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....
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:
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_.