Part 7
His lordship, dying unmarried in 1761, was succeeded by his brother George as third baron. This nobleman, who had sat in several parliaments, and held various public offices (among them the Lord-Lieutenancy of Cornwall), and was Vice-Admiral of the Blue, married Emma, only daughter and heiress of John Gilbert, Archbishop of York, by whom he had issue an only son, who succeeded him. His lordship was, on the 17th February, 1781, created in addition to his title of Baron Edgcumbe, _Viscount Mount Edgcumbe and Valletort_; and in 1789 he was further advanced to the dignity of an earl, by the title of _Earl of Mount Edgcumbe_. Dying in 1795, he was succeeded by his only son, Richard, as second earl.
This nobleman, who also held the office of Lord-Lieutenant of Cornwall, married Lady Sophia Hobart, daughter of John, second Earl of Buckinghamshire, and by her had issue, two sons, Ernest Augustus, and George, and two daughters. His lordship died in 1839, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Ernest Augustus, as third earl, who (born in 1797) was Aide-de-Camp to the Queen and Colonel of the Cornwall militia. He married, in 1831, Caroline Augusta, daughter of Rear-Admiral Charles Feilding, who still survives him, and is an extra Lady of the Bed-chamber to the Queen. By her his lordship had issue two sons: viz., William Henry and Charles Ernest, and two daughters, of whom Ernestine Emma Horatia is still living. The earl died in 1861, and was succeeded by his eldest son as fourth earl.
The present nobleman, William Henry Edgcumbe, fourth Earl of Mount Edgcumbe, Viscount Mount Edgcumbe and Valletort, and Baron Edgcumbe of Mount Edgcumbe, the noble owner of Mount Edgcumbe and of the large estates concentrated in the family, was born in 1832. He was educated at Harrow, and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he became B.A. in 1856, and sat as M.P. for the borough of Plymouth from 1859 to 1861, when, by the death of his father, he entered the Upper House. His lordship is an extra Lord of the Bed-chamber to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales; is Lieutenant-Colonel of the 2nd battalion and Captain Commandant of the 16th corps of Devon Rifle Volunteers; is a Special Deputy Warden of the Stannaries, &c., &c. He married in 1858 the Lady Katherine Elizabeth Hamilton, fourth daughter of the first Duke of Abercorn, and has by her issue one son, Piers Alexander Hamilton Edgcumbe Viscount Valletort (born 1865), and three daughters, Victoria Frederica Caroline, born 1859, Albertha Louisa Florence, born 1861, and Edith Hilaria, born 1862. His lordship is patron of five livings; viz., Dittisham and Beer Ferrers, in Devonshire; and Landrake, Rame, and Millbrook, in Cornwall. The arms of the Earl of Mount Edgcumbe are—_gules_, on a bend _ermines_, cottised, _or_, three boars’ heads, _argent_. Crest—a boar, statant, _argent_, gorged with a leaf of oak, _vert_, fructed, _or_. Supporters—two greyhounds, _argent_, gutté de poix, and gorged with a collar, dovetailed, _gules_.
From the ancient mansion at Mount Edgcumbe we proceed to that which is still older and more venerable—
COTHELE.—It is difficult to imagine a house continuing—and but little changed—to be inhabited by the same family, or, indeed, inhabited at all, during a period approaching three centuries; yet that is the case with Cothele, pride of the beautiful river Tamar, and one of the “gems” of Cornwall;[14] its gigantic oaks, and chestnuts are obviously so old; but it is requisite to examine the exterior, and especially the interior, to obtain conviction that the mansion dates from the reign of the seventh Henry; while its present lord is the lineal representative of the knight who built it—Sir Richard Edgcumbe—whose house it is we see, nearly as he left it:[15] but, also, we may examine the armour he wore, for it still hangs in this hall; the table at which he feasted (the worm of time only has touched it); the chairs on which he and his dame sat, the very bed on which they slept, while the tapestry, woven by fair hands that have been dust for three centuries, still cover the old walls. Charles I. certainly slept in one of these rooms, and it demands no great stretch of imagination to believe that the illustrious Sir Walter Raleigh was often its honoured guest. We may have been seated in the very chair in which the great knight recounted his adventurous exploits against the hated Spaniards under his cousin’s roof-tree. Memories haunt every room; every hole and corner, so to speak, has a tale to tell of the long past.
The house is one of the finest remaining examples of the period to which it belongs, and, with Haddon Hall, in Derbyshire, which it closely resembles in general plan and in some of its details, is one of the best existing specimens of mediæval domestic architecture in England. Although, doubtless, the greater part of the building was erected by Sir Richard Edgcumbe, it is evident that the whole was not built by him, but that he added to, and enlarged the then family residence of the Cotheles, many portions of which exist at the present time.[16] The buildings surround two court-yards, or quadrangles, the entrance being surmounted by an embattled tower; the main buildings and large tower are also embattled.
