Chapter 4 Part 1
CAVALIER AND ROUNDHEAD SMOKERS
"A custom lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose,
harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the lungs, and in the
blacke stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the
horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is
bottomelesse."
—James I, A Counterblaste to
Tobacco.
The social history of smoking from the point of view of fashion,
during the period covered by this and the next two chapters may be
summarized in a sentence. Through the middle of the seventeenth
century smoking maintained its hold upon all classes of society, but
in the later decades there are distinct signs that the habit was
becoming less universal; and it seems pretty clear that by the time of
Queen Anne, smoking, though still extensively practised in many
classes of society, was to a considerable extent out of vogue among
those most amenable to the dictates of Fashion.
It is certain that the armies of the Parliament were great smokers,
for the finds of seventeenth-century pipes on the sites of their camps
have been numerous. A considerable number of pipes of the Caroline
period, with the usual small elongated bowls, were found in 1902 at
Chichester, in the course of excavating the foundations of the Old
Swan Inn, East Street, for building the present branch of the London
and County Bank.
We know also that the Roundhead soldiers smoked in circumstances that
did them no credit. In the account of the trial of Charles I, written
by Dr. George Bates, principal physician to his Majesty, and to
Charles II also, we read that when the sentence of the Court presided
over by Bradshaw, condemning the King "to death by severing his Head
from his Body," had been read, the soldiers treated the fallen monarch
with great indignity and barbarity. They spat on his clothes as he
passed by, and even in his face; and they "blew the smoak of Tobacco,
a thing which they knew his Majesty hated, in his sacred mouth,
throwing their broken Pipes in his way as he passed along."
Time brought its revenges. The dead Protector was not treated too
respectfully by his soldiery. Evelyn, describing Cromwell's "superb
funeral," says that the soldiers in the procession were "drinking and
taking tobacco in the streets as they went."
Whether the use of tobacco prevailed as generally among the Cavalier
forces is less certain; but as King Charles hated the weed, courtiers
may have frowned upon its use. One distinguished cavalier, however,
either smoked his pipe, or proposed to do so, on a historic occasion.
In Markham's "Life of the Great Lord Fairfax" there is a lively
account of how the Duke, then Marquis, of Newcastle, with his brother
Charles Cavendish, drove in a coach and six to the field of Marston
Moor on the afternoon before the battle. His Grace was in a very bad
humour. "He applied to Rupert," says Markham, "for orders as to the
disposal of his own most noble person, and was told that there would
be no battle that night, and that he had better get into his coach and
go to sleep, which he accordingly did." But the decision as to battle
or no battle did not rest with Prince Rupert. Cromwell attacked the
royal army with the most disastrous results to the King's cause. His
Grace of Newcastle woke up, left his coach, and fought bravely, being,
according to his Duchess, the last to ride off the fatal field,
leaving his coach and six behind him.
So far Markham: but according to another account, when Rupert told him
that there would be no battle, the Duke betook himself to his coach,
"lit his pipe, and making himself very comfortable, fell asleep." The
original authority, however, for the whole story is to be found in a
paper of notes by Clarendon on the affairs of the North, preserved
among his MSS. In this paper Clarendon writes: "The marq. asked the
prince what he would do? His highness answered, 'Wee will charge them
to-morrow morninge.' My lord asked him whether he were sure the enimy
would not fall on them sooner? He answered, 'No'; and the marquisse
thereupon going to his coach hard by, and callinge for a pype of
tobacco, before he could take it the enimy charged, and instantly all
the prince's horse were routed." Gardiner evidently follows this account, for his version of the story
is: "Newcastle strolled towards his coach to solace himself with a
pipe . Before he had time to take a whiff, the battle had begun." The
incident was made the subject of a picture by Ernest Crofts, A.R.A.,
which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1888. It shows the Duke
leaning out of his carriage window, with his pipe in his hand. |
