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diff --git a/old/65107-0.txt b/old/65107-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 06b1392..0000000 --- a/old/65107-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8905 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Knole and the Sackvilles, by V. -Sackville-West - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Knole and the Sackvilles - -Author: V. Sackville-West - -Release Date: April 19, 2021 [eBook #65107] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team - at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images - generously made available by The Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KNOLE AND THE SACKVILLES *** - - - - - KNOLE _and the_ SACKVILLES - - -[Illustration: - - _John Frederick Sackville, 3^{rd}. Duke of Dorset K.G._ - - _From the portrait at Knole by Gainsborough._ -] - - - - - KNOLE - _and_ - THE SACKVILLES - - - by - - V. SACKVILLE-WEST - - - LONDON - WILLIAM HEINEMANN - 1922 - - - - - CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE - - - 1456 KNOLE _bought by_ Archbishop BOURCHIER - - 1486 _Death of Bourchier. Succeeded by_ Cardinal MORTON - - 1500 _Death of Morton. Succeeded by_ HENRY DEAN - - 1502 _Death of Dean. Succeeded by_ WAREHAM - - 1532 _Death of Wareham. Succeeded by_ CRANMER - - 1539 KNOLE _given by Cranmer to_ HENRY VIII - - 1546 _Death of Henry VIII. Succeeded by_ EDWARD VI - - 1550 KNOLE _granted by Edward VI to_ JOHN DUDLEY, Earl of Warwick - - 1552 KNOLE _resold by Warwick to_ EDWARD VI - - 1553 _Death of Edward VI. Succeeded by_ QUEEN MARY - - KNOLE _granted by the Queen to_ REGINALD POLE - - 1558 _Death of Mary. Succeeded by_ QUEEN ELIZABETH - - 1586 KNOLE _granted to_ THOMAS SACKVILLE _by Elizabeth_ - - - Thos. Sackville, _Lord Buckhurst_, 1st EARL _of_ DORSET 1536–1608 - - 1554 _Married_ CECILIE BAKER - - 1557 _Member of Parliament_ - 1563 - - 1563 _Travelling abroad_ - - 1566 _Death of his father_, Sir RICHARD - - 1567 _Created_ Lord BUCKHURST - - 1568 _Ambassador to France_ - - 1569 _Lord-Lieutenant of Sussex_ - - 1571 _Ambassador to France_ - - 1586 _Execution of_ MARY _Queen of_ SCOTS - - 1586 _Given_ KNOLE _by_ QUEEN ELIZABETH - - 1587 _Ambassador to the Low Countries_ - - 1589 _Ambassador to the Low Countries_ - - 1589 _Knight of the Garter_ - - 1591 _Chancellor of Oxford_ - - 1598 _Ambassador to the Low Countries_ - - 1599 _Lord High Treasurer_ - - 1601 _Lord High Steward_ - - 1603 _Death of Queen Elizabeth. Succeeded by_ JAMES I - - 1603 _Lord Treasurer for life_ - - 1604 _Created_ Earl _of_ DORSET - - 1608 _Death at the Council Table_ - - - Robert Sackville, 2nd EARL _of_ DORSET, 1561–1609 - - 1579 _Married_ MARGARET HOWARD, _dau. of_ Duke _of_ NORFOLK - - 1585 _Member of Parliament_ - 1608 - - 1592 _Married_ ANNE SPENCER - - 1608 _Succeeded his father_, THOMAS - - 1609 _Death_ - - - Richard Sackville, 3rd EARL _of_ DORSET, 1589–1624 - - 1609 _Married_ Lady ANNE CLIFFORD, _daughter of_ GEORGE, Earl of - CUMBERLAND - - 1609 _Succeeded his father_, ROBERT - - 1624 _Death_ - - - Edward Sackville, 4th EARL _of_ DORSET, 1591–1652 - - 1605 _At Christ Church, Oxford_ - - 1612 _Married_ MARY, _daughter of_ Sir GEORGE CURZON - - 1614 _His duel with_ Lord BRUCE - - 1614 _Member of Parliament_ - - 1616 _Knight of the Bath_ - - 1621 _Ambassador to_ LOUIS XIII - - 1623 _Travels in Italy_ - 1624 - - 1623 _Again Ambassador to_ LOUIS XIII - - 1624 _Succeeded his brother_, RICHARD - - 1624 _Lord-Lieutenant of Sussex and Middlesex_ - - 1625 _Knight of the Garter_ - - 1625 _Death of James I. Succeeded by_ CHARLES I - - 1628 _Lord Chamberlain_ - - 1630 Lady DORSET _appointed Governess to the King’s children_ - - 1631 _Commissioner for Planting Virginia_ - 1634 - - 1638 _Granted the East Coast of America_ - - 1642 _Outbreak of civil war._ Ld. DORSET _joins the_ KING _at York_ - - 1644 _Lord Privy Seal_ - - 1649 _Execution of_ CHARLES I - - 1652 _Death_ - - - Richard Sackville, 5th EARL _of_ DORSET, 1622–1677 - - Before _Married_ Lady FRANCES CRANFIELD, _daughter of_ LIONEL Earl _of_ - 1638 MIDDLESEX - - 1662 _Succeeded his father_, EDWARD - - 1660 _Lord-Lieutenant of Middlesex and Sussex_ - 1670 - - 1677 _Death_ - - - Charles Sackville, 6th EARL _of_ DORSET _and_ EARL _of_ MIDDLESEX, - 1638–1706 - - 1660 _Member of Parliament_ - - 1660 _Restoration of_ CHARLES II - - 1665 _Naval battle against the Dutch_ - - 1667 _Living with_ NELL GWYNN - - 1668 _Ambassador to France_ - - 1674 _Death of his mother; he succeeds to the Cranfield estates_ - - 1675 _Created_ Earl _of_ MIDDLESEX - - 1677 _Succeeded his father_, RICHARD, _as_ Earl _of_ DORSET - - 1678 _Married_ MARY, Countess _of_ FALMOUTH - - 1685 _Married_ Lady MARY COMPTON, _daughter of_ JAMES Earl _of_ - NORTHAMPTON - - 1685 _Death of Charles II. Succeeded by_ JAMES II - - 1688 _Accession of_ WILLIAM _of_ ORANGE - - 1689 _Lord Chamberlain_ - 1697 - - 1691 _Knight of the Garter_ - - 1701 _His poems published with_ SEDLEY’S - - 1702 _Death of William III. Succeeded by_ QUEEN ANNE - - 1704 _Married_ ANNE ROCHE - - 1706 _Death_ - - - Lionel Sackville, 7th EARL _and_ 1st DUKE _of_ DORSET, 1688–1765 - - 1706 _Succeeded his father_, CHARLES, _as_ Earl _of_ DORSET _and_ - MIDDLESEX - - 1709 _Married_ ELIZABETH COLYEAR - - 1708 _Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, intermittently till 1728_ - - 1714 _Knight of the Garter_ - - 1714 _Death of Queen Anne. Succeeded by_ GEORGE I - - 1720 _Created_ Duke _of_ DORSET - - 1725 _Lord Steward_ - - 1727 _Death of George I. Succeeded by_ GEORGE II - - 1730 _Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland till 1737_ - - 1746 _Lord-Lieutenant of Kent_ - - 1750 _Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland till 1755_ - - 1760 _Death of George II. Succeeded by_ GEORGE III - - 1765 _Death_ - - - Charles Sackville, 2nd DUKE _of_ DORSET, 1711–1769 - - Before _On the Grand Tour_ - 1734 - - 1734 _Member of Parliament intermittently till 1754. Lord of the - Treasury and Master of the Horse_ - - 1744 _Married_ GRACE BOYLE - - 1765 _Succeeded his father_, LIONEL, _as_ Duke _of_ DORSET - - 1769 _Death_ - - - John Frederick Sackville, 3rd DUKE _of_ DORSET, 1745–1799 - - 1769 _Succeeded his uncle_, CHARLES - - 1783 _Ambassador to_ LOUIS XVI - 1789 - - 1788 _Knight of the Garter_ - - 1769 _Lord-Lieutenant of Kent_ - 1797 - - 1789 _Lord Steward_ - 1799 - - 1790 _Married_ ARABELLA DIANA, _daughter of_ Sir JOHN COPE, _of - Bramshill_ - - 1799 _Death_ - - - George John Frederick Sackville, 4th DUKE _of_ DORSET, 1794–1815 - - 1799 _Succeeded his father_, JOHN FREDERICK - - 1815 _Death_ - - - - - TABLE OF DESCENT - - -[Illustration: TABLE OF DESCENT] - - _HERBRAND DE SACKVILLE_, _temp._ William the Conqueror - | - _SIR RICHARD SACKVILLE_, _temp._ Henry VIII - | - THOMAS SACKVILLE _m._ _Cecilie Baker_ - _b._ 1536 _d._ 1608 | - LORD BUCKHURST _and_ | - _1st_ EARL _of_ DORSET, K.G. | - | - ROBERT SACKVILLE _m._ _Lady Margaret Howard_ - _b._ 1561 _d._ 1609 | - _2nd_ EARL _of_ DORSET | - | - +---------------------+------------------------+ - | | - RICHARD SACKVILLE _m._ EDWARD SACKVILLE _m._ - _Lady Anne Clifford_ _Mary Curzon_ - _b._ 1589 _d._ 1624 _b._ 1589 _or_ ’90 _d._ 1652 - _3rd_ EARL _of_ DORSET, K.G. 4_th_ EARL _of_ DORSET, K.G. - | - +----------------------------------------------+ - | - RICHARD SACKVILLE _m._ _Lady Frances Cranfield_ - _b._ 1622 _d._ 1677, 5_th_ EARL _of_ DORSET | - | - CHARLES SACKVILLE _m._ _Lady Mary Compton_ - _b._ 1637 _or_ ’36 _d._ 1706 | - 6_th_ EARL _of_ DORSET, K.G. | - | - LIONEL SACKVILLE _m._ _Elizabeth Colyear_ - _b._ 1686 _d._ 1765 | - 7_th_ EARL _and_ _1st_ | - DUKE _of_ DORSET, K.G. | - +-----------------------+--------------------+-------+ - | | | - CHARLES SACKVILLE LORD JOHN SACKVILLE LORD GEORGE SACKVILLE - _b._ 1711 _d._ 1769 _d._ 1765 _b._ 1716 _d._ 1785 - _2nd_ DUKE _of_ DORSET | _cr._ VISCOUNT SACKVILLE - | | - JOHN FREDERICK SACKVILLE | - _m._ _Arabella Diana Cope_ of Bramshill CHARLES SACKVILLE - _b._ 1745 _d._ 1799 _b._ 1767 _d._ 1843 - _3rd_ DUKE _of_ DORSET, K.G. 5_th_ DUKE _of_ DORSET, K.G. - | - +-------------------------+-----+---------------+ - | | | - LADY MARY SACKVILLE GEORGE JOHN FREDERICK SACKVILLE | - _b._ 1794 _d._ 1815 | - 4_th_ DUKE _of_ DORSET | - | - LADY ELIZABETH SACKVILLE - _m._ _John West, Earl de la Warr_ - _b._ 1796 _d._ 1870 - | - +-----------------+-------------------+-------------+--------+ - | | | | - CHARLES MORTIMER LIONEL WILLIAM - EARL DE LA WARR _1st_ LORD SACKVILLE _2nd_ LORD SACKVILLE | - _d._ 1873 _b._ 1820 _b._ 1827 | - _d._ 1888 _d._ 1908 | - LIONEL, _3rd_ LORD SACKVILLE - _b._ 1867 - - - - - CONTENTS - - - _Chronological Table_ _vii_ - - _Table of Descent_ _xii_ - - _Ch._ I The House p. 1 - - II The Garden and Park 20 - - III Knole in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth 28 - - IV Knole in the Reign of James I 48 - - V Knole in the Reign of Charles I 82 - - VI Knole in the Reign of Charles II 111 - - VII Knole in the Early Eighteenth Century 152 - - VIII Knole at the End of the Eighteenth Century 176 - - IX Knole in the Nineteenth Century 201 - - _Appendix_ 221 - - _Index_ 223 - - - - - _The dome of Knole, by fame enrolled, - The Church of Canterbury, - The hops, the beer, the cherries there, - Would fill a noble story._ - - - - - LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - - JOHN FREDERICK SACKVILLE, 3RD DUKE OF DORSET. _From the - portrait at Knole by_ GAINSBOROUGH _Frontispiece_ - - NORTH-EAST VIEW OF KNOLE. _From the drawing by_ T. - BRIDGEMAN _To face page_ 2 - - THE GREEN COURT, BOURCHIER’S ORIEL 6 - - THE STONE COURT, BOURCHIER’S GATEHOUSE 10 - - THE STONE COURT 16 - - KNOLE FROM AN AEROPLANE 20 - - THE GARDEN SIDE 22 - - A GATEWAY INTO THE GARDEN 26 - - A CONFERENCE OF ENGLISH AND SPANISH PLENIPOTENTIARIES AT - SOMERSET HOUSE IN 1604. _From the painting by_ MARC - GHEERHARDTS _in the National Portrait Gallery_ 32 - - LEAD PIPE-HEADS. _Put Up by_ THOMAS SACKVILLE _in 1605_ 38 - - THE GREAT STAIRCASE (UPPER FLIGHT). _Built by_ THOMAS - SACKVILLE 1604–8 46 - - RICHARD SACKVILLE, 3RD EARL OF DORSET, K.G. _From the - miniature by_ ISAAC OLIVER _in the Victoria and Albert - Museum_ 52 - - LADY ANNE CLIFFORD, _wife of_ RICHARD SACKVILLE, _3rd - Earl of Dorset. From the portrait at Knole by_ MYTENS 56 - - LADY MARGARET SACKVILLE, _daughter to_ RICHARD - SACKVILLE, _3rd Earl of Dorset, and_ LADY ANNE - CLIFFORD: “The Child.” _From the portrait at Knole by_ - MYTENS 68 - - THE VENETIAN AMBASSADOR’S BEDROOM 72 - - EDWARD SACKVILLE, 4TH EARL OF DORSET, K.G. _From the - portrait at Knole by_ VANDYCK 84 - - THE TWO SONS OF EDWARD, 4TH EARL OF DORSET: RICHARD, - LORD BUCKHURST _and_ THE HON. EDWARD SACKVILLE. _From - the portrait at Knole by_ CORNELIUS NUIE 106 - - CHARLES SACKVILLE, 6TH EARL OF DORSET, K.G. _From the - portrait by Sir_ GODFREY KNELLER _in the Poets’ - Parlour at Knole_ 116 - - THE BROWN GALLERY. _Built by_ ARCHBISHOP BOURCHIER _in - 1460_ 148 - - LADY BETTY GERMAINE. _From the portrait at Knole by_ C. - PHILLIPS _To - face page_ 168 - - LADY BETTY GERMAINE’S BEDROOM AT KNOLE 172 - - HWANG-A-TUNG, A CHINESE BOY, page to the 3rd Duke of - Dorset. _From the portrait at Knole by Sir_ JOSHUA - REYNOLDS 192 - - JOHN FREDERICK SACKVILLE, 3RD EARL OF DORSET; ARABELLA - DIANA, 3RD DUCHESS OF DORSET; THE EARL OF MIDDLESEX; - LADY ELIZABETH SACKVILLE, _and_ LADY MARY SACKVILLE. - _From a silhouette by_ A. T. TERSTAN 1797. _The - property of_ LADY SACKVILLE 196 - - GEORGE JOHN FREDERICK SACKVILLE, 4TH EARL OF DORSET; - LADY MARY SACKVILLE, _and_ LADY ELIZABETH SACKVILLE. - _From the portrait at Knole by_ HOPPNER 204 - - ROCKING-HORSE, once the property of the 4th Duke of - Dorset: A RECEIPT _from_ GAINSBOROUGH 208 - - - - - CHAPTER I - The House - - - § i - -There are two sides from which you may first profitably look at the -house. One is from the park, the north side. From here the pile shows -best the vastness of its size; it looks like a mediaeval village. It is -heaped with no attempt at symmetry; it is sombre and frowning; the grey -towers rise; the battlements cut out their square regularity against the -sky; the buttresses of the old twelfth-century tithe-barn give a rough -impression of fortifications. There is a line of trees in one of the -inner courtyards, and their green heads show above the roofs of the old -breweries; but although they are actually trees of a considerable size -they are dwarfed and unnoticeable against the mass of the buildings -blocked behind them. The whole pile soars to a peak which is the -clocktower with its pointed roof: it might be the spire of the church on -the summit of the hill crowning the mediaeval village. At sunset I have -seen the silhouette of the great building stand dead black on a red sky; -on moonlight nights it stands black and silent, with glinting windows, -like an enchanted castle. On misty autumn nights I have seen it emerging -partially from the trails of vapour, and heard the lonely roar of the -red deer roaming under the walls. - - - § ii - -The other side is the garden side—the gay, princely side, with flowers -in the foreground; the grey walls rising straight up from the green -turf; the mullioned windows, and the Tudor gables with the heraldic -leopards sitting stiffly at each corner. The park side is the side for -winter; the garden side the side for summer. It has an indescribable -gaiety and courtliness. The grey of the Kentish rag is almost pearly in -the sun, the occasional coral festoon of a climbing rose dashed against -it; the long brown-red roofs are broken by the chimney-stacks with their -slim, peaceful threads of blue smoke mounting steadily upwards. One -looks down upon the house from a certain corner in the garden. Here is a -bench among a group of yews—dark, red-berried yews; and the house lies -below one in the hollow, lovely in its colour and its serenity. It has -all the quality of peace and permanence; of mellow age; of stateliness -and tradition. It is gentle and venerable. Yet it is, as I have said, -gay. It has the deep inward gaiety of some very old woman who has always -been beautiful, who has had many lovers and seen many generations come -and go, smiled wisely over their sorrows and their joys, and learnt an -imperishable secret of tolerance and humour. It is, above all, an -English house. It has the tone of England; it melts into the green of -the garden turf, into the tawnier green of the park beyond, into the -blue of the pale English sky; it settles down into its hollow amongst -the cushioned tops of the trees; the brown-red of those roofs is the -brown-red of the roofs of humble farms and pointed oast-houses, such as -stain over a wide landscape of England the quilt-like pattern of the -fields. I make bold to say that it stoops to nothing either pretentious -or meretricious. There is here no flourish of architecture, no ornament -but the leopards, rigid and vigilant. The stranger may even think, upon -arrival, that the front of the house is disappointing. It is, indeed, -extremely modest. There is a gate-house flanked by two square grey -towers, placed between two wings which provide only a monotony of -windows and gables. It is true that two or three fine sycamores, -symmetrical and circular as open umbrellas, redeem the severity of the -front, and that a herd of fallow deer, browsing in the dappled shade of -the trees, maintains the tradition of an English park. But, for the -rest, the front of the house is so severe as to be positively -uninteresting; it is quiet and monkish; “a beautiful decent simplicity,” -said Horace Walpole, “which charms one.” There is here to be found none -of the splendour of Elizabethan building. A different impression, -however, is in store when once the wicket-gate has been opened. You are -in a courtyard of a size the frontage had never led you to expect, and -the vista through a second gateway shows you the columns of a second -court; your eye is caught by an oriel window opposite, and by other -windows with heraldic bearings in their panes, promise of rooms and -galleries; by gables and the heraldic leopards; by the clock tower which -gives an oddly Chinese effect immediately above the Tudor oriel. Up till -a few years ago Virginia creeper blazed scarlet in autumn on the walls -of the Green Court, but it has now been torn away, and what may be lost -in colour is compensated by the gain in seeing the grey stone and the -slight moulding which runs, following the shape of the towers, across -the house. - -[Illustration: - - NORTH-EAST VIEW OF KNOLE - - _From the drawing by_ T. BRIDGEMAN -] - -On the whole, the quadrangle is reminiscent of Oxford, though more -palatial and less studious. The house is built round a system of these -courtyards: first this one, the Green Court, which is the largest and -most magnificent; then the second one, or Stone Court, which is not -turfed, like the Green Court, but wholly paved, and which has along one -side of it a Jacobean colonnade; the third court is the Water Court, and -has none of the display of the first two: it is smaller, and quite -demure, indeed rather like some old house in Nuremberg, with the -latticed window of one of the galleries running the whole length of it, -and the friendly unconcern of an immense bay-tree growing against one of -its walls. There are four other courts, making seven in all. This number -is supposed to correspond to the days in the week; and in pursuance of -this conceit there are in the house fifty-two staircases, corresponding -to the weeks in the year, and three hundred and sixty-five rooms, -corresponding to the days. I cannot truthfully pretend that I have ever -verified these counts, and it may be that their accuracy is accepted -solely on the strength of the legend; but, if this is so, then it has -been a very persistent legend, and I prefer to sympathise with the -amusement of the ultimate architect on making the discovery that by a -judicious juggling with his additions he could bring courts, stairs, and -rooms up to that satisfactory total. - -A stone lobby under the oriel window divides the Green Court from the -Stone Court. In summer the great oak doors of this second gate-house are -left open, and it has sometimes happened that I have found a stag in the -banqueting hall, puzzled but still dignified, strayed in from the park -since no barrier checked him. - -It becomes impossible, after passing through the formality of the two -first quadrangles, to follow the ramblings of the house geographically. -They are so involved that, after a lifetime of familiarity, I still -catch myself pausing to think out the shortest route from one room to -another. Four acres of building is no mean matter. - - - § iii - -Into the very early mediaeval history of the house I do not think that I -need enter. It is suggested that a Roman building once occupied the -site, and that some foundations which were recently unearthed beneath -the larder—evidently one of the oldest portions—once formed part of that -construction. The question of dating the existing buildings, however, is -quite sufficiently complicated without going back to a building which no -longer exists. Nor do I think that the early owners—the Pembrokes, or -the Say and Seles—offer the smallest interest; if we knew precisely what -parts of the house we owed to them severally it would be another matter, -but the mediaeval records are very scanty. It is safe to say, generally -speaking, that the north side is the oldest side; it is the most sombre, -the most massive, and the most irregular; there are buttresses, -battlements, and towers, but no gables and no embellishments—nothing but -solid masonry. Up in the north-east corner is the old kitchen, and the -old entrances through dark archways at the top of stairways. The -passages here, of thick stone, twist oddly, and their ceilings are -groined by semi-arches which have become lost and embedded in the -alterations to the stone-work. It is a dark, massive, little-visited -corner, this nucleus of Knole. - -The house, or such portions of it as then existed, was bought from -William, Lord Say and Sele, by Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, on -June 30, 1456, and it is clear from the numerous bills among the -archives at Lambeth Palace that both he and his more notable successor, -Cardinal Morton, carried out extensive additions, alterations, and -repairs. It is, however, a very difficult task to determine what parts -of the building definitely belong to this period, for, what with the -additions of the archbishops and the alterations of the later -Sackvilles, all is confusion. It would appear, for instance, that upon a -foundation of Tudor masonry the Sackvilles constructed the Elizabethan -gables which are now so characteristic a feature of the house; but it is -less easy to say exactly how much the first Tudor archbishop found there -on his arrival of earlier workmanship. A further confusing factor is the -great fire which took place in 1623, and is reported to have destroyed a -large part of the building—but exactly where, and how much, we cannot -say. Nor are the accounts at Lambeth very illuminating: - - In divers costs and expenses made this year [1467] for repairing the - manor of Knole, carriage for the two cart loads of lathes from Panters - to the manor, 14_d._ For carriage of thirty loads of stone for the new - tower, 7_d._ load = 16/9. Carriage of six loads of timber at 7_d._ = - 3/6. Carriage of one fother of lead from London to Knole, 3/4. - -The next year, 1468: - - Repairs at Knole. One labourer for 6 days work in the great chamber - and the new _seler_, 2/-. Making of 700 lathes to the new tower, - 14_d._ One labourer 4½ days in the old kitchen, 4_d._ Item, for 1 j - M^1 of walle prygge (_sic_) to the stable and other places, 13_d._ One - cowl to the masonry, 12_d._ - -[Illustration: - - THE GREEN COURT: BOURCHIER’S ORIEL -] - -The “great chamber” referred to here was in all probability the present -Great Hall, which we know to have been built by Bourchier about 1460, -although it was altered by Thomas Sackville, who put in the present -ceiling, panelling, and oak screen. Thomas also built the Great -Staircase in 1604–8, leading to the Ball-room, which is of the time of -Bourchier. I expect this is the “seler” referred to, meaning solar and -not cellar, as might be thought; or did it mean the present colonnade, -which is also of Bourchier’s building, in 1468? The position of the “new -tower” is nowhere specified, but I wonder whether it is not the tower -beside the chapel, where there is a stone fireplace bearing Bourchier’s -cognisance—the double knot—and the same device in a small pane of -stained glass in the window. This tower, moreover, goes commonly by the -name of Bourchier’s Tower. - -There are a few more items mentioned in the Lambeth papers, 1468–9: -“Repairs at Knole. Repairs at one house set aside for the slaughter of -sheep and other [animals?] for the use of the Lord’s great house at -Sevenoaks, 113_s._ 2_d._” This, I think, is certainly the old -slaughter-house which forms one side of the Queen’s Court. It is -obviously a very old building. But there is one point in this account -which is of interest, namely, that Knole should at this date have been -referred to as the “great house.” This would seem to prove that the -greater mass of the building was already in existence, since by the -latter half of the fifteenth century there were already many houses and -palaces in England whose bulk would argue that the current standard of -greatness might be high and the adjective not too readily applied. The -Primate owned, moreover, up to the time of the Reformation no less than -twelve palaces and houses of residence in the diocese of Canterbury -alone, namely, Bekesburn, Ford, Maidstone, Charing, Saltwood, Aldington, -Wingham, Wrotham, Tenterden, Knole, Otford, and Canterbury. It seems, -therefore, unlikely that Knole should be singled out as a “great house” -unless there were good justification for the expression. - -Bourchier also built the Brown Gallery about 1460, and at or about the -same date he put up the machicolations over the gate-house between the -Green Court and the Stone Court. Towards the end of the same century, -Morton, his successor, “threw out an oriel window which rendered the -machicolations useless, and showed that all idea of such fortifications -was at an end.” It is not known precisely how much Morton built at -Knole. It is even uncertain whether he or Bourchier built the Chapel. -The Lambeth records cease with some small repairs in 1487–88, so we have -nothing to go upon—all the more pity, for Morton was a great prelate, -forgotten now in the greater fame of the Tudor dynasty, “his name -buried,” says his chronicler, “under his own creation.” This cardinal, -having succeeded Bourchier in 1486, held the Primacy for fourteen years, -and died at Knole in 1500. I pass over his successors, Dean and Wareham, -for I do not know how much they did at Knole. Cranmer, the next -archbishop, enjoyed the house for seven years only, when he was -compelled—quite amicably, but nevertheless compelled—to present it to -Henry VIII, whose fancy it had taken. Here the accounts begin again,[1] -although they give very little indication: £872 by Royal Warrant in -1543, £770 in 1548, £80 in 1546—three sums which would now be -equivalent, roughly, to £30,000. - -After Henry VIII Knole continued as Crown property, passing now and then -temporarily into the hands of various favourites, until in 1586 it was -given by Queen Elizabeth to her cousin, Thomas Sackville, and has -remained in the possession of his family ever since. - - - § iv - -The main block, therefore, meanders from Henry VII through Henry VIII to -Elizabeth and James I: that is to say, roughly, from the end of the -fifteenth century to the beginning of the seventeenth. There may be -earlier out-buildings and later excrescences, but it is safe to say that -the greater portion was built in the reigns of the Tudors. It is all of -the same Kentish rag, with the exception of a row of gables which have -been plastered over, and which were probably once of the -beam-and-plaster fashion so prevalent at that date in Kent. With this -exception the walls are of the grey stone, in many places ten and twelve -feet thick, cool in summer, and, for some reason, not particularly warm -in winter. The rooms are, for the most part, rather small and rather -low; they break out, of course, now into galleries, now into a -ball-room, now into a banqueting-hall, but the majority of them are -small, friendly rooms—not intimidating; some people might even think -them poky, relative to the size of the house. I do not think that they -are poky. They are eminently rooms intended to be lived in, and not -merely admired, though no doubt a practical consideration was present in -the problem of heating to determine their size. Yet from an old diary -preserved at Knole, and from which in its place I shall have the -opportunity to give extracts, it is clear that in the early seventeenth -century at all events the life of the house was carried on largely in -one or the other of the long galleries. Now, none of the galleries has -more than one fireplace. It must have been very cold. The old braziers -that could be carried about the room as occasion required still stand in -the rooms where they were used, and so do the copper warming-pans, -shining and perforated, which were thrust into the beds to warm them -before the arrival of the occupant. The principal beds, of course, must -have been magnificently stuffy. They are four-posters, so tall as to -reach from floor to ceiling, with stiff brocaded curtains that could -completely enclose the sleeper. But on winter days I cannot believe that -the group ever moved very far away from the fireplace or the brazier; -and indeed, judging from the same diary, they seemed always to be -“keeping their chamber” on account of coughs, colds, rheumatism, or ague -when they were not keeping it because they were “sullen” with one -another, or “brought to bed” of a son or a daughter. - - - § v - -The galleries are perhaps the most characteristic rooms in such a house. - -[Illustration: - - THE STONE COURT: BOURCHIER’S GATEHOUSE -] - -Long and narrow, with dark shining floors, armorial glass in the -windows, rich plaster-work ceilings, and portraits on the walls, they -are splendidly sombre and sumptuous. The colour of the Cartoon Gallery, -when I have come into it in the evening, with the sunset flaming through -the west window, has often taken my breath away. I have stood, stock -still and astonished, in the doorway. The gallery is ninety feet in -length, the floor formed of black oak planks irregularly laid, the charm -of which is that they are not planks at all, but solid tree-trunks, -split in half, with the rounded half downwards; and on this oak flooring -lie the blue and scarlet patches from the stained west window, more -subduedly echoed in the velvets of the chair coverings, the coloured -marbles of the great Renaissance fireplace, and the fruits and garlands -of the carved woodwork surrounding the windows. There is nothing garish: -all the colours have melted into an old harmony that is one of the -principal beauties of these rooms. The walls here in the Cartoon Gallery -are hung with rose-red Genoa velvet, so lovely that I almost regret -Mytens’ copies of the Raphael cartoons hiding most of it; but if, at -Knole, one were too nicely reluctant to sacrifice the walls, whether -panelled or velvet-hung, then all the pictures would have to be stacked -on the floor of the attics. The same regret applies to the ball-room, -where the Elizabethan panelling—oak, but originally painted white, -turned by age to ivory—is so covered up as to be unnoticeable behind the -Sackville portraits of ten generations. Fortunately, the frieze in the -ball-room cannot be hidden. It used to delight me as a child, with its -carved intricacies of mermaids and dolphins, mermen and mermaids with -scaly, twisting tails and salient anatomy, and I was invariably -contemptuous of those visitors to whom I pointed out the frieze but who -were more interested in the pictures. It always fell to my lot to “show -the house” to visitors when I was living there alone with my -grandfather, for he shared the family failing of unsociability, and -whenever a telegram arrived threatening invasion he used to take the -next train to London for the day, returning in the evening when the -coast was clear. It mattered nothing that I was every whit as bored by -the invasion as he could have been; in a divergence between the wishes -of eighty and the wishes of eight, the wishes of eight went to the wall. - - - § vi - -There are other galleries, older and more austere than the Cartoon -Gallery. They are not quite so long, they are narrower, lower, and -darker, and not so exuberant in decoration; indeed, they are simply and -soberly panelled in oak. They have the old, musty smell which, to me, -whenever I met it, would bring back Knole. I suppose it is really the -smell of all old houses—a mixture of woodwork, pot-pourri, leather, -tapestry, and the little camphor bags which keep away the moth; the -smell engendered by the shut windows of winter and the open windows of -summer, with the breeze of summer blowing in from across the park. Bowls -of lavender and dried rose-leaves stand on the window-sills; and if you -stir them up you get the quintessence of the smell, a sort of dusty -fragrance, sweeter in the under layers where it has held the damp of the -spices. The pot-pourri at Knole is always made from the recipe of a -prim-looking little old lady who lived there for many years as a guest -in the reigns of George I and George II. Her two rooms open out of one -of the galleries, two of the smallest rooms in the house, the bedroom -hung with a pale landscape of blue-green tapestry, the sitting-room -panelled in oak; and in the bedroom stands her small but pompous bed, -with bunches of ostrich-plumes nodding at each of the four corners. -Strangers usually seem to like these two little rooms best, coming to -them as they do, rather overawed by the splendour of the galleries; they -are amused by the smallness of the four-poster, square as a box, its -creamy lining so beautifully quilted; by the spinning-wheel, with the -shuttle still full of old flax; and by the ring-box, containing a number -of plain-cut stones, which could be exchanged at will into the single -gold setting provided. The windows of these rooms, furthermore, look out -on to the garden; they are human, habitable little rooms, reassuring -after the pomp of the Ball-room and the galleries. In the sitting-room -there is a small portrait of the prim lady, Lady Betty Germaine, sitting -very stiff in a blue brocaded dress; she looks as though she had been a -martinet in a tight, narrow way. - -The gallery leading to these rooms is called the Brown Gallery. It is -well named—oak floor, oak walls, and barrelled ceiling, criss-crossed -with oak slats in a pattern something like cat’s cradle. Some of the -best pieces of the English furniture are ranged down each side of this -gallery: portentously important chairs, Jacobean cross-legged or later -love-seats in their original coverings, whether of plum and silver, or -red brocade with heavy fringes, or green with silver fringes, or yellow -silk sprigged in black, or powder-blue; and all have their attendant -stool squatting beside them. They are lovely, silent rows, for ever -holding out their arms, and for ever disappointed. At the end of this -gallery is a tiny oratory, down two steps, for the use of the devout: -this little, almost secret, place glows with colour like a jewel, but -nobody ever notices it, and on the whole it probably prefers to hide -itself away unobserved. - -There is also the Leicester Gallery, which preserves in its name the -sole trace of Lord Leicester’s brief ownership of Knole. The Leicester -Gallery is very dark and mysterious, furnished with red velvet -Cromwellian farthingale chairs and sofas, dark as wine; there are -illuminated scrolls of two family pedigrees—Sackville and Curzon—richly -emblazoned with coats of arms, drawn out in 1589 and 1623 respectively; -and in the end window there is a small stained-glass portrait of -“Herbrand de Sackville, a Norman notable, came into England with William -the Conqueror, A.D. 1066.” (_Herbrandus de Sackville, Praepotens -Normanus, intravit Angliam cum Gulielmo Conquestore, Anno Domini -MLXVI._) There is also a curious portrait hanging on one of the doors, -of Catherine Fitzgerald Countess of Desmond, the portrait of a very old -lady, in a black dress and a white ruff, with that strange far-away look -in her dead blue eyes that comes with extreme age. For tradition says of -her that she was born in the reign of Edward the Fourth and died in the -reign of Charles the First, breaking her leg incidentally at the age of -ninety by falling off a cherry tree; that is to say, she was a child -when the princes were smothered in the Tower, a girl when Henry the -Seventh came to the throne, and watched the pageant of all the Tudors -and the accession of the Stuarts—the whole of English history enclosed -between the Wars of the Roses and the Civil War. She must have been a -truly legendary figure in the country by the time she had reached the -age of a hundred and forty or thereabouts. - -It is rather a frightening portrait, that portrait of Lady Desmond. If -you go into the gallery after nightfall with a candle the pale, far-away -eyes stare past you into the dark corners of the wainscot, eyes either -over-charged or empty—which? The house is not haunted, but you require -either an unimaginative nerve or else a complete certainty of the -house’s benevolence before you can wander through the state-rooms after -nightfall with a candle. The light gleams on the dull gilding of -furniture and into the misty depths of mirrors, and startles up a sudden -face out of the gloom; something creaks and sighs; the tapestry sways, -and the figures on it undulate and seem to come alive. The recesses of -the great beds, deep in shadow, might be inhabited, and you would not -know it; eyes might watch you, unseen. The man with the candle is under -a terrible disadvantage to the man in the dark. - - - § vii - -As there are three galleries among the state-rooms, so are there three -principal bedrooms: the King’s, the Venetian Ambassador’s, and the -Spangled Room. The King’s bedroom is the only vulgar room in the house. -Not that the furniture put there for the reception of James the First is -vulgar: it is excessively magnificent, the canopy of the immense bed -reaching almost to the ceiling, decked with ostrich feathers, the -hangings stiff with gold and silver thread, the coverlet and the -interior of the curtains heavily embroidered with a design of -pomegranates and tiger-lilies worked in silver on a coral satin ground, -the royal cipher embossed over the pillows—all this is very magnificent, -but not vulgar. What is vulgar is the set of furniture made entirely in -silver: table, hanging mirror, and tripods—the florid and ostentatious -product of the florid Restoration. There is a surprising amount of -silver in the room: sconces, ginger-jars, mirrors, fire-dogs, -toilet-set, rose-water sprinklers, even to a little eye-bath, all of -silver, but these smaller objects have not the blatancy of the set of -furniture. Charles Sackville, for whom it was made, cannot have known -when he had had enough of a good thing. - -It is almost a relief to go from here to the Venetian Ambassador’s -Bedroom. Green and gold; Burgundian tapestry, mediaeval figures walking -in a garden; a rosy Persian rug—of all rooms I never saw a room that so -had over it a bloom like the bloom on a bowl of grapes and figs. I -cannot keep the simile, which may convey nothing to those who have not -seen the room, out of my mind. Greens and pinks originally bright, now -dusted and tarnished over. It is a very grave, stately room, rather -melancholy in spite of its stateliness. It seems to miss its inhabitants -more than do any of the other rooms. Perhaps this is because the bed -appears to be designed for three: it is of enormous breadth, and there -are three pillows in a row. Presumably this is what the Italians call a -_letto matrimoniale_. - - - § viii - -In a remote corner of the house is the Chapel of the Archbishops, small, -and very much bejewelled. Tapestry, oak, and stained-glass—the chapel -smoulders with colour. It is greatly improved since the oak has been -pickled and the mustard-yellow paint removed, also the painted -myrtle-wreaths, tied with a gilt ribbon, in the centre of each panel, -with which the nineteenth century adorned it, when it was considered -“very simple, plain, and neat in its appearance, and well adapted for -family worship.” The hand of the nineteenth century fell rather heavily -on the chapel: besides painting the oak yellow and the ceiling blue with -gold stars, it erected a Gothic screen and a yellow organ; but -fortunately these are both at the entrance, and you can turn your back -on them and look down the little nave to the altar where Mary Queen of -Scots’ gifts stand under the Perpendicular east window. All along the -left-hand wall hangs the Gothic tapestry—scenes from the life of Christ, -the figures, ungainly enough, trampling on an edging of tall irises and -lilies exquisitely designed; and “Saint Luke in his first profession,” -wrote Horace Walpole irreverently, “holding a urinal.” There used to be -other tapestries in the house; there was one of the Seven Deadly Sins -set, woven with gold threads, and there was another series, very early, -representing the Flood and the two-by-two procession of the animals -going into a weather-boarded Ark; but these, alas, had to be sold, and -are now in America. - -[Illustration: - - THE STONE COURT -] - -The chapel looks strange and lovely during a midnight thunderstorm: the -lightning flashes through the stone ogives of the east window, and one -gets a queer effect, unreal like colour photography, of the colours lit -up by that unfamiliar means. A flight of little private steps leads out -of my bedroom straight into the Family Pew; so I dare to say that there -are few aspects under which I have not seen the chapel; and as a child I -used to “take sanctuary” there when I had been naughty: that is to say, -fairly often. They never found me, sulking inside the pulpit. - - - § ix - -There would, of course, be many other aspects from which I might -consider Knole; indeed, if I allowed myself full licence I might ramble -out over Kent and down into Sussex, to Lewes, Buckhurst, and Withyham, -out into the fruit country and the hop country, across the Weald, over -Saxonbury, and to Lewes among the Downs, and still I should not feel -guilty of irrelevance. Of whatever English county I spoke, I still -should be aware of the relationship between the English soil and that -most English house. But more especially do I feel this concerning Kent -and Sussex, and concerning the roads over which the Sackvilles travelled -so constantly between estate and estate. The place-names in their -letters recur through the centuries; the paper is a little yellower as -the age increases, the ink a little more faded, the handwriting a little -less easily decipherable, but still the gist is always the same: “I go -to-morrow into Kent,” “I quit Buckhurst for Knole,” “my Lord rode to -Lewes with a great company,” “we came to Knole by coach at midnight.” -The whole district is littered with their associations, whether a -village whose living lay in their gift, or a town where they endowed a -college, or a wood where they hunted, or the village church where they -had themselves buried. Sussex, in fact, was their cradle long before -they came into Kent. Buckhurst, which they had owned since the twelfth -century, was at one time an even larger house than Knole, and to their -own vault in its parish church of Withyham they were invariably brought -to rest. Their trace is scattered over the two counties. But this was -not my only meaning; I had in mind that Knole was no mere excrescence, -no alien fabrication, no startling stranger seen between the beeches and -the oaks. No other country but England could have produced it, and into -no other country would it settle with such harmony and such quiet. The -very trees have not been banished from the courtyards, but spread their -green against the stone. From the top of a tower one looks down upon the -acreage of roofs, and the effect is less that of a palace than of a -jumbled village upon the hillside. It is not an incongruity like -Blenheim or Chatsworth, foreign to the spirit of England. It is, rather, -the greater relation of those small manor-houses which hide themselves -away so innumerably among the counties, whether built of the grey stone -of south-western England, or the brick of East Anglia, or merely -tile-hung or plastered like the cottages. It is not utterly different -from any of these. The great Palladian houses of the eighteenth century -are _in_ England, they are not _of_ England, as are these irregular -roofs, this easy straying up the contours of the hill, these cool -coloured walls, these calm gables, and dark windows mirroring the sun. - - - - - CHAPTER II - The Garden and Park - - - § i - -You come out of the cool shadowy house on to the warm garden, in the -summer, and there is a scared flutter of white pigeons up to the roof as -you open the door. You have to look twice before you are sure whether -they are pigeons or magnolias. The turf is of the most brilliant green; -there is a sound of bees in the limes; the heat quivers like watered -gauze above the ridge of the lawn. The garden is entirely enclosed by a -high wall of rag, very massively built, and which perhaps dates back to -the time of the archbishops; its presence, I think, gives a curious -sense of seclusion and quiet. Inside the walls are herbaceous borders on -either side of long green walks, and little square orchards planted with -very old apple-trees, under which grow iris, snapdragon, larkspur, -pansies, and such-like humble flowers. There are also interior walls, -with rounded archways through which one catches a sight of the house, so -that the garden is conveniently divided up into sections without any -loss of the homogeneity of the whole. Half of the garden, roughly -speaking, is formal; the other half is woodland, called the Wilderness, -mostly of beech and chestnut, threaded by mossy paths which in spring -are thick with bluebells and daffodils. - -[Illustration: - - _Airco Aerials Ltd._ - - KNOLE FROM AN AEROPLANE -] - -The old engravings show the gardens to have been, from the seventeenth -century onwards, very much the same as they are at present. There are a -few minor variations, but as the early engravers were not very -particular as to accuracy their evidence cannot be accepted as wholly -reliable. We have, besides these engravings, a fairly large number of -records relating to both the park and gardens. The earliest of these -that I have been able to trace is dated 1456, to the effect that -Archbishop Bourchier in that year enclosed the park—a smaller area then -than is covered by it now; and in 1468 there is a bill, “Paid for making -1000 palings for the enclosure of the Knole land, 6_s._ 8_d._” But the -first accounts for the garden proper appear to date from the reign of -Henry VIII (State papers of Henry VIII), when, in 1543, Sir Richard -Longe was paid “for making the King’s garden at Knole.” Then there is a -gap of nearly a century, save for the references to the garden in Lady -Anne Clifford’s Diary, such as “_25th October, 1617_. My Lady Lisle and -my Coz: Barbara Sidney [came?] and I walked with them all the Wilderness -over. They saw the Child and much commended her. I gave them some -marmalade of quince, for about this time I made much of it”; and her -constant notes of how she took her prayer-book “up to the standing” -[which I take to be what we now call the Duchess’ Seat], or of how she -picked cherries in the garden with the French page, and he told her how -he thought that all the men in the house loved her. For the year 1692, -however, there are some bills among the Knole papers, such as “Mr. -Olloynes, gardener, wages £12 per annum,” and some bills for seeds and -roots, “Sweet yerbs, pawsley, sorrill, spinnig, spruts, leeks, sallet, -horse-rydish, jerusalem hawty-chorks,” and another bill for seeds for -£2. 