In the days when landlords were able to live upon their estates and were
content with a more or less simple country life, enlivened only by an
occasional party of their friends, the country house was no
inconsiderable political force. The views of its possessor, indeed,
greatly influenced the neighbourhood, whilst as a rule a fairly
contented tenantry followed their landlord—Whig or Tory—and voted
according to his lead; besides this they took a genuine interest in
everything which concerned him or his family. To-day this has ceased to
be, for the rich city men or American millionaires are but seldom in
touch with those living around their mansions, hired either for sport or
pleasure. The modern standpoint as regards country life is well
demonstrated by the remark of a lady whose husband had bought a country
house, and was told that some pleasant people lived in the country-side
near by. “Pleasant or not, it matters little to us,” was the retort; “we
shan’t see anything of them,—we shall get our friends down from London
with the fish.” Nor is such a standpoint to be wondered at when it is
remembered how little a permanent resident in the country can be in
touch with those whose whole life is a rush for pleasure and amusement,
a habit of which they not unnaturally cannot divest themselves even when
far away from town. Formerly country-house life was very quiet, perhaps
even humdrum, but within the last thirty or forty years it has undergone
a complete transformation.
In old days the possessors were wont to reside upon their estates for
the greater portion of the year, whilst the people who hire country
houses merely run down for week-ends in the summer and shooting parties
in the winter.
The modern practice of letting one’s country house would have appalled
the landed proprietors of other days when such a thing was yet undreamt
of. There was then, of course, a real bond of connection (very often one
of respectful sympathy) between a landlord and his tenants, which,
except on a very few estates, has now quite ceased to exist.
At present the majority of country squires are far too poor to resist
letting their places, which are naturally regarded much in the light of
a commercial asset, their sale-value for the most part consisting in
their capacity for affording some city magnate or American millionaire
the shooting or hunting necessary to amuse him in the intervals of a
life of business and speculation. Country life, or rather short spells
of it, has now become a sort of luxury of the rich; but few of any
considerable means care to reside for long periods in the country, as
was the case in old days when people regularly settled down there.
In the late Lord Bath’s time I used to go a great deal to Longleat, the
beautiful palace—for it is little less—built by Sir John Thynne, the
favourite of Somerset, some of whose letters beginning “Edward,
Protector by the Grace of God,” are still preserved in the house. The
fourth Lord Bath was very much interested in politics, and many
interesting people used to assemble under his hospitable roof. I well
remember being at Longleat on the occasion of an election at which the
present Lord Bath was standing as a candidate. His successful election
was greatly assisted, every one in the house believed, by a canvasser of
a race which has always been prominently to the front in political
matters—a donkey—over whose back two panniers were slung, in each of
which reclined one of Lord Weymouth’s children, whilst the legend, “Vote
for Papa,” was prominently displayed.
Lady Bath and her husband were the very perfection of what a host and
hostess should be, and besides the social pleasures of these visits
there was always the beautiful park to drive about in, a veritable feast
to the eye in itself, especially the picturesque spot very appropriately
known as “Heaven’s Gate.”
It was only the other day that I was once more at Hinchingbrooke, the
lovely old place where many years ago I used to go and stay with a most
delightful friend of mine—the mother of the present Lord Sandwich.
Besides being a charming conversationalist, she had a most unusually
lovely voice—indeed the famous Costa used to say that he had hardly
ever heard a finer. The house is a wonderful old place, filled with
magnificent pictures, whilst there is a quantity of marvellous old
letters and manuscripts in the library. I remember going there to meet
the present Duchess of Devonshire just about the time that she made her
first appearance in England. She was then in the full radiance of youth
and beauty, creating a sensation wherever she went.
Another country place of which I have many pleasant memories is Goodwood
House. Especially well do I remember the elaborate and splendid
festivities which took place at the coming of age of the present Duke of
Richmond, on which occasion the old English custom of roasting an entire
ox was observed. The rejoicings lasted an entire week.
It was no uncommon thing before the days of easy railway travelling for
a friend of the family to reside almost permanently in a country house.
I remember such a one at my father’s house in Norfolk—Colonel Nelthorpe
by name—an old bachelor who might well have stepped out of one of
Fielding’s novels. This old colonel had a room known as Colonel
Nelthorpe’s room, and a stall for his horse in the stables, both of
which were always kept vacant and ready in view of his arrival during
such brief periods as he might choose not to reside at Wolterton. His
servant, whom he addressed in tones such as we might fancy Squire
Western would have employed, he called “Wulliam,” and to “Wulliam” went
the whole of Colonel Nelthorpe’s not inconsiderable fortune, a bequest
which somewhat staggered my poor mother, who, though as a rule a most
unworldly woman, had in this instance conceived an idea that the old
colonel would be sure to leave his fortune to her two little girls (my
sister and myself), for whom she declared he had always shown a distinct
partiality. When we were alone with this old veteran in the country all
the tit-bits were for him; but her attentions were lavished in vain,
for, as I have said, nothing came to us, and all went to “Wulliam.”
