Part 8

From these interesting documents we learn also that the Mansion at Hengrave was furnished with all necessaries from sources within its own boundaries--a mill, a forge, and a farm; a dovecote, a grange, a barn; a great and little park, a vineyard, an orchard, a hop-ground, and a hemp-ground. There were butts for the Archers, (“still visible in the upper part of the Park”); mews for the hawks, and kennels for the hounds. There was a bowling-green also; and the neighbouring ponds were well stocked with fish to divert the Angler and supply the “Fast-day meal.” The Inventory of household goods, taken in 1603, enumerates among other items, now familiar only to the Antiquary, “the Shovelboard,” a table for playing a fashionable game; of Armour, the “Almain Rivetts,” “the Privye Coats” of Mail; the “Jackes of Plate,” the “Mayle Gorgetts,” the “Spanish Burgenetts,” the “Dagges,” (short Hand-guns); “Snaphaunces,” (Firelocks,) Pethernells, (a kind of Harquebuss,) and Ptyzens, (Partizans,) both “ordinary and very fayre.” Of Musical Instruments, the Recorder, the Cornute, the Bandore, the Cittern, the Curtall, and the Lysarden--all “in ye chamber where ye Musicyons playe;” with books, “covered with parchment,” containing pavines, galliards, measures, levaultoes, corrantoes, and Italian fa-laes.

The beautiful and long-famous Gate-way of Hengrave Hall is pictured in the accompanying print. It is a splendid example of “Tudor magnificence;”--“of such singular beauty,” says Mr. Gough, “and in such high preservation, that, perhaps, a more elegant specimen of the Architecture of the age in which it was erected cannot now be seen.” We borrow our description of it from Mr. Gage. The structure has an arch obtusely pointed; in the spandrels appear the Kytson Crest,--a unicorn’s head erased. The space above is filled by a triple bay window, the domes of which are rich in scale work and crockets, and have basements or brackets elegantly terminated in pendant corbels; each square compartment in the lower division of the window contains a Shield, bearing the Arms of some member of the family of the founder. On the frieze below two of these Shields are these words:--

Opus hoc fieri fecit Tome Kytson. Ano Dni. MCCCCC. Tricessimo Octavo.

The battlements of the Gate-house, assuming the appearance of small gables, the points of which, crowned with richly carved hoop garlands and vanes, correspond with those of the triple dome below, give height to the whole, and complete the beauty and harmony of the design. The Inner Court of fine masonry, embattled, appears in its original state; and is distinguished by the bay window of the Hall on the north side. The interior of the Mansion has little of its primitive character; but “the florid style of architecture which prevailed, is still conspicuous in the fair tracery, pendant, and spandrels of the bay window,” which retains its early beauty. Of the number and variety of the apartments at Hengrave, and of the splendid luxury of its domestic arrangements, some judgment may be formed from the “Inventory,” dated 1603, of which Mr. Gage prints a copy. Here we read of the Queen’s Chamber, the Chiefe Chamber, the Great Chamber, the Armoury, the Gallery at the Tower, the Dyning Chamber, the Chapell Chamber, the Chamber in which the muscycions playe, and a host of others--all magnificently furnished. The Great Chamber was hung with eight large pieces of fine arras--“parke worke with great beasts and fowls, 160 yards;” the cheyres and stooles were covered with coloured clothe of silver; the carpetts were of Turkeye worke. The Dyning Chamber had its tapestrye--“of the story of Danea.” The Wynter Parlor, its “pfuming frame of brasse” and “chesse boorde, wᵗʰ men to it.” To the furniture of the Armoury and the Musicians’ Chamber we have adverted. The contents of the “Sadler’s Shopp,” however, denotes more pointedly the wealth and luxury of the family. The saddles were of sumptuous character--“layed with gould lace;” “fringed with gould and silke;” “embroidered with goulde and purle;” and so forth.

