockhart the Lord Protector had the best ambassador of that age; a man of
distinguished qualities, of manifold adventures and employments; whose
biography, if he could find any biographer with real industry, instead of
sham industry—and, above all, with human eyes instead of pedant’s
spectacles, might still be worth writing in brief compass."
It was in 1656 that Lockhart went
over as ambassador from the republic to the Court of France, and his
principal function was to make the influence of Cromwell supreme at the
Cabinet of Paris, and crush any effort to co-operate with the exiled
children of Charles I. Clarendon tells us that "he was received with great
solemnity, and was a man of great address in treaty, and had a marvellous
credit and power with the Cardinal Mazarin." His negotiations may be
pretty completely traced through the fifth and sixth volumes of Thurloe’s
State Papers. It was part of the policy of the Cardinal that Cromwell’s
ambassador should at all events be received with distinguished courtesy on
his touching the shore of France. Lockhart describes his landing at Dieppe
on the 24th of April, and his reception by the Governor. "He said that he
had commands from the Duke of Longueville to receive me with as much
respect as possibly he could; that all Englishmen were likewise welcome to
this port, but more especially a person coming from his Highness the Lord
Protector, qualified with a public character; and that he did very much
rejoice it was his good fortune to be the first to have an opportunity to
testify to me the readiness of the French nation to express the good
correspondence and amity they desired to hold with England. With these and
several other the like discourses he did entertain me till we came to my
lodging—to which there had been a great difficulty of access, through the
multitude of people who flocked out to see me land, with great
acclamations in their mouths of welcome, and desires that God might
preserve me and mine from all danger, had not the Governor’s servants made
way for my passage."
The ovation accompanied him to the
foot of the throne, and did not stop there. But Lockhart had gone not to
be covered with honours and distinctions, but to do business, and that of
a very serious kind. The continued distinctions received by him,
especially when they were driven to the length of compelling him in the
service of his country to attend balls on the "Lord’s day," irritated
instead of conciliating him, and he soon suspected that these profuse
distinctions and kindnesses were heaped on him to stifle his utterance.
But both from temper and sagacity he was eminently a man not to be trifled
with. "Remember he is a courtier and Italian," is the policy towards
Mazarin which he impressed on others and practised bimself. He allowed the
minister no repose. On the 28th of June we find him writing: "All my late
addresses to his Eminence for audience have brought me no other return but
delays and new promises, which are paid in no better coin than that of
renewed excuses." And on the 24th July: "It seems the Court here will
spend so much time in resolving what to do next that they will lose all
opportunity of doing anything, and I am even wearied out with their delays
and excuses."
At length he got his opportunity,
and employed it to some purpose. Though he finally devoted himself to the
promotion of national interests, his first efforts were in favour of a
poor and persecuted people ;—it was by his bold diplomacy that Britain was
enabled to stretch out a helping hand to the Protestants of Piedmont. When
he passed from this matter to the more immediate relations of France and
England, the French had nothing of a practical nature to propose. No
matter;—Lockhart himself had a proposition of a very specific character.
The Protector was ready to aid
France in her war with Spain for a consideration. A French army under
Turenne with an English auxiliary force would take Mardyke and Dunkirk
from the Spaniards, and these acquisitions should be given over to the
Protector. The Cardinal was staggered by the distinctness and greatness of
the demand. Compromising offers were made for a division of the spoil, but
the ambassador was obstinate. These two fortified towns were what the
Protector especially demanded, and France must let him have them, or look
to it. Even after a concession of Lockhart’s demand, one difficulty
following another intercepted its fulfilment. Turenne, whom Lockhart
claimed as the right man for the work, "did absolutely refuse to undertake
the siege of Dunkirk," but was brought to reason. To the question, who
should command the English on the occasion, there was a simple and
immediate answer — Lockhart undertook it himself, and he seems to have
done so in the conviction that no other person could be trusted to play
out any part of the game with the wily Italian.
