THE LADY CHARLOTTE DELE TREMOVILLE, COUNTESS of DERBY. From, an Original Picture, in the Collection of the R. Hon. "The Earl of Orford, ut Strambery H.II. Pub, Aug, 12792. byE&SHardingPall Mall, MEMOIRS O F CHARLOTTE, COUNTESS OF DERBY. Ob. March 21, 1663. THIS 'HIS Lady, a woman of very high and princely extraction*, being daughter of Claude, Duke of Tremouille, in France, by Charlotte, daughter of William of Nassau, Prince of Orange, (and Charlotte de Bourbon+,) was wife of that truly heroic loyalist, James, the 7th Earl of Derby, who was cruelly put to death by the rebels in 1651. When her husband, upon information that the rebels had a design upon the Isle of Man, was ordered thither for the security of that place, he left his house at LATHOм, in Lancashire, under the care of this his incomparable lady, to whose charge he committed his children, house, and other English concerns. The enemy therefore now looked upon this house as their own, little expecting considerable resistance from a woman, and a stranger. She, hearing of this, furnished herself with men, arms, and ammunition, with all the diligence and secrecy imaginable; the men who were raw she caused to be disciplined; and all this so privately, that the enemy were advanced within two miles of the house, before they dreamed of opposition. On Feb. 28, 1644, Sir Thomas Fairfax came with a trumpet to her, desiring a conference; on his admission, her men were so arrayed as to make the greatest show: he offered honourable terms; she answered, she was under a double trust to her King, and to her husband, and that without their leave she could not give it up, desiring therefore a month's time for her answer. On this being refused, she told them, she hoped they would excuse her, if she preserved her honour and obedience, though in her own ruin. Orders now were given by Fairfax for a formal siege. Lathom House stood on a flat, boggy, and spurnous ground, encompassed with a wall Dugd. Bar. 11. 254. * See Lord Clarendon's History, III. 412. H the of two yards thick; without was a moat of eight yards wide, and two yards deep. On the walls were nine towers flanking them; and on each tower six pieces of ordnance, which played three one way, and three another. Besides these, there was in the middle house an high tower, called the Eagle Tower: the gate-house also being a strong and lofty building, standing at the entrance of the first court. On the top of all which towers stood the choicest marksmen, (keepers, fowlers, and the like) who shrewdly galled the enemy, and cut off several of their officers in the trenches*. After many sallies of incredible valour, under the Countess's orders, which were wonderfully successful, and after a four months' siege, and the loss of 2,000 men of the assailants, Colonel Rigby, their commander, sent the Countess a huffing summons, to which she returned this answer: "Trumpet, tell that insolent rebel Rigby, that if he presume to send another summons within this place, I will have messenger hanged up at the gates." The Earl hearing of his noble Lady's distresses hastened to her relief, took the town of Bolton, and repaired and fortified Lathom House, and at his departure left it, by the Countess's desire, under the governorship of Col. Edward Rawsthorne, who stoutly defended it for two years more, in a second siege; but at last by his Majesty's orders, delivered it up, it having cost the enemy no less than 6,000 men ; and the garrison about 400, it being one of the last places in the realm that held out for the King+. This incomparable heroine, now retired with her husband to the Isle of Man, until it was betrayed by one who had been her own servant, who having corrupted the inhabitants, seized on her and her children, and kept them prisoners, without any other relief than what she obtained from the charity of her impoverished friends, till the Restoration; after which she died, March 21, 1663, and was buried at Ormskirkt. Her male issue failed in her grandson, 1736; the Duke of Athol is descended from her daughter, and the earldom of Derby is enjoyed by a collateral branch. * Dudg. Bar. II. 252. Lathom House was sold by the old Earl of Derby to Serjeant Bootle, who rebuilt it. + There are MS. journals of the siege among the Harl. MSS, See a fuller account in Dugd. Bar. ut supr, |