furnishing of the Mansion in terms which suit exactly to describe its
present state. “It is,” he says, “a curious specimen of a mansion of
the age of Charles the Second. The ceilings are painted by Verrio, and
the rooms are ornamented with that massy magnificence of decoration
then in fashion. The furniture is very rich; even the bellows and
brushes, in some of the apartments, are of solid silver, or of silver
filigree. In the closet adjoining the bed-chamber, which was the
Duchess of Lauderdale’s, still remains the great chair in which she
used to sit and read; it has a small desk fixed to it, and her cane
hangs by the side. The furniture of the whole room is such that one
might almost fancy her Grace to be still an inhabitant of the house.”
[46] The ministry, popularly known as the Cabal, came into power at
the latter end of the year 1667, when Clarendon was turned out of
office, and impeached by Parliament. That minister had raised a host of
enemies at Court, by preserving a state and decorum foreign to their
reigning habits. Evelyn says, “He kept up the form and substance of
things in the nation with more solemnity than some would have had. The
Parliament had accused him, and he had enemies at Court--especially the
buffoons and ladies of pleasure--because he thwarted them, and stood
in their way.” There were, however, grave charges brought against him
as Chancellor, and he was obliged to fly the kingdom, dying an exile
in France about seven years afterwards. The ministry that succeeded
him consisted of five noblemen, the initials of whose names formed
the word _Cabal_, to which their actions in many instances too well
answered. These noblemen were Sir Thomas Clifford, first commissioner
of the Treasury, afterwards Lord Clifford and high treasurer; the
Earl of Arlington, secretary of state; the Duke of Buckingham; Lord
Ashley, chancellor of the Exchequer, afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury
and lord chancellor; and the Duke of Lauderdale. During the ascendancy
of these ministers, Charles grew more reckless than ever. As none of
them possessed the power Clarendon had of restraining him, he became
much more despotic, treated Parliament more contemptuously, and allowed
himself to become the pensioner of the French king.
The passing of the Test Act in 1673 first disunited “the Cabal,” on
which occasion Clifford, the Popish lord treasurer, resigned his staff.
Soon after the Prorogation of Parliament, on the fourth of November in
the same year, the King took the great Seal from Shaftesbury, and gave
it to Sir Heneage Finch, as Lord Keeper. The other members of the Cabal
ministry, Arlington, Buckingham, and Lauderdale, were in seeming odium
at court; and Clifford was unexpectedly succeeded by Sir Thomas Osborn,
who was created Lord Treasurer and Earl of Danby; he became in effect
prime minister, and the Danby administration was in many respects more
iniquitous than that of the Cabal.
[47] “Manuscripts and other rare documents illustrative of some of the
more minute particulars of History, Biography, and Manners, from the
reign of Henry VIII., to that of James I., preserved in the muniment
room of James More Molyneux, Esq., at Loseley House, in Surrey. Edited
by Alfred John Kempe, F.S.A., 1836.” This curious and very interesting
volume contains many singular documents, “connected with passages in
history and biography, with the entertainment of the Court, with the
internal regulations of the magistracy, and in some instances with
the minor relations of domestic life”--affording very considerable
help to arrive at correct ideas and just estimates of the state of
society and political government in the 16th and early part of the 17th
centuries. The editor intimates that the manuscripts were discovered
in the muniment room at Loseley, “of which the key had been lost, and
its existence disregarded during an interval of 200 years.” One of its
earliest documents is a summons to Christopher More, to come to London
to welcome Anne of Cleves, with six servants in his company, to ride
amongst other gentlemen in “cotes of black velvet, with cheines of gold
about their neckes, and with gownes of velvet or some other good silke
for their chainge.”
[48] “In 1511, a dispute arose between the college on the one part,
and the mayor, burgesses, and parishioners on the other, as to the
liability of their respective bodies to repair the transepts and
tower, with the bell and other appurtenances belonging to the latter.
By consent of the parties, the point at issue was referred to the
arbitration of Thomas, Earl of Arundel, and Robert Sherburne, Bishop
of Chichester; and an award was soon after published, by which the
burthen was equally divided between the college and the town. To the
former, the duty of repairing the south transept, commonly called ‘_the
chancel of the parish_,’ was assigned; to the latter, the obligation of
attending in the same manner to the north transept; while the expense
of upholding the tower, and the emoluments to be derived from the use
of its bells, were thenceforth to be shared equally by both.”
