She told of the time when she rode behind her
brother, Sir Roger, to meet the King at Shrewsbury; and she almost
echoed the shout uttered in the streets of that loyal city, when the
University of Oxford sent in its plate to be coined for the exigences of
the royal cause. She told also, with grave humour, the anecdote of Queen
Henrietta making her escape with some difficulty from a house on
fire,--and, when her life was scarce secure from the flames that
consumed it, rushing back among them--to save her lap-dog! “But of all her historical anecdotes, Mrs Ann valued most what she had
to relate of her own family. On the virtue and valour of her brother Sir
Roger, she dwelt with an unction whose balm imparted itself to her
hearers; and even Elinor, in spite of the Puritanism of her early
principles, wept as she listened. But when Mrs Ann told of the King
taking shelter for one night in the Castle, under the protection only of
her mother and herself, to whom he intrusted his rank and his
misfortunes, (arriving under a disguise),--(Sir Roger being absent
fighting his battles in Yorkshire)--when she added that her aged mother,
Lady Mortimer, then seventy-four, after spreading her richest velvet
mantle, lined with fur, as a quilt for the bed of her persecuted
sovereign, tottered into the armoury, and, presenting the few servants
that followed her with what arms could be found, adjured them by brand
and blade, by lady’s love, and their hopes of heaven, to defend her
royal guest. When she related that a band of fanatics, after robbing a
church of all its silver-plate, and burning the adjacent vicarage, drunk
with their success, had invested the Castle, and cried aloud for “_the
man_” to be brought unto them, that he might be hewed to pieces before
the Lord in Gilgal--and Lady Mortimer had called on a young French
officer in Prince Rupert’s corps, who, with his men, had been billetted
on the Castle for some days--and that this youth, but seventeen years of
age, had met two desperate attacks of the assailants, and twice retired
covered with his own blood and that of the assailants, whom he had in
vain attempted to repel--and that Lady Mortimer, finding all was lost,
had counselled the royal fugitive to make his escape,--and furnished him
with the best horse left in Sir Roger’s stables to effect his flight,
while she returned to the great hall, whose windows were now shattered
by the balls that hissed and flew round her head, and whose doors were
fast yielding to the crows and other instruments which a Puritan smith,
who was both chaplain and colonel of the band, had lent them, and
instructed them in the use of--and how Lady Mortimer fell on her knees
before the young Frenchman, and adjured him to make good the defence
till King Charles was safe, and free, and far--and how the young
Frenchman had done all that man could do;--and finally, when the Castle,
after an hour’s obstinate resistance, yielded to the assault of the
fanatics, he had staggered, covered with blood, to the foot of the great
chair which that ancient lady had immoveably occupied, (paralyzed by
terror and exhaustion), and dropping his sword, _then for the first
time_, exclaimed, “J’ai fait mon devoir!” and expired at her feet--and
how her mother sat in the same rigour of attitude, while the fanatics
ravaged through the Castle,--drank half the wines in the cellar,--thrust
their bayonets through the family-pictures, which they called the idols
of the high-places,--fired bullets through the wainscot, and converted
half the female servants after their own way,--and on finding their
search after the King fruitless, in mere wantonness of mischief, were
about to discharge a piece of ordnance in the hall that must have
shattered it in pieces, while Lady Mortimer sat torpidly looking
on,--till, perceiving that the piece was accidentally pointed towards
the very door through which King Charles had passed from the hall, her
recollection seemed suddenly to return, and starting up and rushing
before the mouth of the piece, exclaimed, “_Not there!_--you shall not
_there_!”--and as she spoke, dropt dead in the hall. When Mrs Ann told
these and other thrilling tales of the magnanimity, the loyalty, and the
sufferings of her high ancestry, in a voice that alternately swelled
with energy, and trembled with emotion, and as she told them, pointed to
the spot where each had happened,--her young hearers felt a deep
stirring of the heart,--a proud yet mellowed elation that never yet was
felt by the reader of a written history, though its pages were as
legitimate as any sanctioned by the royal licenser at Madrid. “Nor was Mrs Ann Mortimer less qualified to take an interesting share in
their lighter studies. When Waller’s poetry was its subject, she could
tell of the charms of his Sacharissa, whom she knew well,--the Lady
Dorothea Sidney, daughter of the Earl of Leicester,--and compare, with
those of his Amoret, the Lady Sophia Murray. And in balancing the claims
of these poetical heroines, she gave so accurate an account of their
opposite styles of beauty,--entered so minutely into the details of
their dress and deportment,--and so affectingly hinted, with a
mysterious sigh, that there was _one_ then at court whom Lucius, Lord
Falkland, the gallant, the learned, and the polished, had whispered was
far superior to both,----that her auditors more than suspected she had
herself been one of the most brilliant stars in that galaxy whose faded
glories were still reflected in her memory,--and that Mrs Ann, amid her
piety and patriotism, still blended a fond reminiscence of the
gallantries of that court where her youth had been spent,--and over
which the beauty, the magnificent taste, and national _gaiete_ of the
ill-fated Henrietta, had once thrown a light as dazzling as it was
transient. She was listened to by Margaret and Elinor with equal
interest, but with far different feelings. Margaret, beautiful,
vivacious, haughty, and generous, and resembling her grandfather and his
sister alike in character and person, could have listened for ever to
narrations that, while they confirmed her principles, gave a kind of
holiness to the governing feelings of her heart, and made her enthusiasm
a kind of virtue in her eyes. An aristocrat in politics, she could not
conceive that public virtue could soar to a higher pitch than a devoted
attachment to the house of Stuart afforded for its flight; and her
religion had never given her any disturbance.----Strictly attached to
the Church of England, as her forefathers had been from its first
establishment, she included in an adherence to this not only all the
graces of religion, but all the virtues of morality; and she could
hardly conceive how there could be majesty in the sovereign, or loyalty
in the subject, or valour in man, or virtue in woman, unless they were
comprised within the pale of the Church of England.