KENILWORTH CASTLE.

“Gaze on yon Arch, and mark the while,

Of all that feudal glory shared,

How war has reft what time had spared.

Oh, for a bard of olden time

To yield thee back thy life in rhyme--

To sing afresh thy glorious prime,

When wassail rout convulsed thy tower,

When banquet shook thy festive halls.

But all is still! thy crumbling walls

No more shall echo back the tread

Of prancing steeds: no more shall War

Roll at thy feet his iron car;

Nor trumpets’ clang, nor clashing swords,

Nor prisoner’s sigh, nor love’s last words,

Whisper amid thy voiceless dead.”--LEATHAM.

<g>One of</g> the most graphic pictures of “Old Kenilworth” which we have met

with, occurs in the following passage:--“Where wilde brookes meeting

together make a broad poole among the parkes, and so soone as they are

kept in with bankes, runne in a chanell, is seated Kenelworth--in times

past commonly called Kenelworde, but corruptly Killingworth--and of it

taketh name a most ample, beautifull, and strong <g>Castle</g>, encompassed all

about with parkes, which neither Kenulph, nor Kenelm, ne yet Kineglise

built (as some doe dreame) but Geffrey Clinton, chamberlaine unto Kinge

Henrie the First and his sonne with him, as may be shewed by good

evidences; when he had founded there before a church for chanons

regular. But Henrie, his nephew in the second degree, having no issue,

sold it unto King Henrie the Third, who gave it in franke marriage to

Simon Montfort, Earl of Leicester, together with his sister Aleonor. And

soone after, when enmity was kindled between the Kinge and Earl Simon,

and hee slaine in the bloody wars which he had raised vpon faire

pretexts against his Soveraigne, it endured six months’ siege, and in

the end was surrendered vp to the Kinge aforesaid, who annexed this

castle as an inheritance to Edmund his sonne, Earl of Lancaster; at

which time there went out and was proclaimed from hence an edict, which

our lawyers use to call ‘Dictum de Kenilworth,’ whereby it was enacted

that ‘whosoever had tooke arms against the King, should pay every one of

them five yeeres rent of their lands.’ A severe yet a good and wholesome

course, without effusion of blood, against rebellious subiects, who,

compassing the destruction of the state, put all their hopes upon

nothing else but dissentions. But this <g>Castle</g>, through the bountifull

munificence of Queene Elizabeth, was given and granted to <g>Robert

Dudleie</g>, Earle of Leicester, who to repaire

[Illustration]

and adourn it spared for no cost; insomuch, as if a man consider either

the gallant building or the large parkes, it would seem as it were to be

ranged in a third place amongst the Castles in England.”

Such is the concise description and historical epitome of this

celebrated Castle, as recorded by the author of the “Britannia.” But

many changes have occurred since then; its walls have been dismantled,

its apartments thrown open to the weather, siege and storm have

alternately expended their fury on its iron strength, and mutilated

what they could not overthrow; for it is too firmly seated, too massive

in its structure and materials, to feel the wasting hand of time, and

happily too well cemented to be turned into a profitable quarry. The

northern Ariosto, however, has done more to preserve it from further

dilapidation than its own lords--he has invested its courts and halls

with a charm which nothing can dissolve; and we have good reason to

believe that the scenes which Scott has now rendered classic, the taste

and patriotism of Clarendon will transmit unimpaired to posterity.

“Dim peering through the vale of night,

Yon murky forms bring back a crowd

Of images that seek the light,

That leap from out the misty shroud

Of ages--picturing as they glide

Athwart the tablet of my thought,

What did of good or ill betide

These walls, and all the deeds here wrought.”--LEATHAM.

Previous to the Conquest, observes the best authority on this subject,

Kenilworth was a member of the neighbouring parish of Stoneleigh, being

an ancient demesne of the Crown, and had within the precincts thereof a

Castle, situate upon the banks of Avon, in the woods opposite to

Stoneleigh Abbey, which castle stood upon a place called Holm Hill, but

was demolished in those turbulent “times of warre betweene King Edward

and Canutus the Dane.” At the time of the Norman Survey, Kenilworth was

divided into two parts, one of which was styled Optone, and was held of

the king by Albertus Clericus in “pure almes.” The other portion was

possessed by Richard the Forester. In the reign of Henry the First, the

manor was bestowed by the king upon Geoffrey de Clinton, who founded

here a potent castle and a monastery. But although a fortified residence

and a religious foundation were usually, in the early ages, the

harbingers of wealth and consequence to the neighbouring town,

Kenilworth does not appear to have greatly profited by its position,

either in commerce or population. Henry the Third bestowed upon it the

privileges of a weekly market on the Tuesday, and an annual fair to last

three days; but this, it would appear, had fallen into disuse, for

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, obtained from Queen Elizabeth the

grant of a weekly market to be held on Wednesday, and a yearly fair on

Midsummerday. Prosperity, however, never seems to have taken a hearty

liking to the spot, and, notwithstanding the advantages of royal

patronage and local position, became at length estranged from it, and

fixed her seat in another though less favoured part of the county. The

Castle, however, has in a great measure compensated for the lack of

commerce; and by the great number of visitors who now resort to it at

all seasons, from all parts of the kingdom, the inhabitants are partly

indemnified for other privations. The romance of Kenilworth, it is

probable, has brought, within the last fifteen years, more pilgrims to

this town and neighbourhood--pilgrims of the highest rank--than ever

resorted to its ancient shrine of the Virgin; more knights and dames

than ever figured in its tilts and tournaments.

Of this lordly palace, where princes feasted and heroes fought--now in

the bloody earnest of storm and siege, and now in the games of chivalry,

and where beauty dealt the prize which valour won--“all,” says Sir

Walter Scott, “all is desolate. The bed of the lake is but a rushy

swamp, and the massive ruins of the Castle only show what their

splendour _once_ was; and impress on the musing visitor the transitory

value of human possessions, and the happiness of those who enjoy a

humble lot in virtuous contentment.” But from the picture of Kenilworth

as it is, we return to those passages of ancient history which point out

to us what it _was_.

The founder of the Castle, Geoffroi de Clinton, was treasurer and

chamberlain to King Henry the First, but “to whom related” or from whom

descended is a question on which genealogists have come to no

satisfactory conclusion. By one he is said to have been a grandson of

William de Tankerville, who held a distinguished office under the Duke

of Normandy; by another he is mentioned as a soldier of fortune, who had

no patrimony but his sword, with which he ultimately cut his way to the

highest official dignities. But whatever his descent may have been, he

was, beyond doubt, a person in whom the grand recommendations of valour

and wisdom were eminently united. In addition to the offices of trust

above-mentioned, he was appointed by the king to the chief-justiceship

of England; and thus invested with all that honourable distinction to

which a subject could aspire, he readily obtained those territorial

possessions which gave him a high standing among the barons of his day,

and have transmitted his name to the present time in a spot of ground

near the Castle, with the distinctive appellation of ‘Clinton’s Green.’

The original keep, or donjon, appears to have been the work of this

enterprising Norman, and is still the most imposing feature in the

Castle. It is distinguished from the Norman donjon towers of that period

by having had no prisons underground--such at least is the conclusion;

for in several experiments which have been expressly made for

ascertaining the truth of this exception, the ground on which it stands

has been found solid, and with no appearance of either arches or

excavations, although the examination has been carried to a depth of

fifteen feet and upwards. It is probable, however, that the dungeons

were either in the angular towers above, or in a part near the

foundation, which remains to be discovered; for it is not at all

probable that an appendage so indispensable to a feudal residence would

have been neglected in this solitary instance. This massive and

gigantic fabric, which was constructed to resist the slow waste of

centuries, with scarcely any diminution of strength or bulk, has

suffered greatly by the hand of violence. The north side appears to have

been demolished for the sake of its materials, or to render it incapable

of being again employed as a fortress. The external features have

apparently undergone various alterations: the windows, which originally

consisted of the roundheaded Norman arch, have been transformed in this

particular to the fashion of a later day--a square head, to correspond

with the other buildings erected by Leicester, so that in style and

appearance the Castle might present one harmonious whole. The small

towers which crowned the four angles in the battlements were originally

much higher; but, in subserviency to the same plan, their height was

reduced to Leicester’s new standard, and thus the more ancient character

of the building was impaired rather than improved. The staircases in the

south-west and north-east angles, the ancient well, some remains of

colour in fresco, in imitation of niches, with trefoil heads, are among

the few objects which arrest the eye and invite inspection.

[Illustration]

But of De Clinton, with whose name this part of the Castle is so

particularly associated, little is known beyond the fact already

mentioned, of his having founded this Castle, and a <g>Monastery</g> of

canons-regular of the Saint Augustin order, which he amply endowed with

lands, tithes, and other revenues.--“And more,” says Dugdale, “I cannot

say of him than that, in the thirtieth of Henrie the First, the king,

keeping his Christmas at Wodstoke, a false accusation of treason was

there brought against him, and that he left issue Geffrey his son and

heir, who held that office of chamberlain to the king, as his father had

done. He married Agnes, daughter of Roger, Earl of Warwick, and with her

obtained various grants and concessions of importance. He gave, at the

burial of his father, the lordship of Neuton to the monks of Kenilworth,

with eleven other possessions of great value and consideration. Henry de

Clinton his son, and heir of Kenilworth, added considerably to these

bequests; and in consideration of his piety and munificence to the

church, the monks allowed him every day during his life two

manchets--such as two of those canons had--with four gallons of their

best beer, according to wine measure; all of which he was to have,

whether he were at Kenilworth or not, from the time he should assume the

habit of religion, except on such days as he should have entertainment

in that monastery.” These worthy brethren, like the fraternity of

Melrose, appear to have been no eschewers of “faire cookerye and good

drinke.”

