Charles Lucas was one of Margaret Cavendish’s brothers. An anti-Royalist mob sacked their home in 1642. This was when Madge was sent off to Oxford to live with her sister. She gained a place as one of Henrietta Maria’s ladies in waiting and went into exile with her.
Charles meanwhile as a younger brother was Cambridge educated but expected to make his own way in the world. Like so many other younger sons he spent much of the 1630s on the Continent fighting in the Thirty Years War. When Charles I declared war on the Scots in 1638, Charles returned home to fight in the so-called Bishop’s War. He commanded a troop of horse under his brother Sir John Lucas’s command. As a consequence he was knighted by the king and for those of you who like a Yorkshire link was made Governor of Richmond in 1639. During the civil war itself Charles was part of Prince Rupert’s cavalry. Later he transferred to the army of the Marquis of Newcastle – who Charles’ sister Madge would marry in 1645 in exile in Paris.
Eventually in 1646 Charles was taken prisoner at the Battle of Stow-On-The-Wold. He gave his parole to Sir Thomas Fairfax that he would lay down his arms and go home.
Lucas went back on his word in June 1648 when Lord Goring, fresh from the rebellion in Kent, arrived in East Anglia. Lucas occupied his home town, Colchester, in the name of the King. The intention was to raise support in East Anglia but instead of which Thomas Fairfax surrounded Colchester and settled in for a siege. Things were somewhat complicated by the fact that Fairfax absolutely refused to negotiate with Lucas – who had broken his parole. Lucas was executed – by firing squad (a fact which I couldn’t remember this morning.) He and Lord Lisle were excluded from the terms that ended the siege because they had gone back on their words. This may not have been strictly legal. His tomb states that he was barbarously murdered. The portrait of Sir Charles Lucas at the start of this post can be found in Colchester Castle.
I have posted abut the Siege of Colchester before. That post can be found here: https://thehistoryjar.com/tag/charles-lucas/
On August 22nd1642 King Charles I raised his standard at Nottingham Castle. Whilst times had been increasingly discordant this act effectively marked the start of the First English Civil War which lasted until 1646.
Meanwhile in Colchester the house of ‘Mad Madge’ Cavendish’s parents’ was sacked by Puritans on the 22nd August 1642. Mad Madge had not yet acquired that name nor had she yet entered the service of Queen Henrietta Maria or married the royalist Duke of Newcastle. She was still the youngest of eight children sired by Sir John Lucas. Madge’s father was a prominent royalist in the area. The relationship between him and the citizens of Colchester had deteriorated over the years. It probably didn’t help that East Anglia had strong Puritan sympathies and Lucas was suspected of being a Papist. This event was not a one off though. The Stour valley had become increasingly restless during 1642. Unemployment was high. Rumours became wilder and anti-popery became more rife. The Countess of Rivers, for instance, found herself under siege by the people of Melford. Melford Hall was partially destroyed as a consequence. Parliament did not condone the harassment of the widowed countess – though how they may have felt when she spent her wealth on supporting the Crown is another matter entirely. She would eventually find herself in a debtor’s prison as a consequence of her loyalty.
Sir William Brooke (1565-1597) was the son of William Brooke, 10th Lord Cobham Warden of the Kent Cinque Ports (1527 to 1597) pictured at the start of this post. He was of a similar vintage to Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex and Elizabeth’s replacement for Dudley in the royal favourite stakes after his death in 1588. Like other Elizabethan gentlemen he did a stint in the continental religious wars being knighted by Essex in 1591 at Dieppe. He was, in short, one of the new breed of men in Elizabeth’s court.
It is perhaps not surprising that Lucas found himself at the wrong end of an arrest warrant, William Brooke’s father the 10th Lord Cobham (who had died on March 6 1597) was a man with clout. Brooke’s sister Elizabeth was the wife of Sir Robert Cecil – the most important man in the kingdom. She had also died at the beginning of 1597 but there were still family and political ties that were wielded by the new Lord Cobham – Henry Brooke – pictured left. He had been invested as Warden of the Cinque Ports on the same month that his father died.