pleasing pictures in the house, representing a family group of the
three youngest sons and three youngest daughters of Francis and Rhoda
Blake-Delaval. We may notice that the heads have been painted separately
and inserted in the canvas. These were painted by the eldest sister,
Rhoda, who married Edward, afterwards Sir Edward Astley, Bart., while
the background and figures and draperies were added by Van Hacken,
a celebrated painter of the day. The seated figure of the boy with
portfolio is George, and the two with musical instruments are Henry and
Ralph, who were twins, and so alike as scarcely to be known apart. These
three died young, Henry only surviving till 1760, when he was killed in
India. Of the daughters, the standing figure is Ann, afterwards the wife
of Sir William Stanhope, K.B.; the next Elizabeth, who died young; and
the least Sarah, afterwards Countess of Mexborough, who died the last
survivor of her generation of the family, at the age of eighty, in 1821.
From this landing we enter the drawing-room, which is on the first
floor, above the hall and of the same dimensions with it, with windows
opening to the east and west. Here on all sides are portraits of the
Delaval family. Over the mantel itself is the portrait of Mrs. Rhoda
Blake-Delaval, with a corresponding one of her husband, Captain Francis
Blake-Delaval, opposite. Another picture of her at full length, seated,
painted by Arthur Pond, occupies the south part of the eastern wall,
while the two ends of the room are filled with groups by the same artist,
one of four, the other of seven figures of her sons and daughters;
the taller lady in the centre is said to have been a cousin. Similar
pictures exist also at Seaton-Delaval. On either side of the fireplace
are full-length seated figures, also painted by Pond, of the second of
these sons, John Hussey-Delaval, Lord Delaval, who inherited Doddington
from his mother in 1759, and died in 1808, and of his wife Susannah,
Lady Delaval, who died in 1783. The remaining space on the east wall is
occupied by the likeness of the eldest son, Sir Francis Blake-Delaval,
K.B., by Sir Joshua Reynolds, who has represented him in his red
Volunteer uniform, standing musket in hand on the French coast, with
villages burning in the background. Similar portraits of him are found
at Seaton-Delaval, and Methley Park, Yorkshire, and at Ford Castle, and
it has been engraved in a series of portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds,
published in 1865. Over the doorways are four smaller portraits, one
representing Edward Hussey-Delaval, in his tufted college cap; and a
second, the eldest sister, Rhoda, Mrs. Astley; whilst a third, if it
is rightly said to represent Lady Tyrconnel, is the only one of Lord
Delaval’s children now at Doddington.
Beyond the drawing-room on the south is a bedroom which still retains its
ancient tapestry. On it are depicted scenes from the Trojan War, but with
its former bright colours sadly faded. To the picture of a dog over the
door the following story is attached. It belonged to Mr. Henry Stone, of
the adjoining parish of Skellingthorpe, and it is said to have pulled his
master three times away from a tree under which he had taken shelter from
a thunderstorm. At the third time the tree was struck by lightning, and a
pheasant pictured on it was killed. Mr. Stone died in 1693, leaving his
estate at Skellingthorpe of more than 3000 acres to Christ’s Hospital,
London. He was buried just inside the churchyard at Skellingthorpe, and
his dog, it is said, close to him, just outside the consecrated ground.
Returning through the drawing-room to the north wing, we find two other
bedrooms with their original tapestry hangings. One is known as the Holly
Room, from the great holly tree on which its windows open; the other as
the Tiger Room, from the wild beasts depicted on its Flemish tapestry,
dating from about 1600. This has retained more of its original bright
colouring than the other, which is of English manufacture, made probably
at Mortlake, _temp._ Charles I., in the costume of whose time the figures
on it are represented. In the Holly Room the ancient crewel work of the
bed hangings deserves attention; while the lofty four-post bedstead in
the Tiger Room, upholstered in crimson damask, is said to have been that
occupied by Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, when entertained by Lord
Delaval at Seaton-Delaval in 1771. A quaint picture over the mantelpiece
represents Nebuchadnezzar in his state of degradation grazing among the
beasts.