“The jolly monks they made good kail

On Fridays when they fasted,

Nor wanted they good beef and ale

As long as their neighbours’ lasted.”

“But,” says Dugdale (Baron. art. Clinton), “this Henry, ‘who had sold

his heritage for a sop,’ quitted to King John all his right in

Kenilworth Castle, and in the woods and pools, with whatsoever else

appertained thereto; excepting what he did possess at the death of Henry

the Second. By his wife, Amicia de Bidun, he left issue Henry, his son

and heir, who having been in arms with the rebellious barons, returned

to obedience 2ᵈᵒ Henry the Third, assuring the king of his future

fidelity; whereupon he had livery of those lands in Kenilworth which

descended to him by the death of his father; but dying without issue,

his estates passed into the families of his three sisters, Amicabile,

Isabel, and Agnes, who severally married Lucas de Columbers, Ralph

Fitz-John, and Warine de Bragenham.

From this epoch in the history of Kenilworth, to the time when it was

given by King Henry to Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, as a

marriage portion with his daughter, the Castle continued to be crown

property. This alliance took place in 1253, and by various documents

extant it appears that considerable sums were expended at intervals in

repairs and embellishments of the royal fortress. Simon de Montfort,

however, by joining the barons, as already mentioned in the history of

Rochester Castle, made shipwreck of his fortune. At the battle of

Evesham--a day on which, as the Monk of Gloucester observes, “the very

heaven appeared in its most appalling hues”--Montfort, with his son

Henry and many individuals of high rank, died on the field. “At the

houre of his death,” says another chronicle, “it thundered and

lightened, and so great a darkness spread the sky that men were sore

amazed.” “A cruell and bloodye battayle it was,” says the annalist;

“after which, in despite of the erle, some malicious persons cut off his

head, mutilating him otherwise with a barbaritie too disgusting to

mention. His feet also, and handes, were cut off from the body and sent

to sundrie places, and the truncke of hys bodye was buryed within the

church of Euisham.” But all this met afterwards with a singular

retribution of vengeance at Viterbo, in Italy, as recorded by Rymer,

Muratori, and others.

The king had hitherto been a prisoner in the camp of the barons,

captured as already noticed at the battle of Lewis. But having now

recovered his liberty, and made various state arrangements, he assembled

his victorious troops in the month of June following; and with his son,

Prince Edward, at their head, sat down before the walls of Kenilworth

Castle, which still held out under the surviving son of De Montfort. Sir

Henry Hastings, to whom Montfort, during his absence in France--where he

was endeavouring to awaken a strong interest on behalf of the

barons--had intrusted the command, so ably conducted the defence, that

six months had elapsed before any impression could be made upon the

garrison by the king’s forces.

[Illustration]

Famine, however, accomplished what mere force could not effect. On the

20th of December, 1265, after the Dictum[191] had been issued, a special

stipulation was entered into, that “Sir Henry Hastynges and all those

that were with him should have life and limme, horse and harnesse, with

all things within the castelle to them belongyng, and a certeine of

leysure to cary away the same.” The Castle was then delivered up to the

king. The principal cause which had rendered this monarch so unpopular

among his natural subjects, the old and high-spirited nobility, has been

already noticed in the account of Rochester. His patronage of

foreigners, and predilection for exotic customs, had prejudiced the

native chivalry against him; and hence the series of battles and sieges,

which only ended with the death of <g>Simon de Montfort</g>,[192] and the

surrender of Kenilworth Castle. At this siege stone balls of great size

were employed by the besieged; some of them, which have been since dug

up, measure sixteen inches in diameter, and ‘weigh nearly two hundred

pounds.’ “But I doe not thinke,” says an old commentator, “that the

gunnes of those dayes were such gunnes as we nowe use, but rather some

pot gunne, or some such other invention.” The warlike engines then in

use, however--the ‘catapultæ’ or ‘mangonels’--were sufficiently powerful

to throw stones much heavier than those found at Kenilworth, as in a

subsequent portion of this work we shall have occasion to show. It was

whilst prosecuting this siege that the king gave his niece in marriage

to the Duke of Brunswick; when the queen and her ladies, who had

travelled from Windsor for that purpose, graced the ceremony with their

presence.

Having thus recovered possession of the fortress, King Henry bestowed it

upon his younger son Edmund, “with free chase and free warren, and right

to hold in Kenilworth the weekly market and annual fair,” already

mentioned; and, two years afterwards, created him Earl of Lancaster.

[Sidenote: 1279.{]

In this year the Castle of Kenilworth became the scene of one of those

brilliant displays which commenced and vanished with the days of

chivalry, but which still sparkle in the pages of the old chronicles,

and enliven the tedium of more grave details. Edward I., on coming to

the throne, greatly encouraged those martial exercises and amusements in

which he himself so much delighted and excelled. It was under his

auspices that, in imitation of the British Arthur, this fête of baronial

splendour was got up; and at the head of it was Roger Mortimer, Earl of

March, who was imbued with the true spirit of his age, and delighted in

those military spectacles which brought beauty and chivalry

together.[193] On this occasion, the round-table was introduced at

Kenilworth, by means of which the guests were placed, for the time at

least, on a footing of equality.[194] The company consisted of five

score knights, and an equal number of ladies. Among the former were many

French and other foreign knights of distinction, who, in honour of their

ladye-loves, had come to break a lance with England’s chivalry. The

halls of the Castle were thrown open to the daily banquet; the

tilt-yard was thronged with rival knights, where the fairest dame,

presiding at the ring, rewarded the successful competitors for every

successive display of martial strength and agility. In the evening,

music and dancing filled up the interval till supper; after which the

ladies retired to their ‘bower,’ and the wassail bowl circling for a

time at the barons’ board, closed the brilliant exhibitions of the day.

Of the dress of these court dames it is mentioned, as a proof of extreme

luxury in that age, that they all appeared in “rich silken mantles.” Of

this great military festival, Hardyng has drawn the following picture,

which gives us a still more magnificent idea of Earl Roger’s splendour.

The assembly, according to his account, was nearly tenfold that

mentioned by other chroniclers:--

“And in the yere a thousand was full then,

Two hundred, also sixty and nineteen,

When _Sir Roger Mortimer_ so began

At Kilengworth, the <g>Round-table</g> as was sene,

Of a _thousand knyghts_ for discipline,

Of young menne, after he could devyse

Of <g>turnementes</g> and justes to exercise.

A _thousand ladyes_, excellyng in beautye,

He had also there in tentes high above

The <g>justes</g>, that thei might well and clerely see

Who justed beste there for their ladye-love,

For whose beautie it should the knightes move

In armes so eche other to revie [rival]

To get a fame in play of chivalrye.”--HARDYNG CHRON.

In illustration of this subject, it may be proper to introduce a passage

from Strutt’s View of Manners and Customs, in which he justly remarks,

“That all these warlike games--such as those of the round-table, and

tilts, and tournaments--are by historians too often confounded together.

They were, nevertheless, _different_ games, as appears from the

authority of Matthew Paris, who writes thus--Non in hastiludio illo quod

vulgariter torneamentum dicitur, sed potius in illo ludo militari, qui

_mensa rotunda_ dicitur--‘Not in the tilts which we commonly call

tournaments, but rather in that military game called the _round-table_.’

The first was the tilting, or running at each other with lances; the

second, probably, was the same with that ancient sport called

_barriers_, from the old French _barres_ or _jeu de barres_, a martial

game of men armed, and fighting together with short swords within

certain limits or _lists_, whereby they were severed from the

spectators; and this fighting without lances distinguished the barriers,

or _round-table knights_, from the other.” (Vide also Warner’s

Illustrations, critical and historical, vol. i. p. 255.) This splendid

exhibition at <g>Kenilworth</g> was succeeded by the revival of the round-table

at Windsor; and “so great was the concourse that flocked from all the

countries of Europe--and particularly from France--to reap the laurels

of chivalry in the court of Edward, that Philip de Valois, the French

monarch, either stimulated by envy, or fearful that his own palace would

be deserted by the flower of his nobility, instituted a _round-table_ in

his kingdom also. “The tournaments of this magnificent reign,” observes

Warton, “were constantly crowded with ladies of the first distinction,

who sometimes attended them on horseback, armed with daggers, and

dressed in a succinct soldier-like habit or uniform, made expressly for

the purpose.” “But this practice,” says Warren, on the testimony of

Knyghton, “was at length deemed scandalous,” or at least very

unfeminine.

<g>The Hall</g>, in which were held so many splendid reunions and banquets, is

still magnificent in decay. Its proportions are ninety feet in length,

forty-five

[Illustration]

in breadth, and the same in height--proportions which were generally

observed by the ancient builders in all edifices where harmony of parts

and grandeur of effect were to be combined. In the windows, the richness

of the mouldings and tracery still remains as a proof of what they must

have been when, on the decoration of this Castle, all that art could

accomplish or wealth command was lavishly bestowed. The undercroft, or

hall, as described in the survey, is “carried upon pillars and

architecture of freestone, carved and wrought as the like are not within

this kingdom.” It is of the same dimensions as the Baron’s Hall above,

and was intended for the domestics and those numerous guests and

retainers who were not entitled to a place at the upper table.” On each

side of the upper hall is a fire-place; near to the inner court is “an

oriel, in plan comprehending five sides of an octagon, and a fire-place.

