CHAPTER I.

_Some Account of the Family of Armine, and

Especially of Sir Ferdinand and of Sir Ratcliffe._

THE family of Armine entered England with William the Norman. Ralph

d’Armyn was standard-bearer of the Conqueror, and shared prodigally in

the plunder, as appears by Doomsday Book. At the time of the general

survey the family of Ermyn, or Armyn, possessed numerous manors in

Nottinghamshire, and several in the shire of Lincoln. William D’Armyn,

lord of the honour of Armyn, was one of the subscribing Barons to the

Great Charter. His predecessor died in the Holy Land before Ascalon.

A succession of stout barons and valiant knights maintained the high

fortunes of the family; and in the course of the various struggles with

France they obtained possession of several fair castles in Guienne and

Gascony. In the Wars of the Roses the Armyns sided with the house of

Lancaster. Ferdinand Armyn, who shared the exile of Henry the Seventh,

was knighted on Bosworth Field, and soon after created Earl of

Tewkesbury. Faithful to the Church, the second Lord Tewkesbury became

involved in one of those numerous risings that harassed the last years

of Henry the Eighth. The rebellion was unsuccessful, Lord Tewkesbury was

beheaded, his blood attainted, and his numerous estates forfeited to the

Crown. A younger branch of the family, who had adopted Protestantism,

married the daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham, and attracted, by his

talents in negotiation, the notice of Queen Elizabeth. He was sent on a

secret mission to the Low Countries, where, having greatly distinguished

himself, he obtained on his return the restoration of the family estate

of Armine, in Nottinghamshire, to which he retired after an eminently

prosperous career, and amused the latter years of his life in the

construction of a family mansion, built in that national style of

architecture since described by the name of his royal mistress, at once

magnificent and convenient. His son, Sir Walsingham Armine, figured in

the first batch of baronets under James the First.

During the memorable struggle between the Crown and the Commons, in the

reign of the unhappy Charles, the Armine family became distinguished

Cavaliers. The second Sir Walsingham raised a troop of horse, and gained

great credit by charging at the head of his regiment and defeating

Sir Arthur Haselrigg’s Cuirassiers. It was the first time that that

impenetrable band had been taught to fly; but the conqueror was covered

with wounds. The same Sir Walsingham also successfully defended Armine

House against the Commons, and commanded the cavalry at the battle

of Newbury, where two of his brothers were slain. For these various

services and sufferings Sir Walsingham was advanced to the dignity of

a baron of the realm, by the title of Lord Armine, of Armine, in the

county of Nottingham. He died without issue, but the baronetcy devolved

on his youngest brother, Sir Ferdinando.

The Armine family, who had relapsed into popery, followed the fortunes

of the second James, and the head of the house died at St. Germain. His

son, however, had been prudent enough to remain in England and support

the new dynasty, by which means he contrived to secure his title and

estates. Roman Catholics, however, the Armines always remained, and

this circumstance accounts for this once-distinguished family no longer

figuring in the history of their country. So far, therefore, as the

house of Armine was concerned, time flew during the next century with

immemorable wing. The family led a secluded life on their estate,

intermarrying only with the great Catholic families, and duly begetting

baronets.

At length arose, in the person of the last Sir Ferdinand Armine, one

of those extraordinary and rarely gifted beings who require only an

opportunity to influence the fortunes of their nation, and to figure as

a Cæsar or an Alcibiades. Beautiful, brilliant, and ambitious, the young

and restless Armine quitted, in his eighteenth year, the house of

his fathers, and his stepdame of a country, and entered the Imperial

service. His blood and creed gained him a flattering reception; his

skill and valour soon made him distinguished. The world rang with

stories of his romantic bravery, his gallantries, his eccentric manners,

and his political intrigues, for he nearly contrived to be elected King

of Poland. Whether it were disgust at being foiled in this high object

by the influence of Austria, or whether, as was much whispered at the

time, he had dared to urge his insolent and unsuccessful suit on a still

more delicate subject to the Empress Queen herself, certain it is that

Sir Ferdinand suddenly quitted the Imperial service, and appeared at

Constantinople in person. The man whom a point of honour prevented from

becoming a Protestant in his native country had no scruples about his

profession of faith at Stamboul: certain it is that the English baronet

soon rose high in the favour of the Sultan, assumed the Turkish dress,

conformed to the Turkish customs, and finally, led against Austria a

division of the Turkish army. Having gratified his pique by defeating

the Imperial forces in a sanguinary engagement, and obtaining a

favourable peace for the Porte, Sir Ferdinand Armine doffed his turban,

and suddenly reappeared in his native country. After the sketch we have

given of the last ten years of his life, it is unnecessary to observe

that Sir Ferdinand Armine immediately became what is called fashionable;