Towards the close of the last century, the Mansion was the abode of a sisterhood of expatriated nuns. They belonged to the English Convent of Austin Nuns at Bruges, and obtained an asylum here by the generosity of Sir Thomas Gage, himself a Roman Catholic. They subsequently returned to France; but the mortal remains of many of the persecuted Sisters lie in the Churchyard of Hengrave--among others, those of their Abbess, the venerable Mary More, one of the heirs-general, and the last lineal descendant, in the paternal line, of the great Chancellor, Sir Thomas More.

Hengrave Church is very close to the Hall, and would appear, indeed, to have been originally attached to it. It has

long ceased to be used for the purpose of worship, but is kept in repair as the Burial-place of the family. It is of small structure, built of the materials common to sacred edifices in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk--rough flint, with cement and free-stone in the battlements, parapets, groins, buttresses, windows, and arches. The round Tower, indicated in the accompanying print, is curious, and of remote antiquity. Its external aspect is peculiarly venerable, covered with Ivy-trees, the growth of centuries. The interior where, it is said, no religious service has been performed since the Reformation, the family having adhered, through all changes, to the old faith, is without pews, and contains many richly-sculptured Monuments. Among them is a superb Tomb of marble and coloured free-stone, to the memory of Margaret, Countess of Bath, and her three husbands; the first of whom was Sir Thomas Kytson--the citizen-founder of Hengrave--who died September 13th, 1545, aged 55 years. The other principal Tombs are in memory of Sir Thomas Kytson, the younger; Sir Thomas Darcy; the Bourchiers, Earls of Bath; the Cornwallys; and the Gages.

Altogether, there are few of the Baronial Mansions of England so little spoiled by time--so comparatively uninjured by modern taste and injudicious improvement. Hengrave Hall is “a fair and, in some respects, a unique example of the domestic architecture of the period of its erection.”

WEST STOW HALL,

SUFFOLK.

Within four miles--north-west--of the venerable town of Bury St. Edmunds, the traveller may notice, not far from the road-side, the turrets of an ancient House, now decayed, but which, in the palmy age of England, was classed among the stateliest of its “stately Homes.” Unless attention is directed to it, however, it will attract no passers-by; for very humble are now the pretensions of the Palace-Hall, in which resided Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and his Royal wife, the youngest daughter of Henry VII., sister to Henry VIII, and widow of Louis XII., King of France.

The Old Hall is situated in the very centre of a host of picturesque antiquities; in all directions around it exist objects of exceeding interest,--as relics of the olden time and imperishable illustrations of British History. It would be difficult to find in the kingdom so many remains of architectural splendour within a circuit of four or five miles. Bury contains the most interesting of our monastic ruins. Among them are those of the famous “Norman Tower” (still comparatively unimpaired), erected in the reign of the Conqueror, as the Grand Portal to the magnificent church of Abbot Baldwin;--the Charnel Chapel, in which Lidgate wrote,--the Church which for centuries enshrined the miracle-working bones of St. Edmund,--and the walls of the Chamber where, on the 20th of November, 1215, “the Barons” pledged “the repose of their souls” to extort the Charter of Freedom from the tyrant John. The road to West Stow is scarcely less rich in historic sites than the town of Bury. Without the north-gate are the remains of the Gateway to St. Saviour’s Hospital, where,--during the Parliament of 1446, assembled at Bury, by Henry VI.,--the “good Duke Humphrey” was murdered by Cardinal Beaufort and De la Pole; half a mile beyond, we cross the Old Toll-gate Bridge of the mitred Abbots of St. Edmunsbury; at a short distance, an ivy-clad Tower is all that remains of the Church of Fornham St. Genevieve; but tumuli still endure to indicate where the ten thousand Flemings were buried by “sloven-hands,” after the bloody battle which gave to the second Henry peaceable possession of the crown. By other roads we pass objects equally fertile of history. The Round Towers of Saxham are within ken; Risby and Hengrave Churches are close at hand; and very near us are some of the grandest and most beautiful of the Baronial Halls of England--Coldham, Rushbrooke, and Hengrave among the rest.

