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.
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.
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._