and, as he was now in Protestant England, the empire of fashion was the

only one in which the young Catholic could distinguish himself. Let us

then charitably set down to the score of his political disabilities

the fantastic dissipation and the frantic prodigality in which the

liveliness of his imagination and the energy of his soul exhausted

themselves. After three startling years he married the Lady Barbara

Ratcliffe, whose previous divorce from her husband, the Earl of

Faulconville, Sir Ferdinand had occasioned. He was, however, separated

from his lady during the first year of their more hallowed union, and,

retiring to Rome, Sir Ferdinand became apparently devout. At the end of

a year he offered to transfer the whole of his property to the Church,

provided the Pope would allow him an annuity and make him a cardinal.

His Holiness not deeming it fit to consent to the proposition, Sir

Ferdinand quitted his capital in a huff, and, returning to England,

laid claim to the peerages of Tewkesbury and Armine. Although assured of

failing in these claims, and himself perhaps as certain of ill success

as his lawyers, Sir Ferdinand nevertheless expended upwards of 60,000L.

in their promotion, and was amply repaid for the expenditure in the

gratification of his vanity by keeping his name before the public. He

was never content except when he was astonishing mankind; and while he

was apparently exerting all his efforts to become a King of Poland,

a Roman cardinal, or an English peer, the crown, the coronet, and the

scarlet hat were in truth ever secondary points with him, compared

to the sensation throughout Europe which the effort was contrived and

calculated to ensure.

On his second return to his native country Sir Ferdinand had not

re-entered society. For such a man, society, with all its superficial

excitement, and all the shadowy variety with which it attempts to

cloud the essential monotony of its nature, was intolerably dull and

commonplace. Sir Ferdinand, on the contrary, shut himself up in Armine,

having previously announced to the world that he was going to write his

memoirs. This history, the construction of a castle, and the prosecution

of his claims before the House of Lords, apparently occupied his time to

his satisfaction, for he remained quiet for several years, until, on the

breaking out of the French Revolution, he hastened to Paris, became a

member of the Jacobin Club, and of the National Convention. The name

of Citizen Armine appears among the regicides. Perhaps in this vote he

avenged the loss of the crown of Poland, and the still more mortifying

repulse he may have received from the mother of Marie Antoinette. After

the execution of the royal victims, however, it was discovered that

Citizen Armine had made them an offer to save their lives and raise an

insurrection in La Vendue, provided he was made Lieutenant-general of

the kingdom. At his trial, which, from the nature of the accusation and

the character of the accused, occasioned to his gratification a great

sensation, he made no effort to defend himself, but seemed to glory in

the chivalric crime. He was hurried to the guillotine, and met his fate

with the greatest composure, assuring the public with a mysterious air,

that had he lived four-and-twenty hours longer everything would have

been arranged, and the troubles which he foresaw impending for Europe

prevented. So successfully had Armine played his part, that his

mysterious and doubtful career occasioned a controversy, from which only

the appearance of Napoleon distracted universal attention, and which,

indeed, only wholly ceased within these few years. What were his

intentions? Was he or was he not a sincere Jacobin? If he made the offer

to the royal family, why did he vote for their death? Was he resolved,

at all events, to be at the head of one of the parties? A middle course

would not suit such a man; and so on. Interminable were the queries and

their solutions, the pamphlets and the memoirs, which the conduct of

this vain man occasioned, and which must assuredly have appeased his

manes. Recently it has been discovered that the charge brought against

Armine was perfectly false and purely malicious. Its victim, however,

could not resist the dazzling celebrity of the imaginary crime, and he

preferred the reputation of closing his career by conduct which at once

perplexed and astonished mankind, to a vindication which would have

deprived his name of some brilliant accessories, and spared him to a

life of which he was perhaps wearied.

