The loyal, single-minded Earl was not likely to be a favourite with the ruck of the Court party. For the butterfly courtiers he was too austere, and for the place-seekers too honest, for them to be desirous of his presence near the King, who was at Oxford, or the Queen, who was at York. The uttermost confines of the kingdom were not too far to banish him, in the opinion of many; and accordingly, under sufficiently specious pretexts, thither he was sent, although the Parliamentarians were rapidly gaining ground in the North; but, as the Earl writes in his memoirs—“The old saying is verified, ‘Misfortunes never come single-handed.’” “I received,” he goes on to say, writing to his son, Lord Strange, “letters from the Isle of Man, indicating threatenings of a great revolt.” Many there, following the example of England, began to murmur against the Government—thanks to a few malicious and seditious spirits. They had learned the same lesson as the Londoners, coming tumultuously to Court to demand new laws, and modification of old ones; saying that they would have no bishops, and would not pay tithes to the clergy. They despised authority, and set free several persons whom the Government had arrested for their insolence. “I had also learned,” he continues, “that an armed ship which I kept there for the defence of the island had been seized by the Parliament ships—which turned out to be true. His Majesty, therefore, had those about him, such as Lord Goring, Lord Digby, Lord Jermyn, Sir Edward Dering and several others, who advised me to repair immediately to the island, in order to prevent mischief in time to be of service to his Majesty, and for the preservation of my heritage.” But in this again the Earl might have coupled with his quoted axiom of the arrival of evils in battalions, the fable of the old man and the ass; for while he pleased the King and his lords, his enemies set his departure to the Isle of Man to a desire to be out of the general struggle. The Earl treats these calumnies with the contempt they merited. It suffices that his son knows and understands him. “As to the others,” he writes, “it matters little to me whether they understand or not.” Lord Derby delayed only long enough to return to Lathom, where he mustered all the men, and got together all the money and ammunition possible “to defend and protect my wife and children against the insolence of the enemy.” Then he embarked for the Isle of Man. “I left my house and my children,” the Earl concluded, “and all my affairs in England in charge of my wife, a person of virtue and of honour, worthy of her high birth and rank, who thus found herself alone, a stranger in the land, and (so it was thought) destitute of friends, provisions, or arms for defence. It was imagined that Lathom House would be an easy conquest, and a commission from Parliament was procured to subdue it by treaty or by force.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------