KENILWORTH
The successful introduction of Mary Queen of Scots as the central
figure of 'The Abbot' resulted, not only in repairing the reputation
which had been somewhat damaged by its predecessor, but in suggesting
the theme of a new novel which was to achieve a popularity second only
to 'Ivanhoe.' The desire to portray, in the form of romance, the great
rival of Queen Mary, was perhaps irresistible, particularly in view of
the fact that it meant a new opportunity to reach that English audience
which had given to 'Ivanhoe' so cordial a reception. Constable, the
publisher, was of course delighted to have a new English novel and
particularly one in which Queen Elizabeth was to be an important
figure. With characteristic presumptuousness he argued that it should
be a story of the Armada. Scott, however, had been enchanted in his
youth by a ballad of the Scotch poet, Mickle, entitled 'Cumnor Hall,'
and particularly by its first stanza:--
The dews of summer night did fall;
The moon, sweet regent of the sky,
Silver'd the walls of Cumnor Hall,
And many an oak that grew thereby.
He insisted, therefore, in spite of his adviser, upon taking the theme
of the ballad for his subject and would even have called the novel
'Cumnor Hall.' In deference to Constable, however, he accepted the
title, 'Kenilworth,' {273} although John Ballantyne growled a little at
a name which he thought suggested 'something worthy of a kennel.'
Here, then, were the determining points of the new novel, namely, a
favourite poem concerning the marriage of the Earl of Leicester to a
lady whom he kept concealed at Cumnor Hall, the desire to sketch, in a
romantic way, the character of Queen Elizabeth, and the opportunity to
secure a dramatic climax by confronting the Queen with the wife of her
favourite courtier, in the splendid castle of the latter at Kenilworth.
Cumnor is one of those lovely little villages in the Midlands of
England where Father Time employs his talents as an artist, softening
the outlines of the stone walls and fences with graceful mantles of
dark green ivy and imparting richer and deeper shades of brown to the
old thatched roofs of the cottages.
We saw few evidences of activity on the part of the inhabitants, and
reached the conclusion that Cumnor, in Walter Scott's time, and even in
the days of the Earl of Leicester, could not have been very different
from its present aspect.
We did not ruin our reputation as travellers by failing to 'wet a cup
at the bonny Black Bear,' for that 'excellent inn of the old stamp,' if
indeed it ever existed, has disappeared as effectually as its famous
landlord, Giles Gosling. Its prototype, bearing the sign of the 'Bear
and Ragged Staff,' formerly stood opposite the church, but its bar-room
became objectionable to the vicar and, by what a local writer calls 'an
impious act of vandalism,' the inn was destroyed.
Cumnor Place has likewise disappeared. The site {274} where it stood
appears to be a comparatively small piece of land, near the street, but
well covered with large trees. It was not an extensive park with
formal walks and avenues, nor was the house itself so large or high as
the structure described in the novel. It was a single-story building
or series of buildings, forming an enclosure about seventy feet long
and fifty feet wide. It was built about 1350 as a country residence
for the Abbot of Abingdon and as a sanitarium for the monks. After two
centuries its use by the monastery ceased and Cumnor Place passed into
the hands of the Court physician, George Owen, who leased it to Anthony
Foster. As the servant of Lord Robert Dudley, Foster received into his
house the ill-fated Amy Robsart, whom that gentleman had married in
1550. The marriage was not secret, but was celebrated in the presence
of the young King, Edward VI, and his Court. It had been arranged by
Dudley's father, John, Earl of Warwick and Duke of Northumberland, who
seems to have had a fondness for match-making, of the kind which
promised a profit. He managed to marry his fourth son, Guildford
Dudley, to Lady Jane Grey, a great-granddaughter of Henry VII. In the
last two years of the reign of Edward VI, Northumberland was virtually
the ruler of England. He induced the King to execute a will,
disinheriting his two sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, who were the legal
heirs to the crown, and naming Lady Jane Grey as his successor. The
reign of this unfortunate lady, who never desired the throne, lasted
but nine days. The rightful Queen, Mary, was restored by the people,
and Northumberland, like his father before him, was beheaded in the
Tower. His son, Guildford, with Jane {275} Grey, his wife, suffered
the same penalty a year later, as the result of another revolt, in
which the lady, at least, had no share.
