Jane Dunn - Read My Heart - Dorothy Osborne and Sir William Temple, A Love Story in the Age of Revolution

Although Sir Peter maintained his royalist stronghold, parliament deposed the island’s royalist bailiff and dissolved the royal court, placing the government of Guernsey in the hands of twelve commissioners. The exploits of three of these, Careye, de Beauvoir and de Havilland, became the stuff of legend when in October 1643 they were captured through trickery and brought to Castle Cornet as prisoners, only to effect a miraculous escape some six weeks later and within hours of being hanged. Careye’s memoir is interesting in evoking the high state of tension between the island and its governor, the daily alarms and dangers that the garrison and islanders endured, the shortage of food, * the hunger for news from the mainland. He also mentioned that Sir Peter had both his sons with him in late October when the commissioners were first brought into the castle as prisoners.

The news of the war that filtered back to Sir Peter in his isolated keep at first looked hopeful for the royalist cause. By the end of 1644 a loyal optimist could consider Charles had gained the upper hand and was well placed to take London. The following February, however, saw the establishment of parliament’s New Model Army and by early summer the royalist momentum was slammed into reverse. The new army’s comprehensive defeat of Charles I and Prince Rupert in the Battle of Naseby in June 1645 marked the beginning of the end for the king.

In the face of the debacle on the mainland, Sir Peter Osborne’s struggle to hold Castle Cornet was low on the list of royalist priorities and the defence of the strategic fort for the king was largely financed by his own resources. He set his family to work raising extra funds against his own property in support of the crown’s interest. Dorothy’s mother had already been employed in support of her embattled husband. By the beginning of 1643 Lady Osborne had travelled from Chicksands to Jersey to try to negotiate support from Sir George Carteret. This involved raising bonds against the Osborne estate to pay for any provisions that might be forthcoming.

The period of the civil war propelled women from the domestic sphere into political activity, even war, providing many opportunities to exhibit their courage and executive abilities while their men were away fighting or already dead. Stories were commonplace of remarkable women who resisted the opposing armies’ sieges of their houses and castles, one of the most notable being the royalist Countess of Derby who, refusing safe conduct from Latham House in Lancashire, withstood a three-month siege there in 1644, only surrendering the house at the end of the following year when the royalist cause was all but lost. However she then, with her husband, held Castle Rushen on the Isle of Man for the king. Again, with the earl away fighting in England, she attempted to withstand parliamentary forces, eventually having the distinction of being probably the last person in the three kingdoms to submit to the victorious parliament in October 1651.

The defence of Castle Cornet and the attempt to deliver practical assistance to the besieged lieutenant governor involved all Sir Peter Osborne’s immediate family. His letters mention his sons John, Henry and Charles who were variously visiting the castle, supporting the garrison, organising funds and provisions and running messages to the king or his followers. His wife, and on some occasions certainly Dorothy herself, were frantically pawning the family’s silver and begging for gifts and loans to finance Sir Peter’s defence. Dorothy suggested that her recoil from being pitied and the more melancholy aspects of her nature dated from this time of fear, uncertainty and danger. In the summer of 1645 Dorothy’s father sent word to their mother, via her brother John, that since her departure he and his men had had no more to eat than one biscuit a day and porridge at night, but he was adamant that any supporters of parliament, should they ask, were to be told instead that everyone at Castle Cornet was well and sufficiently supplied. Sir Peter was sixty when he wrote this, an old man by the standards of the time, and yet he suffered the daily strain and deprivation of this lengthy siege, largely unsupported by the monarch for whose cause he was sacrificing fortune, life and family.

Dorothy’s endurance of these betrayals and humiliations along with her mother taught her some baleful lessons. She described her sense of injustice, her fear that fleeting glimpses of happiness were easily crushed by a disproportionate weight of misfortune, that each flicker of hope revived the spirits only to have them dashed again, leaving her resigned to the dreariness of life:

This world is composed of nothing but contrariety’s and sudden accidents, only the proportions are not at all Equall for to a great measure of trouble it allow’s soe small a quantitye of Joy that one may see tis merely intended to keep us alive withal … I think I may (without vanity) say that nobody is more sencible of the least good fortune nor murmur’s lesse at any ill then I doe, since I owe it merely to custome and not to any constancy in my humor or something that is better; noe in Earnest any thing of good com’s to mee like the sun to the inhabitants of Groenland [Greenland] it raises them to life when they see it and when they misse it it is not strange they Expect a night half a yeer long. 25

Parliament was keen to persuade Sir Peter Osborne to surrender Castle Cornet and after only a year of siege had offered to return his confiscated estates to him. Liberty for himself and his garrison with the freedom to return to England to take up their lives and property with impunity was the generous and tempting offer. He was threatened that, should he refuse, such favourable terms would never be offered again: his estates would be sold and lost to him for ever. Gallantly, pig-headedly even, the old cavalier pursued his Quixotic destiny: ‘Gentlemen – Far be from me that mean condition to forfeit my reputation to save an estate that, were it much more than it is not, would be of too light consideration to come in balance with my fidelity, and in a cause so honourable, where there is no shame in becoming poor, or hazard in meeting death.’ 26

Despite the fundraising activities of Lady Osborne and her children in St Malo, the family could not single-handedly support Castle Cornet and conditions for everyone continued to deteriorate. Dorothy and her mother were virtually homeless; three of her brothers were away engaged in various military and administrative duties on behalf of the king. Impoverished and anxious for the safety and health of their father, they could only imagine how he was enduring his lonely siege. By the end of 1644, facing winter, he wrote apologetically to King Charles pointing out that he had exhausted his own resources, had lost his estate and he and his men were facing starvation and forced surrender unless provisions were rapidly sent to the castle. He regretted mentioning the loss of his estate to his monarch, he said, but as he had exhausted all his resources he explained it was necessary to be so blunt, ‘only to make it appear in what need I stand of further help, having nothing left to serve your majesty with, but with my life, which likewise upon all occasion I shall, by the grace of God, be most ready to lay down’. 27 Two boats were dispatched from Jersey but the Guernseymen, aware that the castle was running out of food and fuel and soon would be forced to surrender, manned the artillery on the coast and sent out armed men in boats to try to intercept the supplies. Cannon were fired and a sporadic battle ensued but on this occasion the boats got through, the provisions were unloaded and the castle could hold out for a few months more.

By now the relations between Sir George Carteret in Jersey and Sir Peter Osborne on lonely watch in Guernsey had broken down completely. They were both royalist governors struggling against the political tide, short of supplies and support. However Carteret had freedom of movement and islanders who themselves had remained loyal. Although he attempted and sometimes succeeded in getting provisions through to the besieged castle on the neighbouring island, Carteret was more interested in looking after his own political and financial interests. There was a general belief that he grew rich during these troubled times on the cargoes of intercepted ships and the proceeds of piracy, so much so that it was estimated that he increased his family’s fortune by about £60,000 – a fortune of more than £7 million by modern standards. With both men engaged in the same cause, the rewards available to the opportunistic Carteret contrasted bleakly with the destruction of the Osborne fortunes. Carteret meanwhile had grown tired of Sir Peter’s complaints and continual requests for food and fuel when his own community needed all that was available. More seriously, he had grown suspicious of the activities of the whole Osborne family who, disenchanted, were increasingly acting independently of him. Osborne himself had realised he could not rely on Carteret, and his family subsequently looked further afield in their search for support.