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[Illustration: THE PRIORY GATEWAY, WORKSOP]
THE
DUKERIES
Described by R. Murray Gilchrist
Pictured by E. W. Haslehust
[Illustration]
BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED
LONDON GLASGOW AND BOMBAY
1913
+--------------------------------------------------+
| ~Beautiful England~ |
| _Volumes Ready_ |
| | |
| OXFORD | THE CORNISH RIVIERA |
| THE ENGLISH LAKES | DICKENS-LAND |
| CANTERBURY | WINCHESTER |
| SHAKESPEARE-LAND | THE ISLE OF WIGHT |
| THE THAMES | CHESTER |
| WINDSOR CASTLE | YORK |
| CAMBRIDGE | THE NEW FOREST |
| NORWICH AND THE BROADS | HAMPTON COURT |
| THE HEART OF WESSEX | EXETER |
| THE PEAK DISTRICT | HEREFORD |
| THE DUKERIES |
| |
| _Uniform with this Series_ |
| |
| ~Beautiful Ireland~ |
| |
| LEINSTER | MUNSTER |
| ULSTER | CONNAUGHT |
+--------------------------------------------------+
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
The Priory Gateway, Worksop _Frontispiece_
Worksop Manor 8
Robin Hood's Larder 14
The Major Oak, Thoresby Park 20
The Beech Avenue, Thoresby 26
Welbeck Abbey 32
Clumber 36
Thoresby 42
Ollerton 48
Rufford Abbey 52
The Japanese Garden, Rufford Abbey 56
Edwinstowe 60
[Illustration: THE DUKERIES]
WORKSOP AND THE MANOR
Although within the last twenty-five years Worksop has suffered many
changes, unfortunate enough from an aesthetic point of view, the Dukeries
end of the principal street still suggests the comfortable market town
in the neighbourhood of folk of quality. The only relic of notable
antiquity is the quaint inn, known as the Old Ship--a building with
projecting upper story and carved oaken beams that might have been
transported from Chester.
The twin-towered Priory Church, a gatehouse of singular interest, and
some slight, gracefully proportioned ecclesiastical ruins are the main
features of interest. The Priory was founded by William de Lovetot, and
used by the canons of the order of St. Augustine. Great men were buried
there, notably several chiefs of the Furnival family, who had for town
residence Furnival's Inn in Holborn. The interior of the church contains
some excellent round and octagonal pillars, and one or two ancient
effigies. The walls are coated with stucco, which detracts considerably
from the beauty of this handsomely proportioned building. One of the
most interesting things to be seen is a piece of a human skull, pierced
with an arrowhead. This hangs to the left of the doorway by which the
vestry is reached. There is a weird superstition concerning the moving
of this relic.
Near by is the ruined chapel, erected about the middle of the thirteenth
century. It was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and in olden times must
have blazed with gorgeous colours. The roof has fallen; little remains
of its former beauty save the lancet windows. The double piscina and the
sedilia are still in fair preservation, and we are shown the round holes
in the stonework once filled with the pegs of the canons' oaken seats.
In the churchyard are a few quaint epitaphs for such as delight to dwell
upon the virtues of the forgotten dead. The Priory Gatehouse at the
farther end is perhaps one of the most interesting buildings of its kind
in existence. The stonework is of soft grey, and the roof chiefly of
well-coloured tiles. A roadway about fifteen yards in length passes
through the building; the original ceiling of oaken beams with graceful
braces is still in good condition. Above this was the Hospitium, or
guest chamber, where may be seen the hooded chimney-piece and the hearth
before which old-time travellers rested o' nights and told tales that
Chaucer might have loved, before retiring to the smaller chambers, to
sleep heavily after the good cheer provided by their priestly hosts. In
front of this relic stands the old market cross; and near by, until
within the nineteenth century, were the stocks for vagrants and
refractory townsmen.
Camden tells us that in his time Worksop was "noted for its great
produce of liquorice, and famous for the Earl of Shrewsbury's house,
built in our memory by George Talbot, with the magnificence becoming so
great an Earl, and yet below envy". In Park Street, not far from the
Priory Gateway, is one of the entrances to the Manor Park. The trees
still remaining are not noteworthy in the matter of size, with the
exception of a few cedars and beeches near the terrace of the house. As
one approaches, the Manor Hills, gently sloping and well wooded, with
heather-covered clearings, may be seen to the left. As for the house
itself, the garden front of to-day, without being of great architectural
interest, has a very pleasant air of unpretentious comfort and
brightness. There is a flower garden whose beds are edged with box and
yew. The chief object of note is a long and high wall, probably a
portion of the ancient house; this is somewhat dignified with its worn
coping, whereon stand various urns the carving of which time has
softened. From the terrace one looks down on the sloping park with its
mere, and scattered trees, and graceful groups of young horses.
Passing round the house, and entering a vast gateway surmounted by a
lion, one sees, to the right, part of the manor built after 1761, when
the house which replaced the Elizabethan palace built by the Earl of
Shrewsbury and his Countess Bess, with its pictures and furniture and
some of the Arundelian marbles, was destroyed by fire. To my thinking,
the most suggestive view of the present edifice is gained from the
Mansfield road, within a few minutes' walk of the town.
From an ancient engraving we find that the first house bore some
resemblance to Hardwick Hall, the great Bess's most successful building.