0_s._ 5_d._ Coming to the eighteenth century, there are more -detailed accounts, amongst others an agreement of what was expected in -those days of a head gardener and the remuneration he might hope to -receive: - - _14th Aug., 1706._ Ric. Baker, Gardener with Lionel Earl of Dorset and - Middlesex. To serve his Lordship as Gardener at Knole for the term of - one year ½ to begin in March 1706. That he will reserve all the fruit - which shall be growing in the garden for his Lordship’s use. That he - will at his own charge during the said term preserve all Trees and - Greens now in the garden, and will maintain the trees in good - husbandlike manner by pruning and trimming, dunging and marling the - same in seasonable times, and likewise at his own charge will provide - all herbs and other things convenient for my Lord’s kitchen there when - in season. He undertakes to maintain at his own charge all such walks - as are now in ye said Garden, by mowing, cleaning, and rolling the - same, and will preserve all such flowers and plants as are now in the - gardens, and that he will be at all the charges of repairing all the - glass frames, etc. belonging to the Garden Trade, and will provide for - the present use of the Gardens 50 loads of dung. - -In return for this service he was to be allowed £30 per annum, and - - rooms and conveniences in the house for his business, and to hand all - such dung, etc. as shall be made about the house for the use of ye - gardens, and that he may have the privilege of disposing [for his own - use] all such beans, peas, cabbages, and other kitchen herbs as shall - be spared, over and above that what is used in my Lord’s kitchen. - -[Illustration: - - THE GARDEN SIDE (SOUTH FRONT) -] - - £ _s._ _d._ - _April 28, 1718._ - Planting trees in new Oak Walk, 5 men, 8 to 18 days - each 3 12 4 - Planting walnut trees round the Keeper’s lodge, 3 men, - 5 days each at 1/2 each per day 0 17 6 - Cutting Bows in the yew at end of new Oak Walk 0 2 4 - - _November 11, 1723._ - Cutting and levelling new walk in ye Wilderness and - making ye mount round ye Oak tree, 8 men, 5 to 11 - days each 3 10 0 - Alterations made in the Fruit Walks, 16 men, from 14 to - 43 days each 23 19 10 - Cutting 10,600 turfs at 8_d._ per 100 3 10 8 - Planting ye quarry in the Park 6 7 0 - 10 May Duke Cherries in ye garden 0 6 8 - 6 peach and nectarine trees in ye garden 0 12 0 - 2400 quick-set for ye kitchen garden 0 12 0 - 1000 holly for ye kitchen garden 0 10 0 - Planting 2000 small beeches in ye park 0 18 6 - 200 Pear stocks 0 6 0 - 300 Crab stocks 0 3 0 - 200 Cherry stocks 0 6 0 - 500 Holly stocks 0 5 0 - 700 Hazel stocks 1 15 0 - For new making the Mulberry garden and sowing ye front - walk with seed 14 12 9 - 20 Gascon Cherry trees 0 10 0 - 50 bushels sweet apples for cyder 2 10 0 - 1 bushel Buckwheat for ye Pheasants 0 3 6 - 10,000 seedling beeches for my Lady Germaine 0 10 0 - - _December 24, 1726._ - Getting 80 load of ice and putting it in ye Ice House 1 15 3 - - _June 15, 1728._ - Planting 160 Elms in field which was Dr. Lambarde’s - next Tonbridge road and sowing the field with furze - seed 7 9 3 - - _April, 1730._ - 1000 Asparagus plants from Gravesend 1 0 0 - 2 doz. Apricots 0 2 0 - 300 beeches 8ft. high 1 15 0 - 250 large beeches planted in ye Park 3 10 0 - -It is not very clear where such a large number of fruit trees were to be -used, but on an engraving of about 1720 I find a wall extending right -across the garden to the two stone pillars which, surmounted by carved -stone urns, still remain, this wall being planted with fruit trees, so I -should think it very probable that this would account for it. - -In 1777 new hot-houses and “Pineries” were built, and £175 paid for “two -hot-houses full stocked with pine apples and plants.” - - - § ii - -Surrounding the house and gardens lies the park, with its valleys, -hills, and woods, and its short brown turf closely bitten by deer and -rabbits. Its beeches and bracken, its glades and valleys, greatly -excited the admiration of Mrs. Ann Radcliffe, who visited it in the -beginning of the nineteenth century, and she wrote with enthusiasm of -shade rising above shade with _amazing_ and _magnificent_ grandeur, and -of one beech in particular spreading “its light yet umbrageous fan” over -a seat placed round the bole. With all its grandeur and luxuriance, she -said, there was nothing about this beech heavy or formal; it was airy, -though vast and majestic, and suggested an idea at once of the -_strength_ and _fire_ of a _hero_. She would call a beech tree, she -added, and this beech above every other, the hero of the forest, as the -oak was called the king. - -As I have said, the park was first enclosed by Bourchier in 1456, the -year in which he bought Knole on the 30th of June. In the muniments at -Lambeth are a number of papers relating to the expenses of this great -builder, and there is the interesting fact that glass-making was carried -on in the park, and I only wish that more detailed accounts existed of -this industry, which, thanks to the Huguenots, had been pretty widely -introduced into the South of England. I should like to know exactly -where their glass-foundry was, and whether they made use of the sand on -the portion known as the Furze-field, now a rabbit warren; and I should -also very much like to know whether—as seems probable—they supplied any -of the glass for the windows in the house. - -It would appear that the park, now entirely under grass, was once -ploughland, for there is at Knole a deed of the time of Richard -Sackville, fifth Earl of Dorset—that is to say, the middle of the -seventeenth century—which accords to four farmers “the liberty to plough -anywhere in the Park except in the plain set out by my Lord and the -ground in front of the house, and to take three crops, and it is agreed -that one-third of each crop after it is severed from the ground shall be -taken and carried away by my Lord for his own use. The third year, the -farmers to sow the ground with grass seed if my Lord desires it, and -they are to be at the charge of the seed, the tillage, and the harvest.” -Later on, in the time of Charles I, hops were grown, not only around the -park, but also in it. Women employed in picking the hops were paid 5_d._ -a day, but for cleaning and weeding the ground they only received 3_d._ -At this time also cattle were fed in the park during the summer, and -belonging to the same date (about 1628) are the bills for “Moles caught, -1½_d._ each”; “Mowing the meadows,” at the rate of 1_s._ 6_d._ per acre; -“Making hay,” also at 1_s._ 6_d._ per acre; “Carriage of hay from the -meadows to Knole barn,” 1_s._ 4_d._ per load; “one hay fork and 2 hay -forks together,” 1_s._ 8_d._ For “hunting conies by night and ferret by -day” 4_s._ was paid; the expenses involved by the “conies” for one year -were exactly £10, which included £5 5_s._, a year’s wages for the -“wariner”; but, on the other hand, this was money well expended, for the -revenue from “conies sold” covers no less than a fifth part of the -year’s total income. The “wariner,” although his £5 5_s._ a year hardly -seems excessive, did better than the “wood-looker,” who, for his -woodreeveship for a year, was paid only £2. - -The accounts of how and when the various outlying portions of the park -were taken in can only be of local interest, and I do not therefore -propose to go into them. They were mostly bought by John Frederick, the -third duke, and by Lord Whitworth, who had married John Frederick’s -widow. The ruins round the queer little sham Gothic house called the -Bird House—which always frightened me as a child because I thought it -looked like the witch’s house in Hansel and Gretel, tucked away in its -hollow, with its pointed gables—were built for John Frederick’s -grandfather about 1761, by one Captain Robert Smith, who had fought at -Minden under Lord George Sackville, of disastrous notoriety, and who -lived for some time at Knole, a parasite upon the house; they apparently -purport to be the remains of some vast house, in defiance of the fact -that no upper storey or roof of proportionate dimensions could ever -possibly have rested upon the flimsy structure of flint and rubble which -constitute the ruins. They, together with the Bird House, form an -amusing group of the whims and vanities of two different ages. But, to -go back to the park, I conclude with the following letter, which is -among the papers at Knole: - -[Illustration: - - A GATEWAY INTO THE GARDEN -] - - _To his Grace the_ DUKE of DORSET. - - My Lord, - - I Elizabeth Hills sister and executor of Mrs. Anne Hills deceased of - Under River in the Parish of Seal and whose corpse is to be interred - in the Parish Church of Seal: but the High Road leading thereto by - Godden Green being very bad and unsafe for carriages: I beg leave of - yr Grace to permit the proper attendants to pass with the corpse, in a - hearse with the coaches in attendance through Knole Park: entering the - same at Faulke [_sic_] Common Gate and going out at the gate at Lock’s - Bottom: and you’ll oblige - - Your Grace’s most obedient serv^t - ELIZA HILLS. - - UNDER RIVER, - _18 Oct., 1781_. - - - § iii - -So much, then, for the setting; but it is no mere empty scene. The -house, with its exits and entrances, its properties of furniture and -necessities, its dressing-tables, its warming-pans, and its tiny silver -eye-bath still standing between the hair-brushes—the house demands its -population. Whose were the hands that have, by the constant light -running of their fingers, polished the paint from the banisters? Whose -were the feet that have worn down the flags of the hall and the stone -passages? What child rode upon the ungainly rocking-horse? What young -men exercised their muscles on the ropes of the great dumb-bell? Who -were the men and women that, after a day’s riding or stitching, lay -awake in the deep beds, idly watching between the curtains the play of -the firelight, and the little round yellow discs cast upon walls and -ceiling through the perforations of the tin canisters standing on the -floor, containing the rush-lights? - -Thus the house wakes into a whispering life, and we resurrect the -Sackvilles. - - - - - CHAPTER III - Knole in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth - THOMAS SACKVILLE - 1st - Earl _of_ Dorset - - - § i - -Such interest as the Sackvilles have lies, I think, in their being so -representative. From generation to generation they might stand, fully -equipped, as portraits from English history. Unless they are to be -considered in this light they lose their purport; they merely share, as -Byron wrote to one of their number: - - ... _with titled crowds the common lot, - In life just gazed at, in the grave forgot ... - The mouldering ’scutcheon, or the herald’s roll, - That well-emblazoned but neglected scroll, - Where lords, unhonoured, in the tomb may find - One spot, to leave a worthless name behind: - There sleep, unnoticed as the gloomy vaults - That veil their dust, their follies, and their faults: - A race with old armorial lists o’erspread - In records destined never to be read_. - -But let them stand each as the prototype of his age, and at the same -time as a link to carry on, not only the tradition but also the heredity -of his race, and they immediately acquire a significance, a unity. You -have first the grave Elizabethan, with the long, rather melancholy face, -emerging from the oval frame above the black clothes and the white wand -of office; you perceive all his severe integrity; you understand the -intimidating austerity of the contribution he made to English letters. -Undoubtedly a fine old man. You come down to his grandson: he is the -Cavalier by Vandyck hanging in the hall, hand on hip, his flame-coloured -doublet slashed across by the blue of the Garter; this is the man who -raised a troop of horse off his own estates and vowed never to cross the -threshold of his house into an England governed by the murderers of the -King. You have next the florid, magnificent Charles, the fruit of the -Restoration, poet, and patron of poets, prodigal, jovial, and -licentious; you have him full-length, by Sir Godfrey Kneller, in his -Garter robes and his enormous wig, his foot and fine calf well thrust -forward; you have him less pompous and more intimate, wrapped in a -dressing-gown of figured silk, the wig replaced by an Hogarthian turban; -but it is still the same coarse face, with the heavy jowl and the -twinkling eyes, the crony of Rochester and Sedley, the patron and host -of Pope and Dryden, Prior and Killigrew. You come down to the eighteenth -century. You have on Gainsborough’s canvas the beautiful, sensitive face -of the gay and fickle duke, spoilt, feared, and propitiated by the women -of London and Paris, the reputed lover of Marie Antoinette. You have his -son, too fair and pretty a boy, the friend of Byron, killed in the -hunting-field at the age of twenty-one, the last direct male of a race -too prodigal, too amorous, too weak, too indolent, and too melancholy. - - - § ii - -The Sackvilles are supposed to have gone into Normandy in the ninth -century with Rollo the Dane, and to have settled in the neighbourhood of -Dieppe, in a small town called Salcavilla, from which, obviously, they -derived their name. Much as I relish the suggestion of this Norse -origin, I am bound to add that the first of whom there is any authentic -record is Herbrand de Sackville, contemporary with William the -Conqueror, whom he accompanied to England. Descending from him is a long -monotonous list of Sir Jordans, Sir Andrews, Sir Edwards, Sir Richards, -carrying us through the Crusades, the French wars, and the wars of the -Roses, but none of whom has the slightest interest until we get to Sir -Richard Sackville, temp. Henry VIII-Elizabeth—from his wealth called -Sackfill or Fillsack, though not, it appears, “either griping or -penurious,” a man of some note, and thus qualified by Roger Ascham: -“That worthy gentleman, that earnest favourer and furtherer of God’s -true religion; that faithful servitor to his prince and country; a lover -of learning and all learned men; wise in all doings; courteous to all -persons, showing spite to none, doing good to many; and, as I well -found, to me so fast a friend as I never lost the like before”; and in -this same connection I may quote further from Ascham’s preface to _The -Scholemaster_, in which he records a conversation which took place in -1593 between himself and Sir Richard Sackville, when dining with Sir -William Cecil: Sir Richard, after complaining of his own education by a -bad schoolmaster, said, “But seeing it is but in vain to lament things -past, and also wisdom to look to things to come, surely, God willing (if -God lend me life), I will make this my mishap some occasion of good hap -to little Robert Sackville, my son’s son; for whose bringing up I would -gladly, if so please you, use specially your good advice.”... “I wish -also,” says Ascham, “with all my heart, that young Mr. Robert Sackville -may take that fruit of this labour that his worthy grandfather purposed -he should have done. And if any other do take profit or pleasure hereby, -they have cause to thank Mr. Robert Sackville, for whom specially this -my Scholemaster was provided.” - -This Sir Richard was the founder of the family fortune, which was to be -increased by his son and squandered after that by nearly all his -descendants in succession. It was he who bought, in 1564, for the sum of -£641 5_s._ 10½_d._, “the whole of the land lying between Bridewell and -Water Lane from Fleet Street to the Thames.” This property, now of -course of almost fabulous value, included the house then known as -Salisbury House, having belonged to the see of Salisbury, which -presently became Dorset House in 1603, and presently again was divided -into Great Dorset House and Little Dorset House, as the London house of -the Sackvilles. A wall enclosed house and gardens from the existing line -of Salisbury Court south to the river, and shops and tenements in and -near Fleet Street from St. Bride’s to Water Lane (Whitefriars Street). -These were not the only London possessions of the Sackvilles. Later on -they overflowed into the Strand, and another Dorset House sprang up, on -the site of the present Treasury in Whitehall, to take the place of the -older house in Salisbury Court, which had been destroyed in the Great -Fire. It is idle and exasperating to speculate on the modern value of -these City estates. - -Sir Richard Sackville died in 1566, when his son Thomas was already -thirty years of age. Very little is known about Thomas’ early life; we -only know that he went for a short time to Oxford (Hertford), and -subsequently to the Inner Temple. While at Oxford he attracted some -attention as a poet and writer of sonnets, but I have only been able to -find one of these early sonnets, written for Hoby’s translation of the -_Courtier of Count Baldessar Castilio_ (published in 1561), and which I -quote, not so much for its worth as for its interest as a little-known -work from the pen of one who, as the author of our earliest tragedy, has -a certain renown: - - _These royal Kings, that rear up to the sky - Their palace tops, and deck them all with gold: - With rare and curious works they feed the eye, - And show what riches here great princes hold. - A rarer work, and richer far in worth, - Castilio’s hand presenteth here to thee: - No proud nor golden court doth he set forth - But what in court a courtier ought to be. - The prince he raiseth huge and mighty walls, - Castilio frames a wight of noble fame: - The King with gorgeous tissue clads his halls, - The court with golden virtue decks the same - Whose passing skill, lo, Hoby’s pen displays - To Britain folk a work of worthy praise._ - -But for the rest concerning these early poems one must take his -contemporary Jasper Heywood’s eulogy on trust: - - _There Sackville’s sonnets sweetly sauced - And featly finèd be._ - -[Illustration: - - A CONFERENCE OF ENGLISH AND SPANISH PLENIPOTENTIARIES AT SOMERSET - HOUSE IN 1604 - - _From the painting by_ MARC GHEERHARDTS _at the National Portrait - Gallery_ - - At the top right-hand corner, nearest the window, Thomas Sackville, - 1st Earl of Dorset, K.G., Lord High Treasurer of England -] - -It seems that Sackville’s works were all written in the first half of -his life, and that later on, as honours came to him, he altogether -abandoned what might have been a first-rate literary career for a -second-rate political one—more’s the pity. “A born poet,” says Mr. -Gosse, “diverted from poetry by the pursuits of statesmanship.” He is a -very good instance of the disadvantage of fine birth to a poet. But for -the fact that he was born the Queen’s cousin, through the Boleyns, and -the son of a father holding various distinguished offices, he might -never have entered a political arena where he was destined to have as -competitors such statesmen as Burleigh, and such favourites as Leicester -and Essex. Amongst his contemporary poets, Surrey and Wyatt both died -while Sackville was still a child; when Spenser was born, Sackville was -already sixteen; when Sidney was born, he was eighteen; when Shakespeare -was born, he was a full-grown man of twenty-eight. He had thus the good -fortune to be born at a time when English poets of much standing were -rare, an opportunity of which he might have taken greater advantage had -not the accident of his birth persuaded him to abandon poetry for more -serious things as the dilettantism of his youth. For he was -comparatively young when he wrote both _Gorboduc_ and the _Induction_ to -the _Mirror for Magistrates_. _Gorboduc_ was first performed by the -gentlemen of the Inner Temple before the Queen in 1561, when Sackville -was twenty-five, and the _Induction_ was first published in 1563, when -he was twenty-seven; but already in or about 1557, when he was only just -over twenty, he had composed the plan for the whole of the _Mirror for -Magistrates_, intending to write it himself, although subsequently from -want of leisure he left the composition of all but the induction or -introduction, and the _Complaint of Henry, Duke of Buckingham_, to -others. - -By the age of twenty-one, however, responsibilities were already upon -him. He was married; and he was a member of Parliament, not merely once -but twice over, as appears from the journals of the House of Commons: -“For that Thomas Sackville, Esq., is returned for the County of -Westmoreland, and also for the Borough of East Grinstead in Sussex, and -doth personally appear for Westmoreland, it is required by this House -that another person be returned for the said borough.” How this double -election can have come about I cannot explain. It seems to have done him -no harm in his parliamentary career; not only was he returned member for -Aylesbury in 1563, but he took an active part in introducing bills, etc. -About this time he went to travel in France and Italy, where for some -mysterious reason he got himself thrown into prison; the reason was -probably pecuniary, for we are told that he was “of the height of spirit -inherent in his house,” and lived too magnificently for his means; so I -think the assumption is in favour of his having got temporarily into -debt. If, indeed, he shared in any measure the tastes of his -descendants, nothing is more likely. Back in England again, the -successes of his career rushed upon him. His father was just dead; he -was the head of his family; he inherited its wealth and estates; he was -at the propitious age of thirty; he was related to the Queen; he was -marked out to prosper. Within the next thirty years or so he was, -successively, knighted and created Lord Buckhurst of Buckhurst, in the -county of Sussex; given the house and lands of Knole by the Queen, that -she might have him near her court and councils; sent to France and the -Netherlands as special ambassador from Elizabeth; made a Knight of the -Garter; Chancellor of Oxford, where he sumptuously entertained the -Queen; made Lord High Treasurer of England in 1599; High Steward of -England at the trial of Essex, where he sat in state under a canopy and -pronounced sentence and an exhortation, says Bacon, “with gravity and -solemnity.” By this time, I imagine, he had in very truth become the -grave and solemn personage one sees in all his portraits—not that his -mind, even in early youth, can have been otherwise than grave and solemn -if at the age of twenty he had been capable of imagining a vast poem on -so dreary and Dantesque a plan as the _Mirror for Magistrates_, devised, -says Morley in his _English Literature_, “to moralise those incidents of -English history which warn the powerful of the unsteadiness of fortune -by showing them, as in a mirror, that ‘who reckless rules, right soon -may hap to rue.’” Also, from a letter written by Lord Buckhurst to Lord -Walsingham, it is clear that he had no sympathy with ostentation, but -only with honest worth: “And, Sir, I beseech you send over as few Court -captains as may be; but that they may rather be furnished with captains -here [in the Low Countries], such as by their worthiness and long -service do merit it, and do further seek to shine in the field with -virtue and valiance against the enemy than with gold lace and gay -garments in Court at home.” In 1586 Lord Buckhurst was one of the forty -appointed on the commission for the trial of Mary Stuart, and although -his name is not amongst those who proceeded to Fotheringay, nor later in -the Star Chamber at Westminster when she was condemned to death, yet he -was sent to announce the sentence to death, and received from her in -recognition of his tact and gentleness in conveying this news the -triptych and carved group of the Procession to Calvary now on the altar -in the chapel at Knole. - -He was, in fact, absent from none of the councils of the nation, and I -have no doubt that he discharged his duties with all seriousness and -honesty. Poetry—a frivolous pursuit—had long since been left behind. The -poet had become the statesman. Nevertheless there were times when his -very integrity was the cause of bringing him into disfavour with the -intolerant mistress he served, notably on one occasion when he refused -to take the part of Leicester and was indignantly confined to his house -for nine or ten months by Royal mandate. And there was another occasion, -amusing as showing the extreme simplicity in which even a man like Lord -Buckhurst, who had the reputation of lavish living in his own day, -conducted his daily life. Buckhurst, then being at the royal palace of -Shene, was desired by the Queen to entertain Odet de Coligny, Cardinal -of Chatillon, and did so, but with the result made clear in the -following letter, of which I give extracts: - - _To the Right Honourable the Lords of her Majesty’s Privy Council be - this delivered._ - - My duty to your Lordships most humbly remembered. - - Returning yesterday to Shene, I received as from your Lordships how - her highness stood greatly displeased with me, for that I had not in - better sort entertained the Cardinal. - -He goes on to speak of his “great grief” and his “sorrowful heart,” -especially, he says, “being to her Majesty as I am,” and proceeds with -the attempt to justify himself for his supposed niggardliness: - - I brought them in to every part of the house that I possessed, and - showed them all such stuff and furniture as I had. And where they - required plate of me, I told them as troth is, that I had no plate at - all. Such glass vessel as I had I offered them, which they thought too - base; for napery I could not satisfy their turn, for they desired - damask work for a long table, and I had none other but plain linen for - a square table. The table whereon I dine myself I offered them, and - for that it was a square table they refused it. One only tester and - bedstead not occupied I had, and those I delivered for the Cardinal - himself, and when we could not by any means in so short a time procure - another bedstead for the bishop, I assigned them the bedstead on which - my wife’s waiting women did lie, and laid them on the ground. Mine own - basin and ewer I lent to the Cardinal and wanted myself. So did I the - candlesticks for mine own table, with divers drinking glasses, small - cushions, small pots for the kitchen, and sundry other such like - trifles, although indeed I had no greater store of them than I - presently occupied; and albeit this be not worthy the writing, yet - mistrusting lest the misorder of some others in denying of such like - kind of stuff not occupied by themselves, have been percase informed - as towards me, I have thought good not to omit it. Long tables, forms, - brass for the kitchen, and all such necessaries as could not be - furnished by me, we took order to provide in the town; hangings and - beds we received from the yeoman of the wardrobe at Richmond, and when - we saw that napery and sheets could nowhere here be had, I sent word - thereof to the officers at the Court, by which means we received from - my lord of Leicester 2 pair of fine sheets for the Cardinal, and from - my lord Chamberlain one pair of fine for the bishop, with 2 other - coarser pair, and order beside for 10 pair more from London. - - At which time also because I would be sure your Lordships should be - ascertained of the simpleness and scarcity of such stuff as I had - here, I sent a man of mine to the Court, specially to declare to your - Lordships that for plate, damask, napery and fine sheets, I had none - at all and for the rest of my stuff neither was it such as with honour - might furnish such a personage, nor yet had I any greater store - thereof than I presently occupied, and he brought me this answer again - from your Lordships that if I had it not I could not lend it. And yet - all things being thus provided for, and the diet for his Lordship - being also prepared, I sent word thereof to Mr. Kingesmele and - thereupon the next day in the morning about nine of the clock the - Cardinal came to Shene where I met and received him almost a quarter - of a mile from the house, and when I had first brought the Cardinal to - his lodging, and after the bishop to his, I thought good there to - leave them to their repose. Thus having accommodated his Lordship as - well as might be with so short a warning, I thought myself to have - fully performed the meaning of your Lordships’ letters unto me, and - because I had tidings the day before that a house of mine in the - country by sudden chance was burned ... I took horse and rode the same - night towards those places, where I found so much of my house burned - as 200 marks will not repair.... - -This is not at all in accordance with his reputation for hospitality: - - He kept house for forty and two years in an honourable proportion. For - thirty years of these his family consisted of little less, in one - place or another, than two hundred persons. But for more than twenty - years, besides workmen and other hired, his number at the least hath - been two hundred and twenty daily, as appeared upon check-role. A very - rare example in this present age of ours, when housekeeping is so - decayed. - -I think that this reputation, and the enormous sums which he spent upon -the enlargement and beautifying of Knole, make all the more remarkable -the statements in the foregoing letter: that he had neither napery, -plate, nor sheets, and that in order to provide his guest with a basin -and ewer he was obliged to do without them himself. It is apparent also -from his will that he indulged himself in the luxury of various -musicians, “some for the voice and some for the instrument, whom I have -found to be honest in their behaviour and skilful in their profession, -and who had often given me after the labour and painful travels of the -day much recreation and contatation with their delightful harmony.” -“Musicians,” it was said, “the most curious he could have,” so that in -these extravagances he was not parsimonious, although he disregarded the -common comforts of life. - -[Illustration: - - LEAD PIPE-HEADS - - _Put up by_ THOMAS SACKVILLE _in 1605_ - - Figs. 1 to 4, Stone Court. Fig. 5, Over King’s Bedroom Window. Figs. 6 - and 7, South Front. Fig. 8, Stone Court. Fig. 9, Water Court. -] - -In June 1566 Queen Elizabeth had presented him with Knole, but, because -the house was then both let and sub-let, it was not until 1603 that he -was able to take possession. Tradition says that the Queen bestowed -Knole upon him because she wished to have him nearer to her court and -councils, and to spare him the constant journey between London and -Buckhurst, over the rough, clay-sodden roads of the Weald, at that date -still an uncultivated and almost uninhabited district, where droves of -wild swine rootled for acorns under the oaks. He does not appear to have -spent very much time at Knole during the first years of his ownership, -for in a letter written in September 1605, to Lord Salisbury, he says: -“I go now to Horsley, and thence to Knole, where I was not but once in -the first beginnings all the year, whence for three or four days to -Buckhurst, where I was not these seven years.” This did not prevent him -from spending a great deal of money on the house; unfortunately there is -no record of what he spent between 1603 and 1607, but for the last ten -months of his life alone there is a total, spent on buildings, material, -and stock, for four thousand one hundred and seven pounds, eleven -shillings, and ninepence—an equivalent, in round figures, to forty -thousand of modern money. To account for these sums, it is known that he -built the Great Staircase, transformed the Great Hall to its present -state, and put in the plaster-work ceilings and marble chimney-pieces. -He also put up the very lovely lead water-spouts in the courtyards. - -The good fortune of Lord Buckhurst did not come to an end with the death -of Queen Elizabeth. He was one of those who travelled to meet the new -King on his journey down from the North, was confirmed by him in his -tenure of the office of Lord Treasurer, and early in the following year -was created Earl of Dorset. The illuminated patents of creation are at -Knole, showing portraits of both Elizabeth and James I, not very -flattering to either; and the Lord Treasurer’s chest is at Knole -likewise, a huge coffer covered in leather and thickly studded with -large round-headed brass nails. There is a warrant, signed by him as -Lord Treasurer, for increasing the duty on tobacco, “That tobacco, being -a drug brought into England of late years in small quantities, was used -and taken by the better sort only as physic to preserve health; but -through evil custom and the toleration thereof that riotous and -disorderly persons spent most of their time in that idle vanity.” This -warrant, which is dated 1605, shows how little time had elapsed since -its introduction before tobacco established its popularity. - -He was now advancing in years, and his own letters prove that his health -was not very good. In one letter, written to Cecil, he complains that he -cannot rest more than two or three hours in the night at most, also that -he is constantly subject to rheums and cold and coughs, forced to defend -himself with warmth, and to fly the air in cold or moist weathers. In -another letter, also written to Cecil, he again complains of a cough, -and says that he cannot come abroad for three or four days at least. But -his devotion to his public affairs was greater than his attention to his -health, for he says, “I have by the space of this month and more -foreborne to take physic by reason of her Majesty’s business, and now -having this only week left for physic I am resolved to prevent sickness, -feeling myself altogether distempered and filled with humours, so as if -her Majesty should miss me I beseech you in respect hereof to excuse -me.” In 1607, when the old man was seventy-one, there was a report -current in London that he was dead, but on the King sending him a -diamond, and wishing that he might live so long as that ring would -continue, “My Lord Treasurer,” says a letter dated June 1607, “revived -again.” In the following year, however, he died dramatically in harness, -of apoplexy while sitting at the Council table in Whitehall. His funeral -service took place in Westminster Abbey, but his body was taken to -Withyham, where it now lies buried in the vault of his ancestors. - - - § iii - -I have dealt as briefly as possible with the Lord Treasurer’s life, -because no one could pretend that the history of his embassies or his -occupations of office could have any interest save to a student of the -age of Elizabeth. But as a too-much-neglected poet I should like -presently to quote the opinions of those well qualified to judge, -showing that he was, at least, something of a pioneer in English -literature—crude, of course, and uniformly gloomy; too gloomy to read, -save as a labour of love or conscience; but nevertheless the author—or -part-author—of the earliest English tragedy, and, in some passages, a -poet of a certain sombre splendour. That he was a true poet, I think, is -unquestionable, unlike his descendant Charles, who by virtue of one song -in particular continues to survive in anthologies, but who was probably -driven into verse by the fashion of his age rather than by any genuine -urgency of creation. - -The tragedy of _Gorboduc_, whose title was afterwards altered to _Ferrex -and Porrex_, was written in collaboration with Thomas Norton, although -the exact share of each author is not precisely known and has been much -argued. - - To the modern reader [says Professor Saintsbury] _Gorboduc_ is - scarcely inviting, but that is not a condition of its attractiveness - to its own contemporaries. [It] is of the most painful regularity; and - the scrupulosity with which each of the rival princes is provided with - a counsellor and a parasite to himself, and the other parts are - allotted with similar fairness, reaches such a point that it is rather - surprising that _Gorboduc_ was not provided with two queens—a good and - a bad. But even these faults are perhaps less trying to the modern - reader than the inchoate and unpolished condition of the metre in the - choruses, and indeed in the blank verse dialogue. Here and there there - are signs of the stateliness and poetical imagery of the _Induction_, - but for the most part the decasyllables stop dead at their close and - begin afresh at their beginning with a staccato movement and a dull - monotony of cadence which is inexpressibly tedious. - -Professor Saintsbury rightly points out that the dullness of _Gorboduc_ -to our ideas is not a criterion of the effect it produced on readers of -its own day. Sir Philip Sidney, for example, while excepting it from the -particular charges he brings against all other English tragedies and -comedies, and granting that “it is full of stately speeches and -well-sounding phrases, climbing to the height of Seneca his style, and -as full of notable morality, which it doth most delightfully teach, and -so obtain the very end of poesy,” finds fault with it in an unexpected -quarter, namely, that it fails in two unities, of time and place, so -that the modern criticism of its “painful regularity” was far from -occurring to a mind intent upon a yet more rigorous form. - - In spite of its manifest imperfections [says the Cambridge Modern - History], the tragedy of _Gorboduc_ has two supreme claims to - honourable commemoration. It introduced Englishmen who knew no - language but their own to an artistic conception of tragedy, and it - revealed to them the true mode of tragic expression. - -I might also quote here the sonnet of a greater poet, who owed much, if -not to _Gorboduc_, at least to the _Induction_—Edmund Spenser. - - _In vain I think, right honourable lord, - By this rude rhyme to memorize thy name, - Whose learnèd muse hath writ her own record - In golden verse worthy immortal fame. - Thou much more fit (were leisure to the same) - Thy gracious sovereign’s praises to compile, - And her imperial majesty to frame - In lofty numbers and heroic style. - But sith thou may’st not so, give leave awhile - To baser wit his power therein to spend, - Whose gross defaults thy dainty pen may file, - And unadvisèd oversights amend. - But evermore vouchsafe it to maintain - Against vile Zoylus’ backbitings vain._ - -There is also a sonnet by Joshua Sylvester, of which I will only quote -the anagram prefixed to it: - - Sackvilus Comes Dorsetius - _Vas Lucis_ _Esto decor Musis_ - - Sacris Musis celo devotus - -But although there can scarcely be two opinions about _Gorboduc_—that it -is sometimes noble, and always dull—Sackville’s two other poems, the -_Induction_ to the _Mirror for Magistrates_ and the _Complaint of Henry -Duke of Buckingham_, have never met with the recognition they deserve, -save for the discriminating applause of men of letters. I do not say -that they are works which can be read through with an unvarying degree -of pleasure; there are stagnant passages which have to be waded through -in between the more admirable portions. But such portions, when they are -reached, do contain much of the genuine stuff of poetry, impressive -imagery, a surprising absence of cumbersome expression—especially when -the reader bears in mind that Sackville was writing before Spenser, and -long before Marlowe—and a diction which is consistently dignified and -suitable to the gravity of the theme. Take these stanzas for instance: - - _And first within the porch and jaws of hell - Sat deep_ Remorse of Conscience, _all besprent - With tears; and to herself oft would she tell - Her wretchedness, and cursing never stent - To sob and sigh; but ever thus lament, - With thoughtful care, as she that, all in vain, - Would wear and waste continually in pain_. - - _Next saw we_ Dread, _all trembling: how he shook - With foot uncertain, proffered here and there, - Benumbed of speech, and, with a ghastly look, - Searched every place, all pale and dead for fear, - His cap borne up with staring of his hair, - ’Stoin’d and amazed at his own shade for dread - And fearing greater dangers than he need_. - - _And next, in order sad_, Old Age _we found, - His beard all hoar, his eyes hollow and blind, - With drooping cheer still poring on the ground, - As on the place where Nature him assigned - To rest, when that the sisters had untwined - His vital thread, and ended with their knife - The fleeting course of fast-declining life_. - -These stanzas are from the _Induction_. Or take the following from the -_Complaint of the Duke of Buckingham_: - - _Midnight was come, and every vital thing - With sweet sound sleep their weary limbs did rest; - The beasts were still, the little birds that sing - Now sweetly slept beside their mother’s breast, - The old and all well shrouded in their nest; - The waters calm, the cruel seas did cease, - The woods, the fields, and all things held their peace._ - - _The golden stars were whirled amid their race, - And on the earth did with their twinkling light, - When each thing nestled in his resting place, - Forget day’s pain with pleasure of the night; - The fearful deer of death stood not in doubt, - The partridge dreamt not of the falcon’s foot._ - -These quotations will give some kind of idea of Sackville’s matter and -manner, and of the _Mirror_, which survives among the classic monuments -of English poetry, says Courthope, only by virtue of the genius of -Sackville. For the rest, not wishing to be thought prejudiced, I should -like to quote copiously from Professor Saintsbury’s _Elizabethan -Literature_, since therein is expressed, a great deal better than I -could express it, my own view of Sackville’s poetry, and by calling in -the testimony of so excellent, scholarly, and delightful an authority I -may be freed from the charge of partiality which I should not at all -like to incur. - - The next remarkable piece of work done in English poetry after - Tottel’s _Miscellany_—a piece of work of greater actual poetic merit - than anything in the _Miscellany_ itself—was ... the famous _Mirror - for Magistrates_, or rather that part of it contributed by Thomas - Sackville, Lord Buckhurst.... The _Induction_ and the _Complaint of - Buckingham_, which Sackville furnished to it in 1559, though they were - not published till four years later, completely outweigh all the rest - in value. His contributions to the _Mirror for Magistrates_ contain - the best poetry written in the English language between Chaucer and - Spenser, and are most certainly the originals or at least the models - of some of Spenser’s finest work. He has had but faint praise of late - years.... I have little hesitation in saying that no more astonishing - contribution to English poetry, when the due reservations of that - historical criticism which is the life of all criticism are made, is - to be found anywhere. The bulk is not great: twelve or fifteen hundred - lines must cover the whole of it. The form is not new, being merely - the 7–line stanza already familiar in Chaucer. The arrangement is in - no way novel, combining as it does the allegorical presentment of - embodied virtues, vices, and qualities with the melancholy narrative - common in poets for many years before. But the poetical value of the - whole is extraordinary. The two constituents of that value, the formal - and the material, are represented here with a singular equality of - development. There is nothing here of Wyatt’s floundering prosody, - nothing of the well-intentioned doggerel in which Surrey himself - indulges and in which his pupils simply revel. The cadences of the - verse perfect, the imagery fresh and sharp, the presentation of nature - singularly original, when it is compared with the battered copies of - the poets with whom Sackville must have been most familiar, the - followers of Chaucer from Occleeve to Hawes. Even the general plan of - the poem—the weakest part of nearly all poems of this time—is - extraordinarily effective and makes one sincerely sorry that - Sackville’s taste or his other occupations did not permit him to carry - out the whole scheme on his own account. The _Induction_, in which the - author is brought face to face with Sorrow, and the central passages - of the _Complaint of Buckingham_, have a depth and fullness of - poetical sound and sense for which we must look backwards a hundred - and fifty years, or forwards nearly five and twenty.... - - He has not indeed the manifold music of Spenser—it would be - unreasonable to expect that he should have it. But his stanzas are of - remarkable melody, and they have about them a command, a completeness - of accomplishment within the writer’s intentions, which is very - noteworthy in so young a man. The extraordinary richness and - stateliness of the measure has escaped no critic. There is indeed a - certain one-sidedness about it, and a devil’s advocate might urge that - a long poem couched in verse (let alone the subject) of such unbroken - gloom would be intolerable. But Sackville did not write a long poem, - and his complete command within his limits of the effect at which he - evidently aimed is most remarkable. - -[Illustration: - - THE GREAT STAIRCASE (UPPER FLIGHT) - - _Built by_ THOMAS SACKVILLE, _1604–8_ -] - - The second thing to note about the poem is the extraordinary freshness - and truth of its imagery. From a young poet we always expect - second-hand presentations of nature, and in Sackville’s day - second-hand presentation of nature had been elevated to the rank of a - science.... It is perfectly clear that Thomas Sackville had, in the - first place, a poetical eye to see, within as well as without, the - objects of poetical presentment; in the second place, a poetical - vocabulary in which to clothe the results of his seeing; and in the - third place, a poetical ear by aid of which to arrange his language in - the musical co-ordination necessary to poetry. Wyatt had been - notoriously wanting in the last; Surrey had not been very obviously - furnished with the first; and all three were not to be possessed by - anyone else till Edmund Spenser arose to put Sackville’s lessons in - practice on a wider scale and with a less monotonous lyre. It is - possible that Sackville’s claims in drama may have been - exaggerated—they have of late years rather been undervalued; but his - claims in poetry proper can only be overlooked by those who decline to - consider the most important part of poetry. In the subject of even his - part of the _Mirror_ there is nothing new; there is only a following - of Chaucer, and Gower, and Occleeve, and Lydgate, and Hawes, and many - others. But in the handling there is one novelty which makes all - others of no effect or interest: it is the novelty of a new poetry. - - - - - CHAPTER IV - Knole in the Reign of James I - RICHARD SACKVILLE - 3rd - Earl _of_ Dorset - _and_ - LADY ANNE CLIFFORD - - - § i - -It so happens that a remarkably complete record has been left of -existence at Knole in the early seventeenth century—an existence -compounded of extreme prodigality of living, tedium, and perpetual -domestic quarrels. We have a private diary, in which every squabble and -reconciliation between Lord and Lady Dorset is chronicled; every gown -she wore; every wager he won or lost (and he made many); every book she -read; every game she played at Knole with the steward or with the -neighbours; every time she wept; every day she “sat still, thinking the -time to be very tedious.” We have even a complete list of the servants -and their functions, from Mr. Matthew Caldicott, my Lord’s favourite, -down to John Morockoe, a Blackamoor. It would, out of this quantity of -information, be possible to reconstruct a play of singular accuracy. - -The author of the diary was a lady of some fame and a great deal of -character: Lady Anne Clifford, the daughter and sole heiress of George, -Earl of Cumberland, and wife to Richard, Earl of Dorset. Cumberland was -himself a picturesque figure. He was Elizabeth’s official champion at -all jousts and tilting, a nobleman of great splendour, and in addition -to this display of truly Elizabethan glitter and parade he had the other -facet of Elizabethan _virtù_: the love of adventure, which carried him -eleven times to sea, to the Indies and elsewhere, “for the service of -Queen Elizabeth,” says his daughter in the life she wrote of him, “for -the good of England, and of his own person.” She gives an account of her -own appearance: - - I was very happy in my first constitution both in mind and body, both - for internal and external endowments, for never was there child more - equally resembling both father and mother than myself. The colour of - mine eyes were black, like my father, and the form and aspect of them - was quick and lively, like my mother’s; the hair of my head was brown - and very thick, and so long that it reached to the calf of my legs - when I stood upright, with a peak of hair on my forehead and a dimple - in my chin like my father, full cheeks and round face like my mother, - and an exquisite shape of body resembling my father. - -After this description, more remarkable for exactness perhaps than for -modesty, she adds: - - But now time and age hath long since ended all these beauties, which - are to be compared to the grass of the field (_Isaiah_ xl., 6, 7, 8; - _1 Peter_ i., 24). For now when I caused these memorables of my self - to be written I have passed the 63rd year of my age. - -Having put this in by way of a saving clause, she proceeds again -complacently: - - And though I say it, the perfections of my mind were much above those - of my body; I had a strong and copious memory, a sound judgement, and - a discerning spirit, and so much of a strong imagination in me as that - many times even my dreams and apprehensions beforehand proved to be - true; so as old Mr. John Denham, a great astronomer, that sometime - lived in my father’s house, would often say that I had much in me in - nature to show that the sweet influences of the Pleiades and the bands - of Orion were powerful both at my conception and my nativity. - -She was innocent of unnecessary diffidence. Yet she was not without -gratitude: - - I must not forget to acknowledge that in my infancy and youth, and a - great part of my life, I have escaped many dangers, both by fire and - water, by passage in coaches and falls from horses, by burning fevers, - and excessive extremity of bleeding many times to the great hazard of - my life, all which, and many cunning and wicked devices of my enemies, - I have escaped and passed through miraculously, and much the better by - the help and prayers of my devout mother, who incessantly begged of - God for my safety and preservation (_Jas._ v., 16). - -To her mother she seems to have been excessively devoted; and indeed, in -the midst of this stubborn and peremptory character, the most vulnerable -spot is her tenderness for her relations; those of her relations, that -is to say, with whom she was not at mortal enmity. - -The death of Queen Elizabeth, which occurred when Anne Clifford was a -girl of thirteen, was a disappointment to her in more ways than one, for -“if Queen Elizabeth had lived she intended to prefer me to be of the -Privy Chamber, for at that time there was as much hope and expectation -of me as of any other young lady whatsoever,” and moreover “my Mother -and Aunt of Warwick being mourners, I was not allowed to be one, because -I was not high enough, which did much trouble me then.” She was not even -allowed the privilege of watching by the great Queen’s body after it had -come “by night in a Barge from Richmond to Whitehall, my Mother and a -great Company of Ladies attending it, where it continued a great while -standing in the Drawing Chamber, where it was watched all night by -several Lords and Ladies, my Mother sitting up with it two or three -nights, but my Lady would not give me leave to watch, by reason I was -held too young.” It is to be regretted that the writer, who possessed so -vivid and unself-conscious a pen, should have been thus defrauded of -setting upon record the scene in which the old Queen, stiff as an -effigy, and blazing with the jewels of England, lay for the last time in -state, by the light of candles, among the great nobles whom in her -lifetime she had bullied and governed, and whom even in death the -rigidity of that bejezabelled presence could still overawe. - -Although she had not been allowed to see the dead Queen, Lady Anne was -taken to see the new King, but did not find the court to her liking: - - We all went to Tibbalds to see the King, who used my Mother and Aunt - very graciously, but we all saw a great change between the fashion of - the Court as it is now and of that in the Queen’s time, for we were - all lousy by sitting in the chamber of Sir Thomas Erskine. - -This unpropitious introduction was the first she had to James I, but it -was by no means her last meeting with him, for she relates several later -on which might more properly be called encounters. - -About two years after Elizabeth’s death Lord Cumberland died, “very -patiently and willingly of a bloody flux,” leaving Anne Clifford his -only surviving child and heiress, then being aged about fifteen years. -Her father cannot have been much more than a name to her, for although -“endowed with many perfections of nature befitting so noble a personage, -as an excellent quickness of wit and apprehension, an active and strong -body, and an affable disposition and behaviour,” he “fell to love a lady -of quality,” which created a breach between himself and his wife, and -“when my Mother and he did meet, their countenance did show the dislike -they had one of another, yet he would speak to me in a slight fashion -and give me his blessing.... My Father used to come to us sometimes at -Clerkenwell, but not often, for he had at this time as it were wholly -left my Mother, yet the house was kept still at his charge.” All this -early part of her life, I ought to explain, is related by her in the -Lives of her parents and herself, which she compiled in her old age; and -partly from a diary of reminiscences, a transcript of which is at Knole, -and which she appears to have written at the same time as the more -detailed Diary which she was then (1616–1619) keeping from day to day. -She had a happy childhood with her mother, and cousins of her own -age—“All this time we were merry at North Hall. My Coz. Frances Bouchier -and my Coz. Francis Russell and I did use to walk much in the garden, -and were great with one another. I used to wear my Hair-coloured Velvet -every day, and learned to sing and play on the Bass-Viol of Jack -Jenkins, my Aunt’s boy.” - -The Diary at Knole jumps without any warning or transition from the -reminiscences of youth to 1616. It begins with a sad little hint of the -weariness that was to follow: “All the time I stayed in the country I -was sometimes merry and sometimes sad, as I had news from London.” She -had then been married for seven years to Richard Sackville, third Earl -of Dorset, grandson to Queen Elizabeth’s old Treasurer, who was himself -anxious for the match, writing to Sir George Moore about “that virtuous -young lady, the Lady Anne Clifford,” and soliciting Moore’s good offices -with Lady Cumberland. - -[Illustration: - - RICHARD SACKVILLE, 3RD EARL OF DORSET, K.G. - - _From the miniature by_ ISAAC OLIVER _in the Victoria and Albert - Museum_ -] - -There were, in all, five children of the marriage: three little boys, -who all “died young at Knole where they were born,” and two little -girls, of whom Margaret, born in 1614, figures largely in the Diary and -is the only one to concern us, since Isabel was not born till some years -after Lady Anne had ceased to keep the Diary. Lady Anne’s mother -travelled to London from the North in order to be present at the birth -of Margaret, the first child; but by a strange mischance the journey was -rendered vain, for, having gone “into the Tower of London to see some -friends there, where, the gates being shut up by an accident that -happened, she was kept there till after her daughter was delivered of -her first child, though she had made a journey purposely from Appleby -Castle, in Westmoreland, to London.” Not