[Illustration: LEICESTER'S BUILDINGS, KENILWORTH]
Robert Dudley came near falling a victim to the same fate as his father
and grandfather. He took up arms against Queen Mary, was sent to the
Tower and condemned to death. But the Queen pardoned him and made him
Master of the Ordnance. On the accession of Elizabeth he became Master
of the Horse, and thereafter rose rapidly in the royal favour.
Elizabeth made him a Knight of the Garter, bestowed upon him the Castle
of Kenilworth, the lordship of Denbigh and other rich lands in
Warwickshire and Wales. In 1564 the Queen made him Earl of Leicester,
and recommended him (perhaps not seriously) as a possible husband of
Mary Queen of Scots. The University of Oxford made him their
chancellor and the King of France conferred upon him the order of St.
Michael. He reached the culmination of the high honours which
Elizabeth and others crowded upon him, in the appointment as
Lieutenant-General of the army mustered to meet the Spanish invasion,
in the year of the great Armada, 1588.
This was the outward show, and it was brilliant enough; but the Earl
was like a worm-eaten apple--fair enough to look upon, but rotten to
the core--and his private life was thoroughly contemptible. The
marriage to Amy Robsart in 1550 was not a happy one. She was never a
countess, for Dudley did not become Earl of Leicester until four years
after her death. After the favours of Elizabeth began to be showered
upon him, Dudley had good reason for concealing this marriage, for the
Queen soon began to show a longing to make him {276} her royal husband.
In 1560, two years after the accession of Elizabeth, the dead body of
Amy was found at the foot of the stairs at Cumnor. All the servants
had gone to a neighbouring fair and apparently Anthony Foster was the
only person besides Amy at home on that day. It was given out that Amy
had accidentally fallen downstairs and broken her neck. She was
ostentatiously buried in the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Oxford,
though Lord Dudley was not present at the funeral nor did he again
visit Cumnor.
More than twenty years later a pamphlet was published, anonymously,
under the title 'Leicester's Commonwealth,' in which the Earl was
bitterly attacked as an atheist and a traitor as well as a man of
infamous character. He was openly accused of the murder of his wife,
and there were not wanting many evidences seeming to corroborate this
view. It was alleged that efforts to poison her were made, by
direction of the Earl. That Leicester was not incapable of such an act
is indicated by the circumstances of his own death. The tradition is
that he gave his wife (the third one) a bottle of medicine to be used
for faintness. The lady kept it, unused, and later, not knowing it to
be poison, administered a dose to her husband, with a fatal result.
This lady was the widow of Walter, Earl of Essex, with whom the Earl of
Leicester was carrying on an intrigue before her husband's death.
There was a quarrel and Essex died suddenly, under some suspicion of
poison. Leicester's secret marriage with the widow led to serious
accusations against him. According to the author of 'Leicester's
Commonwealth,' when the Earl fell in love with Lady Douglas Sheffield
(who became his second wife), {277} her husband suddenly died under
mysterious circumstances. Leicester had in his employ an Italian
physician who was a skilful compounder of poisons. It was said that
his cunning and skill enabled him to cause a person to die with the
symptoms of any disease he might choose, or to administer a poison so
that the victim would expire at whatever hour he might appoint. These
weird tales no doubt suggested something of the character of the
fraudulent alchemist and astrologer, Alasco.
The stair at the foot of which Amy Robsart's body was found was a
narrow winding flight, something like a corkscrew. It has been pointed
out that Amy would have had considerable difficulty in hurling herself
headlong around the twists and turns of such a staircase with enough
force to break her neck. Without definite knowledge of the facts, the
most reasonable supposition is that Lord Dudley, having a motive for
the crime and being a man of unscrupulous character, would not hesitate
to order it committed. His grandfather had been the agent of Henry VII
in the infamous extortions which gave that sovereign an enormous
fortune; his father had not hesitated to risk the lives of his son and
an innocent lady to accomplish his own treasonable purposes, besides
directly causing the death of the Duke of Somerset, and indirectly
bringing about the execution of the Duke's brother, Lord Seymour. It
is therefore not unreasonable to suppose that the scion of this
ambitious family, who was himself cherishing no less bold a project
than his own marriage with the Queen, should willingly give orders to
remove the one great obstacle in his path.