It contained five hundred rooms; in front was a fine courtyard, with a
central octagonal green plot surrounding a basin with a fountain. The
artist gave to this a touch of life by drawing a coach and six proudly
curving towards the outlet; on the lawns beyond are ladies with
fan-shaped hoops, and thin-legged gentlemen with puffed coat skirts.
[Illustration: WORKSOP MANOR]
Of this house Horace Walpole writes, in 1756: "Lord Stafford carried us
to Worksop, where we passed two days. The house is huge and one of the
magnificent works of Old Bess of Hardwick, who guarded the Queen of
Scots here for some time in a wretched little bedchamber within her own
lofty one:--there is a tolerable little picture ('The story of
Bathsheba, finely drawn and shaded, in faint colours') of Mary's
needlework. The great apartment is vast and _triste_, the whole leanly
furnished: the great gallery, of about two hundred feet, at the top of
the house, is divided into a library and into nothing. The chapel is
decent. There is no prospect, and the barren face of the country is
richly furred with evergreen plantations." In 1761 he records that
"Worksop--the new house--is burned down; I don't know the circumstances,
it has not been finished a month; the last furniture was brought in for
the Duke of York: I have some comfort that I had seen it; except the
bare chamber in which the Queen of Scots lodged, nothing remained of
ancient time".
Not only was Mary Stuart well acquainted with Worksop Manor, but later,
her son, James the First, on his first progress to London, became the
guest of Gilbert, Earl of Shrewsbury, her jailer's successor. In a
letter to his agent, John Harpur, this nobleman writes forewarning him
of the expected honour, and, after bidding him see to horses being in
readiness, adds, as postcript: "I will not refuse anie fatt capons and
hennes, partridges, or the like, yf the King come to me". We find that
James left Edinburgh on the fifth of April, 1603, and reached Worksop on
the twentieth, after leaving the High Sheriff of Yorkshire at Bawtry,
and being met and escorted by his brother of Nottinghamshire. It is
matter for surprise that the king accepted the Talbot hospitality,
considering their melancholy connection with his mother's tragedy, but
it is true that he never made parade of filial piety. At Worksop Park
appeared a number of huntsmen, clad in Lincoln green, whose chief, "with
a woodman's speech, did welcome him, offering His Majesty to show him
some game, which he gladly consented to see, and, with a traine set, he
hunted a good space, very much delighted: at last he went into the
house, where he was so nobly received, with superfluitie of all things,
that still every entertainment seemed to exceed other. In this place,
besides the abundance of all provision and delicacies, there was most
excellent soul-ravishing musique, wherewith His Highness was not a
little delighted." One wonders if he was shown the royal prisoner's
miserable little room. At Worksop he spent a night, and in the morning
stayed for breakfast, which ended, "there was such store of provision
left, of fowls, fish, and almost everything, besides bread, beere and
wines, that it was left open for any man that would, to come and take".
In the State papers relating to the Rebellion of '45 may be found a
curious and interesting account of a secret hiding-place, reached by
lifting a sheet of lead on the roof. A tattling young woman told the
story upon oath, describing a staircase that descended to a little room
with a fireplace, a bed, and a few chairs, with a door in the wainscot
that opened to a place full of arms. Unfortunately, both history and
tradition are silent concerning any shelter offered by Worksop Manor to
proscribed folk.
After the burning of the new house, in 1761, the Duke of Norfolk, Lord
Shrewsbury's descendant, laid the foundation stone of another in 1763.
We learn that this was to have been one of the largest in England; but
that only one side of the proposed quadrangle was completed, although
five hundred workmen were employed, and closely supervised by the
duchess in person. This stood for three-quarters of a century; then, the
estate being sold to the Duke of Newcastle, the greater part of the
house was pulled down and the present place built.
Of the original park, which Evelyn mentions as "sweet and delectable",
nowadays there is but little to be seen. There still remains, however, a
beech grove called the "Druid's Temple", a "Lover's Walk" for
sentimental youth, and a wood of acacias and cedars, yews and tulip
trees--once known as the "Wilderness", but since the eighteenth century
called the "Menagerie", because of a Duchess of Norfolk who kept an
aviary within its precincts. Mrs. Delany, in 1756, thus alludes to this
place: "We went there on Sunday evening; but I only saw a crown bird and
a most delightful cockatoo, with yellow breast and topping". There is an
air of pleasing disorder about the drives, and one is occasionally
reminded of Irish demesnes.
Within a mile of the house once stood the celebrated "Shire oak"--a
gigantic tree whose branches overshadowed a portion of Nottinghamshire,
of Derbyshire, and of Yorkshire. Evelyn tells us that the distance from
bough-end to bough-end was ninety feet, and that two hundred and
thirty-five horses might have sheltered beneath its foliage. This tree
disappeared entirely in the eighteenth century, and the exact site is
now a matter of some uncertainty.
SHERWOOD FOREST AND ROBIN HOOD
To savour the full charm of Sherwood Forest one must stray from the
highroad, lose one's path, and wander in happy patience until a broad
avenue is reached, or above the treetops one sees the slender and
graceful spire of some stately church. The formal beauty of the
frequented ways--trimly kept and splendidly coloured--precludes all
illusion: only in the remote solitudes with their monstrous old trees is
it possible to evoke a mind picture of Robin Hood and his devoted
followers. And even in the most secluded places the imagined pageant of
these folk suggests the theatre. The loveliness seems unreal--a
background devised by some scene-painter of genius.
