Part 58

The Library, perhaps the finest apartment in the mansion, is a noble room, of large size and lofty proportions, and fitted in a style of great magnificence. The geometric ceiling is richly decorated, and around the upper part of the room is a light and elegant gallery. Besides the choice collections of rare old books, and those of more modern times, which are arranged round the walls of the Library and the Reading-room (to which access is gained by a lofty arch springing from pilasters of the composite order), they contain Sir R. Westmacott’s noble statue of Euphrosyne, Bailey’s Thetis and Achilles, many good bronzes, and an assemblage of objects of _virtu_. From the windows of these rooms fine views of the Grounds, the Park, and the Lake are obtained.

The State Dining-room, an elegant apartment, has a richly decorated geometric ceiling and a recessed buffet, the recess being formed by well-proportioned Corinthian columns. The rich cornice, the gilt festoons that adorn the walls, the mirrors between the windows, the antique Venetian crystal-glass chandelier and side lights, and the silver-gilt service on the buffets give a sumptuous air to the room, while the four magnificent Snyders, and the other fine old paintings which adorn the walls, add materially to its beauty.

The principal Drawing-room, hung with satin damask, and the furniture of the most costly and elegant character, is a noble apartment, and contains, besides Lawrence’s portraits of the fourth Duke of Newcastle and his duchess, good examples of the Carracci, Vandyke, Castiglione, and others; while in the Crimson Drawing-room are pictures by Rembrandt, Rubens, Poussin, Guido Reni, and Canaletti.

The Grand Staircase, with its iron-work railing, originally described as being “curiously wrought and gilt in the shape of crowns, with tassels hanging down between them from cords twisted in knots and festoons,” has stained-glass windows, and is enriched with a number of portraits and other paintings. Among the portraits are Pitt, Thomson, Scott, Southey, Campbell, King George II., Queen Caroline, Prince Rupert, Dante, Cowley, and Hatton; and among the other paintings are examples of Snyders, Westall, Van Oss, Andrea Sacchi, Lely, Shackleton, Diepenbeck, and others.

The other apartments—the Breakfast-room, Billiard-room, Smoking-rooms, Ante-rooms, and what not—as well as the bed-room suites, are mostly elegant in their fittings, convenient in their appointments, and replete with choice works of Art. We, however, pass them over, simply remarking that among these Art treasures are striking examples of Gainsborough (the “Beggar Boys”), Gerard Douw, Poussin, Borgognone, Neefs, Van der Meulin, Carlo Dolce (the “Marriage of St. Catherine”), Vandyke, Titian, Rembrandt, Breughel, Ruysdael, Teniers, Lely, Rubens (his wife), Andrea del Sarto, Salvator Rosa, Claude Lorraine, Wouvermans, Hogarth (portraits of himself and wife), Reynolds, Jansen, Holbein, Van Loo, Creswick, Dahl, Domenichino, Dobson, Rigaud, Cranach, Kneller, and others. Many of these are gems of Art of a high order of excellence.

At Clumber, too, are preserved four highly interesting Roman sepulchral altars, which were thus described by the Rev. Archdeacon Trollope, with the accompanying engravings:[53]—“No. 1 bears the following inscription on the two small front panels: M. CAEDICI . FAVSTI . NEGOTIATOR . DE . SACRA . VIA . CAEDICIA . SYNTYCHE . CONLIBERTA—one that is interesting as bearing reference to a tradesman of the celebrated _Via Sacra_ at Rome. The birds pecking at a basket of fruit between them would seem to claim a Christian origin for this work of Art, had not the ox’s head and pendent sacrificial garland in addition to the heads at the angles—apparently of Jupiter Ammon—pointed to heathenism; the garland intermixed with birds, below the inscription, is both rich and graceful. No. 2 rises from an enriched plinth, bearing, first, on the pediment of its coped lid, the inscription: D. M. M. IVNI . IVNIANI, and, on a panel below, D. M. ANTONIA . TARENTINA . CONIVGI . BENE . MERENTI . FECIT, forming a short but affectionate epitaph from a wife to a husband, worthy in these respects of modern imitation. Four masks are placed at the corners of the lid, and on another part of the lid appears a boar, for which animal Tarentum was famous. The figures sculptured in front perhaps represent one of the funereal games. No. 3 is a well-designed coped urn, both its form and details having received much careful attention. Within a long panel, surrounded by an enriched moulding, is the inscription, TI . IVLIO . FELICI . MANNEIA . TREPTEETTI . IVLIVS . PHILONICVS . HEREDES . FECERVNT. No. 4 is a longer and lower urn than the others, having two small panels prepared for inscriptions, which never appear to have been filled up. Small fanciful pillars, or candelabra, surmounted by birds, form the angles of the urn, from which depend rich garlands of fruit.”