only does the Diary contain -constant references to this little girl, but Lady Anne’s letters to her -mother, now at Appleby, are rarely without some comment— - - she begins to break out very much upon her head, which I hope will - make her very healthful [a curious theory]. She hath yet no teeth come - out, but they are most of them swelled in the flesh, so that now and - then they make her very froward. I have found your Ladyship’s words - true about the nurse had for her, for she hath been one of the most - unhealthfullest women that I think ever was, and so extremely troubled - with the toothache and rheums and swelling in her face as could be, - and one night she fell very ill, and was taken like an ague so as she - had but little milk left, and so I was enforced to send for the next - woman that was by to give my child suck, whom hath continued with her - ever since, and I thank God the child agrees so well with her milk as - may be, so I mean not to change her any more. It is a miracle to me - that the child should prosper so well. She is but a little one, I - confess, but a livelier and merrier thing was there never yet seen. - -Dorset also was fond of the little girl, for in other letters to her -mother Anne says, after apologising for her bad writing, which she terms -“scribbling,” “my Lord is as fond of her as can be, and calls her his -mistress”; and again, “My Lord to her is a very kind, loving, and dear -father, and in everything will I commend him, saving only in this -business of my land, wherein I think some evil spirit works, for in this -he is as violent as possible, so I must either do it next term or else -break friendship and love with him”; and Dorset was, on his side, of the -same opinion, for in a letter written to her at Knole, which begins -“Sweet Heart,” and sends messages to the child, he adds to his wife, -“whom in all things I love and hold a sober woman, your land only -excepted, which transports you beyond yourself, and makes you devoid of -all reason.” It would appear that but for this unfortunate question of -the lands and money they might have lived happily together, affection -not lacking, and on Anne’s part at any rate good will not lacking -either, as witness her constant defence of him, even to her mother: - - It is true that they have brought their matters so about that I am in - the greatest strait that ever poor creature was, but whatsoever you - may think of my Lord, I have found him, do find him, and think I shall - find him, the best and most worthy man that ever breathed, therefore, - if it be possible, I beseech you, have a better opinion of him, if you - know all I do, I am sure you would believe this that I write, but I - durst not impart my mind about when I was with you, because I found - you so bitter against him, or else I could have told you so many - arguments of his goodness and worth that you should have seen it - plainly yourself. - -They were married when she was nineteen and he was twenty, and two days -after their marriage he succeeded to his father’s titles and estates: -“We have no other news here but of weddings and burials, the Earl of -Dorset died on Monday night leaving a heaire [?] widow God wot, and his -son seeing him past hope the Saturday before married the Lady Anne -Clifford.” In spite, however, of all they had to make life -pleasant—their youth, their wealth, and the privileges of their -position—they spent the succeeding years in making it as unpleasant as -they possibly could for one another. - -I hardly think that it is necessary or even interesting to go into the -legal details of the long dispute over Lord Cumberland’s will. The -interest of Anne and Richard Dorset is human, not litigious. It may -therefore be sufficient to say that by the terms of his will Lord -Cumberland bequeathed the vast Clifford estates in Westmoreland to his -brother Sir Francis Clifford, with the proviso that they should revert -to Anne, his daughter, in the event of the failure of heirs male, a -reversion which eventually took place, thirty-eight years after his -death. What he does not appear to have realized was that the estates -were already entailed upon Lady Anne; and that he was, by his will, -illegally breaking an entail which dated back to the reign of Edward II. - -It is easy to judge, from this broad indication, the infinite -possibilities for litigation amongst persons contentiously minded. Such -persons were not lacking. There was Lady Cumberland, Anne’s mother, bent -upon safeguarding the rights of her daughter. There was Francis, the new -Earl of Cumberland, equally bent upon preserving what had been left to -him by will. There was Richard Dorset, whose own fortune was not -adequate to his extravagance, and who, having married an heiress, was -determined for his own sake that that heiress should not be defrauded of -her inheritance, or that, if she was to be defrauded, he at least should -receive ample compensation. And finally there was Anne herself, who was -more resolved than any of them that she and the North of England should -not be parted. Dorset’s part, of the four, was the most elaborate and -the most discreditable. He would have been willing for his wife to -renounce some of her claims in return for the compromise of ready cash. -Anne, however, remained single-hearted throughout: she was the legal -heiress of the North, and the North she would have; and in the midst of -the otherwise sordid and mercenary dispute, in which Dorset used every -means of coercion, she remains fixed in her perfectly definite attitude -of obstinacy, unswayed by her husband, his relations, her own relations, -their friends, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the King himself, their -remonstrances, their threats, their vindictiveness, and the actual -injuries she had to endure over a long stretch of years. In the end she -got the better of them all, and the last picture of her left by the -“Lives” is that of a triumphant and imperious old lady, retired to the -stronghold of her northern castles, where her authority could stand -“against sectaries, almost against Parliaments and armies themselves”; -refusing to go to court “unless she might wear blinkers”; moving with -feudal, with almost royal, state between her many castles, from Appleby -to Pendragon, from Pendragon to Brougham, from Brougham to Brough, from -Brough to Skipton; building brew-houses, wash-houses, bake-houses, -kitchens, stables; sending word to Cromwell that as fast as he should -knock her castles about her ears she would surely put them up again; -endowing almshouses; ruling over her almswomen and her tenants; -receiving, like the patriarchal old despot that she was, the generations -of her children, her grandchildren, and her great-grandchildren. - -[Illustration: - - LADY ANNE CLIFFORD - - WIFE TO RICHARD SACKVILLE, 3RD EARL OF DORSET - - _From the portrait at Knole by_ _Mytens_ -] - -Before she could reach these serene waters, however, she had many storms -to weather, and to bear the “crosses and contradictions” which caused -her to write “the marble pillars of Knole in Kent and Wilton in -Wiltshire were to me oftentimes but the gay arbours of anguish.” Richard -Sackville in his own day was a byword for extravagance, and was bent on -extorting from his wife for the purposes of his own pleasure the utmost -resources of her inheritance. His portrait is at Knole, a full-length by -Van Somer; he has a pale, pointed face, dark hair growing in a peak, and -small mean eyes, and is dressed entirely in black with enormous silver -rosettes on his shoes. There is also the very beautiful miniature of him -by Isaac Oliver in the Victoria and Albert Museum, showing the richness -of his clothes, his embroidered stockings, and his hand resting upon the -extravagantly-plumed helmet on the table beside him. - -His life is an empty record of gambling, cock-fighting, tilting; of -balls and masques, women and fine clothes. “Above all they speak of the -Earl of Dorset,” says a contemporary letter, after describing the -lavishness of some of the costumes worn in a Court masque in which he -was taking part, “but their extreme cost and riches make us all poor,” -and Clarendon says of him, “his excess of expenditure, in all the ways -to which money could be applied, was such that he so entirely consumed -almost the whole great fortune which descended to him, that when he was -forced to leave the title to his younger brother he left, in a manner, -nothing to him to support it.” The enormous estates which he inherited, -the careful accumulation of the old Lord Treasurer, he sold in great -part, in order to squander the proceeds upon his amusements; before he -had been in possession for three years he had sold the manor of -Sevenoaks, and had “conveyed” Knole itself to one Henry Smith -(retaining, however, the house at a rent of £100 a year for his own -use), and in the course of rather less than ten years he had sold -estates, including much of Fleet Street and the Manor of Holborn, to the -value of £80,616, or nearly a million of modern money. - -In Aubrey’s _Bodleian Letters_ there is an anecdote concerning him, not -devoid of humour: - - He [Sir Kenelm Digby] married that celebrated beauty and courtesan, - Mrs. Venetia Stanley, whom Richard, Earl of Dorset, kept as his - concubine, had children by her, and settled on her an annuity of £500 - per annum; which after Sir Kenelm Digby married her was unpaid by the - Earl: Sir Kenelm Digby sued the Earl, after marriage, and recovered - it. Venetia Stanley was a most beautiful and desirable creature ... - sanguine and tractable, and of much suavity. - - In those days Richard, Earl of Dorset, lived in the greatest splendour - of any nobleman of England. - - After her marriage she [Venetia Stanley] redeemed her honour by her - strict living. Once a year the Earl of Dorset invited her and Sir - Kenelm to dinner, where the Earl would behold her with much passion, - yet only kiss her hand. - -Later on in his life a certain Lady Peneystone appears, who considerably -complicated the already difficult relations between Anne and himself. - -Anne Clifford herself, in spite of all that she had to endure at his -hands, gives a charitable account of him. - - This first lord of mine was in his own nature of a just mind, of a - sweet disposition, and very valiant in his own person. - - He was ... so great a lover of scholars and soldiers, as that with an - excessive bounty towards them, or indeed any of worth that were in - distress, he did much to diminish his estate, as also with excessive - prodigality in housekeeping, and other noble ways at court, as - tilting, masqueing, and the like, Prince Henry being then alive, who - was much addicted to these exercises, and of whom he was much beloved. - -What his wife says of his being a great lover of scholars is borne out -by his friendship with and patronage of Beaumont, Ben Jonson, Fletcher, -and Drayton. Nothing else remains to his credit. He is utterly -eclipsed—weak, vain, and prodigal—by the interest of that woman of -character, his wife, knowing so well to “discourse of all things, from -predestination to slea[2] silk,” and by the faithful picture that is her -Diary. - - - § ii - -She is living (1616) principally at Knole, sometimes in London, -sometimes making an expedition into the North to join her mother, who in -all her difficulties was her counsellor and ally. The perpetual topic of -the diary is the dispute with her husband: - - “My Coz: Russell came to me the same day, and chid me, and told me of - all my faults and errors, he made me weep bitterly, then I spoke a - prayer of Owens, and came home by water where I took an extreme Cold.” - - The Archbishop [of Canterbury] my Lord William Howard, my Lord Rous, - my Coz: Russell, my brother Sackville, and a great company of men were - all in the gallery at Dorset House, where the Archbishop took me aside - and talked with me privately one hour and half, and persuaded me both - by Divine and human means to set my hand to their arguments. But my - answer to his Lordship was that I would do nothing until my Lady [her - mother] and I had conferred together. Much persuasion was used by him - and all the company, sometimes terrifying me and sometimes flattering - me. - - Next day was a marvellous day to me, for it was generally thought that - I must either have sealed the argument or else have parted from my - Lord. - -She then starts for the North—a hazardous journey—to confer with her -mother. - - We had two coaches in our company with four horses apiece and about - twenty-six horsemen. I came to my lodgings [at Derby] with a heavy - heart considering how many things stood between my Lord and I. - - We went from the Parsons’ House near the Dangerous Moors, being eight - miles and afterwards the ways so dangerous the horses were fain to be - taken out of the coach to be lifted down the hills. This day Rivers’ - horse fell from a bridge into the river. We came to Manchester about - ten at night. - -Dorset was not above subjecting her to petty annoyances and -humiliations, for he sends messengers after her with “letters to show it -was my Lord’s pleasure that the men and horses should come away without -me, so after much falling out betwixt my Lady [her mother] and them, all -the folks went away, there being a paper drawn to show that they went -away by my Lord’s direction and contrary to my will.[3] At night I sent -two messengers to my folks to entreat them to stay. For some two nights -my mother and I lay together, and had much talk about this business.” - -In order to get back to London she has to borrow a coach from her -mother, from whom she takes a “grievous and heavy parting.” Arrived at -Knole, “I had a cold welcome from my Lord,” and a day or two later he -takes his departure for London, sending constant messengers and letters, -to know whether she will give way to his demands. “About this time,” she -sadly writes—it is April, spring at Knole, and she then aged -twenty-six—“about this time I used to rise early in the morning and go -to the Standing in the garden, and taking my prayer book with me beseech -God to be merciful to me and to help me as He always hath done.” - -Meanwhile Dorset’s threats increase in virulence: on the first of May he -sends Mr. Rivers to tell her she shall live neither at Knole nor at -Bolbrook; on the second he sends Mr. Legg to tell the servants he will -come down once more to see her, which shall be the last time; and on the -third he sends Peter Basket, his gentleman of the horse, with a letter -to say “it was his pleasure that the Child should go the next day to -London ... when I considered that it would both make my Lord more angry -with me and be worse for the Child I resolved to let her go; after I had -sent for Mr. Legg and talked with him about that and other matters I -wept bitterly.” - -On the fourth “... the Child went into the litter to go to London.” -There is no comment. It must have been a pathetic little departure. - -On the ninth she received, besides the news that her mother was -dangerously ill, “a letter from my Lord to let me know his determination -was the Child should go to live at Horsley, and not come hither any -more, so as this was a very grievous and sorrowful day to me.” An -unusual bitterness escapes from her pen: - - All this time my Lord was in London where he had all and infinite - great resort coming to him. He went much abroad to Cocking and Bowling - Alleys, to plays and horse races, and commended by all the world. I - stayed in the country, having many times a sorrowful and heavy heart, - and being condemned by most folks because I would not consent to the - agreement, so as I may truly say I am like an owl in the desert. - -And a few days later: - - My Lord came down from London, my Lord lying in Leslie Chamber and I - in my own. My Lord and I after supper had some talk, we fell out and - parted for that night. - -There was worse to come, for at the end of the month her mother died, -“which I held as the greatest and most lamentable cross that could have -befallen me,” and, mixed up with this sorrow, which is evidently -genuine, is the fear that she may be definitely dispossessed of the -inheritance of her forefathers. She found, however, that she had the -disposal of the body, “which was some contentment to my aggrieved soul.” -Her sorrows begin to lighten. Dorset, probably perceiving his bullying -to be worse than useless against a woman of her mettle, tries a -different tack: “My Lord assured me how kind and good a husband he would -be to me”; they patch up a reconciliation, and she makes over to him -certain of her Cumberland estates in default of heirs; they agree that -Mrs. Bathurst, apparently a bone of contention, should “go away from the -Child ... so that my Lord and I were never greater friends than at this -time ... and my Lord brought me down to the coach side where we had a -loving and kind parting.” He even joined her in the North, and she -records how at Appleby Castle she set up the “green velvet bed where the -same night we went to lie there,” and how “in the afternoon I wrought -stitchwork and my Lord sat and read by me.” - -She gives many particulars of how she spent her days in the North. I -fancy she was a good deal happier there, and more at home, and -consequently more lighthearted, than at Knole. At the same time she was -anxious to go back to London to rejoin Dorset, but this for some reason -he was not disposed to allow. She consoled herself with innocuous -occupations: - - This month I spent in working and reading. Mr. Dunbell read a great - part of the _History of the Netherlands_.... Upon the 1st I rose by - times in the morning and went up to the Pagan Tower to my prayers, and - saw the sun rise.... Upon the 4th I sat in the Drawing Chamber all the - day at my work.... Upon the 9th I sat at my work and heard Rivers and - Marsh read Montaigne’s _Essays_, which book they have read almost this - fortnight.... Upon the 12th I made an end of my cushion of Irish - stitch, it being my chief help to pass away the time at work.... Upon - the 21st was the first day I put on my black silk grogram gown.... - Upon the 20th I spent most of the day in playing at Tables. All this - time since my Lord went away I wore my black Taffety night-gown[4] and - a yellow Taffety waistcoat and used to rise betimes in the morning and - walk upon the leads and afterwards to hear reading. Upon the 23rd I - did string the pearls and diamonds left me by my mother into a - necklace. - -At last the summons came, and “upon the 24th Basket set out from London -to Brougham Castle to fetch me up. I bought of Mr. Cleborn who came to -see me a clock and a save-Guard [= cloak] of cloth laced with black lace -to keep me warm on my journey.” Dorset sent in the retinue to fetch her, -moreover, a cook, a baker, and a Tom Fool. - -Her arrival in London was auspicious: Dorset and a company of relatives -came out to meet her at Islington, so that there were in all ten or -eleven coaches, and when she arrived at Dorset House she found the house -“well dressed up against I came,” and the Child met her in the gallery. -Moreover, “all this time of my being at London I was much sent to and -visited by many” (the young heiress, whose matrimonial disputes had -raised so much dust at Court, was an object of interest and curiosity), -and she made friends: “My Lady Manners came in the morning to dress my -head. I had a new black wrought Taffety gown which my Lady St. John’s -tailor made. She used often to come to me, and I to her, and was very -kind one to another.” Such troubles as she had were but slight: “I dined -above in my chamber and wore my night-gown because I was not very well, -which day and yesterday I forgot that it was fish day and ate flesh at -both dinners. In the afternoon I played at Glecko[5] with my Lady Gray -and lost £27 odd money.” So far, so good. She gave a sweet-bag to the -Queen for a New Year’s gift, and was kissed by the King. She went to see -the play of the Mad Lover; she went to the Tower to see Lord and Lady -Somerset, lying there since their arraignment; she went to the Court to -see Lord Villiers created Earl of Buckingham; she ate a “scrambling -supper” and went to see the Masque on Twelfth Night. She betrays with an -unsophisticated and rather charming ingenuity her delight in these -things. But the storm scowled at her over the rim of the horizon, and -presently it broke. The first entries are like the splash of the first -big rain-drops: “We came from London to Knole; this night my Lord and I -had a falling out about the land.” Next day she has Mr. Sandy’s book -about the government of the Turks read aloud to her, but “my Lord sat -the most part of the day reading in his closet.” Next day his sulks -materialized, and he “went up to London upon the sudden, we not knowing -it till the afternoon.” - -Six days later—there are no entries in the diary to record the suspense -of these six days—she is sent for to London to see the King, a higher -test for her strength of mind, even, than the former persuasions of the -Archbishop of Canterbury. Will she capitulate at last? or will she come -out with her flag still flying? the tongues of London wagged. The -interview is best given in her own words: - - Upon the 17th when I came up, my Lord told me I must resolve to go to - the King next day. Upon the 18th being Saturday, I went presently - after dinner to the Queen to the Drawing Chamber where my Lady Derby - told the Queen how my business stood, and that I was to go to the - King, so she promised me she would do all the good in it she could. - When I had stayed but a little while there I was sent for out, my Lord - and I going through my Lord Buckingham’s chamber, who brought us into - the King, being in the Drawing Chamber. He put out all those that were - there, and my Lord and I kneeled by his chair side, when he persuaded - us both to peace and to put the whole matter wholly into his hands, - which my Lord consented to, but I beseeched His Majesty to pardon me - _for that I would never part from Westmoreland while I lived upon any - condition whatsoever_, sometimes he used fair means and persuasions - and sometimes foul means, but I was resolved before, so, as nothing - would move me, from the King we went to the Queen’s side, and brought - my Lady St. John to her lodging and so we went home. - -There is a little note at the side of this entry: “The Queen gave me -warning not to trust my matters absolutely to the King lest he should -deceive me.” - -The affair was not allowed to rest there. Two days later she was again -summoned before the King, and a sour, unedifying spectacle the majesty -of James I must have presented, thus confronted with the young obstinacy -of the heiress of Westmoreland: - - I was sent for up to the King into his Drawing Chamber, where the door - was locked and nobody suffered to stay here but my Lord and I, my - Uncle Cumberland, my Coz: Clifford, my Lords Arundel, Pembroke and - Montgomery, Sir John Digby. For lawyers there were my Lord Chief - Justice Montague, and Hobart Yelverton the King’s Solicitor, Sir - Randal Crewe that was to speak for my Lord and I. The King asked us - all if we would submit to his judgement in this case, my uncle - Cumberland, my Coz: Clifford, and my Lord answered they would, but I - would never agree to it without Westmoreland, at which the King grew - in a great chaff. My Lord of Pembroke and the King’s solicitor - speaking much against me, at last when they saw there was no remedy, - my Lord, fearing the King would do me some public disgrace, desired - Sir John Digby would open the door, who went out with me and persuaded - me much to yield to the King. Presently after my Lord came from the - King, when it was resolved that if I would not come to an agreement - there should be an agreement made without me. - -After these encounters she retired to Knole, while Dorset remained in -London, “being in extraordinary grace and favour with the King.” She, -poor thing, resumed at Knole the pitiful monotony of her country -existence, which to a mind so vigorous must have been irksome in the -extreme, and the Diary becomes again the record of her small occupations -threaded with the worry and sorrow of her dissensions with her husband. -It is illuminating that she never criticizes him; there are references -to his “worth and nobleness of disposition”; her spirit, although high -and emancipated enough to stand out against the King in the defence of -Westmoreland, could not conceive revolt against the subjection of -matrimony. It is an idea which never once enters her head. She even -writes him a letter to give him “humble thanks for his noble usage -toward me in London”; but a very little while after this “Thomas -Woodgate came from London and brought a squirrel to the Child, and my -Lord wrote me a letter by which I perceived my Lord was clean out with -me, and how much my enemies have wrought against me.” - -Conscientious as she is, she no longer finds enough events to justify a -daily entry. Perhaps—who knows? for my part I strongly suspect it—her -fighting spirit preferred even the ordeals and excitements of London to -the tedium of Knole. She has very little to tell: only the gowns she -wore, the books she read, the games she played with the steward, and the -ailments of the Child. - - At this time I wore a plain green flannel gown that William Pinn made - me and my yellow taffety waistcoat. Rivers used to read to me in - Montaigne’s _Essays_, and Moll Neville in the _Fairy Queen_. The Child - had a bitter fit of her ague again insomuch I was fearful of her that - I could hardly sleep all night and I beseeched God Almighty to be - merciful and spare her life. - -This ague of the Child’s is a constant preoccupation. I suppose that it -was a kind of convulsion, for which the cure was a “salt powder to put -in her beer.” On certain days a return of it appears to have been -confidently expected, for I find: “upon the 4th should have been the -Child’s fit, but she missed it,” and two days later she has “a grudging -of her ague.” There is a good deal about the Child—never referred to -under any other designation until she attains her 5th birthday, after -which she is promoted to “my Lady Margaret.” The portrait of her which -is here reproduced hangs over the fireplace in Lady Betty Germaine’s -sitting-room; her ring dangles on a ribbon round her neck, and her hair -is done in an elaborate manner which defied all my efforts, when I was -the same age, to do my own in the same way. - -She was an amusement and a consolation, as well as a source of anxiety, -to her mother. Her garments are carefully noted: - - The 28th was the first time the Child put on a pair of whalebone - bodice.... The Child put on her red bays coat.... I cut the Child’s - strings from off her coats and made her use togs alone, so as she had - two or three falls at first but had no hurt with them.... The Child - put on her first coats that were laced, with lace being of red - bays.... I began to dress my head with a roll without a wire. I wrote - not to my Lord because he wrote not to me since he went away. After - supper I went out with the child who rode a pie-bald nag. The 14th, - the Child came to lie with me which was the first time that ever she - lay all night in a bed with me since she was born; - -and another time she speaks of “the time being very tedious with me, as -having neither comfort nor company, only the Child.” - -For the rest, she was thrown back upon her own resources. Dorset came -and went, and in between whiles there are small, vivid pictures of -existence at Knole: - -[Illustration: - - LADY MARGARET SACKVILLE - - DAUGHTER OF RICHARD SACKVILLE, 3RD EARL OF DORSET, AND LADY ANNE - CLIFFORD - - “THE CHILD” - - _From the portrait at Knole by_ MYTENS -] - - After supper I walked in the garden and gathered cherries, and talked - with Josiah [the French page] who told me he thought all the men in - the house loved me. - -And again: - - About this time [April 1617] my Lord made the steward alter most of - the rooms in the house and dress them up as fine as he could and - determined to make all his old clothes in purple stuff for the Gallery - and Drawing Chamber. - - _March 1617. 5th._ Couch puppied in the morning. - - _8th._ I made an end of reading _Exodus_. After supper I played at - Glecko with the steward as I often do after dinner and supper. - - _9th._ I went abroad in the garden and said my prayers in the - standing. - - _10th._ I was not well at night, so I ate a posset and went to bed. - - _11th._ The time grew tedious, so as I used to go to bed about 8 - o’clock I did lie a-bed till 8 the next morning. - - _14th._ I made an end of my Irish stitch cushion. - - _15th._ My Lord came down to Buckhurst. This day I put on my mourning - grogram gown and intend to wear it till my mourning time is out, - because I was found fault with for wearing such ill clothes. - - _22nd._ I began a new Irish stitch cushion. - - _24th._ We made Rosemary cakes. - -Two days later Dorset arrived from Buckhurst, and they walked together -in the park and the garden. “I wrought much within doors and strived to -sit as merry a face as I could upon a discontented heart”; but in spite -of this entry they seem to have remained on fairly friendly terms until -Easter. - - _30th._ I spent in walking and sitting in the park, having my mind - more contented than it was before my Lord came from Buckhurst. - - _5th April._ My Lord went up to my closet and said how little money I - had left contrary to all they had told him, sometimes I had fair words - from him and sometimes foul, but I took all patiently, and did strive - to give him as much content and assurance of my love as I could - possibly, yet _I told him I would never part with Westmoreland_. After - supper, because my Lord was sullen and not willing to go into the - nursery, I had Mary bring the Child to him in my chamber. - - _7th._ My Lord lay in my chamber. - - _13th._ My Lord supped privately with me in the Drawing Chamber, and - had much discourse of the manners of the folks at court. - - By the _17th_, My Lord told me he was resolved never to move me more - in these business because he saw how fully I was bent; - -but evidently he did not stick to this good resolution, because, on -April 20th, Easter-day, “My Lord and I had a great falling-out,” and a -few days later, “This night my Lord should have lain with me, but he and -I fell out about matters.” - -By the next day, however, they were friends again; they played at Burley -Break upon the lawn; and “this night my Lord came to lie in my chamber.” -The next day, too, was spent in peace, and she “spent the evening in -working and going down to my Lord’s closet, where I sat and read much in -the Turkish history, and Chaucer.” - -So it goes on. It becomes, perhaps, a little monotonous, save that it is -always so human, and so modern. One sympathizes with her in her -weaknesses even more than in her defiance; when, for instance, she -writes amicable letters to all her relations-in-law, sending them locks -of the Child’s hair, being “desirous to win the love of my Lord’s -kindred by all the fair means I could,” in reality stealing a march upon -Dorset in order to get them on her side. One day she chronicles, “This -night I went into a bath,” but whether this event was of such rarity as -to deserve special mention is not explained. At Whitsuntide they all -went to church, but “my eyes were so blubbered with weeping that I could -scarce look up,” and in the afternoon of the same day they again “fell -out.” But she consoles herself with new clothes—or was that an -additional penance? for she was never given to personal vanity—“I -essayed on my sea-water green satin gown and my damask embroidered with -gold, both which gowns the tailor which was sent from London made fit -for me to wear with open ruffs after the French fashion.” Little -peace-offerings came from time to time from Dorset; on one occasion he -sends “half a buck, with an indifferent kind letter,” and on another -occasion “My Lord sent Adam to trim the Child’s hair, and sent me the -dewselts of two deer and wrote me a letter between kindness and -unkindness.” “Still working and being extremely melancholy” is the entry -of one summer day, and a day later, “Still working and sad.” A little -after this she “rode on horseback to Withyham to see my Lord Treasurer’s -tomb, and went down into the vault, and came home again [to Knole] -weeping the most part of the day.” This is perhaps not very surprising. -I have been down into that vault myself, and it is not a cheerful -expedition. In a small, dark cave underground, beneath the church, among -grey veils of cobwebs, the coffins of the Sackvilles are stacked on -shelves; they go back to the fourteenth century, and are of all sizes, -from full-grown men down to the tiny ones lapped in lead. But, of -course, when Anne Clifford went there there were not so many as there -are now; the pompous ones were not yet in their places, with their rusty -coronets, save those of the old Treasurer and his son; and their blood -did not run in the veins of Lady Anne, so on the whole she had less -reason to be impressed than I. - -The Diary continues in very much the same strain until it comes to an -end with December 1619, the year 1618 being entirely missed out. By that -time both Dorset and Anne were in bad health; but whereas he was to die -five years later, at the age of thirty-five, she, made of tougher stuff, -was to survive him by fifty-two years. His last letter to her, written -to her on the very day of his death, shows all the affection which was -so undermined by that question of her lands: - - _26th March, 1624._ - - Sweet Heart, - - I thank you for your letter. I had resolved to come down to Knole, and - to have received the Blessed Sacrament, but God hath prevented it with - sickness, for on Wednesday night I fell into a fit of casting, which - held me long, then last night I had a fit of fever. I have for my - physician Dr. Baskerville and Dr. Fox. I thank God I am now at good - ease, having rested well this morning. I would not have you trouble - yourself till I have occasion to send for you. You shall in the - meantime hear daily from me. So, with my love to you, and God’s - blessing and mine to both my children, I commend you to God’s - protection. - - Your assured loving husband - RICHARD DORSET. - -“His debts,” says one Chamberlain, writing to Sir Dudley Carleton, “are -£60,000, so that he does not leave much.” In his will he bequeaths to -his “dearly beloved wife all her wearing apparel and such rings and -jewels as were hers on her marriage, and the rock ruby ring which I have -given her,” also “my carriage made by Mefflyn, lined with green cloth -and laced with green and black silk lace, and my six bay coach -geldings.” - -[Illustration: - - THE VENETIAN AMBASSADOR’S BEDROOM -] - - - § iii - -Her portraits change as her years advance, and the lines of -determination harden about her mouth. Her true life—the life for which -she was most truly fitted—only began after she had passed her fiftieth -year, when with the death of her kinsman Lord Cumberland the northern -estates passed calmly and naturally into her hands at last. All the -quarrels and litigation and anxiety of her youth were left behind her; -she had buried Lord Dorset; she had buried Lord Pembroke after a second -marriage as disastrous and as contentious as the first; she had borne -Sackville children and Herbert children; she had been long-suffering -though adamant, submissive though immovable; she had moped in the -sumptuous prisons that were Knole and Wilton; now she was free to turn -tyrant herself over her own undisputed realm. She wasted nothing of the -opportunity. Away from London, away from the influence of the Court, -entrenched in her numerous castles in the North, she ruled -autocratically over her servants, her tenants, her neighbours, and the -generations and ramifications of her family. No detail of comings and -goings, no penny of expenditure escaped her vigilant eye or her -recording pen; and her diary, that document of intimacy, autocracy, -piety, and exactitude, carries its entries down to the very day before -her death. With public or political events she scarcely ever concerned -herself, but on the other hand no detail of her own private life or of -the existence of those around her was too small to excite her comment. -Whether her laundry-maids went to church, whether she pared her finger -and toe nails, whether her dog puppied, whether she received letters, -whether she washed her feet and legs (this is on the 22nd of February, -the last occasion being on the 13th of December preceding), whether she -kissed the sempstress—all is noted with the same precision and gravity. -No anniversary or coincidence is allowed to pass unobserved. That -amazing memory extended back over threescore years; and, moreover, she -had the immense volumes of her notebooks for reference, date for date. -Her past was ever present to her, the agreeable and the disagreeable -merged into one landscape of consonant tone, and whether she observes -that this day sixty years ago she travelled with her blessed mother, or -fell out with Dorset, it is with the same complacency and satisfaction -at having the tiny anniversary to record. This vigorous mind was not, -perhaps, planned on a very broad scale. It was self-centred and -self-sufficient; severe but not reckless; no fine carelessness endears -her to us, or surprises; even her acts of generosity, and they were -numerous, are recorded with the same scrupulous accuracy. She could not -give two shillings to a child without setting it down. Her generosity, -like all her other acts, was methodical; she rewarded her servants for -definite services with extra wages; she kept ready to hand a supply of -little presents, because it was contrary to her ideas of hospitality -that any visitor, however humble, should go away empty-handed, and was -careful to consider what particular gift would be most acceptable to the -recipient, frequently choosing something of practical utility, such as -gloves or lengths of cloth for women, money or ruffles for men; and -these idiosyncracies run true all through her character, for, -conversely, although she was prepared to be generous in her treatment of -others, she was equally determined that she herself should be fairly -treated by them, and frequent are the entries in her diary to this -effect: “In the morning did I see Mr. Robert Willison of Penrith paid -for a rundlet of sack, but I was very angry with him because I thought -it too dear, and told him I would have no more of him, and then he -slipped away from me in a good hurry.” She would always pay cash too, -and bullied her special almswomen, whom she would not allow to ask for -credit with the tradesmen of Appleby. - -Her rights were her rights, and she had always had a great idea of them. -One recognizes the spirit that told the King she “_would never be parted -from Westmoreland_,” in the old litigant that went unhesitatingly and -repeatedly to law over niceties connected with small portions of her -estates, content to spend large sums of money in lawyers’ fees if only -she could succeed—as she invariably did—in proving her point. There is -one story which illustrates both her tenacity and her humour—the story -of a certain tenant whose rent included a hen due yearly to the lady of -the manor. This tribute he neglected to hand over. Lady Anne instantly -had the law on him, spent £400 in enforcing her claim, won her case, -received the hen, invited her defeated opponent to dinner with her, and -caused the bird to be cooked for them both as the staple dish of the -meal. - -So the tranquil and crowded years spun themselves out for her, and she -grew to be an old woman and a contented one, for she had attained at -last the existence and occupations best suited to her. Her life was -full: the things which filled it were small things, perhaps, but if they -satisfied her who should cavil? Her journeyings alone occupied much of -her time: those extraordinary progresses from castle to castle, she -herself travelling in her horse-litter, her ladies in the coach-and-six, -her menservants on horseback, her women in other coaches, and a rabble -of small fry following, so that the miniature army which accompanied her -amounted sometimes to as many as three hundred. Often this retinue would -include members of her family, or some of her neighbours; they travelled -over the moors of the North, by rough roads, “uncouth and untrodden, -those mountainous and almost impassable ways,” stopping on the way in -those highland villages which had not yet been honoured by a visit from -the great old lady or received her bounty, and, coming at the end of the -journey to Brougham, to Brough, to Barden, to Skipton, to Pendragon, or -to Appleby, Lady Anne would receive her dependants one by one in her own -chamber, give her hand to the men, kiss the women, and dismiss them -again to their own homes. Her health was no longer very good, but that -was never allowed to deter her from her plans: her courage and vigour -triumphed always over the treacherous flesh, greatly to the concern of -those about her. On one occasion, travelling from Appleby to Brougham, -she was delayed at the start by a “swounding fit,” when she had to be -carried to a bed and laid there near a “great fire”; much persuasion was -used that she “would not travel on so sharp and cold a day, but she, -having before fixed on that day, and so much company being come -purposely to wait on her, she would go.” As she reached her litter, -however, she fainted again, “Yet as soon as that fit was over she went.” -Arrived at Brougham she fainted for the third time, but on being -upbraided by her friends and servants for her stubbornness in making the -journey, she replied that she knew she must die, and it was the same -thing to her to die on the way as in her house, in her litter or in her -bed, and furthermore would not acknowledge any necessity why she should -live, but saw every necessity for keeping to her resolution. “If she -will, she will, you may depend on’t,” they said of her, “if she won’t, -she won’t, and there’s an end on’t.” - -Now that there was no one to reproach her, as Dorset had been accustomed -to reproach her, for her lack of finery and absence of proper vanity, -she dressed always in rough black serge, she shaved her head, her fare -was of the plainest, and her personal economy was pushed to the length -of such small eccentricities as using up every stray scrap of paper for -her correspondence. One luxury, indeed, she permitted herself: she -smoked a pipe. Into all the details of her household she looked with a -careful eye; already in the days when she was living at Knole she had -used up Richard Dorset’s old shirts to make clouts, now at Appleby she -saw to the preserving of fruit, she had her cheeses made at Brougham, -sixteen at a time, she got her coal from her own pits, she had all -delinquents into her own room and scolded them till they were probably -thankful to be dismissed. At the same time she never forgot those that -had served her faithfully; she would send her own coach to bring some -old retainer to visit her; the marriages, morals, and vicissitudes of -her meanest servant were a matter of interest to her; their marriage -portions she made her own affair. Besides her servants, her own family -gave her much food for thought and preoccupation: it is true that of her -seven children only two—her two Sackville daughters—had lived to grow -up, but they by now had produced a cohort of grandchildren, whose visits -to Lady Anne were a source of infinite pleasure to the old lady. It is, -altogether, a pleasant and seemly end to such a life. She had attained -the great age of eighty-six; her diary was filled with religious -references; she never dwelt upon her death, but it is clear that she can -never for one moment have dreaded it. She had lived up consistently to -her principles and to her motto: “Preserve your loyalty, defend your -rights,” and was ready to go whenever the call should come. “I went not -out all this day,” is the last entry in her diary, and the next day -(22nd of March 1676), there is an entry in another hand, “The 22nd day -the Countess died.” - - - A Catalogue - -_of the Household, and Family of the Right Honourable_ RICHARD, EARL -_of_ DORSET, _in the year of our Lord 1613; and so continued until the -year 1624, at Knole, in Kent_. - - - _At_ MY LORD’S TABLE - - My Lord - My Lady - My Lady Margaret - My Lady Isabella - Mr. Sackville - Mr. Frost - John Musgrave - Thomas Garret - - - _At_ THE PARLOUR TABLE - - Mrs. Field - Mrs. Willoughby - Mrs. Grimsditch - Mrs. Stewkly - Mrs. Fletcher - Mrs. Wood - Mr. Dupper, _Chaplain_ - Mr. Matthew Caldicott, _my Lord’s favourite_ - Mr. Edward Legge, _Steward_ - Mr. Peter Basket, _Gentleman of the Horse_ - Mr. Marsh, _Attendant on my Lady_ - Mr. Wooldridge - Mr. Cheyney - Mr. Duck, _Page_ - Mr. Josiah Cooper, _a Frenchman, Page_ - Mr. John Belgrave, _Page_ - Mr. Billingsley - Mr. Graverner, _Gentleman Usher_ - Mr. Marshall, _Auditor_ - Mr. Edwards, _Secretary_ - Mr. Drake, _Attendant_ - - - _At_ THE CLERKS’ TABLE IN THE HALL - - Edward Fulks and John Edwards, _Clerks of the Kitchen_ - Edward Care, _Master Cook_ - William Smith, _Yeoman of the Buttery_ - Henry Keble, _Yeoman of the Pantry_ - John Mitchell, _Pastryman_ - Thomas Vinson, _Cook_ - John Elnor, _Cook_ - Ralph Hussie, _Cook_ - John Avery, _Usher of the Hall_ - Robert Elnor, _Slaughterman_ - Benjamin Staples, _Groom of the Great Chamber_ - Thomas Petley, _Brewer_ - William Turner, _Baker_ - Francis Steeling, _Gardener_ - Richard Wicking, Gardener - Thomas Clements, _Under Brewer_ - Samuel Vans, _Caterer_ - Edward Small, _Groom of the Wardrobe_ - Samuel Southern, _Under Baker_ - Lowry, _a French boy_ - - - THE NURSERY - - Nurse Carpenter - Widow Ben - Jane Sisley - Dorothy Pickenden - - - _At_ THE LONG TABLE IN THE HALL - - Robert Care, _Attendant on my Lord_ - Mr. Gray, _Attendant likewise_ - Mr. Roger Cook, _Attendant on my Lady Margaret_ - Mr. Adam Bradford, _Barber_ - Mr. John Guy, _Groom of my Lord’s Bedchamber_ - Walter Comestone, _Attendant on my Lady_ - Edward Lane, _Scrivener_ - Mr. Thomas Poor, _Yeoman of the Wardrobe_ - Mr. Thomas Leonard, _Master Huntsman_ - Mr. Woodgate, _Yeoman of the Great Chamber_ - John Hall, _Falconer_ - James Flennel, _Yeoman of the Granary_ - Rawlinson, _Armourer_ - Moses Shonk, _Coachman_ - Anthony Ashly, _Groom of the Great Horse_ - Griffin Edwards, _Groom of my Lady’s Horse_ - Francis Turner, _Groom of the Great Horse_ - William Grynes, _Groom of the Great Horse_ - Acton Curvett, _Chief Footman_ - James Loveall, _Footman_ - Sampson Ashley, _Footman_ - William Petley, _Footman_ - Nicholas James, _Footman_ - Paschal Beard, _Footman_ - Elias Thomas, _Footman_ - Henry Spencer, _Farrier_ - Edward Goodsall - John Sant, _the Steward’s Man_ - Ralph Wise, _Groom of the Stables_ - Thomas Petley, _Under Farrier_ - John Stephens, _the Chaplain’s Man_ - John Haite, _Groom for the Stranger’s Horse_ - Thomas Giles, _Groom of the Stables_ - Richard Thomas, _Groom of the Hall_ - Christopher Wood, _Groom of the Pantry_ - George Owen, _Huntsman_ - George Vigeon, _Huntsman_ - Thomas Grittan, _Groom of the Buttery_ - Solomon, _the Bird-Catcher_ - Richard Thornton, _the Coachman’s Man_ - Richard Pickenden, _Postillion_ - William Roberts, _Groom_ - The Armourer’s Man - Ralph Wise, _his Servant_ - John Swift, _the Porter’s Man_ - John Atkins, _Men to carry wood_ - Clement Doory, _Men to carry wood_ - - - THE LAUNDRY-MAIDS’ TABLE - - Mrs. Judith Simpton - Mrs. Grace Simpton - Penelope Tutty, _the Lady Margaret’s Maid_ - Anne Mills, _Dairy-Maid_ - Prudence Bucher - Anne Howse - Faith Husband - Elinor Thompson - Goodwife Burton - Grace Robinson, _a Blackamoor_ - Goodwife Small - William Lewis, _Porter_ - - - KITCHEN AND SCULLERY - - Diggory Dyer - Marfidy Snipt - John Watson - Thomas Harman - Thomas Johnson - John Morockoe, _a Blackamoor_ - - - - - CHAPTER V - Knole in the Reign of Charles I - EDWARD SACKVILLE - 4th - Earl _of_ Dorset - - - § i - -The wreckage of Richard’s estates devolved at his death upon his brother -Edward, who at that time was travelling in Italy. This Edward Sackville -was once to me the embodiment of Cavalier romance. At the age of -thirteen I wrote an enormous novel about him and his two sons. He had -the advantage of starting with Vandyck’s portrait in the hall, the -flame-coloured doublet, the blue Garter, the characteristic swaggering -attitude, the sword, the lovelocks, the key of office painted dangling -from his hip and the actual key dangling on a ribbon from the frame of -the picture—and then the account of his duel with Lord Bruce, his -devotion to Charles I, the plundering raid of Cromwell’s soldiers into -Knole, the murder of his younger son by the Roundheads, the picture of -the two boys throwing dice—all this was a source of rich romance to a -youthful imagination nourished on _Cyrano_ and _The Three Musketeers_. I -used to steal up to the attics to examine the old nail-studded trunks -from which the Roundheads had broken off the locks. There they were—the -visible evidence of the old paper in the Muniment Room, which said, -“They have broken open six trunks; in one of them was money; what is -lost of it we know not, in regard the keeper of it is from home.” There -they were, carelessly stacked: on one of them was stabbed the date in -big nails, 1623; and there were others, curved to fit the roof of a -barouche; of later date these, but all intimate and palpitating to a -very ignorant child to whom the centuries meant Thomas or Richard or -Edward Sackville; Holbein, Vandyck or Reynolds; farthingale chairs or -love-seats. What were dates when the centuries went by generations? The -battered trunks were stacked near the entrance to the hiding-place, -which, without the smallest justification save an old candlestick and a -rope-ladder found therein, I peopled with the fugitive figures of -priests and Royalists. I peeped into the trunks: they contained only a -dusty jumble of broken ironwork, some old books, some bits of hairy -plaster fallen from the ceiling, some numbers of _Punch_ for 1850. -Nevertheless, there were the gaping holes where the locks had been -prised off the trunks, and the lid forced back upon the hinges by an -impatient hand. Down in the Poets’ Parlour, where I lunched with my -grandfather, taciturn unless he happened to crack one of his little -stock-in-trade of jokes, Cromwell’s soldiers had held their Court of -Sequestration. The Guard Room was empty of arms or armour, save for a -few pikes and halberds, because Cromwell’s soldiers had taken all the -armour away. The past mingled with the present in constant reminder; and -out in the summer-house, after luncheon, with the bees blundering among -the flowers of the Sunk Garden and the dragon-flies flashing over the -pond, I returned to the immense ledger in which I was writing my novel, -while Grandpapa retired to his little sitting-room and whittled -paper-knives from the lids of cigar-boxes, and thought about—Heaven -knows what _he_ thought about. - -Edward Sackville in the big Vandyck was indeed a handsome, rubicund -figure, “beautiful, graceful, and vigorous ... the vices he had were of -the age, which he was not stubborn enough to resist or to condemn.” What -these vices were I do not know; the records of his life make no allusion -to them. It is true that the cause of his duel remains a mystery; Lord -Clarendon knew it, but beyond mentioning that it was fought on account -of a lady, kept his own counsel. It is true also that his sister-in-law, -Lady Anne Clifford, disliked him greatly and spoke of the malice he had -always shown towards her; but then amicable relationship with Lady Anne -was not easily sustained. On the face of it, his life seems to have been -loyal and honourable: he suffered considerably for the sake of the cause -he had at heart, and his few speeches and letters are full of reserve -and dignity, supported by the facts of his own misfortunes; I do not see -what more he could have done to deserve the adjective staunch. To me at -thirteen he was very staunch and doughty, and one does not willingly go -back on one’s first impressions. His wife, too, in the pointed -stomacher, and the shoes with huge rosettes, governess to the royal -children, voted a public funeral in Westminster Abbey, was another -staunch figure: severe, uncompromising, but impeccable. - -The duel with Lord Bruce was fought when Edward Sackville was -twenty-three years old, at Bergen-op-Zoom in Holland, which so late as -1814 still went by the name of Bruceland. In the Knole Muniment room a -paper cover was found upon which was written “The relation of my Lord’s -duel with the Lord Bruce,” and the following are in all probability the -papers originally contained therein. The “Worthy sir” to whom the letter -is addressed remains anonymous, but was evidently some friend in -England: - -[Illustration: - - EDWARD SACKVILLE, 4TH EARL OF DORSET, K.G. - - _From the portrait at Knole by_ VANDYCK -] - - WORTHY SIR, - - As I am not ignorant, so I ought to be sensible of the false - aspersions some authorless tongues have laid upon me in the reports of - the unfortunate passage lately happened between the Lord Bruce and - myself, which, as they are spread here, so I may justly fear they - reign also where you are. There are but two ways to resolve doubts of - this nature, by oath and by sword. - - The first is due to magistrates, and communicable to friends; the - other to such as maliciously slander, and impudently defend their - assertions. Your love, not my merit, assures me you hold me your - friend; which esteem I am much desirous to retain. Do me, therefore, - the right to understand the truth of that; and, in my behalf, inform - others, who either are or may be infected with sinister rumours, much - prejudicial to that fair opinion I desire to hold amongst all worthy - persons; and, on the faith of a gentleman, the relation I shall give - is neither more nor less than the bare truth. The enclosed contains - the first citation sent me from Paris by a Scottish gentleman, who - delivered it me in Derbyshire, at my father-in-law’s house. After it - follows my then answer, returned him by the same bearer. The next is - my accomplishment of my first promise, being a particular assignation - of place and weapon, which I sent by a servant of mine, by post, from - Rotterdam, as soon as I landed there, the receipt of which, joined - with an acknowledgement of my fair carriage to the deceased Lord, is - testified by the last, which periods the business till we met at - Tergose, in Zealand, it being the place allotted for rendezvous; where - he [accompanied with one Mr. Crawford, an English gentleman, for his - second, a surgeon, and his man] arrived with all the speed he could. - And there having rendered himself, I addressed my second, Sir John - Heydon, to let him understand that now all following should be done by - consent, as concerning the terms whereon we should fight, as also the - place. To our seconds we gave power for their appointments, who agreed - that we should go to Antwerp, from thence to Bergen-op-Zoom, where in - the midway a village divides the States’ territories from the - Archduke’s; and there was the destined stage, to the end, that, having - ended, he that could might presently exempt himself from the justice - of the country, by retiring into the dominion not offended. It was - further concluded, that in case any should fall or slip, that then the - combat should cease; and he, whose ill fortune had so subjected him, - was to acknowledge his life to have been in the other’s hands. But in - case one party’s sword should break, because that could only chance by - hazard, it was agreed that the other should take no advantage, but - either then be made friends, or else, upon even terms, go to it again. - Thus these conclusions, being by each of them related to his party, - were, by us, both approved and assented to. Accordingly we embarked - for Antwerp; and by reason my Lord [as I conceive, because he could - not handsomely without danger of discovery] had not paired the sword I - sent him to Paris, bringing one of the same length, but twice as - broad, my second excepted against it, and advised me to match my own, - and send him the choice; which I obeyed, it being, you know, the - challenger’s privilege to elect his weapon. At the delivery of the - swords, which was performed by Sir John Heydon, it pleased the Lord - Bruce to choose my own; and then, past expectation, he told him that - he found himself so far behind-hand, as a little of my blood would not - serve his turn; and therefore he was now resolved to have me alone, - because he knew [for I will use his own words] that so worthy a - gentleman, and my friend, could not endure to stand by, and see him do - that which he must, to satisfy himself and his honour. Thereunto Sir - John Heydon replied, that such intentions were bloody and butcherly, - far unfitting so noble a personage, who should desire to bleed for - reputation, not for life; withal adding, he thought himself injured, - being come thus far, now to be prohibited from executing those - honourable offices he came for. The Lord Bruce, for answer, only - reiterated his former resolution; the which, not for matter, but for - manner, so moved me, as though to my remembrance I had not for a long - while eaten more liberally than at dinner; and therefore, unfit for - such an action [seeing the surgeons hold a wound upon a full stomach - much more dangerous than otherwise], I requested my second to certify - him I would presently decide the difference, and should therefore meet - him, on horseback, only waited on by our surgeons, they being unarmed. - Together we rode [but one before the other some twelve score] about - two English miles; and then Passion, having so weak an enemy to assail - as my direction, easily became victor; and, using his power, made me - obedient to his commands. I being very mad with anger the Lord Bruce - should thirst after my life with a kind of assuredness, seeing I had - come so far and needlessly to give him leave to regain his lost - reputation, I bade him alight, which with all willingness he quickly - granted; and there, in a meadow [ankle-deep in the water at least], - bidding farewell to our doublets, in our shirts we began to charge - each other, having afore commanded our surgeons to withdraw themselves - a pretty distance from us; conjuring them besides, as they respected - our favour or their own safeties, not to stir, but suffer us to - execute our pleasure; we being fully resolved [God forgive us] to - despatch each other by what means we could. I made a thrust at my - enemy, but was short; and, in drawing back my arm, I received a great - wound thereon, which I interpreted as a reward for my short shooting; - but, in revenge, I pressed in to him, though I then missed him also; - and then received a wound in my right pap, which passed level through - my body, and almost to my back; and there we wrestled for the two - greatest and dearest prizes we could ever expect, trial for honour and - life; in which struggling, my hand, having but an ordinary glove on - it, lost one of her servants, though the meanest, which hung by a - skin, and, to sight, yet remaineth as before, and I am put in hope one - day to recover the use of it again. But at last breathless, yet - keeping our holds, there passed on both sides propositions for - quitting each other’s sword. But, when Amity was dead, Confidence - could not live, and who should quit first was the question, which on - neither part either would perform; and, re-striving again afresh, with - a kick and a wrench together I freed my long-captive weapon, which - incontinently levying at his throat, being master still of his, I - demanded if he would ask his life or yield his sword? Both which, - though in that imminent danger, he bravely denied to do. Myself being - wounded, and feeling loss of blood, having three conduits running on - me, began to make me faint; and he courageously persisting not to - accord to either of my propositions, remembrance of his former bloody - desire, and feeling of my present estate, I struck at his heart; but, - with his avoiding, missed my aim, yet passed through his body, and, - drawing back my sword, repassed it through again through another - place, when he cried, “Oh, I am slain!” seconding his speech with all - the force he had to cast me. But being too weak, after I had defended - his assault, I easily became master of him, laying him on his back; - when being upon him, I redemanded if he would request his life? But it - seems he prized it not at so dear a rate to be beholden for it, - bravely replying “He scorned it!” which answer of his was so noble and - worthy, as I protest I could not find in my heart to offer him any - more violence, only keeping him down, till, at length, his surgeon - afar off cried out, “He would immediately die if his wounds were not - stopped!” whereupon I asked, “if he desired his surgeon should come?” - which he accepted of; and so being drawn away, I never offered to take - his sword, accounting it inhumane to rob a dead man, for so I held him - to be. This thus ended, I retired to my surgeon, in whose arms, after - I had remained awhile for want of blood, I lost my sight, and withal, - as I then thought, my life also. But strong water and his diligence - quickly recovered me; when I escaped a great danger, for my Lord’s - surgeon, when nobody dreamt of it, came full at me with his Lord’s - sword; and had not mine with my sword interposed himself, I had been - slain by those base hands, although my Lord Bruce, weltering in his - blood, and past all expectation of life, conformable to all his former - carriage, which was undoubtedly noble, cried out “Rascal, hold thy - hand!” So may I prosper, as I have dealt sincerely with you in this - relation, which I pray you, with the enclosed letter, deliver to my - Lord Chamberlain. And so, etc., - - Yours, - EDWARD SACKVILLE. - - LOVAIN, the _8th September, 1613_ - -The citations or letters mentioned above to be enclosed in this account -of Mr. Sackville are as follows: - - _A Monsieur, Monsieur_ SACKVILLE - - I, that am in France, hear how much you attribute to yourself in this - time, that I have given the world to ring your praises; and for me the - truest almanach to tell you how much I suffer. If you call to memory - when, as I gave you my hand last, I told you I reserved the heart for - a truer reconciliation, now be that noble gentleman my love once - spoke, and come do him right that would recite the trials you owe your - birth and country, where I am confident your honour gives you the same - courage to do me right that it did to do me wrong. Be master of your - weapons and time; the place wheresoever I wait on you. By doing this - you shall shorten revenge, and clear the idle opinion the world hath - of both our worths. - - ED. BRUCE. - - _A Monsieur, Monsieur Baron de_ KINLOSS - - As it shall be far from me to seek a quarrel, so will I also be ready - to meet with any that is desirous to make trial of my valour, by so - fair a course as you require; a witness whereof yourself shall be, - who, within a month, shall receive a strict account of time, place and - weapon, where you shall find me ready disposed to give honourable - satisfaction by him that shall conduct you thither. In the meantime be - as secret of the appointment as it seems you are desirous of it. - - ED. SACKVILLE. - - _A Monsieur, Monsieur Baron de_ KINLOSS - - I am at Torgose, a town in Zealand, to give what satisfaction your - sword can render you, accompanied with a worthy gentleman for my - second, in degree a Knight; and for your coming I will not limit you a - peremptory day, but desire you to make a definite and speedy repair, - for your own honour and fear of prevention, at which time you shall - find me there. - - ED. SACKVILLE. - - TORGOSE, _10th August, 1613_ - - _A Monsieur, Monsieur_ SACKVILLE - - I have received your letter by your man, and acknowledge you have - dealt nobly with me, and I come with all possible haste to meet you. - - E. BRUCE. - - - § ii - -Between this affair and the date of his succession to his brother -Richard, Edward Sackville was employed on various missions: he sat in -the House of Commons, he was twice sent as ambassador to Louis XIII, and -he travelled in France and Italy. He was thus, when he succeeded, an -experienced man of thirty-four, and he pursued, uninterruptedly, the -sober path of office, now Lord Chamberlain, now Lord Privy Seal, now a -Commissioner for planting Virginia, always in the confidence of the -King, and his name affixed to State documents of the day in noble -company. The disgraces and follies of his predecessors and of his -descendants were not his lot, if that murderous duel is to be excepted. -My flaming Cavalier, _flamberge au vent_, was in reality a sober and -consistent gentleman; loyal, but not impetuous; prejudiced, but not -blinded; devoted, but not afraid to speak his mind in criticism; and in -support of this claim I shall presently quote from one of his speeches -in which he argues against a continuance of the Civil War and pleads for -a prompt reconciliation between the King and his Parliament. His -judgment is acute, and his attitude remarkably sound and broad-minded. -Yet at the same time his devotion to the King was such, that after -Charles’ execution Lord Dorset never passed beyond the threshold of his -own door. - -There are a few papers at Knole relating to the years before the war -began, and from them one may gather some idea of the then manner of -life, always remembering that Lord Dorset was much impoverished by the -extravagance of his brother. The total income for the year 1628 from -Knole and Sevenoaks was £100 18_s._ 6_d._—a fifth part of which was -derived from the sale of rabbits. Some details of expenses are given in -the account-books, besides those which I have already given in -connection with the park in the second chapter: - - _Money spent on the pale in Knole Park for one year_ (£8 9_s._ 6_d._) - _as follows_: - - £ _s._ _d._ - For filling, cleaning, and making six loads of pale - rails, posts, and shores, two men 0 8 0 - - Setting up panels of pales, blown down by the wind - against Riverhill, 10_d._ day each man 0 5 0 - - Paid a labourer for spreading the mole hills in the - meads and for killing moles 0 4 3 - -The steward of Sevenoaks was paid ten shillings a year, the bailiff of -Sevenoaks £10, the steward of Seal £2 10_s._, the bailiff of Seal £4. - - £ _s._ _d._ - Four hundred nails for the pales 0 2 0 - - Paid for setting up pales at mock-beech gate 0 0 8 - - Paid toward repairing the market cross in - Sevenoaks 6 8 4 - -Portions of the park, such as were not already under cultivation of -hops, were leased out to farmers for grazing: - - £ _s._ _d._ - _The joistment[6] of Knole Park, May 1629._ - - Of William Bloom for 3 yearlings 1 0 0 - - Of George Dennis for keeping 20 runts[7] 0 13 4 - - Of Richard Wicking for his kines’ pasture 0 13 0 - - Of Richard Fletcher for summering 2 colts 0 16 0 - -There were other sources of revenue. Letters patent granted an -imposition of 4_s._ per chaldron on all coal exported, to be divided -among the Earl of Dorset, the Earl of Holland, and Sir Job Harby: - - COAL IMPOSITIONS - - £ _s._ _d._ - 6th May, 1634 4312 13 0 - Deduction for expenses 507 11 4 - Rest to be divided into thirds 3805 1 8 - -That is to say, Dorset’s share would be £1268 7_s._ 8_d._, or more than -£10,000 of modern money. - -He obtained also £100 a year by devising to Richard Gunnel and William -Blagrave for four and a half years a piece of land at the lower end of -Salisbury Court, Fleet Street, 140 feet in length and 42 feet in -breadth, on condition that they should at their own expense put up a -play-house. What would be the rent of such a piece of land now in Fleet -Street? Certainly not £100. - -In spite of the fact that he complained constantly of his reduced -income, Lord Dorset added considerably to the park. He obtained a long -lease of Seal Chart, and “all woods and under-woods of the waste or -common of the Manors of Seal and Kemsing, viz., upon Rumshott Common, -Riverhill Common, Hubbard Hill Common, and Westwood Common ... in all at -least 500 acres.” - -More entertaining is the acquisition of an overseas estate—no less than -that part of the east coast of America which to-day includes New York, -Boston, and Philadelphia. Those little manors in the neighbourhood of -Sevenoaks, those 500 acres of common land, dwindle suddenly beside this -formidable tenure. “An island called Sandy [Hook]” the petition casually -begins: - - An island called Sandy, lying near the continent of America, in the - height of 44 degrees, was lately discovered by one Rose, late master - of a ship, who suffered shipwreck, and, finding no inhabitants, took - possession. The Earl of Dorset prays a grant of the said island for - thirty-one years, and that none may adventure thither but such as - petitioner shall license. - -A second petition takes one’s breath away with its magnificent -insolence: - - The Earl of Dorset to the King. Certain islands on the south of New - England, viz: Long Island, Cole Island, Sandy Point, Hell Gates, - Martin’s [? Martha’s] Vineyard, Elizabeth Islands, Block Island, with - other islands near thereunto, were lately discovered by some of your - Majesty’s subjects and are not yet inhabited by Christians. Prays a - grant thereof with like powers of government as have been granted for - other plantations in America. - -Underneath this is scribbled: - - Reference to the Attorney-General to prepare a grant. Whitehall, 20th - Dec., 1637. - -One would wish to evoke for a brief hour the spectres of those of his -Majesty’s subjects who found these localities uninhabited by Christians. - -Returning to Knole after this seems paltry; yet even there Lord Dorset -was conducting his affairs on a proportionately large scale. He said -himself that he spent £40,000 after his son’s marriage, and one can -believe it when one reads a sample of the bill of fare provided for a -banquet. At the top is written: - - To perfume the room often in the meal with orange flower water upon a - hot pan. To have fresh bowls in every corner and flowers tied upon - them, and sweet briar, stock, gilly-flowers, pinks, wallflowers and - any other sweet flowers in glasses and pots in every window and - chimney. - - BANQUET _at_ KNOLE _3rd July 1636_ - - 1 Rice Pottage - - 2 Barley broth - - 3 Buttered pickrell - - 4 Butter and burned eggs - - 5 Boiled teats - - 6 Roast tongues - - 7 Bream - - 8 Perches - - 9 Chine of Veal roast - - 10 Hash of mutton with Anchovies - - 11 Gr. Pike - - 12 Fish chuits [_sic_] - - 13 Roast venison, in blood - - 14 Capons (2) - - 15 Wild ducks (3) - - 16 Salmon whole, hot - - 17 Tenches, boiled - - 18 Crabs - - 19 Tench pie - - 20 Venison pasty of a Doe - - 21 Swans (2) - - 22 Herons (3) - - 23 Cold lamb - - 24 Custard - - 25 Venison, boiled - - 26 Potatoes, stewed - - 27 Gr. salad - - 28 Redeeve [_sic_] pie, hot - - 29 Almond pudding - - 30 Made dishes - - 31 Boiled salad - - 32 Pig, whole - - 33 Rabbits - - _Another Menu_ - - 1 Jelly of Tench, Jelly of Hartshorn - - 2 White Gingerbread - - 3 Puits [peewits] - - 4 Curlew - - 5 Ruffes [_sic_] - - 6 Fried perches - - 7 Fried Eels - - 8 Skirret Pie - - 9 Larks (3 doz.) - - 10 Plovers (12) - - 11 Teals (12) - - 12 Fried Pickrell - - 13 Fried tench - - 14 Salmon soused - - 15 Soused eel - - 16 Escanechia [_sic_] - - 17 Seagulls (6) - - 18 Ham of bacon - - 19 Sturgeon - - 20 Lark pie - - 21 Lobster pie - - 22 Crayfishes (3 doz.) - - 23 Dried tongues - - 24 Anchovies - - 25 Hartechocks [artichokes] - - 26 Peas - - 27 Fool - - 28 Second porridge - - 29 Reddeeve pie [_sic_] - - 30 Cherry tart - - 31 Laid tart - - 32 Carps (2) - - 33 Polony sasag [_sic_] - -There is also a list of “household stuff” dated the year of Lord -Dorset’s succession. - - “A Note - of household stuff sent by SYMONDES to KNOLE the 28th of July 1624.” - - _Packed up IMPRIMIS. A fustian down bed, bolster and a pair of - in a pillows, a pair of Spanish blankets, 5 curtains of crimson - fardel, and white taffeta, the valance to it of white satin - viz.: in ye embroidered with crimson and white silk and a deep fringe - black bed suitable; a test and tester of white satin suitable to the - chamber_ valance. A white rug. All these first packed up in 2 sheets - and then packed in a white and black rug and an old - blanket. - - _Packed in IT: A feather bed and bolster, a pair of down pillows, 2 - another mattrasses, 5 curtains and valances of yellow cotton - fardel, trimmed with blue and yellow silk fringes and lace - viz.: next suitable, a tester to it suitable, a cushion case of yellow - ye chapel satin, a pair of blankets to wrap these things in, there is - chamber_ also in the fardel a yellow rug, and a white and black rug. - - _In ye IT: Two bedsteads whereof one of them is gilt, which with - black the posts, tests, curtains, etc., are in all 11 parcels - bedchamber_ whereof 4 are matted. - - _In ye IT: Packed up in mats 2 high stools, 2 low stools, and a - black footstool of cloth of tissue and chair suitable. - bedchamber_ - - _Next ye IT: There goes a yellow satin chair and 3 stools, suitable - Chaplain’s with their buckram covers to them. All the above written - chamber_ came from Croxall. - - IT: Packed in mats my lady’s coach of cloth of silver, and - 2 low stools that came from Croxall, and a said bag, - wherein are 9 cups of crimson damask laid with silver - parchment lace, and 6 gilt cups for my lord’s couch bed and - canopy, and 8 gilt cups for the bed that came from Croxall. - - IT: In a wicker trunk, 2 brass branches for a dozen lights - apiece; and 2 single branches with bosses and bucks heads - to them, also a wooden box with screws for the said 2 - bedsteads, a dozen of spiggots to draw wine and beer, a - bundle of marsh mallow roots, and 2 papers of almonds. - - IT: A round wicker basket, wherein are 9 dozen of pewter - vessels of 9 sorts or sizes. - - IT: 4 back stools of crimson and yellow stuff with silk - fringe suitable, covered with yellow baize. - - IT: 6 pairs of mats to mat chambers with gt 30 yards - apiece. - - IT: 2 walnut tree tables to draw out at both ends with - their frames of the same. - - IT: A round table and its frame. - - IT: 2 green broad cloth chairs, covered all over, laced, - and set with green silk fringe and a back stool suitable, - covered with green buckram. - - IT: A box containing 3 dozen of Venice glasses. - - IT: A basket wherein are 20 dozen of maple trenchers. - -And finally, for I fear lest the detailing of these old papers should -grow wearisome, there is a letter which so well illustrates the humour, -the coarseness, and the difficulties of life at that time, that I make -no apology for including it: - - Letter - - from ELIZA COPE to her sister the COUNTESS _of_ BATH - - _19th Jan. 1639._ BREWERNE - - DEAR SISTER, - - I am glad to hear of your jollity. I could wish myself with you a - little while sometimes. I have played at cards 4 or 5 times this - Christmas myself, after supper, which makes me think I begin to turn - gallant now. Some of my neighbours put a compliment upon me this - Christmas, and told me the old Lady Cope would never be dead so long - as I was alive, they liked their entertainment so well, when my gilt - bowl went round amongst them, which saying pleased me very well, for - she was a discreet woman and worthy the imitating. I am as well - pleased to see my little man make legs and dance a galliard, as if I - had seen the mask at Court. I am glad you got well home for we have - had extreme ill weather almost ever since you went, but now I will - take the benefit of this frost to go visit some of my neighbours on - foot to-morrow about seven miles off, but I will have a coach and 6 - horses within a call, against I am weary. You know the old saying, it - is good going on foot with a horse in the hand. - - Commend my service to your lord, and wishing to hear you were puking - a-mornings I bid ye good-night in haste. - - Your faithful sister, - ELIZA COPE. - - - § iii - -On the approach of civil war there could be, of course, no doubt on -which side the Earl of Dorset would range himself. He had been for many -years closely connected with both the King and Henrietta Maria, and Lady -Dorset stood in a yet more intimate relationship to the King and Queen -as governess to their children. Since 1630, the date of the birth of -Charles II, she had held this position, and from this little anecdote it -may be judged that she was not so severe a preceptress as her portrait -might lead one to suppose: - - Charles II, when a child, was weak in the legs, and ordered to wear - steel boots. Their weight so annoyed him that he pined till recreation - became labour—an old Rocker took off the steel boots and concealed - them: promising the Countess of Dorset, who was Charles’ governess, - that he would take any blame for the act on himself. Soon afterwards, - the King, Charles I, coming into the nursery, and seeing the boy’s - legs without the boots, angrily demanded who had done it. “It was I, - Sir,” said the Rocker, “who had the honour some thirty years since to - attend on your Highness in your infancy, when you had the same - infirmity wherewith now the Prince, your very own son, is troubled—and - then the Lady Cary, afterwards Countess of Monmouth, commanded your - steel boots to be taken off, who, blessed be God, since have gathered - strength and arrived at a good stature.” - -It is no small tribute to Lady Dorset’s integrity that after the -outbreak of war she should have been continued in her office by -Parliament. - -I have in my own possession a receipt signed by her for £125 for salary -and expenses, 1641. - -War became imminent: - - “the citizens grow very tumultous and flock by troops daily to the - Parliament ... they never cease yawling and crying “No Bishops, no - Bishops!” My lord of Dorset is appointed to command the train-bands, - but the citizens slight muskets charged with powder. I myself saw the - Guard attempt to drive the citizens forth, but the citizens blustered - at them and would not stir. I saw and heard my Lord of Dorset entreat - them with his hat in his hand and yet the scoundrels would not move.” - -It is clear from contemporary documents that Lord Dorset was preparing -to take an active part. He did, in fact, raise a troop which he equipped -at his own expense, and with which he joined the King at York. But the -old inventories give a list of residue arms and armour indicating a -quantity originally more numerous than would be necessary to equip a -small troop; the whole house must have been rifled to produce these -weapons, all carefully listed, whether complete or incomplete, -serviceable or not serviceable, old-fashioned or up to date. One can -read between the lines of the list the anxiety that nothing should be -omitted which could possibly be pressed into the service of the King. -Among the armour at Knole at this date must have been the fine suit of -tilting armour, formerly the property of the old Lord Treasurer, and now -in the Wallace Collection, described as “a complete suit of armour ... -richly decorated by bands and bordering, deeply etched and partly gilt -with a scroll design ... the plain surfaces oxidised to a rich -russet-brown known in inventories of the period as purple armour.” This -suit, which is one of the gems of the Wallace Collection, had been made -in 1575 by Jacob Topp or Jacobi for Sir Thomas Sackville. - - “An Inventory - of such arms as are now remaining in the armoury at Knole belonging to - the Rt. Hon. _EDWARD EARL_ of _DORSET_, - _first the horsemen’s arms & necessaries belonging to them_:” - - Cornets for Horses 2 - - Curasiers arms gilt 2 - - Curasiers arms plain 31 - - White tilting armour 3 - - A baryears Armour gorget and gauntlet wanting 1 - - Sham front for tilting Run plates for barryers 1 - - Plated saddles suitable to the gilt arms and furniture rotten 2 - - Old russet saddles trimmed with red leather and furniture - defaulting 12 - - Old russet and black saddles 12 - - Black leather saddles with all furniture bits excepted 2 - - Old French pistols, whereof four have locks the other 9 have none - and double moulds to them 13 - - Swords 14 - - Horn flasks 49 - - Whereof an old damask one cornered with velvet and many not - serviceable Slight arms, back and breast 2 gorgets only to them 13 - - - _Arms and other necessaries for foot men_ - - One engraven target 1 - - Partisan rolled with red velvet and nailed with gilt nails and - damasked with gold 1 - - Partisans Damasked with Silver and the Cat on them [the Cat, _i.e._ - the leopard] 4 - - Corslets with back breast cases and headpieces 138 - - Spanish picks and English picks with Spanish heads whereof 4 are - broken 151 - - Comb head pieces 70 - - Old Spanish morions 50 - - Halberts 7 - - Bits 6 - - Full muskets complete 76 - - Bastard muskets 56 - - Muskets imperfect 4 - - Noulds to the muskets 2 - - New Rests 64 - - Old Rests 7 - - Bandeliers 36 - - Barrels of match wanting 16 bundles 2 - - (Signed) DORSET. _Jan. 1641_ - -It was not very long before the Parliamentarians got wind of this hoard, -and in August 1642 three troops of horse under the command of one -Cornell Sandys rode into Kent, invaded Knole, took prisoner a Sir John -Sackville whom they found in charge there, did a certain amount of rough -damage, and carried off the contents of the armoury to London. The -proceedings were thus officially reported: - - - _Some_ SPECIAL & REMARKABLE PASSAGES - -_from both houses of_ PARLIAMENT _since Monday 15th of Aug. till Friday -the 19th 1642_. - - Upon Saturday night last, the Lord General having information of a - great quantity of Arms of the Earl of Dorset’s at his house at - Sevenoaks, in Kent, in the custody of Sir John Sackville, which were - to be disposed of by him to arm a great number of the malignant party - of that County, to go to York to assist his Majesty; called a Council - of War, to consider of the same, and about 12 of the clock at night - sent out 3 troops of Horse into Kent to seize upon the said Arms; - which they did accordingly on the Sunday following; and on the Monday - brought the same to London and Sir John Sackville prisoner, there - being complete arms for 500 or 600 men. - -Despite the outcry of plaintive indignation which went up from Knole, -the House of Lords report proves that their conduct towards Lord Dorset -over the incident was fair, lenient, and even generous: - - That the Arms of the Earl of Dorset which were at Knole House, are - brought to Town, to be kept from being made use of against the - Parliament, - -and therefore this House ordered, - - That such as are rich Arms shall not be made use of, but kept safely - for the Earl of Dorset; but such as are fit to be made use of for the - service of the Kingdom are to be employed; an Inventory to be taken, - and money to be given to the Earl of Dorset in satisfaction thereof. - -Thus ran the official reports; but Knole, astonished, aggrieved, and -outraged, drew up a fuller list of injuries. It was the first time rude -voices had ever echoed within those venerable walls or rude hands -rummaged among the sacred possessions, the first time that orders had -been issued there by another than the master. The Parliament men had -entered with arrogance, spoken with authority, gone beyond their -warrant, and ransacked wantonly—for from what motive but wantonness -could they have taken the plumes from the bed-tester or the cushions -from his Lordship’s own room? or spoilt the oil in the Painter’s -Chamber? or, indeed, broken forty locks, unless to overcome such slight -resistance in an unnecessarily high-handed manner? No doubt the novelty -of the experience turned their heads. Rhetorically they were the -representatives of the English Parliament, that sober and tenacious -senate, as stubborn now as at Runnymede, but in private life they were -men, however insignificant hitherto to Lord Dorset, men who, when he -passed with a swagger, murmured dully beneath their reluctant deference. -The moment when, cantering up over the crest of the hill, they first saw -the grey forbidding walls and drew rein before the massive door, their -horses’ bits jingling and the restive hoofs pawing at the gravel, must -indeed have been an experience. Likewise, to ring their spurs on the -paving-stones of the courtyards, to pass from room to room followed by a -protesting and impotent steward, to stare at the pictures, to lounge on -the velvet chairs, to set out their ink and paper on the solid table of -the parlour and to draw up their indictment. It was August; the rose -planted beneath the window of a Stuart King to commemorate his visit was -covered with its little white blossoms; the turf was smooth and green; -the flowers were bright under the young apple-trees in the orchard; the -beeches and chestnuts were deep and heavy with the fullness of summer. -The austerity of the Roundheads surely stiffened in the soft summer -spaciousness of Knole. The owner was absent: they had only his new -portrait to gaze at, with scorn of his brilliant doublet and his curling -hair. - -All things considered, I think that they showed commendable restraint in -their behaviour: - - - _The hurt done at_ KNOLE HOUSE _the 14 Day of August 1642 by the_ - COMPANY OF HORSEMEN _brought by_ CORNELL SANDYS: - - There are above forty stock locks and plated locks broken, which to - make good will cost £10. - - There is of gold branches belonging to the couch in the rich gallery - as much cut away as will not be made good for £40. - - And in my Lord’s chamber 12 long cushion-cases embroidered with satin - and gold, and the plumes upon the bed-tester, to ye value of £30. - - They have broken open six trunks; in one of them was money; what is - lost of it we know not, in regard the keeper of it is from home. They - have spoiled in the Painter’s Chamber his oil, and other wrongs there - to the value of £40. - - They have broke into Sir John his Granary and have taken of his oats - and peas, to the quantity of three or four quarters £4. - - The arms they have wholly taken away, there being five waggon-loads of - them. - -Nor was this the last time that the Parliamentarians came to Knole. -Three years after these events Cromwell’s commissioners were installed -there as the headquarters of the Court of Sequestration for Kent, and -held their sessions in the Poets’ Parlour, when the Sackvilles were, for -a short time, deprived of the property. On this occasion there is no -record of any definite damage to the contents of the house, although a -House of Commons notice for January 1645 ordered that “two-thirds of the -goods and estates of the Earl of Dorset not exceeding the sum of £500 -now at Knole in the county of Kent, and lately discovered there, shall -be employed for the use of the garrison at Dover Castle, towards the pay -of their arrears.” - -Among the papers in the Muniment Room I find a letter of a later date -from Sir Kenelm Digby to Lord Dorset, referring to some stolen pictures -which he has been endeavouring to trace in Paris, and recommending to -Lord Dorset a certain M. La Fontaine for “the much pains and running -about he hath used,” suggesting that he should be rewarded with 20_s._ -and recommended to good customers to sell his “powders and cigeours.” I -wonder inevitably whether the loss of these pictures had been due to any -action of Cromwell or his commissioners? Sir Kenelm’s letter, which is -long, rambling, and rather illegible, does not make any mention of the -cause or date of the disappearance. Sir Kenelm is himself of greater -interest, perhaps, than his letter or the pictures. An intimate friend -of Lord Dorset’s, the author of several housewifely little treatises, -such as _The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby_ and _Choice and Experimental -Receipts_, he was incidentally the husband of that Venetia Stanley whose -lover Richard Sackville had been. (It has, I may mention, been suggested -that Edward Sackville, not Richard, was the lover of Lady Digby; and -having regard to what I know of Sir Kenelm’s character I should think it -not inconsistent, even if this were so, that he should remain on most -friendly terms with the former lover of his wife. He had, after all, not -scrupled to sue Lord Dorset, whether Richard or Edward, for the -continuance after marriage of Lady Digby’s pension of £500 a year.) Sir -Kenelm’s portrait by Vandyck is at Knole in the Poets’ Parlour; he is a -chubby little man, with a fat outspread hand, and dimples in the place -of knuckles. At one period of the Civil War he suffered imprisonment, -when Lord Dorset, wishing to beguile his friend’s tedium, advised him to -read the recently published _Religio Medici_ of Sir Thomas Browne: Sir -Kenelm took his advice, and was so much impressed as to embody his -observations in a long letter to Lord Dorset, which was subsequently -printed (1643) by “R. C. for Daniel Frere, to be sold at his shop at the -Red Bull in Little Britain.” I happen to have the first editions of the -_Religio Medici_ and the little companion volume of Sir Kenelm’s -_Observations_: the former is heavily scored or commented by some -appreciative reader, and attention is called in the margin to favourite -passages by the drawing of a tiny hand with pointing finger, the wrist -encircled by a cuff of _point de Venise_. Sir Kenelm esteemed his -friend’s taste, and the “spirit and smartness” of the author, who set -out upon his task so excellently poised with a happy temper. Towards the -end of his discourse Sir Kenelm quite loses his sense of proportion in -his enthusiasm over Lord Dorset’s discernment, and exclaims: - - _Tu regere imperio populos_ [Sackville] _memento_, - -and concludes by dating his letter “the 22nd [I think I may say the -23rd, for I am sure it is morning, and I think it is day] of December -1642,” thus proving that he has sat up all night in prison with Sir -Thomas Browne—and who in this generation could with truth make such a -boast? - - - § iv - -More tragical events than the desecration of his house or the -imprisonment of his chubby friend marked for Lord Dorset the progress of -the Civil War. His eldest son, Lord Buckhurst, was early taken prisoner -at Miles End Green with Lord Middlesex and that same Sir Kenelm Digby, -and his younger son, Edward, was also taken prisoner at Kidlington, near -Oxford, and murdered in cold blood by a Roundhead soldier shortly after, -at Abingdon. I know nothing of this Edward Sackville except that he was -knighted at an early age, was reported to be “a good chymist,” and was -deplored in an obituary poem as being - - .... _a lamp that had consumed - Scarce half its oil, yet the whole place perfumed - Wherein he lived, or did in kindness come, - As if composed of precious Balsamum_, - -and as being to his friends - - _that lost in losing him, - An eye, a tongue, a hand, or some choice limb_. - -The author of this poem, A. Townsend, contributed also to the Knole -papers a set of verses on the death of Charles I. “It is a shame,” he -exclaims, - - _those that can write in verse, - Quite cover not with elegies his hearse_, - -and asks: - - _Where are the learned sisters, whose full breast - Was wont to yield such store of milk, unpressed?_ - -[Illustration: - - THE TWO SONS OF EDWARD, 4TH EARL OF DORSET: - - RICHARD, LORD BUCKHURST; THE HON. EDWARD SACKVILLE - - _From the portrait at Knole by_ CORNELIUS NUIE -] - -The King, he says, was - - .... _pious, temperate, and grave, - Just, gentle, constant, merciful, brave. - All this, and more, he was not pleased to be, - Without the woman’s virtue, Chastity_, - -most unlike Solomon, who was wise, yet - - .... _did incline - To worship idols, for a concubine_. - -Lord Dorset himself took an active part in the fighting. At Edgehill he -recaptured the Royal Standard which had been lost to the enemy, and to -his answer during the same battle James II later testified: - - The old Earl of Dorset, at Edgehill [_he wrote_], being commanded by - the King my father to carry the Prince [Charles II] and myself up a - hill out of the battle, refused to do it, and said he would not be - thought a coward for ever a King’s son in Christendom. - -I think also that one of his speeches is worth printing, made at the -Council table in reply to one of Lord Bristol’s which urged the -continuance of the war. It is honest, enlightened, bold, and, -considering his personal grievances, very dignified: - - The Earl of Bristol has delivered his opinion; and, my turn being next - to speak, I shall, with the like integrity, give your Lordships an - account of my sentiments in this great and important business. I shall - not, as young students do in the schools, _argumentandi gratia_, - repugn my Lord of Bristol’s tenets; but because my conscience tells me - they are not orthodox, nor consonant to the disposition of the - Commonwealth, which, languishing with a tedious sickness, must be - recovered by gentle and easy medicines in consideration of its - weakness rather than by violent vomits, or any other kind of - compelling physic. Not that I shall absolutely labour to refute my - Lord’s opinion, but justly deliver my own, which, being contrary to - his, may appear an express contradiction of it, which indeed it is - not; peace, and that a sudden one, being as necessary betwixt his - Majesty and his Parliament as light is requisite for the production of - the day, or heat to cherish from above all inferior bodies; this - division betwixt his Majesty and his Parliament being as if [by - miracle] the sun should be separated from his beams, and divided from - his proper essence. I would not, my Lords, be ready to embrace a peace - that would be more disadvantageous to us than the present war, which, - as the Earl of Bristol says, “would destroy our estates and families.” - The Parliament declares only against delinquents; such as they - conjecture have miscounselled his Majesty, and be the authors of these - tumults in the Commonwealth. But these declarations of theirs, except - such crimes can be proved against them, are of no validity. The - Parliament will do nothing unjustly, nor condemn the innocent; and - certainly innocent men had not need to fear to appear before any - judges whatsoever. And he, who shall for any cause prefer his own - private good before the public utility, is but an ill son of the - Commonwealth. _For my particular, in these wars I have suffered as - much as any; my house hath been searched, my arms taken thence, and my - son-and-heir committed to prison. Yet I shall wave these - discourtesies, because I know there was a necessity it should be so; - and as the darling business of the kingdom, the honour and prosperity - of the King, study to reconcile all these differences betwixt his - Majesty and his Parliament; and so to reconcile them, that they shall - no way prejudice his royal prerogative; of which I believe the - Parliament being a loyal defender_ [knowing the subject’s property - depends on it; for, if sovereigns cannot enjoy their rights, their - subjects cannot] will never endeavour to be infringed; so that, if - doubts and jealousies were taken away by a fair treaty between his - Majesty and the Parliament, no doubt a means might be devised to - rectify these differences—the honour of the King, the estate of us his - followers and counsellors, the privileges of Parliament, and property - of the subject, be infallibly preserved in safety: and neither the - King stoop in this to his subjects, nor the subjects be deprived of - their just liberties by the King. And whereas my Lord of Bristol - observes, “that in Spain very few civil dissensions arise, because the - subjects are truly subjects, and the Sovereign truly a Sovereign”; - that is, as I understand, the subjects are scarcely removed a degree - from slaves, nor the Sovereign from a tyrant; here in England the - subjects have, by long-received liberties granted to our ancestors by - their Kings, made their freedom resolve into a second nature; and - neither is it safe for our Kings to strive to introduce the Spanish - Government upon these free-born nations, nor just for the people to - suffer that Government to be imposed upon them, which I am certain his - Majesty’s goodness never intended. And whereas my Lord of Bristol - intimates the strength and bravery of our army as an inducement to the - continuation of these wars, which he promises himself will produce a - fair and happy peace; in this I am utterly repugnant to his opinion; - for, grant that we have an army of gallant and able men, which, - indeed, cannot be denied, yet we have infinite disadvantages on our - side, the Parliament having double our number, and surely [though our - enemies] persons of as much bravery, nay, and sure to be daily - supported, when any of their number fails; a benefit which we cannot - bestow, they having the most populous part of the kingdom at their - devotion; all, or most, of the cities, considerable towns and ports, - together with the mainest pillar of the kingdom’s safety, the sea, at - their command, and the navy; and, which is most material of all, an - inexhaustible Indies of money to pay their soldiers, out of the - liberal contributions of coin and plate sent in by people of all - conditions, who account the Parliament’s cause their cause, and so - think themselves engaged to part with the uttermost penny of their - estates in their defence, whom they esteem the patriots of their - liberties. These strengths of theirs and the defects of ours - considered, I conclude it necessary for all our safeties, and the good - of the whole Commonwealth, to beseech his Majesty to take some present - order for a treaty of peace betwixt himself and his high court of - Parliament, who, I believe, are so loyal and obedient to his sacred - Majesty, that they will propound nothing that shall be prejudicial to - his royal prerogative, or repugnant to their fidelity and duty. - -It is, of course, not at all to my purpose to follow the course of the -Civil War, but only to say that after the execution of the King Lord -Dorset made a vow, which he is believed to have kept, that he would -never again stir out of his house until he should be carried out of it -in his coffin. He did not, in point of fact, survive the King by very -many years, but died in 1652 and was buried at Withyham. - - - - - CHAPTER VI - Knole in the Reign of Charles II - CHARLES - 6th - Earl _of_ Dorset - - - § i - -Edward Sackville was succeeded by his son Richard, married to Lady -Frances Cranfield, a considerable heiress, who, on the death of her -brother, inherited the fortune and property of their father, Lionel -Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex, sometime Treasurer to James I. I mention -this marriage especially, because it brought to the Sackvilles the house -called Copt Hall in Essex and its contents, which included much of the -finest furniture now at Knole, some of the tapestry, the many portraits -of the Cranfields by Mytens and Dobson, the series of historical -portraits in the Brown Gallery, and the Mytens copies of Raphael’s -cartoons. There are a number of receipts at Knole to no less than six -different carriers, for wagon-loads of effects removed from Copt Hall to -Knole at the cost of £2. 