The great festivities at Kenilworth occurred in 1575. Amy Robsart had
been dead fifteen years. The Earl of {278} Leicester was none the less
entangled, however, for he was at the time married to Lady Sheffield,
who strongly maintained the validity of the marriage, though it was
denied by the Earl and concealed from the Queen. At the same time,
also, the intrigue with the Countess of Essex was in progress. From
this it will be seen that although Scott departed from the facts of
history in bringing poor Amy to Kenilworth, he nevertheless gave a true
picture of the Earl of Leicester's embarrassment in the presence of his
Queen. Scott softens the black-hearted villainy of the Earl, by making
him an unwilling victim of his own ambition, duped into deeds of infamy
by the determination of the conscienceless Richard Varney. He admits
that he preferred to make the Earl 'rather the dupe of villains than
the unprincipled author of their atrocities,' because in the latter
capacity, he would have been a character too disgustingly wicked for
the purposes of fiction.
[Illustration: CÆSAR'S TOWER, KENILWORTH]
According to Scott's account, the unfortunate Amy, after falling
completely into the toils of Varney, was carried back to Cumnor Place,
and lodged in a tower room at the top of the building. A gallery,
arranged by a secret contrivance to be used as a drawbridge, which,
when dropped, would cut off all access to the chamber, was the only
means of entrance or exit. After Amy had entered the chamber, Varney
and Foster withdrew the supports of the bridge in such manner that the
slightest weight would cause it to fall. Varney then reached the
consummation of his villainy by imitating the whistle of Leicester.
Amy, deceived by the signal and eager to meet her Lord, rushed upon the
bridge and fell to the deepest vault of the castle. The method of the
real {279} Amy's death is not definitely known, but it was probably by
no such elaborate invention. She was doubtless strangled in her room
and her body carried to the foot of the stairs to suggest an accidental
death.
Anthony Foster lies buried in Cumnor Church, which stands on land
adjoining the site of Cumnor Place, near the entrance to the village on
the road from Oxford. It is one of those stone churches, with square,
substantial towers and ivy-clad walls, which add to the charm of the
landscape throughout the length and breadth of England, as though she
intended thereby to express both the beauty and the solidity of her
religion.
The Foster tomb is an elaborate monument of grey marble, within the
altar rail, and is easily the most noteworthy feature of the interior
of the church. Two engraved brass plates represent the family at
prayers, and beneath is a long inscription in Latin, indicating that
Anthony Foster was a distinguished gentleman of good birth, skilled in
the arts of music and horticulture, a good linguist and renowned for
charity, benevolence, and religious fidelity. Looking upon this
elaborate memorial, one cannot escape the conviction that Tony Foster
was either a greatly maligned saint or the parent of a family of
hypocrites. If the intention of those who composed the inscription was
to convince the world of his innocence, they could not have been
expected to foresee that, for every person who should read and
understand the epitaph, ten thousand would be led to a perception of
Foster's real character through the pen of a Scottish novelist, but for
whom few of us would ever have known the sad story of the Lady of
Cumnor Hall.
{280}
As for the Earl of Leicester, a more truthful epitaph exists, not
indeed carved upon stone, but preserved in the Collections of Drummond
of Hawthornden. It reads:--
Here lies a valiant warrior,
Who never drew a sword;
Here lies a noble courtier,
Who never kept his word;
Here lies the Erle of Leister,
Who govern'd the estates;
Whom the earth could never living love,
And the just Heaven now hates.
