Riddell and Lloyd George

George Allardice Riddell, the early 20th century press baron and key adviser to David Lloyd George during the First World War, was born 150 years ago today. He left behind several unremarkable books, but his diaries, by contrast, are interesting and considered by historians to contain rich and entertaining pickings, especially about Lloyd George.

Riddell was born in London, on 25 May 1865, the son of a photographer. He became a clerk in a solicitor’s office, and qualified as a solicitor in 1888. That same year, he married Grace Edith Williams, though they were divorced in 1900, and, thereafter, Riddell refused to acknowledge this first marriage. Soon after the divorce, he married his cousin Annie Molison Allardice.

Having acted as legal consultant to a consortium purchasing the ailing News of the World, he became interested in the media business, and began buying shares in the newspaper. By 1903, he was its managing director; and, in subsequent years, he acquired further publishing businesses, such as George Newnes Ltd and Country Life.

In 1909, Riddell was awarded a knighthood by Prime Minister Herbert Asquith. This came about thanks to Riddell’s friendship with Lloyd George (then Chancellor of the Exchequer) and the acknowledgement by Asquith that News of the World support would be valuable to the Liberals. Riddell continued to make himself indispensable to Lloyd George, providing press gossip, holidays, a golfing partner, and carefully shrewd support in his newspaper. He also took on political tasks for his friend: in 1912, he drafted the memorandum that settled the miners’ strike; and, during the First World War, Riddell liaised between government and press. As Prime Minister, Lloyd George sent Riddell to represent the British press at the peace conferences.

Riddell was raised to the peerage as baronet in 1918, but not without a fight. At first, King George V rejected Riddell’s nomination because he had been the guilty party in a divorce action (the divorce having been made public by a rival publisher during a spat with Riddell). But Lloyd George continued to lobby on behalf of Riddell; and letters from other press barons finally won the king round - thus Riddell became the first divorced peer to enter the House of Lords.

After the Paris Peace Conference, a political rift developed between Lloyd George and Riddell, which would last the rest of their lives. Thereafeter, Riddell concentrated on his business interests, charitable activities (for hospitals and the printing industry - he founded the London School of Printing). He died in 1934. There is not much further information readily available online, other than at Wikipedia or the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (which requires a log-in).

Riddell wrote a few unmemorable books, but his diaries - he published three volumes before his death - are considered ‘a valuable guide to the politics of the period generally and to the career of Lloyd George in particular’. Indeed, the ODNB goes on to say that his detailed recording of conversations ‘has provided rich and entertaining pickings for historians’ - though not until recently. Riddell deposited 14 diary manuscripts (and 22 volumes he had typed from the originals) with the British Library under instructions that they were not to be opened until long after his death (50 years).

Thus, in the last years of his life, Riddell published: Lord Riddell's War Diary, 1914-1918 (Ivor Nicholson & Watson, 1933); Intimate Diary of the Peace Conference and after, 1918-1923 (Victor Gollancz, 1933); and More Pages from my Diary (Country Life, 1934). Following derestriction of the diary manuscripts, John M. McEwen edited them anew as The Riddell Diaries 1908-1923 (The Athlone Press, 1986). McEwen says, in his introduction, it was a huge task to compare the published versions with the originals and typescripts.

22 April 1915
‘Long talk with Kitchener, who said that LG’s alleged statement as to the number of troops in France was inaccurate and that what LG had really said was that the number of troops ‘overseas’ amounted to thirty-six divisions. I referred to the speech, in which the words were ‘over there’. K said, ‘Well, if he said that he was wrong, and the speech must be put right in Hansard.’ He asked Brade to see that this done.

K commented upon what he called ‘Newspaper embroidery’ and complained of the criticisms as to the inconsistencies between his statements and those of the PM as to the efficiency of our output of munitions of war. He asked my opinion. I replied that they seemed inconsistent and that this was the general opinion. K said, ‘The Times has been the most virulent critic, I am told, but I never read it.’ He asked me to look up the speeches, which I did subsequently, and wrote to him setting out the two passages. He said that Northcliffe was acting very badly and that it was difficult to know how to deal with him.’