Mounting thence to the third storey, we find on the uppermost landing
another portrait of Mr. Edward Hussey-Delaval, as a young man, seated,
with a greyhound by his side—one doubtless of the breed for which
Seaton-Delaval was famous in his brother Sir Francis’s time. On either
side the bedrooms, above those just described, retain their original
plaster floors. In one is the portrait of Admiral Sir Ralph Delaval,
“coasting admiral in the time of Charles II.,” painted in armour, with
flowing wig, who died in 1691. In the same room a naval picture, brought
from the Gunman mansion at Dover, represents the royal yacht, the _Anne_,
Captain Christopher Gunman, passing the Castle of Kronenborg at Elsinore,
without striking topsails, and receiving the cannon-fire of the castle,
as recorded by Captain Gunman’s log-book under 23rd September 1670. Yet
another represents the wreck of Sir Cloudesley Shovel in his flagship,
the _Association_, on the Scilly Isles, on the night of 22nd October
1707. This also was brought from Dover, Captain James Gunman, R.N.,
having been with the fleet in command of the _Weasel_ sloop, but happily
escaping the wreck.
Here we enter the Long Gallery, 96 feet long by 22 feet wide. It has two
fireplaces, and windows only on the western side, and fills the whole
centre of the house, extending over the drawing-room and two bedrooms
beyond. As we enter let us turn, and, beginning at the north-west
corner, let us note the more interesting pictures in their order. This
white-haired old man, painted on panel, in blue coat and buff sword-belt,
is said to represent John, Lord Hussey of Sleaford, beheaded at Lincoln
in 1537 for complicity in the Lincolnshire rising. Occupying the centre
of this northern end of the gallery is the full-length figure of Captain
Christopher Gunman, in a rich costume. In the background is represented
the royal yacht, of which he was captain, as well as of several ships of
war. We may notice the empty sleeve of his left arm, which he lost in an
engagement with the Dutch, while in command of the _Orange_ frigate,
3rd August 1666. A picture of this sea-fight with two Dutch men-of-war
is in one of the bedrooms. Higher up on this same wall is the portrait
of Thomas Tailor, registrar to the Bishops of Lincoln, who bought
Doddington in 1593, and built the hall before his death in 1607. He is
characteristically represented as dressed in brown, with wide lawn collar
and cuffs, seated at a table with a pen in his hand and an official
document before him. On either side, over the doors, are the portraits
of Sir Thomas Hussey, the second baronet, who died 1706, and of Sarah
(Langham) Lady Hussey, his wife, who died 1697.
Turning now to the long eastern wall, and passing pictures of Lady
Frances Howard, by Sir Peter Lely, and of Charles XII. of Sweden,
perhaps by David Kraft, we come to the full-length figure of Mrs. Sarah
Hussey-Delaval, died 1829, the wife of Edward Hussey-Delaval, Esq. It
was painted in 1815 by G. F. Joseph, A.R.A., who has represented her in
a crimson velvet dress, with a macaw by her side. Next to her is the
likeness of Rebecca Hussey, daughter of Sir Thomas Hussey, Bart., painted
by Sir Godfrey Kneller. She died unmarried in 1714, but her name is still
well known as the foundress of Rebecca Hussey’s Charities. The boy, in
a red dress trimmed with silver, is shown by the coat-of-arms to have
been a son of Sir John Delaval, of Dissington, who died 1632, by his
second wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir George Selby, whom he married in
1612. Passing the central door which opens into the little room in the
projection over the entrance porch, we have yet another portrait of Mrs.
Rhoda Blake-Delaval, died 1759, a duplicate of which is at Ford Castle.
Near her is one of Charles I., and beyond these, as a companion picture
to that of Rebecca Hussey, also painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, the
full-length likeness of her sister Sarah, daughter of Sir Thomas Hussey,
Bart., and wife of Robert Apreece, Esq. She was born at Doddington in
1672, and died 1749, having become the sole heiress of her father’s
estates after her sisters’ death. The next picture in all probability
represents Mary of Modena, the Queen of James II. Beyond it, the lady in
black is Ann Hussey-Delaval, sister of John, Lord Delaval, and of Edward
Hussey-Delaval. We have seen her before as a girl in the family groups,
but she is here represented in the character of the _Fair Penitent_,
which she acted with other members of the family, and Edward, Duke of
York, at their private theatre at Westminster in 1767. She married in
1759, at the age of twenty-two, Sir William Stanhope, next brother
to the Earl of Chesterfield, who was fifty-seven; and Horace Walpole
writes of the match: “I assure you her face will introduce no plebeian
charms into the faces of the Stanhopes.” Naturally the ill-assorted
marriage turned out badly, and in 1763 Horace Walpole writes again to his
correspondent in Paris: “We sent you Sir William Stanhope and my lady,
a fond couple; you have returned them to us very different. When they
came to Blackheath, he got out of the chariot to go to his brother, Lord
Chesterfield’s, made her a low bow, and said, ‘Madame, I hope I shall
never see your face again.’ She replied, ‘Sir, I will take all the pains
I can, you never shall.’” She had been brought up by her grandmother,
Mrs. Apreece, of Honington and Doddington, and a share of Doddington had
been settled upon her, but she sold her reversion of it to her brother
Edward in 1810.