The escape of Amy Robsart from Cumnor Place was achieved through the
aid of Wayland Smith, a blacksmith, pedler, and strolling juggler, who
had picked up from a former master some knowledge of medicine which he
employed to good advantage. There was a legend current in Berkshire of
a mysterious smith, who lived among the rocks and replaced lost
horseshoes for a fee of sixpence, feeling offended if more were
offered. Scott used this tale as the basis of his story of Wayland
Smith. The idea of having his smithy in a cave may have been suggested
by just such a place in Gilmerton, a village on the outskirts of
Edinburgh, with which Scott must have been familiar. I had no
difficulty in finding it. It is an artificial cavern, with many
ramifications, and as the light can enter only from the door at the
head of a stone stairway, its farther corners are extremely dark. Near
the entrance is a blacksmith's forge. In a small and dark alcove
opposite is an oblong stone, evidently intended as a dining-table. A
rough shelf or ledge, cut out of the stone partition, served as a bench
at meal-times. Any of the dark corners could be {281} used as
sleeping-rooms. The cave was probably used by thieves or smugglers as
a convenient hiding-place.
Amy's journey from Cumnor Village, four miles west of Oxford, to
Kenilworth, in the centre of Warwickshire, was a ride of about fifty
miles. Perhaps the Countess's mental condition would not permit her to
enjoy it and doubtless the country then was wild and the roads rough;
but the route to-day would be a delightful one, especially that part of
it which passes through Warwickshire with its 'hedgerows of
unmarketable beauty.'
As they approached the old town of Warwick, travelling by circuitous
paths to avoid the crowds then journeying to witness the festivities at
Kenilworth, Amy and her humble guide, the blacksmith, passed through
some of the most beautiful country in England. But they were obliged
to avoid what to-day forms the grand climax of interest to the tourist,
the magnificent Castle of Warwick. This was the resting-place of Queen
Elizabeth on the day preceding her triumphal progress to Kenilworth.
In those days it was the seat of Ambrose Dudley, a brother to the Earl
of Leicester and the third son of the notorious John Dudley.
There was never a time, say the local antiquaries, back as far as the
reign of the celebrated King Arthur, when Warwick did not have its
Earls. The most renowned of these was Guy, a great warrior supposed to
stand nine feet high, among whose exploits were the killing of 'a
Saracen giant, a wild boar, a dun cow, and a green dragon.' After a
life devoted to these pleasant diversions, he retired to Guy's Cliffe,
a retreat near Warwick, famed for its natural beauty, where he lived as
a hermit until his death. The real building of the {282} castle began
when the Normans took possession, William the Conqueror granting the
vast estate, including the castle and the town, to Henry de Newburgh,
the first Earl of Warwick. In the fifteenth century it came into the
possession of Richard Neville, the famous 'King-Maker.' Since that
time many improvements have been made, especially in the spacious
grounds, which now make a splendid park, with well-kept lawns and
paths, stately trees, formal gardens with yews fantastically trimmed,
and a profusion of flowers.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO WARWICK CASTLE]
The entrance road, cut through solid rock, looks as if carved out of
soft moss, so thickly does the ivy cling to the walls. Trees of varied
foliage overarch the path, and near the entrance the edges are bordered
by narrow lines of flowers. At the end of this delightful avenue a
sharp turn to the left brought us in front of the great Castle. On the
right is Guy's Tower, rising one hundred and twenty-eight feet high and
having walls ten feet thick. On the left is Cæsar's Tower, built by
the Normans eight hundred years ago and still firm as the rock upon
which it stands. The two are joined by an ivy-covered wall in the
centre of which is a great gate between two towers. Passing through
this gateway we entered the spacious court. Directly opposite is the
mound, or keep, almost completely covered from base to summit with
trees and shrubs, over the tops of which the towers and battlements
peep out. On the right are two unfinished towers, one of them begun by
Richard III, the whole side of the quadrangle forming a massive line of
ramparts and embattled walls. On the left is the great mansion,
occupied for centuries by the Earls of Warwick. The square formed by
these huge stone buildings {283} is beautiful in its simplicity--a wide
expanse of lawn, its rich velvet green broken only by the white gravel
walks. To see the interior of the castle we were compelled to join a
party of tourists, and march in solemn procession through the rooms of
state, while our guide, an old soldier with a Cockney accent,
loquaciously explained that his 'hobject' in telling us about the
'hearls' in this room was to prepare us to appreciate the 'hearls' in
the next! This agony over, we departed by the road which leads across
the Avon, where we were rewarded by a superb view of the castle from
the bridge.