25 December 1918
‘Played golf in the morning with LG and then with him to mid-day Xmas dinner, he carving the turkey in great style. After dinner sat and talked for some time and listened to the pianola. LG slept for three hours. . .

We talked of the elections . . . He said that next week he proposes to take a short holiday to consider the reconstruction of the Government. The difficulty is that there are so few men available. He is very doubtful about a Minister of Labour and a Minister of Agriculture. Addison is to do the Housing. He doubts Lord Lee at the Board of Agriculture. He thinks him too unpopular with the landlords. I said, ‘Of course you will find a place for Sir Robert Horne. He is a clever fellow.’

LG: Yes, I think I shall put him in the Cabinet. He is an able man . . .
R: Winston is a difficulty.
LG: Yes, a great difficulty.
R: How about the Colonies for him?
LG: There will be nothing doing in that department. It would be like condemning a man to be head of a mausoleum. He would just have to see that it was kept clean.
R: I don’t agree. The Colonies will offer many problems. The Office wants bucking up and it would be a splendid thing if the Minister were to make a tour of the Empire.
LG: Yes, I agree about that. The Colonial office might be a good place for Winston.
R: Will Beaverbrook be in the Ministry?
LG: No, I think not. His health is bad. He is clever, but absolutely without scruple of any sort. Not a very desirable sort of politician.
Mrs LG: It is a pity that the PM accepted any assistance from Beaverbrook and Rothermere at the election. I am sure he did not need it. I don’t trust them or like their ways. The PM does best when he goes his own way and keeps clear of all these wire-pullers and people who want nothing but to grind their own axe.’

1 October 1919
‘Strange happenings. For the first time in history the printers in the newspaper offices have objected to print matter of which they disapproved - to wit, attacks on the railway men. This caused consternation amongst proprietors and editors, who held their ground with considerable firmness . . . This movement is more important than it looks, and is capable of quaint developments. One novel feature of the strike is an advertising campaign in which both the Government and the men are stating their case. . .

There can be no doubt that LG was wrong in describing the strike as a Bolshevist movement, as he did in his published message. This has been the key-note of the Government campaign run by Sir William Sutherland and others on the usual party lines of misrepresentation and deception. Use the note that is like to please and convince. Truth and accuracy are immaterial.’

Insurrection in Paris

‘Firing is heard. The houses are in turmoil. Doors and casements open and shut violently. The women-servants chat and laugh at the windows. It is said that the insurrection has spread to the Porte Saint-Martin. I go out and follow the line of the boulevards. The weather is fine; there are crowds of promenaders in their Sunday dress. Drums beat to arms.’ This is the French literary giant, Victor Hugo, who died 160 years ago today, writing in his diary about the day a riot exploded on the streets of Paris in 1839.

Victor was the third son of Joseph-Léopold-Sigisbert Hugo, a major and, later, general in Napoleon’s army. As a child, he was constantly on the move as his father travelled with the imperial army, to Elba, for example, Naples or Madrid. His parents became increasingly estranged, his father loyal to successive governments and his mother a staunch royalist. Victor, often brought back to Paris by his mother, absorbed her royalist views. He was able to study for a while at the Pension Cordier and the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, after which he entered the law faculty in Paris.

Hugo’s mother died in 1821, and the following year he published his first book of poems, Odes et poésies diverses, some of which displayed royalist sentiments and won him a pension from Louis XVIII. The new income allowed him to marry his childhood sweetheart, Adèle Foucher, with whom he went on to have five children, although the first died in infancy.

By 1824, Hugo was already associated with a group of Romantics, Cénacle, which was moving against the domination of classical literature. And, as he published further collections of poems, so these seemed to reflect a growing dispassion for his youthful royalist sentiments. He emerged, biographies say, as a true Romantic with his verse dramas Cromwell, in 1927, and Hernani in 1930. Notre-Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre-Dame) brought him much wider fame and influence, and made him rich. Further poems (some glorifying Napoleon) and plays followed. In the early 1830s, he began a liaison with a young actress, Juliette Drouet, who remained his secretary and discreet companion for the rest of his life.