My father’s friendship with Colonel Nelthorpe (one of the ugliest men,
by the way, I ever remember) had been in a great measure caused by their
being jointly associated for a very long time in the command of the West
Norfolk Regiment of Militia, now the 4th Battalion Norfolk Regiment.
My father commanded this battalion for years, whilst Colonel Nelthorpe
was its lieutenant-colonel right up to his death, at a great age, in
1854, having served in that capacity for about forty years. In 1815 he
had commanded a detachment of the regiment which had been sent to
Ireland, and the year before he died, at the age of eighty-two, he took
part in the annual training, on which occasion, the Peace Society having
circulated much anti-military literature, the militiamen were openly
reproached, hooted, and ridiculed in the streets of Norwich. It was to
this battalion of militia that Captain Borrow, the father of the
celebrated author of _Lavengro_, acted as adjutant for forty-two years,
whilst one of George Borrow’s brothers, who died in Mexico, also served
in it as a lieutenant.
Colonel Nelthorpe belonged to another age, and my father also had a wide
experience of a world the ways of which are now almost totally
forgotten. As a very young man, in the first years of the nineteenth
century, he had met Casanova at Vienna, where he had a prolonged
interview with him—an interview which impressed him unfavourably and
gave him but an unpleasant opinion of that prince of adventurers, whom
he declared to be testy and disagreeable. In justice to Casanova,
however, it must be added that my father would fly into a rage upon the
slightest opportunity, and in addition nurtured a supreme contempt for
all foreigners. The meeting, therefore, between the diminutive and
irritable English peer and the gigantic Venetian (who, in his last
years, as is well known, was in the habit of constantly getting into
tempers on account of imaginary insults) could hardly have been expected
to pass off in perfect peace.
The sight of a foreigner, indeed, as a rule sent my father into a rage,
for he seemed almost to resent the presence on earth of any other
nationality except the British. Notwithstanding this, however, he for
some years had a Russian valet—an importation from St. Petersburg,
where he had been _chargé d’affaires_ three years before the battle of
Waterloo. This valet, of colossal height and formidable appearance, was
by nature the mildest of men, as was shown by the sweet and almost
caressing smile which he would oppose to the storms of abuse which were
wont to rage around him when anything had gone wrong. Never, perhaps,
were his looks sweeter than when, as a finale to a tirade of unusual
vehemence, my father would say, “Let it happen again, and as sure as I
stand here I will throw you out of the window.”
My father was well known as a character in that part of Norfolk in which
he lived, and his friend, old Lady Suffield, known as the “Double Dow,”
who resided not far away, was another. This old lady had most
aristocratic ideas,—quite those of another age, indeed, for she simply
could not bear to think of people of inferior birth being allowed to
break down the social barriers, which, according to her, should rigidly
fence in the aristocracy, and more especially the person of herself.
On one occasion, when present at an assembly at the county town
(Aylsham), she was horrified to discover that two local men, sons of a
successful miller and merchant in that place, had obtained admission,
and it was not long before she gave a very pointed demonstration of her
resentment by exclaiming in a loud voice, “It is most unpleasant here. I
can hardly see across the room for the flour dust.”
She herself at her advent into this world had been the victim of great
resentment on the part of her father, the Earl of Buckinghamshire, who,
when he was apprised of her birth by his butler, is said to have
somewhat gloomily replied, “Then you had better go and drag the baby
through the horse-pond.” He was, it must be added, not unnaturally very
much annoyed at the birth of a girl, instead of a male heir who should
succeed to his estates.
Old Lady Suffield, besides presenting my father with her picture by Sir
Thomas Lawrence, also gave him a mat or rug which she herself had
worked. In old days ladies spent a good deal of time in making carpets
and the like. At Wolterton was a carpet, cross-stitch, worked all in one
piece, by my great-grandmother, Lady Walpole; whilst a tablecloth and
twelve dinner napkins were reverently preserved on account of having
been spun by her.
Needlework carpets were much valued by the families to whom they
belonged. There is still, I believe, at Croome a portion of such a
carpet which once covered the floor of a boudoir in the family mansion
in Piccadilly, now long since passed into other hands; whilst at
Apethorpe, in Northamptonshire, there used to be a very large needlework
carpet which had been presented to that Lord Westmoreland who was
Ambassador in Vienna, having been worked by the ladies of that city by
way of especial compliment.