The next day we were at Kenilworth. It requires the exercise of a
vivid imagination to walk among the ruins and trace the progress of
Scott's story, but we found it a delightful study. We entered by the
little wicket gate, next to the mansion known as the Gatehouse, erected
by Dudley in 1570 as the chief entrance to the castle. Walking south,
across the outer court, we came to the ancient entrance in the
southeast angle known as Mortimer's Tower. From this point an
embankment stretched to the southeast for about one hundred and fifty
yards. It was eighteen yards wide and twenty feet high. Besides
serving its original purpose of a dam, to hold back the waters of a
great lake covering one hundred and eleven acres, this bank of earth
made an admirable tilt-yard. At the extreme end of the embankment was
the Gallery Tower, containing a spacious room from which the ladies
could witness the tournaments. A wall eight feet high and eighty-five
feet long is all that remains of this structure. It was built by Henry
III in the thirteenth century and reconstructed {284} by the Earl of
Leicester in preparation for the great festivities.
Here Amy presented herself under strange circumstances. As the wife of
the great Earl of Leicester, the magnificent castle was her own and all
its army of servants, and the vast crowd of sight-seers, could they
have recognized their countess, would have bowed in humble reverence
and have delighted to execute her slightest wish. But she came unknown
and unrespected, not as the honoured Countess, but as 'the bale of
woman's gear' belonging to a blacksmith, disguised as a juggler. At
the Gallery Tower the two strange companions were halted by a giant
porter, and gained admission only by the intercession of the
mischievous little imp called Flibbertigibbet. They traversed the
length of the tilt-yard, and passing through Mortimer's Tower, came in
front of the splendid buildings, all with doors and gates wide open as
a sign of unlimited hospitality.
On their right stood the stately Cæsar's Tower, a fine specimen of the
military architecture of the Normans, built about 1170 to 1180, and
still the best-preserved portion of the ruins. On their left was the
great 'Leicester's Building,' erected in honour of the occasion for the
accommodation of the Queen. It reached a height of ninety-three feet
and was ninety feet long and fifty feet wide. The walls are thin,
however, and although the most recent in date of all the important
parts of the castle, this structure has crumbled into ruins to such an
extent that it can be preserved only by constant attention.
Between Cæsar's Tower and Leicester's Building, and joining the two,
Amy and her guide saw a stately edifice, {285} then known as King Henry
VIII's Lodgings, because it was used by that monarch on the occasion of
his visits to the castle. The portion on the left, immediately
adjoining Leicester's Building, was called Dudley's Lobby. No vestige
of these structures, which originally formed the eastern side of a
magnificent quadrangle, can now be seen.
Passing through an open gateway between Cæsar's Tower and King Henry's
Lodgings, the Countess entered the Inner Court. On the right, and in
the rear of Cæsar's Tower, she could see the great kitchens, then a
busy part of the establishment, but now showing little more than the
remains of a huge fireplace and a thick wall from which project a
broken arch or two. On the left were the White Hall, now entirely
destroyed, and next to it the Presence Chamber, which had a fine oriel
window looking into the court. Directly in front Amy could see the
'Great Hall' in which her princely husband had made lavish preparations
to entertain the Queen with unprecedented extravagance. It was built
in the fourteenth century by John of Gaunt, son of Edward III, who took
up his residence at the castle on the death of his father, and spent
the remainder of his life in adding to its magnificence. The hall was
ninety feet long and forty-five feet wide. The floor has disappeared,
but the remains of the pillars and arches which once supported it may
still be seen. The Great Hall was lighted by large and very high
windows, set in deep recesses, the outlines of which are still well
preserved. The remains of two large fireplaces, one on each side, may
still be seen. At the southern end was a dais, upon which was the
Throne of State, with crimson canopy of {286} richly embroidered
velvet. At the opposite end was a minstrel gallery for the musicians.
From the centre of the roof hung a chandelier of brass, shaped like an
eagle, its spreading wings supporting six human figures, each of which
carried a pair of branches containing huge candles. The tables,
chairs, cushions, carpets, and silken tapestries were all of the
costliest workmanship. It is stated that the Earl of Leicester spent
£60,000 upon this lavish entertainment, a sum which, to-day, would be
better represented by half a million.
[Illustration: MERVYN'S TOWER, KENILWORTH]
Amy and her escort were not at liberty to view this regal magnificence.
