Читать книгу The First Duke and Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne онлайн

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ssss1 Cavendish’s son, Henry, married a grand-daughter of Lord Newark. Lord Newark lost his life through Cavendish’s brother, Sir Charles Cavendish. The Parliamentarians had captured Lord Newark—then Earl of Kingston—and were taking him in a boat to Hull. Sir Charles pursued them and demanded that they should stop and release the Earl. On their refusing, Sir Charles ordered his men to fire, when they unfortunately killed Kingston and his servant. They afterwards captured the boat and slew all its crew. Kingston had strongly disapproved of the King’s despotic measures; but could not bring himself to join the Parliamentary party against the sovereign to whom he owed all his honours: therefore he decided to be neutral. When urged to join the Roundhead army, he replied: “When I take arms with the King against the Parliament, or with the Parliament against the King, let a cannon bullet divide me between them”. On the occasion described above, when the men in Sir Charles Cavendish’s boat opened fire upon that in which Kingston was a prisoner, Kingston hurried on deck “to show himself, and to prevail with them to forbear shooting; but as soon as he appeared, a cannon bullet flew from the King’s army, and divided him in the middle, being then in the Parliament’s pinnace, who perished according to his own unhappy imprecation” (quoted in Burke’s Anecdotes of the Aristocracy, vol. I, pp. 208-9; authority not named).