Hugo’s literary achievement was recognised in 1841 by his election to the Académie française, but, after the death of his daughter Léopoldine and her husband by drowning in 1843, his creative energy seemed to fade in favour of political interest (a change that affected other Romantic figures who were becoming more concerned about social issues than beautiful art). He was nominated in 1845 to the upper house of the French parliament (Chamber of Peers) but this was disbanded following the Revolution of 1848 and the creation of the Second Republic.

After Napoleon III’s coup d’état against the Second Republic in 1851, Hugo went into exile, first in Brussels briefly, then in the Channel Islands, Jersey (1852–1855) and Guernsey from 1855. During this period, he finally published, in 1862, Les Misérables, a work which had taken more than a decade to write, but which would go on to become one of the most famous of French novels, and one of the greatest 19th century novels in any language.

Although Napoleon III proclaimed a general amnesty in 1859, and Hugo could have returned to France, he stayed in exile, only returning when Napoleon III was forced from power in 1870. He lived again in Guernsey from 1872 to 1873, before finally returning to France. His last years, with Juliette in Paris, were rather sad, partly because of illness and the loss of two sons. He died on 22 May 1855, and was given a hero’s funeral. Further information is available online at Wikipedia, Famous People, CliffsNotes, Notable Biographies, etc.

Excerpts from Hugo’s diaries were first issued along with other essays and random jottings in two series (1887 and 1900) in the original French under the title Choses vues, and soon translated into English as Things Seen. Further editions followed, including a fresh translation by David Kimber in a 1964 Oxford University Press edition. Some extracts from Things Seen can be found at Victor Hugo Central, but the full text of an English version, by The Colonial Press Co., can also be read at Internet Archive.

Joanna Richardson concludes her introduction to Oxford University Press’s edition as follows: ‘But perhaps Things Seen is best considered as a web into which Hugo has drawn ‘all the gilded and glittering flies’ [a quote from Hugo himself] of contemporary history. It is a far slighter work than the Goncourt Journal [see The Diary Review]; it lacks the Goncourts’ malice and wit, and it cannot for a moment compete with the Journal as a record of the social and intellectual scene. But for all its limitations, and whether or not it opens a window on to infinity, Things Seen remains one of the few examples in French literature of sporadic observations that are literary works in their own right. These random jottings have become a classic.’

The following is most of the text from one chapter in Things Seen, entitled Diary of a Passer-by During the Riot of Twelfth of May.

12 May 1839
‘At three o’clock I return to my study.

My little daughter, in a state of excitement, opens my door and says, “Papa, do you know what is going on? There is fighting at the Pont Saint-Michel.”

I do not believe a word of it. Fresh details. A cook in our house and a neighbouring wine-shop keeper have seen the occurrence. I ask the cook to come up. It is true; while passing along the Quai des Orfèvres he saw a throng of young men firing musket-shots at the Prefecture of Police. A bullet struck the parapet near him. From there the assailants ran to the Place du Châtelet and to the Hôtel de Ville, still firing. They set out from the Morgue, which the good fellow calls the Morne.

Poor young fools! In less than twenty-four hours a large number of those who set out from there will have returned there.

Firing is heard. The houses are in turmoil. Doors and casements open and shut violently. The women-servants chat and laugh at the windows. It is said that the insurrection has spread to the Porte Saint-Martin. I go out and follow the line of the boulevards. The weather is fine; there are crowds of promenaders in their Sunday dress. Drums beat to arms.

At the beginning of the Hue du Pont-aux-Choux are some groups of people looking in the direction of the Rue de l’Oseille. There are a great crowd and a great uproar close to an old fountain which can be seen from the boulevard, and which forms the angle of an open space in the old Rue du Temple. [. . .]

Upon the Boulevard du Temple the cafés are closing. The Cirque Olympique is also closing. The Gaîté holds out, and will give a performance.

The crowd of promenaders becomes greater at each step. Many women and children. Three drummers of the National Guard - old soldiers, with solemn mien - pass by, beating to arms. The fountain of the Château d’Eau suddenly throws up its grand holiday streams. At the back, in the low-lying street, the great railings and doorway of the Town Hall of the 5th Arrondissement are closed one inside the other. I notice in the door little loop-holes for muskets.