They proceeded across the court to a tower at the northwestern angle,
which was doubtless intended for a prison, judging from the thickness
of the walls and the small size of the rooms. It was called, for this
reason, the Strong Tower, though Scott's name for it is Mervyn's Tower.
During the Elizabethan festivities it was used for the accommodation of
guests. Here we must leave Amy for the present and go back to trace
the movements of Elizabeth.
The Queen approached by way of the Gallery Tower, heralded by the roll
of drums, the blare of trumpets, the roar of cannon, and the tumultuous
shouts of a vast multitude. Two hundred thick waxen torches, each
borne by a horseman, cast a glare of light upon the cavalcade. The
Queen, mounted upon a milk-white horse and clad in gorgeous raiment,
blazing with jewels, was accompanied by the Earl of Leicester,
'glittering like a golden image with jewels and cloth of gold.' He
rode a jet-black horse, renowned as one of the most splendid chargers
in Europe. Both horse and rider seemed perfectly formed to grace an
occasion so glorious. {287} A great procession of the most
distinguished noblemen, the ablest statesmen, and the proudest knights
of England followed the Queen, together with the ladies of the Court,
famed for splendour and beauty and arrayed in garments only a little
less magnificent than those of the Queen herself. Passing upon the
bridge or dam which stretched between the gallery and Mortimer's Tower,
the royal procession paused to witness a gorgeous spectacular
performance on the lake. Then, entering the Base Court, they moved
through various pageants to the Inner Court, and came at length to the
Great Hall, where the Queen was handed to the Throne by the Earl of
Leicester.
The Pleasance was an irregular-shaped enclosure, visible to the west
from Mervyn's Tower and connecting with a rectangular section on the
north known as the garden. The latter had a terrace along the castle
wall, ten feet high and twelve feet wide, covered with grass and
decorated with obelisks, spheres, and stone bears. At each end was an
arbour of trees and fragrant flowers. The garden was intersected by
walks or alleys, each of which had, in the middle, a square pilaster,
fifteen feet high, surmounted by an orb. In the centre of the garden
was a fountain of white marble, its pedestal carved with allegorical
subjects and surmounted by two Atlantes, back to back, holding a ball,
from which streams of water poured into the basin. At the side of the
terrace was a large aviary, well filled with birds.
This was the scene of the dramatic climax toward which the novel
trends, where Queen Elizabeth finally confronts Amy Robsart and begins
to unravel the whole story of Leicester's duplicity.
{288}
Aside from their associations with the novel, the ruins of Kenilworth
seem to exert a strong fascination. It is as though Nature were
reasserting herself. A thousand years ago the domain was untouched by
the hand of man. Then came kings and conquerors, who replaced the
pristine beauty with artificial structures. Stately halls and palaces
sprang into existence. Their inner walls were hung with the costliest
of silks. Their floors were covered with the richest carpets from the
looms of the Orient. Chairs, stools, tables, and bedsteads of
elaborate workmanship, gorgeously covered with lace and embroidered
with cloth of gold; paintings; musical instruments; curiously wrought
plate, of silver and mother-of-pearl; everything, indeed, that the
handicraft of the times could fashion and the wealth of its owners
could buy, was brought to the castle in mute testimonial of man's
conception of beauty. But these things passed. Kings and queens no
longer made the castle their home, nor honoured it with even a brief
visit. The people seized the government and, jealous lest royalty
should again find shelter there, demolished the costly buildings. For
the sake of a few pounds of lead, the roofs were torn away and sold.
The artificial dam which backed up the waters of the great lake was cut
and the waters flowed once more in their natural channels. Nature
again assumed control. The formal gardens became a green pasture. The
spacious courts which had been worn hard by the iron hoofs of countless
steeds became soft again with a covering of deep and velvety grass.
The proud war-horses vanished and in their place the gentle sheep
appeared. The frightful scars on the face of the ruined buildings were
concealed {289} beneath a rich cloak of deep-green ivy. Wall-flowers
sprang out of the broken crevices below the arches.
All is peaceful, all is still. Nature has brought to the castle her
own conception of beauty, and once more reigns supreme.
{290}