But Sherwood is always beautiful and always tranquil; to those who know
aught of wood magic it is as fair in cold midwinter as in autumn, when
the leaves are no longer green leaves, but a rich mosaic of russet and
orange and sullen red. My most wonderful memory is of a November day
when a fine snow was falling, and the leaves drifted downward in a
continuous murmuring veil. Then, no rabbits played upon the grassy
wayside or crossed the track, and the pheasants shivered in their hidden
shelters. In early springtime one best realizes the antiquity; the
first opening leaves call to mind pale lichen growing upon damp castle
walls: in summer the air is languorous, bringing a desire for rest and
contemplation. Storms are impious there: the ancient oaks and birches
and chestnuts must wail and protest, like dotards wakened from senility
to cruel hours of actual life.
Of the old forest naught remains in perfection save the southern parts
known as Birkland and Bilhagh, in the neighbourhood of Edwinstowe and
Ollerton. Near the former village may be seen the famous "Major Oak" and
"Robin Hood's Larder". The full glory departed several centuries ago;
Camden himself writes of "Sherewood, which some interpret as _clear
Wood_, others as _famous Wood_, formerly one close continu'd shade with
the boughs of trees so entangled in one another, that one could hardly
walk single in the paths," that "at present it is much thinner, and
feeds an infinite number of Deer and Stags".
In British times the district was occupied by the tribe of the Coritani,
and later the Romans built several camps here, various relics of which
were discovered in the eighteenth century. Not far away, Edwin, the
Saxon King of Northumbria, was slain in battle--fighting against Penda,
King of Mercia, and Cadwallader, King of Wales; and in all probability
his body was buried at the village of Edwinstowe.
[Illustration: ROBIN HOOD'S LARDER]
The earliest definite notice of Sherwood dates from the days of Henry
the Second, when William Peverel had control and profit of the district
under the Crown. After his dispossession, a lady named Matilda de Caux
and her husband held the office of Chief Foresters. In Edward the
First's time this office was seized by the Crown, and granted, as a
special mark of favour, to persons of high station.
The _Charta de Foresta_, constructed in Henry the Third's reign,
contains some curious information about woodland customs. We learn that
"any archbishop, bishop, earl, or baron, coming to the King at his
command, and passing through the forests, might take and kill one or two
of the King's deer, by view of the forester if he were present; if not,
then he might do it upon the blowing of a horn, that it might not look
like a theft. The same might be done when they returned."[1] Courts
called Swainmotes were held thrice yearly--one fifteen days before
Michaelmas, a second about the Feast of St. Martin, and a third fifteen
days before St. John Baptist's Day. At the same time the cruel
punishments for offences against the forest laws were lessened in
rigour. Thenceforth no man was punished with death or mutilation for
illegally hunting, but if found taking venison was fined heavily. If he
were unable to pay, he was imprisoned for a year and a day, and then
discharged upon pledges; but if unable to find any surety, was exiled.
Footnote 1: Reeves's _English Law_.]
The chief officers were known as foresters, verderors, woodwards, and
agisters. Each verderor had the liberty of taking a tree out of Birkland
or Bilhagh; but this privilege seems to have been abused, since in later
years the officers were found to choose the best timber available, and
in William the Third's reign the favour was withdrawn.
Until the sixteenth century the forest seems to have been infested with
wolves: we read that one, Sir Robert Plumpton, in Henry the Sixth's
time, held land called "wolf-hunt land" at Mansfield Woodhouse, seven or
eight miles away, by service of horn-blowing to chase or frighten away
these creatures. In 1635, from a survey taken by royal command, it was
discovered that the forests contained 1367 red deer, 987 of these being
"rascalds", or ill-conditioned. A few years before, the district had
been ravaged by fire, and a contemporary writer describes the
conflagration as one such as was "never knowne in menes memory; beinge
four mille longe and a mille and a halfe over all at once". Later the
gentleman tells how "ridinge on his way through the forest homeward, he
saw a greate herde of faire red deere, and amonst them 2 extreordanory
greet stages, the which he never saw the like".
Much of the forest oak was used for the royal navy, but more was allowed
to decay. Folk of good birth but fallen fortunes frequently begged a
grant of these trees from the Crown. In 1677 Thoroton writes that so
many claims were granted that there would soon not be wood enough left
to cover the bilberries! As time went on, the cleared portions, being of
no further use for kingly sport, were sold to various noblemen. In 1683,
1270 acres were bought by the Duke of Kingston, to add to Thoresby Park;
while early in the eighteenth century 3000 acres were enclosed for the
making of Clumber Park. The last portions of the forest remaining were
the hays, or enclosures, of Birkland and Bilhagh, which were granted to
the Duke of Portland about 1827, in exchange for the perpetual advowson
of St. Mary-le-Bone. Bilhagh later became the property of the late Earl
Manvers, its price being the manors of Holbeck and Bonbusk, near
Welbeck. After the resignation of the Crown lands the waning historical
interest of Sherwood ceased. Birkland and Bilhagh are still beautiful as
in their prime, but the rest of the neighbourhood is nowadays naught but
a wonderful pleasaunce, where drowsy pheasants wander unafraid, and
where the chief signs of life are on holidays, when happy folk crowd
from the neighbouring towns to view, awestricken, the wonders and the
riches of the great houses, and the artificial beauties of perhaps the
finest parks in England.