[49] At the suppression, it was endowed with a yearly revenue of
263_l._ 14_s._ 9_d._
[50] By this Thomas Fitz-Alan and his wife Beatrix was founded a
hospital called “Maison Dieu,” for the maintenance of as many poor
as the revenues with which it was endowed, would support. At the
Dissolution, these were valued at 42_l._ 3_s._ 8_d._ per annum.
[51] In one of the chapel windows is the figure of a swallow on the
wing, which is considered to intimate the original of the name of the
castle; “for history and geography,” says Mr. Tierney, “the realms
of fancy and romance, have all been explored in order to discover
its etymon.” One author has amused himself with a rebus founded on
the resemblance between the words Hirondelle and Arundel; and “it
is not improbable,” writes Dr. Beattie, “that the migratory bird,
here introduced, may have been selected as an appropriate emblem
for the chapel window. The conjecture is, at least, as plausible as
another that has been advanced; namely, that Arundel is derived from
Hirondelle--the name of Bevis’s Horse.”
[52] This Countess of Derby was the daughter of Sir William Morley,
K.B., and her mother was a daughter of Sir John Denham, the Poet. On
the north side of the Chancel is a marble Monument to her memory. She
died in 1752, at the age of 85. She was distinguished by charitable
deeds and on her tomb is represented sitting under an oak, relieving
poor travellers, and pointing to a building she had founded in the
Parish--a Hospital endowed in 1741, as the inscription informs us,
“the Alms-houses for the habitation and support of poor aged and
infirm women,--the School for the habitation and maintenance of a
school-master, and the education of poor boys and girls--the women and
children to be chosen out of the parishes of Boxgrove, East Lavant, and
Tangmere.”
[53] “This Adeliza,” writes Camden, “was daughter to Godfrey Barbatus,
of Lovaine, who had for her dowrie Arundell Castle and all the
forfeited lands of Robert de Belismo, the Earle, when the King (Henry
the First) took her for his second wife.
“In her commendation, a certaine Englishman in that unlearned age wrote
some unlearned verses,” of which these lines are the commencement:--
“When Muses nine thy beauties rare (faire Adeliza Queene
Of England) readie are to tell, they starke astonied beene;
What booteth thee so beautifull, gold-croune or pretious stone,
Dimme is the diadem to thee, the gemme hath beautie none.”
After the King’s death she married William de Albini; “who, taking part
with Maude the Empresse against King Stephen, and defending his castle
(of Arundel) against him, was, in recompense of his good service, by
the saide Maude, the Empresse and Ladie of Englishmen (for this title
she used), created Earle of Arundel; and her son, King Henry, gave the
whole Rape of Arundel to that William, to hold of him by the service of
fourscore and foure knights’ fees and one halfe.” During her contest
with Stephen, Maud was lodged in the Castle of Arundel, which the
King besieged. The Earl, however--or, it is said, his Countess--by
diplomacy, contrived to facilitate the escape of the Empress to
Bristol, from which she took shipping, and returned to the Continent.
“A small Chamber, over the inner gate of Arundel Castle, enjoys the
traditionary fame of having been her sleeping-room, during her sojourn
there. It is a low square apartment, such as the Castellan might
have occupied during a siege.” The Bedstead on which the Empress is
reported to have slept is still preserved there. “Its massive wallnut
posts are elaborately carved, but so worm-eaten that, unless tenderly
scrutinized, the wood would be apt to fall into powder in the hands
of the visitor.” We have quoted this brief account from Dr. Beattie’s
History of Arundel. From the engraving that accompanies it, there can
be little doubt that this relic is no older than the reign of Henry the
8th, if so old.
[54] Hutton, in his “History of Birmingham,” states that Sir Lister
Holt, taking advantage of his brother’s necessities, induced him to
cut off the entail, in order that the estate might pass away from his
family. Thus, he adds, “an ancient race, which sprung from the anvil,
and sported upon an estate of 12,000_l._ a-year, is now sunk into its
pristine obscurity; for its head, Thomas Holt (perhaps Sir Thomas), at
this day (1812) thumps at the anvil for bread, in the fabrication of
spades--as amiable a man as any of his race; and the only baronet who
ever shaped a shovel may take a melancholy ramble for many miles upon
the lands of his ancestors, but cannot call a single foot of it his
own.”