The “Double Dow” and her ways carried one right back to the eighteenth
century, to which she in reality belonged, having been married in 1792.
Nevertheless she lived well into comparatively modern days, dying only
in 1850.
Living at Blickling in stately splendour, old Lady Suffield always drove
up to London, despising the railroad as being a vulgar innovation. In my
youth the post-chaise still flourished, and my father constantly
travelled in one.
Well do I remember seeing Lord George Bentinck waiting for him in a
post-chaise standing outside our house in London. He had come to fetch
my father, as they were both going to drive down to Newmarket together.
This, I think, was the only occasion on which I got a good look at this
handsome pillar of the Turf, as he was in those days, and the two things
I remember about him were his voluminous cravat and the delicate
moulding of his hands, one of which (the very perfection of form, I
thought) rested on the ledge of the open window of the chaise.
In 1846 a great dinner was given to Lord George at Lynn, at which my
father, who was then High Steward of the town, presided. Mr. Disraeli
was present, and made a speech which received a most enthusiastic
reception.
Two great friends of my father were Admiral Rous and George Payne, both
staunch supporters of the Turf, and therefore in complete sympathy with
his desire to win the Derby.
Admiral Rous, who died in June 1877, had left the Navy some forty years
before, principally, I believe, on account of the scant recognition
which a considerable feat of seamanship performed by him, under the very
greatest difficulties, had received from the authorities at Whitehall.
Setting sail from Quebec in command of the _Pique_, his ship struck upon
a reef off the coast of Labrador, and was only got off in a terribly
damaged condition, the rudder being practically torn away.
Notwithstanding this, Captain Rous ran three thousand miles to Spithead
in twenty days, the vessel making about two feet of water an hour the
whole time, which entailed tremendous exertions at the pumps on the part
of the crew, who would undoubtedly have abandoned hope had it not been
for the indomitable spirit of their commander.
Admiral Rous was a great opponent of high betting, which he always
declared meant ruin to the Turf. Like many of his contemporaries he
hated tobacco, the smoking of which he considered almost an
ungentlemanly act. Besides being devoted to racing, the old Admiral
would never acquiesce in the modern view of cock-fighting, which he
defended to the end in the most uncompromising manner. To-day the race
of men of whom he was a type has totally disappeared, for modern England
does not breed them; but whether such a state of affairs is for the
country’s good seems to me a very doubtful question. Bluff and
straightforward, totally devoid of superficial sentimentality, such men
expressed the very spirit which has made that British Empire which a
feebler and more sentimental generation, prone to much prattle of
humanitarian and socialistic fads, would seem desirous of destroying.
George Payne, who lived not far away from us in Queen Street, Mayfair,
was another man whose whole existence may be said to have centred in the
Turf, though, unlike Admiral Rous, the attraction with him lay a good
deal in the betting. Nevertheless, unflinchingly honourable and
high-minded, Mr. Payne was a great deal more than a mere gambler.
Many are the stories that have been told of his distaste for going to
church; yet at heart he was anything but an irreligious man, as the
following anecdote will show. The late Lord Alexander Gordon Lennox was
one night returning from some party with Mr. Payne; it was very late,
and both were very tired. Reaching the latter’s house, Lord Alexander
said, “Now, old fellow, you will be in bed in five minutes”; to which
the answer was “No.” “Why,” continued the original speaker, “whatever
are you going to do?” To which George Payne replied, “I am going to say
my prayers. I always have a bucket of cold water in my room, and if I am
very tired, put my head in it to waken me up to say my prayers.”
Lord Alexander also used to say that George Payne would never stand any
young fellow saying anything against religion at the club, but would at
once flare out at the offender.
There are, indeed, many people like George Payne, who, whilst they may
not be regular churchgoers, are yet at heart religious in the best sense
of the word. A certain gallant officer, for instance, who commanded a
battalion of the Guards, though not very fond of going to church, used,
when in the country, to make a practice of going for a long walk alone,
during which he would indulge in meditation. On one occasion he was
attacked by some one who, in the course of his oration, said, “Why, one
would think you soldiers had no souls to save!” The author of this
somewhat impertinent homily was, however, completely routed by the
good-humoured answer which the Colonel in question made. He calmly
looked the lecturer in the face, and merely remarked, “Mayn’t a man save
his soul by the way he likes best?”
As a matter of fact Satan is willing enough to let men go to church on
Sunday provided they work for him the rest of the week, as I fear many
outwardly religious people do!
In his career upon the Turf George Payne was peculiarly unfortunate from
a financial point of view; as is well known, he completely dissipated
two fortunes. By no means really astute, he would back a number of
horses in a race in the—usually delusive—hope of making sure of the
winner, a mania which cost him much.