At length, in the words of
Clarendon, after "such lively instances with the Cardinal, and complaints
of their breach of faith, and some menaces that his master knew where
to find a more punctual friend," an allied army under Turenne and
Lockhart besieged Dunkirk. The French appear to have sent at first ten
thousand men. Lockhart’s force numbered six thousand, and it was remarked
that none of them were the countrymen of the commander, who were in use to
serve with the French, but all were Englishmen, acting for the time in
alliance with their old hereditary foes, "their natural enemies."
It is extremely curious, after the
history of our latest European war, to peruse even the dull official
records of a siege in which Frenchmen and Englishmen fought side by side
almost exactly two hundred years before they were to do so again. It is,
for instance, incidentally curious to find in Lockhart’s despatches such
an appreciation of the prowess of his allies as they have rarely received
from a British pen until the Russian war. In a common attack made by the
French and English, each on the counterscarp opposite to their own
approach, he says, that "the French, at their lodging upon their point of
the counterscarp, were discovered to our men that were lodged upon the
fort Leon—ours was not so; and to give your Lordship a true account of
what passed, I must say the French made the better lodgement, though that
we made stood us dearer than theirs did them; howsoever, I thank God for
it, both goes on reasonable well now; for when we came short of them in
the night, we made up by working in the day. The seamen, from whom I
expected much, did nothing extraordinary: and in-deed our people wanted
several things that would have contributed to their cheerful going through
with their business, for which I could not prevail, though twice or thrice
I importuned M. Turenne about it. I am this day preparing a battery and
platform for our mortar pieces," &c. And so it was in 1658 as in 1856; the
English soldier is deficient in many things needful to his achievements,
but one thing he always has and gives freely, his own blood; and he makes
his lodgment as effectually as his better-provided ally, though it costs
him dearer.
Lockhart’s own letters convey
unmistakable evidence that he was a vigilant purveyor. "If eight hundred
or one thousand beds could be sent, it would be a great accommodation to
our soldiers, of whom a great many sicken daily." Again, "We have not here
one bit of coals: the soldiers cannot be restrained from burning the
deal-boards that are in their houses; to send them a few coals will save
his Highness treble their price in boards." There is much solicitude about
the supply of hay, as to which Lockhart distrusts the French promises.
"The Cardinal promised to send me an express from England to-morrow, who
shall see the hay shipped, and will bring a list of such provisions as
they will need, and bills of exchange upon London to pay for them: but
that must not be trusted to, for the Cardinal being ready to depart, he is
so pressed with multiplicity of business, as seldom he remembers anything,
save just in the moment he is spoke to. So that if this express do not
come, I must beseech your Lordship to take care that the hay be at Mardyke
by the first of May, new style, and I must beg the same thing for the
recruits."
The next demand is for three
ministers, who are to have £180 a-year each, which he thinks is
encouragement enough to any honest man who hath zeal for his Master’s
service; and he is of opinion that "the popish priests who go a-begging to
vend their errors, will rise up in judgment against our ministers, who
cannot be yet persuaded, even upon reasonable terms, to preach the glad
tidings of salvation to their poor countrymen, who have some longing after
the ordinances of God."
After the fashion of the period, his
piety is minutely dovetailed into his practical sagacity. "There is one
part," he says, "of the general of ammunition that I must speak
particularly to, and that is hand-grenades. I know they have not been much
used in our English war, but I can assure your Lordship—and my former
opinion is confirmed by my present experience—that nothing can be more
essential either as to attack or defence; and if you have not any
considerable number of these shells in store, two or three thousand can be
bought in Holland, till you can provide more at your iron-works. A
soldier, with half-a-score grenades in his scrip, looks like a David,
before whom a Goliath, though armed, cannot stand." And continuing his
detailed criticism on garrison stores, he says all signifies little if
there be not sufficient tools and material for temporary fortification;
"and I can reckon nothing on this head so material as palisadoes; it’s one
of the best magazines can be in garrison; and he that hath men and store
of them, may dispose of every inch of ground under the command of his
cannon, and the spirit which must move and inform this confused and great
body, composed of a great many more individuals than I can at present
muster up, must be money;
which, as Solomon saith, under the protection
and blessing of God, will answer all things."