[Illustration: DINING-ROOM, DODDINGTON HALL.]
Filling the centre of the south end of the gallery is the striking
picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds, in 1762, of Lord and Lady Pollington,
later Earl and Countess of Mexborough, in their coronation robes, with
their son and heir, John Savile, afterwards second Earl, as a child,
between them. She was the youngest of the Delaval family, and is
represented as a girl in the family groups below. She married in 1760
John Savile, Lord Pollington, created Earl of Mexborough in 1765, and
died in 1821, the last survivor of that generation of her family. The
child is represented as reaching up to the coronet which his mother is
holding in her hand; and the story is told “that when Reynolds began to
paint this picture he tried the effect of setting the coronet on her
head, but being dissatisfied with the effect he placed it in her hand. It
was shown to the little boy, and he was offered a choice of the crown or
an apple. He preferred the former, and within a year inherited it on his
father’s death.” In fact, however, his father did not die till 1778, when
his son was seventeen, and the anecdote can only be reconciled with dates
by supposing it to refer to the child’s succession to the courtesy title
of Pollington, when his father became Earl in 1765.
If we pass out at the southern end of the Long Gallery, the well-like
back staircase, carried up from the bottom to the top of the house in a
projection of the southern wing, will bring us through the southernmost
gazebo on to the flat-leaded roof, on which the two other gazeboes open.
Here is plainly seen the ground-plan of the house; and by looking over
the parapet we may observe the squared leaden spout-heads, most of them
bearing the initials and the Ram’s Head crest of Sir John Hussey-Delaval,
with the date 1765. A few bear the date 1733, thus going back to the
ownership of Mrs. Apreece. Close in front of the Hall, encouraged by its
shelter, a broad-leafed magnolia has out-topped the Hall itself, while in
the north-west corner stands the great holly, measuring 12 feet round the
hole, but with half its massive head now split off by a great storm, 24th
March 1895. Tradition says that it once saved the life of a young lady
who was pursued to the roof by a too ardent admirer, and who jumped into
it from the roof to escape his embraces.
Round the mansion lie its old-fashioned walled gardens, and on the
north the orchard with a picturesque group of three gnarled old Spanish
chestnuts. Eastward the eye rests on Lincoln, with its houses climbing
the steep, crowned by the triple towers of the Minster; and in the nearer
foreground are the massive oak-woods of Doddington and Skellingthorpe,
the immemorial breeding-place of herons. To the westward the hills of
Nottinghamshire rise across the Trent, the hidden course of whose stream
is marked only by the clumps of trees at Spalford Bank and Marnham
Ferry. Amid such surroundings the great house has stood for full three
hundred years, and has sheltered generation after generation of those
whose portraits now adorn its walls. Here to all appearance it may stand
for three hundred years to come, if only it escapes that doom of fire
to which Seaton-Delaval itself and so many other ancient mansions have
fallen a prey.
LINCOLNSHIRE FAMILIES
BY REV. CANON MADDISON, M.A., F.S.A.
It is quite impossible within the limits of a short paper to give an
exhaustive account of the Lincolnshire Families. They can be classified
as—1st, Baronial; 2nd, Knightly; 3rd, Gentle.
With the baronial, which includes such names as Darcy, Kyme, de Roos,
Trehampton, &c., I do not concern myself. Their pedigrees are given, for
the most part, in works of reference. Of the great baronial families I do
not think a single one exists at the present day in the male line. The
Neviles now seated in Lincolnshire belong to the Nottinghamshire branch
of that great family. The Lincolnshire Neviles, which have been a puzzle
to genealogists, have long since been extinct.
Perhaps the Watertons may be taken as an almost solitary instance of the
survival of a family which held a very high position in the county in the
twelfth century. The great Lincolnshire estates, it is true, passed to
the Welles family in the fifteenth century, but a junior branch continued
at Walton in Yorkshire down to recent times. Walton has been sold, but
the late Mr. Edmund Waterton became possessed of property in St. James
Deeping, where the original manor of Waterton was, and was “of Waterton
Deeping.” Still, although descended from this ancient race, his line,
for many hundreds of years, was connected rather with Yorkshire than
Lincolnshire.