On the side opposite is a recess with a single window and a small

closet, described by the guide as ‘Queen Elizabeth’s dressing-room.’”

From the period just mentioned till that of Edward the Second,

Kenilworth appears to have enjoyed uninterrupted tranquillity, if not

sunshine. It was the frequent resort of that “brave but unlettered

nobility,” among whom it was the monarch’s ambition to keep alive the

martial ardour which his example had awakened. On the death of the first

Edward, however, and the accession of his son, a crisis was approaching.

The reign of the latter, his weak and impolitic government, his

disregard of public opinion, his total abandonment of the kingly duties

in favour of pleasure; his patronage of foreign adventurers, and his

protection of servile flatterers, on whom he lavished wealth, and power,

and honours, alienated the nobility, and hastened his own downfall and

that of his favourites. But without minutely entering into this subject,

we shall merely touch upon such facts, or incidents, as connect the

Castle of Kenilworth with the history of that period.

On the attainder of Thomas Earl of Lancaster, in the fifteenth year of

this reign, Kenilworth again reverted to the crown, and was held by the

king until the eve of his ‘abdication,’ when the orders issued to Odo de

Stoke, his castellan, for its defence, could not be carried into effect.

The king had left the capital, and become a fugitive from his

exasperated vassals. Having lost his favourites--the Gavestons, and now

losing both the Le Despensers by a horrid death--the unhappy monarch,

thinking to secure his safety by flight, went on board a ship at

Bristol, with the view of seeking refuge on the coast of Ireland. But

contrary winds prevailing, he was driven on the coast of Wales; and

being there made prisoner by Leicester, brother of him whom he had

lately caused to be attainted, was conducted to Kenilworth Castle.

“Alas,” says the chronicle, “with corrupt dispositions, even to everting

of all bonds of either religious or civil duty, what will not money,

diligence, and fair words accomplish! For by these means the desolate,

sad, and unfortunate king fell into his cousin of Lancaster’s hands, and

with him the yonger Lord Spenser, Earle of Glocester, Robert Baldock,

Lord Chancellour, and Simon de Reding, there being no regard had to the

detention of any other. The king was conveyed by the earle from the

place of his surprise to Monmouth and Ledbury, and so on to the Castle

of Kenelworth, belonging to the Earle of Leicester, who was appointed to

attend him; that is, to keepe him safe. The other three, Spenser,

Baldock, and Reding, were strongly guarded to Hereford, there to be

disposed of at the pleasure of their most capitall enemies;” as

hereafter will appear. “The mournefull king being at Kenelworth Castle,

there repaired thither the Bishops of Winchester, Hereford, and

Lincolne, two earles, two abbots, foure barons, two justices, three

knights for every county; and for London, and other principall places,

chiefly for the Cinque ports, a certaine chosen number, selected by the

Parliament, which then the queene and her sonne held at London. The

Bishops of Winchester and Lincolne, as it was agreed upon, came thither

before any of the rest, as well to give the king to vnderstand what

kinde of embassage was approaching, as to prepare him by the best

arguments they could, to satisfie the desire and expectation of their

new moulded common-weale, which could onely be by resignation of his

crown, that his sonne might reign in his stead.” When they were admitted

to his presence--the Earl of Leicester his keeper, being at hand--they

“together so wrought upon him, partly by shewing the necessity, partly

by other reasons, drawn out of common places, thoroughly studied for

that purpose, that--although not without many sobs and teares--he

finally did not dissent, if his answere, which some doubt, were truly

reported to Parliament.”

[Illustration]

The whole company sent by the Order of State--if “that might be called a

body which then had no head there--from London, being placed by the

Bishop of Hereford according to their degrees in <g>the Presence Chamber</g> of

Kenilworth Castle, the king gowned in blacke came forth at last out of

an inwarde roome--the Privy Chamber[195]--and presented himself to his

vassals, where--as being privy to their errand--sorrow stroke such a

chillnesse into him that he fell to the earth, lying stretched forth in

a deadly swoon.” The Earl of Leicester and the Bishop of Worcester

beholding this ran to him, and with much labour recovered the half-dead

king, setting him on his feet. But “rueful and heavy” as this sight

was, we read not yet of any acts or effects of compassion expressed

toward him--so settled was their hatred and aversion.

.... Miser atque infelix est etiam Rex,

Nec quenquam, mihi crede, facit diadema beatum.

The King being now come to himself--but to the sense of his misery--the

Bishop of Hereford declared to him the cause of their present embassy;

and running over the former points, concluded by saying, “That the king

must resigne his diadem to his eldest sonne; or, after the refusall,

suffer them to elect such a personne as themselves should judge to be

most fit and able to defend the kingdome.” The delirious king having

heard this speech, “brake forth into sighes and teares.” Yet,

nevertheless, said that “it was greatly to his good pleasure and liking

that--seeing it could none other be on his behalfe--his eldest son was

so gracious in their sight; and therefore he gave them thanks for

choosing him to be their kinge.” This being said, there was “forthwith a

proceeding to the short ceremony of his resignation, which principally

consisted in the surrender of his diadem and ensigns of majestic to the

use of his sonne, the new kinge.... Edward being thus de-kinged, the

embassie rode joyfully backe to London to the Parliament with the

afore-named ensigns and dispatch of their employment.”--(So far Speed,

Polyd. Virg., Thomas de la More, Walsingham.)

“Now, after he was deposed of his kinglie honor and title,” says

Holinshed, “the said King Edward remained for a time at Killingworth

Castle, in custodie of the Earle of Leicester. But within a while the

Queen[196] was informed by the Bishop of Hereford--whose hatred towards

him had no end--that the Earle of Leicester favoured her husbande too

much, and more than stoode with the suretie of her sonne’s estate;

whereupon he, the King, was appointed to the keeping of two other lords,

Thomas Berkeley and John Maltravers, who receiving him of the Earle of

Leicester on the third of April, conveyed him from Kenilworth to

Berkeley Castle, there to remain a close prisoner.” With the episode of

this tragical history every reader is acquainted. In the words of the

prophetic bard of Gray, he seems to hear

The shrieks of death through Berkeley’s roofs that ring,

Shrieks of an agonizing king!

But taking leave of this melancholy incident in the history of

Kenilworth Castle, we pass on in company with the circumstantial

chroniclers of that day. On the accession of Edward the Third, Henry,

brother of the attainted lord, and who had captured the fugitive king in

Wales, was restored to all his titles, honours, and estates, when

Kenilworth became once more the seat of baronial splendour. To this

nobleman succeeded Henry his son, whom the sovereign, as a farther mark

of his approbation, created Earl of Derby and of Lincoln, and lastly

Duke of Lancaster. But here the line was again

[Illustration]

cut short. Dying without male issue in the thirty-fifth year of that

reign, his two daughters became heirs to his vast demesne. Maude, the

elder of these, married William Duke of Bavaria; and Blanche, the

younger, <g>John of Gaunt</g>, fourth son of Edward the Third, who shortly

after, reviving the late title, created him Duke of Lancaster, “by

girding him with a sword, and putting a cap of fur on his head, with a

circlet of gold and pearles.” To him, in right of his wife, was

assigned, in the partition of lands which followed, the Castle of

Kenilworth as part of her dower; but to which, after the death of the

said Maude, Duchess of Bavaria, the manor of Leicester and a great many

others, as enumerated by Dugd. vol. ii. p. 114, were added.

<g>Lancaster Buildings</g>, so called from this celebrated personage, were

among the important additions which he made to the Castle during the

interval which elapsed between his accession to the demesne, and his

death in 1399. The repairs, additions, and embellishments which he

contributed to this ancient fortress, consisted of the range of

buildings here named--forming the south side of the interior quadrangle;

and the tower, with three stories of arches adjoining the hall on the

north side. He flanked the outer walls with turrets, and accomplished

many other works calculated to improve and strengthen the means of

defence. Visitors will do well to climb over these arches, which the

ruined state of the building and the rubbish that has fallen down render

no difficult task, and from the top “they will enjoy a magnificent view

of the country, with the house and church at Honiley in the background.

One cannot stand here a moment without being struck with the idea of

what a glorious prospect it must have been, with the valleys on either

hand filled with the transparent waters of the lake, surrounded with a

beautiful variety of pleasure-ground laid out in lawns and woods.”

Du marbre, de l’airain, qu’un vain luxe prodigue,

Des ornaments de l’art, l’œil bientôt se fatigue;

Mais les _bois_, mais les _eaux_, mais les _ombrages frais_,

Tout ce luxe innocent ne fatigue jamais.

In the following reign, when so much noble blood flowed on the scaffold,

Lancaster was often exposed to the cold-hearted suspicions of his

nephew, Richard the Second. In a former part of this work, where we have

detailed at some length the circumstances attending the trial and

execution of Richard Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, the Duke of Lancaster

appeared at his trial; and it was he, <g>John of Gaunt</g>, who was

conspicuously active in bringing that unhappy nobleman to the block. He

survived him, however, only two years; and after many splendid services

to the state, and having borne the titles of “Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of

Brittany, King of Castille,” and been thrice married,[197] he died at

his Castle of Leicester, or, according to others, at Ely House, in

Holborn. Instances of his knightly prowess and prudent sayings are often

detailed by the old chroniclers.