It used to be computed by those well able to judge that Mr. Payne had
spent a fortune alone in the hire of chaises and horses in the time
previous to the introduction of railways, for it was his practice to
spare no expense in order to get from one place to the other with the
greatest speed possible.
My father himself was never particularly successful at racing, though he
won the Two Thousand Guineas and once ran second for the Derby. When he
did win a race, however, every one on the estate knew it, for he would
at once set to work upon his favourite project of enlarging the lake in
the Park. On the other hand, whenever fortune chanced to show herself in
an especially unkind mood, which was very often the case, all the men
employed at this work would be at once dismissed, whilst the most rigid
economy would prevail till such time as another horse managed to get
first past the post.
By no means an uncultivated man, fond of pictures and of art generally,
racing and its attendant betting was, nevertheless, my father’s master
passion. To him Newmarket was a very Mecca and, wherever he chanced to
be, at home or abroad, the loadstone towards which his thoughts were
perpetually directed.
The old Duchess of Cleveland (mother of Lord Rosebery), a lady dowered
with no mean intellectual gifts, lived to a very great age, being well
over ninety at her death. She was possessed of a considerable sense of
humour, and used to tell several entertaining stories of the many
visitors who were always coming over from Hastings to see Battle Abbey.
When the Duke of Cleveland first took possession, he naturally acceded
to the request of the Hastings Corporation that the Abbey ruins should
be open to the public once every week, and on the first public day eight
hundred people arrived, swarmed all over the place, and were only
prevented from entering the Duchess’s own boudoir by the determined
attitude which she assumed, advancing against the intruders with the
fury of her eye rendered doubly formidable by the huge pair of
spectacles which she habitually wore. The notes she used to receive from
visitors were sometimes very curious; one individual, for instance,
wrote saying that he considered he had a right to go over the Abbey at
all times, as one of his ancestors had fought at Hastings, and he
himself had been christened “Norman”! Another, a lady, wanted to know if
anything very pretty had been found at the spot where Harold fell, as in
Rome she had seen such lovely ornaments found in the tombs there. This
rather reminds me of another lady whom I once heard saying that her
favourite study was the history of the Moors in Mexico, and the relics
they had left behind there.
People used to be very fond of boasting to the Duke and Duchess of their
Norman descent, amongst others Mrs. Grote, who, when at Battle in 1867
with her aunt and the celebrated historian, declared that she was a
lineal descendant of Harold’s younger brother, “Earl Leofwine,”—a name
which in the course of time had been transformed into Lewin.
At one time, over the fireplace in the Abbots’ Hall was a stuffed black
horse, which used to be pointed out to visitors as the identical animal
which had carried William the Conqueror at the battle of Hastings. In
reality the horse in question had never carried any one more celebrated
than Sir Godfrey Webster, and then only at a review.
The arrangements at Battle Abbey in the time of the Duke and Duchess did
not err in the direction of excess of comfort. The Duke was inclined to
economy, and the Duchess, an extremely clever woman, was so much
immersed in various intellectual interests, mostly of an archæological
kind, that she did not trouble to give much attention to household
management. Matters were allowed to take their own course more or less,
with the result that on one occasion the French Ambassador, on his way
from the station to the Abbey, was delayed by the breaking of the
carriage pole, which collapsed owing to extreme and untended old age. It
was, certainly, no place for sybarites, who generally agreed with the
quotation from the Litany which a witty and luxurious member of the
Foreign Office once wrote in the visitors’ book—
From Battle, murder, and sudden death, Good Lord deliver us.
At the same time great care was devoted to the remains of the old
buildings, which, wherever possible, were as judiciously restored as the
taste of that day permitted.
There is something singularly attractive in the country-side around
Battle Abbey, by reason of its having been the site of that great
struggle which really created England—the battle of Hastings. It was on
Caldbeck Hill, on the evening of the 14th of October 1066, that the
Norman trumpets blared forth their pæan of victory.
The right of power, as an old historian says, had been tried by the
great assize of God’s judgment in battle. England had been beaten, but
by the very fact of her defeat was to develop into a greater England
than ever any of Harold’s Saxon thanes would have dreamed possible.
Here on this hill Duke William, having caused his standard to be set up,
stood amongst his Barons and Knights “solemnly rendering thanks to the
King of Glory, through whom he had the victory—mourning also frequently
for the dead.” An appropriate place, indeed, would this be for a statue
to the great Norman whose memory as the real maker of England deserves a
recognition which it has never obtained. Underneath might well be
inscribed the words which he addressed after the battle to his faithful
old follower, Walter Giffard, Lord of Longueville, near Dieppe—
I thank God we have done well hitherto, and if such be God’s
will, we will go on and do well henceforward.