One or two literary men of some distinction have rhapsodized over the
charms of Sherwood, notably William Howitt and Washington Irving. Lord
Byron, whose house of Newstead lies not far away, displayed but little
interest in the district. The only modern writer to whom the secret of
the real Sherwood has been fully divulged is Mr. James Prior, whose
books, inspired by the spirit of the woodlands, should delight all who
love fresh and wholesome pictures of unspoiled country life.
Sherwood, as everybody knows, was Robin Hood's kingdom. Learned men have
racked their brains concerning the great outlaw's existence. Joseph
Hunter, the historian of Hallamshire, published in 1852 an ingenious
tract concerning his period and his real character, which in short gives
plausible enough details of his adventures. There is a well known by his
name not far from Doncaster, another near Hathersage, in the Peak
Country; and more than one village prides itself upon the site of his
"Shooting Butts". A cave, by legend ascribed to him, may be found on an
"edge" overhanging the Derwent valley, whilst within an easy walk of
Haddon Hall one may see two rocks known as his "Stride".
Langland, in the _Vision of Piers Plowman_, makes the first mention of
his popularity:--
"I kan not parfitly my paternoster, as the priest sayeth,
But I kan rymes of Robyn Hode and Randolf, Earl of Chester".
Again, in John Fordun's _Scottish Chronicle_, written about 1360, we
find him described not only as a notorious robber, but as a man of great
charity. In 1493 Wynkyn de Worde printed a sequence of old ballads
treating of his adventures. This book, known as _The Lytel Geste of
Robyn Hood_, became very popular, and brought into vogue the rustic
pageants known as the Robin Hood Games, in which the adventures of the
outlaw and his companions, Maid Marion, Little John, Will Scarlet, and
Friar Tuck, were depicted for the admiration of the multitude.
In the public library of the University of Cambridge is preserved the
manuscript of the finest and most ancient ballad. This, which is known
as "A Tale of Robin Hood", may be cited in its quaint and dramatic
picturesqueness as the most perfect and complete example of song
literature extant. It begins with Robin's desire to attend church at
Nottingham, since "It is a fortnight and more sin' I my Saviour saw".
Little John accompanies him, but on the way they quarrel about a wager,
and Robin strikes him, upon which the faithful servant departs in high
dudgeon. At Nottingham a hooded monk recognizes our hero and gives the
alarm. He is surrounded by the sheriff and his followers, and, although
he slays twelve men, is at last captured, and held in durance until
Little John, who has quite forgiven him, accomplishes his release by a
clever stratagem.
The chap-book entitled _Robin Hood's Garland_, which was published at
York, contains the generally believed account of his death and burial.
In it we read how he visited his cousin, the Prioress of Kirklees
Nunnery, for the purpose of being bled. She, who must have been
soul-sister of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, took advantage of his
defencelessness, and, after opening a vein, locked up the room and left
him for a day. Before dying, he blew his horn, and Little John, who was
outside, burst open the doors just in time to hear his last words. The
_Garland_ is full of instances of Robin's nobility, and for delightful,
invigorating reading may even be commended to the youth of to-day. It is
a concise little history, beginning with the first day of his outlawry,
and ending with the fatal scene at Kirklees. As a vivid series of
woodland sketches it is without parallel of its kind, and reading, one
may almost journey through the greater Sherwood in the company of the
goodly archers clothed in Lincoln green.
[Illustration: THE MAJOR OAK, THORESBY PARK]
The humour is bucolic and breezy. The song of "Robin Hood and the
Bishop", which the black-letter copy describes as "Shewing how Robin
Hood went to an old woman's house, and changed cloathes with her to
escape from the bishop, and how he robbed the bishop of all his gold and
made him sing a mass", contains about the best specimen of this country
wit. Again, in _Robin Hood and the Tanner of Nottingham_ is a most
ludicrous account of the manner in which, after being threatened with a
"knop upon his bare scop", Robin receives as sound a drubbing as ever he
himself inflicted. But this punishment, and his philosophical manner of
bearing it, only earned him another follower, since the victorious
tanner became at once enamoured of the free forest life, and swore there
and then to join the band.
The Elizabethan dramatists made good use of our hero, knowing well that
when he was presented on the stage the hearts of the people were moved.
In "a Pleasant Commedie called Looke About You", he appears as a
fresh-faced and pretty young nobleman, ever ready to do a good turn to
his friends, to whom everybody defers, and who passes through the play
laughing and merry as his namesake, the Goodfellow of Ben Jonson. So
rosy are his cheeks and so bright his eyes that he personates the
heroine, Lady Fauconbridge, at some unwelcome visits that she dreads.
_The Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon_, by Anthony Munday, who
wrote at the end of the sixteenth century, gives the next dramatic
information. This shows him living in full state, but still young, and
on the eve of marriage with Matilda Fitzwater, Lord Lacy's child. His
steward, Warman, instigated by the Prior of York, betrays him in
Judas-like fashion (for what real reason we are not told, if it be not
for the wasting of his lands), and as an outlaw he flies to the
greenwood, where he is joined by Matilda, who renounces her fine name
and calls herself Maid Marion. Prince John has fallen in love with her,
and she is in mortal fear of his pursuit. In this play Little John and
Friar Tuck converse prettily in an aside:--
_Little John._ Methinks I see no jest of Robin Hood,
No merry morrices of Friar Tuck,
No pleasant skippings up and down the wood,
No hunting songs, no coursings of the buck.