When leading the van in the battle against Henry, the bastard brother of

Don Pedro in Spain, near the city of Pampeluna, pointing to the enemy in

front--“There,” said he to Sir William Beauchamp, “there are your

enemies; this day you shall seeme a good knight or die in the quarrel.”

When John Wycliffe was called before the Archbishop of Canterbury, the

Bishop of London, and other prelates and peers, of whom this Duke of

Lancaster was one; he (in favour of Wycliffe) spoke some reproachful

words against the bishop, which gave such discontent to the citizens

that they rose in an uproar and resolved to have murdered him, and to

have set fire to his house, called the Savoy--then the fairest structure

in England--had ‘not the bishop qualified them.’ On the accession of his

nephew, King Richard, observing that he was under improper influence,

and fearing that public blame might attach to him as the principal

adviser, he obtained leave to retire to his Castle of Hereford, which he

intended to have made his chief residence, and had taken measures for

repairing and fortifying it. But in this he was defeated by the King’s

injustice, who took it from him, at which he was much troubled, and in

consequence took up his residence in his Castle of Kenilworth.--Baron.

The Hall, already mentioned, was finished only two years before the

death of John of Gaunt, who, after being deprived of his other castle by

King Richard, as above stated, employed his active mind in a thorough

restoration of that at Kenilworth; “and for which,” says Dugdale, “he

obtained a warrant from Richard, directed to Robert de Skillington,

master mason, and supervisor of his buildings at Kenilworth, to impress

twenty masons, carpenters, and others.”

[Illustration]

<g>The Strong Tower</g>, or that which in the “Romance of Kenilworth” is called

Mervin’s Tower, is also ascribed to John of Gaunt. Henry de Bolingbroke,

his son, Duke of Hereford, who was destined to play so conspicuous a

rôle in the national history, succeeded to his illustrious father in

1399. On his return from abroad--where he had been some time in

exile--to take possession of his heritage according to the royal patent,

Richard, jealous of his power and growing popularity, applied to the

parliamentary commissioners, and by their authority revoked his letters

patent, and retained possession of the late Duke’s estates. So glaring

an act of injustice could not be overlooked, either by Hereford or his

friends. Connected with most of the principal nobility by blood,

alliance, or private friendship, they were easily brought, by a sense of

common interest, to take part in his resentment; the consequences of

which were, the deposition of King Richard, the elevation of Henry de

Bolingbroke to the throne, and the origin of those unnatural wars

between the houses of York and Lancaster which deluged the country with

blood.

During these fierce and sanguinary contests, the castle and demesnes of

Kenilworth were alternately in the power and custody of the rival

houses; but the lighter amusements of the age, the chivalric

entertainments, jousts and tournaments, which had so frequently

enlivened its courts, had been laid aside for the stern realities of

domestic war. Days of battle and nights of mourning, or fearful

preparation, drove mirth and festivity from the gate; while the

continual tramp of steeds, the clang of arms, and the approach of fresh

conflicts, kept alive that melancholy interest and excitement, which for

a time isolated this magnificent fortress and its garrison within the

pale of its own fosse and ramparts.

“O England, years are fled since first

Wide o’er thy plains the war-cloud burst!

Long years are fled; yet following years

Still hear thy groans, still mark thy tears!

Yet where are they whose fatal shout

To havoc roused the maddening rout?

Where they who toss’d the fatal brand

Of discord through their hapless land?

They’re gone--and following in their place,

Another and another race.

But peace, peace, comes not! They repose

Which kindled first their country’s woes;

But, ere they slept, they left behind

A fatal present to mankind.”

<g>The Swan Tower</g> forms the north-west angle of the outer wall, at the

meeting of the lake and canal, or wet ditch. Near this, and of an oblong

shape, divided into parterres cross-fashioned, and with a circular space

in the centre, was the ancient garden of the Castle, which communicated

with the Maison de Plaisance already named, and this again with the

strong tower adjoining. In shape it is octagonal, and is supposed to

have derived its name from the swans which resorted hither to be fed by

the keeper. Another of these towers, which forms the opposite or

north-east angle of the outer wall, is considerably larger than the

preceding, polygonal in shape, and contained several apartments, two of

which have fire-places. It is known in the History of the Castle as

“Lunn’s Tower,” and is seen to advantage in the general view of the

Castle from the north-east. Of nearly the same size within, but not

nearly so high, and in its architectural style and proportions deserving

of particular attention, is the Water Tower. It appears to have been

intended for military defence, and used in connexion with the other

warlike outworks by which, on the land side, the castle wall was

protected. The next prominent object in the same line, where the lake

and ditch again meet on the south-east, is Mortimer’s Tower, already

described. Communicating with this, by means of a long gallery, was the

<g>Flood Gate</g>, which contained a “spacious and noble room,” from which the

ladies might conveniently witness the martial pastimes of joust and

tournament in the capacious tilt-yard adjoining, which extended from

tower to tower. The buildings here enumerated form the chief features in

the outer circuit, and succeed each other at various distances along the

embattled wall on the north and east of the castle.

[Illustration]

<g>The Kitchens</g>, three in number, occupied the whole space between the keep

and the strong tower on the north-west. The buildings are in total

dilapidation; but the important office to which they were applied--the

restaurant of the castle--is clearly indicated by what remains. In this

part of the castle--as if the walls had not yet lost the high

temperature to which they had been raised in the times of baronial

revelry--the ivy luxuriates in great redundancy; the lizard sports on

the hearth, and the owl and bat roost together in the larder. Così

trapassa, al’ trapassar’ d’ un giorno, la gloria della--cucina!

[Sidenote: 1114. {]

Henry the Fifth, according to Stow, kept his “Lent in the Castle of

Kenelworth, and caused an harbor there to be planted in the marish for

his pleasure, among the thorns and bushes, where a foxe had harbored,

which foxe he killed, being a thing thought to prognosticate that he

should expell the craftie deceit of the French king; besides which he

also there builded a most pleasaunt place, and caused it to bee named

‘le Plaisant Marais,’ or the Pleasaunt Marsh.” Here, also, during the

same Lent, “whilst the King lay at Kenelworth, messingers came to him

from the Dolphin of France, named Charles, with a present of Paris

balles with him to play withall; but the Kinge wrote to him that he

would shortlie send to him London balles, with the whiche he woulde

breake down the roofes of houses.” Of this incident Shakspeare has taken

advantage in the following scene in his play of Henry the Fifth:--

_Ambass._ The prince, our master,

Says that you savour too much of your youth,

And bids you be advised, there’s nought in France

That can be with a nimble gaillard won--

You cannot revel into dukedoms there;

He therefore sends you, meeter for your spirit,

This tun of treasure; and in lieu of this,

Desires you let the dukedoms that you claim

Hear no more of you. This the Dauphin speaks.

_K. Hen._ What treasure, uncle?

_Exe._ Tennis-balls, my liege.

_K. Hen._ We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us;

His present and your pains we thank you for.

When we have matched our rackets to these balls,

We will in France, by God’s grace, play a set

Shall strike his father’s crown into the hazard.

And tell the pleasant prince, this mock of his

Hath turn’d his balls to gun-stones; and his soul

Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance

That shall fly with them; for many a thousand widows

Shall this his mock, mock out of their dear husbands;

Mock mothers from their sons; mock castles down.--ACT i. sc. 2.

On the accession of Henry the Seventh, the Castle was bestowed upon his

son, as Duke of Cornwall, who, to the numerous repairs and

embellishments made by his royal predecessors, contributed many others.

He removed what was called the ‘Plaisance en Marais’--supposed to have

been a small summer-house in the marshy flat beyond the walls--to the

interior of the castle-yard, where its remains are still visible near

the <g>Swan Tower</g>. Inheriting the munificence and taste of his father--“the

onlie phœnix of hys tyme for fyne and curious masonrie,”[198] and whose

“buildings were most goodlie and after the newest caste, all of

pleasure,”[199] the Duke evinced in his repairs of Kenilworth[200] that

love and patronage of the fine arts by which he was afterwards

distinguished as Henry the Eighth. The building formerly known as “Henry

the Eighth’s Lodgings,” was a capacious structure, situated between the

Keep, or Cæsar’s Tower, on the right, and Leicester’s Buildings on the

left; comprising an extensive suite of apartments, and forming the

eastern side of the inner court. Through this building, close to the

tower, was the archway leading into the castle-yard. From Henry the

Eighth it descended to his son, Edward the Sixth; then to Mary, and

lastly to Queen Elizabeth, who bestowed it upon her favourite, Robert

Dudley, fifth son of the Duke of Northumberland, with all the royalties

thereto belonging. This forms the most memorable incident in the history

of Kenilworth.

This Sir Robert Dudley appears on almost every page of the history of

Elizabeth’s reign. He had been included in the attainder of his family,

but was restored in blood by Queen Mary, who appointed him, when a very

young man, Master of the Ordnance at the siege of St. Quintin.