Adjoining the mansion, but apart from it, is the unfinished Chapel—a design of much elegance, the work of Messrs. Hine, of Nottingham—which forms a prominent and pleasing feature from the grounds and lake. It consists of a nave and chancel, with chancel-screen and semicircular apse, and has on its north side an organ loft, and on its south a sacristy; and it has an elegant bell-turret and spire.

The Pleasure-grounds of Clumber are very extensive, and laid out with much taste. The terrace, which runs along by the lake, is of vast length, and is beautifully diversified with statuary, vases, lovely beds of flowers, and shrubs and trees; from it flights of steps lead down to the lake, and other steps give access to the Italian Gardens. A great feature of the grounds is the enormous size and singular growth of the cedars: some of these are said to be unsurpassed in England both for their girth and for their magnificently picturesque and venerable appearance. Some of the conifers, too, are of extraordinary size and beauty.

The Kitchen Gardens are extensive and well arranged, and the Park well stocked.

The Lake is one of the glories of Clumber. It is a splendid sheet of water, covering some eighty or ninety acres of ground, and beautifully diversified on its banks with woods of tall forest trees and rich verdant glades. On the bosom of the Lake rest two ships—one a fine three-master, forming a striking feature in the view.

The neighbourhood of Clumber is rich in places of interest and in lovely localities;[54] and its near proximity to Sherwood Forest—indeed, it is itself a part of that forest reclaimed—to Thoresby, to Hardwick Wood, to Welbeck, to Osberton, to Worksop and its manor, to Bilhagh, to Rufford, and to a score of other inviting localities, renders it one of the pleasantest, most desirable, and most enjoyable of “Homes.”

WELBECK.

WELBECK, which we have chosen as the subject of our present chapter, has a history, a character, an appearance, and an interest that are entirely and peculiarly its own. In its external character it differs very materially in many points from any other mansion yet built; while its internal arrangements and means of access from one part to another are so original, and so entirely distinct from what has anywhere else been adopted, as at once to prove its noble owner, his Grace the Duke of Portland, by whom it has been planned, and is being carried out, to be a man of enlarged mind, of princely ideas, of noble conceptions, of high engineering skill, and of great constructive ability. It is a place, as we have said, entirely to itself, by itself, and of itself; it is a place many of whose features, both in general plan and in minute detail, might with advantage be taken as examples for others to follow. Vying in extent with some of the largest mansions of the kingdom, Welbeck cannot, like them, be all seen on the surface, for many of its noblest and grandest features, and much of the finest and most complicated parts of its constructive skill, are hidden away from the general observer, and only flash upon him as brilliant creations of genius when he is permitted to approach them by descending into the “bowels of the earth;” then, and then only, does the magnificence of the design of the noble owner become apparent, and then only does the vastness of the work become manifest. But of these features we shall speak presently; first let us say a few words upon its past history and the changes it has undergone.

