Robert Blake was born at Bridgewater, in August 1599. His father, Humphrey Blake, was a merchant trading with Spaina man whose temper seems to have been too sanguine and adventurous for the ordinary action of trade, finally involving him in difficulties which clouded his latter days, and left his family in straitened circumstances: his name, however, was held in general respect; and we find that he lived in one of the best houses in Bridgewater, and twice filled the chair of its chief magistrate. The perils to which mercantile enterprise was then liablethe chance escapes and valorous deeds which the successful adventurer had to tell his friends and children on the dark winter nightsdoubtless formed a part of the food on which the imagination of young Blake, 'silent and thoughtful from his childhood,' was fed in the 'old house at home.' At the Bridgewater grammar-school, Robert received his early education, making tolerable acquaintance with Latin and Greek, and acquiring a strong bias towards a literary life. This penchant was confirmed by his subsequent career at Oxford, where he matriculated at sixteen, and where he strove hard but fruitlessly for scholarships and fellowships at different colleges. His failure to obtain a Merton fellowship has been attributed to a crotchet of the warden's, Sir Henry Savile, in favour of tall men: 'The young Somersetshire student, thick-set, fair complexioned, and only five feet six, fell below his standard of manly beauty;' and thus the Cavalier warden, in denying this aspirant the means of cultivating literature on a little university oatmeal, was turning back on the world one who was fated to become a republican power of the age. This shining light, instead of comfortably and obscurely merging in a petty constellation of Alma Mater, was to become a bright particular star, and dwell apart. The avowed liberalism of Robert may, however, have done more in reality to shock Sir Henry, than his inability to add a cubit to his stature. It is pleasant to know, that the 'admiral and general at sea' never outgrew a tenderness for literaturehis first-love, despite the rebuff of his advances. Even in the busiest turmoil of a life teeming with accidents by flood and field, he made it a point of pride not to forget his favourite classics. Nor was it till after nine years' experience of college-life, and when his father was no longer able to manage his res angusta vitæ , that Robert finally abandoned his long-cherished plans, and retired with a sigh and last adieu from the banks of the Isis.
When he returned to Bridgewater, in time to close his father's eyes, and superintend the arrangements of the family, he was already remarkable for that 'iron will, that grave demeanour, that free and dauntless spirit,' which so distinguished his after-course. His tastes were simple, his manners somewhat bluntly austere; a refined dignity of countenance, and a picturesque vigour of conversation, invested him with a social interest, to which his indignant invectives against court corruptions gave distinctive character. To the Short Parliament he was sent as member for
his native town; and in 1645, was returned by Taunton to the Long Parliament. At the dissolution of the former, which he regarded as a signal for action, he began to prepare arms against the king; his being one of the first troops in the field, and engaged in almost every action of importance in the western counties. His superiority to the men about him lay in the 'marvellous fertility, energy, and comprehensiveness of his military genius.' Prince Rupert alone, in the Royalist camp, could rival him as a 'partisan soldier.' His first distinguished exploit was his defence of Prior's Hill fort, at the siege of Bristolwhich contrasts so remarkably with the pusillanimity of his chief, Colonel Fiennes. Next comes his yet more brilliant defence of Lymethen a little fishing-town, with some 900 inhabitants, of which the defences were a dry ditch, a few hastily-formed earth-works, and three small batteries, but which the Cavalier host of Prince Maurice, trying storm, stratagem, blockade, day after day, and week after week, failed to reduce or dishearten. 'At Oxford, where Charles then was, the affair was an inexplicable marvel and mystery: every hour the court expected to hear that the "little vile fishing-town," as Clarendon contemptuously calls it, had fallen, and that Maurice had marched away to enterprises of greater moment; but every post brought word to the wondering council, that Colonel Blake still held out, and that his spirited defence was rousing and rallying the dispersed adherents of Parliament in those parts.' After the siege was raised, the Royalists found that more men of gentle blood had fallen under Blake's fire at Lyme, than in all the other sieges and skirmishes in the western counties since the opening of the war. The details of the siege are given with graphic effect by Mr Dixon, and are only surpassed in interest by those connected with Blake's subsequent and yet more celebrated defence of Taunton, to which the third chapter of this biography is devoted.