Elizabeth overwhelmed him with dignities; giving him the Garter while a

commoner; creating him Baron of Denbigh and Earl of Leicester; and

investing him with the order of St. Michael, which the King of France,

by way of compliment, had requested her to confer on two of her

subjects. He was likewise Master of the Horse, Steward of the Household,

Chancellor of Oxford, Ranger of the Forests south of Trent, and

Captain-general of the English forces in the Netherlands; and, as though

the great ancient offices of his country were not sufficient for the

gratification of his ambitious temper, a patent was preparing at the

time of his death for one before unheard of--the Queen’s Lieutenant in

the government of England and Ireland. He was distinguished by the

elegance of his manners and the profuseness of his expenses, and

affected a great degree of piety, and a strict purity of conduct. To

these plausible appearances, though unpossessed of either wisdom or

virtue, he owed the maintenance of his power to the last, against a

strong party at court, and even against the Queen herself, who would

gladly have pulled him down when those motives, which doubtless produced

her first favours to him, had lost their force. The most material

circumstances of his political history never appeared to public view;

for he was the darkest character of his time, and delighted in deriving

the success of his schemes from the operation of remote causes, and the

agency of obscure instruments. It is highly probable that the Queen of

Scots, and the Duke of Norfolk, were sacrificed to this crooked sort of

policy; a conjecture which tends to wipe out somewhat, though, alas! but

little, of the bloody stain which those enormities have left on

Elizabeth’s memory.--Illust. of Brit. Hist.--Lodge.

He married, first, Anne, daughter and heiress to Sir John Robsart (for a

particular account of whose murder, and the suspicions that fell on her

husband, see Ashmole’s History of Berks): secondly, Douglas, daughter of

William Lord Howard of Effingham, and widow of John Lord Sheffield, by

whom he had a son, Sir Robert, who is frequently mentioned in the papers

of the succeeding reign. But soon after, having conceived a violent

passion for Lettice, daughter of Sir Francis Knollys, and widow of

Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex, whose late death had been attended by

strong indications of foul play, he wedded her, and disowned his former

marriage and its unfortunate offspring. Douglas submitted patiently, and

lived for some time in the obscurity which suited her disgraced

character; till Leicester having attempted to take her off by poison,

she married Sir Edward Stafford of Grafton, in hopes of shielding

herself against the Earl’s future malignity, by affording him in her own

conduct a presumptive evidence in favour of his allegations. All the

curious circumstances relating to this double bigamy may be found in

Dugdale’s Warwickshire.--Ibid. Note, vol. i. p. 378.

The repairs, alterations, and additions made to the Castle by this

nobleman were on the most splendid scale, and finished at an expenditure

of sixty thousand pounds: an immense sum at that time.

[Illustration]

The <g>Stables</g>, which formed so important an object in the establishment of

every military baron, were in proportion to the number of his retinue

and retainers. The lower story of the building, described as Leicester’s

Stables, is of solid stone mason-work. The lofts, or upper story,

consist of brick and timber pane-work, each compartment having a

diagonal piece of timber in it, carved in rude imitation of the “Ragged

Staff,” part of the armorial bearings of the family.

His principal works are thus enumerated:--“The first was the great

<g>Gate-house</g> on the north side; for, after having filled up a part of the

moat on that side, he made the principal entrance from the north,

instead of the south, as it had been originally. He erected a large mass

of square rooms at the north-east angle of the upper court, called

<g>Leicester’s Buildings</g>, and built from the ground two handsome towers at

the head of the pool. The one called Flood-gate, or Gallery Tower, stood

at the end of the tilt-yard, and contained a spacious and noble room,

from which the ladies might conveniently see the exercises of tilting

and other sports. The other was called Mortimer’s Tower, either, as

Dugdale thinks, after one that previously stood there, and in which this

lord lodged at the round-table festival already mentioned, or because

Sir John Mortimer was confined there when a prisoner in the reign of

Henry the Sixth. By Leicester, also, the baronial chase, or park, was

greatly enlarged. But although his works are of so recent a date, they

present, nevertheless, the appearance of great antiquity, owing to the

quality of the stone, which, being of a friable nature, is readily acted

upon by the weather.”

<g>Leicester’s Buildings</g>, which comprise the lofty range from north-east to

south-west, present, even in their present state of dilapidation, the

skeleton of a majestic structure, and enable the stranger to form a fair

estimate of the splendid accommodation provided for the queen and her

court. To correct a popular error, it may be observed that “the great

staircase flanked the centre apartment, and that the projecting erection

at the south-west angle, usually called the staircase, was a suite of

closets or dressing-rooms.” The date of 1571 is cut in stone below the

centre window of the east front. To give a general idea of the extent

and splendour of this Castle at the time

[Illustration]

of the queen’s arrival, when it was in the meridian of its strength and

beauty, we select the following particulars from the pen of the ‘Great

Magician:’--“The outer wall enclosed a space of seven acres, a part of

which was occupied by extensive stables, and by a pleasure garden with

its trim arbours and parterres, and the rest forming the large

base-court, or outer yard, of this noble castle. The lordly structure

itself, which rose near the centre of this spacious enclosure, was

composed of a huge pile of magnificent castellated buildings, apparently

of different ages, surrounding an inner court; and bearing in the names

attached to each portion of the magnificent mass, and in the armorial

bearings which were there blazoned, the emblems of mighty chiefs who had

long passed away, and whose history--could ambition have bent an ear to

it--might have read a lesson to the haughty favourite who had acquired,

and was now augmenting, this fair domain. A large and massive

keep--[that already described as Cæsar’s Tower]--which formed the

citadel of the castle, was of uncertain though great antiquity: it bore

the name of Cæsar, probably from its resemblance to that in the Tower of

London so called. The external wall of this royal castle was, on the

south and west sides, adorned and defended by a lake, partly artificial,

across which Leicester had constructed a stately bridge, that Elizabeth

might enter the castle by a path hitherto untrodden, instead of the

usual entrance to the northward, over which he had erected a <g>Gate-house</g>

or barbican, which still exists, and is equal in extent, and superior in

architecture, to the baronial castle of many a northern chief. Beyond

the lake lay an extensive chase, full of red deer, fallow deer, roes,

and every species of game, and abounding with lofty trees, from amongst

which the extended front and massive towers of the castle were seen to

rise in majesty and beauty.” Such was the royal Castle of Kenilworth,

when, attended by thirty-one barons, the ladies of her court, and four

hundred inferior servants, Queen Elizabeth accepted the hospitality of

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.

[Illustration]

<g>The progresses</g> of the maiden Queen were eminently calculated to inspire

lofty ideas of royalty. They were performed with a pomp and circumstance

which dazzled the popular eye, drew around her the great and gifted of

the land, excited the envy and admiration of foreigners, and, by the

splendid hospitality with which she was entertained, insured a free and

even profuse circulation of money wherever she halted.

Harrison, after enumerating the Queen’s palaces, adds, “But what shall I

need to take upon me to repeat all, and tell what houses the Queen’s

Majesty hath? Sith all is hers; and when it pleaseth her in the summer

season to recreate herself abroad, and view the estate of the country,

and hear the complaints of her poor commons, injured by her unjust

officers or their substitutes; every nobleman’s house is her palace,

where she continueth during pleasure, and till she return again to some

of her own, in which she remaineth so long as she pleaseth.”[201] But in

no palace was her Majesty entertained in such gorgeous state as in that

of Kenilworth.

It was the twilight of a summer night--the 9th of July, 1575--the sun

having for some time set, and all were in anxious expectation of the

Queen’s immediate approach. “The multitude had remained assembled for

many hours, and their numbers were still rather on the increase. A

profuse distribution of refreshments, together with roasted oxen, and

barrels of ale set abroach in different places of the road, had kept the

populace in perfect love and loyalty towards the Queen and her

favourite, which might have somewhat abated had fasting been added to

watching. They passed away the time, therefore, with the usual popular

amusements of whooping, hallooing, shrieking, and playing rude tricks

upon each other, forming the chorus of discordant sounds usual on such

occasions. These prevailed all through the crowded roads and fields, and

especially beyond the gate of the chase, where the greater number of the

common sort were stationed; when all of a sudden, a single rocket was

seen to shoot into the atmosphere, and, at the instant, far heard over

flood and field, the great bell of the castle tolled.

“Immediately there was a pause of dead silence, succeeded by a deep hum

of expectation, the united voice of many thousands, none of whom spoke

above their breath; or, to use a singular expression, the whisper of an

immense multitude.”

The annexed account is abridged from the “Somerz Progrest, 1575.”