Nothing at the Porte Saint-Martin, but a large crowd peacefully moving about across regiments of infantry and cavalry stationed between the two gate-ways. The Porte Saint-Martin Theatre closes its box-office. The bills are being taken down, on which I see the words Marie Tudor. The omnibuses are running.

Throughout this journey I have not heard any firing, but the crowd and vehicles make a great noise.

I return to the Marais. In the old Rue du Temple the women, in a state of excitement, gossip at the doorways. Here are the details. The riot spread throughout the neighbourhood. Towards three o’clock two or three hundred young men, poorly armed, suddenly broke into the Town Hall of the 7th Arrondissement, disarmed the guard, and took the muskets. Thence they ran to the Hôtel de Ville and performed the same freak. As they entered the guard-room they gaily embraced the officer. When they had the Hôtel de Ville, what was to be done with it? They went away and left it. If they had France, would they be less embarrassed with it than they were with the Hôtel de Ville? There are among them many boys, fourteen or fifteen years old. Some do not know how to load their muskets; others cannot carry them. One of those who fired in the Rue de Paradis fell upon his hind-quarters after the shot. Two drummers killed at the head of their columns, are placed in the Royal Printing Establishment, of which the principal doorway is shut. At this moment barricades are being made in the Rue des Quatre Fils, at the corner of all the little Rues de Bretagne, de Poitou, de Touraine, and there are groups of persons listening. A grenadier of the National Guard passes by in uniform, his musket upon his back, looking about him with an uneasy look. It is seven o’clock; from my balcony in the Place Royale platoon-firing is heard.’

12 May 1839, 8 pm
‘I follow the boulevards as far as the Madeleine. They are covered with troops. National Guards march at the head of all the patrols. The Sunday promenaders intermingle with all this infantry, all this cavalry. At intervals a cordon of soldiers quietly empty the crowd from one side of the boulevard to the other. There is a performance at the Vaudeville.’

13 May 1839, 1 am
‘The boulevards are deserted. There remain only the regiments, who bivouac at short distances apart. Coming back, I passed through the little streets of the Marais. All is quiet and gloomy. The old Rue du Temple is as black as a furnace. The lanterns there have been smashed.

The Place Royale is a camp. There are four great fires before the Town Hall, round which the soldiers chat and laugh, seated upon their knapsacks. The flames carve a black silhouette of some, and cast a glow upon the faces of the others. The green, fresh leaves of the spring trees rustle merrily above the braziers.

I had a letter to post. I took some precautions in the matter, for everything looks suspicious in the eyes of these worthy National Guards. I recollect that at the period of the riots of April, 1834, I passed by a guard-house of the National Guard with a volume of the works of the Duke de Saint-Simon. I was pointed out as a Saint-Simonian, and narrowly escaped being murdered.

Just as I was going in-doors again, a squadron of hussars, held in reserve all day in the courtyard of the Town Hall, suddenly issued forth and filed past me at a gallop, going in the direction of the Rue Saint-Antoine. As I went upstairs I heard the horses’ foot-falls retreating in the distance.’

13 May 1839, 8 am
‘Several companies of the National Guard have come and joined the Line regiments encamped in the Place Royale.

A number of men in blouses walk about among the National Guard, observed and observing with an anxious look. An omnibus comes out upon the Rue du Pas-de-la-Mule. It is made to go back. Just now my floor-polisher, leaning upon his broom, said, “Whose side shall I be on?” He added a moment afterwards, “What a filthy government this is! I have thirty francs owing to me, and cannot get anything out of the people!”

The drums beat to arms.

I breakfast as I read the papers. M. Duflot arrives. He was yesterday at the Tuileries. It was at the Sunday reception: the king appeared fatigued, the queen was low-spirited. Then he went for a walk about Paris. He saw in the Rue du Grand-Hurleur a man who had been killed - a workman - stretched upon the ground in his Sunday clothing, his forehead pierced by a bullet. It was evening. By his side was a lighted candle. The dead man had rings on his fingers and his watch in his fob-pocket, from which issued a great bunch of trinkets.

Yesterday, at half-past three o’clock, at the first musket-shots, the king sent for Marshal Soult, and said to him, “Marshal, the waters become troubled. Some ministers must be fished up.”

