By Benjamin Disraeli Earl of Beaconsfield

TO THE COUNT ALFRED D’ORSAY THESE VOLUMES ARE INSCRIBED BY HIS AFFECTIONATE FRIEND.

CONTENTS HENRIETTA TEMPLE BOOK I. CHAPTER I. — Some Account of the Family of Armine, and Especially of Sir Ferdinand and of Sir Ratcliffe. CHAPTER II. — Armine Described. CHAPTER III. — Arrival of Glastonbury. CHAPTER IV. — Progress of Affairs at Armine. CHAPTER V. — A Domestic Scene. CHAPTER VI. — Containing Another Domestic Scene. CHAPTER VII. — Containing an Unexpected Visit to London, and Its Consequences. CHAPTER VIII. — A Visit to Glastonbury’s Chamber. CHAPTER IX. — The Last Day and the Last Night. CHAPTER X. — The Advantage of Being a Favourite Grandson. BOOK II. CHAPTER I. — Partly Retrospective, yet Very Necessary to be Perused. CHAPTER II. — In Which Captain Armine Achieves with Rapidity a Result Which Always Requires Great Deliberation. CHAPTER III. — Which Ferdinand Returns to Armine. CHAPTER IV. — In Which Some Light Is Thrown on the Title of This Work. CHAPTER V. — In Which Captain Armine Is Very Absent during Dinner. CHAPTER VI. — In Which Captain Armine Pays His First Visit to Ducie. CHAPTER VII. — In Which Captain Armine Indulges in a Reverie.

CHAPTER VIII. — A Strange Dream. CHAPTER IX. — Which I Hope May Prove as Agreeable to the Reader as to Our Hero. CHAPTER X. — Evening Stroll. CHAPTER XI. — A Morning Walk. CHAPTER XII. — Containing an Ominous Incident. CHAPTER XIII. — In Which Captain Armine Finds Reason to Believe in the Existence of Fairies. CHAPTER XIV. — Containing an Incident Which Is the Termination of Most Tales, though Almost the Beginning of the Present. BOOK III. CHAPTER I. — In Which Captain Armine Proves Himself a Complete Tactician. CHAPTER II. — A Day of Love. CHAPTER III. — Which on the Whole Is Found Very Consoling. CHAPTER IV. — Henrietta Visits Armine, Which Leads to a Rather Perplexing Encounter. CHAPTER V. — Which Contains Something Very Unexpected. BOOK IV. CHAPTER I. — Which Contains a Love-Letter. CHAPTER II. — Which, Supposing the Reader Is Interested in the Correspondence, Pursues It. CHAPTER III. — Containing the Arrival at Ducie of a Distinguished Guest. CHAPTER IV. — Containing Some Account of the Viscountess Dowager Bellair.

CHAPTER V. — In Which Lady Bellair Gives Some Account of Some of Her Friends. CHAPTER VI. — Containing a Conversation Not Quite so Amusing as the Last. CHAPTER VII. — In Which Mr. Temple Pays a Visit to His Daughter’s Chamber. CHAPTER VIII. — In Which Glastonbury Is Very Much Astonished. CHAPTER IX. — In Which Glastonbury Finds That a Serene Temper Does Not Always Bring a Serene Life. CHAPTER X. — In Which Ferdinand Armine Is Much Concerned. CHAPTER XI. — In Which Ferdinand Begins to Be a Little Troublesome. CHAPTER XII. — Containing the Intimation of a Somewhat Mysterious Adventure. CHAPTER XIII. — In Which the Family Perplexities Rather Increase than Diminish. CHAPTER XIV. — In Which Some Light Is Thrown upon Some Circumstances Which Were Before Rather Mysterious. CHAPTER XV. — Which Leaves Affairs in General in a Scarcely More Satisfactory Position than the Former One. BOOK V. CHAPTER I. — Containing the Appearance on Our Stage of a New and Important Character. CHAPTER II. — In Which Lord Montfort Contrives That Miss Temple Should be Left Alone.

CHAPTER III. — In Which Mr. Temple and His Daughter, with Their New Friend, Make an Unexpected Excursion. CHAPTER IV. — Showing That It Is the First Step That Is Ever the Most Difficult. CHAPTER V. — Which Contains Some Rather Painful Explanations. CHAPTER VI. — Which Contains an Event Not Less Important Than the One Which Concluded Our Second Book. BOOK VI. CHAPTER I. — Which Contains a Remarkable Change of Fortune. CHAPTER II. — In Which the Reader Is Again Introduced to Captain Armine, during His Visit to London. CHAPTER III. — In Which Glastonbury Meets the Very Last Person in the World He Expected, and the Strange Consequences. BOOK VI. — [Continued] CHAPTER IV. — In Which Mr. Glastonbury Informs Captain Armine of His Meeting with Miss Temple. CHAPTER V. — Which, on the Whole, Is Perhaps as Remarkable a Chapter as Any in the Work. CHAPTER VI. — Containing an Evening Assembly at Bellair House. CHAPTER VII. — Containing a Very Important Communication. CHAPTER VIII. — Which Is Rather Strange.

CHAPTER IX. — Which Is on the Whole Almost as Perplexing as the Preceding One. CHAPTER X. — In Which Captain Armine Increases His Knowledge of the Value of Money, and Also Becomes Aware of the Advantage of an Acquaintance Who Burns Coals. CHAPTER XI. — In Which Captain Armine Unexpectedly Resumes His Acquaintance with Lord Catchimwhocan, Who Introduces Him to Mr. Bond Sharpe. CHAPTER XII. — Miss Grandison Makes a Remarkable Discovery. CHAPTER XIII. — In Which Ferdinand Has the Honour of Dining with Mr. Bond Sharpe. CHAPTER XIV. — Miss Grandison Piques the Curiosity of Lord Montfort, and Count Mirabel Drives Ferdinand Down to Richmond, Which Drive Ends in an Agreeable Adventure and an Unexpected Confidence. CHAPTER XV. — In Which the Count Mirabel Commences His Operations with Great Success. CHAPTER XVI. — In Which Mr. Temple Surprises His Daughter Weeping. CHAPTER XVII. — In Which Ferdinand Has a Very Stormy Interview with His Father. CHAPTER XVIII. — Ferdinand Is Arrested by Messrs. Morris and Levison, and Taken to a Spunging-House.

CHAPTER XIX. — The Crisis Rapidly Advances. CHAPTER XX. — In Which Ferdinand Receives More than One Visit, and Finds That Adversity Has Not Quite Deprived Him of His Friends. CHAPTER XXI. — The Crisis. CHAPTER XXII. — Ferdinand Meditates over His Good Fortune. CHAPTER XXIII. — Ferdinand Receives the Most Interesting Invitation to Dinner Ever Offered to Him. CHAPTER XXIV. — Some Account of the Party, and Its Result. CHAPTER XXV. — Which, Though Final, It Is Hoped Will Prove Satisfactory.

ILLUSTRATIONS Spines.jpg Cover.jpg Coverplates.jpg Frontplate.jpg Frontis-p146.jpg Frontislable.jpg Titlepage Pageimage1.jpg Page094.jpg Frontis-page146.jpg Page226.jpg Page323.jpg Frontis-title2.jpg Pageimage2.jpg Frontis-page025.jpg Page2-118.jpg Coverplates.jpg

HENRIETTA TEMPLE

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