5_s._ per load. From Copt Hall also came the -carved stone shield now in the Stone Court on the roof of the Great -Hall. The Copt Hall estate was sold in 1701 for the approximate sum of -twenty thousand pounds. The draft of the marriage settlement is at -Knole: - - _January 25th, 1640_ - - The Earl of Middlesex is to assure ten thousand pounds to the Earl of - Dorset in marriage with the Lady Frances Cranfield to the Lord - Buckhurst to be paid in times and manner following: - - He is to retain the money in his hands, paying yearly to the young - couple towards their maintenance by equal portions at Michaelmas and - our Lady Day £800 per annum until a jointure be made of £1500 per - annum, by the Lord Buckhurst joining with the Earl of Dorset when he - shall come to full age. - - And if the Lord Buckhurst [which God forbid] shall decease before the - said lady, or a jointure so made, then the ten thousand pound shall be - the sole use of the said lady. But if the said lady [which God forbid] - should die before the Lord Buckhurst without children, the said - portion or so much shall remain not laid out by consent of the Earl of - Dorset in purchasing in lands or leases, shall be paid to the said - Earl of Dorset. - -And in the same connection there are some notes from Edward, Lord Dorset -to Lord Middlesex, one written “this Thursday morning at 5 of the -clock,” apologising for the “bad character” which Lord Middlesex must -decipher—and indeed the writing is all but illegible—but he is obliged -to write as he must go presently into Kent to dispose some bargains and -sales. - -No particular interest attaches to Richard Sackville, save that he -translated _Le Cid_ into English verse and wrote a poem on Ben Jonson, -but there are at Knole some memorandum books in his handwriting (between -1660 and 1670) which are worth quoting, I think, for the following -illuminating extracts: - - _From the_ DIARY _of_ SERVANTS’ _faults_ - - £ _s._ _d._ - Henry Mattock, for scolding to extremity on Sunday - without cause 0 0 3 - William Loe, for running out of doors from Morning till - Midnight without leave 0 2 0 - Richard Meadowes, for being absent when my Lord came - home late, and making a headless excuse 0 0 6 - Henry Mattock, for not doing what he is bidden 0 1 0 - And 3_d._ a day till he does from this day. - Henry Mattock, for disposing of my cast linen without - my order 0 0 3 - Robert Verrell, for giving away my money 0 0 6 - Henry Mattock, for speaking against going to Knole 0 0 6 - Verrell to pay for not burning the brakes out of the - Wilderness, 3_d._ per week out of his week’s wages of - 5_s._ for forty-two weeks. - -There are various other notes in the same books: Thomas Porter, going to -Knole, was to have five shillings a week board-wages; and, judging from -the following, Lord Dorset evidently could not wholly trust his memory -unaided: “My French shot-bag; an hammer, and some playthings for Tom, a -bone knife, etc. A great Iron chafing-dish, or a fire-pan to set it -upon.” And again, “A silver porringer for little Tom.” - -Another day he notes: - - Old lead cast at Knole for the two turrets weighing 1500 lbs. Old lead - cast for the cistern weighing 1200 lbs. Sold 13th Aug. 1662 to Edmund - Giles and Edward Bourne the Advowson of the Rectory and Parsonage of - Tooting in Surrey for an £100 and paid my wife. - -There is also a receipt: - - _Nov. 14, 1671._ =Rec^d= of the Right Hon. RICHARD Earl of DORSET, in - full of all wages bills and accounts whatsoever _from ye beginning of - ye World to this day_ ye full sum of five pounds seven shillings and - sixpence I say rec’d by _JOHN WALL GROVE_. - - - § ii - -This Richard Sackville and Frances Cranfield had seven sons and six -daughters. There are some delightful portraits of the little girls at -Knole, one in particular of Lady Anne and Lady Frances, painted in a -garden, leading a squirrel on a blue ribbon, and in the chapel at -Withyham there is an elaborate monument to commemorate the youngest son, -Thomas, no doubt the “little Tom” for whom the playthings and the silver -porringer were to be remembered. The monument bears the following -inscription: - - _Stand not amaz’d [Reader] to see us shed - From drowned eyes vain offerings to ye dead - For he whose sacred ashes here doth lie - Was the great hopes of all our family. - To blaze whose virtues is but to detract - From them, for in them none can be exact. - So grave and hopeful was his youth, - So dear a friend to piety and truth, - He scarce knew sin, but what curst nature gave, - And yet grim death hath snatch’d him to his grave. - He never to his Parents was unkind - But in his early leaving them behind, - And since hath left us and for e’er is gone - What Mother would not weep for such a Son— - May this fair Monument then never fade, - Or be by blasting time or age decay’d. - That the succeeding times to all may tell - Here lieth one that liv’d and died well— - Here lies the thirteenth child and seventh son - Who in his thirteenth year his race had run._ - THOMAS SACKVILLE. - -Of the other children, save of the eldest, there is no record, or none -worth quoting: many of them died, as happened with such pitiable -frequency, at a very early age: Lionel, aged three; Catherine, aged one; -Cranfield, aged fourteen days; Elizabeth, aged two years; Anne, aged -three. The eldest son, however, is one of the most jovial and debonair -figures in the Knole portrait-gallery, Charles, the sixth Earl—let us -call him the Restoration Earl—the jolly, loose-living, magnificent -Mæcenas, “during the whole of his life the patron of men of genius and -the dupe of women, and bountiful beyond measure to both.” He furnished -Knole with silver, and peopled it with poets and courtesans; he left us -the Poets’ Parlour, rich with memories of Pope and Dryden, Prior and -Shadwell, D’Urfey and Killigrew; he left us the silver and ebony stands -on which he was in the habit in hours of relaxation of placing his -cumbersome periwig; he left us his portraits, both as the bewigged and -be-ribboned courtier, and as the host, wrapped in a loose robe, a turban -twisted round his head; he left us his gay and artificial stanzas to -Chloris and Dorinda, and his rousing little song written on the eve of a -naval engagement. He is not, perhaps, a very admirable figure. He was -not above trafficking in court appointments; he disturbed London by a -rowdy youth; he was reported to have passed on his mistresses to the -King; he ended his life in mental and moral decay with a squalid woman -at Bath. He followed the fashions of his age, and the most that can be -claimed for him is that he should stand, along with his inseparables -Rochester and Sedley, as the prototype of that age. But for all that, -there is about such geniality, such generosity, and such munificence, a -certain coarse lovableness which holds an indestructible charm for the -English race. It is that which makes Charles the Second a more popular -monarch than William the Third: Herrick a more popular poet than Milton. -Last but not least, Charles Sackville is connected with that most -attractive figure of the English stage—Nell Gwyn. - -[Illustration: - - CHARLES SACKVILLE, 6TH EARL OF DORSET, K.G. - - _From the portrait by_ SIR GODFREY KNELLER _in the Poets’ Parlour at - Knole_ -] - -It is not known precisely in what year he was born, but it was either -1639, 1640, or 1642, so that he must have been a young man somewhere in -the neighbourhood of twenty when Charles II came to the throne. He had -been educated by a tutor, one Jennings, and sent abroad with him: as -Jennings wrote home of him in measured terms surprising in that age of -sycophancy, saying “I doubt not he will attain to some perfection,” he -probably held but a low opinion of the abilities of his pupil. I do not -know at what age Lord Buckhurst, as he then was, returned to England, -but he must have been quite young, for in 1660 he becomes Colonel of a -regiment of foot, commands 104 men, and receives a yearly allowance of -£70 from his father, and the references to him in Pepys begin in 1661 -when he was not more than twenty-one or twenty-two. He was, says Dr. -Johnson with characteristic disapproval and severity, “eager of the -riotous and licentious pleasures which young men of high rank, who -aspired to be thought wits, at that time imagined themselves entitled to -indulge.” Many of his pranks have been placed on record. They are -neither very funny nor very edifying. On one occasion he and his brother -Edward, with three friends, were committed to Newgate for killing an -innocent man in a brawl, and should no doubt have been tried for murder, -but as those contretemps could be arranged with very little difficulty -the charge was modified to manslaughter.[8] On another occasion, the -full details of which are not allowed to remain in the expurgated -edition of Pepys, Lord Buckhurst, Sir Charles Sedley, and Sir Thomas -Ogle got drunk at the Cock Tavern in Bow Street, where they went out on -to a balcony, and Sedley took off all his clothes and harangued the -crowd which collected below: the crowd, in indignation, drove them in -with stones, and broke the windows of the house; for this offence all -three gentlemen were indicted and Sedley was fined £500. On yet another -occasion Buckhurst and Sedley spent the night in prison for brawling -with the watch, and were delivered only on the King’s intervention. On -yet another, Pepys records that “the King was drunk at Saxam with Sedley -and Buckhurst, the night that my Lord Arlington came thither, and would -not give him audience, or could not.” These and similar exploits recall -the more celebrated escapade of Rochester as an astrologer, which at -least had in it a humorous element entirely lacking in the mere rioting -of drunken young men like Buckhurst and Sedley. It is not very -surprising to learn that although he “inherited not only the paternal -estate of the Sackvilles but likewise that of the Cranfields, Earls of -Middlesex in right of his mother, yet at his decease his son, then only -eighteen years of age, possessed so slender a fortune that his guardians -when they sent him to travel on the Continent allowed him only eight -hundred pounds a year for his provision,” nor that “extenuated by -pleasures and indulgences, he sank into a premature old age.” Before -sinking into this old age, however, he lived through the full enjoyment -of a splendid youth. It is difficult to imagine an era in English -history more favourable to a young man of his type and fortune than the -early years of Charles II, when the King himself was the ringleader in -the outburst of revolt against that iron-grey period of Puritanism -through which the country had just passed. Dresses became extravagant, -silver ornate, speech licentious; the theatres, which had been closed -for over twenty years, reopened, the costumes and scenery being now on -an elaborate scale never contemplated before; women—a daring -innovation—appeared in the women’s rôles; the King and his brother -patronised the play-houses with all the young bloods of the court; -coaches clattered through the streets of London, yes, even on a Sunday. -There is, of course, another side to the picture—the sullen disapproval -of the serious-minded, the squalor of a London shortly to be rotted by -plague and terribly purified by fire—but with this side we have in the -present connection no concern. We are in the gay upper stratum of -prosperity and fashion, fortunate in the extraordinary vividness of our -visualisation; we know not only the principal characters, but also the -crowd of “supers” pressing behind them; we know their comings and -goings, their intrigues, their rivalries, their amusements, the names of -their mistresses. We are now at Whitehall, now at Epsom, now at -Tunbridge Wells, now at Richmond. We are, indeed, very deeply in Pepys’ -debt. - -In this world, therefore, so intimately familiar to any reader of the -great diarist, Lord Buckhurst moves noisily with Rochester and -Buckingham, Etherege and Sedley, “the first gentleman,” says Horace -Walpole, “of the voluptuous court of Charles II.” We are told that he -refused the King’s offers of employment in order to enjoy his pleasures -with the greater freedom, or, as he himself wrote with much frankness: - - _May knaves and fools grow rich and great, - And the world think them wise, - While I lie dying at her feet - And all the world despise._ - - _Let conquering Kings new triumphs raise, - And melt in court delights: - Her eyes can give much brighter days, - Her arms much softer nights._ - -This did not prevent him from enrolling as a volunteer in the Dutch war -of 1665, when he was present at a naval battle, and when the song which -he was reported to have written on the eve of the engagement was brought -to London and bandied from mouth to mouth about the town. Dr. Johnson -shows himself sceptical as to this picturesque legend of the origin of -the verses. “Seldom is any splendid story wholly true,” he observes; and -continues, “I have heard from the Earl of Orrery, that Lord Buckhurst -had been a week employed upon it, and only re-touched, or finished it, -on the memorable evening.” However this may be, both song and story -remain: I have told the story, and quote the song: - - _To all you ladies now at land - We men at sea indite; - But first would have you understand - How hard it is to write: - The Muses now, and Neptune too, - We must implore to write to you, - With a fa, la, la, la, la._ - - _For though the Muses should prove kind - And fill our empty brain, - Yet if rough Neptune rouse the wind - To wave the azure main, - Our paper, pen and ink, and we, - Roll up and down our ships at sea, - With a fa, la, la, la, la._ - - _Then if we write not by each post, - Think not we are unkind; - Nor yet conclude our ships are lost - By Dutchman or the wind: - Our tears we’ll send a speedier way, - The tide shall bring them twice a day, - With a fa, la, la, la, la._ - - _The King with wonder and surprise - Will swear the seas grow bold, - Because the tides will higher rise - Than e’er they did of old: - But let him know it is our tears - Bring floods of grief to Whitehall stairs,[9] - With a fa, la, la, la, la._ - - _Should foggy Opdam chance to know - Our sad and dismal story, - The Dutch would scorn so weak a foe - And quit their fort at Goree; - For what resistance can they find - From men who’ve left their hearts behind?— - With a fa, la, la, la, la._ - - _Let wind and weather do its worst, - Be you to us but kind, - Let Dutchmen vapour, Spaniards curse, - No sorrow we shall find: - ’Tis then no matter how things go, - Or who’s our friend, or who’s our foe, - With a fa, la, la, la, la._ - - _To pass our tedious hours away - We throw a merry main, - Or else at serious ombre play; - But why should we in vain - Each other’s ruin thus pursue? - We were undone when we left you, - With a fa, la, la, la, la._ - - _But now our fears tempestuous grow - And cast our hopes away; - Whilst you, regardless of our woe, - Sit careless at a play; - Perhaps permit some happier man - To kiss your hand, or flirt your fan, - With a fa, la, la, la, la._ - - _When any mournful tune you hear - That dies in every note - As if it sighed with each man’s care - For being so remote, - Think then how often love we’ve made - To you, when all those tunes were played, - With a fa, la, la, la, la._ - - _In justice you cannot refuse - To think of our distress, - When we for hopes of honour lose - Our certain happiness: - All those designs are but to prove - Ourselves more worthy of your love, - With a fa, la, la, la, la._ - - _And now we’ve told you all our loves, - And likewise all our fears. - In hopes this declaration moves - Some pity for our tears: - Let’s hear of no inconstancy, - We have too much of that at sea— - With a fa, la, la, la, la._ - -With this song—which is really very good of its kind, and, I think, -deserves its fame—Pepys says that he “occasioned much mirth,” although -at the time of repeating it he was under the impression that it was -written by three authors in collaboration. It seems to have achieved -popularity, and was set to music, also a parody was written of it by -Lord Halifax under the title “The New Court: Being an Excellent New Song -to an old Tune of ‘To all you Ladies now at hand’ by the Earl of -Dorset,” and of which the following is the opening verse: - - _To all you Tories far from Court - We Courtiers now in play - Do write, to tell you how we sport - And laugh the hours away. - The King, the Turks, the Prince, and all - Attend with us each Feast and Ball. - With a fa_, etc. - -It is shortly after this battle that Nell Gwyn first appears in Lord -Buckhurst’s life. London’s two theatres—the Duke’s Theatre, near -Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and the King’s Theatre, or, more familiarly, The -Theatre, in Drury Lane—were then the great new resort and amusement, -from the King and his brother in their boxes down to the rabble in the -pit. Until the reign of Charles II the presence of the King in a common -play-house was an unknown thing: such plays or masques as they had -witnessed were always specially performed for them either in the halls -or cock-pits of their palaces, but it now became the fashion for not -only the King and the Duke of York, but also for the Queen to patronise -the theatres. There were other innovations. The public was no longer -satisfied with the makeshift scenery of pre-Commonwealth days, which had -too often consisted of a placard hung upon a nail, “_A wood_,” or “_A -throne-room_,” or whatever it might be. Nor were the dresses of the -actors as careless as they had formerly been, but patrons of the stage -would give their old clothes, which, if shabby, were no doubt still -sufficiently magnificent to produce their effect at a distance. Even a -step further in progress was the appearance of women on the stage, “foul -and undecent women now, and never till now, permitted to appear and -act,” says Evelyn, full of indignation, “who, inflaming several young -noblemen and gallants, became their misses and to some their wives, -witness the Earl of Oxford, Sir R. Howard, Prince Rupert, the Earl of -Dorset, and another greater person than any of them.” A theatre of that -day must have been a noisy, ruffling, ill-lighted place. The ceiling -immediately above the pit was either open to the sky or else -inadequately covered over, so that in the event of rain the whole of the -pit was apt to surge into the dry parts of the theatre. The ladies in -the audience, especially if the performance happened to be a comedy, sat -for the most part in masks. The sallow face of the King, framed by the -heavy curls, leered down over the edge of a box. In the body of the -theatre lounged the bucks of the town, exchanging pleasantry and -impudence with the orange-girls who were so indispensable a feature. - -These orange-girls stood in the pit, crying “Oranges! will you have any -oranges?” and were under the control of a superior known as Orange Moll, -a famous figure of London theatre life. One may quote, to give some -further idea of the relations between the young dandies and the -orange-sellers, some of the stage directions in Shadwell’s _True Widow_, -in the fourth act, laid in the Playhouse, “Several young coxcombs fool -with the orange-women,” or “He sits down and lolls in the orange-wench’s -lap,” or, “Raps people on the back and twirls their hats, and then looks -demurely, as if he did not do it.” Amongst these girls, at the beginning -of her career, was Nell Gwyn, of whom Rochester wrote: - - ... _the basket her fair arm did suit, - Laden with pippins and Hesperian fruit; - This first step raised, to the wondering pit she sold - The lovely fruit smiling with streaks of gold_, - -and who has come down to us as a figure full of disreputable charm, -witty Nelly, pretty Nelly, Nelly whose foot was least of any woman’s in -England, Nelly who paid the debts of those whom she saw being haled off -to prison, Nelly the pert, the apt, the kind-hearted, Nelly who -“continued to hang on her clothes with her usual negligence when she was -the King’s mistress, but whatever she did became her.” This merry -creature said of herself that she was brought up in a brothel and served -strong waters to gentlemen: it is probable that she was born in the Coal -Yard at Drury Lane (now Goldsmith Street), and, wherever she may have -been brought up, at a very early age she joined the orange-girls at the -King’s Theatre. In due time her looks and her wit attracted attention -and she went on the stage. Pepys, who was evidently much taken with the -“bold merry slut,” leaves a particularly charming record of her one May -day: - - _May 1st._ To Westminster, in the way meeting many milkmaids with - their garlands upon their pails, dancing with a fiddler before them; - and saw pretty Nelly standing at her lodgings door in Drury Lane in - her smock sleeves and bodice, looking upon one; she seemed a mighty - pretty creature. - -This being in May (1657), when Nell was sixteen, and had already been -acting for at least two years, in July of the same year the diarist was -told, which troubled him, that “my Lord Buckhurst hath got Nell away -from the King’s House, and gives her £100 a year, so as she hath sent -her parts to the house and will act no more.” - - _None ever had so strange an art - His passion to convey - Into a listening virgin’s heart - And steal her soul away_ - -was sung of Buckhurst. He was then twenty-seven or so, Nell Gwyn -sixteen, and together they kept “merry house” at Epsom. Pepys went down -to Epsom one day and heard reports of their merriments: he pitied Nelly, -exclaiming, “Poor girl!” and pitied still more her loss to the King’s -Theatre; but he does not expressly state whether he saw the pair or not. -In any case, the housekeeping at Epsom did not continue for very long, -for by August she was again acting in London, and Pepys had “a great -deal of discourse with Orange Moll, who tells us that Nell is already -left by my Lord Buckhurst, and that he makes sport of her, and swears -she hath had all she could get of him.” It would appear from this that -Buckhurst, contrary to what has been said of him, did not sell Nell Gwyn -to the King, for even Pepys, who would surely have been among the first -and best informed, does not mention the King having “sent for Nelly” -until January of the following year. I hope, therefore, that the charges -of his having accepted bribes in exchange for Nelly may be exploded. A -great many things were whispered—that he had been promised the peerage -of Middlesex, that he had been given a thousand pounds a year, that he -had been sent on “a sleeveless errand” into France to leave the coast -clear for the King, that he refused to give her up until he had been -repaid for all the expenses she had entailed upon him. I do not think -that such a Jewish spirit is at all in keeping with the rest of his -character as we know it, with his generosity and general lavishness, nor -does it seem probable that he would so have bargained with a king whose -favour he was anxious to retain. By 1669 it is certain that Nell was -definitely the King’s mistress and all connection with Buckhurst over. -But we find that years afterwards the house called Burford House, at -Windsor, is granted by Charles II to Charles, Earl of Dorset and -Middlesex, W. Chaffinch, Esq., and others, in trust for Ellen Gwyn for -life, with remainder to the Earl of Burford, the King’s natural son, in -tail male; further, among the Knole papers is the original deed of 1683 -appointing Lord Dorset her trustee and trustee to her son by Charles II; -and, dated 1678, there is an allusion to her former lover in one of -Nell’s infrequent and ill-spelt letters: “My lord Dorseit apiers worze -in thre months, for he drinks aile with Shadwell and Mr. Haris at the -Duke’s house all day long.” - -Nell Gwyn thus passed out of Lord Buckhurst’s life, which she had so -briefly entered, a well-assorted pair, I think, in every respect—he, -idle, spoilt, heavy and magnificent; she, coarse, witty, feminine. There -is a portrait of her at Knole, which I suppose was acquired by him, and -I once happened to see a set of spoons in a loan exhibition which were -catalogued as bearing the arms of Sackville with those of Nell Gwyn. The -Sackville shield was correct enough, but whether the other quarterings -were the arms of Gwyn, or whether indeed the orange-girl was entitled to -any heraldic device, I am, of course, unable to say. - - - § iii - -Pomp, wealth, and infirmities now began to take the place of brilliant -youth and comparative irresponsibility. The frivolous Lord Buckhurst -became Earl of Dorset and Middlesex, he succeeded to the estates of the -Cranfields, he married, he was made Lord Chamberlain, he was given the -Garter, and he had a fit of apoplexy in the King’s bedroom. In order to -recover his health he went abroad; his passport is at Knole, on yellow -parchment, with the King’s signature at the top: - - Charles the _Second_ by the Grace of God, etc., to all admirals, - vice-admirals, captains of our ships at sea, governors, commanders, - soldiers, mayors, sheriffs, justices of the peace, bailiffs, - constables, customers, controllers, searchers, and all other our - loving subjects whom it may concern, greeting: - - _Whereas_ our right trusty and right well-beloved cousin CHARLES Earl - _of_ Dorset _and_ Middlesex hath desired our licence to go beyond the - seas for recovery of his health, we are graciously pleased to - condescend thereunto, and accordingly our will and pleasure is, and we - do hereby require, that you permit and suffer the said Charles Earl of - Dorset and Middlesex with six servants by name Richard Raphael, Robert - Pennock, Thomas Bridges, —— Solomon, John Carter, and Christopher - Garner, also forty pounds in money, and all baggage, utensils, - carriages, and necessaries to the said Earl belonging, freely to - embark in any of our ports and from thence to pass beyond the seas - without any let, hindrance, or molestation whatsoever. And you are - likewise to permit the said Earl and his servants at their return back - into this Kingdom to pass with like freedom, into the same, affording - them [as there may be occasion] all requisite aid and furtherance as - well going as returning. And for so doing this shall be your warrant. - - Given at our court at Windsor, the 23rd day of _August_ 1681, in the - three and thirtieth year of our reign. - - By his Ma^{ty’s} Command, - L. JENKINS. - -There is also a letter from one of the servants mentioned in the -passport, saying that they had had a good passage to Dieppe, “except Mr. -Raphael, who was kind to ye fishes.” - -There is another letter, from the Mr. Raphael in question, written home -to Robert Pennock from Paris while on the same journey, saying that his -Lordship wants the pond finished against the spring, orders the gardener -to manure all the trees, and wishes Pennock to obtain a sure-footed nag, -as his Lordship intends for the future only to make use of a -saddle-horse between Copt Hall and London to prevent the pain of the -gravel, of which infirmity his Lordship has lately been much troubled. - -About this time he married. I have in my hands one of his love-letters, -in faded ink; there is no date, no beginning, and no signature: it is -superscribed “for the Countess of Falmouth,” and enclosed is a lock of -reddish-brown hair—most dead and poignant token—of surprising length -when one considers the heavy wig which was to be worn over it. - - I must beg leave that we may be a little earlier than ordinary at - Hick’s hall to-day, for to-morrow, i may be so miserable as not to see - you; besides i am in pain till i can clear some doubts that have kept - me waking all night; something i observed in your looks which shewed - you had been displeased, at what i dare not ask; but till i know i - must suffer the torment of uncertain guessing; though i am pretty well - assured i could not be concerned in it [more than in the trouble it - gave you]; being so perfectly yours, that it will of necessity be - counted your own fault if ever i offend you, since ’tis you alone have - the government not only of all my actions but of my very thoughts, to - confirm you in the belief of this truth i do from this moment give up - to you all my pretences to freedom or any power over myself, and - though you may justly think it below you to be owned the sovereign of - so mean a dominion as my heart, i have yet confidence upon my knees to - offer it you; since never any prince could boast of so clear a title, - and so absolute power, as you shall ever possess in it. - -We know a good deal about Lord Dorset’s expenses and finances. We know -that on the death of his mother he obtained an additional income of -£1744 14_s._ 11_d._ a year from her estates. We know that thirty-four -houses in the Strand were granted to him, and let as follows: - - £ _s._ _d._ - 23 houses at from £6 to £65 each 950 7 1 - 3 houses built by him and let at £90 each 270 0 0 - ————— — — - Total £1220 7 1 - -We know that twenty-four tenements east of Somerset House were granted -to him for ninety-nine years at a yearly rent of £24 10_s._ 4_d._—and -that out of them he should have made £1768 a year, as witness the list I -reproduce, taken from a manuscript at Knole, but either he or his -bailiff must disgracefully have neglected his business, for on Lord -Dorset’s death many rents were found to be in arrear, one tenant’s -yearly rent of £30 having accumulated to the sum of £235 5_s._ 6_d._, or -nearly eight years’ owing, and another rent of £17 18_s._ 4_d._ had -accumulated to arrears of £111 19_s._ 10½_d._ His servants’ accounts, -too, were in a state of confusion, and some of the wages unpaid up to -three years. - - _Signs_ _Rent_ - £ _s._ _d._ - The Rising Sun 64 0 0 - 7 Stars and King’s Arms 60 0 0 - 60 0 0 - 110 0 0 - Surgeon’s Arms 60 0 0 - The Golden Ball 60 0 0 - The Golden Key 60 0 0 - 60 0 0 - Mitre 90 0 0 - 3 Golden [?] 90 0 0 - Black Lion 90 0 0 - Golden Fleece 40 0 0 - 60 0 0 - Golden [?] 48 0 0 - Two Cats 60 0 0 - 60 0 0 - 70 0 0 - Hen and Chicken 60 0 0 - Spread Eagle, a Bath house 40 0 0 - 13 0 0 - 3 Black Lions 60 0 0 - The Angel 70 0 0 - 55 0 0 - The Dorset Arms Tavern 140 0 0 - Swan 33 0 0 - 55 0 0 - Bull Head Tavern 24 0 0 - The Dial 34 0 0 - Ship and Bale 34 0 0 - The Peacock 8 0 0 - ———— — — - 1768 0 0 - -His total income for the year 1698–99 was £7650 4_s._ 3½_d._—the curious -accuracy of these sums does not seem to tally with the confusion to -which I have referred—that is to say, about £40,000 of modern money. It -may be interesting, while on this subject, to show some of the means -common among the great nobles for filling their pockets. In 1697, for -instance, we read that “My Lord Chamberlain Dorset has sold the -keepership of Greenwich Park to the Earl of Romney” [James Vernon to -Matthew Prior], and in the same year—this is when he was getting on in -years and entirely withdrawing from politics—“Lord Dorset hath resigned -his office of Lord Chamberlain to the Earl of Sunderland for the sum of -ten thousand pounds,” but where was this sum to come from? not out of -Lord Sunderland’s pocket; no, but “_which his Majesty pays_.” There was -yet another method by which money might conveniently be raised: it is -well illustrated by Dorset’s petition regarding the dues on tobacco: - - _To the King’s most Ex^t Ma^{ty}_ - - The humble Petition of CHARLES Earl _of_ Middlesex. - - Humbly Sheweth - - That by the act [for preventing planting of tobacco in England and - for regulating the Plantation Trade] all ships that shall return - from any of yr Maj^{ties} foreign plantations and not return to yr - Maj^{ties} Kingdom of England, Dominion of Wales or Town of - Berwick upon Tweed, and there pay the customs and duties ... shall - be confisable and their bonds forfeited. That the _Phenix_ of - London, Richard Pidgeon Commander and several other ships have ... - discharged merchandizes of the growth of yr Maj^{ties} - Plantations, in yr Kingdom of Ireland, so that by law they are - forfeited as by the said Act produceable may appear. - - May it therefore please yr Sacred Maj^{ty} to grant yr Petitioner - all forfeitures as well past as to come on accompt of the said - Act, with power to depute such persons as he shall think fitting, - to look upon and take care that no such abuses shall be in ye - future. - - [_Knole MSS._ 1671.] - -To this petition I should like to add another, representing the other -point of view, that of the unfortunate people who had the King’s -soldiers quartered upon them in intolerable numbers, and were, as it -appears, not refunded for the expenses to which they had been put. I add -this the more willingly, as Dorset was commonly reputed the friend of -the poor, and it is said of him that “crowds of poor daily thronged his -gates, expecting thence their bread. The lazy and the sick, as he -accidentally saw them, were removed from the street to the physician, -and not only cured but supplied with what might enable them to resume -their former calling. The prisoner has often been released by my Lord’s -paying the debt, and the condemned been pardoned, through his -intercession with the sovereign.” - - _To_ the Right Hon^{ble} CHARLES Earl _of_ Dorset _and_ Middlesex. - - The humble petition of the Innholders and Alehouse Keepers - in the parish of Sevenoaks in the county of Kent, Humbly - Sheweth, - - That your said petitioners have every year since ye coming - of his present Majesty had either foot or horse quartered on - them, even much beyond their neighbours ... The said - innkeepers are willing to serve their King and Country, but - beyond their ability cannot, they therefore humbly pray that - care may be taken for procuring their arrears due, or at - least to prevent more soldiers coming on them, which they - understand are, unless your Honour will stand in the gap ... - - [_Knole MSS._] - -Some of the foregoing papers, then, account for his income; we have also -some notes as to his expenses. To his servants he paid £8 to £10 a year -for “ordinary men and maids.” For beef he paid 2_s._ a stone; for -mutton, 3_d._ a pound; pullets were 6_d._ each; a goose was 1_s._ 8_d._; -a pheasant, 1_s._; a hare, 8_d._; a tongue, 1_s._; a partridge, 9_d._; a -pigeon, 3_d._; a turkey, 2_s._ 6_d._; a calf’s head, 1_s._ 6_d._ A -bushel of oysters cost him 4_s._ 6_d._; a peck of damsons, 1_s._ Wheat -cost him 7_s._ a bushel; salt, 5_s._ a bushel. For 130 walnuts he paid -1_s._ 6_d._, and for a dozen candles 5_s._ 6_d._—a surprising price. We -have also a detailed account of his cellar. For strong beer he paid -35_s._ a hogshead, and for small beer 10_s._ a hogshead. From July 1690 -to November 1691 his total wine bill amounted to £598 19_s._ 4_d._, an -alarming sum when we reflect that he was paying only 5_s._ 1_d._ for a -gallon of red port, 6_s._ 8_d._ for a gallon of sherry, and 8_s._ for a -gallon of canary. We are given the details entered in the cellar from -August 1690 to January 1691; they are sufficiently formidable: 425 -gallons of red port, 85 gallons of sherry, 72 gallons of canary, 63 -gallons of white port, and a quart of hock. One wonders whether Lord -Dorset was “laying down,” or whether this quantity was adequate only to -the six months shown on the account book. - -Lord Dorset seems to have carried large sums of money about on his -person, for the steward’s account book at Knole shows a regular daily -entry of 10_s._ for loose change to his Lordship, and when he was set -upon by footpads near Tyburn they robbed him not only of his gold -George, but also of forty or fifty pounds. This does not perhaps seem a -very enormous sum for a wealthy man to carry, but it must always be -remembered that in order to obtain the modern equivalent it is necessary -to multiply by at least five. - -Before leaving the Knole papers of this date—and there is much that I -have regretfully discarded, many letters, for instance, regarding the -election of Lord Buckhurst to the House of Commons, which throw -interesting sidelights upon the methods of electioneering in the early -days of Charles II—I should like to quote one letter of unknown -authorship, relating to the Rye House Plot. The letter is addressed to -Lord Dorset: it is unsigned and undated, but the date must be placed, by -virtue of internal evidence, in July 1683, by reason of the reference to -Captain Walcot who was tried on July 12th in connection with the plot. - - The party that went for my Lord Essex found him in his garden - gathering of nut-meg peaches, he was lodged in my Lord Feversham’s - lodgings, in Whitehall, and the next day, having not made use of the - favour of pen and ink, so well as my Lord Howard hath, he was sent to - the Tower. - - My Lord Howard runs like a spout, fresh, and fresh he hath writ enough - to hang himself, and 1 hundred more, and cried enough to drown - himself, he hath cast his lodgings in Whitehall. - - Sir John Burlace was brought before the Council yesterday, upon - sending intelligence to my Lord Lovelace that there was a warrant - against him. He stayed one night in the messenger’s hands and was this - morning bail for my Lord Lovelace, and both of them dismissed. - - The enclosed is an account how far the Grand Jury hath proceeded, that - little note hath the names of some of the Grand Jury. - - None were tried this afternoon but Capt. Walcot who was cast by a most - clear evidence being at several consults, the places all named, his - raising of arms, his own letter to the King, and one of the consults - was at the Vulture, Ludgate Hill, and Sheppard’s House, he had very - little to say for himself, but that the witnesses swore away his life - to secure their own, he excepted against all Jury men that were of the - lieutenancy and behaved himself with a great deal of decency and - resolution. They had a declaration ready drawn by Goodenough so soon - as ever the King was killed, and particular men appointed to murder - the most considerable persons. Borne by name was to kill this Lord - Keeper, and refused it because it looked like an unneighbourly thing, - my Lord pulled off his hat and said Thank you, neighbour. - -I find also, dated 1690, this curious vocabulary of thieves’ slang -scribbled on the back of some particulars relating to the appointment of -a new incumbent for Sevenoaks. Unfortunately half the alphabet is -missing: - - Autem mort a marryed woman - - Abram naked - - abram-cour a tatterdemalion - - autem a church - - boughar a cur - - bouse drink - - bousing-ken an ale-house - - borde a shilling - - boung a purse - - bing to goe - - bing a wast to goe away - - bube ye pox - - buge a dog - - bleating-cheat a sheep - - billy-cheat an apron - - bite ye peter or Roger steal ye portmantle - - budge one that steals cloaks - - bulk and file a pickpocket and his mate - - cokir a lyar - - cuffin quire a justice - - crampings bolts and shackles - - chats ye gallows - - crackmans hedges - - calle - togeman a cloak - Joseph - - couch to lye asleep - - couch a hogshead to goe to sleep - - commission a shirt - mish - - cackling-cheat a chicken - - cassan cheese - - crash to kill - - crashing-cheat teeth - - cloy to steal - - cut to speak - - cut bien whydds to speak well - - cut quire whydds to speak evill - - confeck counterfeit - - cly ye jerk to be whipt - - dimber pretty - - damber rascall - - drawers stockings - - duds goods - - deusea vile ye country - - dommerer a madman - - darkmans night or even - - dup to enter - - tip me my earnest give me my part - - filch a staffe - - ferme a hole - - fambles hands - - fambles cheats rings and gloves - - fib to beat - - flag a groat - - fogus tobacco - - fencing cully one that receives stolne goods - - glimmer fire - - glaziers eyes - - granna corne - - gentry more a gallant wench - - gun lip - - gage a pot or pipe - - grunting-cheat a sucking pig - - giger a dore - - gybe a passe - - glasier one that goes in at windows - - gilt a picklock - - harmanbeck a constable - - heave a book to rob a house - - half berd sixpence - - heartsease 20 shillings - - knapper of knappers a sheep stealer - - lightmans morning or day - - lib to tumble - - libben an house - - lage water - - libedge a bed - - lullabye-cheat a child - - lap pottage - - lucries all manner of clothes - - maunder to beg - - magery prater an hen - - muffling-cheat a napkin - - mumpers gentile beggars[10] - - - § iv - -In 1685 Charles II died, and with him departed that devil-may-care -existence into which Lord Dorset had fitted so readily and so well. He -was no favourite with the new King; for one thing he had addressed -verses in this vein to Lady Dorchester, mistress of James II: - - _Tell me, Dorinda, why so gay, - Why such embroidery, fringe, and lace? - Can any dresses find a way - To stop th’ approaches of decay, - And mend a ruined face?_ - - _Wilt thou still sparkle in the box, - Still ogle in the ring? - Canst thou forget thy age and pox? - Can all that shines on shells and rocks - Make thee a fine young thing?_ - -He appears also at this time to have grown more serious in his outlook, -for he disapproved of the new King so strongly as to have taken an -active part in the accession of William III to the English throne. He -was instrumental, indeed, in arranging the escape of Princess -(afterwards Queen) Anne: - - That evening [_says Macaulay_] Anne retired to her chamber as usual. - At dead of night she rose, and, accompanied by her friend Sarah - [Churchill] and two other female attendants, stole down the back - stairs in a dressing-gown and slippers. The fugitives gained the open - street unchallenged. A hackney coach was in waiting for them there. - Two men guarded the humble vehicle. One of them was Compton, Bishop of - London, the princess’ old tutor; the other was the magnificent and - accomplished Dorset, whom the extremity of the public danger had - roused from his luxurious repose. The coach drove instantly to - Aldersgate Street ... there the princess passed the night. On the - following morning she set out for Epping Forest. In that wild tract - [it is amusing to think of Epping as a wild tract]—in that wild tract - Dorset possessed a venerable mansion [Copt Hall], the favourite - resort, during many years, of wits and poets ... - -but Macaulay was evidently not in possession of, or else ignored -(although it is difficult to believe that the incident would not have -tempted his picturesque and vivid pen), the detail related by Dorset’s -grandson, Lord George Sackville, that - - one of her Royal Highness’ shoes sticking fast in the mud, the - accident threatened to impede her escape; but Lord Dorset, immediately - drawing off his white glove, put it on the Princess’ foot, and placed - her safely in the carriage. - -That Lord Dorset had no sympathy with popery is proved by this letter, -which is among the Duke of Rutland’s papers: - - Lord Dorset last night [27th January 1688] while at supper at Lady - Northampton’s, received the following letter with cross on top: - - + - - ’Twere pity that one of the best of men should be lost for the worst - of causes. Do not sacrifice a life everybody values for a religion - yourself despise. Make your peace with your lawful sovereign, or - know that after this 27th of January you have not long to live. Take - this warning from a friend before repentance is in vain; - -and it is apparent that he had not lost touch with his old friends of -the Court of Charles II, for we find, in 1688, that he placed Knole at -the disposal of the Queen Dowager (Catherine of Braganza), - - without any consideration of rent, besides the sole use of his park, - and if she makes any alterations to have timber out of his woods for - that purpose. The Queen Dowager will consider the repairs of the Lord - Dorset’s house, which will amount to £20,000. - -But whether she availed herself of the offer, for however short a -period, I cannot say. - -Lord Dorset was in favour with William III, and continued to hold his -office of Lord Chamberlain until he resigned it in 1697. This was the -date when he withdrew from all public life. His second wife had died six -years before; Dorset himself was approaching sixty, and the excesses of -his youth had long since begun to tell. The end of a life which opened -with such gaiety and _éclat_ offers a very sordid picture. From his -portraits it is easy to see that he has grown heavy and apoplectic: his -features are coarsened and swollen; his double chins hang in folds over -his voluminous robes, his ruffles, and his ribbons. He could not hope to -enjoy his life at both ends. Those must have been good days when he got -drunk with Sedley, or kept house with Nelly at Epsom, or exchanged -witticisms with the King in the passages at Whitehall, or sat after -supper round the dining-room table at Knole with Dryden and Killigrew -and Rochester; but after running up the account the debt had to be paid -at last. It was all very well for Prior, who owed him everything, to get -gracefully out of a difficulty by saying that he drivelled better sense -than most men could talk: the remainder of the account is not pretty to -contemplate. “A few years before he died,” is the story told by his -grandson, Lord George Sackville, “he married a woman named Roche of very -obscure connections, who held him in a sort of captivity down at Bath, -where he expired at about sixty-nine.” There is a contemporary letter, -which says, “My Lord Dorset owns his marriage with one of his -acquaintances, one of the Roches. Do you think anyone will pity him?” -“She suffered few persons to approach him during his last illness, or -rather, decay,” Lord George’s account continues, “and was supposed to -have converted his weakness of mind to her own objects of personal -acquisition. He was indeed considered to be fallen into a state of such -imbecility as would render it necessary to appoint guardians, with a -view to prevent his injuring the family estate, but the intention was -nevertheless abandoned. You have no doubt heard, and it is a fact, that -with a view of ascertaining whether Lord Dorset continued to be of a -sane mind, Prior, whom he had patronised and always regarded with -predilection, was sent down to Bath by the family.” Having obtained -access to the Earl, and conversed with him, Prior made his report in -these words, “Lord Dorset is certainly greatly declined in his -understanding, but he _drivels_ so much better sense even now than any -other man can _talk_, that you must not call me into court as a witness -to prove him an idiot.” Congreve, appropriating the gist of the remark, -observed after visiting Dorset on his deathbed, “Faith, he slabbers more -wit dying than other people do in their best health.” Swift also, who -was an intimate friend of Lady Betty Germaine and the Dorsets in the -succeeding generation, remarks that Charles grew dull in his old age. -Ann Roche, who guarded so jealously her ancient and mouldy bird of -Paradise, managed to provide handsomely for herself under his will. He -left her not only the house in Stable Yard, St. James, which was hers -before her marriage, but also lands and messuages in Sussex, two beds -with the furniture thereunto belonging in his house at Knole, the -furniture of two rooms there, all the household linen there, and £500 to -be increased to £20,000 if his son should die without issue. The -marriage only lasted a short time, for in 1705 Lord Dorset died—old, -enfeebled, and semi-imbecile. - -It is not surprising to learn that he left a number of illegitimate -children: we know of at least four for certain, and there was probably a -fifth, a son, as it is difficult to account otherwise for the William -Sackville who writes, signing a remarkably ungrammatical letter with a -remarkably beautiful signature, to ask for money, as he has lately -“gained the affection of a young lady,” and this, he promises, will be -“the last trouble that ever I shall give your Lordship; it would come -very seasonable to my present circumstances who has been harassed and -ruined by the fate of war this four years past and have done the -government good service, and never rewarded as those that deserved it -less has.” The other four were daughters. There is a petition at Knole -from one of them: - - _To_ the Right Hon. CHARLES Earl _of_ Dorset _and_ Middlesex, Lord - Chamberlain of Their Majesties’ Household, the humble petition of MARY - SACKVILLE: - - That it having pleased ye Almighty to lay his afflicting hand on your - petitioner’s husband and her two small children for a long time - together, having nothing to live upon but his own hands’ labour, which - failing him during his sickness all his family have suffered thereby - and been put to great straights and having received much of your - Honour’s charity, is now ... [_illegible_] but hopes that your - Lordship will consider it is the hand of accident that is hard upon - her. - - Your petitioner therefore humbly prays that your Honour will be - pleased to bestow something on her this time that she may undergo her - calamity with a little more cheerfulness and alacrity. - -According to the will of this Mary Sackville, her circumstances must -have improved, for she leaves £1000 “for the benefit of Katherine -Sackville my sister or reputed sister who was born of the body of Mrs. -Phillipa Waldgrave, deceased, my late mother or reputed mother.” This -will is dated 1684, so I should think the Katherine Sackville referred -to is probably the “K. S.” who was buried at Withyham, aged fourteen, in -1690—humble little initials among the Lady Annes and Lady Elizabeths who -surround her. She had been provided for in Lord Dorset’s will also: - - To my natural daughter Katherine Sackville, _alias_ Walgrave, £1000. - - To my natural daughter Mary Sackville, _alias_ Walgrave, £200, and - £2000 before settled on her. - - To my natural daughter An [_sic_] Lee, _alias_ Sackville, the sum of - £500. - -It thus seems probable that these daughters were the children of two -different mothers, Lee and Walgrave, Waldgrave, Waldegrave, as it was -variously spelt. An agreement at Knole, dated 1674, provides for -Phillipa Walgrave to receive interest on £1000 placed in Mr. Guy’s hands -by Lord Dorset, the interest on it to be paid to her yearly, and after -her death to Mary Sackville until her marriage or until the age of 21, -but if Mrs. Walgrave marries, the £1000 is to be paid to her. Another -natural daughter, also named Mary, married Lord Orrery, but I do not -know who was her mother. - - - § v - - He had been one of the most notorious libertines of the wild time - which followed the Restoration. He had been the terror of the city - watch, had passed many nights in the round house, and had at least - once occupied a cell in Newgate. His passion for Nell Gwyn, who always - called him her Charles the First, had given no small amusement and - scandal to the town. Yet, in the midst of follies and vices, his - courageous spirit, his fine understanding, and his natural goodness of - heart, had been conspicuous. Men said that the excesses in which he - indulged were common between him and the whole race of gay young - Cavaliers, but that his sympathy with human suffering and the - generosity with which he made reparation to those whom his freaks had - injured were all his own. His associates were astonished by the - distinction which the public made between him and them. “He may do - what he chooses,” said Wilmot, “he is never in the wrong.” The - judgment of the world became still more favourable to Dorset when he - had been sobered by time and marriage. His graceful manners, his - brilliant conversation, his soft heart, his open hand, were - universally praised. No day passed, it was said, in which some - distressed family had not reason to bless his name. And yet, with all - his good nature, such was the keenness of his wit that scoffers whose - sarcasm all the town feared stood in craven fear of the sarcasm of - Dorset. All political parties esteemed and caressed him, but politics - were not much to his taste. Had he been driven by necessity to exert - himself, he would probably have risen to the highest posts in the - state; but he was born to rank so high and to wealth so ample that - many of the motives which impel men to engage in public affairs were - wanting to him.... Like many other men who, with great natural - abilities, are constitutionally and habitually indolent, he became an - intellectual voluptuary, and a master of all those pleasing branches - of knowledge which can be acquired without severe application. He was - allowed to be the best judge of painting, of sculpture, of - architecture, of acting, that the court could show. On questions of - polite learning his decisions were regarded at all the coffee houses - as without appeal. More than one clever play which had failed on the - first representation was supported by his single authority against the - whole clamour of the pit and came forth successful at the second - trial.... - -Macaulay thus summarises his career and character, and I am led quite -naturally to the consideration of one aspect of his life on which I have -scarcely touched, and that is his connection with the men of letters of -his day. The often-quoted saying, that Butler owed to him that the court -tasted his _Hudibras_, Wycherley that the town liked his _Plain Dealer_, -and that the Duke of Buckingham deferred the publication of his -_Rehearsal_ until he was sure that Lord Buckhurst would not rehearse it -upon him again—this saying had much truth in it. It is better, I think, -to quote the disinterested opinion of Macaulay rather than the -panegyrics of Prior or Dryden, or any of the contemporary authors who -stood too greatly in Dorset’s debt for complete impartiality: - - Such a patron of letters England had never seen [_says Macaulay_]. His - bounty was bestowed with equal judgment and liberality, and was - confined to no sect or faction. Men of genius, estranged from each - other by literary jealousy or difference of political opinion, joined - in acknowledging his impartial kindness. Dryden owned that he had been - saved from ruin by Dorset’s princely generosity. Yet Montague and - Prior, who had keenly satirised Dryden, were introduced by Dorset into - public life; and the best comedy of Dryden’s mortal enemy, Shadwell, - was written at Dorset’s country seat. The munificent earl might, if - such had been his wish, have been the rival of those of whom he was - content to be the benefactor. For the verses which he occasionally - composed, unstudied as they are, exhibit the traces of a genius which, - assiduously cultivated, would have produced something great. In the - small volume of his works may be found songs which have the easy - vigour of Suckling, and little satires which sparkle with wit as - splendid as those of Butler. - -One can, perhaps, scarcely agree with Macaulay in this estimate of -Dorset’s literary gifts. The songs he wrote are little more than easy -specimens of conventional Restoration verse, and, for my part, I fail to -find in them, with the exception of “To all you ladies now at land,” any -merit which was not shared by all the numerous song-writers of the day. -It certainly cannot be claimed for him that he had any of the vigour, -originality, or true poetic impulse of his great-great-grandfather, the -old Lord Treasurer, and although it may be argued that the age of -Elizabeth and the age of the Restoration differed totally in poetic -conception and spontaneity, I still do not admit that Dorset possessed -those qualities which might have made up in one direction for those -which were lacking in another, I have already quoted his sea-song, -unquestionably the best thing he ever wrote, and, to give point to my -argument, will quote two further songs, which may stand as typical -examples, the first of his graceful but entirely artificial talent, the -second of his satire which caused Rochester to say of him: - - _For pointed satire I would Buckhurst choose, - The best good man with the worst natured muse._ - - SONG - - _Phyllis, for shame, let us improve - A thousand different ways - Those few short moments snatched by love - From many tedious days._ - - _If you want courage to despise - The censure of the grave, - Though Love’s a tyrant in your eyes, - Your heart is but a slave._ - - _My love is full of noble pride - Nor can it e’er submit - To let that fop, Discretion, ride - In triumph over it._ - - _False friends I have, as well as you, - Who daily counsel me - Fame and ambition to pursue - And leave off loving thee._ - - _But when the least regard I show - To fools who thus advise, - May I be dull enough to grow - Most miserably wise._ - - _To_ CATHERINE SEDLEY [married Sir David Colyear] - - _Proud with the spoils of royal cully, - With false pretence to wit and parts, - She swaggers like a battered bully - To try the tempers of men’s hearts._ - - _Though she appear as glittering fine - As gems, and jets, and paints can make her, - She ne’er can win a breast like mine: - The Devil and Sir David take her._ - -The fugitive character of his own verses does not, however, in any way -detract from his splendour as a patron. It is well known that Matthew -Prior as a boy was found by him reading Horace in a tavern in -Westminster, when, struck by his intelligence, Dorset sent the boy at -his own expense to school until his election as King’s Scholar. Prior in -after years did not forget this kindness. His poems are dedicated to the -son of his earliest patron, and there are, as students of Prior will -remember, several amongst them especially written to members of Dorset’s -family, notably the “Lines to Lord Buckhurst [Dorset’s son] when playing -with a cat.” The many letters from Prior to Lord Dorset, now in Lord -Bath’s possession, testify to the endurance of their friendship: one of -these letters ends with a poem, which I quote, as I am under the -impression that it is not included in any edition of Prior’s works: - - _Spare Dorset’s sacred life, discerning Fate, - And Death shall march through camps and courts in state, - Emptying his quiver on the vulgar great: - Round Dorset’s board let Peace and Plenty dance, - Far off let Famine her sad reign advance, - And War walk deep in blood through conquered France. - Apollo thus began the mystic strain, - The Muses’ sons all bowed and said Amen._ - -It is perhaps less commonly known that Dryden also owed, in another way, -much to Dorset. The account is thus given by Macaulay: - - Dorset became Lord Chamberlain, and employed his influence and - patronage annexed to his functions, as he had long employed his - private means, in encouraging genius and alleviating misfortune. One - of the first acts which he was under the necessity of performing must - have been painful to a man of so generous a nature, and of so keen a - relish for whatever was excellent in arts and letters. Dryden could no - longer remain Poet Laureate. The public would not have borne to see - any papist among the servants of their Majesties; and Dryden was not - only a papist, but an apostate. He had, moreover, aggravated the guilt - of his apostacy by calumniating and ridiculing the Church which he had - deserted. He had, it was facetiously said, treated her as the pagan - persecutors of old treated her children. He had dressed her up in the - skin of a wild beast, and then baited her for the public amusement. He - was removed; but he received from the private bounty of the - magnificent Chamberlain a pension equal to the salary which had been - withdrawn. - -Dryden, apparently, despite this generosity, continued to lament his -ill-fortune, and his contemporary Blackmore, in a poem called _Prince -Arthur_, satirises him in the character of _Laurus_ for his assiduity at -Dorset’s doors—Dorset being the _Sakil_ of the poem, Sackville in -transparent disguise: - - _The poets’ nation did obsequious wait - For the kind dole divided at his gate. - Laurus among the meagre crowd appeared, - An old, revolted, unbelieving bard, - Who thronged, and shoved, and pressed, and would be heard._ - - _Sakil’s high roof, the Muses’ palace, rung - With endless cries, and endless songs he sung. - To bless good Sakil Laurus would be first; - But Sakil’s prince and Sakil’s God he cursed. - Sakil without distinction threw his bread, - Despised the flatterer, but the poet fed._ - -It is true that in his _Essay on Satire_, which, like his _Essay on -Dramatic Poetry_, is dedicated in terms of the most outrageous flattery -to Dorset, Dryden makes full acknowledgement of the obligation: - - I must ever acknowledge, to the honour of your Lordship and the - eternal memory of your charity, that, since this revolution, wherein I - have patiently suffered the ruin of my small fortune, and the loss of - that poor subsistence which I had from two kings, whom I had served - more faithfully than profitably to myself; then your Lordship was - pleased, out of no other motive but your own nobleness, without any - desert of mine, or the least solicitation from me, to make me a most - bountiful present, which at that time, when I was most in want of it, - came most seasonably and unexpectedly to my relief. - -[Illustration: - - THE BROWN GALLERY - - _Built by_ ARCHBISHOP BOURCHIER _in 1460_ -] - -But I think there may be detected, even in this acknowledgment, the note -of whining to which Macaulay, in the continuation of the passage I have -quoted, draws attention. It is also related that Dryden, when dining -with Dorset, found a hundred-pound note hidden under his plate. In a -letter preserved at Knole, in Dryden’s beautiful handwriting, he makes -further acknowledgement, after proffering a petition on behalf of a -friend who wished to obtain rooms in Somerset House: - - ... if I had confidence enough, my Lord, I would presume to mind you - of a favour which your Lordship formerly gave me some hopes of from - the Queen; but if it be not proper or convenient for you to ask, I - dare give your Lordship no further trouble in it, being on so many - other accounts already your Lordship’s most obliged obedient servant, - - JOHN DRYDEN. - -We know that Dryden was a constant visitor at Knole; we have even an -anecdote of one of his visits. It is related that someone proposed that -each member of the party should write an impromptu, and that Dryden, -when the allotted time had expired, should judge between them. Silence -ensued while each guest wrote busily, or laboriously, upon the sheet of -paper provided: Dorset scribbled a couple of lines and threw it down on -the table. At the end of the time the umpire rose, and said that after -careful consideration he awarded the prize to their host; he would read -out what his Lordship had written; it was: “I promise to pay Mr. John -Dryden or order five hundred pounds on demand. DORSET.” - -It would be interesting to know who were the other members of the party; -perhaps Tom Durfey, perhaps Lady Dorset, who is described as “jeune, -belle, riche, et sage,” perhaps Rochester, whose portrait hangs in the -Poets’ Parlour—and I imagine the Poets’ Parlour to have been the scene -of this little incident, “a chamber of parts and players,” says Horace -Walpole, “which is proper enough in that house”—a portrait of a young -man in a heavy wig, labelled “died repentant after a profligate life,” -as I, not understanding the long words, used to gabble off to strangers -along with other piteous little shibboleths when showing the house. -Certainly Shadwell was not there, for he and Dryden were at mortal -enmity; Shadwell, his successor in the Laureateship, another friend and -protégé of Dorset’s, described by Dryden as being - - _Round as a globe, and liquored every chink, - Goodly and great, he sails behind his link. - For all this bulk there’s nothing lost in Og, - For every inch that is not fool is rogue_, - -and who writes of Dorset that he was received by him as a member of his -family, and furthermore, rather plaintively, in a letter at Knole, -beseeching Lord Dorset’s intervention, as “they have put Durfey’s play -before ours, and this day a play of Dryden’s is read to them and that is -to be acted before ours too.” - -Tom Durfey, whose portrait is upstairs in Lady Betty’s room, painted in -profile, with surely the most formidable of all hooked noses, was almost -a pensioner at Knole, having his own rooms over the dairy, and is guilty -of these execrable verses in praise of his second home: - - THE GLORY OF KNOLE - - _Knole most famous in Kent still appears, - Where mansions surveyed for a thousand long years, - In whose domes mighty monarchs might dwell, - Where five hundred rooms are, as Boswell[11] can tell!_ - -I do not think that Durfey can have been very greatly esteemed by his -patron, nor yet on very intimate terms with him, but kept rather, -contemptuously, as permanent rhymester to Dorset’s little court, for -another picture, small, obscure, but entertainingly intimate, shows him -in humble company in the Steward’s Room with Lowry, the Steward; George -Allan, a clothier; Mother Moss, whoever she may have been; Maximilian -Buck, the chaplain; and one Jack Randall. His name is certainly not one -of the most illustrious among the many poets and writers represented on -the walls of the Poets’ Parlour—Edmund Waller, Matthew Prior, Thomas -Flattman, John Dryden, William Congreve, William Wycherley, Thomas -Otway, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Samuel Butler, Abraham Cowley, -Nicholas Rowe, William Cartwright, Sir Kenelm Digby, Alexander Pope. And -with this last name I come to the final tribute paid to the splendid -Dorset—Pope’s epitaph upon his monument in the Sackville chapel at -Withyham: - - _Dorset, the grace of courts, the Muses’ pride, - Patron of arts, and judge of nature, died. - The scourge of pride, though sanctified or great, - Of fops in learning, and of knaves in state: - Yet soft his nature, though severe his lay, - His anger moral, and his wisdom gay. - Blest satirist! who touched the mean so true, - As showed vice had his hate and pity too. - Blest courtier! who could King and country please, - Yet sacred kept his friendships and his ease. - Blest peer! his great forefather’s every grace - Reflected and reflecting in his race, - Where other Buckhursts, other Dorsets shine, - And patriots still, or poets, deck the line._ - - - - - CHAPTER VII - Knole in the Early Eighteenth Century - LIONEL SACKVILLE - 7th Earl _and_ 1st - Duke _of_ Dorset - - - § i - -The first duke of Dorset remains to me, in spite of much reading, but an -indistinct figure. I do not know whether the fault is mine or his. -Perhaps he was a man of little personality; certainly he was lacking in -the charm of his scapegrace father or of his frivolous great-nephew, the -third duke. And yet he is a personage of some solidity: weighty, -Georgian solidity. The epithets chosen by his contemporaries to describe -him are all concordant enough, “a man of dignity, caution, and -plausibility,” “worthy, honest, good-natured,” “he preserved to the last -the good breeding, decency of manner, and dignity of exterior deportment -of Queen Anne’s time, never departing from his style of gravity and -ceremony,” “a large-grown, full person,” and finally—the words come -almost with the shock of being precisely what we were waiting for—“in -spite of the greatest dignity in his appearance, he was in private the -greatest lover of low humour and buffoonery.” He was fitted, if I piece -together rightly my scraps of evidence, to lead the life of a country -gentleman, performing his duty towards his county, entertaining his -friends, enjoying with them after dinner the low humour to which he -inclined, rolling out his laughter in the Poets’ Parlour, slapping his -great thighs, and rejoining his wife afterwards in the spirit of -affectionate domesticity which induced him to begin his letters to her -“dear, dear, dear girl,” or “my dear, dear Colly.” He lived, says one -account of him, after detailing his amiable qualities as a kind husband -and father, “in great hospitality all his life, and he was so respected -that when at Knole on Sundays the front of the house was so crowded with -horsemen and carriages as to give it rather the appearance of a princely -levee than the residence of a private nobleman.” It was his misfortune -that he was not allowed to remain leading this kind of life so much to -his taste: “the poor Duke of Dorset,” said Lord Shelburne, “was made by -his son to commence politician at sixty.” The local offices which he -held were well suited to his disposition and abilities; the titles of -_Custos Rotulorum_, _Lord Lieutenant of Kent_, _Constable of Dover -Castle_, and _Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports_ sit admirably upon his -rather provincial dignity. He could discharge these offices while -surrounding himself with friends, and keeping open house at Knole. He -was surely happy at Knole, with the duchess and the duchess’ friend Lady -Betty Germaine installed in her two little rooms in a corner of the -house, and the correspondence with Dean Swift, and the echoes of the -Restoration reaching him in the shape of dedications from Prior and -Pope, who had been his father’s friends. He must have been happy -superintending the building of the “ruins” in the park, in ordering the -removal of the clock from the roof of the Great Hall to a safer place -over Bourchier’s oriel, in putting up the balustrade in the Stone Court, -in adding to the picture-gallery his own full-length Kneller, painted in -Garter robes—a dignified and ponderous addition—in continuing his -father’s kindly and contemptuous patronage of Durfey, in entertaining -the Prince of Wales, in receiving the present of a pair of elk-antlers -measuring 7 foot from tip to tip, in playing at cards with his wife and -Lady Betty, in watching the bull-baiting in the park, in inspiring the -following tribute on the occasion of his birthday: - - _Accept, with unambitious views, - The tribute of a female muse; - Free from all flattery and art, - She only boasts an honest heart; - An heart that truly feels your worth, - And hails the day that gave you birth; - Of younger men let others boast, - Since Dorset is my constant toast; - Nor need the gayer world be told - That Dorset never can grow old;_ - - _And with unerring truth agree, - There’s none so young, so blithe as he, - With sprightly wit his jokes abound, - Well-bred, he deals good-humour round; - The maid forgets her fav’rite swain, - When Dorset speaks, he fights in vain; - The lover too, do all he can, - Strives, but in vain, to hate the man. - With this kind wish I end my lays, - Be ever young with length of days._ - -or such appreciation of his Christmas hospitality as this: - - _Our liquor at all times to nature gives fire, - Infuses new blood, and new thoughts can inspire. - Your wife, she may scold, undaunted you’ll sing, - For he that is drunk is as great as a King._ - - _In the field, if all night you lie under a willow, - The soft easy snow shall be your down pillow. - There’s nothing can hurt you without or within - When you’ve beef in your belly and Punch in your skin._ - -It is true that certain discordant notes troubled from time to time this -Georgian harmony. The house-steward killed the black page in the -passage; and the duke’s sons themselves were unsatisfactory; even the -favourite son, Lord George, who was the apple of his father’s eye, fell -into disgrace and was court-martialled on a charge of disobedience and -cowardice. “I always told you,” said Lord John on hearing of this, “that -George was no better than myself.” This affair of the battle of Minden -must have been a heavy blow to the duke, but although Lord George was -not exonerated he retained all his father’s doting affection. Still, the -mud had been slung at him and not a little had stuck. The two other sons -were a source of sorrow: Lord John, after devoting his youth to cricket, -went off his head; and Lord Middlesex, the eldest of the three, was an -altogether deplorable character, prompting these verses, based upon an -old saying about the family: - - _Folly and sense in Dorset’s race - Alternately do run, - As Carey one day told his Grace - Praising his eldest son._ - - _But Carey must allow for once - Exception to this rule, - For Middlesex is but a dunce, - Though Dorset be a fool._ - -I quote the verses as they stand, though “dunce” seems scarcely the -right description to apply to Lord Middlesex, that dissolute and -extravagant man of fashion, who squandered large sums of money upon -producing operas, that “proud, disgusted, melancholy, solitary man,” -whose conduct savoured so strongly of madness. Certain family -characteristics appeared in him which had skipped his father, and his -father and he, consequently and not unnaturally, were not on very good -terms. The duke, indeed, did not know what to make of his eldest son and -heir. “Upon my word, Mr. Cary,” he said, when Mr. Cary asked him loudly -at the play whether Lord Middlesex was to undertake the opera again next -season, “I have not considered what answer to make to such a question.” -Both Lord Middlesex and Lord John being so unsatisfactory, Lord George -was, and remained, his father’s favourite. Lord George, in an even -greater degree than his father, is an incongruity among the Sackvilles, -a departure from type. In spite of all his mistakes, his misjudgments, -and his misfortunes, he was a man of greater ability than most of them, -of greater energy than the common run of his indolent and -pleasure-loving race, of a further-reaching ambition. He did not begin -life as the eldest son, coming in due course to be the head of the -family, and languidly accepting the civil or diplomatic posts which were -pressed upon him; such career as he had he made for himself. Unlike his -predecessors or their descendants, he was neither an ambassador, a poet, -nor a patron of art or letters—“I have not,” he wrote, “genius -sufficient for works of _mere imagination_”—but first a soldier and then -a statesman, both disastrously. It is not my intention to go into the -details of his public career; my ignorance is too great of the tangle of -Georgian politics; nor am I qualified to discuss whether he did or did -not disobey his orders at Minden, whether he was or was not largely -responsible for the loss of America, whether he did or did not write the -_Letters of Junius_; such questions are treated in histories of the -period. Nor can I deal with the enormous number of letters on political -subjects written both by and to Lord George: I have looked into them -more than once, and have come away merely bewildered by the -cross-threads of home politics, by the names of remembered or forgotten -statesmen, by the fall and reconstruction of Ministries, by the crises -of Whigs and Tories. So I judge it best to leave Lord George alone, -“hot, haughty, ambitious, and obstinate, a sort of melancholy in his -look which runs through all the Sackville family,” and to seek neither -to blacken nor to whitewash his character. I scarcely regard him as one -of the Sackvilles, perhaps because he broke away from the family -traditions into unfamiliar paths, perhaps also because he earned his own -peerage, inherited a large house of his own, and led an existence -separate from Knole. Living at Knole among its portraits and its legends -which grew into the very texture of one’s life, it was, I suppose, -inevitable that one should grow up with pre-conceived affections or -indifferences, and for some reason Lord George never awakened my -interest or my sense of relationship. He was a public character, not a -relation. - - - § ii - -The early impressions of the first duke, who grew to be so pompous, -stout, and good-natured, and whose three sons gave him in their several -ways so much anxiety, are not unattractive. There is a picture of him as -a little slim boy, with his sister and their pet fawn; and there is Lord -George’s own anecdote of his father’s childhood: - - My father, having lost his own mother, was brought up chiefly by the - Dowager Countess of Northampton, his grandmother. She being - particularly acceptable to Queen Mary, that Princess commanded her - always to bring her little grandson, Lord Buckhurst, to Kensington - Palace, though at that time hardly four years of age, and he was - allowed to amuse himself with a child’s cart in the gallery. King - William, like almost all Dutchmen, never failed to attend the - tea-table every evening. It happened that her Majesty having one - afternoon by his desire made tea, and waiting for the King’s arrival, - who was engaged on business in his cabinet at the other extremity of - the gallery, the boy, hearing the Queen express her impatience at the - delay, ran away to the closet, dragging after him the cart. When he - arrived at the door, he knocked, and the King asking “Who is there?” - “Lord Buck,” answered he. “And what does Lord Buck want with me?” - replied his Majesty. “You must come to tea directly,” said he, “the - Queen is waiting for you.” King William immediately laid down his pen - and opened the door. Then taking the child in his arms, he placed Lord - Buckhurst in the cart, and seizing the pole drew them both along the - gallery to the room in which were seated the Queen, Lady Northampton, - and the company. But no sooner had he entered the apartment, than, - exhausted with the effort, which had forced the blood upon his lungs, - and being constitutionally asthmatic, he threw himself into a chair, - and for some minutes was incapable of uttering a word, breathing with - the utmost difficulty. The Countess of Northampton, shocked at the - consequences of her grandson’s indiscretion, would have punished him, - but the King intervened on his behalf. - -When a young man he went on the inevitable Grand Tour. This journey, it -is fair to assume, which was taken at the instigation of his mother’s -relations, was designed to keep him away from the influence of his -enfeebled father and of his step-mother, Ann Roche, quite as much as for -the benefit of his education. His father was very angry at this -withdrawal of his son from his authority, and wrote to him: - - i hear my Lady Northampton has ordered you not to obey me; if you take - any notice of what she says i have enough in my power to make you - suffer for it beyond what she will make you amends for. But i cannot - imagine you to be such a fool as to be governed by the passion and - folly of anybody. - - Your affectionate father, - DORSET. - - i expect you will come away by the next yocht. - -The next yacht, however, came away without Lord Buckhurst, and the young -man did not return to England until after his father’s death. Shortly -after his succession and return he married Elizabeth Colyear, his “dear, -dear Colly,” and was appointed Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports at a -salary of £160 a year, and Lieutenant of Dover Castle at £50. This is -the menu and cost of the dinner given by the youthful Lord Warden at -Dover Castle on the 16th August 1709 on his being appointed by Queen -Anne: - - £ _s._ _d._ - 5 Soups 3 0 0 - 12 dishes of fish 10 16 0 - 1 Westphalia Ham and five fowls 1 6 0 - 8 dishes of pullets and oysters, with bacon 4 16 0 - 10 Almond puddings 3 0 0 - 12 haunches of venison, roast 1 16 0 - 6 dishes of roast pigs 2 2 0 - 3 dishes of roast geese 1 4 0 - 12 Venison pasties 6 0 0 - 12 white Fragacies with Peetets 7 4 0 - 8 dishes of “ragged” veal 4 16 0 - - _Second Course_ - 14 dishes of ducks, turkey, and pigeons 8 0 0 - 15 codlin tarts, creamed 4 10 0 - 12 dishes of roast lobster 4 16 0 - 12 dishes of umble pies 4 4 0 - 10 dishes of fried fish 5 0 0 - 8 dishes of Chickens and rabbits 4 0 0 - - _Ryders_ - 5 dishes of dried sweetmeats 17 10 0 - 12 dishes of jelly 4 16 0 - 6 dishes of Selebub cream 2 8 0 - 13 dishes of fruit 10 0 0 - 8 dishes of Almond Pies gilt 4 16 0 - 12 dishes of Custard Florentines 3 12 0 - 8 dishes of lobster 3 4 0 - 120 Intermediate plates of sorts 9 0 0 - - _Side-Table_ - A large chine of beef stuck with flags and banners 5 10 0 - 1 loaf of double refined sugar 0 4 6 - Oil and vinegar 0 3 0 - Outcharges and expenses of pewter, carriage, bread, - wharfage, turnspits, glasses, mugs, for ten men, - horses, use of bakehouse, cooks, coach hire 76 16 9 - -This was an office he held intermittently for many years, and on one -occasion, England being then at war with Spain, two hundred and fifty -butts, eight hogsheads, and fifty quarter casks of Spanish mountain -wine, and one hundred jars of Raisins of the Sun, being washed up at -Deal and Sandwich, they were adjudged to him as the Lord Warden’s -perquisite of flotsam and jetsam. - -In 1714 died Queen Anne, and Lord Dorset, with others, was sent to -Hanover to announce to George his accession to the English throne. He -returned from Hanover with the new King, and drove with him in his coach -from Greenwich to London. On the way George related that thirty-three -years earlier he had travelled to England as a suitor for the hand of -Queen Anne: returning to Gravesend after the failure of his mission, he -rode a common post-horse, which gave him a fall, so that he arrived at -Gravesend covered with mud. The King amused himself in the coach with -looking out for the place where this misfortune had come upon him, and -pointed it out to Lord Dorset, who no doubt joined politely in the -laughter. - -Thus began that curious reign of a King who did not know the language of -his adopted country, who spent as much time in his Hanoverian as in his -English estates, and infinitely preferred them, who surrounded himself -with German courtiers and mistresses, and who locked up his wife for -two-and-thirty years as a punishment for her infidelity. The solemnity -of Lord Dorset cannot have been out of place in such a court. Honours -now crowded rapidly upon him, although at one moment he was temporarily -deprived of all his offices for taking part in political intrigues. He -was made a Knight of the Garter, six years later he was made a duke, he -was given the office of Lord Steward, and finally he entered upon the -first lap of his unfortunate career as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. -Before this, however, he was for the second time called upon to be the -bearer of news of accession to a King of England. I give the account in -Lord George’s words: - - When the intelligence of his [George I’s] decease, which took place - near Osnabrugh, in the end of July 1727, arrived in London, the - Cabinet having immediately met, thought proper to dispatch the Duke of - Dorset with the news to the Prince of Wales. He then resided at Kew, - in a state of great alienation from the King, the two Courts - maintaining no communication. Some little time being indispensable to - enable my father to appear in a suitable manner before the new - monarch, he sent forward the Duchess his wife, in order to announce - the event. She arrived at Kew just as the Prince, according to his - invariable custom, having undressed himself after dinner, had laid - down in bed. The Duchess demanding permission to see him immediately, - on business of the greatest importance, the servants acquainted the - Princess of Wales with her arrival; and the Duchess, without a - moment’s hesitation, informed her Royal Highness, that George the - First lay dead at Osnabrugh, that the Cabinet had ordered her husband - to be the bearer of the intelligence to his successor, and that the - Duke would follow her in a short time. She added that not a moment - should be lost in communicating so great an event to the Prince, as - the Ministers wished him to come up to London that same evening, in - order to summon a Privy Council, to issue a proclamation, and take - other requisite measures, at the commencement of a new reign. - - To the propriety of all these steps the Princess assented; but at the - same time informed the Duchess, that she could not venture to enter - her husband’s room, as he had only just taken off his clothes and - composed himself to sleep. “Besides,” added she, “the Prince will not - give credit to the intelligence, but will exclaim that it is a - fabrication, designed for the purpose of exposing him.” The Duchess - continued nevertheless to remonstrate with her Royal Highness, on the - injurious consequences of losing time, and adding that the Duke of - Dorset would expect to find the Prince not only apprised of it, but - ready to accompany him to London. The Princess of Wales took off her - shoes, opened the chamber door softly, and advanced up to the bedside, - while my mother remained at the threshold, till she should be allowed - to enter the apartment. As soon as the Princess came near the bed, a - voice from under the clothes cried out in German, _Was ist das?_ “I am - come, sir,” answered she, “to announce to you the death of the King, - which has taken place in Germany.” “That is one damned trick,” - returned the Prince, “I do not believe one word of it.” “Sir,” said - the Princess, “it is most certain. The Duchess of Dorset has just - brought the intelligence, and the Duke will be here immediately. The - Ministers hope that you will repair to town this very evening, as your - presence there is indispensable.” Her Royal Highness then threw - herself on her knees, to kiss the new King’s hand; and beckoning to - the Duchess of Dorset to advance, she came in likewise, knelt down, - and assured him of the indisputable truth of his father’s decease. - Convinced at length of the fact, he consented to get up and dress - himself. The Duke of Dorset arriving in his coach and six, almost - immediately afterwards, George the Second quitted Kew the same evening - for London. - -George the Second, as Prince of Wales, had been on terms of personal -friendship with the duke. He had stayed at Knole, when half an ox, four -sheep, and a calf were provided, besides the following items for his -visit: - - £ _s._ _d._ - Butcher 17 0 0 - Bread and flour 4 0 0 - Fowls, butter and eggs 14 15 0 - Poulterer 11 14 0 - Fishmonger 9 4 0 - Confectioner 25 10 0 - Wine 66 0 0 - Beer 35 0 0 - Master-cook’s bill 20 9 0 - To the cooks 37 12 6 - The pewterer 3 12 4 - The carrier 9 0 0 - Lord Lumley’s Grenadiers 3 4 6 - ———— —— — - £257 1 4 - -The duke’s first essay in Ireland was not unsuccessful: he left affairs -alone as far as he possibly could and was tolerably popular. It was only -the second time, twenty years later, that he and Lord George incurred so -much dislike. Into the political reasons for this I have already said -that I will not, because I cannot, enter; I will only quote from a -curious lampoon, preserved in the British Museum, which was written to -celebrate the duke’s departure in 1754: - - - Ringing of the Bell - _or_ - A _Hue_ & _Cry_ after _Raymond_ the _Fox_ - By ROGER SPY, Esq. - -The bells are ringing, Hark! how they merrily toll. What is the cause of -their joy? Or why this cheerful tintinnation? They seem animated, and -their rejoicing seems sensible, so expressive of triumph and hilarity -are their peals, treble, bass and tenor make excellent harmony, and -strike the very heart; the ringers themselves pull with pleasure—what is -it they toll forth, or what may the bells be supposed to say? - - _Interpreter_ - - I’ll tell you what they say ... - - _St. Patrick’s_ - - He was full of Pa-pa tricks, - Says the bell of St. Patrick’s. - - _St. Mary_ - - I wonder how dare he, - Says the bell of St. Mary. - - _St. Bride_ - - Our acts he belied, - Says the bell of St. Bride. - - _St. Ann_ - - He played Cat-in-Pan, - Says the bell of St. Ann. - - _St. Andrew_ - - Bad swash as e’er man drew, - Says the bell of St. Andrew. - - _St. Peter_ - - No vinegar sweeter, - Says the bell of St. Peter. - - _St. Owen_ - - In mischief full knowing, - Says the bell of St. Owen. - - _St. Thomas_ - - The Lord keep him from us, - Says the bell of St. Thomas. - - _St. Nicholas Without_ - - He put good men out, - Says St. Nicholas Without. - - _St. Nicholas Within_ - - He put bad men in, - Says St. Nicholas Within. - - _Castle Bell_ - - You’re a very bad parcel, - Says the bell of the Castle, - -and so on, in the same vein. - -His patronage of the actress Peg Woffington sets him in a more personal -and amiable light. I have no evidence to prove whether he was following -in the steps of his father; I only know that Peg Woffington’s portrait, -like that of Nell Gwyn and of the Baccelli, is at Knole; that an old -play-bill of hers was found behind the panelling in the Great Hall; that -the duke gave her a command performance at Dublin; and, finally, that -the following facetious petition—was it written by one of the duke’s -disrespectful sons?—is among the Knole papers: - - To his Grace LIONEL Duke _of_ DORSET, Lord Lieu^t _of_ Ireland - - The humble Memorial of MARGARET WOFFINGTON, _Spinster_. Most humbly - sheweth - - That your Memorialist is a woman of great merit and small fortune, and - would be proud of an opportunity of shewing her zeal for his Majesty’s - service by her ready acceptance and faithful discharge of any - employment he shall graciously please to bestow upon her. - - That her friends have been at great expense and trouble in procuring - and perusing the list of the several places on this establishment, and - find her extremely well qualified to discharge the Office of - Housekeeper to his Majesty’s Castle as it doth not require much - greater ability than the Rolls or the Chancellorship of the Exchequer. - - That your Memorialist is a true friend to the present Constitution in - opposition to all Mock Patriots and drinks the Brownlow Majority and - the Minority for the Money-bill every day devoutly. - - That she has already by the assistance of whisky made two considerable - Proselytes Patrick O’Donoghoe and Thady Foley her Chairman tho’ one of - them had been closeted by Col. Dilkes and the other taken by the hand - by Sir Rich^d Cox, and verily believes if the same means were - employed, the Opposition would soon lose its principal supporters. - - That your Memorialist can produce two of the greatest Polemical - Writers of the present Age in support of her character, 1st. Peter - Willson who has abused her more than once in his _Universal - Advertiser_—an honour which he is never known to confer on any but - persons of the first ranks and character. 2^{dly} Geo. Faulkner, in - whose impartial Journal are contained a Score of Poems, One Dozen of - Sonnets, Six letters from some of the best Critics, if you will take - their own words for it, four Epigrams, besides occasional paragraphs, - all composed in her praise, and which are at least as well written as - they are printed. - - That your Memorialist is little versed in the Housekeeper’s - Arithmetic, having never been instructed in the doctrine of Items, - Dittos, Sums Total and Balances, which circumstance, it is conceived, - will turn out greatly to the advantage of the Government. - - That her personal attachment to your Grace is so well known, that odd - reports have been raised in relation to some intimacies that have past - between two persons that shall be nameless, and which she defies her - adversaries to prove. - - Wherefore she humbly hopes that Your Grace will take the premises into - your serious consideration, and oblige the present Incumbent to resign - the said office, your Memorialist paying her the full value thereof, - or if she continues obstinate as old women are apt to do, and refuses - to sell, that the reversion may be granted to your Petitioner, and the - rather as she conceives, if it be not done under your Grace’s - administration, there may be some reason to fear it will never be done - at all. - - MARGARET WOFFINGTON. - - _Mem_: She is ready and willing to act as first Chambermaid to your - Grace, to warm your bed and tuck you in, which, as she is advised and - verily believes, the present Housekeeper is in no manner qualified to - do. - - - § iii - -I have already mentioned Lady Betty Germaine, who, during the lifetime -of the first duke and duchess, lived almost entirely at Knole and had -three rooms—her bedroom, her sitting-room, and her china closet—set -aside for her exclusive use. This little prim lady, to whom the three -little rooms must have provided so apposite a frame, occupied her time -in writing letters, in stitching at crewel work with brightly-coloured -wools, in making pot-pourri to fill the bowls on the window ledges, and -in telling anecdotes of Queen Anne, whose lady-in-waiting she had once -been, since to her, no doubt, in common with all human nature, the days -which were the past were preferable to the days which were the present. -She was, primarily, the friend of the Duchess of Dorset, and for once a -woman was installed in the house whose coiffure and petticoats the wind -of scandal was unable to ruffle. They composed she, the duchess, the -duke, and Lord George, a harmonious quartette, whose correspondence -survives, voluminous and intimate, pricked into sharper highlights here -and there by the pen of Swift. “As to my duchess,” writes Lady Betty, -“she is so reserved that perhaps she may not be at first so much -admired.” The duke she thought “great-souled,” and it must have been an -occasion of great distress to her that her friend Swift should not -always share her views: - - Madam [_he writes to her after failing to obtain some favour from - Dorset_], I owe your Ladyship the acknowledgement of a letter I have - long received, relating to a request I made to my Lord Duke. I now - dismiss you, Madam, from your office of being a go-between upon any - affair I might have with his Grace. I will never more trouble him, - either with my visits or application. His business in this kingdom is - to make himself easy; his lessons are all prescribed for him from - Court; and he is sure, at a very cheap rate, to have a majority of - most corrupt slaves and idiots at his devotion. The happiness of this - Kingdom is of no more consequence to him than it would be to the Great - Mogul.... - -[Illustration: - - LADY BETTY GERMAINE - - _From the portrait at Knole by_ C. PHILLIPS -] - -One wonders whether such suggestions troubled Lady Betty. Was it -possible that her great-souled friend would not be Lord Steward and Lord -Lieutenant of Ireland and Lord Warden and Lord Lieutenant of Kent, did -he not also happen to be Duke of Dorset? Was it possible that people -such as the Sackvilles occasionally occupied positions due to their -birth rather than to their intellect? Was it true that he, and -particularly Lord George, cared for their own advancement rather than -for the credit of England?—they who _were_ England, who shared the blood -of the Tudors and the Howards and the Spencers and the Cliffords? whose -house was quarried from Kentish rock? whose oaks and beeches were rooted -so deep into the soil of England? Lady Betty herself, who as Lady Betty -Berkeley had come from that most ancient castle—that rose-and-grey -castle, the colour of her own dried rose-leaves, the castle that, squat, -romantic, and uncouth, brooded over the Severn across the meadows of -Gloucestershire—Lady Betty herself was of all people least qualified or -likely to criticize. The household at Knole was ordered on a magnificent -scale, with the duke and duchess and their guest at the apex of the -pyramid which reposed on the base of five servants at £20 each, two at -£15, two at £10 10_s._, seven at £10, two at £8, thirteen at £6, eight -at £5, two at £5, one at £2, besides the chaplain who was unsalaried, -the senior officers, the Steward, the Comptroller, and the Master of the -Horse at £60, £30, and £25 respectively, Tom Durfey living over the -dairy, and the rabble of labourers, gardeners, and what-not, of whom -nobody took any notice. This was life as Lady Betty was accustomed to -find it ordered. If ever she paused to question its system, no trace of -her wondering appears in her letters. - -She had a house of her own, Drayton, in Northamptonshire, considered by -Horace Walpole a “venerable heap of ugliness, with many curious bits,” -which she had inherited from her late husband, who in his turn had -inherited it from a first wife. This husband of Lady Betty’s is a -peculiar figure; so peculiar, indeed, so ambiguous, and so equivocal, -that one wonders at his alliance with the orderly Lady Betty Berkeley, -unless this may be explained by the fact that he “possessed a very -handsome person, and was always a distinguished favourite of the other -Sex.” He was, I gather, a soldier of fortune, of uncertain parentage, -or, as Lord George Sackville delicately puts it, “believed to stand in a -very close degree of consanguinity to King William the Third.” William, -at any rate, brought him over to England from Holland in 1688, knighted -him, saw to it that he became a member of the House of Commons, and -assisted him with grants of money; and Germaine, who inherited from his -father no armorial bearings, was accustomed to use a red cross, which -might be taken to mean that his actual was higher than his ostensible -birth. This gentleman combined with the instincts of a collector a -profound ignorance of artistic matters. His principal pride was his -collection of “Rarities,” in which he would exhibit the dagger of Henry -VIII; he believed a certain Sir Matthew Germaine to be the author of St. -Matthew’s Gospel; and at Drayton, where he was building a colonnade, he -caused the columns to be placed upside down, as he had mistaken the -capitals for the pedestals. - -This was the man who married Lady Betty Berkeley when she was thirty -years younger than himself. He had previously been married to the -Duchess of Norfolk, whose husband divorced her on Sir John Germaine’s -account. After her death, by which he inherited Drayton, he attached -himself to the Duke and Duchess of Dorset, who received him with their -wonted hospitality; but this was not enough: he wanted a brilliant -alliance, he wanted an heir to Drayton. While at Bristol he “cast his -eyes upon Lady Betty, whose birth, character, and accomplishments -rendered her every way worthy of his choice.” They married; and the -friendship with the Dorsets, to whom Lady Betty was already devoted, was -strengthened by the new bond. Although the difference in age was so -considerable, Lady Betty, through her “superior understanding, added to -the most correct deportment, acquired great influence over him,” and -when after twelve years of marriage Sir John died, “a martyr to the gout -as well as to other diseases,” he called his wife to his bedside and -spoke to her in these terms: - - Lady Betty [_said he_], I have made you a very indifferent husband, - and particularly of late years, when infirmities have rendered me a - burden to myself, but I shall not be much longer troublesome to you. I - advise you never again to marry an old man, but I strenuously exhort - you to marry when I am gone, and I will endeavour to put it in your - power. You have fulfilled every obligation towards me in an exemplary - manner, and I wish to demonstrate my sense of your merits. I have, - therefore, by my will, bequeathed you this estate, which I received - from my first wife; and which, as she gave to me, so I leave to you. I - hope you will marry and have children to inherit it. But, if events - should determine otherwise, it would give me pleasure to think that - Drayton descended after your decease to a younger son of my friend the - Duchess of Dorset. - -He then passed away, but in one particular Lady Betty did not take his -advice: she never married again, although she survived him by fifty -years, and thus it is perhaps that I regard her, with her crewel work, -her china closet, and her pot-pourri, rather as a spinster than as a -widow. There is no trace at all at Knole of Sir John Germaine, that -royal bastard, that handsome and enterprising child of fortune, thanks -to whom Drayton came into the possession of Lord George and continues to -this day in the hands of his descendants. Of Lady Betty, on the other -hand, there are copious traces. There are her rooms, which I have -already described in the first chapter, her small square four-poster, -her ring-box, and the painted wooden figure of a lady with the -_fontange_ of Queen Anne’s day on her head. There is Lady Betty’s own -portrait, a miniature full-length, in blue brocade. There is yard upon -yard of her industrious embroidery. There is the pot-pourri which is -made every summer from her receipt (1750): - - Gather dry, Double Violets, Rose Leaves, Lavender, Myrtle flowers, - Verbena, Bay leaves, Rosemary, Balm, Musk, Geranium. Pick these from - the stalks and dry on paper in the sun for a day or two before putting - them in a jar. This should be a large white one, well glazed, with a - close fitting cover, also a piece of card the exact size of the jar, - which you must keep pressed down on the flowers. Keep a new wooden - spoon to stir the salt and flowers from the bottom, before you put in - a fresh layer of bay salt above and below every layer of flowers. Have - ready of spices, plenty of Cinnamon, Mace, Nutmeg, and Pepper and - Lemon-peel pounded. For a large jar ½ lb. Orris root, 1 oz. Storax, 1 - oz. Gum Benjamin, 2 ozs. Calamino Aromatico,[12] 2 grs. Musk, and a - small quantity of oil of Rhodium. The spice and gums to be added when - you have collected all the flowers you intend to put in. Mix all well - together, press it down well, and spread bay salt on the top to - exclude the air until the January or February following. Keep the jar - in a cool, dry place. - -In the second respect Lady Betty carried out her husband’s wishes, for -when she died herself at the age of nearly ninety she bequeathed the -“venerable heap of ugliness” to Lord George, with £20,000 and half the -residue of her estate. - - - § iv - - CHARLES SACKVILLE - - 2nd - - Duke _of_ Dorset - -Since I have avoided all political details, which would have led anyone -more conversant than myself with the background to the facts into pages -of dissertation, there remains very little to say of the first Duke of -Dorset. He died a few years before his dear, dear Colly, and was -succeeded by his son, that Lord Middlesex to whom I have alluded as -being so unsatisfactory. There is not much record of this -good-for-nothing duke, who enjoyed his dukedom only four years, and who -was married to a “very short, very plain, very yellow, and vain girl, -full of Greek and Latin.” Apparently he married her no earlier than he -need, for Horace Walpole writes of “Lord Middlesex’s wedding, which was -over a week before it was known. I believe the bride told it then, for -he and all his family are so silent that they would never have mentioned -it; she might have popped out a child, before a single Sackville would -have been at the expense of a syllable to justify her.” I have already -quoted the few epithets I have found relating to this duke, the “proud, -disgusted, melancholy, solitary man ...” who produced operas and spent -enormous sums on defending singers in legal actions. He was reputed mad, -“a disorder which there was too much reason to suppose, ran in the -blood”; he was certainly eccentric; and there is a large picture of him -in the ball-room at Knole dressed as a Roman emperor, with bare knees, a -plumed helmet on his head, and various pieces of armour. Besides these -scanty documents, there are some verses which scarcely entitle him to be -called a poet: _Arno’s Vale_, which I have never read, and which is -addressed to a certain Madame Muscovita, whose portrait is at Knole; and -others which are at Knole, for instance: - -[Illustration: - - LADY BETTY GERMAINE’S BEDROOM AT KNOLE -] - - - DUCK HUNTING - - _Hard by where Knole’s exalted towers rise - Upon a green smooth plain a pond there lies, - With verdant grass encircled round, a place - Seated commodiously the duck to chase. - Here in the heat of day the youths for sport - With well-taught spaniels to the pond resort. - The youths on ev’ry side the pond surround, - With fav’ring cries the hollow woods resound. - The eager dogs with barking rend the skies - Until encouraged by their masters’ cries - They plunge into the stream: the stream before ’em flies. - Rover, the first that plung’d, the first in fame - And one from Charles’s noble breed that came. - The next came Trip, tho’ of a bastard race, - And smaller size, he swam the next in place. - The last came Ranger, with his spotted back, - That swam but slow: the gravest of the pack. - His deep rough voice was of a hoarser sound - With long red ears that swept along the ground.... - And thus the sport goes on, till weary grown, - And ev’ryone is willing to go home. - The weary duck at last swims close to land; - They take her up with a kind, pitying hand. - Of every spannel they extoll the praise - And all their virtues to the skies they raise. - And then they, weary, homewards take their way, - And drown in sprightly bowls the labours of the day._ - -The duke’s poems are worthless, of course, but among the Knole papers of -this date is one which I cannot forbear from reproducing: - - AN EPISTLE _from_ DAME I ... L ... _to the_ REVD. MR. B ... - - _Sweet youth, ’tis hard thy innocence should be - A source of scandal and reproach to me. - Nay, blush not—with reluctance I prevail - O’er innate modesty to own the tale._ - - _That fatal day when first I saw thy face - And marked each angel-look and smiling grace, - Thy fair idea struck my tender heart, - And, oh! remained, though thou didst soon depart; - Maternal love, methought, thou didst inspire, - Around my heart still played the lambent fire. - Thoughtless of harm, why should I aught conceal? - A friend I meet, and thus the truth reveal_: - - “_Say, didst thou mark that dove-like form to-day, - Those eyes that languished with so mild a ray? - Can fleecy lambs such innocence disclose, - E’er glowed such blushes on the opening rose? - Safe could I take the youngster to my bed - And on my bosom fondly rest his head, - Harmless the tedious night were so beguiled; - So watch fond mothers o’er the sucking child._” - - _That seeming friend betrayed me, and began - To whisper through the house, “I loved the man.” - Then memory spread and worse suspicions rose, - And searching spies broke in on my repose; - Nor chamber, closet, bed, were sacred then: - They sought to find_ thee, _ah! they sought in vain! - Thou wrapped in innocence might sleeping be, - Unconscious of the woes I bore for thee._ - - _The uproar now withdrawn, I strive to rest, - And throw my arms across my pensive breast. - Soon as my eyelids close I see thy form, - Pure as the snow-drop, yet in blushes warm. - But oh! what followed?