But the Langtons, of Langton by Spilsby, are an instance, quite unique in
this county, of a family retaining possession of the manor and advowson
of their estate from the thirteenth century. They seem to have held a
higher position then than they did in later times. Strange to say, no
Langton was Sheriff of the county till 1612.
The Thorolds must be content to give up the legend of being descended
from a Saxon sheriff. It is surely enough to be able to say they hold
property which came to them from a Lincolnshire heiress in the fourteenth
century, and led them to leave Yorkshire for Marston in Lincolnshire.
The Heneages have held Hainton since the early part of the fifteenth
century, and there is no doubt they were connected with it long before.
What, however, is doubtful is whether their position was quite so high
as a pedigree drawn up in the eighteenth century gives them. The really
great person at Hainton in 1398 was Lord de la Warr, who was lord of the
manor, and who in his will, proved 1st August 1398, directs that Edward
of the Hill and John Heneage should immediately after his death hold
conjointly his manors of Hainton for the term of their lives, and then
that the reversion of the said manors should be sold, and the proceeds
distributed among the poor. He also leaves 100 marks to John Heneage
for a certain mansion within his (Lord de la Warr’s) demesne. He leaves
Richard Wolmer his manor of Albryghton for life, and makes him, John
Heneage and others, executors. When we find the Heneages afterwards in
possession of the manor of Hainton, and the Wolmers of the manor of
Bloxholm (also de la Warr property) it is not unreasonable to suppose
that they became possessors by purchase. The Wolmers have long since
passed away.
The Massingberds held land in Sutterton as early as the reign of Edward
I., but moved to Burgh, Gunby, and Bratoft later on, having married a
succession of heiresses. The estates have passed by marriage to cadets of
the Langton and Mundy families, and the present rector of Ormsby, who has
been the historian of his parish and family, is the heir male.
The Dymokes of Scrivelsby came originally in the fourteenth century from
Gloucestershire. Every one knows their peculiar tenure of that manor
which carries with it the right of the Championship. Every one, however,
does not know the strange vicissitudes of the family—how that before
the death of the old Champion, Lewis Dymoke, in 1760, he had to choose
between two branches of his family as his heirs; the one in trade in
London, the other in the ranks of the yeomanry in Lincolnshire. He chose
the former, which was really the junior of the two, and yet, after more
than a century, it became extinct, and the yeoman branch holds Scrivelsby.
The Smyths of Elkington hold an estate which they acquired in the
fifteenth century. The pedigree has not been fully worked out, but it
would seem that they originally were what their name implies—“Johannes
Faber,” being “John the Smith.”
The Cracrofts of Hackthorn are a genuine old Lincolnshire race. They
held in early times the manor of Cracroft Hall in Hogsthorpe. Warinus de
Cracroft is witness in a deed of the early twelfth century. This manor
passed away late in the sixteenth century, but a junior branch held land
in Burgh in the marsh at the beginning of that period, and by a fortunate
marriage with an heiress of the Grantham family became possessed about
1616 of the present estate of Hackthorn. Robert Cracroft had a licence
for an oratory in his house of Cracroft in 1345. The family was once one
of the most widely spread in Lincolnshire, but it is now seldom to be
found.
The Welbys of Denton cannot prove their descent from the Moulton Welbys,
though there is very strong reason for thinking it probable. They own
Welby, but it was acquired by purchase.
Any one who has read Lady Elizabeth Cust’s admirably written _Records of
the Cust Family_ cannot fail to be struck with the facts she has gleaned
from the muniments at Belton. A yeoman race, connected with Pinchbeck
for six centuries, holding estates with title-deeds dating from 1479,
and which was not “armigerous” till the seventeenth century, is now
represented by Earl Brownlow, the direct male descendant.
What of the Irbys? They undoubtedly are extant, represented by Lord
Boston, although he is not resident in the county. They begin to rise
in position about the middle of the sixteenth century in the person
of a lawyer who accumulated property round Boston. If they really are
traceable to an Irby of Irby, they would rank among the oldest families;
but the Visitation Pedigree of 1562 is not altogether satisfactory, and
needs proof.
