He always maintained that, had the house been
fortified, it could have held out until help arrived, although, in
later years, his father assured him that it was well it was not in
a position to offer a defence.
"We were away down south, Marmaduke, and the Roundheads were
masters of this district, at the time. They would have battered the
place around your mother's ears, and, likely as not, have burnt it
to the ground. As it was, I came back here to find it whole and
safe, except that the crop-eared scoundrels had, from pure
wantonness, destroyed the pictures and hacked most of the furniture
to pieces. I took no part in the later risings, seeing that they
were hopeless, and therefore preserved my property, when many
others were ruined.
"No, Marmaduke, it is just as well that the house was not
fortified. I believe in fighting, when there is some chance, even a
slight one, of success, but I regard it as an act of folly, to
throw away a life when no good can come of it."
Still, Sir Marmaduke never ceased to regret that Lynnwood was not
one of the houses that had been defended, to the last, against the
enemies of the king. At the Restoration he went, for the first time
in his life, to London, to pay his respects to Charles the Second.
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