[55] For the several drawings which accompany and illustrate this
account of Aston Hall and the church, we are indebted to Mr. Allen
Edward Everitt, an excellent artist of Birmingham.
[56] Richard de Beauchamp was born on the 28th of January. 1381,
and succeeded his father in the Earldom of Warwick in 1401. At the
coronation of Henry IV., he was created a Knight of the Bath, being
then only 19 years of age. “When scarce more than a youth,” he
suppressed the rebellion in Wales, under Owen Glendower, whose standard
he took in battle. During the whole of the reign of the fourth Henry,
he was one of the most prominent, honourable, and useful “pillars of
the state;” and, at the coronation of Henry the 5th, he was constituted
Lord High Steward; in 1415, he was declared Captain of Calais, and
Governor of the Marches of Picardy: subsequently, he became tutor to
the young Prince Henry, and on the death of the Duke of Bedford--14
Hen. VI.--he was appointed Regent of France, and Lieutenant-General of
the King’s forces in that realm and the Duchy of Normandy. He died in
the Castle of Rouen, April 30, 1439--17 Henry VI. His body was conveyed
to England, and deposited in the Church of St. Mary, “in a fair chest
made of stone.” until the Chapel was prepared for its reception.
[57] Thomas de Beauchamp died of the pestilence at Calais, on the
13th of November, 1370, at the age of 63. He had retired from public
life, but hearing that the English army, under the Duke of Lancaster,
lay in camp, perishing from famine and disease, and refused to fight
the French, by whom they were surrounded, he instantly embarked for
France, where his “bare appearance so alarmed the enemy, that they
commenced an instant retreat.” Recumbent figures of the Earl and his
Countess--finely sculptured--are laid upon the monument which occupies
the centre of the choir. A fine brass of his second son, Thomas, and
Margaret, his wife, was preserved from the fire of 1694, and is now
placed against the east wall of the transept, and near the entrance to
the Chapel. It is a beautiful specimen of the costume of the period,
and has been engraved in Waller’s recent publication.
[58] Dugdale has preserved a curious and interesting document in
connexion with the Chapel, being the “Covenants of Agreement between
the Executors of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, viz. Thomas
Huggeford, Nich. Rodye, and Wm. Berkswell, and the severall Artists
that were employed in the most exquisite parts of its fabrick and
ornaments--as also of the costly Tombe before specified, bearing date
xiii Junii, 32 H. 6.”
These are the covenants of John Essex, Marbler; Will. Austen, Founder;
Thomas Stevyns, Coppersmith; Bartholomew Lambespring, Dutchman and
Goldsmith. John Prudde, of Westminster, Glasier, further covenanted to
glase all the windows in the new Chappell in _Warwick_, with Glasse
beyond the Seas, and with no Glasse of _England_; and that in the
finest wise, with the best, cleanest, and strongest glasse of beyond
the Sea that may be had in _England_, and of the finest colours of
blew, yellow, red, purpure, sanguine, and violet, and of all other
colours that shall be most necessary, and best to make rich and
embellish the matters, Images, and stories that shall be delivered
and appointed by the said Executors by patterns in paper, afterwards
to be newly traced and pictured by another Painter in rich colour at
the charges of the said Glasier. All which proportions the said _John
Prudde_ must make perfectly to fine, glase, eneylin it, and finely
and strongly set it in lead and souder, as well as any Glasse is in
_England_. Of white Glasse, Green Glasse, black Glase, he shall put in
as little as shall be needfull for the shewing and setting forth of the
matters, Images, and storyes. And the said Glasier shall take charge
of the same Glasse, wrought and to be brought, to _Warwick_, and set
up there, in the windows of the said Chapell; the Executors paying to
the said Glasier for every foot of Glasse _ii_ s. and so for the whole
_xci_ li. _i_ s. _x_ d.