The Monsons were at Market Rasen as early as 1378. They, like so many
other families of the age, became large landowners in the fifteenth
century, having accumulated wealth by being merchants of the Staple
of Calais. Lord Monson holds estates which have descended to him from
the early part of the sixteenth century. The old original property at
Owersby, near Market Rasen, was sold in 1834.
The Whichcotes came from Shropshire in the fifteenth century. They were
“of that ilk” in the county, and what brought them to Lincolnshire
was the marriage of John Whichcote with an heiress of the Tyrwhits of
Harpswell. The present head of the family, Sir George Whichcote, still
possesses Harpswell, though he resides at Aswarby, near Sleaford. His
great-great-grandfather, Sir Christopher, married the heiress of the
elder line, and united the estates of Harpswell and Aswarby.
The Maddisons came from the district of Weardale, in Durham, where
they held a manor under the Bishop, by the marriage of a cadet with a
Lincolnshire heiress of the Angevine family in 1452. They, like the
Monsons, invested money, made by being merchants of the Staple of Calais,
in Lincolnshire land. The estates acquired in this way passed out of the
family, through co-heiresses of the elder line, in 1672. The junior line
has still male representatives, and a remnant of the estates, bought by
Sir Ralph Maddison in the reign of James I., still remains with them.
Lord Lindsey is the direct male descendant of Richard Bertie, the
fortunate Sussex gentleman who wooed and won the heiress of the
Willoughbys, the Duchess of Suffolk. The Alingtons of Swinhope are
a cadet branch of the Alingtons of Horsheath, Colambridge, who were
ennobled in the seventeenth century, and are represented in the female
line by Lord Alington. They settled in Lincolnshire in the reign of
Elizabeth, and retain a portion of the property then acquired.
The Andersons are now represented by Lord Yarborough, the male line at
Lea having terminated with the death of the late Sir Charles Anderson.
The family was virtually founded by the Lord Chief-Justice in Queen
Elizabeth’s reign, who presided at the trial of Mary Queen of Scots.
Francis Anderson of Manby, a gentleman of moderate estate, married Mary
Pelham, who was born at Brocklesby in 1671. Her brother, Charles Pelham,
the last of his race, selected as his heir, in 1763, her descendant
Charles Anderson, who took the name of Pelham in addition, and was raised
to the peerage. The name of Anderson has been dropped by the present Earl
and his brothers.
Up to this point I have been considering only those families who are
extant in the male line, and retain in some degree the estates acquired
by their ancestors, from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries. The
seventeenth century brought in a decidedly changed condition of things.
Changes had indeed taken place before, for the Wars of the Roses and the
suppression of the monasteries had caused a vast quantity of land to
change hands; but nothing shows the effect of this economic convulsion
more clearly than a comparison of the Visitations of Lincoln in 1562
and 1592 with that of 1634. The number of families that had sprung up
from the yeoman and mercantile classes is very remarkable. Then came the
Commonwealth families—those who had taken the side of the Parliament in
the Civil War, and had bought up the estates of “malignants” at an easy
price.
A glance at the lists of sheriffs in the sixteenth century serves to
show who were the leading families. The Ayscoughs, Dymokes, and Tyrwhits
occur most frequently. The Copledikes had begun to decline in importance
during the latter half of the century, owing no doubt to litigation; and
the Skipwiths of South Ormsby by no means filled the same position they
had done in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. A change was taking
place. The Monsons and Heneages were rising in importance. Families
of comparatively humble rank in the preceding century had acquired
land on easy terms after the suppression of the monasteries, when the
land-market was glutted with monastic property. Towards the close of
Elizabeth’s reign we see the Trollopes beginning to come forward and
purchase land; Casewick was bought from the Evingtons in 1621. In 1642
a baronetcy was granted, and in recent times a peerage—_i.e._ Kesteven.
The Listers, formerly of Burwell, still survive in the male line. They
came into Lincolnshire in the seventeenth century. So also do the
Scropes of Cockerington. Their connection with Lincolnshire is not of
much older date, but in point of splendour of ancestry they are in the
first rank. The present Mr. Scrope of Danby, in Yorkshire, still owns
Cockerington, though it is no longer a place of residence. The Cholmeleys
of Easton and Norton Place are also still represented in the male line.
They, of course, are really a Cheshire family, but came into this
county in the sixteenth century. The Fanes of Fulbeck, a cadet branch
of the Westmoreland family, hold the estates they acquired early in the
seventeenth century.