Hopton and Waller: Friends Divided
by Civil War is the most bitter and vicious kind of conflict. All the frustrations, the envy, family feuds, town rivalries, and personal enmities, come to the fore.
To my noble friend Sir Ralph Hopton at Wells
Sir
The experience I have of your worth and the happiness I have enjoyed in your friendship and wounding considerations when I look upon this present distance between us. Certainly my affection to you is unchangeable that hostility itself cannot violate my friendship, but I must be true wherein the cause I serve. That great God, which is the searcher of my heart, knows with what a sad sense I go about this service, and with what a perfect hatred I detest this war without an enemy. The God of peace in his good time send us peace. In the meantime, we are upon this stage and must act those parts that are assigned to us in this tragedy. Let us do so with honour and without personal animosity. Whatever the outcome I will never willingly relinquish the title of
Your most affectionate friend
William Waller
Following the King’s defeat, Sir Ralph Hopton fled abroad with the young Prince Charles. He died of a fever in Bruges in 1651. Sir William Waller continued to serve as an MP but he became increasingly disillusioned with the new Commonwealth and in his later years worked tirelessly for the restoration of the Monarchy. He died in 1668. They were never to meet again. This is a sad story that must have been repeated thousands of times over. This is the real tragedy of all civil wars in times past and present, the world over.
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