On the 3d of June there was a great
battle—Condé, Don John of Austria and the exiled Duke of York heading an
attack for the relief of the garrison, on the besieger’s army, led by
Turenne and Lockhart. This brought on a battle, eminent in the French
histories as the battle of the Dunes, because it was fought among the long
range of sandhills eastward of Dunkirk. It is seldom recognised in history
as one of the battles from which England derives honour. Yet the
contemporary French accounts—of which Sismondi provides a good
abridgment—describe the sanguinary and obstinate nature of the conflict on
the fortified ridge of the principal sand-hill, stormed by the English,
who there began the battle, and astonished both their Spanish opponents
and their French allies by the resolute and persevering obstinacy with
which they struggled through the natural difficulties in the ascent of a
sandhill, and fought at the summit, when they should have been exhausted
with their labours. The allies were victorious; and as the official report
says, "the French acknowledge to our nation the honour of this victory."
"As to the siege of Dunkirk," says Lord Fauconberg, writing to Thurloe,
"by the little discount I have had with the Duke de Crequi, Chevalier
Gramont, and others, I find they infinitely esteem my Lord Lockhart for
his courage, care, and enduring the fatigue beyond all men they ever saw."
On the 25th of June, Lockhart writes
conclusively, in that godly style which had become official among the
Cromwellian generals: "By the goodness of God your servant is now master
of Dunkirk—and indeed it is a much better place than I could have
imagined—blessed be God for His great mercy; and the Lord continue His
protection to his Highness, and His countenance to all his other
undertakings." But final success only renewed the diplomatic disputes with
the ally, who acted as if the acquisition were common to both nations.
Lockhart met this claim in the face, and extracted from the Cardinal an
acknowledgment that "His Highness (the Protector) had the only title to
all that can be claimed of jurisdiction over the town, as Prince and
Sovereign, and that he alone hath right to all the powers, profits, and
emoluments, that were due to any of their former princes."
It is picturesquely told, in
Kennet’s History, how one morning Cromwell sent suddenly to desire the
presence of the French ambassador at Whitehall, where he was upbraided
with the treachery of his master, in having given secret instructions to
Turenne, "to keep Dunkirk from the Englishman if he could." The
ambassador, with truth, protested his innocence and his ignorance, "upon
which," we are told, "Cromwell, pulling a paper out of his pocket, ‘Here,’
says he, ‘is the copy of the Cardinal’s other; and I desire you to
despatch immediately an express to let him know that I am not to be
imposed upon; and that if he deliver not up the keys of the town of
Dunkirk within an hour after it shall be taken, tell him I'll come in
person and demand them at the gates of Paris.’ This is one of the
Mephistopheles stories which frightened our great-grandfathers into
superstitious fancies about the ubiquity of Old Noll. Whether there is any
truth in it or not, it is pretty certain, from the documentary evidence,
that Lockhart put the matter right at his own hand.
Indeed, few men have better
exemplified the household precept that he who would have a thing done well
should do it himself. That there might be no question about the vigilance
and sagacity of the besieging general, the ambassador, as we have seen,
took that office on himself. After the place was taken and a governor was
required, he took that office also. He wrote to Thurloe a long, anxious
letter about the proper person to appoint as fort-major, and about the
difficulty of finding a deputy-governor who should act for the governor if
he fell ill, or had important calls elsewhere; but he seems never to have
supposed it an open question, that any one could be governor of the new
acquisition but he who had been the means of acquiring it.
Since the fall of Calais, England
had possessed no spot of earth on the European continent, and the
government of a province, which might possibly be the nucleus of further
British acquisitions, was an important matter. Lockhart reported to
Secretary Thurloe administrative arrangements to which few in the present
day would object. He says he considers himself bound to "reserve to the
inhabitants the enjoyment of their property, the liberty of their
conscience, and the administration of justice according to their usual
laws and customs, in all matters of difference between man and man. This,"
he continues to say, "is all his Highness is bound to by his treaty with
France; which being just in itself, I make it my study that all their
privileges of this nature be inviolably preserved—and, in so doing, give
full satisfaction both to the magistrates and inhabitants." A body of "Jesuites,
Capauchins, and Recollects," troubled him with difficulties about the oath
to reveal all plots against the supremacy of the Protectorate, and its
inconsistence with the privileges of the Confessional. But they found
themselves in honest hands, and gave little annoyance. In the Governor’s
practice the soldier and the gentleman got the better of the Puritan. He
kept his bargain apparently both in letter and in spirit, and the Romish
priests could not be safer, for all temporal purposes, than in the hands
of their honest religious enemy.