All who visit the ancient mansion of West Stow, will first enter the venerable Church, to which a footway leads through a field from off the main road. It is a fine example of a very early age. The Tower is square and embattled; the Chancel, apparently of a more recent date than the Nave, contains an enriched Piscina, of the fifteenth century, and many mural monuments and grave-stones of the once illustrious family of Crofts--a family now known in Suffolk only by history and these cold records of their fame. The Nave has an open roof; the brackets that support the principals are ornamented with armorial bearings of “many ancient Lords of this Manor, with their alliances.”

Of West Stow Hall very little is known. The assertion that it was formerly the residence of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and the Royal widow he had married, is supported mainly by tradition and their armorial bearings, which still exist, carved upon a stone, over the porch. Of the once extensive pile nothing now remains, except the Turrets we have pictured; and a long Corridor, reaching to a modern house--the comfortable home of a substantial farmer. The former bears ample evidence that its date is of the time of Henry VIII.; that of the Corridor is not so remote by a century.

It is certain that, after the romantic marriage of Charles Brandon with the beloved of his younger days, when death had freed her from her state-contract with Louis XII., and her early lover had become a widower, they lived for many years in comparative seclusion in Suffolk; and, although “Mary Tudor died at the Manor of Westhorpe in this county, in 1533,” it is more than probable that West Stow was one of their mansions. It was evidently of great extent; there are persons still living, who recollect a quadrangular court and extensive out-buildings; and the wide Moat by which it was surrounded was filled up only two years ago. The Tower is partially of a defensive character; the interior consists of several small chambers, one of which contains some singular paintings in distemper, the principal objects in which are these:--A boy hawking, with an inscription in old English letters, “Thus doe I all the day;” a young man making love to a maiden, inscribed--“Thus doe I while I may;” a middle-aged man, looking on--the inscription, “Thus did I when I might;” an aged man, hobbling onward--the inscription, “Good Lord, will this world last ever?” The drawings are rude, but they are of the age of Elizabeth. They were recently exposed to view by the removal of a skirting of oak; and are as fresh as if painted yesterday.

HAM HOUSE,

SURREY.

Ham House.--Few mansions are more pleasantly situated than this--the dwelling of the Tollemaches, Earls of Dysart. It stands on the south bank of the Thames; distant about twelve miles from London; the pretty village of Twickenham is immediately opposite; to the left is “Eel-pie Island,” famous as a holiday resort of many who “in populous city pent” covet periodical acquaintance with clear streams and green lanes; to the right is far-famed Richmond Hill, which, although distant a mile perhaps, seems, from the tortuous winding of the river, to form a part of the demesne; while the back ground is supplied by Richmond Park, with its graceful slopes and its thick masses of rich underwood mingled among groups of magnificent forest trees.

The House was erected early in the seventeenth century--the date, 1610, still stands on the door of the principal entrance. It is said to have been built for the good Prince Henry, eldest son of James the First; and a tradition exists that the illness of which he died was the result of bathing too freely in the adjacent river. It is, however, unlikely that the Prince ever resided here; and it is certain that the builder was Sir Thomas Vavasor, Knight Marshal, appointed, in 1611, together with Sir Francis Bacon, Judge of the Marshal’s court, and to have been “surrendered by him, together with certain customary lands, to John (Ramsay), Earl of Holderness, who died in 1624 or 1625.” We follow the authority of Manning, the County Historian, who states that by this Earl, or, more probably, his heirs, the House and Lands were “sold to William Murray--groom of the bed-chamber to James the First, and afterwards created, in 1643, by that monarch Earl of Dysart[43]--“whose widow, Katherine, on the 22nd May, 1651, surrendered them to the use of Sir Lionel Tollemache and Elizabeth his wife, her daughter, who in the year following surrendered them to the use of Sir Lionel’s will.” This daughter, to whom the honour of the Earl--“such it was,” writes Burnet--descended, having outlived Sir Lionel, married a second time (being then Countess of Dysart) the Earl, afterwards Duke, of Lauderdale.[44] The House and Estates of Ham were inherited by “her heirs by her first husband;” in whose possession they have since continued, being now the property of Lionel William John Tollemache, the sixth Earl of Dysart, and the residence of his Lordship’s brother.