An hour afterwards the marshal came to the king, and said, as he rubbed his hands, in his Southern accent, “This time, Sire, I think we shall manage the business.”

There is, in fact, a ministry this morning in the “Moniteur.” ’

13 May 1839, 12 midday
‘I go out. Firing can be heard in the Rue Saint-Louis. The men in blouses have been turned out of the Place Royale, and now only those persons who live there are allowed to enter the street The rioting is in the Rue Saint-Louis. It is feared that the insurgents will penetrate one by one to the Place Royale, and fire upon the troops from behind the pillars of the arcades.

Two hundred and twelve years, two months and two days ago to-day, Beuvron, Bussy d’Amboise, and Buquet, on the one hand, and Boutteville, Deschapelles, and Laberthe, on the other, fought to the death with swords and daggers, in broad daylight, at this same time and in this same Place Royale. [. . .]

The approaches to the Place Royale are deserted. The firing continues, very sustained, and very close at hand.

In the Rue Saint-Gilles, before the door of the house occupied in 1784 by the famous Countess Lamothe-Valois, of the Diamond Necklace affair, a Municipal Guard bars my passage.

I reach the Rue Saint-Louis by the Rue des Douze-Portes. The Rue Saint-Louis has a singular appearance. At one of the ends can be seen a company of soldiers, who block up the whole street and advance slowly, pointing their muskets. I am hemmed in by people running away in every direction. A young man has just been killed at the corner of the Rue des Douze-Portes.

It is impossible to go any farther. I return in the direction of the boulevard.

At the corner of the Rue du Harlay there is a cordon of National Guards. One of them, who wears the blue ribbon of July, stops me suddenly. “You cannot pass!” And then his voice suddenly became milder: “Really, I do not advise you to go that way, sir.” I raise my eyes; it is my floor-polisher.

I proceed farther.

I arrive in the Rue Saint-Claude. I have only gone forward a few steps when I see all the foot-passengers hurrying. A company of infantry has just appeared at the end of the street, near the church. Two old women, one of whom carries a mattress, utter exclamations of terror. I continue to make my way towards the soldiers, who bar the end of the street. Some young scamps in blouses are bolting in every direction near me. Suddenly the soldiers bring down their muskets and present them. I have only just time to jump behind a street-post, which protects, at all events, my legs. I am fired upon. No one falls in the streets. I make towards the soldiers, waving my hat, that they may not fire again. As I come close up to them they open their ranks for me, I pass, and not a word is exchanged between us.

The Rue Saint-Louis is deserted. It has the appearance which it presents at four o’clock in the morning in summer: shops shut, windows shut, no one about, broad daylight. In the Rue du Roi-Doré the neighbours chat at their doorways. Two horses, unharnessed from some cart, of which a barricade has been made, pass up the Rue Saint-Jean-Saint-François, followed by a bewildered carter. A large body of National Guards and troops of the Line appear to be in ambush at the end of the Rue Saint-Anastase. I make inquiries. About half an hour ago seven or eight young workmen came there, dragging muskets, which they hardly knew how to load. They were youths of fourteen or fifteen years of age. They silently prepared their arms in the midst of the people of the neighbourhood and the passers-by, who looked on as they did so, then they broke into a house where there were only an old woman and a little child. There they sustained a siege of a few moments. The firing in my direction was aimed at some of them who were running away up the Rue Saint-Claude.

All the shops are closed, except the wine-shop where the insurgents drank, and where the National Guard are drinking.’

13 May 1839, 3 pm
‘I have just explored the boulevards. They are covered with people and soldiers. Platoon-firing is heard in the Rue Saint-Martin. Before the windows of Fieschi I saw a lieutenant-general, in full uniform, pass by, surrounded by officers and followed by a squadron of very fine dragoons, sabre in hand. There is a sort of camp at the Chateau d’Eau; the actresses of the Ambigu are on the balcony of their greenroom, looking on. No theatre on the boulevards will give a performance this evening.

All signs of disorder have disappeared in the Rue Saint-Louis. The rioting is concentrated in the great central markets. A National Guard said to me just now, “There are in the barricades over there more than four thousand of them.” I said nothing in reply to the worthy fellow. In moments like this all eyes are overflowing vessels.