[59] While standing among the graves of generations of the family,
and noting down the words in which were recorded their claims to live
in memory, we heard suddenly from a young woman who guided us to the
church--and who conveyed the sad intelligence with tearful eyes--that
on the very morning of our visit another of the Lucys had been summoned
to take his place among the dead. George Lucy, Esq., the Lord of
Charlecote, died on the 1st of July, 1845--somewhat suddenly; leaving,
however, a son, not yet of age, to inherit the honours and estates.
The circumstance was to us peculiarly unfortunate; for Mr. Lucy had
courteously offered to supply us with all the information in his power
to give, concerning the neighbourhood and its several associations.
We found that his loss was felt in the cottages almost as bitterly
as in the mansion; and obtained certain assurance that he, like his
progenitors, had been a generous landlord, and a kind friend to the
poor.
[60] The painting is so well described by Washington Irving that we
quote his words:--
“The picture gives a lively idea of the costume and manners of the
time. Sir Thomas is dressed in ruff and doublet; white shoes with
roses in them, and has a peaked yellow, or, as Master Slender would
say, a cane-coloured beard. His lady is seated on the opposite side
of the picture, in wide ruff and long stomacher, and the children
have a most venerable stiffness and formality of dress. Hounds and
spaniels are mingled in the family group; a hawk is seated on his
perch in the foreground, and one of the children holds a bow; all
intimating the knight’s skill in hunting, hawking, and archery, so
indispensable to an accomplished gentleman in those days.”
[61] It is now generally admitted, however, that the lines beginning--
“A parliament member, a justice of peace,
At home a poor scarecrow, in London an asse,”
were--neither the whole nor a part--written by Shakspere, the lampoon
containing no indications of genius; it is a libel on the memory of
the poet to assert that they were the offspring of his mind--to say
nothing of the “poorspite” they would have manifested,--a feeling
totally away from so great a soul. The story of Shakspere’s early
transgression and its consequences is thus related by Rowe: “An
extravagance that he was guilty of first forced him out of his country,
and that way of living which he had taken up; and though it seemed at
first to be a blemish upon his good manners, and a misfortune to him,
yet it afterwards happily proved the occasion of exerting one of the
greatest geniuses that ever was known in dramatic poetry. He had, by
a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill company,
and, amongst them, some that made a frequent practice of deer-stealing,
engaged him more than once in robbing a park that belonged to Sir
Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote, near Stratford; for this he was prosecuted
by that gentleman, as he thought somewhat too severely; and, in order
to revenge that ill-usage, he made a ballad upon him.” That Shakspere
engaged in a frolic similar to the one related of him, is by no means
improbable; freaks of the kind are common enough to “young fellows;”
and although it is impossible to imagine that the poet took part in
this, from any motive other than that love of risk and adventure
inseparable from great minds in the bud, we may readily believe
tradition to be in the main correct. That Sir Thomas Lucy was not a man
of even poor understanding is sufficiently proved by the epitaph to the
memory of his wife.
[62] Mr. Wheeler, a most intelligent gentleman of Stratford, who
has given much time and thought to all subjects connected with
Shakspere’s history,--and by whom we had the advantage of being
accompanied to the church--directed our attention to the fact, that
formerly a charnel-house adjoined the chancel, from which there was a
communicating door. Here the bones of the neglected or forgotten were
gathered:
“The vault
To whose foul mouth no healthsome air comes in,
* * * * * * an ancient receptacle,
Where for these many hundred years, the bones
Of all my buried ancestors are packed.”
And it is by no means unlikely that the frequent contemplation of a
scene so humiliating, and of objects so revolting, may have induced the
anathema,
“Cvrst be he yt moves my bones.”