The banqueting-hall is a noble apartment, 42 feet long by 22 feet wide. It has a remarkably fine timber roof, with intersecting arches in its compartments. At the upper end, to the left, the lord’s table stood beneath the bayed window, and opposite to it a doorway leads to the principal staircase. At the bottom of the hall are three doorways, one of which led to the great kitchen, and the other two to the buttery and the cellar. On the walls are suits of armour, helmets, breastplates, warders’ horns, gauntlets, matchlocks, cross-bows, shields, battle-axes, halberts, pikes, swords, pistols, gisarmes, petronels, and two-handed swords and spears that may have been
“Bathed in gore On the plains of Azincourt.”
In the windows are the royal arms, the arms and impalements of Edgcumbe, Cothele, Holland, Tremaine, Trenchard, Durnford, Rame, Cotterell, Raleigh (for Sir Walter Raleigh’s grandmother was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Richard Edgcumbe of Cothele), Trevanion (Sir William Trevanion married another daughter of Sir Richard Edgcumbe, and fought by his side at Bosworth Field, and accompanied him in his pursuit of the mutual enemy, Sir Henry Bodrugan), Carew, of Anthony (of the family of Carew the historian), St. Maur, Courtenay, Bigbury, Fitzwalter, &c.
The dining-room is a charming tapestried apartment, with mullioned windows and a fine old fire-place. The tapestry is highly interesting, one of the subjects being the story of Eurydice, another Diana and Apollo, and the others rural scenes, equestrian figures, &c.
Adjoining the dining-room is an ante-room of surpassing interest. “The tapestry in this room represents the Sciences, and might be called the school of Athens, from the similarity of the subject to the celebrated picture of Raphael.” In this room, as in others, has been collected together a fine assemblage of old earthenware and other interesting matters relating to the life of the inmates in times of old.
The chapel, which is in the corner of the court-yard, contains a pretty open-work oak screen, and an arched roof at the intersections of which are carved bosses. The bowl of the original font is preserved. In the east window, in stained glass, are considerable portions of full-length figures, probably of saints, but the names do not appear, while in the upper light is represented the Annunciation. The angel is red with green wings, and on a label, in black letter, the words “Ave Maria gracia plena, D̄ns tecum.” The Virgin is on the other side, near a building resembling a church, with a label also, on which once was “Ecce ancilla D̄ni; fiat ̄mi s̄cdm verbū-tuū.” In the lower compartment of the window will be noticed three shields of arms: the first being Edgcumbe, quartering Tremaine (or Trenchard); the second, first, and fourth Edgcumbe, second Holland, third Tremaine, impaling first and fourth Durnford, second Fitzwalter, and third, now blank but probably originally containing Bigbury; and the third which contained Edgcumbe and several quarterings, much injured. In the south window are two female saints, St. Ann and St. Katherine. “An ancient altar-piece has the date 1589, and in the centre the adoration of the Magi; while on one door is the portrait of a man with ‘æt suæ 38,’ and on the other of a female, with ‘æt suæ 28,’ and on each door a shield with _or_, an arrow, _sable_.” The chapel is entered from the dining-room as well as from the court-yard and domestic offices. It has a small bell turret.
The bed-rooms—“the white room,” the “red room,” the “best room,” “King Charles’s room,” and “Queen Anne’s room”—are all hung with fine tapestry, and furnished in a style strictly in keeping with the place itself. The ceiling of the first of these is of geometric design. The carved furniture in these rooms is of the most interesting character, and among the decorations are many shields of arms of the Edgcumbes and their alliances. The tapestry is of the finest character, the furniture grand as old furniture well can be, the hangings rich in material and hoary with age, and the ornaments of the most veritable _vertu_ character—each room in this grand old mansion offers subject-matter enough for a separate volume.
The drawing-room is also a fine tapestried apartment, furnished with massive ebony chairs, ebony sofa, and ebony carved cabinet, and all the appliances _en suite_. The kitchen and the other domestic offices are each and all of the most interesting character, and convey to the mind a vivid picture of the life of the inmates in days gone by. It is impossible, indeed, to conceive anything better than Cothele as an illustration of the home-life of our mediæval ancestors; for the building, the furniture, and the appliances, as they are to-day, so were they three hundred years ago. As it was in the days of Henry VII., so it is in those of Queen Victoria; and so, thanks to the preserving spirit of the Edgcumbes, it is likely to remain for centuries to come.
On some of the previous pages mention is made of Sir Richard Edgcumbe’s escape from his pursuers, and of his founding a chapel on the spot of his deliverance. This little chapel still stands to mark the spot, and to bring back to the mind the circumstances of his escape, and of the discomfiture of his pursuers. The chapel is built on the edge of the rock overlooking the water, and from the east window the view is wonderfully grand. In this east window is a figure of St. George in the centre, with the Annunciation and the Crucifixion on either side. It also bears the arms of Edgcumbe and Tremaine. In the other windows are also figures in stained glass, and on the altar is a triptych. Among other interesting features in this chapel—and they are many—is a fac-simile of the ancient tomb of Sir Richard Edgcumbe, at Morlaix.
