LINKS WITH THE PAST.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2541, 10 February 1923, Page 4

LINKS WITH THE PAST.

FROM 1649 TO 1922. EXECUTION OF CHARLES I. As a comparatively young student my interest was thrilled a year or two ago, writes a correspondent of the Sunday Times, by meeting a nonagenarian doctor who, in 1852, medically attended the Duke of Wellington at Apsley House. This was a few months before the Iron Duke died. Mr J. St. Loe Strachey, in his autobiography, “The Adventures of Living,” reveals some interesting links with the past. Referring to the family nurse, he says: “Leaker told us with pride that her mother, when a little girl, had sat upon the knee of an old soldier who had fought at Blenheim.” Some “historical calculator,” Mr Strachey fears, may despoil him of this story, but he goes on: “I am always thrilled to think that I have known a woman who had seen a man who had been with the great Marlborough at his greatest victory.” Mr Strachey relates what he describes as his most sensational link with the past and his narrative on the point led to interesting letters from the Earl of Middleton and the Earl of Onslow in recent issues of the Surrey Advertiser.

“When I first came into Surrey the old Lord Lovelace the man who married Byron’s daughter, and who built Horsley Towers —was still alive, and could be seen, as I saw him, driving about our Surrey lanes in a pony chaise. Lord Lovelace is reported to have made the following entry in his diary about the year 1810: “To-day I dined with old Lord Onslow (a neighbour then, presumably of about 90 years of age), and heard him say that as a boy he had known one of the Cromwellian troopers —Capt. Augustine —who was on guard when Charles I. was executed.’ ” As the Earl of Lovelace referred to was bom in 1805, this seems to suggest that he was a diarist at the age of live —which would be rather a point in favour of the sceptical “historical calculator.” Lord Middleton, however, is able to throw interesting light on the matter, for Lord Lovelace related the statement to him himself. Lord Lovelace was born in 1805. In 1810 the Lord Onslow of the day, who was then a man of great age, rode over to see Lord Lovelace’s mother, and seeing the boy, made him write down in a child’s handwriting the following: “To-day I saw Lord Onslow, who had dined with centinel (sic) at execution of Charles I.” It seems that the “centinel” was a. Frenchman, Augustin Boisragon, who lived near Clandon Park, the Surrey seat of the Onslows, and the present Lord Onslow states that

while he did not receive the story from "Lord Lovelace himself, after, on one occasion meeting Lord Lovelace in company with his father, the latter said to him: “You can now tell your grandchildren that you knew a man who as a boy spoke to one of your ancestors who had dined with a guard at the execution of Charles I.”

Boisragon’s son was employed by the Onslow family and it was through him that the Onslows met him. Boisragon, senior, was 18 when present at the execution in 1649 j and lived-to be 105 years old, dying in 1736. The contributions of Lord Middleton and Lord Onslow to the dis--eusslon establish the truly amazing link with the past referred to by Mr Strachey. The Cromwellian guard was received as a friend at Clandon Park, dined there when 99 years of age, and the boy who became Lord Onslow was present; this Lord Onslow related the fact 80 years later to the boy who afterwards* became Lord Lovelace, from whom Lord Middleton heard the story first hand. There are, therefore, only two links between men now living and one of the guards at the execution of Charles I.