notably about 1457, when the wife of Thomas Treffry, with her servants,
repelled their enemies
[Illustration]
out of the house, in her husband’s absence; whereupon he builded a right
faire and strong embateled tower in his house, and embateled it to the
walls of his house,--in a manner made it a castle, and unto this day it
is the glorie of the towne building of Foey.” This tower we have
engraved. John Treffry, most probably a son of the aforesaid Thomas, was
high-sheriff of Cornwall in 1482; he left issue several sons, of whom
three are portrayed on a large tomb in the adjoining church: one of
these, Sir John, was a person of considerable eminence, and, with his
brother William, was attainted by Richard III., but afterwards restored
by act of parliament to their estates, in the reign of Henry VII. Thomas
Treffry, member for the county during the first two parliaments of
Philip and Mary, was compelled to leave the country for having opposed
the marriage of Mary with the Spanish monarch.
From this last period to the present time we find no names of note in
the genealogy of the family; but the estate appears to have been handed
down, from one generation to another, in almost unbroken succession; the
various members in possession holding a
[Illustration]
distinguished position among the old county gentry.
Place House contains numerous apartments, many of which are highly
interesting. In the hall is a richly carved ceiling of oak, and on the
walls are emblazoned the arms of Edward VI. and the first Earl of
Bedford, with quarterings, all well executed; also the arms of Treffry
and Tresilhneys, quartered in Queen Elizabeth’s time. In several other
parts are likewise the family arms, quartered according to the various
periods to which each is assigned. One of the ancient gateways is
indicated in the appended cut.
[Illustration:
G Cattermole, Delᵗ on Stone by W Walton M & N Hanhart, Lithogʳˢ]
NAWORTH,
CUMBERLAND.
[Illustration: N]AWORTH is one of the few remaining Castles of the
Border rescued from the grasp of Time by the noble descendants of its
ancient lords. It is the property of the Earl of Carlisle--the
representative of “centuries of Howards”--who, according to Sir Walter
Scott, “deserves high praise for the attention bestowed in maintaining
the curious and venerable pile in its former state.” While, however, his
Lordship has taken especial care to arrest the progress of Time over the
old walls, he has been wisely cautious to prevent “repairs” from being
unseemly patches upon the honoured face of “hore antiquitie.” Its
condition is sufficiently dilapidated to carry instant conviction of its
age; but nothing out of keeping with the solemn dignity derived from the
weight of years is permitted to appear. To its early and existing
condition his lordship has himself made happy reference, in some
descriptive lines to this--the famous stronghold of generations of his
ancestry:
“O Naworth! monument of rudest times,
When Science slept entombed, and o’er the waste,
The heath-grown crag, and quivering moss, of old
Stalk’d unremitted war!
* * * * *
If now the peasant, scar’d no more at eve
By distant beacons, and compelled to house
His trembling flocks, his children and his all,
Beneath his craggy roof, securely sleeps;
Yet all around thee is not changed; thy towers,
UNMODERNISED BY TASTELESS ART, remain
Still unsubdued by Time.”
The Castle stands on “a pleasant eminence” at the head of the Vale of
Lanercost, or St. Mary’s Holme, and not far from the beautiful and
picturesque ruins of Lanercost Priory, which cover the dust of the
ancient Lords of Naworth,[7] and many other gallant chieftains who
formerly held sway over the wild Border.
The approach to it is peculiarly striking. “The front is strengthened by
a curtain wall, and a gateway embrasured, and the corners of the chief
building on this side by lofty square towers.” On the north, it impends
over the river Irthing, at a great height; the banks shagged with wood.
“The whole house,” says Pennant, “is a true specimen of ancient
inconvenience, of magnificence and littleness; the rooms numerous,
accessible by sixteen staircases, with most frequent and sudden ascents
and descents into the bargain; besides a long narrow gallery.” “The idea
of a comfortable dwelling,” according to a more recent writer, “was,
indeed, entirely excluded; the whole internal contrivance seeming only
calculated to keep an enemy out, or elude his vigilance should he happen
to get in; its hiding-holes are numerous; but it seems probable that
many of its close recesses are even now unknown.”