Welbeck, with its broad domain, is situated in Nottinghamshire, about four miles from Worksop, and close to the borders of the county of Derby. Its parks are one grand succession of fine old forest trees, and its herds of deer—for it has its herd of white deer, its herd of fallow deer, and its separate herds of red and other deer—are of great extent and of fine and noble quality. Before the Conquest Welbeck was held by the Saxon Sweyn, but afterwards it passed to the Flemangs as part of the manor of Cuckney. By Thomas de Cuckney (grandson of Joceus de Flemang) the Abbey was founded, and here, in the reign of Henry II., he planted a settlement of Præemonstratensian or White Canons from Newhouse, in Lincolnshire, the first house in which they were established in England. The Abbey was dedicated to St. James, and endowed with grants of lands. These were from time to time considerably augmented, and “in 1329 the Bishop of Ely bought the whole of the manor of Cuckney, and settled it upon the Abbey on condition of their finding eight canons who should enjoy the good things and pray for Edward the Third and his queen, their children and ancestors, &c.; also for the bishop’s father and mother, brother, &c.; ‘but especially for the health of the said lord bishop whilst he lived, and after his death for his soul, and for all theirs that had faithfully served him or done him any good;’ to which was added this extraordinary injunction, that they should observe his anniversary, and on their days of commemorating the dead ‘should absolve his soul by name;’ a process whose frequent repetition might naturally be considered as needless, unless the pious bishop supposed that he might perhaps commit a few additional sins whilst in purgatory.”

In 1512, it is stated, the Abbey at Welbeck was made the head of the order. At the dissolution it was granted to Richard Whalley, and later on, after other changes, passed to Sir Charles Cavendish, of whom we shall speak presently. By him the Abbey was converted into a noble mansion, but little of the original religious house being left standing, and these parts only used as cellars, or here and there a wall, for the new building. The present mansion is said to have been commenced in 1604, and was afterwards much altered and enlarged, the riding-house being built in 1623, and the stables two years afterwards, from the designs of John Smithson. By the late Duke of Portland many alterations in the mansion were effected, and the grounds were also much improved.

We have just alluded to Sir Charles Cavendish, and this leads us on to the consideration of the descent of the estates from his time down to that of the present noble owner, and enables us to give, as is our wont, a genealogical account of the great and important families to whom Welbeck has belonged. The family of Cavendish, as already more fully detailed in our account of Chatsworth, traces back to the Conquest, when Robert de Gernon, who came over with the Conqueror, so distinguished himself in arms that he was rewarded with grants of land in Hertfordshire, Gloucestershire, &c. His descendants held considerable lands in Derbyshire, and Sir William Gernon obtained a grant of a fair at Bakewell, in that county. He had two sons—Sir Ralph de Gernon, Lord of Bakewell, and Geoffrey de Gernon, of Moor Hall, near Bakewell. From the second of these, Geoffrey de Gernon, the Cavendishes descend. His son, Roger de Gernon (who died in 1334), married the heiress of John Potton, or Potkins, lord of the manor of Cavendish, in Suffolk, and by her had issue four sons, who all assumed the name of Cavendish from their mother’s manor. These were—Sir John Cavendish, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench in the time of Edward III., and Chancellor of Cambridge, 4th of Richard II., who was beheaded by the insurgents of Suffolk in that reign; Roger Cavendish, from whom descended the celebrated navigator, Sir Thomas Cavendish; Stephen Cavendish, Lord Mayor, member of Parliament, and Sheriff of London; and Richard Cavendish. Sir John married Alice, daughter of Sir John Odyngseles, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, who brought to her husband the manor of Cavendish-Overhall, and by her, who died before him, had issue two sons—Andrew and John—and a daughter, Alice, married to William Nell. Sir Andrew Cavendish, the eldest son, was Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk. By his wife, Rose, he left issue one son, William, from whom the estate passed to his cousin. Sir Andrew was succeeded by his brother, Sir John Cavendish, Esquire of the Body to Richard II. and Henry V., who, for his gallant conduct in killing Wat Tyler, in his conflict with Sir William Walworth, was knighted by Richard II. in Smithfield, and an annuity of £40 per annum granted to him and his sons for ever. He was also made Broiderer of the Wardrobe to the King. He married Joan, daughter of Sir William Clopton, of Clopton, in Suffolk, and by her had issue three sons—William, his successor; Robert, serjeant-at-law; and Walter. William Cavendish, who was a citizen and mercer of London, and of Cavendish-Overhall, married Joan Staventon, by whom he had two sons—Thomas and William. This Thomas Cavendish, who was of Cavendish and Pollingford, in Suffolk, married Katharine Scudamore, and left by her, as son and heir, Sir Thomas Cavendish, who, having studied the law, was employed by Thomas, Earl of Surrey, Treasurer of the King’s Exchequer. He was also Clerk of the Pipe in the Exchequer to Henry VIII. He married twice, and left, by his first wife, Alice, daughter and co-heiress of John Smith, of Podbroke Hall, besides other issue, three sons—George Cavendish, Sir William Cavendish, and Sir Thomas Cavendish.