_Friar Tuck._ For merry jests they have been shown before,
As how the friar fell into the well
For love of Jenny, that fair bonny belle;
How Greenleaf robbed the Shrieve of Nottingham,
And other mirthful matters full of game.
These passages obviously refer to the antecedent plays. After this comes
_The Death of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon_, collaborated by the same
author with Henry Chettle, another successful playwright. This,
differing from the ballad account, shows how he was poisoned by his
uncle, the wicked prior. His obsequies are solemnized with a plaintive
little dirge:--
"Weep, weep, ye woodmen, wail,
Your hands with sorrow wring,
Your master Robin Hood lies dead,
Therefore sigh as you sing.
"Here lie his primer and his beads,
His bent bow and his arrows keen,
His good sword and his holy cross:
Now cast on flowers fresh and green;
"And as they fall, shed tears and say,
Wella, wella-day! wella, wella-day:
Thus cast ye flowers and sing,
And on to Wakefield take your way."
After his demise poor Marion is so tormented by her royal persecutor
that she seeks refuge in Dunmow Abbey, where she is poisoned by the
king's order. In each play the outlaw is extolled so highly, and made so
admirable in every way, that in spite of the quaintness one is moved to
honest admiration. His dying scene is most pathetic, and there is no
doubt that the simple country audience would weep as though for a dearly
loved friend.
The airs pertaining to the Robin Hood literature are merry in the
extreme--delicious, sparkling waves of melody, to which thousands of
country dances have been performed. They sprang from the heart, and
even to-day, if offered to the public, might win popular success. All
are "lusty fellows with good backbones", such as Shakespeare in his
salad days must have listened to and admired. Gay, in his pastoral _The
Flights_, gives a charming picture of Bowzybeus delighting the reapers
with one of these ballads, ere falling asleep midst happy laughter.
In folklore are still preserved a few relics. "To go round by Robin
Hood's barn" is to travel in a roundabout fashion, and "to sell Robin
Hood's pennyworths", to sell much below value, as a generous robber
might. His "feather" is the Traveller's Joy, his "hatband" the
club-moss. His "men" or his "sheep" are the bracken, and his "wind" a
wind that brings on a thaw. We are told that Robin could stand anything
but a "tho wind". The Red Campion, the Ragged Robin, and the Herb Robert
are known in several counties by his name. His greatest claim to
popularity was that he took away the goods of none save rich men, never
killed any person except in self-defence, charitably fed the poor, and
was in short, as an old writer tells us, "the most humane and the prince
of robbers".
WELBECK ABBEY
The present house of Welbeck was built upon the site of an abbey for
Premonstratensian canons, which was begun in 1140. Nothing, however,
remains of the old place save some stonework in the cellars and a few
inner walls. A portion of the house dates from 1604; in an engraving
from the great Duke of Newcastle's book on Horsemanship we find that it
originally bore some resemblance to a French chateau. Charles the First
and Henrietta Maria were entertained here--the house being placed at
their disposal whilst their host occupied Bolsover Castle, some miles
distant. Ben Jonson devised a masque entitled "Love's Welcome" for the
royal amusement, and there was such feasting and show that it cost
between fourteen and fifteen thousand pounds.
The Abbey is richly furnished, and contains one of the finest
collections of pictures and miniatures in Europe, and a wealth of
ancient manuscripts. The miniatures were gathered together in the early
part of the eighteenth century by Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford. Of
these treasures Mrs. Delany writes in 1756: "I have undertaken to set
the miniatures of the Duchess of Portland [Lord Oxford's daughter and
heiress] in order, as she does not like to trust them to anybody else,
and for want of proper airing they are in danger of being spoiled. Such
Petitots! such Olivers! such Coopers!" About that time the good lady
describes an evening walk in park and gardens: "By the time we came in,
the moon was risen to a great height, and we sat down in the great
dining-room to contemplate its glory, and to talk of our friends, who in
all likelihood were at that moment admiring its splendour as well as
we". Later she confesses that Welbeck has a _glare of grandeur_, and
that although she admires her Duchess when receiving princely honours
and acquitting herself with dignity, she loves her best in her own
private dressing-room!
The miniatures were wellnigh lost in the middle of the nineteenth
century. The late duke had lent the collection to the Manchester Art
Treasures Exhibition of 1857, and a certain well-known literary man, who
was in the owner's confidence, arranged for all to be sent to London, so
that, like Mrs. Delany, he might arrange them in suitable order. There
he pawned the whole lot for trifling sums, with seven different
pawnbrokers; but, thanks chiefly to a well-known inhabitant of Worksop,
all, with the exception of five, were recovered.