[. . .] A man has just been killed in the Rue de la Perle. In the Rue des Trois-Pavillons I see some little girls playing at battledore and shuttlecock. In the Rue de l’Echarpe there is a laundryman in a fright, who says he has seen cannon go by. He counted eight.’

13 May 1839, 8 pm
‘The Marais remains tolerably quiet. I am informed that there are cannon in the Place de la Bastille. I proceed there, but cannot make out anything; the twilight is too deep. Several regiments stand in silent readiness, infantry and cavalry. A crowd assembles at the sight of the wagons from which supplies are distributed to the men. The soldiers make ready to bivouac. The unloading of the wood for the night-fires is heard.’

13 May 1839, 12 midnight
‘Complete battalions go the rounds upon the boulevards. The bivouacs are lighted up in all directions, and throw reflections as of a conflagration on the fronts of the houses. A man dressed as a woman has just passed rapidly by me, with a white hat and a very thick black veil, which completely hides his face. As the church clocks were striking twelve, I distinctly heard, amid the silence of the city, two very long and sustained reports of platoon-firing.

I listen as a long file of carts, making a heavy iron clatter, pass in the direction of the Rue du Temple. Are these cannon?’

14 May 1839, 9 am
‘I return home. I notice from a distance that the great bivouac fire lighted at the corner of the Rue Saint-Louis and the Rue de l’Echarpe has disappeared. As I approach I see a man stooping before the fountain and holding something under the water of the spout. I look. The man looks uneasy. I see that he is extinguishing at the fountain some half-burned logs of wood; then he loads them upon his shoulders and makes off. They are the last brands which the soldiers have left on the pavement on quitting their bivouacs. In fact, there is nothing left now but a few heaps of red ashes. The soldiers have returned to their barracks. The riot is at an end. It will at least have served to give warmth to a poor wretch in winter-time.’

Tears instead of ink

Sir John Oglander, an aristocrat and politician associated with the Isle of White, died all of 430 years ago today. He is as much remembered for his diaries as he is for the relatively minor administrative and political appointments he held, not least because, having started as account books, they became more personal over time. For example on the death of his beloved son, George, he wrote: ‘With my tears instead of ink I write these last lines.’

Oglander was born at Nunwell, on the eastern side of the Isle of Wight, on 12 May 1585. He was schooled at Winchester, and entered Balliol College, Oxford, for three years but left without a degree. Thereafter, he entered the Middle Temple, though was not called to the bar. He married Frances, the youngest daughter of Sir George More of Losely, and sister to the wife of the poet John Donne. They had four sons and three daughters.

After residing for a while in Winchester with his father, Oglander moved to take up residence at the old family home in Nunwell, aiming to live a life, he wrote, of ‘ardent and unbroken devotion to the public service’. Little is known of that life, however, until around 1620 (though he was knighted in 1615 by James I). From 1620 to 1624, he acted as deputy governor of Portsmouth, before selling the position and returning to the Isle of Wight to be deputy governor there instead.

In 1625, Oglander was elected to Parliament as member for Yarmouth. He held other appointments, such as High Sheriff of Hampshire in the late 1630s. With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642, Oglander - a true Royalist - found himself imprisoned, firstly for a short time, and then for three years. Later, he helped Charles I while on the Isle of Wight, but, as the king became confined at Carisbrooke Castle so it became dangerous for his friends, such as Oglander, to continue their support for him. Oglander was arrested one more time, in 1651, but was released within weeks. He died in 1655, a man broken by the war, his estate having been diminished and having lost his wife and a son. Further biographical information can be found at Wikipedia, the History of Parliament website, or The Gentry.

For much of his life Oglander kept ‘Bookes of Accoumpts’ in which he wrote down his business affairs. However, over time they became more diary-like with entries of a personal nature. The diaries are considered valuable, particularly with regard to the history of the Isle of the White. Indeed, during Oglander’s lifetime he copied out some parts for use by his friend Sir Richard Worsley, who was then compiling what would be published in 1781 as The History of the Isle of Wight. Later, in 1888, the notebooks were also used by W. H. Long for his book The Oglander Memoirs.