George Cavendish, the eldest of these three sons, was of Glemsford and Cavendish-Overhall, and is said to have been the author of “Cavendish’s Life of Wolsey,” although the authorship of that work has also been attributed to his brother, Sir William Cavendish. He received a liberal education, and was endowed by his father with considerable landed property in Suffolk. His character and learning seem to have recommended him to the special notice of Cardinal Wolsey, who “took him to be about his own person, as gentleman usher of his chamber, and placed a special confidence in him.” George Cavendish was succeeded by his son William, and ultimately the manor of Cavendish-Overhall passed to William Downes. Sir Thomas Cavendish was one of the knights of St. John of Jerusalem, and died unmarried.

Sir William Cavendish, the second son of the first Sir Thomas, became the founder of the ducal House of Devonshire and of several other noble families. He was married three times: first, to a daughter of Edward Bostock, of Whatcross, in Cheshire; secondly, to a daughter of Sir Thomas Conyngsby, and widow of William Paris; and, thirdly, to Elizabeth, daughter of John Hardwick, of Hardwick, and widow of Robert Barley, of Barley, all in the county of Derby. He was “a man of learning and business,” and was much employed in important affairs by his sovereigns, filling the posts of Treasurer of the Chamber and Privy Councillor to Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Mary. At the suppression of the religious houses under Henry VIII. he was “appointed one of the commissioners for visiting them, and afterwards was made one of the auditors of the Court of Augmentation,” which was instituted for the purpose of augmenting the revenues by the suppression of the monasteries. For his services he received three valuable manors in Hertfordshire, which, later on, he exchanged for lands in Derbyshire and other counties. He was also knighted by Henry VIII. By his first wife he had issue one son and two daughters who died young, and two other daughters, one of whom, Catherine, married Sir Thomas Brooke, son of Lord Cobham, and the other, Anne, married Sir Henry Baynton. By his second wife he had three daughters, who all died young, and she herself died in child-birth. By his third marriage with “Bess of Hardwick” he had a numerous family—viz. Henry Cavendish, of Tutbury, member of Parliament for Derbyshire, who married Grace, daughter of George, Earl of Shrewsbury, but died without lawful issue; Sir William Cavendish, created Earl of Devonshire, and direct ancestor of the Dukes of Devonshire; Sir Charles Cavendish, of Bolsover Castle and of Welbeck Abbey, ancestor of the Dukes of Newcastle, Portland, &c. (of whom presently); Frances, married to Sir Henry Pierrepoint, ancestor to the Dukes of Kingston; Elizabeth, married to Charles Stuart, Duke of Lennox (younger brother of Lord Darnley, the husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, and father of King James I.), the issue of which marriage was the sadly unfortunate Lady Arabella Stuart; and Mary, married to Gilbert, Earl of Shrewsbury.