As ambassador he seems to have had
his share of the troubles caused by the pertinacity of the Quakers, who
were then in a very restless state, spreading themselves over the world in
search of martyrdom, and generally succeeding in finding it. The historian
of their persecutions praises him for the protection extended by him to
one of their number, who, exceedingly indignant that certain amusements
should be tolerated by law, lifted up his testimony against such
toleration. "At Morlaix, another of them (William Salt) being in prison
for reproving their maskings which are tolerated by law, and his life
vehemently sought after by the bailiff of the town for so doing: I shall
find the King, upon the information thereof by the English ambassador
Lockhart, by means of a merchant of that town whom God stirred up in the
thing—I say I shall find the King sending a letter, under his hand and
seal, to set him presently at liberty— taking notice, in the said letter,
that he was imprisoned for reproving of maskings tolerated by law; and
when the King was informed that he was not set at liberty, I shall find
him sending another letter to the Duke of Millan to see it effected: and
that upon it he was freed; he being, as it were, become but as the shadow
of a man through the hardship of his sufferings."
At the treaty of the Pyrenees, to
which Charles II. came as a humble suppliant, Lockhart was received with
high distinction as the representative of a great European power. But the
times were soon to change, and it was to be seen who should revolve with
the wheel, and who should remain steadily anchored to their own fixed
principles. None came better forth from the revolution of the Restoration
than Lockhart. Disregarding sell-interest, and those abstract questions
about monarchy and republicanism which can be so easily bent to the
service of self-interest, he threw himself on the simple code of military
fidelity. Dunkirk was the place where Charles desired to meet his friends;
and Lockhart, by receiving him there, might have rivalled Monk in his
claims on the new monarch. But he answered with brief simplicity that he
had been trusted with the fortress by the republic, and he would hold it
for the republic; and the joyful band of royalists had to seek a less
convenient place of assemblage at Breda. Hume, who says that Lockhart was
nowise averse to the King’s service, and that he resisted very urgent
persuasions, says, rather characteristically, "This scruple, though on the
present occurrence it approaches towards superstition, it is difficult for
us entirely to condemn."
There were, according to Clarendon,
other overtures which he probably had still less hesitation in rejecting.
It would have been extremely convenient to France to have got possession
of Mardyke and Dunkirk in the mêlée of the Restoration: "certain it
is," says Clarendon, "that at the same time that he refused to treat with
the King he refused to accept the great offers made to him by the
Cardinal, who had a high esteem for him, and offered to make him Marshal
of France, with great appointments of pensions and other emoluments, if he
would deliver Dunkirk and Mardyke into the hands of France; all which
overtures he rejected." And yet, strangely enough, it had been better for
the subsequent honour of England if he had acceded to them.
His opinions and his early training
inclining him to royalty, he resolved to lead the life of a quiet loyal
subject. He began to teach his countrymen the English method of
agriculture, but afterwards settled in Huntingdonshire, apparently to be
far away from the wretched disputes which were tearing his own country.
Proffers were made to him by the revolutionary party; if we may take
Burnet’s authority, Algernon Sydney himself took pains to secure the
co-operation of one whose courage was so valuable, and whose adherence to
the cause of the Commonwealth had been so tenacious. All their proffers,
however, were quietly but steadily rejected.