We have no certain information as to the period of its erection.
Tradition reports it to have been built by the Dacres; but “by which of
them has not been ascertained.” The earliest mention of it occurs in the
reign of Edward the Third, when “Ranulphus Dacre, who had married the
heiress of the Multons, obtained a license to fortify and convert his
mansion here into a castle.” In the family of the Dacres it continued
until the year 1569, when, by the death of the last heir-male of the
family, it passed to the Howards--by the marriage of William Howard,
third son of Thomas Duke of Norfolk, with the Lady Elizabeth, sister of
the last Lord Dacre.[8] When visited by Camden, in 1607, it was under
repair; according to Bishop Gibson, it was “again repaired and made fit
for the reception of a family by the Right Hon. Charles Howard,
great-grandson to the Lord William.” By its present noble owner, the
Earl of Carlisle, it is, as we have intimated, preserved from farther
injury at the hand of Time,--and is the occasional residence of some
members of his family, who resort to it in “the sporting season.”
The romantic fame of Naworth is derived from Lord William
Howard--“belted Will Howard,” one of the heroes of Border Minstrelsy.
The commencement of his chivalrous career was the first chapter to a
volume of romance. He was the third son of the fourth Duke of Norfolk,
and grandson of the famous Earl of Surrey--
“Who has not heard of Surrey’s fame?”
His father lost his title, his estates, and his head, on Tower Hill; and
bequeathed him to the care of his elder brother, as “having nothing to
feed the cormorants withal.” He was married, in 1577, to the Lady
Elizabeth Dacre, the ages of both together being short of
eight-and-twenty. During the whole of the reign of Elizabeth, however,
he and the several other members of his family were cruelly
oppressed--subjected repeatedly to charges of treason, and kept in a
state of poverty “very grievous to bear.” On the accession of James the
Second their prospects brightened. Lord William was received into
special favour; and, about the year 1603, turned his attention to the
repairs of his Baronial Castle of Naworth--removing thither various
paintings and articles of furniture from mansions still more neglected
or dilapidated. Almost immediately afterwards he made it his permanent
residence, having been--probably in the year 1605--appointed to the
office of the King’s Lieutenant and Warden of the Marches.[9] The
onerous and difficult duties imposed upon him he discharged, it would
seem, with equal fearlessness and severity: so that, to quote from
Fuller, “when in their greatest height, the moss-troopers had two fierce
enemies--the laws of the land and Lord William Howard of Naworth, who
sent many of them to Carlisle, that place where the officer always does
his work by daylight.”
Although formidable to his enemies, the Lord William was fervent and
faithful to his friends. His attachment to his Lady (whom he survived
but a year) was “of the truest affection, esteem, and friendship;” and
his love of letters, and the refined pursuits of leisure and ease,
rendered him remarkable, even among the intellectual men of the period.
To the courage of the soldier, “Belted Will” added the courtesy of the
scholar, and, although “the Tamer of the wild Border” has been often
pictured as a ferocious man-slayer, incapable of pity, history does him
only justice in describing him as a model of chivalry, when chivalry was
the leading characteristic of the age. He died in 1640, leaving issue by
the “Lady Bessie” ten sons and five daughters--the eldest being the
ancestor of the Earls of Carlisle.
This Border Castle--the Caste of “Bauld Wyllie”--remains then, as we
have said, one of the least impaired and most interesting of the feudal
dwellings of Ancient England. It is nearly quadrangular in form; of
prodigious strength; and many indications of its early defences yet
remain. The only access to it is from the south, on which side it lies
low, and presents its principal front, “extending two hundred and eight
feet.” Formerly (according to a MS. dated 1675), “it was surrounded by
pleasant woods and gardens; ground full of fallow dear, feeding all
somer time,--brave venison pasties; with great store of reed dear on the
mountains, and white wild cattle, with black eares only, on the moores;
and black heath-cockes, and brown more-cockes, and their pootes.”