His honour, <g>Robert Dudley</g>, having made her Majesty great cheer at dinner

on her halt at Long Ichington, and pleasant pastime in hunting by the

way after, it was eight o’clock in the evening ere her Highness came to

Killingworth; where, in the park, about a slight shoot from the Brays

and first gate of the castle, one of the ten sibyls, comely clad in a

pall of white silk, pronounced a proper poezie in English rhyme and

metre,--of effect how great gladness her good presence brought into

every stead where it pleased her to come; and specially now into that

place that had so often longed after the same; and ended with prophecy

certain, of much and long prosperity, health, and felicity. This her

Majesty benignly accepting, passed forth unto the next gate of the

Brays, which for the length, largeness, and use--as well it may so

serve--they call now the Tilt-yard, where a porter, tall of person, big

of limb, and stern of countenance, wrapt also all in silk, with a club

and keys of quantity according, had a rough speech full of passions, in

metre, aptly made to the purpose: whereby, as her Highness was come

within his ward, he burst out in a great pang of impatience to see such

uncouth trudging to and fro, such riding in and out, with such din and

noise of talk within the charge of his office; whereof he never saw the

like, nor had any warning afore, nor yet could make to himself any cause

of the matter. At last, upon better view and advisement, as he pressed

to come nearer, confessing anon that he found himself pierced at the

presence of a personage, so evidently expressing an heroical sovereignty

over all the whole estates, and by degrees there beside, calmed his

astonishment, proclaimed open gates and free passage to all, yielded up

his club, his keys, his office, and all, and on his knees humbly prayed

pardon of his ignorance and impatience: which her Highness graciously

granting, he caused his trumpeters that stood upon the wall of the gate

there, to sound up a tune of welcome. Which,

[Illustration]

beside the noble noise, was so much the more pleasant to behold, because

these trumpeters, being six in number, were every one an eight foot

high, in due proportion of person beside, all in long garments of silk

suitable, each with his silvery trumpet of five foot long, formed taper

ways, and straight from the upper part unto the nether end, where the

diameter was sixteen inches over, and yet so tempered by art, that being

very easy to the blast, they cast forth no great noise, nor a more

unpleasant sound for time and tune, than any other common trumpet, be it

never so artificially formed. These harmonious blasters, from the

foreside of the gate at her Highness’s entrance where they began,

walking upon the walls unto the inner, had this music maintained from

them very delectably; while her Highness, all along this tilt-yard, rode

under the inner gate, next the base-court of the castle: where the Lady

of the Lake, famous in King Arthur’s Book, with two nymphs waiting upon

her arrayed all in silks, attended her Highness’s coming. From the midst

of the pool, where, upon a moveable island, bright blazing with torches,

she, floating to land, met her Majesty with a well-penned metre, and

matter after this sort: viz. First of the antiquity of the castle, who

had been owner of the same e’en till this day, most always in the hands

of the Earls of Leicester; how she had kept this lake since King

Arthur’s days; and now, understanding of her Highness’s coming hither,

thought it both office and duty, in humble ways to discover her and her

estate; offering up the same, her lake and power therein, with promise

of repair unto the court. It pleased her Highness to thank this lady,

and to add withall, “We had thought indeed the lake had been ours, and

do you call it yours now? Well, we will herein commune more with you

hereafter.”

This pageant was closed up with a delectable harmony of hautboys,

shalms, cornets, and such other loud music, that held on while her

Majesty pleasantly so passed from thence toward the castle gate;

whereunto from the base-court, over a dry valley cast into a good form,

was there framed a fayre bridge of a twenty foot wide, and a seventy

foot long, gravelled for treading, railed on either part with seven

posts on a side, that stood twelve foot asunder, thickened between with

well-proportioned pillars turned. Upon the first pair of posts were set

two comely square wire cages, a three foot long, two foot wide; and high

in them live bitterns, civileirs, shoovelarz, hearsheawz, godwitz, and

such like dainty birds of the presents of Sylvanus, the God of Fowls. On

the second pair, two great silver’d bowls, featly apted to the purpose,

filled with apples, pears, cherries, filberds, walnuts, fresh upon their

branches; and with oranges, pomegranates, lemons, and pippins, all as

gifts of Pomona, the Goddess of Fruits. The third pair of posts, in two

such silver’d bowls, had (all in ears green and old) wheat, barley,

oats, beans, and pease, as the gifts of Ceres. The fourth post against

it had a pair of great white silver livery pots for wine; and before

them two glasses of good capacity filled full; the one with white wine,

the other with claret, so fresh of colour, and of look so lovely,

smiling to the eyes of many, that by my faith methought, by their

leering, they could have found in their hearts, as the evening was hot,

to have kissed them sweetly, and thought it no sin: and these for the

potential presents of Bacchus, the God of Wine. The fifth pair had each

a fair large tray, strewed with fresh grass; and in them, conger, burt,

mullet, fresh herring, oysters, salmon, crevis, and such like, being

gifts to her Highness, from Neptune, God of the Sea. On the sixth pair

of posts were set two ragged staves of silver, as my Lord gives them in

arms, beautifully glittering of armour, thereupon depending, bows,

arrows, spears, shield head-pieces, gorget, corslets, swords, targets,

and such like, for Mars’ gifts, the God of War. And the more aptly,

methought, was it that those ragged staves supported these martial

presents, as well because these staves by their tines seem naturally

meet for the bearing of armour, as also that they chiefly in this place

might take upon them principal protection of her Highness’s person, that

so benignly pleased her to take harbour. On the seventh posts, the last

and next to the castle, were there pight to faer bay branches of a four

foot high, adorned on all sides with lutes, violins, shalms, cornets,

flutes, recorders, and harps, as the presents of Phœbus, the God of

Music, for rejoicing the mind, and also of physic, for health to the

body. Over the castle gate was there fastened a table, beautifully

garnished above with her Highness’s arms, and featly with ivy wreathes

bordered about, of a ten foot square; the ground black, whereupon in

large white Roman capitals, fayr written, a poem mentioning these gods

and their gifts, thus presented unto her Highness: which, because it

remained unremoved, I took it out as followeth:--[Each word in reference

to the Queen was written in gold.]--

<g>Ad Majestatem Regiam.</g>

Jupiter huc certos cernens <g>te</g> tendere gressus

Cœlicolas Princeps actutum convocat omnes;

Obsequium præstare jubet <g>tibi</g> quemque benignum.

Unde suas Sylvanus aves, Pomonaque fructus,

Alma Ceres fruges, hilarantia vina Lyæus,

Neptunus pisces, tela et tutantia Mavors,

Suave melos Phœbus, solidamque longamque salutem.

Dii <g>tibi, Regina</g>, hæc (cum sis Dignissima) præbent;

Hoc <g>tibi</g> cum Domino, dedit se et werda Kenelmi.

This was read to her by a poet, “in a long ceruleous garment, with a bay

garland on his head, and a skro in his hand. So passing into the inner

court, her Majesty (that never rides but alone), thear set down from her

palfrey,

[Illustration]

was conveied up to <g>Chamber</g>[202] [in which stood a splendid

<g>Chimney-piece</g>], when after did follo a great peal of gunz, and lightning

by fyrwork.”--Progrest.

The festivities lasted seventeen days, and comprised nearly every

pastime which the resources of the age could produce. The hart was

hunted in the park; the dance was proclaimed in the gallery; and the

tables were loaded from morn to midnight with sumptuous cheer. The park

was peopled with mimic gods and goddesses, to surprise the regal

visitant with complimentary dialogues and poetical representations. In

the chase, a savage man, with satyrs, bear-baitings, fireworks, Italian

tumblers, a country bride-ale, with runnings at the quintain and

morrice-dancing; and that nothing might be wanting which those parts

could afford, the Coventry men came and acted the ancient play, long

since used in that city, called “Hock’s Tuesday,”[203] setting forth the

destruction of the Danes in King Ethelred’s time; which pleased the

Queen so much, that she gave them a brace of bucks, and five marks in

money, to bear the charges of a feast. Likewise on the pool there was a

Triton, riding on a mermaid, eighteen feet long; as also Arion, on a

dolphin; and rare music. The costs and expenses of these entertainments

may be guessed at by the quantity of beer then drank, which amounted to

three hundred and twenty hogsheads of the ordinary sort. More simple

amusements were also studiously introduced: the rural neighbours were

assembled to run at the quintain; and a marriage, in strict consistency

with country ceremonials, was celebrated under the observance of the

Queen. Every hour had its peculiar sport. A famous Italian tumbler

displayed feats of agility; morris-dancers went through their rude

evolutions, by way of interlude; and thirteen bears were baited for the

gratification of the courtiers! During the Queen’s stay, five gentlemen

were honoured with knighthood, and “nyne persons were cured of the

peynful and daungerous deseaz called the King’s Evil.”--Letter from a

freend officer attendant in the coourt unto his freend a citizen and

merchaunt of London, in this Somerz Progrest, 1575.

After this splendid reception given to her Majesty at Kenilworth, and

which cost the noble host a thousand pounds per diem, Leicester

continued to make the Castle his favourite residence. <g>At his death</g> he

bequeathed it to his brother

[Illustration]

Ambrose Earl of Warwick for life, and after him to his own son Sir

Robert Dudley, who wandered abroad till his father’s death, when he

returned, and challenged his right to the family dignities; which being

denied, he determined to quit for ever a country in which he had

experienced so much injustice. To complete this long scene of iniquity,

James I. seized the estates by virtue of Mary’s statute of fugitives;

but, in order to avoid the odium which so tyrannical an act justly

merited, obliged Sir Robert to consent to a nominal sale of them to

Henry Prince of Wales, at one third of their value, and even that was

never paid. Thus this great property was unjustly drawn back to the same

source from which, with so little merit, it had been originally

derived.--See Lodge’s Illustrations of British History.--Letters.

<g>Survey</g> by the King’s Commissioners. The following survey of Kenilworth

Castle and the demesne thereto adjoining, which was made at this time,

conveys a splendid idea of a baronial residence. (Our authority is

Dugdale.) The Castle is described as situated on a rock; the circuit

whereof within the walls containeth seven acres; and upon the walls are

walks so spacious and fair, that two or three persons together may walk

upon most places thereof. The Castle and the four gatehouses are all

built of freestone, hewn and cut: the walls in many places are ten and

fifteen feet in thickness, some more, some less, the least four feet.