Of the Countess of Shrewsbury, “Bess of Hardwick,” mother of the founder of this house, it will now be well to say a few words. The family to which she belonged, and of which she eventually became heiress, that of Hardwick, of Hardwick was one of considerable antiquity in the county of Derby. One of the family, William Hardwick, married the heiress of Goushill, of Barlborough, and by her had two sons, the eldest of whom, Roger Hardwick, married the daughter of Robert Barley, of Barley, and had issue by her, John, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Bakewell, of Bakewell. Their son, John Hardwick, married Elizabeth Pinchbeck, of Pinchbeck, and was succeeded by his son, John Hardwick, who espoused Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Leake, of Hasland, of the same family as the Leakes, Earls of Scarsdale. By this marriage John Hardwick, who died in 1527, had issue one son—John Hardwick—and four daughters—Mary, Elizabeth, Alice, and Jane. The son, John, who was only three years old at his father’s death, married Elizabeth, daughter of Philip Draycott, of Paynsley, but died without issue, leaving his four sisters his co-heiresses. Of these Elizabeth, afterwards Countess of Shrewsbury, inherited Hardwick and other estates. When very young—indeed, it is said when scarcely fourteen years of age—she married Robert Barley, of Barley (son of Arthur Barley, of Barley-by-Dronfield, in Derbyshire, by his wife, Elizabeth Chaworth), who died a few months after marriage, leaving his possessions to her and her heirs. By this short-lived marriage she had no issue, and, after remaining a widow for some twelve years or so, she married, as his third wife, Sir William Cavendish, by whom she had a numerous issue, as will be presently shown. To Sir William Cavendish this remarkable lady brought not only Hardwick and the other possessions of her own family, but also those of the Barleys, which she had acquired by her first marriage. Sir William died in 1557, and a few years later his widow married, as her third husband, Sir William St. Loe, or Santloe, Captain of the Guard to Queen Elizabeth, who settled the whole of his estates upon her and her heirs, and thus greatly added to her already immense possessions. By this marriage there was no issue, and, on the death of Sir William St. Loe, she was a third time left a widow. Soon afterwards she married, as his second wife (he being, of course, her fourth husband), George, sixth Earl of Shrewsbury, stipulating, however, that the Earl’s eldest daughter, the Lady Grace Talbot, should marry her eldest son, Sir Henry Cavendish, and that his second son, Gilbert Talbot (eventually Earl of Shrewsbury), should marry her youngest daughter, Mary Cavendish. These family nuptials were solemnised at Sheffield on the 9th of February, 1567-8, the younger of the two couples being at the time only about fifteen and twelve years of age respectively.

The events of the Countess of Shrewsbury’s life are so thoroughly mixed up with those of the stirring times of the kingdom at large, more especially during the period when the truly unfortunate Mary, Queen of Scots, was in the custody of the Earl and his countess, that it is unnecessary here to enter into them. By the Earl of Shrewsbury the Countess had no issue, and he dying in 1590, she, “Bess of Hardwick,” became, for the fourth time, a widow. “A change of conditions,” says Bishop Kennet, “that perhaps never fell to the lot of one woman, to be four times a creditable and happy wife; to rise by every husband into greater wealth and higher honours; to have a numerous issue by one husband only; to have all those children live, and all by her advice be creditably disposed of in her lifetime; and, after all, to live seventeen years a widow in absolute power and plenty.” The Countess, as we have before written, “besides being one of the most beautiful, accomplished, and captivating women of her day, was, without exception, the most energetic, business-like, and able of her sex. In architecture her conceptions were grand, while in all matters pertaining to the arts, and to the comforts and elegancies of life, she was unsurpassed. To the old hall of her fathers, where she was born and resided, she made vast additions, and she entirely planned and built three of the most gorgeous edifices of the time—Hardwick Hall, Chatsworth, and Oldcotes—the first two of which were transmitted entire to the first Duke of Devonshire. The latter part of her long and busy life she occupied almost entirely in building, and it is marvellous what an amount of real work—hard figures and dry details—she got through; for it is a fact, abundantly evidenced by the original accounts remaining to this day, that not a penny was expended on her buildings, and not a detail added or taken away, without her special attention and personal supervision. Building was a passion with her, and she indulged it wisely and well, sparing neither time, nor trouble, nor outlay to secure everything being done in the most admirable manner. It is said, and it is so recorded by Walpole, that the Countess had once been told by a gipsy fortune-teller that she would never die so long as she continued building, and she so implicitly believed this that she never ceased planning and contriving and adding to her erections; and it is said that at last she died in a hard frost, which totally prevented the workmen from continuing their labours, and so caused an unavoidable suspension of her works. Surely the fortune-teller here was a “wise woman” in more senses than one, for it was wise and cunning in her to instil such a belief into the Countess’s mind, and thus insure a continuance of the works by which so many workmen and their families gained a livelihood, and by which later generations would also benefit. Besides Chatsworth, Hardwick, Oldcotes, and other places, the Countess founded and built the Devonshire Almshouses at Derby, and did many other good and noble works. She died, full of years and full of honours and riches, on the 23rd of February, 1607, and was buried in All Saints’ Church, Derby, under a stately tomb which she had erected during her lifetime, and on which a long Latin inscription is to be seen.”