It was not until 1936, however, that Oglander’s diary was published in its own right as A Royalist’s Notebook - The Commonplace Book of Sir John Oglander Kt of Nunwell, transcribed and edited by Francis Bamford (Constable, 1936). Cecil Faber Aspinall-Oglander says in his introduction: ‘The numerous tattered volumes of faded manuscripts from which this book has been compiled have lain for three hundred years in the house where Sir John Oglander wrote them in the days of James I and Charles I, their slumber only disturbed by the reverent fingers of his descendants in search of information. And here indeed their slumber might have continued had it not been for Mr. Bamford asking my wife’s permission to look through the Nunwell papers in search of local colour for a historical novel on which he was then engaged.’

Bamford’s book divides Oglander’s writings into various chapters, viz: His observations 1622-1639; His observations 1642-1652; His neighbours; His rules for husbandry; Some of his recipes; Some of his accounts; His advice to his descendants. Here are a few samples from the first chapter (the language has been modernised by Bamford).

‘The 20th February, 1626, I put into the pond by Whitefield House 200 young carp.’

‘May the 30th, 1627. On Wednesday in the afternoon on Granger, captain of a small man-of-war belonging to Mr. James of Portsmouth, being on the south side of the Island, spied a fleet of Hollanders of 22 sail, whereof Sir Lawrence Reoll was Admiral. He presently took them for Spaniards and came into the Island, sent intelligence to Sir Edward Dennys that he had espied a fleet of Spaniards at sea, the copy of which letter is in my box. Whereupon Sir Edward sent the very letter to Portsmouth, whither when it came, a Wednesday by 4 of the clock, the town rose all in arms and apprehended as much fear as if an enemy had been at the gates. Higham, Master Gunner, hasted away post with this intelligence to my Lord Steward, which came to the Council and my Lord Duke’s knowledge by 2 the same night. He presently commanded down all the colonels to their charges: hither came Brett and Spry by Friday morning. The Duke himself posted to the Downs, vowing he would not stay but would fight them with those ships that were then ready.’

‘King Charles came into our Island the 20th of June 1627, being Wednesday. He came ashore at Ryde, where only myself was to attend him: he was landed by 9 in the morning, sooner than the gentlemen expected. We had notice of it but the night before, yet I took such order of it that my coach was there, and some 40 horses. I waited on him from Ryde to Arreton Down and was his guide. On the Down, he saw Sir Alexander Brett’s regiment train, which was the motive that brought him over. I had the honour to kiss His Majesty’s hand, being presented unto him by the Lord Chamberlain, and at his going away again, which was about 3: all the gentlemen with myself had the like honour. [. . .]

His Majesty neither ate nor drank in our Island. On our complaint unto him, he promised we should have Sandham Castle repaired (which I showed afar off unto him, together with the consequences thereof), a fort of St Helens, munitions for our country, and 10 or 20 ships of his to be still resident in Portsmouth Harbour. So much, and so happy we, if performed.’

‘On the 8th of December, 1631, my shepherd’s wife, Good Greenwood, going to my windmill with a gust coming from thence, she went so near to the vanes of the mill that one of them took her in the head and beat out her brains. She was a very good woman and had been nurse to my son William, and dry nurse to most of my other children.’

‘Here is set down the most sorrowful story that was ever written by the hand of a distressed father. On the 21st of July, 1632, being at Newport [. . .] the Mayor, Sir Richard Dillington and Sir Edward Dennys came unto me and told me of a flying report, brought by a bark off Weymouth lately come from Caen, that my eldest son George, that was then at Caen, was very sick - if not dead.

Let those judge, who have had a hopeful young son aged 22 years, well brought up and learned in all the arts, dutiful, wise, sober, discreet and given to no vice, but tall, handsome, judicious and understanding - yea, far above the capacity of his young years, what a case I was in and how deeply stricken, insomuch as I had much ado to get home.

With my tears instead of ink I write these last lines. O George, my beloved George, is dead and with him most of my terrestrial comforts, although I acknowledge I have good and dutiful sons left. He died of the smallpox at Caen in Normandy, the 11th of July, 1632. Only with my tears and a foul pen was this written.’

The Diary Junction