The Castle and the four gatehouses aforesaid are all covered with lead,

whereby it is subject to no other decay but the glass, through the

extremity of the weather. The rooms of great state within the same are

able to receive his Majesty, the Queen and Prince at the same time, and

are built with as much uniformity and convenience as any houses of later

times, and with such stately cellars (the Undercroft or Nether-hall

already noticed) as are not within this kingdom, and also all other

houses for offices answerable. About the said Castle, in chases and

parks, there lieth twelve hundred pounds per annum; nine hundred whereof

are grounds for pleasure, the rest is meadow and pleasure lands

thereunto adjoining, tenants and freeholders. There joineth upon this

ground a park-like ground called the <g>King’s Wood</g>, with fifteen several

coppices lying together, containing seven hundred and eighty-nine acres

within the same, which in the Earl of Leicester’s time were stored with

red deer, since which the deer have strayed. But the ground is in no

sort blemished, having great store of timber and other trees of much

value upon the same. There runneth through the said grounds, by the

walls of the Castle, a fair pool, containing one hundred and eleven

acres, well stored with fish and wild fowl, which pool is at pleasure to

be let round the Castle.

For timber and wood upon the ground to the value of twenty thousand

pounds has been offered, having a convenient time allowed for their

removal, but which, to his Majesty, are valued at eleven thousand seven

hundred and twenty-two pounds; which proportion, in a like measure, is

held in all the rest upon the other values to his Majesty. The circuit

of the castle, manors, parks, and chase, lying round together, contains

at least nineteen or twenty miles, in a pleasant country; the like both

for strength, state, and pleasure, not being within the realm of

England.

These lands have been surveyed by Commissioners from the King and the

Lord Privy Seal, with directions from his Lordship to _find all things

under their true worth_,[204] and upon the oaths of jurors, as well

freeholders as customary tenants; which course being held by them, are,

notwithstanding, surveyed and returned at thirty-eight thousand five

hundred and fifty-four pounds fifteen shillings. Out of this sum there

is to be deducted ten thousand pounds for Sir Robert Dudley’s

‘Contempt,’ and for the Lady Dudley’s jointure, which is without

impeachment of waste, whereby she may sell all the woods, which by their

survey amount to eleven thousand seven hundred and twenty-two pounds.

His Majesty hath herein the mean profits of the castle and premises,

through Sir Robert Dudley’s ‘Contempt,’ during life, or his Majesty’s

pardon, the reversion in fee being in the Lord Privy Seal.--See

References.

It may be readily imagined that a castle with so many powerful

recommendations was not lost sight of by the King and his advisers; and

as Prince Henry was in want of a country palace befitting his name and

station, that of Kenilworth was at once suggested to him as possessing

every requisite for a princely residence. But independently of that

splendour to which it had been raised by the late Earl of Leicester, the

Castle was strongly associated with the lives and actions of former

sovereigns, who had either made it their residence, or the scene of

alternate conflict or festivity, from the days of Henry the First to

those of Elizabeth. Enhanced by these recommendations, it was an object

of ambition with the prince to obtain possession of it, and with this

view, “affecting it as the noblest and most magnificent thing in the

midland

[Illustration]

parts of this realm, he made overture by special agents” to Sir Robert

Dudley, to purchase the castle and domain for a sum not exceeding

fourteen thousand five hundred pounds. This was probably not more than

one-fourth of its value; but as the offer came from a quarter where he

could expect little favour, and seeing no prospect of his being ever

restored to his paternal inheritance, the unfortunate heir was driven to

the painful alternative of either disposing of his right for the sum

offered, or of provoking by non-compliance the resentment of the Court.

“Whereupon, in consideration of £14,500 being paid within the compass of

a twelvemonth, certain deeds were sealed and fines levied, settling the

inheritance thereof.”

Having completed the transfer, the last hope was abandoned, and Dudley

resolved never to return to a country in which he had received such

manifest injustice. The conditions were, that three thousand pounds

should be paid within a twelvemonth after the ratification of the

transfer; but the money, which was to have been remitted to him at

Florence in Italy, was lost by the failure of the merchant in whose

hands it had been incautiously placed. Of the remaining sum of eleven

thousand five hundred, nothing was ever paid; yet on the death of Henry

the Prince of Wales, his brother Charles took possession of the castle

and manor as heir to his brother, and obtained a grant out of the

Exchequer for four thousand pounds to be paid to the Lady Alice, wife of

Sir Robert Dudley, in lieu of her jointure, but which was not paid for

many years, to the damage of the said lady. It remained thus in the

possession of Prince Charles till his accession to the throne: after

which, in the first year of his reign, he made a grant of it to Robert

Carey, Earl of Monmouth, Lord Carey, his eldest son, and Thomas Carey,

Esq., in whose hands it continued till--

“Teint du sang de son Roi, l’hypocrite Cromwell

Etablit, par degrés, son pouvoir criminel:

Usurpateur habile autant que politique,

De l’état qu’il transforme en une république,

Il renverse à son gré les anciens fondemens.”--FASTES BRITANN.

Having then fallen into the hands of Oliver, the castle and manor were

divided amongst several of his officers, who, paying no respect either

to the splendour of the edifice, the richness of the furniture, or the

beauty of the landscape in which the castle was embosomed, regarded it

only in a pecuniary point of view; and apprehensive, probably, that

their tenure was very insecure, made haste to convert everything

available into money. They stript the castle of its princely

decorations, cut down the timber, drained the lake, and demolished the

very walls for the sake of the materials. They threw open the park and

chase, killed and dispersed the deer, and subdivided the whole into

distinct farms, the rental of which they continued to receive and

appropriate to their own use till the Restoration. These officers were

Colonel Hawkesworth, Major Creed, Captain Phipps, Captain Ayres, Captain

Smith, Captain Matthews, and four others, of the names of Hope, Palmer,

Clark, and Coles. “These new lords of the manor,” says the old record of

that day, “tyrannize and govern the parish as they list. They pull down

and demolish the castle, cut down the King’s woods, destroy his parks

and chase, and divide the lands into farms amongst themselves, and build

houses for themselves to dwell in. Hawkesworth seats himself in the

gate-house of the castle, and drains the famous pool, consisting of

several hundred acres of ground. Hope and Palmer enclose a fourth part

of the commons, called the King’s woods, from the inhabitants, and take

it as their own free estate. In 1657 these petty lords, attended by some

of the inhabitants of the parish, took a survey, and gave in an estimate

of all the lands within the liberties of the said manor, and in the

following year, on the fourteenth of June, made their perambulation, and

went their procession round the bounds of the parish. But, on the

twenty-seventh of May, 1660, King Charles the Second came to enjoy his

own dominions, and among others the lands and manor of Kenilworth.

Hereupon these soldiers soon scampered away, when the daughters of Lord

Carey, Earl of Monmouth, intercede and prevail to hold that said manor,

as their father before them, by lease or leases from the Crown.” But

this having nearly expired, he granted the reversion of the whole manor

to Laurence, Lord Hyde, second son to Lord Chancellor Clarendon, whom he

created Baron Kenilworth and Earl of Rochester. On the death of this

nobleman in 1711, he was succeeded in his estates and titles by Henry

his only son, who, at the death of Edward, the third Earl of Clarendon,

in 1723, succeeded to that title also. But leaving no male issue at his

decease in 1753, his grand-daughter, the Lady Charlotte Capel--daughter

of William Capel, Earl of Essex, and the Lady Jane Hyde, his wife, then

dead--became the representative of the Hyde family, and, in pursuance of

the will of the late earl, took the name and arms of Hyde. This lady

married the Honorable Thomas Villiers, second son of the Earl of Jersey,

who in 1756 was created, by George the Second, Baron Hyde of Hindon, in

the county of Wilts. He

[Illustration:

See Appendix.

]

had the further title of Earl of Clarendon conferred upon him by George

the Third, and, at his death in 1786, was succeeded by his eldest son

the late earl, whose family honours are inherited by his nephew, George

William-Frederick Villiers, Earl of Clarendon, Lord Hyde of Hindon, a

Count of Prussia, and sometime envoy and minister plenipotentiary at the

Court of Madrid. Such is a brief outline of the descent of Kenilworth

Castle, and of the many changes which it has undergone during the lapse

of seven centuries.

“Illustrious Ruin! hoary Kenilworth!

Thou hast outlived the customs of thy day;

And, in the imbecility of age,

Art now the spectacle of modern times.

Yet though thy halls are silent, though thy bowers

Re-echo back the traveller’s lonely tread,

Again imagination bids thee rise

In all thy dread magnificence and strength;

Thy draw-bridge, foss, and frowning battlements,

Portcullis, barbican, and donjon-tower.”

In addition to the particulars already stated regarding the life and

character of that extraordinary individual, Robert, Earl of Leicester,

we avail ourselves of the following facts, as related by various writers

who were his contemporaries, and founded their judgment on close

personal observation. During the life of his father, the Duke of

Northumberland, the first appointment which he received at Court, and to

which he was duly sworn, was that of one of the six gentlemen in

ordinary to Edward the Sixth. “But,” says Hayward in his life of that

monarch, “this Robert Dudley was his father’s true heir, both of his

hate against persons of nobility, and cunning to dissemble the same; and

afterwards for lust and cruelty a monster of the Court; and as he was

apt to hate, so was he a true executioner of his hatred; such was his,

rather by practice than by open dealing, as wanting rather courage than

wit; and,” adds the same authority darkly, “after his entertainment into

a place of so near service (that of the privy chamber), the king enjoyed

his health not long.” (Sir John Hayward’s Life of Edward the Sixth.) But

although included in the sentence of attainder pronounced against his

family, he soon emerged from obscurity, and by the very hand which had

signed his father’s execution, he was made master of the Queen’s horse

at the battle of St. Quentin’s, an office which was also confirmed to

him by Elizabeth, who--to the surprise of many, and the disgust of all

who knew his real merits--loaded him with honours. He was installed a

Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, made Constable of Windsor

Castle for life, and finally recommended as a husband to Mary, Queen of

Scots; promising, that on the Queen’s assenting thereto, she, Elizabeth,

would then, by authority of Parliament, declare her to be her sister or

daughter, and heir to the crown of England, in case she herself should

die without issue. Her real intentions, however, are matter of

suspicion; and those who were best acquainted with the policy of the

Maiden Queen, thought that all this show was merely to try if the

proposal would be accepted, and then to marry him herself with less

dishonour. (See Appendix.)