The Duchess of Lauderdale--famous during the reigns of four monarchs; the First and Second James, and the First and Second Charles; and through the Protectorship of Cromwell--refurnished the House at Ham; where she continued to reside, until her death at a very advanced age. The Interior, with its gorgeous, yet remarkably tasteful “furnishing,” has been scarcely altered since the aged dame occupied the Mansion. Time has dimmed the splendour of the “hangings,” and tarnished the costly draperies of the rich looms of France; but they remain--in some places tattered and torn--to supply indubitable evidence that the “woman of great beauty, but of far greater parts,” had at all events a refined taste, and that at least a portion of the money she was “wanting in

no means to obtain,” was judiciously expended in the adornment of her House. Among other untouched relics of gone-by days, is a small Antechamber, where, it is said, she not only condescended to receive the Second Charles, but, if tradition is to be credited, where she “cajoled” Oliver Cromwell. There still remain the chair in which she used to sit, her small walking-cane, and a variety of objects she was wont to value and cherish as memorials of her active life and the successful issues of a hundred political intrigues.[45]

The Exterior of the Mansion derives singularity chiefly from the adornment the outer walls receive from a collection of Roman busts; some of which, however, having been removed by time, have been replaced by those of Poets of the age of Anne. Immediately in front stands the statue

of “Father Thames”--copied from the well-known work of the elder Bacon in the Courtyard of Somerset House. The Hall-door (which supplies our initial letter) is of very elegant and elaborate workmanship. The Hall is surrounded by an open gallery; the rooms on the ground floor contain little to interest, except the Chamber and Dressing-room of the famous Duchess--the room in which her descendant, the late venerable Countess of Dysart, also died. Passing a small Chapel, the Chambers on the upper floor are reached by a staircase of peculiar character and very considerable beauty. The balustrades are of walnut-tree, richly carved into representations of armour and military trophies of various countries and epochs. The State Apartments are, as we have intimated, little changed. On either side of the Landing are the State

Bed-rooms--one of which, containing copies in tapestry of some of the Cartoons, the young Prince Henry is said to have occupied; the bed and furniture are certainly of the period. The several Drawing-rooms contain valuable and interesting relics of antiquity; and a small closet is amazingly rich in the choicest and rarest objects of virtù--Miniature Paintings by Philip Wouvermans, carved Frames by Grindling Gibbons, carved Cupids by Fiamingo, Conversation Scenes by Watteau, Miniatures by Cooper--in short, the assemblage here is of immense value and of surpassing interest. Among its other treasures may be mentioned a Lock of Hair of the unhappy Devereux, Earl of Essex--the authenticity of which admits of no dispute; a Prayer book, the gift of Charles the First; and, in the Library, no fewer than sixteen uninjured Caxtons.

The “Long Gallery”--ninety-two feet in length--is hung with Portraits, the majority of which are original works of the great Masters who conferred honour and glory on the Courts of the First and the Second Charles. Leading from the Long Gallery is the famous “Cabal Chamber,”[46] the chairs and tables and other furniture in which have been untouched since the notorious “five” here met in secret to arrange and carry out their plans.