[Illustration: THE BEECH AVENUE, THORESBY]
Here are two famous Riding Houses, one the pride of the author of the
great work on Horsemanship in Stuart times. This is used nowadays as a
picture gallery, the late Duke of Portland having built another of
dimensions almost double. To my thinking, one of the chief beauties of
Welbeck is the gilded gateway opening to the avenue on the road from
Worksop to Ollerton--surely one of the most graceful and yet imposing
structures of its kind in the country. Another and more singular
attraction consists of the subterranean roadways--gigantic mole runs the
cause of whose creation is, and probably always will be, a mystery to
the world in general. The pleasure gardens are stocked with rare trees,
and the vast lake has so natural an appearance that one forgets that it
was made by human folk. The kitchen garden is notably fine: we are told
that it covers thirty acres, and that the houses for peaches and other
luscious fruits extend over a quarter of a mile. There is a story of a
monstrous bunch of Syrian grapes having, some generations ago, been
grown there, and sent by the duke of that time across country to
Wentworth House. It weighed nineteen and a half pounds, and was
carried--as was the trophy taken by the spies from Canaan--attached to a
pole.
Finest of the Welbeck trees is the "Greendale Oak", which in 1724 was
transformed, by cutting, into an archway, the aperture being 10 feet 3
inches high and 6 feet 3 inches wide, so that a carriage, or three
horsemen riding abreast, could pass through. From the branches cut off
at that time a cabinet was made for the Countess of Oxford--a fine piece
of furniture, inlaid with a representation of her spouse driving his
chariot and six through the opening.
Horace Walpole, in 1756, writes in his usual acid style: "I went to
Welbeck. It is impossible to describe the bales of Cavendishes, Harleys,
Holleses, Veres, and Ogles: every chamber is tapestried with them; nay,
and with two thousand other morsels; all their histories inscribed; all
their arms, crests, services, sculptured on chimneys of various English
marbles in ancient forms (and to say truth) most of them ugly. Then such
a Gothic hall, with pendent fretwork in imitation of the old, and with a
chimney-piece like mine in the library. Such water-colour pictures! such
historic fragments! There is Prior's portrait and the Column and
Verelst's flower on which he wrote; and the authoress Duchess of
Newcastle in a theatric habit, which she generally wore, and,
consequently, looking as mad as the present Duchess; and dukes of the
same name, looking as foolish as the present Duke; and Lady Mary
Wortley, drawn as an authoress, with rather better pretensions; and
cabinets and glasses wainscoted with the Greendale Oak, which was so
large that an old steward wisely cut a way through it to make a
triumphal passage for his lord and lady on their wedding! What treasures
to revel over! The horseman Duke's manege is converted into a lofty
stable, and there is still a grove or two of magnificent oaks that have
escaped all these great families, though the last Lord Oxford cut down
above an hundred thousand pounds' worth. The place is little pretty,
distinct from all these reverend circumstances." Twenty-one years later
he writes: "Welbeck is a devastation. The house is a delight of my eyes,
for it is a hospital of old portraits." One is inclined to believe that
something in the order of his reception had stung him into lasting
pique.
The great ancestress of the owner of Welbeck, and of the other nobility
in the Dukeries, was Bess of Hardwick, who built a magnificent country
house on the "edge" overlooking the Vale of Scarsdale, some miles
distant from the border of Sherwood Forest. This singular woman, as
striking a personality as her contemporary and sometime friend Queen
Elizabeth, occasionally passed in state along the "ridings".
Her life-story is a marvellous instance of genius devoted to the
attainment of a high position. The daughter of a well-to-do squire, she
was married at fifteen to a wealthy young gentleman whose estate lay ten
miles away, and who, dying very soon, left her mistress of the greater
part of his fortune. Her first house at Barlow, near Chesterfield, has
entirely disappeared, save for a piece of old wall. She remained a widow
for many years, then married Sir William Cavendish, by whom she had six
children. After his death she chose Sir William St. Loe, inherited his
extensive estates, then, well past her prime, accepted the offer of the
widowed George, Earl of Shrewsbury; but before the marriage insisted
that two of her young Cavendishes should be married to two of his young
Talbots. For a few years her fourth venture proved satisfactory enough;
but the custody of Mary Queen of Scots apparently became too much of a
nerve-strain for both man and wife; and their wrangles finally became
common property in high circles. She embroiled herself with Queen
Elizabeth; she persecuted her husband for his so-called
meanness--although she was exceedingly rich in her own right; and, worst
of all, she sowed dissension between him and his own offspring. The poor
earl's condition was melancholy enough; one has no doubt that he was
thankful to the heart when they separated for the last time.
In the portrait at Hardwick Hall she is represented as a comely,
roguish-looking matron in full maturity: a better idea of her character
may be won from the effigy lying on the tomb she erected for herself in
All Saints' Church at Derby. There one sees a face not unbeautiful, but
cold and masterful in the extreme.
It was her grandson, William, first Duke of Newcastle, who first gave
lustre to Welbeck, and perhaps, after all, he owed most of his celebrity
to an intellectual wife, known in Restoration days as "Mad Madge of
Newcastle". Few pictures of domestic life in the seventeenth century are
more pleasing than that given by this lady in the short account of her
girlhood, which opens her fantastical autobiography. Born the youngest
of Sir Thomas Lucas's eight children, in a large country house near
Colchester, she was trained under a system of education originated by
her mother. The daughters, of whom there were five, were not kept
strictly to their schoolbooks, but rather taught "for formality than
benefit". Singing, dancing, music, reading, writing, and embroidery were
their accomplishments; but Mistress Lucas, who was left a widow soon
after the birth of Margaret, cared not so much for dancing and fiddling
and conversing in foreign languages as that they should be bred modestly
and on honest principles. In London, where they migrated for the season,
they would visit Spring Gardens, Hyde Park, and similar places, and
sometimes attended concerts, or supped in barges on the river.