By the unhappy victim of his vanity and passion Sir Ferdinand Armine

left one child, a son, whom he had never seen, now Sir Ratcliffe.

Brought up in sadness and in seclusion, education had faithfully

developed the characteristics of a reserved and melancholy mind.

Pride of lineage and sentiments of religion, which even in early youth

darkened into bigotry, were not incompatible with strong affections,

a stern sense of duty, and a spirit of chivalric honour. Limited in

capacity, he was, however, firm in purpose. Trembling at the name of his

father, and devoted to the unhappy parent whose presence he had scarcely

ever quitted, a word of reproach had never escaped his lips against the

chieftain of his blood, and one, too, whose career, how little soever

his child could sympathise with it, still maintained, in men’s mouths

and minds, the name and memory of the house of Armine. At the death

of his father Sir Ratcliffe had just attained his majority, and

he succeeded to immense estates encumbered with mortgages, and to

considerable debts, which his feelings of honour would have compelled

him to discharge, had they indeed been enforced by no other claim. The

estates of the family, on their restoration, had not been entailed; but,

until Sir Ferdinand no head of the house had abused the confidence

of his ancestors, and the vast possessions of the house of Armine had

descended unimpaired; and unimpaired, so far as he was concerned, Sir

Ratcliffe determined they should remain. Although, by the sale of the

estates, not only the encumbrances and liabilities might have been

discharged, but himself left in possession of a moderate independence,

Sir Ratcliffe at once resolved to part with nothing. Fresh sums were

raised for the payment of the debts, and the mortgages now consumed

nearly the whole rental of the lands on which they were secured. Sir

Ratcliffe obtained for himself only an annuity of three hundred per

annum, which he presented to his mother, in addition to the small

portion which she had received on her first marriage; and for himself,

visiting Armine Place for the first time, he roamed for a few days with

sad complacency about that magnificent demesne, and then, taking down

from the walls of the magnificent hall the sabre with which his father

had defeated the Imperial host, he embarked for Cadiz, and shortly after

his arrival obtained a commission in the Spanish service.

Although the hereditary valour of the Armines had descended to

their forlorn representative, it is not probable that, under any

circumstances, Sir Ratcliffe would have risen to any eminence in the

country of his temporary adoption. His was not one of those minds born

to command and to create; and his temper was too proud to serve and to

solicit. His residence in Spain, however, was not altogether without

satisfaction. It was during this sojourn that he gained the little

knowledge of life and human nature he possessed; and the creed and

solemn manners of the land harmonised with his faith and habits. Among

these strangers, too, the proud young Englishman felt not so keenly the

degradation of his house; and sometimes, though his was not the fatal

gift of imagination, sometimes he indulged in day dreams of its rise.

Unpractised in business, and not gifted with that intuitive quickness

which supplies experience and often baffles it, Ratcliffe Armine, who

had not quitted the domestic hearth even for the purposes of education,

was yet fortunate enough to possess a devoted friend: and this was

Glastonbury, his tutor, and confessor to his mother. It was to him that

Sir Ratcliffe intrusted the management of his affairs, with a confidence

which was deserved; for Glastonbury sympathised with all his feelings,

and was so wrapped up in the glory of the family, that he had no greater

ambition in life than to become their historiographer, and had been for

years employed in amassing materials for a great work dedicated to their

celebrity.

When Ratcliffe Armine had been absent about three years his mother

died. Her death was unexpected. She had not fulfilled two-thirds of the

allotted period of the Psalmist, and in spite of many sorrows she was

still beautiful. Glastonbury, who communicated to him the intelligence

in a letter, in which he vainly attempted to suppress his own

overwhelming affliction, counselled his immediate return to England, if

but for a season; and the unhappy Ratcliffe followed his advice. By

the death of his mother, Sir Ratcliffe Armine became possessed, for the

first time, of a small but still an independent income; and having paid

a visit, soon after his return to his native country, to a Catholic

nobleman to whom his acquaintance had been of some use when travelling

in Spain, he became enamored of one of his daughters, and his passion

being returned, and not disapproved by the father, he was soon after

married to Constance, the eldest daughter of Lord Grandison.