The interior is even more primitive in character than the exterior. “The
long Gallery” (which Mr. Cattermole has pictured), “extending one
hundred and sixteen feet in length, is filled with many curious and
interesting antiquities; among them are said to be the saddle, gloves,
and belt of “Belted Will Howard.” It contains also various portraits of
Members of the heroic race. The old windows are narrow and grated,
[Illustration]
and the doors almost wholly cased with iron, moving on ponderous hinges,
and with massive bolts, which ‘make a harsh and horrid clang that echoes
fearfully through the winding passages.’ ‘The Great Hall,’ measuring 70
feet by 24, is lighted by a range of windows, placed high up near the
ceiling, and a large oriel window at the southern end. The ceiling is
formed of wood panels in large squares, in number above one hundred, on
which are painted portraits of the Saxon Kings, and the Sovereigns of
[Illustration:
G. Cattermole, Del Stone by W. Walton M & N Hanhart, Lithogʳˢ
NAWORTH, CUMBERLAND.]
England, down to the Union of the Houses of York and Lancaster, with
many other noble personages; ‘they have, however, no recommendation but
their antiquity.’ The Minstrels’ Gallery has been removed. In the Dining
Hall are two portraits of the Lady of Lord William--one in her
fourteenth year, just after she became a bride; the other when her years
were three-score ten and three. The Chapel retains much of its original
condition--a pulpit and stall of oak, and a painted window, exhibiting a
Knight and Dame kneeling, being among the most remarkable objects that
yet endure. The apartments of Lord William Howard are, however, those to
which the chief interest is attached. They are entered at the east end
of the long Gallery. The approach to them was secured by iron-bound
doors, several in succession, containing numerous huge bolts, running
far into the stone work. The strongest defends a narrow winding
staircase, up which only one person can pass; a short dark passage leads
to the bed-chamber; (pictured on the opposite page) in which the
‘original furniture’ is preserved.”[10] Among the rest, the plain and
simple bed on which, it is said, belted Will slept. Above the stone
mantel-piece are three sculptured shields with the arms of the Dacres.
Above the bed-room, reached by the narrow stone staircase referred to,
are the Library and the Oratory of Lord William.
The Library, here pictured, still contains some curious MSS., with a
large collection
[Illustration]
of rare old books, many of them having the autograph of Lord William.
“Not a book has been added,” according to Pennant, “since his days.” The
windows of this apartment are narrow, and are reached by an ascent of
three steps:--“such was the caution of the times.” The ceiling is richly
carved; the corbels and bosses being embellished with armorial devices;
the skirting of the room is of oak, “black from age.” Lord William
was--as he is styled by Camden, “a lover of the venerable antiquities,”
and in this apartment much of his leisure time was spent.[11]
The other Chamber which tradition closely associates with the memory of
the Lord William, is “the Oratory,” situated near the Library. “It is
fitted up with plain
[Illustration]
wainscot, painted red, and ornamented with escallop-shells and
cross-crosslets--armorial devices of the Dacres and the Howards. There
are also some fragments of what is supposed to have been the rich screen
of the Rood-loft of Lanercost Priory Church, consisting of carved
ornaments of pierced work, in wood, richly painted and gilt, nailed up
on the walls of the apartment.” The Confessional is a small dark closet
within the Oratory, unfurnished. The dungeons of the Castle consist of
“four dens, under the great square Tower at the south-west angle.” They
“instil horror into the beholder:” there is no chink or crevice for the
admission of light; and, in one of the cells, a ring, to which prisoners
were chained, is still appended to the wall. In a note to “The Legend of
Montrose,” Sir Walter Scott states that a private staircase led to these
dungeons from the apartment of Lord William. The author of a little
book, “A Guide to Naworth and Lanercost,” from which we have borrowed
some of our details, sought for this passage in vain.
Few of the ancient Baronial dwellings of our English nobles possess a
deeper interest than that of Naworth. It supplies a striking and
emphatic illustration of the rude and lawless period of its erection,
when security was the object chiefly aimed at; but mingling adornment
with strength, and being a refinement upon the cheerless and gloomy
structures of the Anglo-Norman chiefs; “expanding into a mixture of the
castle and the mansion;” and marking the splendour of our early nobles,
“before they exchanged the hospitable magnificence of a life spent among
a numerous tenantry, for the uncertain honours of Court attendance, and
the equivocal rewards of ministerial favour.” To borrow an eloquent
passage from the “Border Antiquities:” “The vast and solid mansions of
our ancient nobility were like their characters--greatness without
elegance; strength without refinement; but lofty, firm, and
commanding.”
