Introduction xi 



of his valour and prudence ; and in another of his truth 

 and generosity, reason and knowledge. Hers was the 

 girl's devotion to a veteran or great soldier: 



" And to his honour and vahant parts 

 Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate." 



She did it the more enthusiastically because she knew 

 his generalship in the northern campaign had been 

 badly criticised and his flight from England made to 

 look ugly. When we recount the brilliant chapter, 

 abruptly ended, in which he figured in the Civil War, 

 we have to admit that wounded vanity and a fear of 

 laughter may be as dangerous to a man's career as 

 physical cowardice. Clarendon's History of the Rebellion 

 and Rupert's Diary leave the case against the Marquis 

 of Newcastle at an acute angle; and it only remains for 

 us to learn how much to heart he and the Duchess took 

 the criticism levelled at him. " 'Tis the life of their 

 fame and death of their name that honourable and 

 valiant men so much love and fear," she says in her 

 funeral oration for a general. 



Clarendon sums up the Marquis (as he then was) in a 

 passage often quoted,^ which is a necessary footnote 

 to the Life. It cannot be denied, he had already said, 

 that the Earl of Newcastle, by his rapid winter march 

 with his troops, had saved the city of York from the 

 rebels when they had it in their grasp. " He liked the 

 pomp and absolute authority of a general well," Claren- 

 don continues, " and preserved the dignity of it to the 

 full. . . . But the substantial part and fatigue, he did 

 not in any degree understand (being utterly unac- 

 quainted with war); " the more tedious matters of 

 detail he left to General King. We are told of his 

 invincible courage and his fearlessness in danger, and 

 his " exposing himself notoriously, which did sometimes 

 change the fortune of the day when his troops began to 

 give ground." But, and here lies the plain clue to his 

 failure, he was that most deadly of all things in war, a 

 dilettante. " Such articles of action were no sooner 



^viii, 85. 