—strange effect of fright, - I dreamed that in my bed thou pass’t the night ..._ - - _Come, with thy innocence, thy smiles impart - Fresh joy to me, and mend each wicked heart, - Talk much of charity, and_ Love, _too, teach: - ’Tis mine to suffer, but ’tis thine to preach_. - - - - - CHAPTER VIII - Knole at the End of the Eighteenth Century - JOHN FREDERICK SACKVILLE - 3rd - Duke _of_ Dorset - - - § i - -The portrait by Gainsborough in the ball-room is of a man with a curved -mouth, deep grey eyes, and powdered hair brushed back off his forehead. -He looks out from the oval of his framing, beautiful and melancholy. “I -have always looked on him as the most dangerous of men,” said the -Duchess of Devonshire, “for with that beauty of his he is so unaffected, -and has a simplicity and a persuasion in his manner that makes one -account very easily for the number of women he has had in love with -him.” There is much in him which recalls his forefather, Charles, the -Dorset of the Restoration, but this is a personality less opulent, less -voluminous, more wistful and more romantic; all his accessories are -essentially of the eighteenth century—his Chinese page, his diamonds, -his scarf-pin, his Italian mistress who caused so much scandal by -dancing at the Opera in Paris with his Garter bound about her forehead. -He is the immediate precursor of the generation which replaced by Gothic -the Tudor windows in the Orangery, made serpentine some of the straight -paths in the garden, and decorated the windows in the Colonnade with -representations of knights in full armour. He himself escaped the -baronial tendencies. He belonged to an age more delicate, more -exquisite; an age of quizzing glasses, of flowered waistcoats, of -buckled shoes, and of slim bejewelled swords. When he had his mistress -sculpted, it was lying full-length on a couch, naked save for a single -rose looping up her hair. When he had her drawn, it was pointing her -little foot in the first step of a dance, a tambourine in her hand, and -the Chinese boy in the background. When he wrote to his friends, it was -in a bored, nonchalant style, half in English and half in French. His -manner was “soft, quiet, and ingratiating.” He treated the women who -loved him with an easy heartlessness which failed to diminish their -affection. He was possessed of no very great talents but those -calculated to render life agreeable to him in the circles into which he -was born, for it was his good fortune to be born handsome, rich, -charming, and a duke, in a century when those qualifications were a -certain passport to success. - -John Frederick Sackville became Duke of Dorset at the age of -twenty-four. He was the son of that Lord John Sackville who passes -across the annals of the family early in life as a poet and cricketer, -and later as a sad and shabby figure, “always dirtily clad,” living -under mild restraint at Vevey, a victim to melancholia. There was, -however, no hint as yet of this hereditary strangeness of temper in his -son, the new Duke of Dorset. The young man came brilliantly into his new -possessions, paid the undertaker £66 6_s._ for the late duke’s funeral, -paid the Sheriff £418 2_s._ for “things taken at Knole”—from which it -would seem that the late duke had died in debt—bought four thousand -ounces of silver, and entertained his neighbours and tenantry to a feast -in celebration of his succession, at which sixty stone of beef, mutton, -and veal were consumed, thirty-four pounds of wax-lights used, and -musicians provided. It is curious to see how the price of wine had -altered between the days of Charles II and this time; namely, 1769. -Claret now cost 54_s._ a dozen, Burgundy 60_s._ a dozen, Champagne -97_s._ a dozen, and port for the servants’ table cost 20_s._ a dozen, in -comparison with the few shillings paid per gallon a century earlier. The -only thing which did not [_see_ p. 133] alter in proportion is beer, for -which 35_s._ a hogshead was paid in the seventeenth century and £2 -10_s._ a hogshead in the eighteenth. The young duke’s time, we are told, -was “devoted to gallantry and pleasure among the fashionable circles as -well in France and Italy as in England,” a phrase which begins to -acquire a fatally familiar ring through the generations of the family. -Perhaps nothing else could reasonably be expected of him. Life offered -him too great an ease and too many advantages; why should he have -rejected them? Before he had been for a year in the enjoyment of his -honours and estates he had set out on the Grand Tour accompanied by the -celebrated Nancy Parsons and a train of singers, actors, and Bohemians, -who clustered round him in every European capital which he visited. -Echoes of his extravagance and his escapades come down to us from Paris -and from Rome. He entertained lavishly every evening, inviting only -those who could amuse his already blasé appetite; he rescued his Nancy -Parsons in the nick of time as she was about to be abducted from a -masked ball by a noble Venetian; he indulged his taste for the fine arts -“even beyond the limits of his fortune”; he bought a Perugino, he bought -a doubtful Titian, and a number of Italian primitives; he bought from a -Mr. Jenkins in Rome “_the figure of Demosthenes in the act of delivering -an oration_, a fine Grecian relick in marble,” and a bronze cast of the -Gladiator Repellens, on whose shield he caused his own coat-of-arms to -be embossed. This kind of existence he continued to lead for two or -three years, when he threw over Nancy Parsons, returned to England, and -became the lover of a Mrs. Elizabeth Armistead. Meanwhile, it appears -from his account-books that large sums were being spent by his orders on -both outdoor and indoor repairs at Knole. He put down new floors, -altered some of the windows, and bought further enormous quantities of -silver, 5920 ounces in one year alone, costing £2463 17_s._ 7_d._, and -including a hundred and forty-four silver plates, eight dozen each of -forks and spoons, dishes of all kinds, covers, and tureens. Occupied -with Knole, love affairs, and cricket, he dawdled away a particularly -gilded youth. Details from his account-books give a good idea of his -expenses and occupations: - - £ _s._ _d._ - Mrs. Gardiner, lace ruffles 41 0 0 - Butler, new chain 80 0 0 - Opera, expenses last winter 17 19 0 - Opera, subscription 21 0 0 - Paid Sir Joshua Reynolds 78 15 0 - -Mrs. Elizabeth Armistead reigned for three years, but the duke had other -diversions in other circles: the gay, frivolous, and wanton Lady Betty -Hamilton, trailing from ball to ball with her suitors in her wake, set -her heart upon him, and he, not unresponsive, was ready to trifle so -long as he was not expected to marry. Lady Betty was finally married off -to Lord Derby, reputed the ugliest and the richest peer in England. - - Many were the means employed till Lord Derby’s constant and assiduous - care veiled the ugliness of his person before the idol he worshipped. - Time and despair made Lady Betty give a hasty and undigested consent. - After a day of persecutions from every quarter, while a hair-dresser - was adorning her unhappy head, she traced the consent with a pencil on - a scrap of paper, and sent it wet with her tears to her mother. - -A re-shuffle now took place: the duke became the new Lady Derby’s lover, -and Lord Derby became the lover of Mrs. Armistead. This arrangement, -however, was not of long duration. Lord Derby fell in love with -Elizabeth Farren; Lady Derby, it was rumoured, ran away and had to be -brought back by her brother, the Duke of Hamilton: still bent upon -marrying the Duke of Dorset, she wished to divorce Lord Derby, but was -foiled by the prudence of Miss Farren. The gossips of London were much -excited by all these occurrences. Lady Sarah Lennox wrote: “It is no -scandal to tell you it is imagined that the Duke of Dorset will marry -Lady Derby. I am told she has been and still is most thoroughly attached -to him.” It would be satisfactory to know exactly what part Dorset -played; I fear not a very creditable one. Lady Derby was an impulsive, -headstrong, attractive creature, capable of real passion under all her -lightheartedness and easy virtue; her husband was unfaithful to her; her -rival more sage and experienced than she herself; her lover ready to -take what he could without incurring an irksome responsibility. My -grandfather’s sister, Lady Derby, used to show at Knowsley the window -through which the Duke of Dorset was reported to have been admitted to -the house, disguised as a gardener, and it was commonly supposed that -the infant Lady Elizabeth Stanley was in reality the duke’s daughter. -But when the affair threatened to become too serious he was only too -ready to resume his travels abroad. - -I can only suppose that it was during one of his absences that Horace -Walpole went to Knole and found it not at all to his liking, for he -draws a picture of the place in a state of desertion which would surely -not have been warranted had the duke and his household been in -occupation: - - I came to Knole [_he writes to Lady Ossory_], and that was a medley of - various feelings! Elizabeth and Burleigh and Buckhurst; and then - Charles [_he means Richard_] and Anne, Dorset and Pembroke, and Sir - Edward Sackville, and then a more engaging Dorset, and Villiers and - Prior, and then the old duke and duchess, and Lady Betty Germaine, and - the court of George II. - - The place is stripped of its beeches and honours, and has neither - beauty nor prospects. The house, extensive as it is, seemed dwindled - to the front of a college, and has the silence and solitude of one. It - wants the cohorts of retainers, and the bustling jollity of the old - nobility, to disperse the gloom. I worship all its faded splendour, - and enjoy its preservation, and could have wandered over it for hours - with satisfaction, but there was such a heterogenous housekeeper as - poisoned all my enthusiasm. She was more like one of Mrs. St. John’s - Abigails than an inhabitant of a venerable mansion, and shuffled about - in slippers, and seemed to _admire_ how I could care about the - pictures of such old _frights_ as covered the walls. - - - § ii - -I have said that cricket as well as love affairs occupied the duke’s -time, and in this he was only carrying on the tradition begun by his -father and his uncle, who were both enthusiastic cricketers and took -part in the first match recorded as having been played at Sevenoaks, in -1734, between Kent and Sussex, Lord John Sackville and Lord Middlesex -playing, of course, for Kent. Six years later Sevenoaks played London on -the famous Vine cricket ground at Sevenoaks—the first match recorded on -the Vine. The young Duke of Dorset inherited his father’s taste, keeping -in his employ professional cricketers such as Bowra, Miller, and -Minskull, and we have endless details of the matches played, an old -print of one match taking place on the Vine between the duke’s men and -Sir Horace Mann’s men, which shows the players all wearing jockey-caps -and finally a number of cricketing ballads, more noticeable for their -enthusiasm than for their excellence: - - _His Grace the Duke of Dorset came_ [we read], - _The next enrolled in skilful fame. - Equalled by few, he plays with glee, - Nor peevish seeks for victory, - And far unlike the modern way - Of blocking every ball at play, - He firmly stands with bat upright - And strikes with his athletic might, - Sends forth the ball across the mead - And scores six notches for the deed._ - -There is in particular a great contest between Kent and Surrey, -celebrated in a ballad of sixty-five verses, in which - - _The fieldsmen, stationed on the lawn, - Well able to endure, - Their loins with snow-white satin vests - That day had guarded sure_, - -and it is related that in this match also the Duke of Dorset was playing -for the honour of his county, for we are told that - - _Young Dorset, like a baron bold, - His jetty hair undrest, - Ran foremost of the company, - Clad in a milk-white vest._ - -Despite the efforts of the duke and the men of Kent, they were defeated -by Surrey, and the duke met with disaster: - - _“O heavy news!” the Rector cried, - “The Vine can witness be, - We have not any cricketer - Of such account as he.”_ - -It is satisfactory to learn that in the return match Surrey was beaten. - - - § iii - -We come now to the period when “the gay Duke of Dorset became ambassador -in Paris,” and “his encouragement of the Parisian ballet was the -amazement and envy of his age.” It is entertaining, and rather sad, to -read both his official despatches from Paris and his private letters to -his friends, and to reflect that while he was writing to the Duchess of -Devonshire, “I suppose you will hear talk of my ball, it has made a -great noise at Paris”; or to the Foreign Office, “It is hardly possible -to conceive a moment of more perfect tranquility than the present, the -French government, free from the late causes of its anxiety, appears -entirely bent upon improving the advantages of peace,”—it is sad, and -certainly ironical, to reflect that the taking of the Bastille was -distant by a paltry three years. With no foreboding of those tremendous -events, which more than any war, more even than the career of Napoleon, -were to change the fortunes of humanity, the Court of France and the -English envoy continued on their course of enjoyment. The Duke of Dorset -became, naturally, extremely popular in Paris. He was himself not sure -that he wholly liked the French: - - All the French are _aimable, si vous voulez_, but they are capricious - and inconstant, especially the women [_he wrote home to the Duchess of - Devonshire_]; in short, I have really no friend here but Mrs. B. - [Marie Antoinette], and then I see her so seldom that I forget half - what I want to say to her. The Frenchmen are all jealous and - treacherous, so that between the capriciousness of the fair sex and - the want of confidence I have in the other _je me sens vraiment - malheureux_, I assure you, my dearest duchess. - -But the French had no corresponding fault to find. The English -ambassador was princely and lavish; he was spending money, as he himself -owned, at the rate of £11,000 a year; he was greatly in the Queen’s -favour, so greatly that he has been included by certain authorities -(notably Tilly) in their lists of her lovers. Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, -who, although an inaccurate was yet a contemporary writer, says that -this was not so, and that he has seen a letter-case, preserved by the -duke, full of Marie Antoinette’s notes addressed to him. Wraxall says -that they were written on private concerns, commissions that she -requested him to execute for her, principally regarding English articles -of dress or ornament, and other innocent and unimportant matters. -Whether Dorset was or was not her lover is not of the smallest -importance; and surely no one would grudge, at this distance of time, -any pleasure that a princess so young and so unfortunate might have -enjoyed in life. - -A question in which the Duke was naturally much interested was the -affair of the diamond necklace. His despatches to the Foreign Office are -full of references to the story, from August 1785 onwards: - - The usually credited account is, that the Cardinal [de Rohan] has - forged an order from the Queen to the Jeweller of the Crown to deliver - to him diamonds to the amount of 1,600,000 livres, and which diamonds - he actually received. What makes this event the more extraordinary is - that the Cardinal is known to be a man of extremely good parts, and is - in the enjoyment of the greatest honour and revenues to which any - subject in the Church can aspire. - -And again: - - Mme. de la Motte, from an apprehension that her life is in danger, - affects to have lost her senses. The jailer, upon entering her room - the day before yesterday, was some time before he discovered her, and - at length found her under her bed, quite naked. - -It would, of course, take up too much space to give all Dorset’s -despatches on this subject. I mention them chiefly because a large -proportion of the diamonds composing the original necklace are at Knole, -one half having been purchased by the Duke of Dorset after the necklace -had been split up and brought to England, and the other half by the Duke -of Sutherland. This, at least, is the tradition; and there is some -evidence to support it, in a receipt among the Knole papers: - - =Received= of his Grace the DUKE of DORSET nine hundred and - seventy-five pounds for a brilliant necklace. - - £975 For Mr. JEFFERYS and self, W M JONES. - -and this receipt is endorsed “Paid 1790,” which tallies with the date -when the necklace was sold by De la Motte to Jefferys, a jeweller in -Piccadilly. They are beautiful diamonds, small, but very blue, and are -set at present in the shape of a tasselled diadem. - -Another topic which temporarily exercised the duke while in Paris was -the “very extraordinary proposal” made to the French Government by a M. -Montgolfier to - - construct a balloon of a certain diameter to carry sixteen persons. - The project [_the despatch continues_] is to carry on a trade between - this part and the South of France; Paris and Marseilles are the two - places named. The balloon is to be freighted with plate glass, and the - return to be made in reams of paper. M. de Calonne has hitherto - received the proposal with great coolness, as M. Montgolfier requires - an advance of 60,000 livres Tournais. It is, however, under - contemplation, as M. Montgolfier has declared his intention of making - the offer to our government in case he does not meet with - encouragement here. It is said that the Comptroller General rather - discourages enterprises of this sort, as any further progress in the - art of conducting balloons might tend to prejudice the revenues of the - City of Paris, which will shortly be surrounded by a wall, the cost of - which is estimated at four or five millions. - -The duke naturally thought M. Montgolfier’s plans nonsensical: - - I should almost scruple to mention to your Lordship an undertaking so - extraordinary [_he says_] had I not heard from exceedingly good - authority that such a plan is seriously in agitation. Great credit is - given to M. Montgolfier’s superior skill in these matters, and that - gentleman’s friends are sanguine in their expectations of his success. - The weight he proposes to carry _exceeds that of a waggon-load_! - -He gives some further details of what M. Montgolfier, who “pretends to -have at last discovered means of directing the course of Balloons,” -proposes to do: - - He has obtained the sanction of M. de Calonne for his first - experiment, which is to be made the first day of next May, when he - engages to depart from a town in Auvergne, distant from Paris 150 - miles, and to descend at or near this City in the space of seven - hours. - -A month later he writes: - - The government has at last accepted M. Montgolfier’s proposal. 30,000 - livres are to be granted to him in advance for the experiment, and if - it succeeds the whole of his expenses will be paid without any - examination of his accounts, a pension granted to him, and every - honorary recompense bestowed on him to which he can aspire. He - pretends to have discovered the means of guiding his machine, but it - was not till after his project to England, in case of refusal here, - that it was accepted. - -On such topics as the diamond necklace and M. Montgolfier and current -affairs Dorset beguiled his leisure and that of the Foreign Office. -There is no indication that he detected any signs of the trouble in -store. It is true that occasionally he writes in this strain: - - Their Majesties, the Dauphin, and the rest of the Royal family, are - removed from Fontainebleau to Versailles. The expenses attending these - journeys of the Court is incredible. The duc de Polignac told me that - he had given orders for 2115 horses for this service.... Besides this, - an adequate proportion of horses are ordered for the removal of the - heavy baggage.... It is asserted that M. de Calonne will be under the - necessity of borrowing at least eight millions of livres next year, - -and that after the fall of the Bastille he was moved to write: “I really -think it necessary that some public caution be given to put those upon -their guard who may propose to visit this part of the continent.” But -beyond these occasional comments he does not seem to have been troubled -by any thoughts of the future. He did not foresee that his friend “Mrs. -B.,” to whom after his return to England he continued to supply English -gloves, would lose upon the scaffold that little head which had carried -so gaily the butterfly or the frigate, or that within two or three -years’ time the English newspapers would be writing: “The Duke of -Dorset’s seat at Knole is a place of rendezvous for the banished French -_noblesse_ at this time resident in England,” or that he would be -entertaining there as a fugitive his friend Champcenetz, a young officer -in the Swiss Guards and author of a “_Petit traité de l’amour des femmes -pour les sots_.” Dorset would no doubt have proved a perfectly adequate -ambassador in normal times, but that vast situation with its infinite -ramifications was beyond an intellect that accepted for granted the -existing régime under which dukes were born for pleasure and labourers -were not. But with all the foresight in the world it is difficult to see -what he could have done, or how the course of history could have been -affected, had he sent home grave warnings instead of babbling of the -diamond necklace and M. Montgolfier. - -There was another distraction for him in Paris: Giannetta Baccelli, an -Italian dancer. The duke seems to have lost his head completely over her -for the time being, for he gave her his Garter to wear as a hair-ribbon, -with “HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE” in diamonds, brought her home to -England with him, sent her to a ball in Sevenoaks wearing the family -jewels—which provoked a great scandal in the county—and gave her one of -the towers at Knole, which to this day remains, through the -mispronunciation of the English servants, “Shelley’s Tower.” It was for -this lady, or so the rumour ran, that he finally rejected the faithful -and unfortunate Lady Derby. There was nothing that Dorset would not do -for Baccelli. He had her painted by Reynolds, and painted and drawn by -Gainsborough, and sculpted from the nude. He even wrote to his friend -the Duchess of Devonshire asking her to do what she could for his -protégée, “I don’t ask you to do anything for her openly,” he wrote, -“but I hope _que quand il s’agit de ses talents_ you will commend her. I -assure you,” he adds rather pathetically, “she is _une bonne fille_, -very clever, and _un excellent cœur_, and her dancing is really -wonderful.” - -Gainsborough’s large full-length portrait of Baccelli, originally at -Knole, has been sold; but his pencil sketch for it remains, rather faded -and very delicate of line. It is drawn in the ball-room: Baccelli stands -on a model’s throne, pointing her toe and lifting up her skirt; -Gainsborough himself stands in front of her, a palette in his hand, so -that he turns his back towards the person looking at the drawing; the -Chinese page, in a round hat, stands by. It reconstructs with great -vividness the scene of her posing in the ball-room. The only pity is -that the artist should not have drawn in the duke, who was surely there, -looking on, and criticizing and making suggestions. The receipt for the -big picture is at Knole, though no mention is made of the drawing (_see -illustration facing p. 208_): - - =Received= of his Grace the DUKE of DORSET one hundred guineas in full - for two ¾ portraits of his Grace, one full-length of Mad^{sle} - Baccelli, two Landskips, and one sketch of a beggar boy and girl. - - £105 _THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH_, _June 15, 1784_. - -One of the “two ¾ portraits of his Grace” mentioned in this receipt is -the one now in the ball-room, one of the most beautiful Gainsboroughs I -know—included with five other pictures for the ludicrous sum of £105. - -Reynolds’ portrait of the dancer shows a mischievous and attractive -face, with slightly slanting eyes, peeping out from behind a mask which -she holds up in her hand. The duke even went to the length of ordering -the portraits of the servants he had provided for her, and among the -collection of servants’ portraits in Black Boy Passage are Daniel Taylor -and Elinor Law, servants of Mad^{me} Baccelli; Mrs. Edwards, attendant -on Mad^{me} Baccelli; and Philip Louvaux, servant to Mad^{me} Baccelli. -She evidently, with her servants and her tower, had a regular -establishment at Knole, and many receipts bearing her signature witness -the duke’s generosity towards her: “Received 7th April 1786 of Mr. -Burlington [the agent] the sum of fifty pounds on account of his Grace -the Duke of Dorset, Jannette Baccelli,” and so on. They had several -children, all of whom died in babyhood, except one, alluded to in the -following letter: “The duke has a very fine boy to whom Baccelli is -mother, now at school near Knole. This, we think, is the only surviving -progeny of the alliance,” but, much as I should like to know, I have no -idea what became of this romantically-begotten scion, or even of whether -he lived to grow up. - -Perhaps the “heterogenous housekeeper” of Horace Walpole’s letter was -Baccelli’s importation, for in another place he writes disgustedly of -“Knole, which disappointed me much. But unless you know how vast and -venerable I thought I remembered it, I cannot give you the measure of my -surprise; but then there was a trapes of a housekeeper, who, I suppose, -was the Baccelli’s dresser, and who put me out of humour....” - -The connection seems to have lasted for a long time, for it is not until -the end of 1789 that we come across an old newspaper cutting announcing -with curious candour that “the Duke of Dorset and the Baccelli have just -separated, and she is said to have behaved very well,” so that she -eclipsed the records of Nancy Parsons, of Mrs. Elizabeth Armistead, and -of poor Lady Derby. It is, I think, a not unpicturesque incident in the -story of Knole—the dancer sitting in those stately rooms to Reynolds and -Gainsborough, or descending from her tower to walk in the garden with -the duke, attended by the Chinese boy carrying her gloves, her fan, or -her parasol. Those were the days when the Clock Tower, oddly recalling a -pagoda, was but newly erected; when the great rose-and-gold Chinese -screen in the Poets’ Parlour was new and brilliant in the sun; when the -Coromandel chests were new toys; and the Italian pictures and the -statuary brought back by the duke from Rome were still pointed out as -the latest acquisitions. And no doubt then the statue of the Baccelli -reposing in her lovely nudity on her couch was not relegated to the -attic, where a subsequent and more prudish generation sent it, but stood -somewhere in the living-rooms, where it might be seen and admired in the -presence of the smiling model. Amusement was caused too, no doubt, among -the guests of the duke and the dancer by Sir Joshua’s portrait of the -Chinese boy squatting on his heels, a fan in his hand, and the square -toes of his red shoes protruding from beneath his robes. It was more -original to have a Chinese page than to have a black one; everybody had -a black one: “Dear Mama,” wrote the Duchess of Devonshire to her mother, -“George Hanger has sent me a Black boy, eleven years old and very -honest, but the duke don’t like me having a black, and yet I cannot bear -the poor wretch being ill-used; if you liked him instead of Michel I -will send him, he will be a cheap servant and you will make a Christian -of him and a good boy; if you don’t like him they say Lady Rockingham -wants one.” But the black page at Knole, of which there had always been -one since the days of Lady Anne Clifford, and who had always been called -John Morocco regardless of what his true name might be, had been -replaced by a Chinaman ever since the house steward had killed the John -Morocco of the moment in a fight in Black Boy’s Passage. This particular -Chinese boy whom I have mentioned, whose real name was Hwang-a-Tung, but -whom the English servants, much as they called Baccelli Madam Shelley, -more conveniently renamed Warnoton—fell on fortunate days when he came -to Knole, for not only was he painted by Sir Joshua, but he was educated -at the duke’s expense at the Grammar School in Sevenoaks. - -[Illustration: - - HWANG-A-TUNG - - A CHINESE BOY, PAGE TO THE 3RD DUKE OF DORSET - - _From the portrait at Knole by_ SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS -] - - - § iv - -The year after the parting in which the Baccelli was reported to have -behaved so well, the duke married. His bride was an heiress, Arabella -Diana Cope, who brought the duke, according to his own statement, a -dowry of £140,000. She must have been an imposing figure, if one may -trust Hoppner’s portrait, which shows her walking in a white muslin -dress, a little dog frisking round her feet, and tall feathers on her -head; and Wraxall, who certainly knew her, says, with the touch of awe -and even dislike perceptible between the lines of all his accounts of -her, that “her person, though not feminine, might then be denominated -handsome; and, if her mind was not highly cultivated or refined, she -could boast of intellectual endowments that fitted her for the active -business of life.” Wraxall writes, possibly, with a prejudiced pen, for -at one time he was employed in sorting and classifying the Knole -manuscripts, and in this matter his views clashed with those of her -Grace and her Grace’s second husband; the business was abandoned half -way through, but Wraxall’s trace remains in the neat, ejaculatory notes -which I find on the reverse side of many of the papers—“curious!” or -“not without merit!” This may account for the subtle spitefulness of his -remarks. Nevertheless, I imagine that Knole perceived under the duchess’ -régime a considerable contrast with the days of the merry and -pleasure-loving Baccelli. The new duchess was a severe and orderly lady, -“under the dominion of no passion except the love of money, her taste -for power and pleasure always subordinate to her economy,” and the duke -himself, perhaps under the influence of his wife, began to turn from his -extravagant ways towards parsimony, curtailing his expenses in spite of -the enormous increase in his income, and becoming, moreover, irascible, -fretful, morbid, and quarrelsome. The days of his patronage of opera and -Parisian ballet were over, the days when he was confident that the talk -of his ball in Paris would reach the ears of the Duchess of Devonshire -in London. His expenses at Knole were reported to be reduced to four or -five thousand a year, yet he could not endure to hear the praise of -other houses, for Knole he considered “as possessing everything.” It is -not an attractive picture of the gay duke’s declining years. Hoppner, -who had been staying at Knole for nine or ten days painting the three -children, described the duke as most unpleasant in his temper, anxious -and saving, humoursome and uncomfortable, “not suffering the dinner to -be all placed on the table,” and when, playing at Casino, he lost -fifteen shillings to Hoppner he “fretted when the cards he wished for -were taken up.” The three children were brought up with the utmost -severity; they were scarcely allowed to speak in the presence of their -elders; and little Lord Middlesex was sent out of the room in disgrace -at luncheon for asking his sister for the salt. Yet I fancy that the -real control, under a show of submission, was exercised by that -commanding figure, the duchess. She never betrayed any signs of -exasperation, whether the duke sent away the dinner, or grumbled that -Neckar was a man of no family, or that Mr. Hailes, the secretary, was a -man of no family either—much to Mr. Hailes’ discomposure. This dwelling -upon family was one of his many crotchets, and he was fond of pointing -out that the Sackvilles had never branched, but remained the only family -of that name in the Kingdom, and would draw attention to the coincidence -that Sackville Street was the longest street in London without branch or -turning. Prudent and long-suffering, no doubt the duchess had in her -mind the advantages she intended to secure when she should be no longer -a wife and sick-nurse, but a widow. Baccelli’s statue was in the attic, -and Mr. Ozias Humphrey, of the Royal Academy, was quite out of favour -because he went to Knole in the duke’s absence and took possession of a -room without previously showing proper attention to the duchess. She -presided calmly, while the duke fretted and economized, and quarrelled -with his friends, and deteriorated in intellect, and became a prey to -gloom, and grew old and sad before his time; she presided unruffled, for -all the while she rested satisfied in her knowledge of his testamentary -dispositions. He was, in fact, although only in the fifties, already a -very ill man. He was falling rapidly into a deeper and deeper -melancholy, and there is a tradition that towards the end he could only -be soothed by the playing of two musicians in a neighbouring room—the -room now called the Music Room, in which hang, rather ironically, -Reynolds’ portrait of the Baccelli peeping out from behind her mask, and -Vigée Lebrun’s portrait of the grave, greyhaired lady, Arabella Diana, -Duchess of Dorset. He sat in the library, his hands fumbling at the -breast-pin in his _jabot_, while the soothing strains reached him, -veiled by distance. Veiled by distance, too, the memories of his past -floated to him on the music, and melted with the music into the solace -of a confused and wistful harmony. The past, so luminous, was not wholly -lost, since in memory it was still recoverable. There had been the fun -of the masked ball in Rome; there had been the clandestine hours of -tenderness with Betty Hamilton; there had been Versailles; there had -been the days when he could glance down through the window and see -Baccelli flirting with Sir Joshua on the lawn. The musicians in the -neighbouring room played on. He had been twenty-four when Knole had come -to him; he had not had to wait for his good things until he was grown -too sober to enjoy them. It had been so easy to accept the urbanity, the -_empressement_, everyone was eager to lavish; so pleasant to move in a -world so bland, so obliging, and so polite. No effort had been -necessary; the fat quails had dropped ready roasted into his mouth. No -effort: a smile there; a gracious word here; tossed alike with a casual, -if good-humoured, contempt. Surveying himself in his mirror while his -valet knelt to buckle the diamond Order round his knee, flicking with a -lace pocket-handkerchief at a few grains of powder fallen upon his coat, -he had been secure in the safe conduct of his great name and his -personal charm. And if the faint ghosts whispered round him now in the -quiet library at Knole—a fair head thrust at him upon a pike, the -reproachful eyes of Lady Derby, the stilled limbs of those half-Italian -babies that the Baccelli had borne him—why, he could banish them: Lord -Middlesex slept in his nursery upstairs, and the tall duchess watched, -effaced though vigilant, from a corner of the library. But when she rose -and came towards him, thinking that he had fallen asleep in his nodding -over the fire, he repulsed her fretfully, with the gesture of an old -man, and wondered at himself in his confused and unhappy mind for this -anomalous discourtesy towards a woman. - -Next door to the Music Room hangs the lovely full-length of the three -children, painted by Hoppner while on that uncomfortable visit. One is -bound to admit that their appearance bears no impress of the grand, -solemn, and gloomy household in which they were being brought up. The -little boy, rosy, flaxen-curled, in high nankeen trousers and a soft -frilly shirt, has his arms round his baby sister, who, with bare toes, -is looking sulkily at her elder sister’s shoes; they are out in the -park; nothing could be more natural or unconstrained. My grandfather -used to show me the baby girl, telling me that while Hoppner was seeking -for a pose for his picture a grievance arose between the two little -girls because one had shoes and the other had not, and that on Lord -Middlesex taking his sister into his arms for consolation, Hoppner -rushed at them exclaiming that he could not improve upon the charm of -this accidental pose. I think this story has a convincing ring about it. -Certainly it was the only anecdote which my grandfather had to tell of -any picture in the house; usually he did not know a Hoppner from a -Vandyck, a Kneller from a Gainsborough. He said that he had the story -straight from his mother, Lady Elizabeth, the sulky baby of Hoppner’s -picture, and the young woman in fancy dress of Beechey’s portrait in the -same room. - -[Illustration: - - JOHN FREDERICK SACKVILLE ARABELLA DIANA - 3RD DUKE OF DORSET 3RD DUCHESS OF DORSET - - THE EARL OF MIDDLESEX - - LADY ELIZABETH SACKVILLE LADY MARY SACKVILLE - - _From a silhouette by_ A. T. TERSTAN, _1797. The property of_ LADY - SACKVILLE -] - -The only pleasant aspect of these later years of the gay duke’s life is -his friendship and constant employment of the artists of his day. Before -he fell into what Wraxall calls his “mental alienation” he counted -Reynolds among his intimates, was a pall-bearer at his funeral in -Westminster Abbey, and accumulated so many works of that artist at -Knole, including one at the back of which is written, “Sir Joshua -Reynolds, painted by himself and presented to his Grace the Duke of -Dorset in 1780,” that what was once the Crimson Drawing-Room became -known as the Reynolds Room; and the Reynolds Room it is to this day. -Madame Vigée Lebrun stayed at Knole, which she found too gloomy for her -taste, the duchess warning her, the first time they sat down to dinner, -“You will find it very dull, for we never speak at table.” Ozias -Humphrey, before he was so unfortunate as to offend the duchess, -contributed a number of canvases to the duke’s collection: - - Two pastels, 12 guineas each. - - KNIGHTSBRIDGE, _June 25th, 1792_. - - £ _s._ _d._ - His Grace the Duke of Dorset to Ozias Humphrey, for a - portrait in miniature 16 16 0 - A small crayon picture of the crossing-sweeper at Hyde - Park Corner with a rich gold frame and glass 21 0 0 - A portrait of the Duchess of Dorset in crayons 12 12 0 - ——— —— — - £50 8 0 - - =Received= of his Grace the Duke of DORSET the sum of fifty pounds in - full for the amount of the annexed bill. - - OZIAS HUMPHREY. - -It is perhaps significant of his new economy that the duke ignored the -eight shillings. - -With Opie, too, he was on friendly terms, and amongst the other receipts -at Knole is one from Opie for the portrait of Edmund Burke for £24 3_s._ -There is also a letter at Knole from Burke, who probably knew his -Grace’s weakness for his house: - - DUKE ST., _Sept, 14, 1791_. - - MY LORD, - - I am just now honoured with your Grace’s letter, and am extremely - concerned that it is not in my power to accept your Grace’s most - obliging invitation. I have great respect for its present possessor; - and as for the place, I, who am something of a lover of all - antiquities, must be a very great admirer of Knole. I think it the - most interesting thing in England. It is pleasant to have preserved in - one place the succession of the several tastes of ages; a pleasant - habitation for the time, a grand repository of whatever has been - pleasant at all times. This is not the sort of place which every - banker, contractor, or Nabob can create at his pleasure.... I would - not change Knole if I were the Duke of Dorset for all the foppish - structures of this age. - -Other receipts at Knole make it clear that the average price for a -half-length was £37, while for a full-length by Reynolds the duke paid -£300. - -There is also a mention in a contemporary diary that the duke asked -Hoppner for his portrait, which he promised should be hung next to Sir -Joshua’s portrait of himself. The diary notes that Ozias Humphrey’s -_Selbstbildnis_ is “still in the room, but has been removed from its -place next the Reynolds.” It is “still in the room” now, a man with a -delicate face and a pointed nose, on the wall with Gainsborough’s _Lord -George Sackville_, Sir Joshua’s _Samuel Foote_, his _Oliver Goldsmith_, -his _Peg Woffington_, and his own portrait; but the Hoppner for which -the duke asked is not there, and never was; no doubt Hoppner was not -sufficiently encouraged by the uncomfortable visit to send so valuable -an acknowledgment. - -At this period England lay under the fear of an invasion by the young -victorious Bonaparte, and a scheme was set on foot for raising a corps -of infantry to be called the Knole volunteers; I recently came across -some of their accoutrements in an old locker at Knole; they had an -amateurish look. A document bearing many blots and the signatures of all -the volunteers—or, in some cases, their mark—is also at Knole: - - HIS GRACE _the_ DUKE _of_ DORSET’S offer of raising a Corps of - Infantry, to consist of Sixty Men, to be called the _Knole - Volunteers_, for the purpose of preserving Order and protecting - property in the Parish and Neighbourhood of Sevenoaks having been - accepted, and George Stone, Stephen Woodgate, and Thomas Mortimer - Kelson being appointed officers by his Majesty to command the same, - they propose the following Rules and Regulations, which they hope will - be cheerfully submitted to by all who have voluntarily come forward to - offer their services in the said Corps at this important Crisis: - - 1st. _That_ each individual attend twice a week for the purpose of - exercising from half after Six o’clock to half after Eight - o’clock in the Evening. - - 2nd. As a regular attendance is particularly essential, it is - proposed that the small Sum of Sixpence be paid by every person - not present to answer to his Name when called over at the time - appointed, unless it appears he is prevented by Sickness, which - forfeits, should there be any, shall be spent by the Corps at - the end of the year in any manner they shall think proper. - - 3rd. That every Man appears clean and properly accoutered. - - 4thly. That they do their utmost Endeavour to learn their - Exercise, paying proper respect to their Officers. - - _Finally_, they wish it to be clearly understood that their Services - shall not be required to extend further than the Parish and - Neighbourhood of Sevenoaks, unless it be for the purpose of guarding - Prisoners or Convoys as far as one Stage. - - KNOLE, _22 May 1798_. - -But it is improbable that the duke had much to do with the raising or -organisation of this corps, for during the last twenty months of his -life his irascibility turned to definite melancholia, and he remained at -Knole more or less alone with the duchess keeping a jealous guard over -him. It is impossible not to draw the parallel between his end and that -of Charles the Restoration earl, his great-grandfather, remembering -especially the wildness and extravagance in which both had spent their -youth; but whereas Charles was carried away to Bath at the end by that -sordid woman Ann Roche, the duke was carefully tended in his own great -house by the reserved and prudent woman he had married, too dignified to -be accused save under the veil of polite phrases of intriguing to get -the control of his affairs into her own hands. So he sank gradually, and -in 1799, at the age of fifty-four, he died, when it was found that he -had so disposed of his lands, his fortune, and his boroughs that -Arabella Diana was left with so great an accumulation of wealth and of -parliamentary influence as had “scarcely ever vested, among us, in a -female, and a widow.” - - - - - CHAPTER IX - Knole in the Nineteenth Century - - - § i - -The new Duke of Dorset was only five years old when his father’s -dignities descended so prematurely on to his small yellow head, but he -had a capable mentor in the person of his mother, and before two years -had elapsed her authority was reinforced by that of a stepfather. This -was Lord Whitworth, recently Ambassador to the Courts of Catherine II. -and Paul I. The circumstances of Lord Whitworth’s recall had been in the -least degree mysterious. Various rumours were current; amongst others, -that he had offended the Czar in the following somewhat ludicrous -manner: the Czar having forbidden that any empty carriage should pass -before a certain part of his palace, Lord Whitworth, uninformed of the -regulation, ordered his coach to meet him at a point which would entail -passing over the forbidden area. The sentry held up the coach; the -servants persisted in driving on; they came to blows; and the Czar, when -the affair came to his ears, ordered Lord Whitworth’s servants to be -beaten, the horses to be beaten, and the coach to be beaten too. Lord -Whitworth, in a fit of rage and petulance, dismissed his servants, -ordered the horses to be shot, and the coach to be broken into pieces -and thrown into the Neva. - -He appears to have had at least one trait in common with the Sackvilles -themselves, at any rate in early life, for it was said of him that he -was “more distinguished during this period of his career by success in -gallantries than by any professional merits or brilliant services.” Even -at the time of his marriage, when, returning from Russia to England, he -found available the wealthy and desirable relict of his friend the late -Dorset, he was heavily entangled with a lady named Countess Gerbetzow, -whose partiality for the English Ambassador had been such that she had -placed her own fortune at his disposal for the purpose of clothing -himself and defraying the expenses of his household. In return for this -affection and assistance Lord Whitworth promised her marriage as soon as -she could divorce her husband; but during the course of the divorce -proceedings the Ambassador was recalled, and left for England on the -understanding that Countess Gerbetzow would follow him there as soon as -she conveniently could. Meanwhile he made the acquaintance of the more -eligible duchess, became engaged to her, and lost no time in marrying -her. Countess Gerbetzow had, however, by now obtained her divorce, and -was travelling across Europe on her way to England: at Leipzic she -learnt from a newspaper that Lord Whitworth in London was engaged to the -Duchess of Dorset. Indignant and outraged, she flew post-haste to -London. Too late: she arrived only to find that the marriage had already -been celebrated. But she would not allow the matter to rest there, and -“her reclamations, which were of too delicate and serious a nature to be -despised, at length compelled the duchess, most reluctantly, to pay her -Muscovite rival no less a sum than ten thousand pounds.” Whether the -duchess continued to think Lord Whitworth worth the price is not -recorded. If he was an expensive husband, he was certainly from the -worldly standpoint a very successful one, and that was a standpoint the -duchess was not likely to despise. He became successively Ambassador to -the French Republic, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and an earl, but “we -may nevertheless be allowed to doubt,” observes Wraxall, who claims Lord -Whitworth’s personal friendship, - - whether a humbler matrimonial alliance might not have been attended - with more felicity ... united to a woman of inferior fortune and - condition ... he would certainly have presented an object of more - rational envy and respect than as the second husband of a duchess, - elevated by her connections to dignities and offices, subsisting on - her possessions, and who will probably ere long inter him with an - earl’s coronet on his coffin.