September beginnings: 'And I would love you all the day…' John Gay 1728*

"When Francis, fourth Viscount  Castlewood, came to his title, and presently after to take possession of his house of Castlewood, county Hants, in the year 1691, almost the only tenant of the place besides the domestics was a lad of twelve years of age, of whom no one seemed to take any note until my Lady Viscountess lighted upon him, going over the house with the housekeeper on the day of her arrival.

Clevedon Court, Somerset   Thackeray's model for Castlewood House, after staying there

"The boy was in the room known as the book-room, or yellow gallery, where the portraits of the family used to hang, that fine piece among others of Sir Antonio Van Dyck of George, second Viscount, and that by Mr Dobson of my lord the third Viscount, just deceased, which it seems his lady and widow did not think fit to carry away, when she sent for and carried off to her house at Chelsey, near to London, the picture of herself by Sir Peter Lely, in which her ladyship was represented as a huntress of Diana's court.

"The new and fair lady of Castlewood found the sad lonely little occupant of this gallery busy over his great  book, which he laid down when he was aware that a stranger was at hand. And, knowing who that person must be, the lad stood up and bowed before her, performing a shy obeisance to the mistress of his house.

"She stretched out her hand - indeed when was it that that hand would not stretch out to do an act of kindness, or to protect grief and ill-fortune?  'And this is our kinsman,' she said;  'and what is your name, kinsman?   'My name is Henry Esmond,' said the lad, looking up at her in a sort of delight and wonder, for she had come upon him as a Dea certe, and appeared the most charming object he had ever looked on.  Her golden hair was shining in the gold of the sun; her complexion was of a dazzling bloom; her lips smiling, and her eyes beaming with a kindness which made Harry Esmond's heart to beat with surprise."

The History of Henry Esmond, Esq.  
'A Colonel in the service of Her Majesty Q. Anne  Written by himself.'    W. M.  Thackeray 1852

Thackeray's story of family loves and loyalty is set in the period of political upheaval from the 'Glorious Revolution' of  protestant William III and his wife Mary II (daughter of James II) through to the death of Queen Anne and the succession  of Hanoverian George I.  Henry Esmond's father  was the 3rd Viscount Castlewood, who died fighting in the Jacobite cause against William III at the Battle of the Boyne, although the orphaned Henry is believed for very many years to be his illegitimate son.  From the beginning Henry falls in love with the whole family:  he is devoted to the 4th Viscount and his Lady, he mentors the Castlewood's young son Frank like a brother,  and is completely dazzled by their precocious daughter Beatrice.

Portrait of a Lady with flowers    Sir Godfrey Kneller 

Compared with Thackeray's satirical novel Vanity Fair, this is a more moral tale about the vanities of being in love and the ardent beliefs of the Catholic Jacobite supporters, who would bring back James II's exiled son James Stuart (the 'Old Pretender') as James III.  It is about the values of honour and constancy, of love versus sentiment.  As  Henry lives through duels, scandals, battles and conspiracies in the first decades of the 1700s,  he grows older and wiser, but still follows his heart despite what his head tells him.
He fights in the War of the Spanish Succession (from Blenheim to Malplaquet) under General John Webb (a distant ancestor of Thackeray) and sees the venalities of the leaders, particularly the Duke of Marlborough; in London he is befriended by the writers Richard Steele and Joseph Addison.  Now Colonel Esmond, he is reunited with the widowed Lady Castlewood and her wilful ambitious daughter Beatrix;  he is in love with Beatrix still, though she 'has no heart'.

Through loyalty to the family and his lifelong love and devotion to them, Esmond, although become more Whig than Tory,  joins in young Frank's conspiracy to smuggle the exiled Pretender, Prince James Stuart into England:

James Francis Edward Stuart, as a young man c. 1715 : coloured portrait from a Jacobite broadside     (National Library of Scotland)

 "twas a scheme of personal ambition, a daring stroke for a selfish end  -- he knew it.  What cared he in his heart who was king? Were not his very sympathies and secret convictions on the other side -- on the side of People, Parliament, Freedom? and here was he, engaged for a prince, that had scarce heard the word liberty; that priests and women, tyrants by nature both, made a tool of".

The Jacobite supporters plan to present Prince James Stuart to his dying half-sister Queen Anne, so that through family loyalty and sentiment,  she will announce him as her heir to the throne, but the coup is thwarted through the Prince and Beatrix's philandering at the critical moment.  The scales fall from Henry Esmond's eyes and he and his Lady Castlewood leave for a new life in Virginia - 'Over the Hills and far away'* .