[Illustration:
Day & Son, Lithʳˢ to The Queen.]
HADDON HALL,
DERBYSHIRE.
[Illustration: H]ADDON is, in the Domesday Book, mentioned as a berewick
in the manor of Bakewell; it was granted by the Conqueror to his natural
son, William Peverel, and it is not improbable that some parts of the
present building were constructed about that time. It remained in the
possession of the Peverels two generations only, and was then granted by
one of the family to a retainer named Avenell,[12] on the tenure of
knight’s service. In the reign of Richard I., or that of John, it again
changed owners, passing by the marriage of the coheiresses of the
Avenells into the families of Vernon and Bassett. “The heiress of
Vernon, in the reign of Henry III., married Gilbert le Francis, whose
son Richard took the name of Vernon, and died, in 1296, at the age of
twenty-nine. This Richard was common ancestor to the Vernons of Haddon,
Stokesay, Hodnet, Sudbury, &c.” Haddon continued a joint possession of
these two families until in or before the reign of Henry VI., when the
whole became vested in the Vernons, who had purchased Bassett’s moiety.
Haddon was in the possession of the Vernons more than three centuries
and a half, and several of its lords held situations of great interest
and responsibility. Sir Richard Vernon is mentioned as Speaker of the
Parliament held at Leicester in 1425; and his son, also named Richard,
was the last person who held for life the important office of Constable
of England. The grandson of the latter, Sir Henry Vernon, had charge of
the education of Prince Arthur, son of Henry VIII., and is said to have
had his royal pupil residing with him for some time at Haddon. Sir
George Vernon, the last of this branch of the family, was distinguished
for his magnificent style of living, the number of his retinue, and
unbounded hospitality, which procured for him the appellation of “King
of the Peak.” His possessions amounted to thirty manors, all of which on
his death, in 1565, descended to his two daughters, Margaret and
Dorothy. On a division of the property, the Derbyshire estates were
assigned to Dorothy, the younger of the coheiresses, who married Sir
John Manners, second son of Thomas first earl of Rutland, ancestor of
the present noble owner, his Grace the Duke of Rutland.
Haddon was a favourite place of residence of the Earls of Rutland, and
also of the first Duke, who was raised to that dignity by Queen Anne, in
1703, and who, during the life of his father, was summoned to Parliament
by writ, as Baron Manners of Haddon.[13]
The first Duke resided here in great state, maintaining seven score
servants, and keeping Christmas with open house, as his father had done
before him, “in the true style of old English hospitality.”[14] In the
reign of Queen Anne, the family finally quitted Haddon as a place of
residence, and in 1760 the old hall was despoiled of nearly all its
moveable furniture, which was taken to Belvoir Castle, where it still
remains. Since that period Haddon has been carefully preserved, and,
except on one or two occasions, when the festivities of the place were
for a moment revived, a solemn stillness has reigned throughout its
precincts, broken only by the tread of the occasional visitor.
The Hall occupies a situation of extreme beauty, being placed on a bold
shelving
[Illustration]
mass of limestone, at the base of which runs the river Wye. It is
surrounded by well-grown woods, and offers an almost infinite variety of
rich subjects for the artist. It has much of the appearance of an old
fortress, but is in reality little fitted for defence; the greater part
of the present building having been erected by the Vernons and Manners
in times when moral force and law had happily taken the place of the
tenure by which property was maintained in earlier ages. The buildings
cover a considerable space of ground, and are arranged in the form of a
double square, enclosing two quadrangular courts. The entrance-tower, at
the north-west corner, is one of the more ancient parts of the
structure. The entrance is by a large arched gateway, leading to a
flight of old dilapidated steps, on ascending which the visitor finds
himself in the first great court.
