The Isle of Man, as belonging to the Stanleys, was pertinaciously Royalist in the great Civil War; and hither retired James, the seventh Earl of Derby, on July 30, 1644, after the crushing defeat at Marston Moor on the previous July 2 had finally shattered the cause of the King in the North. Here he resided with his family in Castle Rushen for the next six years; and well would it have been for him had he resided here till the end. On June 16, 1650, however, Charles II. landed in the Firth of Cromarty to commence the new campaign that was destined to end so disastrously at Worcester; and in the August of the following year Derby, in his turn, set foot again on English soil at Wyre Water, in Lancashire, having been selected by Charles in the previous year to command the Royalist levies out of Lancashire and Cheshire. On sailing for this expedition, from which he was fated never to return, he left his wife behind him at Castle Rushen, under the care of William Christian, who commanded the insular forces. The Countess was the famous Charlotte de la Trémoille, daughter of Claude de la Trémoille, Duc de Thouars, and was lineally descended, on her mother's side, from the great Dutch patriot, William the Silent. Already, in the course of the great Civil War, she had distinguished herself by the defence of Lathom House, in Lancashire, during the siege of which she had "rejected with scorn all proposals for surrender, declaring that she and her children would fire the castle and perish in the flames rather than yield." The fortunes of her husband need not now be further followed, save briefly to record that he was beheaded by the Parliament at Bolton on October 15, 1651, having been captured near Nantwich whilst trying to make his escape alone after the defeat at Worcester. The unfortunate Countess, on hearing of his arrest, at once despatched overtures to England proposing the surrender of the island in the hope of saving his life. Whether the proposal was scouted, or arrived too late, the Earl, we have seen, was put to death; and it is said that the first intimation that his unhappy wife received of it was a curt and brutal sentence (though it may not have been meant as such)--"the late Earl of Derby"--in a letter from Colonel Duckenfield that was delivered to her on October 29, calling on her to surrender Castle Rushen. [Illustration: PEEL HARBOUR AND CASTLE. This is the most picturesque of the Manx towns and its Castle and Cathedral on St. Patrick's Isle are extremely interesting buildings.]