William Cavendish (1593–1676) was a major player in the seventeenth century’s political upheavals. Commanding the first English Civil War’s largest Royalist army, he had initial success capturing key northern cities for the king, but his disastrous and bloody defeat at Marston Moor followed by a precipitous flight to the Continent in self-imposed exile greatly damaged his reputation, which has suffered ever since. More recently, with renewed interest in Royalist exiles, there have been reassessments of the duke’s contributions and character. This essay collection focuses on him and, to a lesser extent, his circle to examine the performance of elite authority and construction of aristocratic identity in relation to political and cultural shifts.
Arranged thematically, the essays explore Cavendish’s various roles, from courtier and Prince Charles’s governor, to general and patron of the arts and sciences. His career in the Civil Wars and life in exile get considerable attention. Elspeth Graham considers how Cavendish tried to repair his tattered reputation after Marston Moor, first through love poetry alluding to his estate at Bolsover Castle and then through works on horsemanship. Offering a much-needed corrective on Cavendish’s military record, Andrew Hopper argues persuasively that he was more successful than given credit for, both in military strategy as well as in shrewd negotiations. Madeline Dewhurst also paints a far more positive picture of his political effectiveness: despite the rhetoric of retirement, he continued laboring on behalf of the Royalist cause in exile, raising funds with intentions to return to military campaigning, governing English exiles in Antwerp, and advising on the Privy Council. The question of his reputation and its rehabilitation occupies a number of essays. Lisa Sarasohn considers honor’s shifting meanings and the convergence of Cavendish’s and Hobbes’s thinking about it as an attribute conferred by the prince. Peter Edwards argues that Cavendish used the complex art of manège to rehabilitate his reputation.
Both Hobbes and horses constitute important strands. Aside from Sarasohn, Timothy Raylor considers Hobbes’s role in introducing mechanical philosophy to Cavendish, while Monica Mattfield compares Cavendish’s centaurian fusion of horse and rider to Hobbes’s trans-species political philosophy. Horsemanship dominates the volume. Besides essays already mentioned, Elaine Walker unfolds the contexts of the two versions of his horsemanship treatises, Karen Raber analyzes their print publication as his intervention into debates over training methods even as he elides the works by practitioners of the middling class, and Richard Nash argues that Cavendish’s monarchical ideology eschews the newly developing art of horse racing. Even essays on building works turn to the same theme: while Adrian Woodhouse considers the context of pre–Civil War renovations of Cavendish’s country houses, Malcolm Airs examines their equestrian buildings, spurred by aristocratic rivalry with Henry, First Earl of Holland.
The Cavendish family’s literary endeavors receive some attention. His second wife, Margaret, a prolific author enjoying a lively scholarly revival, is much better studied than William. Here Alison Findlay addresses her references to horsemanship—a metaphor for political authority—as a textual dialogue with her husband, subtly critiquing male authority. Lisa Hopkins considers literary genealogy in his daughters Jane’s and Elizabeth’s coauthored play The Concealed Fancies. James Fitzmaurice examines William Cavendish’s literary patronage, focusing on what he calls “whimsy”—defined as “giddiness or dizziness” (66), erotic foolishness, and playfulness—which unifies elements in architecture, tilting, and masquing, and Ben Jonson’s entertainments that Cavendish sponsored.
Focusing on a restricted set of topics, the volume tilts the understanding of aristocratic identity, its avowed aim, toward a narrower emphasis on courtiership. Despite the inclusion of authorship in the title, little is said about Cavendish’s dramatic writings for the popular stage or his considerable interest in music and patronage of musicians. Discussion of his literary, scientific, and philosophical circles, confined to only a few figures, could stand to be broadened further. The Civil Wars cast their long shadow: only the first two essays concern the pre–Civil War period. For a collection so focused on Cavendish’s horses and buildings, it is lovely to have so many illustrations of buildings and dressage, though several, surprisingly, are repeated. But one rather wishes for a more balanced selection of essays to give a fuller and more expansive sense of the duke’s life and times.