As she grew to womanhood Margaret became filled with the desire to play
maid of honour to Queen Henrietta Maria, chiefly because she had heard
that the queen in her poverty had not the same number of ladies as in
her prosperity. After much persuasion her mother allowed her to leave
home, and she joined the Court at Oxford, and soon afterwards met
William Cavendish, who was her senior by nearly thirty years. They
married, and the battle of Marston Moor forced them into exile. Obliged
to return to England, so that she might raise funds, she wrote one or
two volumes of _Poems_ and _Philosophical Fancies_, successors to
another grotesque work entitled _The World's Olio_. These were the first
three of ten immense folios, treating of every imaginable subject, and
most slipshod in grammar and style, that she gave to the world, tenderly
regarding them, in the absence of any other offspring, as her children.
[Illustration: WELBECK ABBEY]
The Lives of the duke and of herself are, however, the only productions
remembered nowadays. Of the first, Charles Lamb says: "There is no
casket rich enough, no casing sufficiently durable, to honour and keep
safe such a jewel"; but Pepys, who lived at the same time as the noble
authoress, described it as "the ridiculous History of the Duke, which
shows her to be a mad, conceited, rediculous woman, and he an asse to
suffer her to write what she does to and of him". Her own memoir is
charmingly and unaffectedly egotistical. She tells us: "I fear my
ambition inclines to vainglory, for I am very ambitious, yet 'tis
neither for beauty, wit, title, wealth, or power, but as they are Steps
to raise me to Fancies Tower, which is to live by remembrance in all
ages.... My Disposition is more inclined to Melancholy than Merry, but
not crabbed or peevish Melancholy, but soft, melting, and contemplating
Melancholy, and I am apt rather to weep than to laugh." Always fearing
that she might be mistaken by posterity for her husband's first wife,
she gives an elaborate explanation at the end of the book, so that all
in after years might accredit her with intellectual magnificence.
Although she met with much ridicule at the Court of Charles the Second,
being satirized particularly by the libertine poets Etherege and Sedley,
the fulsome praise of men of considerable intellect was lavished upon
her, and even the sedate and usually truthful Evelyn, after a lengthy
enumeration of the great women of history, flattered her with the
assurance that all of those summed up together only divided between them
what she retained in one! A curious story is told of her appearance with
a train-bearer in the chamber of Catherine of Portugal. As this was a
breach of Court etiquette, she was forbidden to repeat it, and resented
the reproof by wearing at her next appearance a train of satin and
silver thirty yards long, with the end supported by four waiting-ladies
in the ante-room.
She wrote several plays, concerning one of which, _The Humorous Lovers_,
Pepys tells us that although he would rather not have seen it, since it
was so sickeningly silly, yet he was glad, because he could understand
her better afterwards. At the end of the first performance, as a queen
of breeding, she stood up in her box and made her respects to the
actors.
In those days of better fortunes the quaintly assorted couple spent much
time in the country houses of Welbeck and Bolsover. The duke's income
was very large, being equal to at least L200,000 of our money, and,
since both had rural tastes, it is probable that they were far happier
in Nottinghamshire than in their fine town mansion in Clerkenwell Close.
Welbeck she admired most, since it was seated "in the bottom of a park
environed with woods, and noble, yet melancholy". One wonders if the
ghost of this "wise, wittie and learned lady" wanders in those beautiful
and amazing precincts, a little bewildered and more than a little angry
that any of her beloved spouse's descendants should have dared to
enlarge and embellish the comfortable temple of their conjugal felicity.
If she could have had her will, his works in architecture, like hers in
the realms of smoky fancy, would have lasted until the end of time.
CLUMBER
The most impressive approach to Clumber is by way of Normanton Inn, a
red-brick hostelry draped luxuriantly with virginia creeper. At some
slight distance is a magnificent glade of varied greens, with great
patches of blood-coloured bent-grass. In the neighbourhood grow many
fine Spanish chestnuts; when I was last there the ground was littered
with the fallen flowers. A vast, festooned cloud, grey as the smoke of
some monstrous fire, drifted from the east; then lightning sported
wickedly amongst the trees, and the rain fell in torrents. Beside the
balustraded bridge the water seemed covered with an army of white
puppets. But it was at the entrance to the Lime Tree Avenue that I
looked upon the greatest wonder of the day. Behind the shifting veil the
view of that curving road seemed as fantastically unreal as the
background of some ancient Italian masterpiece.
This avenue, three miles in length, has on either side two rows of
limes, and on a hot July midday the fragrance is overpoweringly sweet.