[Illustration]

To give further weight to this recommendation, she advanced him to the

dignity of the peerage with the title of Baron Denbigh, and the very day

following, being Michaelmas-day, she raised him to the Earldom of

Leicester. But the French nation esteeming it dishonourable that such an

alliance should be offered to Queen Mary, urged the Scotch authorities

to decline it,--promising the nation many advantages in return, and

suggesting that Elizabeth had no real intention of ever allowing the

match to be carried into effect (Dugdale), a suspicion which appears to

have been correctly founded. In compliment to Elizabeth, with whom

Dudley was now the chief favourite, Charles the Ninth conferred upon him

the Order of St. Michael. No Englishman had ever been admitted into this

Order before, except Henry the Eighth, Edward the Sixth, and Charles

Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, which made the Queen “look upon it as a

considerable honour.” The ambassador charged with this complimentary

office was M. Rambouillet; and the Queen having selected from the

noblemen of her Court the Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Leicester--the

one distinguished by his high birth, the other by her Majesty’s

favour--as candidates for the honour, they were invested in the Royal

Chapel at Whitehall with great solemnity. But the more that honours were

showered upon Leicester, the more was he exposed to the contempt of the

old nobility, who felt as if their own degradation at Court was in exact

proportion to his advancement. This was not disguised by the Earl of

Sussex, who piqued himself much in the antiquity of his house, and could

ill brook to see the Queen’s favour lavished on a parvenu. “Who,” said

he, “is this Earl of Leicester? He can name but two ancestors, and both

were executed for treason!” This language--which was the more galling

from its truth--divided the whole Court into factions; and whenever the

two earls went abroad, they were attended with a large retinue of

followers, armed with “swords and bucklers, with iron pikes pointing out

at the bosses,” insomuch that the Queen was compelled to interpose her

authority, when the breach was seemingly made up. But Sussex never

overcame his aversion to Leicester; and even in his last illness

addressed his friends in these words: “I am now passing into another

world, and must leave you to your fortunes and to the Queen’s grace and

goodness; but beware of the ‘Gypsie’ (meaning Leicester), for he will be

too hard for you all: you know not the beast so well as I do.”

Leicester, continuing to advance in favour, was one of the peers

appointed for the trial of the Duke of Norfolk; and four years

afterwards, when Walter, Earl of Essex, died in Ireland by “no common

death,” it was much suspected that he had a hand in it; which is the

more probable, as from that time he forsook his wife, the Lady Douglas

Sheffield, by whom he had a son, Robert, already mentioned, and promised

her much money and other advantages in case she would be content

therewith, and so married Lettice, daughter of Sir Francis Knolles, and

widow of the Earl of Essex, “to whom,” says Dugdale, “he had privately

borne much affection before.”

The death of Essex, “in the midst of incredible torments,” was

attributed to poison. Two of his own servants, Crumpton his cupbearer,

and Lloyd his secretary, are reported to have been confederates in the

murder; and it is said that Mrs. Alice Dracot, a pious lady, whom the

earl much valued, was accidentally poisoned at the same time and with

the same cup, and died a few days before him. It is farther alleged that

his lordship’s page, who was accustomed to taste of his drink before he

gave it to him, very hardly escaped with his life, and not without ‘the

loss of his hair,’ though he drank but a small quantity; and that the

earl, in compassion to the boy, called for a cup of drink a little

before his death, and drank to him in a friendly manner; and says he, “I

drink to thee, my Robin; but ben’t afraid, ’tis a better cup of drink

than that thou tookest to taste when we both were poisoned.” (Secret

Memoirs of the Earl of Leicester.) This report was formally contradicted

by Sir Henry Sidney, the Lord Deputy of Ireland; but the suspicion of

Leicester’s being privy to the death of Essex was never removed; and the

facts of his previous intimacy and subsequent marriage with the countess

added no little strength to the charge.

When the marriage between the Queen and the Duke of Anjou was first

suggested at Court, he opposed it with all his influence, public and

private, and had the satisfaction of attending that prince on his hasty

departure from the English Court. But on his return, the elevation at

his success was not a little damped by the discovery that his marriage

with the Lady Lettice had been communicated to the Queen by Simier, the

French minister, in revenge of the defeated plans of the Duke of Anjou.

Greatly incensed at this act of duplicity, and piqued with jealousy of

the lady, Elizabeth caused the Earl to be shut up in the Castle of

Greenwich, as a prelude to his being sent to the Tower. Charging all

these misfortunes to the conduct of Simier, he indulged the wildest

passion for revenge; but the rigour of his confinement was soon

moderated; the Queen relented; and the only results were greater

honours, more unlimited confidence, which proved that Dudley held no

secondary place in the heart of the Queen.

[Illustration]

It was in his Castle of Kenilworth that Leicester first married Lady

Essex privately; but her father, Sir Francis Knolles, being well

acquainted with his lordship’s inconstancy, refused to give any credit

to it unless the marriage were solemnised in his own presence. In

consequence of this resolution, the ceremony was again performed at

Wanstead, in presence of the said Sir Francis, the Earl of Warwick, the

Lord North, a public notary, and several other witnesses. On the

publication of marriage, his former wife, the Lady Douglas, in “order to

secure her life from any future practices,” contracted a marriage with

Sir Edward Stafford, a man of high character and reputation, and at that

time Her Majesty’s ambassador in France. This step was peremptorily

called for, as she laboured under constant apprehension of being made

away with by Leicester; for it is certain, according to Dugdale, that

she had already “some ill potions given to her,” so that, with the loss

of her hair and nails, she narrowly escaped death.

Some time before the arrival of Simier with overtures from the Duke of

Anjou, Leicester had engaged Astley, one of the Queen’s bedchamber, to

search out her disposition towards him, and had met with an unfavourable

answer. For when he was covertly recommended to her Majesty for a

husband, she replied in a passion--“Do you think that in choosing a

husband I should be so regardless of my character, so unmindful of my

royal dignity, as to prefer my servant whom myself have raised, to the

greatest princes of Christendom?” These words being reported, were

thunderbolts to the Earl of Leicester; who now perceived that, should

he interpose in the affair of the French match, his opposition would be

construed to proceed from interested motives, and might be a means to

promote rather than prevent it. He therefore chose to withdraw himself

from public view, to counterfeit sickness and retire to his chamber; and

there, under pretence of taking physic, he became a voluntary prisoner.

In 1585, he was made Justice-eyre of all the Forests south of Trent. He

received a commission for levying five hundred men to be sent into

Holland; and three weeks afterwards, he was constituted Lieutenant and

Captain-General of the whole army designed for the service of the United

Provinces against the Spaniards, and the same year took the command in

person. In little more than a year, however, many grave charges were

brought against him by the States for having abused his authority, and

neglected the due performance of the high trusts reposed in him. Greatly

mortified at these complaints, which, besides wounding his vanity, had a

tendency to weaken his influence at Court, he affected disgust at the

injustice inflicted upon him, and made his last will and testament at

Middleburg, as a preparation for his retiring altogether from the public

service. The contents of this will, dated the 1st of August, 1587, have

been already mentioned.

On his return to England, he found that the complaints lodged against

him by the Dutch had so moved the Queen’s displeasure, that “he was

constrained to humble himself to his royal mistress, and with tears to

beg of her, that, having sent him thither with power, she would not

receive him back with disgrace; that whom she had raised from the dust,

she would not bury alive!” The Queen was moved by this strain of courtly

pleading, and the influence of the favourite became greater than ever.

The last public service in which Leicester was engaged was with the army

at Tilbury, when the Spanish Armada was expected to make a landing, and

when the Queen, in addressing the troops, did him honour in these terms:

“In the meantime, my Lieutenant-General shall be in my stead, than whom

never prince commanded a more noble or worthy subject; not doubting but

by your obedience to my General, by your concord in the camp, and by

your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over

the enemies of my God, of my kingdoms, and of my people.” But,

notwithstanding her Majesty’s commendation, there was no opportunity for

his lordship to exert his abilities; for the Spanish army never landed

on the English shore--the elements performed all the service which was

to have devolved on Leicester.

Having thus concluded his public career, he designed to spend the

remainder of his days in his Castle of Kenilworth, on which he had

continued to expend all the resources of art; but, taken suddenly ill of

a fever at Cornbury Park, in Oxfordshire, he there closed his earthly

account, on the 4th of September. From Cornbury Park his remains were

conveyed with much pomp to Warwick, and there interred, in our Lady’s

Chapel, adjoining the choir of the Collegiate Church, where a very noble

monument was erected to his memory, with the following inscription:--