The interior of the building has been so well and so minutely described
by Mr. King, in the “Archæologia,” that we will transfer some of his
remarks to our pages. Beginning, then, with this tower, he says:--
“The approach is by a steep hill, which a horse can scarcely climb, and
which continues quite to the great arched gateway that forms the
entrance: this is directly under a high tower, and seems originally to
have had double gates. From hence you pass into a large square court,
entirely surrounded by the apartments, and paved with flat stones. But
you ascend it, at the corner, by a flight of angular steps, just within
the gate, in such a manner that it is impossible to have admittance
otherwise than on foot, and no horse or carriage could ever approach the
door of the house. After crossing this court, you come to a second
flight of steps, which lead up directly to the great porch, under a
small tower, on passing through which you find yourself behind the
screen of the Great Hall,--a room that was originally considered as the
public dining-room for the lord and his guests, and, indeed, after
them, for the whole family; for, in tracing the ancient apartments,
there appears manifestly to have been none besides of sufficient
magnitude for either the one purpose or the other.” From this hall a
flight of steps leads to the upper chambers.
[Illustration]
Over the doorway of the porch of the Great Hall are the arms of the
Vernons and of Fulco de Pembridge, Lord of Tonge, in Shropshire; the
latter Sir Richard Vernon was entitled to in right of his wife, who was
the daughter and sole heiress of Sir Fulk de Pembridge. From this
circumstance, it has been conjectured that he built this part of the
house.
The provision made in the adjoining offices for the convenience and
attendance of the several servants of the household is very curious. On
the left hand of the great door of entrance, directly behind the hall
screen, are four large doorways, with high pointed arches, extending, in
a row, the whole length of the hall, and facing the upper end. The first
of these still retains its ancient door of strong oak, with a little
wicket in the middle, just big enough to put a trencher in or out, and
was clearly the butler’s station; for the room within still retains a
vast old chest of oak, with divisions for bread, a large old cupboard
for cheese, and a number of shelves for butter. “Besides, out of this
apartment (which is itself spacious, and separate from the rest of the
house) is a passage, down steps, to a large vaulted room, arched with
stone, and supported by pillars, like the crypt of a church, which,
though very light and airy, was cool, and manifestly designed for the
beer-cellar, there being still remains of a raised low benching of
stonework all round, sufficient to hold a prodigious number of casks,
and a neat stone drain all along before it, underneath, to carry away
any droppings. Through this great arched room is also another passage to
what was obviously the brewhouse and bakehouse, where are remains of
places for vast coppers, coolers, and ovens. Near adjoining are
store-rooms for corn and malt, and a communication from thence with the
outside of the building for bringing in of stores. But in other respects
this whole suite of offices was quite unconnected with the other
offices, and had no kind of communication either with them or with the
rest of the mansion, except by the door of entrance near the hall, in
which is the little wicket.”
The second pointed arch--next to the buttery, and facing the hall in
like manner--is the entrance of a long, narrow passage, leading, with a
continued descent, to the great kitchen, and having in the midway an
half door, or hatch, with a broad shelf on the top of it, whereupon to
place dishes; to which, and no further, the servants in waiting were to
have access. “The next, being the third of the great pointed arches,
behind the screen, at the bottom of the hall, opens merely into one very
small vaulted room, unconnected with any other: that was clearly the
wine-cellar; which (according to the frugality and ideas of early times,
when wine was considered merely as a cordial and dram) needed to be but
small.” The fourth great arch is at the bottom of a great steep
staircase, quite distinct from the grand staircase of the house, and
leading up to a prodigious variety of small apartments, which seem to
have been designed for the reception of guests and numerous retainers,
there being others, of a still inferior sort, in other parts of the
house, for servants; especially in the range of building opposite to the
great door of the hall.
Such was the use of these four great arches behind the hall screen, and
we may with great propriety conceive, that they were the stations of the
butler, the clerk of the kitchen, the cellarer, and the chamberlain, or
steward of the household, of this great family. “The provision for the
officers and attendants being so great, we shall yet find here, as in
all very ancient mansions, that the apartments of the lord of the castle
(or what we should now call the state apartments) were very few in
number, and little adequate to the rest, according to our modern and
more refined ideas.”