[63] It was part of the plot of the conspirators implicated in the
Gunpowder Plot to hasten into Warwickshire, seize the person of the
Princess Elizabeth, daughter of James I., and proclaim her Queen; and,
on the discovery of the plot, they did so “hasten into Warwickshire”
(it is surmised to Combe Abbey, where probably the princess then
was); but the vigilance of Sir John Harrington secured her from their
hands. In a work published in 1833--“Lives of Eminent and Illustrious
Englishmen,” edited by J. G. Cunningham--we find the following
interesting particulars relative to the son of this Lord Harrington:--
“John, Lord Harrington, born 1591, died 1613, was eldest son of that
Lord Harrington to whose care King James committed the education of
his daughter Elizabeth. While a boy, he spoke French and Italian with
fluency, and was distinguished for the extent, variety, and accuracy
of his learning. During a tour which he made on the Continent, he is
said to have excited the deadly enmity of the Jesuits by his ardent
attachment to the reformed doctrines, and by his bold and eager
avowal of them in public; and it was supposed his premature death was
occasioned by poison, administered during his residence abroad; but
it is extremely probable the whole of this statement may be referred
to the violent religious prejudices and antipathies of the times. On
succeeding to the family title and estates, he honourably discharged
all the debts which his father had contracted by his magnificent style
of housekeeping. He was eminently pious, spending great part of the day
in religious meditation and exercises, and devoting the tenth part of
his income to charitable purposes.” He died in the twenty-second year
of his age, and his estate descended to his two sisters, Lucy, Countess
of Bedford, and Anne, wife of Sir Robert Chichester.”
[64] Mr. Richardson makes the following observations on this
controverted point: “Great portion of the present building was raised
by Lord Harrington; of the ancient monastic pile a portion of the
cloisters only remains; these form a fine corridor, which ranges along
the lower division of the building. On the west side of the house is a
large addition, said to be by Inigo Jones, but which is more probably
the work of Captain William Winde, the pupil of Sir Balthazar Gerbier;
at least, it is ascribed to him by Horace Walpole (see his ‘Anecdotes,’
vol. iii. p. 169, Dallaway’s edition).”
[65] The Princess Elizabeth was married to the Elector Palatine at
the early age of sixteen. Her virtues, talents, and sweetness of
temper, combined with exceeding gaiety of disposition, together with
her personal charms, made her almost an object of idolatry with the
cavaliers of her age. She was usually styled “the queen of hearts;”
and it was to her that Sir Henry Wotton addressed the elegant lines
commencing--
“You meaner beauties of the night,
That weaklie satisfie our eies,
More by your number than your lighte,
Like common people of the skies,
What are you when the moon doth rise?”
Immediately after her marriage to the Elector, they proceeded to their
palace at Heidelberg, which became the focus of the chivalry of the
period.
This scene of their enjoyment and happiness they quitted when the
Elector became king of Bohemia, and thenceforward evil destiny pursued
their steps. The deposed sovereign died of a broken heart, at the early
age of thirty-six; and after his death the queen remained at the Hague,
living in privacy and poverty, but exerting the energies of her fine
mind to educate her children, of whom she had several. The management
of her affairs she confided entirely to her gallant defender the Earl
of Craven, who had entered the military service of the states to be
near her, and to whom she is understood to have been privately married.
On the Restoration she was invited by her nephew, Charles II., to pass
the remainder of her life in England, a proposal which she gladly
accepted. She arrived in London on the 17th of May, 1661, with Lord
Craven, and took up her residence at his house in Drury Lane, where she
remained till the following February, on the 8th of which month she
removed to Leicester House, and died there on the 13th, only five days
after she had entered it. She was buried in Westminster Abbey, in a
vault made for the interment of her brother Henry, prince of Wales.
That her ambition principally induced the downfall of her husband,
there is little doubt. On this subject we borrow an eloquent passage
from Mrs. Jamieson: “One of the most interesting monuments of
Heidelberg, at least to an English traveller, is the elegant triumphal
arch raised by the Palatine Frederick V., in honour of his bride--this
very Elizabeth Stuart. I well remember with what self-complacency and
enthusiasm our chief walked about in a heavy rain, examining, dwelling
upon every trace of this celebrated and unhappy woman. She had been
educated at his country seat; and one of the avenues of his magnificent
park yet bears her name. On her fell a double portion of the miseries
of her fated family. She had the beauty and the wit, the gay spirits
the elegant tastes, the kindly disposition of her grandmother, Mary of
Scotland; her very virtues as a wife and woman, not less than her pride
and feminine prejudices, ruined herself, her husband, and her people.
When Frederick hesitated to accept the crown of Bohemia, his spirited
wife exclaimed, ‘Let me rather eat dry bread at a king’s table than
feast at the board of an elector.’