From this the house is not visible--to reach it one must pass down a
private drive to the left. Whilst the present house was being built,
Sir Harbottle Grimston writes on a tour enjoyed in 1768: "From Worksop
Manor to Clumber, Lord Lincoln's, over the heath. The house is situated
rather low in a very extensive park, near a noble piece of water, over
which is a very handsome bridge on 'cycloidal' arches. The house is not
yet finished, but by its present appearance seems as if it would be
magnificent. There are nineteen windows in front, the middle one a bow,
with two wings projecting forwards." About this time Walpole speaks of
Clumber being "still in leading-strings". The building was finished
about 1770, and is of white freestone, pleasantly age-coloured, with a
south front that opens to a formal and beautiful Italian garden with
terraced walks and graceful marble fountains. Beyond, reached by stone
staircases, spreads the great lake, which covers eighty-seven acres. On
this may be seen a gay full-masted frigate, the aspect of which in this
tranquil and richly wooded country strikes a somewhat bizarre note. The
park contains four thousand acres, and in the neighbourhood of the house
may be seen many handsome cedars and yews. The finest view is obtainable
from the opposite bank of the lake, or from near the head, where stands
the home farmstead of Hardwick.
[Illustration: CLUMBER]
The house, though not one of the most impressive in its exterior aspect,
contains treasures of priceless worth. The pillared entrance hall has
several fine statues, notably one of Napoleon and another of the author
of _The Seasons_. All the state chambers are extremely handsome, and in
the large drawing-room may be seen five ebony cabinets and four
pedestals surmounted with crystal chandeliers, which were brought from
the Doge's Palace. Perhaps the most notable is the dining-room, 60 feet
long, 34 feet wide, and 30 feet high. We are told that it can easily
accommodate one hundred and fifty guests at dinner. The library, a fine
room panelled with mahogany, contains many treasures, notably three
Caxtons--_The History of Reynard the Fox_, 1481; _The Chronicles of
England_, 1482; and _The Golden Legend_, 1493: the first and second
folios of Shakespeare: and many examples--one printed on vellum--of
Froissart's _Chronicles_. There is also a fifteenth-century manuscript
of Gower's _Confessio Amantis_. In the smoking-room is to be seen a
remarkable chimney-piece of carved marble, which once stood in Fonthill
Abbey, the house of the author of _Vathek_. To the antiquarian, perhaps
the most interesting objects are four funeral cysts, dating from two
thousand years ago. There is a fine collection of pictures, chiefly of
old masters of distinction, amongst which may be found portraits by
Holbein, Vandyke, Lely, and Hogarth, of folk intimately associated with
the history of our country.
Near by stands the Church of the Holy Virgin, built by the present Duke
of Newcastle. Its walls and spire are of rich red and yellowish
sandstone, in the fourteenth-century style. This is probably one of the
most ornately beautiful churches in the kingdom, and the view from the
open doorway is surpassingly rich in colour. The interior contains much
fine carving--the altar-piece is of alabaster, with the Virgin and child
for central figures. The windows are delicately tinted: in spite of the
excess of splendour naught can offend the artistic taste.
The Clinton family, of which the Duke of Newcastle is head, is one of
the oldest and most celebrated in our annals. Geoffrey de Clinton, a
distinguished forbear, Chamberlain and Treasurer to Henry the First, was
the builder of Warwick Castle, and after his day his collateral
descendants devoted their lives to serving the Crown faithfully. Edward
the First called one his "beloved squire"; others fought with glory in
the French battles. A Clinton was in the deputation that received Anne
of Cleves when she journeyed to meet her spouse. Another assisted in the
suppression of Sir Thomas Wyatt's rebellion, and was afterwards one of
Queen Elizabeth's Privy Council, being employed in various matters of
high import, notably in the projected marriage of his royal mistress and
the Duke of Anjou. He died in the fullness of honour, and was buried in
St. George's Chapel, Windsor. His son was one of the peers at the trial
of Mary Queen of Scots. In the time of George the First another of the
family filled the highest office of state, and died Lord Privy Seal;
whilst the present duke's grandfather, as illustrious as any of his
predecessors, was a celebrated politician of Early Victorian days, and
was, moreover, honoured with the friendship and admiration of the young
Gladstone.
THORESBY
The village of Budby, beyond the confines of Thoresby Park, is one of
the most placid and sleepy places I know. The stuccoed houses are
perhaps devoid of picturesqueness, but the shallow Meden, which runs
quietly beside the roadway, is crystal-clear, and from the wilderness on
the farther bank one often sees pert black water hens slip gently from
the shelter of the long grass, and glide to and fro like tiny boats.
Beyond the bridge swans swim very proudly, with the austere dignity that
has naught in common with the familiar bearing of petted birds in town
parks. The Meden is a beautiful and melancholy stream, at whose side an
exile from the hill country might sit down and weep. The rough woodland
from which we are barred has a refreshingly cool aspect: in summer the
wilder foliage contrasts strikingly with the rich purple of
rhododendrons.
The present house of Thoresby, which stands about a quarter of a mile
from the site of its cold and damp predecessor, was built between 1864
and 1874. It is in the modern Elizabethan style, its walls of stone
quarried at Steetley, some miles away, and is surrounded by a rich and
beautiful park where may be seen many magnificent beeches and firs and
oaks. The mansion is rich in art treasures, and may be counted amongst
the most luxuriously furnished in the country; and the pleasure gardens
are stately and beautiful.
Fine herds of deer wander among the bracken and heath, and the trees are
haunted with happy squirrels. The park is thirteen miles in
circumference, and near the house the little River Meden spreads out
into a singularly picturesque lake, diversified with toy islands. The
Thoresby of to-day possesses an atmosphere of tranquil splendour: in its
neighbourhood one has some difficulty in evoking lively pictures of the
celebrated folk who inhabited its predecessors.