Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/144

 me in my poor featherhead, seemed a somewhat unhandy gentleman!

The reader may take what of these Warwick traits he can along with him, and also omit what he cannot take; for though Warwick’s veracity is undoubted, his memory after many years, in such an element as his had been, may be questioned. The ‘band,’ we may remind our readers, is a linen tippet, properly the shirt-collar of those days, which, when the hair was worn long, needed to fold itself with a good expanse of washable linen over the upper-works of the coat, and defend these and their velvets from harm. The ‘specks of blood,’ if not fabulous, we, not without general sympathy, attribute to bad razors: as for the ‘hatband,’ one remarks that men did not speak with their hats on; and therefore will, with Sir Philip’s leave, omit that. The ‘untuneable voice,’ or what a poor young gentleman in these circumstances would consider as such, is very significant to us.

Here is the other vague appearance; from Clarendon’s Life ‘He,’ Mr Hyde, afterwards Lord Clarendon, was often heard to mention one private Committee, in which he was put accidentally into the chair; upon an Enclosure which had been made of great wastes, belonging to the Queen’s Manors, without the consent of the tenants, the benefit whereof had been given by the Queen to a servant of near trust, who forthwith sold the lands enclosed to the Earl of Manchester, Lord Privy Seal; who together with his Son Mandevil were now most concerned to maintain the Enclosure; against which, as well the inhabitants of other manors, who claimed Common in those wastes, as the Queen’s tenants of the same, made loud complaints, as a great oppression, carried upon them with a very high hand, and supported by power.

‘The Committee sat in the Queen’s Court; and Oliver Cromwell being one of them, appeared much concerned to countenance the Petitioners, who were numerous together with their Witnesses; the Lord Mandevil being likewise