So unchanged is the character of the Mansion, that little effort of imagination will be required to people it with the gay courtiers and light dames of the reign of the second Charles, when the “House at Ham” was in its glory. Every object it contains is in keeping with the period; of modern furniture there is nothing; but all the tables, chairs, footstools, fire-dogs,--from things of curious and rare value down to the minutest matters of daily use,--are of an age gone by. This advantage is mainly attributable to the fact that since the Restoration the venerable dwelling has had but few occupants--two of them, the Duchess of Lauderdale and the late Countess of Dysart, having died there when their years numbered upwards of fourscore. According to Hume, James the Second was “ordered to retire to this house,” on the arrival of the Prince of Orange in London, but “thinking himself unsafe so near the Metropolis, he fled privately to France.” Subsequently the “Manor House at Ham” ceased to possess any public interest; fortunately there has been no wish on the part of its noble owners to effect “restorations” of any kind; it has been consequently suffered to retain its solemn aspect and somewhat gloomy character; and remains a striking and impressive monument of the period of its erection.

LOSELEY HOUSE,

SURREY.

Loseley House. This ancient Mansion--the residence of James More Molyneux, Esq., the lineal representative of two families, famous in old times--although sadly impaired by time and neglect--cannot fail, while one stone remains above another, to retain the interest that arises from venerable antiquity, in association with renowned names. It is situated about two miles south-west of Guildford. A long Avenue, perfectly bare of trees, leads from the public road to the House. The old Hall has been shorn of its proud and graceful proportions; repairs have been made by sloven hands; parts of the Moat have been filled up, but so coarsely, as to seem the result of accident rather than design. The principal approach is over a bridge between clumsy stables and storehouses. The odious face of a modern clock covers the antique Horologe, of which many of its old admirers make honourable mention; the Porch, which bears the date of 1812, over which is still inscribed, in Roman capital letters, the sentence--

“INVIDIÆ, CLAUDOR, PATEO SED SEMPER AMICO,”

is of a nondescript character, utterly out of keeping with the structure; a deformity which--following absurdities of outhouses and unseemly patches--carries conviction that

“Something ails the place.”

Nor is the impression removed upon entering the venerable Hall--venerable only from its age--for bad taste appears to have studied how most effectually to deface it. A patent stove, of Birmingham manufacture, stands a few feet from the embayed window, illuminated with the “Household Coats of the Family, emblazoned in the gorgeous tinctures of Heraldry on the glass;” a “thin” Gallery, which the gauntleted hand of one of the grim Knights of old times might shiver into fragments at a single blow, leads to some upper chambers; above the sturdy arched Doorway hang some double-handed swords, glaives, partisans, and rusty helmets, relics of the once heroic masters of the place,--

“The treasures of a soldier, bought with blood, And kept at life’s expense,”--

mingled with the bugles of a brass band, and the drumsticks of a corps of Yeomanry.

These unequivocal signs of neglect and tokens of indifference towards ancient honours and long-ago renown are mournful indications--grieving the heart of the antiquary, and nullifying the belief that a proud name is a noble heritage because a stimulus to rivalry in honour and in fame. It has been our bounden duty thus to notice this modern vandalism--for the humblest writer may contribute somewhat to increase a love for what is excellent by aiding to censure what is evil.

Of its internal decorations there are some interesting and valuable remains, which have neither been removed nor defaced. Mr. Shaw, in his “Details of Elizabethan Architecture,” publishes an engraving of the beautiful and elaborately-carved Chimneypiece of the Dining Room. “The compartment above the mantel is entirely devoted to a very full display of heraldic insignia, recording the descent and alliances of the family

of More; the rich effect of which is increased by the spirited carvings of the styles, and of the six variously-formed panels in which the several shields are inserted. These ornaments are all executed in fine stone, and skilfully wrought.” The ceilings at Loseley are also of remarkable character. That of the Drawing Room is especially fine. It is adorned with “Gothic tracery and pendant corbels.” In one of the cornices is inserted a mulberry-tree, on one side of which is inscribed “Morus tarde Moriens;” on the other, “Morum cito Moriturum”--being a rebus on the name of the family. The ceiling of the Bed Room, of which a portion is shown in the wood-cut annexed, is also very beautiful. In several of the compartments are introduced the Moor-cock and Moor-hen--badges of the race of More.