The Works of Thomas Carlyle/Volume 6/Letter 52

by Thomas Carlyle

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LETTER LII

Robert Hammond, Governor of the Isle of Wight, who has for the present become so important to England, is a young man ‘of good parts and principles’: a Colonel of Foot; served formerly as Captain under Massey in Gloucester;—where, in October 1644, he had the misfortune to kill a brother Officer, one Major Gray, in sudden duel, ‘for giving him the lie’; he was tried, but acquitted, the provocation being great. He has since risen to be Colonel, and become well known. Originally of Chertsey, Surrey; his Grandfather, and perhaps his Father, a Physician there. His Uncle, Thomas Hammond, is now Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance; a man whom, with this Robert, we saw busy in the Army Troubles last year. The Lieutenant-General, Thomas Hammond, persists in his. democratic course; patron at this time of the Adjutator speculations; sits afterwards as a King’s-Judge.

In strong contrast with whom is another Uncle, Dr. Henry Hammond, a pattern-flower of loyalty, one of his Majesty’s favourite Chaplains. It was Uncle Thomas that first got this young Robert a Commission in the Army: but Uncle Henry had, in late months, introduced him to his Majesty at Hampton Court, as an ingenuous youth, repentant, or at least sympathetic and not without loyalty. Which circumstance, it is supposed, had turned the King’s thoughts in that bewildered Flight of his, towards Colonel Robert and the Isle of Wight.

Colonel Robert, it would seem, had rather disliked the high course things were sometimes threatening to take, in the Putney Council of War; and had been glad to get out of it for a quiet Governorship at a distance. But it now turns out, he has got into still deeper difficulties thereby. His ‘temptation’ when the King announced himself as in the neighbourhood, had been great: Shall he obey the King in this crisis; conduct the King whitherward his Majesty wishes? Or be true to his trust and the Parliament? He ‘grew suddenly pale’;—he decided as we saw.

The Isle of Wight, holding so important a deposit, is put under the Derby-House Committee, old ‘Committee of Both Kingdoms,’ some additions being made thereto, and some exclusions. Oliver is of it, and Philip Lord Wharton, among others. Lord Wharton, a conspicuous Puritan and intimate of Oliver’s; of whom we shall afterwards have occasion to say somewhat.

This Committee of Derby House was, of course, in continual communication with Robert Hammond. Certain of their Letters to him had, after various fortune, come into the hands of the Honourable Mr. Yorke (Lord Hardwicke); and were lying in his house, when it and they were, in 1752, accidentally burnt. A Dr. Joseph Litherland had, by good luck, taken copies; Thomas Birch, lest fire should again intervene, printed the Collection,—a very thin Octavo, London, 1764. He has given some introductory account of Robert Hammond; copying, as we do mainly here, from Wood’s Athene;^[1] and has committed—as who does not—several errors. His Annotations are sedulous but ineffectual. What of the Letters are from Oliver we extract with thanks.

‘Our brethren’ in the following Letter are the Scots, now all excluded from Derby-House Committee of Both Kingdoms. The ‘Recorder’ is Glyn, one of the vanished Eleven, Stapleton being another; for both of whom it has been necessary to appoint substitutes in the said Committee.

 

FOR COLONEL ROBERT HAMMOND, GOVERNOR OF THE ISLE OF WIGHT: THESE, FOR THE SERVICE OF THE KINGDOM. HASTE: POST HASTE

“London,” 3d Jan. 1647.
(My Lord Wharton’s, near Ten at night.)

Dear Robin,—Now, blessed be God, I can write and thou receive freely. I never in my life saw more deep sense, and less will to show it unchristianly, than in that which thou didst write to us when we were at Windsor, and thou in the midst of thy temptation,—which indeed, by what we understand of it, was a great one, and occasioned^[2] the greater by the Letter the General sent thee; of which thou wast not mistaken when thou didst challenge me to be the penner.^[3]

How good has God been to dispose all to mercy! And although it was trouble for the present, yet glory has come out of it; for which we praise the Lord with thee and for thee. And truly thy carriage has been such as occasions much honour to the name of God and to religion. Go on in the strength of the Lord; and the Lord be still with thee.

But, dear Robin, this business hath been, I trust, a mighty providence to this poor Kingdom and to us all. The House of Commons is very sensible of the King’s dealings, and of our brethren’s,^[4] in this late transaction. You should do well, if you have anything that may discover juggling, to search it out and let us know it. It may be of admirable use at this time , because we shall, I hope, instantly go upon business in relation to them,^[5] tending to prevent danger.

The House of Commons has this day voted as follows: 1st, They will make no more Addresses to the King; 2nd, None shall apply to him without leave of the Two Houses, upon pain of being guilty of high treason; 3rd, They will receive nothing from the King, nor shall any other bring anything to them from him, nor receive anything from the King; lastly, the Members of both Houses who were of the Committee of Both Kingdoms are established im all that power in themselves, for England and Ireland, which they “formerly” had to act with England and Scotland; and Sir John Evelyn of Wilts is added in the room of Mr. Recorder, and Nathaniel Fiennes in the room of Sir Philip Stapleton, and my Lord of Kent in the room of the Earl of Essex.^[6] I think it good you take notice of this; the sooner the better.

Let us know how it is with you in point of strength, and what you need from us. Some of us think the King well with you, and that it concerns us to keep that Island in great security, because of the French, etc.: and if so,^[7] where can the King be better? If you have more force “sent,” you will be sure of full provision for them. The Lord bless thee. Pray for thy dear friend and servant,

OLIVER CROMWELL.^[8]

 

In these same days noisy Lilburn has accused Cromwell of meaning or having meant to make his own bargain with the King, and be Earl of Essex and a great man. Noisy John thinks all great men, especially all Lords, ought to be brought low. The Commons have him at their bar in this month.^[9]

1. iii, 500.
2. rendered.
3. See antea, p. 274.
4. the Scots.
5. Ibid.
6. Essex is dead; Stapleton, one of the Eleven who went to France, is dead; Recorder Glyn, another of them, is in the Tower. For the ‘Votes,’ see Commons Journals, v. 415 (3d January 1647-8).
7. If we do secure and fortify it.
8. Birch’s Hammond Letters, p. 23. Given also in Harris, p. 497.
9. 19th January, Commons Journals, v. 437.