England is full of castles, abbeys, and manor-houses, which are still
occupied by the descendants of those who built them or by those into
whose hands they have passed in later days, and among these stately
piles it is hard to pick one as a type of a fine old English house.
But, putting aside the great castles, like Warwick, whose frowning
walls and grim battlements tell of an age when defence was the first
thought in the mind of a builder, let us take a mansion erected at a
more peaceful time. Such a mansion is to be found in Compton Wynyates,
a fine old Warwickshire house, built in 1509.
Compton Wynyates stands in a very secluded spot, some twelve miles from
Stratford, hidden away in a thickly-wooded dell. You approach the
house along a mere byway, and do not see it until you are close upon
it. Then a picturesque medley of gables, turrets, battlements and
chimneys, springs to view, and you stand to wonder at so splendid a
house being built in so hidden and solitary a place.
[Illustration: AN ENGLISH COUNTRY HOME]
Compton Wynyates was built at a time when the bare lofty walls of a
castle-keep were being deserted for the brighter, more cheerful rooms
of a mansion whose walls were pierced by many windows. But at the same
time it was not wise to live entirely without protection, so a moat was
dug round the house and entrance could only be gained by a drawbridge.
In our quiet days a bridge of stone has replaced the wooden bridge
which rose and fell, but the old oak doors which once barred the
archway leading to the house are still in position, and we can see upon
them the marks of musket-balls fired at the defenders of the place in
troublous times.
Let us go into the great hall, the chief room of an old house--the room
where once the whole family dined together at a long table, the master
and his friends above the salt, the servants and humbler guests below.
The hall rises the full height of the house, and has a fine timbered
roof, and at one end is the minstrels' gallery, a picturesque
half-timbered structure, the place where minstrels made merry music at
some feast or on the visit of some great personage.
In the hall stands a huge slab of elm more than 23 feet long and some
30 inches wide. It was once used for playing "shovel-board," a
favourite game with our ancestors, and when in use was set up on
trestles.
In this hall Sir William Compton received Henry VIII., whom Sir William
had accompanied to the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Sir William, too,
had won much distinction at the Battle of Spurs, and was a great
favourite with bluff King Hal, to whom the knight owed much of his
great fortune.
Next to the hall is the great parlour, the private room of the family
when they withdrew from the hall. It is finely panelled in oak, and
has a plaster ceiling, bearing the arms of the owners of the place.
Beyond the parlour is the chapel, decorated with very ancient carved
wooden panels. These carvings are very much older than the house, and
it is believed they were brought from an old castle which Sir William
Compton pulled down in order to obtain materials for his house.
But it will be impossible for us to go from room to room of this
wonderful old house, for there are more than eighty of
them--drawing-rooms, dining-rooms, bedrooms, great kitchens with vast
old fireplaces, and gained by seventeen separate staircases, which wind
and twist their way through the building. It is said there are 275
windows in the house, though an old story goes that no one knows
exactly how many there are, for he who tries to count is baffled by a
mysterious secret window, which he sees and counts on the first
occasion, and can never find again. Its chimneys, too, rise in a
veritable forest of quaintly-shaped stacks, and form as puzzling a
labyrinth as the windows.
There was a meaning in this tangle of windows and chimneys, for Compton
Wynyates is full of secret hiding-places. Hundreds of years ago there
was need of them. To-day no man needs to hide himself unless he has
done wrong. Then, an innocent man might stand in great danger of a
powerful enemy or of an unjust law. So the old houses were furnished
with places where men could hide from their foes until an opportunity
came for escape.
Again, Compton Wynyates was a Catholic house, and in those times Roman
Catholics were punished if they were found attending a Roman Catholic
service, and the priest who performed the service stood in danger of
imprisonment or, possibly, of death. So places were carefully
constructed to which the priest could fly to hide himself when officers
of the law came to the house in search of him. Many such secret
chambers are found in old mansions, and are known as "priests' holes."
It was a common thing to form a secret chamber in the thickness of a
wall, and the first thing required was air, the second light. Air was
often given to a secret chamber by a chimney. But such a chimney
remained unblackened by smoke, and would soon be detected as not doing
its proper work, so it was often built in the centre of a stack of real
chimneys, and thus remained hidden. So, too, amid a great number of
other windows, it was not easy to detect that which gave light to a
hidden room. At Compton Wynyates such is the tangle of windows and
chimneys that a person may have pointed out to him the chimney and the
window belonging to a secret room, and yet fail to discover the place
when he searches inside.
One of the secret rooms at Compton Wynyates was discovered by a child
of the house, Lady Frances Compton, in 1770. She was playing in a
turret room, and fell against some plaster-work, which rang hollow.
Search was made, and a concealed door was found beneath the plaster.
The hidden chamber was opened, and tradition says that the skeletons of
a woman and two children were found within. No one knows how they came
there, but it is believed that at some time of danger they had been
concealed there and forgotten.
In the roof of this great building is the famous priests' room or
chapel. Here the Roman Catholics of the neighbourhood used to meet to
worship in secret. A safer and better hidden place could not be
devised. To this day the proof that it was a Roman Catholic chapel
remains to be seen. "On an elm shelf below the south-west window are,
rudely carved, five consecration crosses, showing that it had been used
for the purpose of an altar, and was consecrated according to the rites
of the Romish Church. The slab of wood is unique, in that it forms the
only known instance of a wooden altar in England."
There was another huge room in the roof, 130 feet long, which was known
as the Barracks, a place where soldiers were quartered. Here may be
seen blood-stains, caused by fighting during the Great Civil War. The
house was held for the King, but the Roundhead soldiery broke in, and
there was desperate fighting in the Barracks, and many were slain.
Cromwell's men took the house, and held it for the rest of the war.
In one of the drawing-rooms may be seen, carved beautifully in the
panelling, the arms of the Comptons and the arms of the Spencers, and
this carving bears witness to a very romantic marriage. In the days of
Queen Elizabeth there was a Lord Mayor of London whose name was Sir
John Spencer. Sir John was a very rich man, and he had an only
daughter named Elizabeth. Now, the Lord Compton of that day fell in
love with Elizabeth Spencer, but the wealthy merchant did not look with
any favour on Compton, and forbade him to come near the house. But the
young lady herself did not share her father's feelings with regard to
the young courtier, and soon a clever ruse was planned.
One day a young man, dressed as a baker, came to the house with a huge
basket of loaves of bread. As he was going away again, with the great
basket on his shoulders, he met Sir John himself. The wealthy merchant
thought that here was a hard-working young fellow going heartily about
his business. He praised him, gave him sixpence, and told him that he
was on the high-road to make his fortune. So he was, but not quite as
Sir John thought. The disguised baker was Lord Compton, and in the
basket he was carrying off the young heiress, Elizabeth Spencer.
When Sir John learned of the trick that had been played on him he was
furious, and vowed that he would never see his daughter again. But
Queen Elizabeth took an interest in the affair, and finally brought
about a reconciliation, and the arms of the two families were placed in
the drawing-room to show that peace was restored between Sir John and
the young people.