—I return [_says Wraxall, having thus - dismissed the pair_] to Marie Antoinette. - -I doubt whether the little duke was allowed a very exuberant enjoyment -of his boyhood with this couple in authority over him. Children were -strictly brought up in that generation, and it is clear that the duchess -was by nature a severe and not very sympathetic woman. The little boy -and his sisters must have been docile and well behaved in the great -house and gardens which belonged to him in name only, but which in -practice were entirely under his mother’s control, for her to alter the -windows as she pleased, and to put Lord Whitworth’s cognizance in the -stained glass beside the Sackville arms. I visualize—I scarcely know -why—the duchess and Lord Whitworth almost as the jailers of the small -inheritor. There is nothing to justify such a theory; and, indeed, very -little record remains of that short life: there is his rocking-horse—an -angular, long-necked, maneless animal, which in due course became my -property, after passing through the two intervening generations—his -brief friendship with Byron as a schoolboy, and his portrait as a tall, -fair young man in dark blue academical robes. There is very little else -to mark his passage across the stage of Knole. He came, late in time, of -a race never remarkable for strength of character, and the obituary -notice which described him as having possessed gentle and engaging -manners, tinctured by shyness, and of amiable temper, probably came -nearer to the truth than the generality of such eulogies. Byron has told -us nothing in the least illuminating of his friend. He has left a long -address in verse, included in _Hours of Idleness_, in which he is -careful to explain that the duke was his fag at Harrow, - - _Whom still affection taught me to defend, - And made me less a tyrant than a friend, - Though the harsh custom of our youthful band - Bade_ thee _obey, and gave me to command_, - -and equally careful to remind him that they might in later years meet in -the House of Lords, - - _Since chance has thrown us in the self-same sphere, - Since the same senate, nay, the same debate, - May one day claim our suffrage for the state._ - -The rest of the poem is an exhortation to the duke, whose “passive -tutors, fearful to dispraise,” may - - _View ducal errors with indulgent eyes, - And wink at faults they tremble to chastise_, - -to be worthy of the record his ancestors have left him; of he who -“called, proud boast! the British drama forth,” and of that other one, -Charles, “The pride of princes, and the boast of song”—to become, in -fine, “Not Fortune’s minion, but her noblest son.” One suspects, in -fact, that Byron himself viewed the errors of his ducal fag with an -indulgent eye, and the depth of the friendship, on Byron’s part at -least, is easily measured by the letters he wrote on hearing of the -duke’s death—letters whose cynicism is perhaps atoned for by their -frankness: - -[Illustration: - - GEORGE JOHN FREDERICK SACKVILLE, 4TH DUKE OF DORSET - - LADY MARY SACKVILLE LADY ELIZABETH SACKVILLE - - _From the portrait at Knole by_ HOPPNER -] - - I have just been—or, rather, ought to be—very much shocked by the - death of the Duke of Dorset [_he wrote to Tom Moore_]. We were at - school together, and then I was passionately attached to him. Since, - we have never met—but once, I think, in 1805—and it would be a paltry - affectation to pretend that I had any feeling for him worth the name. - But there was a time in my life when this event would have broken my - heart; and all I can say for it now is that—it is not worth breaking. - - Adieu—it is all a farce. - -And he alludes to it once more, a fortnight later, again writing to -Moore, to say that “the death of poor Dorset—and the recollection of -what I once felt, and ought to have felt now, but could not,” has set -him pondering. - -That, then, is all which the boy could leave behind him—that he should -set Byron, for a moment, pondering. From such slight traces—the English -little boy of the Hoppner, the old-fashioned rocking-horse, and the -portrait of the fair young man—we have to reconstruct as best we can an -entire personality. We have to figure him running about the garden at -Knole; kissing his mother’s hand—surely never throwing his arms about -her—his grave little bow to Lord Whitworth; the “your Grace” of his -nurse’s behests; the brief contact with the dazzling personality of -Byron at Harrow; the stir with which he cannot have failed to anticipate -the advantages of his life and his emancipation. We have the account of -him playing tennis, when a ball hit him in the eye, and obliged him to -be for ever after “continually applying leeches and blisters and -ointments and other disagreeable remedies,” and to be “very moderate in -all exercises that heat or agitate the frame.” We have, finally, his -tragic end at the age of twenty-one, to which additional poignancy is -lent by the fact that he had recently become engaged. - -He had gone to Ireland, where his stepfather was then Viceroy, to stay -with his friend and quondam school-fellow Lord Powerscourt. On the day -after his arrival the two young men, with Lord Powerscourt’s brother, -Mr. Wingfield, went out hunting, and after a fruitless morning they were -about to return home when they put up a hare: - - The hare made for the inclosures on Kilkenny Hill. They had gone but a - short distance, when the Duke, who was an excellent forward horseman, - rode at a wall, which was in fact a more dangerous obstacle than it - appeared to be.... The Duke’s mare attempted to cover all at one - spring, and cleared the wall, but, alighting among the stones on the - other side, threw herself headlong, and, turning in the air, came with - great violence upon her rider, who had not lost his seat; he - undermost, with his back on one of the large stones, and she crushing - him with all her weight on his chest, and struggling with all her - might to recover her legs. The mare at length disentangled herself and - galloped away. The Duke sprang upon his feet, and attempted to follow - her, but soon found himself unable to stand, and fell into the arms of - Mr. Farrel, who had run to his succour, and to whose house he was - conveyed. Lord Powerscourt, in the utmost anxiety and alarm, rode full - speed for medical assistance, leaving his brother, Mr. Wingfield, to - pay every possible attention to the Duke. But, unfortunately, the - injury was too severe to be counteracted by human skill; life was - extinct before any surgeon arrived. Such was the melancholy - catastrophe that caused the untimely death of this young nobleman. He - had been of age only three months, and had not taken his seat in the - House of Lords [1815]. - -The author of this obituary notice was at great pains to clear the young -man of any charge of “unseasonable levity”: - - It has been said [_he observes_] that the Duke, in his dying moments, - made use of the expression “I am off.” He did so; but not, as has been - very erroneously supposed, by way of heroic bravado, or in a temper of - unseasonable levity; but simply to signify to his attendants, who, in - pulling off his boots, had drawn him too forward on the mattress, and - jogged one of the chairs out of its place, that he was _slipping off_, - and wanted their aid to help him up into his former position. He was - the last person in the world to be guilty of anything like levity upon - any solemn occasion, much less in his dying moments. The fact was, - when he used the expression “I am off” he had become very faint and - weak, and was glad to save himself the trouble of further - utterance.... - - Now suppose a stranger to the real character of this excellent youth - to have heard no more of him than what he would be most likely to hear - of one whose constitutional modesty concealed his virtues, namely, - that he was very fond of cricket, that he hurt his eye with a - tennis-ball, that he lost his life hunting, that his last words were - “I am off”; would not a person possessed of this information, and no - more, naturally conclude that the Duke was a young man of trivial - mind, addicted to idle games and field sports, and apt to make light - of serious things? How false a notion would such a person form of the - late Duke of Dorset! As to the four circumstances above alluded to, if - he was fond of cricket, it was in the evening generally that he - played. When he hurt his eye [it was on the 7th of December] he had - been at his books all the morning, and went between dinner and dusk to - take one set at tennis. When he lost his life hunting, he had not - hunted ten times the whole season. And what have been represented as - his last words were not his last words; and, even if they were, they - had no other meaning than “Pray prevent a helpless man from slipping - down out of his place.” That he was not a mere sportsman, a mere - idler, or a mere trifler, witness the wet eyes that streamed at every - window in the streets of Dublin as his hearse was passing by; witness - the train of carriages that composed his funeral procession; witness - the throng of Nobility and Gentlemen that attended his remains to the - sea-shore; witness the families he had visited in Ireland; witness the - reception of his corpse in England; witness the amazing concourse of - friends, tenantry, and neighbours, that came to hear the last rites - performed, and to see him deposited in the tomb; witness the more - endeared set of persons who still mean to hover round the vault where - he is laid! - - - § ii - -It now became apparent how exceedingly wise had been the precautionary -measures taken by the duchess in regard to her husband’s will. A distant -cousin, the son of Lord George, succeeded to the title as fifth and last -duke—this part of the succession was beyond the reach of her control—but -under the terms of the will Knole became her property for life, and she -received in addition, on the death of her son, an increase in her income -of nine thousand a year. She must certainly have been one of the richest -women in England. Lord Whitworth, meanwhile (till 1817), continued as -Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and as the originals of the following -letters written to him by Sir Robert Peel, with enclosures in Peel’s -handwriting, are at Knole, I think it not wholly irrelevant to print -them here, with a few other notes, in view of their interest as being -written immediately after the battle of Waterloo, and having, so far as -I know, never before been published. - - IRISH OFFICE. - _June 22nd, 1815._ - - _Private_ - DEAR LORD WHITWORTH, - - You will receive by this express the official accounts of the most - desperate and most important action in which the British arms have - ever been engaged. The Gazette details all the leading particulars—I - have just been at the War and Foreign Offices to collect any further - information that may be interesting to you. It is evident that the - attack was in a great degree a surprise upon the Allies, Bonaparte - collected his troops and advanced with much greater rapidity than - could have been expected. It was supposed that it would have required - three days to bring the British force into line for a general - engagement—but the suddenness of the attack gave them a much shorter - time for preparation. It is said that on the 16th the Prussians lost - fourteen thousand men. - -[Illustration: - - ROCKING HORSE - - ONCE THE PROPERTY OF THE 4TH DUKE OF DORSET -] - -[Illustration: - - A RECEIPT FROM GAINSBOROUGH -] - - All the private accounts attribute the success of the day to the Duke - of Wellington’s personal courage and extraordinary exertions. Flint - will send you some interesting particulars on this point. - - When the French Cavalry charged—the Duke placed himself in the centre - of the square of infantry—a barrier that was impenetrable. Nothing - could exceed the desperation with which the Cuirassiers fought. When - they found they could make no impression on the solid mass of - infantry—they halted in front and deliberately charged their pistols - and shot at individuals of course without a chance of surviving. Lord - Bathurst showed me a letter which he had received from Apsley. He says - that Bonaparte had a scaffolding erected out of cannon shot from the - top of which he saw the field of battle and the progress of the fight. - When he found that success was almost hopeless he put himself at the - head of the Imperial Guard—and charged in person. They were met by the - first foot guards who overthrew them completely. The conduct of all - the British infantry was beyond praise—Lord Wellington had about - sixty-five thousand men in the field. Castlereagh told me that he - thought Bonaparte must have lost the fourth of his army. This is of - course mere conjecture. - - Of the Regiments of Cavalry which distinguished themselves the Life - Guards, the 10th, and the 18th are particularly mentioned. The field - of battle after the action presented a most extraordinary sight. The - panic of the French army after their failure—and the fruitlessness of - the desperate courage they had shewn—was very great when the attack on - our part commenced. They threw away their arms—knapsacks, etc., etc., - in the greatest confusion. The Prussians gave no quarter in the - pursuit. - - The Duke and Blucher met for a moment after the action—in the village - of _La heureuse Alliance_ [sic]. - - The Belgian Cavalry and some of the British did not much distinguish - themselves. I hear that the 7th, Lord Uxbridge’s own regiment, have - not added much to their reputation—but do not quote me for this piece - of intelligence. General Picton was shot through the head. He behaved - with the greatest possible gallantry. - - Schartzenburg [_sic_] is supposed to have crossed the Rhine with an - immense force—perhaps 200,000 men on or about the 20th. I should - rather say it was expected that he would cross about that time. There - is no account from Paris—or from the French army. - - I have sent you a strange mixture of detached and unconnected - particulars. I heard them one by one—in such a hurry—and am now - obliged to write to you in such a hurry that I may not detain the - express that I cannot reduce them into any shape. - - The consequence of our success must infallibly lead to a reduction of - our regular force in Ireland—forthwith I apprehend. The Duke entreats - in the strongest manner that reinforcements of infantry may be sent to - him. - - Believe me ever dear Lord Whitworth, Yours most truly - - _The Lord Lieutenant_. ROBERT PEEL. - - PARIS - Rue de la Paix—Hotel du Montblanc— - _July 15th, 1815_. - - DEAR LORD WHITWORTH, - - As I owe my trip to Paris in great measure to the kindness and - readiness with which you dispensed with my services in Ireland—it is - but just that I should give you some account of my proceedings—Croker, - Fitzgerald and myself left Town on Saturday Morning last [8th] arrived - at Dover that night. I was a little disappointed to hear that the - Tricolor Flag was flying at Calais—However we were determined, perhaps - rather rashly—to make an attempt to land, and sailed the next morning - in an armed schooner—putting the guns below and hoisting a flag of - truce when we got into Calais roads. The Governor however was - inexorable—and positively refused us permission to land. We heard that - the white flag was flying at Dunkirk and at Boulogne and the wind - favoured for the latter—we made for it. As we passed Vimereux and - Ambleteuse we saw the white flag flying there and indeed at every - intervening village between Calais and Boulogne. It was late in the - evening when we arrived off Boulogne—we could discern that there was a - flag hoisted, and on standing in close into the harbour we found it - was the Tricolor. - - Fitzgerald and I were so sick and heartily tired of our voyage, that - we resisted most strenuously Croker’s proposition to make for - Dieppe—we wrote a very civil note to the Commandant—hoisted our flag - of Truce and despatched a messenger. He was detained about three - hours—he said that our arrival in the roads had caused great alarm in - the garrison—that he had been placed under arrest on his landing—had - been taken to the Commandant who was holding a sort of Council of - war—that the flag of truce was mistaken for the white - flag—particularly as the Schooner was armed—and unfortunately for us - three or four English Brigs were in the offing. - - However he brought with him a civil answer from the Commandant - informing us that “une mesure de sureté militaire l’occupoit à le - moment,” but when he was at leisure he would send a boat for us. - - We were half afraid to trust ourselves to him, particularly as he told - our envoy that he could not recognize a flag of truce in an armed - vessel, but the apprehension of a sail to Dieppe with a contrary wind - overcame the apprehension of a day or two’s confinement at Boulogne. - The boat arrived—and we landed at Boulogne about 3 o’clock on Monday - morning. The Commandant was civil to us but did not conceal from us - that he was a furious Bonapartist. He said he had no soldiers—if he - had 30 that white flag in the next village should not be hoisted—or - there should be a massacre if it was. We proceeded on our journey - about 7 o’clock on the morning of Monday—nothing could exceed the - apparent devotion of all the inhabitants of the country through which - we passed to the cause of Louis—the white flag was hanging from every - window. Vive le Roi was in every mouth. We met with no interruption - until we arrived at Montreuil—where there was a strong garrison—the - Commandant like the officers—determined Bonapartists. We had nothing - but Castlereagh’s passport except La Chatre’s which was worse than - nothing, but the Commandant allowed us after some parley to proceed. - The presence of the military was hardly sufficient to keep down the - popular feeling in favour of the King—among the inhabitants it was - universal here as every where else, there was not a single exception. - At Abbeville we were again stopped. Here there was a very strong - garrison—2000 men. Party spirit was running very high. The inhabitants - were armed—the military seemed disposed to resist the order which they - expected to receive on the day of our arrival, to lay down their arms - and leave the town. - - Every precaution was taken as if the town was besieged. There were - soldiers at every drawbridge. The Commandant however allowed us to - proceed—and we arrived safely at Paris on the evening of Tuesday. - - _Sunday, 16th._ - - Paris is surrounded by the troops of the allies and nothing can - be more interesting than the present situation of it. The - streets are crowded with officers and soldiers of all nations. - Cossacks—Russians—Prussians, Austrians, Hungarians, etc. The - English are great favourites. The Prussians held in the greatest - detestation. If they had entered Paris alone—or if the Crowned - Heads had delayed their entry—they, the Prussians would probably - have pillaged Paris. They have taken some pictures from the - Louvre—a very few, however, and none to which they had not some - claim. They have demanded the payment of one hundred millions of - francs from the city and at this moment—there are Prussian - guards in the houses of Perigaux and some of the other principal - bankers who are held as a sort of hostage—for the payment of the - contribution. - - We drove to-day to the Depot d’Artillerie, and were told by the - sentry—one of the national guards, that we were welcome to see the - salon—but that the Prussians had removed everything which it - contained—the sword of Joan of Arc—the knife of Ravaillac—Turenne’s - sword. I am sorry for this—not on account of the mortification which - it will inflict on French vanity—but because I fear the return of the - King will be less popular—than it would have been if he could have - preserved entire at least those national monuments and relics which - are exclusively French. - - We paid a visit to Denon the other day. He had some Prussians - quartered upon him, and was very loud in his exclamations against _ce_ - [sic] _bête féroce_ as he called Blucher. He expressed his sentiments - very freely on political subjects—said the King was not destined to - govern France in times like these—and predicted a short duration to - his dynasty. He spoke in terms of great and apparently sincere - affection towards Bonaparte—he was the last person who saw him before - he quitted Paris. Denon observed that he had committed a great error - after the battle of Waterloo in quitting the army—that he had by that - step lost its confidence—that he ought either to have remained with - it—or to have returned to it immediately. If he had summoned the two - chambers, informed them without reserve of his disasters and concluded - by stating that his travelling carriage was at the door and that he - was going to resume the command of the army, that even still he need - not have despaired of ultimate success. - - At the Tuileries after mass there was a great collection of - Marshals—Peers of France—and other rogues of the higher order. We saw - Marmont—Macdonald—Masséna—St. Cyr—Dupont, etc., and almost all the - General officers of the French army who are in Paris—and did not take - a decided part against the King. The garden of the Tuileries was - absolutely full of people, and nothing can exceed or describe the - enthusiasm of the women and children in favour of the King. If - shouts—and applause and Vive le Roi—and white handkerchiefs could - contribute to his strength—his throne would be established on solid - foundations, but I do not see that men—fighting men—partake so much of - the general joy—I confess I think the King has been ill advised in - making Fouché his chief confidant and minister. It seems to me that it - must preclude him from punishing treason in others—if he rewards so - notorious a traitor as Fouché so highly. Fouché betrayed the King—then - he betrayed Bonaparte—then he betrayed the Provisional Government of - which he was the head and now he is minister. In fact he betrayed the - Provisional Government deliberately—and on condition that he should be - the King’s adviser. The virulence of French traitors—owing to the - impunity of Treason—is beyond conception. Grouchy has written a letter - to the Emperor of Russia requesting him to intercede in his favour - with the King—and to procure for him permission to retain his rank as - Marshal in the French army or, if that cannot be granted, that the - Emperor will allow him to enter the Russian army retaining his present - rank. The Emperor’s answer was not amiss. He had nothing to say to his - first Proposition—and with respect to his second—it was an - indispensable qualification in a Russian officer that he should be a - man of honour. - - Pray remember me very kindly to the Duchess of Dorset and believe me - ever - - Dear Lord Whitworth, - Yours most truly - ROBERT PEEL. - - _His Excellency_ - _The Lord Lieutenant._ - - PARIS, _Monday, July 17th_. - - Arbuthnot saw Mr. Lane about an hour since I had this account from - him—½ past 3. - - Mr. Lane of No. 5 Essex Court in the Temple states himself to have - arrived to-day from France; and he gives the following account: - - That on the 20th he left Paris, and notwithstanding there were firing - of guns and other marks of rejoicing, there was a general feeling in - the town that all was not going well; that at Boulogne Mr. Lane saw - the _Moniteur_ of the 22nd which gives a long account of what is - called the battle of Marennart, stating that the British were 90,000 - men and the French not so many, that until four in the Evening the - French had completely won the battle, but that about that hour the - English Cavalry had attacked the Cuirassiers and routed them, that the - young guards coming to their assistance got entangled in their - confusion, and the old guard was likewise “_entrainée_.” At this - moment some _Malveillant_ in the army cried “Sauve qui peut” and a - general flight commenced; the whole left wing of the army _dispersed_: - He lost all his cannon caissons etc. Buonaparte had ordered the wreck - of his army to be collected near Phillipville, and he had issued - directions calling on the Northern provinces to rise in mass. This, - says the _Moniteur_, ended a battle so glorious yet so fatal to the - French arms. Buonaparte has arrived in Paris on the morning of the - 21st. The Council of Ministers and the two chambers had been placed in - a state of permanency and it was declared high treason to vote an - adjournment. - - Extract of a letter from the DUKE _of_ WELLINGTON - to SIR CHARLES FLINT. - dated BRUSSELS. - _19 June 1815._ - - What do you think of the total defeat of Bonaparte by the British - Army? - - Never was there in the annals of the World so desperate or so hard - fought an action, or such a defeat. It was really the battle of the - Giants. - - My heart is broken by the terrible loss I have sustained of my old - friends and companions and my poor Soldiers; and I shall not be - satisfied with this Battle however glorious, if it does not of itself - put an end to Bonaparte. - - [I have been asked for so many Copies of this (all of which I have - refused) that I am glad to return it.] - - _19 June 1815._ - - On the 16th to the very great astonishment of everyone the French - attacked us or rather the Prussians, Lord Wellington came up with a - very few Troops including the 7 Divisions and succeeded in stopping - them, the next day was passed in partial Cavalry actions and yesterday - was fought the severest battle that I believe ever has been known, the - disproportion was immense so much so that altho’ we constantly - repulsed them yet had not the Prussians come up at 7 (altho’ in fact - they might have been up long before) we perhaps might ultimately have - been annihilated. Trotter and I was on the field at the beginning and - I count it as the best day of my life—I was there also to-day—the - French have abandoned everything—In point of Artillery it is a second - Vittoria. - - Our loss is so great that our Army will not I fear be in a state to - act efficiently—but as we have done the material thing, the Allies may - do the rest—the French Cavalry which was very fine suffered beyond - expression—For a mile the road is actually strewed with Cuirasses—when - I say this, I do not exaggerate. The Prussians are pursuing as fast as - they can and with a large body of Troops. There will not be a stop by - possibility till we get over the Frontier, after that time I dare not - prophesy, but I do not think they will like to attack us again. - - The Action was fought in front of _Waterloo_ where two Roads - separate—the one going to Nivelle, the other to Genappe—the position - which was a very beautiful one was in front of the junction of the two - roads. [_unsigned._] - - NIVELLE. _19 June 1815._ - - The great action of yesterday was the severest contest either - Frenchmen or Englishmen ever witnessed—it was the most obstinate - struggle of two brave and rival Nations each firm in its cause—The - gallantry of the French could only be exceeded by the resolution and - intrepidity of John Bull. It raged from 11 till 9 and was once nearly - lost. The Duke seconded by his Troops repaired every momentary - disaster. - - Buonaparte placed himself at the head of his guards and led them on. - The 1st Guards defeated them and put them to the rout and then the - dismay became general—The Guards and generally the Infantry were the - mainstay of the Action. Our Brigade had the defence of a Post which if - lost, lost all. Our Light Company under Colonel Macdonnell were there, - the Coldstreams then went down and we held it to the last, tho’ the - Houses were in Flames. The loss has been immense—The French are - totally defeated. - - There never was a more severe Battle than that of the 18th. I enclose - a little Sketch of it. The dotted Line from Braine la Leud to above La - Haye is the brow of the Hills occupied by the Duke of Wellington. The - Troops had bivouaced just in the rear. The other dotted line near La - Belle Alliance marks the brow of the Hills from where the French - attack was made. There are two small Hedges in the Rear of this one. - The Attack on Hougomont was very severe from a little before 12 to - half past one. Bonaparte then moved a strong Force (continuing however - his first Attack for several hours) to attack the left of the Centre - where Picton and Ponsonby were killed. He drove our people from the - Hedges a short distance but they soon returned and drove him - considerably beyond those Hedges. In the Evening he collected a very - great force near La Haye Sainte and attacked the Right of the Centre. - This was done repeatedly by Infantry and Cavalry but though they - frequently got through the Line they could never drive them from their - position. The British Artillery was a little in front. The Duke - several times left the Guns taking away the Horses and Ammunition, but - his Fire was too heavy for the Enemy to bring up Horses to take them - off and he as often regained them. At about 7 o’clock the French were - heartily sick of it and retired rapidly. The Duke immediately changed - his Defensive operations to that of Attack and at the same time Bulow - brought up about 30,000 fresh Troops on the right flank of the Enemy - near the Village of La Haye. Blucher was also near at hand. - - The Rout at this time was complete. The Pursuit was rapid and I really - believe that the following morning the French Army had not 50 Guns out - of 300 and no Baggage of any sort. - - The latter part of this Account I take from others and from seeing the - Field of Battle two days afterwards. The first and second attacks I - was present at. - - The Returns are arrived of Killed and Wounded. The British and - Hanoverians lost on the 16th, 17th and 18th 845 Officers and 13,000 - Men. The French lost much more. The Method in which the Duke received - the united Charges of Cavalry and attacks of Infantry is not common. - He formed two Regiments in Squares and united them by a Regt. in Line - four deep making a Sort of Curtain between two Bastions. [_unsigned._] - - - § iii - -After Lord Whitworth’s term of office had come to an end he and the -duchess returned to live at Knole, and to make such improvements there -as were agreeable to the taste of the early nineteenth century. Such -were the Gothic windows of the Orangery, which replaced the Tudor ones -and were inscribed with the date 1823, and further changes were -projected, such as a design which was to sweep away the symmetry of the -lawns on the garden front and bring a curving path up to the house. This -scheme, however, was never carried out. The bowling-green still rises, -square and formal, backed by the two great tulip trees and the more -distant woods of the park. The long perspective of the herbaceous -borders was left undisturbed. The apple-trees in the little square -orchards, that bear their blossom and their fruit from year to year with -such countrified simplicity in the heart of all that magnificence, were -not uprooted. Consequently the garden, save for one small section where -the paths curve in meaningless scollops among the rhododendrons, remains -to-day very much as Anne Clifford knew it. It has, of course, matured. -The white rose which was planted under James I’s room has climbed until -it now reaches beyond his windows on the first floor; the great lime has -drooped its branches until they have layered themselves in the ground of -their own accord and grown up again with fresh roots into three complete -circles all sprung from the parent tree, a cloister of limes, which in -summer murmurs like one enormous bee-hive; the magnolia outside the -Poets’ Parlour has grown nearly to the roof, and bears its mass of -flame-shaped blossoms like a giant candelabrum; the beech hedge is -twenty feet high; four centuries have winnowed the faultless turf. In -spring the wisteria drips its fountains over the top of the wall into -the park. The soil is rich and deep and old. The garden has been a -garden for four hundred years. - -And here, save for a few very brief notes to bring the history of the -house down to the present day, these sketches must cease. The duchess -Arabella Diana dying in 1825, her estate devolved upon her two -daughters, Mary and Elizabeth. Elizabeth, my great-grandmother, who -married John West, Lord de la Warr, and who died in 1870, left Buckhurst -to her elder sons and Knole to her younger sons, one of whom was my -grandfather. He was, as I remember him, a queer and silent old man. He -knew nothing whatever about the works of art in the house; he spent -hours gazing at the flowers, followed about the garden by two grave -demoiselle cranes; he turned his back on all visitors, but sized them up -after they had gone in one shrewd and sarcastic phrase; he bore a really -remarkable resemblance to the portraits of the old Lord Treasurer, and -he seemed to me, with his taciturnity and the never-mentioned background -of his own not unromantic past, to stand conformably at the end of the -long line of his ancestors. He and I, who so often shared the house -alone between us, were companions in a shy and undemonstrative way. -Although he had nothing to say to his unfortunate guests, he could -understand a child. He told me that there were underground caves in the -Wilderness, and I believed him to the extent of digging pits among the -laurels in the hope of chancing upon the entrance; he made over a tall -tree to me for my own, and I mounted a wooden cannon among its branches -to keep away intruders. When I was away, which was seldom, he would -write me harlequin letters in different coloured chalks. When I was at -home he would put after dinner a plate of fruit for my breakfast into a -drawer of his writing-table labelled with my name, and this he never -once failed to do, even though there might have been thirty people to -dinner in the Great Hall, who watched, no doubt with great surprise, the -old man who had been so rude to his neighbours at dinner going -unconcernedly round with a plate, picking out the reddest cherries, the -bluest grapes, and the ripest peach. - -When we were at Knole alone together I used to go down to his -sitting-room in the evening to play draughts with him—and never knew -whether I played to please him, or he played to please me—and sometimes, -very rarely, he told me stories of when he was a small boy, and played -with the rocking-horse, and of the journeys by coach with his father and -mother from Buckhurst to Knole or from Knole to London; of their taking -the silver with them under the seat; of their having outriders with -pistols; and of his father and mother never addressing each other, in -their children’s presence, as anything but “my Lord” and “my Lady.” I -clasped my knees and stared at him when he told me these stories of an -age which already seemed so remote, and his pale blue eyes gazed away -into the past, and suddenly his shyness would return to him and the -clock in the corner would begin to wheeze in preparation to striking the -hour, and he would say that it was time for me to go to bed. But -although our understanding of one another was, I am sure, so excellent, -our rare conversations remained always on similar fantastic subjects, -nor ever approached the intimate or the personal. - -Then he fell ill and died when he was over eighty, and became a name -like the others, and his portrait took its place among the rest, with a -label recording the dates of his birth and death. - - - - - APPENDIX - A Note on Thieves’ Cant - - -The vocabulary given on page 135 contributes no word which may not be -found in any cant dictionary, and therefore may appear undeserving of -inclusion. But I put it in because I think few people, apart from -students of philology, realize the existence of that large section of -our language in use among the vagabond classes. Cant and slang, to most -people’s minds, are synonymous, but this is an error of belief: slang -creeps from many sources into the river of language, and so mingles with -it that in course of time many use it without knowing that they do so; -cant, on the other hand, remains definite and obscure of origin. Slang -is loose, expressive, and metaphorical; cant is tight and correct: it -has even a literature of its own, broad and racy, incomprehensible to -the ordinary reader without the help of a glossary. Its words, for the -most part, bear no resemblance to English words; unlike slang, they are -not words adapted, for the sake of vividness, to a use for which they -were not originally intended, but are applied strictly to their peculiar -meaning. - -Although the origin of cant as a separate jargon or language is -obscure—it does not appear in England till the second half of the -sixteenth century—the origin of certain of its words may be traced. Of -those included in the vocabulary on page 135, for example, _ken_, for -house, comes from _khan_ (gipsy and Oriental); _fogus_, for tobacco, -comes from _fogo_, an old word for stench; _maund_, or _maunder_, to -beg, does not derive, as might be thought, from _maung_, to beg, a gipsy -word taken from the Hindu, but from the Anglo-Saxon _mand_, a basket; -_bouse_, to drink (which, of course, has given us booze, with the same -meaning, and which in the fourteenth century was perfectly good -English), comes from the Dutch _buyzen_, to tipple. _Abram_, naked, is -found as _abrannoi_, with the same meaning, in Hungarian gipsy; -_cassan_, cheese, is _cas_ in English gipsy; _dimber_ survives for -“pretty” in Worcestershire. _Cheat_ appears frequently in cant as a -common affix. - -As for _autem mort_, I find it in an early authority thus defined: -“These _autem morts_ be married women, as there be but a few. For -_autem_ in their language is a church, so she is a wife married at the -church, and they be as chaste as a cow I have, that goeth to bull every -moon, with what bull she careth not.” - - - - - INDEX - - - ANNE, Queen, as Princess Anne, 138 - her death, 160 - - ARMISTEAD, Mrs. Elizabeth, mistress of 3rd Duke of Dorset, 179 - - - BEAUMONT, Francis, his friendship with 3rd Earl of Dorset, 55 - - BACELLI, Giannetta, mistress of 3rd Duke of Dorset, 188–192 - - BERKELEY, Lady Betty. _See_ GERMAINE, Lady Betty - - Berkeley Castle, 169 - - BLACKMORE, his poem _Prince Arthur_ quoted, 148 - - BOURCHIER, Archbishop of Canterbury, buys Knole from Lord Say & Sele, 5 - Builds on to Knole, 6, 7 - Encloses the park, 21 - Allows glass-making in the park, 24 - - BOWRA, a cricketer, 182 - - BRUCE, Lord, his duel with Edward Sackville, 84–90 - - BUCKHURST, Lord. _See_ SACKVILLE, Thomas - house at Withyham, 18; and mentioned _passim_ - - BUCKINGHAM, Duke of, his opinion of Charles, Earl of Dorset, 144 - - BUTLER, Samuel, his opinion of Charles, Earl of Dorset, 144 - his portrait at Knole, 151 - - BURKE, Edmund, letter from, 197–198 - his portrait at Knole, 197 - - BYRON, Lord, quoted, 28, 204 - friendship with 4th Duke of Dorset, 203–204 - his letters to Thomas Moore, 204–205 - - - CARTWRIGHT, William, his portrait at Knole, 151 - - CHAMPCENETZ, Comte de, a French fugitive, 188 - - CHARLES I, verses on the death of, 106–107 - - CHARLES II, anecdote of his childhood, 98 - at Edgehill, 107 - Chapter VI _passim_ - - CLIFFORD, Lady Anne, 3rd Countess of Dorset, description of herself, - 49–50 - marries Richard Sackville, 52 - her children, 53 - her diary quoted, 59–72 - her later years, 73–78 - - COLIGNY, Odet de, Cardinal of Chatillon, entertained by Thomas - Sackville at Shene, 36 _seq._ - - COLYEAR, Elizabeth, marries 1st Duke of Dorset, 153 - - CONGREVE, William, his opinion of Charles, Earl of Dorset, 141 - his portrait at Knole, 151 - - COPE, Arabella Diana, marries 3rd Duke of Dorset, 192 - her character, 192–194 - marries Lord Whitworth, 202 - living at Knole, 217–218 - death of, 219 - - COPE, Eliza, letter from, 97 - - Copt Hall, 111, 128 - - COURTHOPE, History of English Literature quoted, 45 - - COWLEY, Abraham, his portrait at Knole, 151 - - CRANFIELD, Lady Frances, marries 5th Earl of Dorset, 111 - - CRANMER, Archbishop of Canterbury, gives Knole to Henry VIII, 8 - - Cricket, 155, 181–183 - - CUMBERLAND, Francis, Earl of, 55 - George, Earl of, Queen Elizabeth’s champion, 48 - his adventures, 49 - his death, 51 - his will, 55 - Margaret, Countess of, 52–59 _passim_ - her death, 62 - - CURZON, Mary, 4th Countess of Dorset, 84 - governess to the children of Charles I, 97–98 - - - DESMOND, Catherine Fitzgerald, Countess of, 14 - - DEVONSHIRE, Duchess of, her opinion of 3rd Duke of Dorset, 176 - his letters to her, 183, 184, 188 - her letter about a black page, 191 - - DERBY, Countess of. _See_ HAMILTON, Lady Betty - - Diamond necklace, affair of the, 3rd Duke of Dorset’s dispatches on, - 184–185 - half the diamonds bought by him, 185 - - DIGBY, Sir Kenelm, marries Venetia Stanley, 58 - friendship with 4th Earl of Dorset, 104–106 - his portrait at Knole, 105, 151 - Venetia Stanley, Lady, mistress of 3rd Earl of Dorset, 58 - - DORSET, Earls and Dukes of. _See_ SACKVILLE - 1st Duchess of. _See_ COLYEAR, Elizabeth - 2nd Duchess of, 173 - 3rd Duchess of. _See_ COPE, Arabella Diana - House, London, 31 - 3rd Countess of. _See_ CLIFFORD, Lady Anne - 4th Countess of. _See_ CURZON, Mary - 5th Countess of. _See_ CRANFIELD, Lady Frances - 6th Countess of, 128, 150 - - Drayton House, 169 - bequeathed to Lord George Sackville by Lady Betty Germaine, 172 - - DRAYTON, Michael, his friendship with 3rd Earl of Dorset, 59 - - DRYDEN, John, his debt to 6th Earl of Dorset, 145, 147, 148 - letter from, 149 - at Knole, 149 - his enmity with Shadwell, 150 - his portrait at Knole, 151 - satirized by Blackmore, 148 - his works dedicated to Dorset, 148 - - DURFEY, Tom, a pensioner at Knole, 150, 154 - verses quoted, 150 - his portraits, 150, 151 - - - EVELYN’S Diary, quoted, 123 - - ELIZABETH, Queen, gives Knole to Thomas Sackville, 34–38 - her death, 50 - - - FARREN, Elizabeth, marries the Earl of Derby, 180 - - FLATTMANN, Thomas, his portrait at Knole, 151 - - FLETCHER, his friendship with 3rd Earl of Dorset, 59 - - FOOTE, Samuel, his portrait at Knole, 198 - - - GAINSBOROUGH, Thomas, draws Mme. Baccelli, 189 - his receipt for painting, 189, ccviii. - - GEORGE I, accession of, 160–161 - - GEORGE II, accession of, 161–162 - - GERMAINE, Lady Betty, her rooms at Knole, 12–13 - as a guest at Knole, 167–172 - Sir John, 169–171 - - GERBETZOW, Countess, her affair with Lord Whitworth, 202 - - GOLDSMITH, Oliver, his portrait at Knole, 198 - - GORBODUC, 33, 41–42, 43 - - GOSSE, Edmund, quoted, 32 - - GWYNN, Nell, 122–127 - - - HAMILTON, Lady Betty (Countess of Derby), in love with 3rd Duke of - Dorset, 179 - married off to Lord Derby, 179–180, 188 - - HENRY VIII obtains Knole from Cranmer, 8 - makes a garden there, 21 - - HEYWOOD, Jasper, quoted, 32 - - HOBBS, Thomas, his portrait at Knole, 151 - - HOPPNER, John, his portrait of the 3rd Duchess of Dorset, 192 - stays at Knole to paint the three children, 193 - his portrait of the children, 196 - asked for his own portrait by the 3rd Duke of Dorset, 198 - - HUMPHREY, Ozias, quarrels with 3rd Duke of Dorset, 194 - receipts for pictures, 197 - - - JAMES I, interviews with Lady Anne Clifford, 65–66 - - JAMES II at Edgehill, 107 - - JONSON, Ben, his friendship with 3rd Earl of Dorset, 59 - poem on his death by 5th Earl of Dorset, 112 - - JOHNSON, Dr., quoted, 116, 119 - - - KNELLER, Sir Godfrey, portraits by him at Knole, 29, 153 - - KNOLE described, 1–19 - early history of the house, 5 - becomes the palace of the Archbishop of Canterbury, 5 - repairs and expenses, 6–8 - acquired by Henry VIII, 8 - acquired by Thomas Sackville, 34, 38 - lead-work at, 39 - list of servants at, 78–81 - raided by Cromwell’s soldiers, 82–83, 101–104 - expenses at, in time of Charles I, 91 - banquet and menus, 93–94 - household stuff at, 95–96 - arms at, 99–100 - acquisitions from Copt Hall, 101 - the Cellars at, 133, 178 - Horace Walpole’s opinion on, 181, 190 - the Green Court, 3 - the Stone Court, 3, iii - the Water Court, 4 - Great Hall, built, 6; - altered, 39 - Great Staircase, built, 6, 39 - the Ball-room, 6; - frieze in, 11 - Bourchier’s Tower, 7 - Bourchier’s Oriel, 8 - Queen’s Court and Slaughter-house, 7 - the Brown Gallery, built, 7; - described, 13 - the Cartoon Gallery, described, 10–11 - Lady Betty Germaine’s Rooms, described, 12, 13 - the Leicester Gallery, described, 13–14 - the King’s Bedroom, described, 15 - the Venetian Ambassador’s Bedroom, described, 15–16 - the Chapel, described, 16–17 - the Garden, described, 20, 218 - Garden Accounts, 21–24 - the Park, 24–26; - additions to, 92 - - - LEBRUN, Mme. Vigée, stays at Knole, 197 - - LEICESTER, Robert Dudley, Earl of, his brief ownership of Knole, 13 - - LENNOX, Lady Sarah, her letters quoted, 180 - - LOCKE, John, his portrait at Knole, 151 - - - MACAULAY, quoted, 138, 143–145, 147–148 - - MANN, Sir Horace, a cricketer, 182 - - MARIE ANTOINETTE, her friendship with the 3rd Duke of Dorset, 184, 187 - - MILLER, a cricketer, 182 - - MINSKULL, a cricketer, 182 - - Mirror for Magistrates, 33, 43; - quoted, 44 - Professor Saintsbury on, 45–47 - - MONTGOLFIER, his aeronautical projects, 185–187 - - MORETON, Archbishop of Canterbury, makes alterations at Knole, 8 - - MOTTE, Mme. de la, 185 - - MUSCOVITA, Mme., 173 - - - NORFOLK, Duchess of, marries Sir John Germaine, 170 - - - OPIE, John, his portrait at Knole, 197 - - “ORANGE MOLL,” 123, 125 - - OTWAY, Thomas, his portrait at Knole, 151 - - - PARSONS, Nancy, taken abroad by 3rd Duke of Dorset, 178 - abandoned by him, 179 - - PEEL, Sir Robert, letters to Lord Whitworth, 208–214 - - PEPYS, Samuel, quoted, 116, 117, 124, 125 - - POPE, Alexander, his epitaph on 6th Earl of Dorset, 151 - his portrait at Knole, 151 - - Pot-pourri, 12; - Lady Betty Germaine’s receipt for, 172 - - POWERSCOURT, Lord, friend of 4th Duke of Dorset, 206 - - PRIOR, Matthew, visits 6th Earl of Dorset, 140 - educated at Lord Dorset’s expense, 147 - verses quoted, 147 - mentioned by Macaulay, 145 - - - RADCLIFFE, Mrs. Ann, visits Knole, 24 - - _Religio Medici_, Sir Kenelm Digby on, 105–106 - - REYNOLDS, Sir Joshua, his portrait of Mlle. Bacelli, 189 - his portrait of the Chinese page, 191 - his portrait of himself, 196–197 - his portrait of the Duke of Dorset, 198 - - ROCHE, Mrs. Ann, marries 6th Earl of Dorset, 140, 141 - - ROCHESTER, John Wilmot, Earl of, 117 - his opinion of Charles, Earl of Dorset, 145 - his portrait of Knole, 150 - - ROWE, Nicholas, his portrait at Knole, 151 - - Rye House Plot, letter referring to the, 134–135 - - ROHAN, Cardinal de, 184 - - - SACKVILLES, the, described, 28–29 - their origin, 29–30 - - SACKVILLE, Herbrand de, comes into England with William the Conqueror, - 30 - Sir Richard, suggests _The Scholemaster_ to Ascham, 30 - his London property, 31 - Thomas, 1st Earl of Dorset, makes alterations at Knole, 6, 39 - his early life, 32 - his political career, 34–41 - his literary works, 41–47 - his armour described, 99 - Richard, 3rd Earl of Dorset, marries Lady Anne Clifford, 52 - description of, 57 - his character, 57–59 - mentioned in Lady Anne Clifford’s diary, 54–72 _passim_ - his death, 72 - Edward, 4th Earl of Dorset, 29, 82 - his duel with Lord Bruce, 84–90 - his income and expenses, 91–92, 93 - his possessions in America, 92–93 - during the Civil War, 106–110 - Hon. Edward, murdered by the Roundheads, 106 - poem on his death, _ibid._ - Richard, 5th Earl of Dorset, 111 - his marriage settlement with Lady Frances Cranfield, 111–112 - his memorandum books, 112–114 - Hon. Thomas, epitaph on, 114 - Charles, 6th Earl of Dorset; his silver at Knole, 15–29 - described, 115 - his youth, 116–127 - goes abroad, 127 - marries; his love-letter, 128 - his finances, 129–133 - his later years, 137–143 - his melancholia and death, 141 - his character, 143–145 - his literary merit, 145; - and songs quoted, 119, 137, 146 - his patronage of poets, 147–151 - compared to 3rd Duke of Dorset, 200 - Lionel, 1st Duke of Dorset; his character and relations with his - sons, 152–157 - as a child, 157–158 - his early years, 158 - announces their accession to George I and George II, 160–163 - becomes Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, 163–167 - Lord George, quoted, 140, 157, 161 - his relations with his father, 155 - his political career, 156–157 - inherits Drayton from Lady Betty Germaine, 172 - his portrait at Knole, 198 - Lord John, a cricketer, 155, 181 - his melancholia and death, 177 - Charles, 2nd Duke of Dorset, a wastrel, 155 - reputed mad, 173 - his poems quoted, 173–174 - John Frederick, 3rd Duke of Dorset, described, 29, 176–177 - his youth and love-affairs, 177–180 - as a patron of cricket, 181–183 - as Ambassador in Paris, 183–188 - at Knole with the Baccelli, 189–192 - his marriage and later years, 192–199 - his melancholia and death, 199–200 - George John Frederick, 4th Duke of Dorset, 29 - his childhood, 193, 203 - his friendship with Byron, 204–205 - killed out hunting, 206–208 - Lord Lionel; his unsociability, 11 - at Knole, 83 - his anecdote of Hoppner’s picture, 196 - at Knole, 219–220 - Lady Margaret (afterwards Countess of Thanet), mentioned in Lady Anne - Clifford’s Diary, 21, 53, 54, 61, 64, 67, 70 - her portrait at Knole, 68 - Lady Elizabeth (Countess de la Warr), in Hoppner’s portrait, 196 - succeeds to Knole, 219 - at Knowsley, 180 - - SAINTSBURY, Professor, quoted, 41, 45–47 - - SEDLEY, Sir Charles, 117 - - SHADWELL, Thomas, patronized by 6th Earl of Dorset, 145–150 - - SMITH, Captain Robert, builds sham ruins in Knole Park, 26 - - SPENSER, Edmund, sonnet to Thomas Sackville, 43 - - STANLEY, Venetia. _See_ DIGBY, Lady - - STUART, Mary, Queen of Scots, her altar at Knole, 16, 35 - - SWIFT, Jonathan, quoted, 141 - letter from, 153, 168 - - - Theatres in the reign of Charles II, 118, 122–124 - - Thieves’ cant in the reign of Charles II, 135, _and Appendix_ 221 - - Tobacco, 40 - - - WALLER, Edmund, his portrait at Knole, 151 - - WALPOLE, Horace, quoted, 119; - on Knole, 17, 150, 181, 190 - - Waterloo, Sir Robert Peel’s letters relating to battle of, 208–214; - other accounts of, 214–217 - - WELLINGTON, Duke of, letter from, about Waterloo, 215 - - WHITWORTH, Lord, marries Arabella Diana, Duchess of Dorset, 202 - recalled from St. Petersburg, 201 - his entanglement with Countess Gerbetzow, 202 - Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, 203 - letters to him from Peel, 208–214 - - WILLIAM III, 158 - - WITHYHAM, Sackville vault at, 18 - Lady Anne Clifford’s visit to, 71 - epitaphs at, 114 - - WOFFINGTON, Margaret, her relations with 1st Duke of Dorset, 165–167 - her portrait at Knole, 198 - - WRAXALL, Sir Nathaniel, quoted, 184, 192, 203 - - WYCHERLEY, William, his opinion of 6th Earl of Dorset, 144 - his portrait at Knole, 151 - ------ - -Footnote 1: - - State papers of Henry VIII. - -Footnote 2: - - Slea = unravelled. - -Footnote 3: - - The original of this curious paper is now at Appleby, dated April 1st, - 1616, and runs as follows: “A memoranda that I, Anne, Countess of - Dorset, sole daughter and heir to George, late Earl of Cumberland, do - take witness of all these gentlemen present, that I both desire and - offer myself to go up to London with my men and horses, but they, - having received a contrary commandment from my Lord, my husband, will - by no means consent nor permit me to go with them. Now my desire is - that all the world may know that this stay of mine proceeds only from - my husband’s command, contrary to my consent or agreement, whereof I - have gotten these names underwritten to testify the same.” - -Footnote 4: - - Night-gown, of course, has not the modern meaning, as at that date - people slept naked. - -Footnote 5: - - _Glecko_, or _Gleck_: a three-handed game played with 44 cards (eight - left in stock). The gleck consisted in three of a kind. - -Footnote 6: - - Joistment: the feeding of cattle in a common pasture for a stipulated - fee. - -Footnote 7: - - Runts: young ox or cow. - -Footnote 8: - - The following account is abridged from the _Mercurius Publicus_ of the - day: “Charles Lord Buckhurst; Edward Sackville, his brother; Sir Henry - Belasyse, eldest son of Lord Belasyse; John Belasyse, brother of Lord - Faulconberg; and Thomas Wentworth, only son of Sir G. Wentworth, - whilst in pursuit of thieves near Waltham Cross, mortally wounded an - innocent tanner named Hoppy, and ... were soon after apprehended on - charges of robbery and murder, but the Grand Jury found a bill for - manslaughter only.” - -Footnote 9: - - This refers to the frequent flooding of Whitehall Palace by an - unusually high tide. - -Footnote 10: - - _See_ Appendix. - -Footnote 11: - - The butler, not the biographer. - -Footnote 12: - - The powdered dried root of Sweet Sedge (_Acorus Calamus_). - - - Printed in England at the CLOISTER PRESS, Heaton Mersey, near Manchester - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES - - - 1. P. vii, changed “1556 KNOLE resold by Warwick to EDWARD VI” to “1552 - KNOLE resold by Warwick to EDWARD VI”. - 2. P. ix, changed “1552 Succeeded his father, EDWARD” to “1662 - Succeeded his father, EDWARD”. - 3. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. - 4. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed. - 5. Footnotes were re-indexed using numbers and collected together at - the end of the last chapter. - 6. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. - 7. Superscripts are denoted by a caret before a single superscript - character or a series of superscripted characters enclosed in - curly braces, e.g. M^r. or M^{ister}. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KNOLE AND THE SACKVILLES *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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