This honesty had the good fortune, rare in that age,
not to go unrewarded. He was employed at the Courts of Brandenburg and
Nuremberg at the time when King Charles entered on his celebrated secret
alliance with Louis XIV. for the destruction of Holland. It is said that
he suspected his mission to be virtually, though not avowedly, subservient
to this alliance; and Burnet attributes his broken health, and his death a
few years afterwards, to his mortification on this discovery. It is
perhaps scarcely consistent with this supposition, that he was soon
afterwards sent as King Charles’s ambassador to Paris. Again, as in the
days of Dunkirk, he showed his high spirit as a public man, and his
determination that the honour of England should not suffer in his hands.
Two characteristic anecdotes have been preserved of this mission.
According to one, he resolved to put down a practice of the French
privateers in seizing English merchant vessels, and obtaining condemnation
of them as Dutch vessels sailing under a fraudulent flag. Such a seizure
had just been made, and the vessel lay at Dunkirk. Lockhart went to Court
for an audience, and demanded her release. But the claim of the British
Government was disavowed to the French ambassador at the recommendation of
Pepys, the Secretary of the Admiralty, who said merchants were all rogues,
and the British Government admitted the prize to be fair. A very black
charge stands against the most candid and amusing of diarists, and it is
said that he had actually an interest in the French privateer, which was
built out of British navy stores purloined by him. It is very unlikely
that Lockhart knew anything about such malicious gossip—he knew only that
the majesty of England was insulted in his person, and he begged to be
recalled if his own Court declined to support him in the position he had
taken up. The Court of England did support him, and the vessel was
restored. Another story of his last mission to France I shall give in the
words of Burnet :—
"Lockhart had a French Popish
servant who was dying, and sent for the sacrament, upon which it was
brought, with the procession ordinary in such cases. Lockhart, hearing of
this, ordered his gates to be shut; and upon that many were inflamed, and
were running to force his gates; but he ordered all his family to stand to
their arms, and if any force was offered to fire. There was a great noise
made of this, but no force was offered. He resolved to complain first, and
so went to Court and expostulated upon it. He said his house was his
master's house, and here a public triumph was attempted on his master’s
religion, and affronts were offered him; he said, if a priest had brought
the sacrament privately he would have connived at it, but he asked
reparation for so public an injury. The King of France seemed to be highly
displeased at this, calling it the greatest indignity that had ever been
done to his God during his reign. Yet the point did not bear arguing; so
Lockhart said nothing to that. When Lockhart went from him, Pomponne
followed him, sent after him by the King, and told him he would force the
King to suffer none of his subjects to serve him. He answered he would
order his coachman to drive the quicker to Paris to prevent that, and left
Pomponne to guess the meaning. As soon as he came to his house he ordered
all his French servants to be immediately paid off and dismissed. The
Court of England was forced to justify him in all this matter. A public
letter of thanks was written to him upon it; and the Court of France
thought fit to digest it; but the French King looked on him ever after
with great coldness, if not with aversion."
He died at his post as English
Ambassador to the Court of France, in the year 1675. The only portrait of
Lockhart I ever happen to have seen is in Harding’s ‘Biographical Mirror.’
Though, like the other engravings in that curious book, a meagre stipple,
the attention of a casual inspector is sure to be arrested by the fine
forehead, the full expressive eyes, the haughty intellectual lip, and a
general air of handsome grandeur, which would remind one of the portraits
of Marlborough, were there not more candour and earnestness in the
expression.
A logically-minded reader will at
once feel that a man like Lockhart does not come within the category of
Scots abroad, as dealt with in my previous chapters. These were Scotsmen
who had found employment among foreigners, and their respective careers
are a united testimony to the propensity and qualifications of their
countrymen to seek their fortunes in other lands. An ambassador, on the
other hand, must of necessity be a man doing business in a foreign country
while he is in the employment of his own. It is quite true—I admit the
logical aberration, and have only to plead in excuse for having committed
it with the intention of repeating it, that it led me to some picturesque
little historical scenes which seemed worth noticing. One might, by the
way, in the instance of Lockhart, escape on a technicality. He was doing
one it least of his missions, in the service of a state foreign from his
own, though both were under the same monarch.
When he was sent by Charles IL to
the Court of France, he represented England only; Scotland, though still a
separate nation, with separate and even hostile interests, was too poor to
have an ambassador of her own.