The grounds are charmingly wild, yet graceful. Nature is in a great degree left to have her own way; the trees are of magnificent size (one of them indeed measures 28 feet in girth), ferns and wild flowers grow in rich luxuriance: every now and then glimpses are obtained of the beautiful river, and, on the opposite side, of the hill-steeps and thick woods of Devonshire. A pretty landing-place for boats is among the most picturesque points in the landscape; a lesser river here flows into the Tamar; a waterfall adds to the interest of the scene; and a neat little inn, close to the bank, gives refreshment to the wayfarer; above all its attractions is to be counted this—it is distant a dozen miles from a railway, and the shrill whistle never breaks the harmony of the song-birds, who “cannot help but sing” in every bush, brake, and tree of the demesne. The scenery on the river in the neighbourhood of Cothele is extremely beautiful, and in many places thickly overhung by skirting woods. Danescombe, a deep hollow in the woods, is a charming spot, as are the Morwell rocks, and many other places.
We have directed attention to but one of a hundred attractions in Devonshire and Cornwall: Devonshire is rich in the picturesque at all seasons; and the wild grandeur of the Cornish coast has for centuries been a theme of special laudation. Here and there, no doubt, other countries may supply us with finer examples of the sublime and beautiful in scenery; but they are to be reached only by sacrifices, such as the HOME TOURIST is not called upon to make: our own Islands have been gifted by God with so much that is refreshing as well as exciting to the eye and mind, that he or she must be fastidious indeed who fails to be content with the beauties that Nature presents so “near at hand”—accessible at comparatively easy cost of time, toil, and money.
Between Exeter and Plymouth there may be a tour for every day of a month.
Among the more delightful trips, where all is so beautiful, and where it is impossible to turn in any direction without finding some delightful place or some interesting object, may be named as especially within the reach of visitors, those to Ivy Bridge, with its abundant charms of hill, dell, wood, and river; to Saltram, the seat of the Earl of Morley, on the banks of the Laira; to the Beacon and moors of Brent; to the picturesque and pleasant dingles and combs of Cornwood; to Plympton, with its historic sites and its pleasant associations; to Bickleigh and its poetical vale; to Dartmoor, with its gloomy waste, its wild and romantic “breaks” of scenery, and its endless antiquities; and to scores of other delicious spots. The trip up the river Tamar to the Weir-head is one which ought to be taken by every visitor, embracing, as it does, besides hundreds of other points of interest, the dockyards, gun-wharf, Keyham steam-yard, Mount Edgcumbe, Torpoint, Thanckes, Gravesend House, the mouth of the sweet river Lynher, by which St. Germans is reached; Saltash, whose women are proverbial for their dexterity and strength in aquatic exercises, and who often carry off regatta prizes; St. Budeaux, with its conspicuous church; the junction of the Tavy with the Tamar; Warleigh, Beer Ferris, and Maristow; Cargreen and Landulph, in whose churchyard Theodore Palæologus, the last male descendant of the Christian emperors of Greece, rests in peace; Pentillie Castle, with its romantic love stories and tales of change of fortune; Cothele, of which we have spoken; Calstock, with its fine old church situated on a promontory; Harewood House, the seat of the Trelawneys, and the scene, in Mason’s _Elfrida_, of the love of Ethelwold and of the misfortunes consequent on his marriage with the daughter of Ordgar; and the sublime and beautiful Morwell Rock.
Staddon Heights, Mount Batten, Penlee Point, Hooe, and many other places, are within short distances of the Hoe, at Plymouth, and can be easily reached. Trematon Castle and St. John’s are also near at hand, and pleasure trips are frequently made in steam-boats round the Eddystone.
For those who make a longer stay in South Devon, visits may well be made to Tavistock, to Totnes, to Berry Pomeroy Castle, to Torquay, with a long _et cetera_.[17] Besides the trip up the Tamar, there are other rivers in South Devon whose charms are of a totally different, but perhaps even more exquisitely beautiful character. Thus the Dart, the Lynher, the Plym, the Yealm, the Erme, and the Tavy, all present attractions to the tourist.
It cannot fail to augment the enjoyment of those who visit this beautiful county—the fairest, the brightest, and the “greenest” of all our English shires—to recall the many “worthies” to whom Devonshire and Cornwall have given birth; men renowned in art, in science, and in letters: and the gallant men, the “adventurers,” who carried the flag of England into every country of the world, braving the battle and the breeze in all the seas that surround earth in the four quarters of the globe. It is a long list—the names of Drake, of Raleigh, and of Davy; of Reynolds, Northcote, Haydon, and Eastlake; of Carew, of Hawkins, and of Gilbert; of Kitto, of Bryant, and of Hawker, being not a tithe of the eminent men to which this district has given birth—of whom the western shires are rightly and justly proud.
Shame be to those who seek in other lands the enjoyment they may find so abundantly at home—who talk freely of the graces and grandeurs of far-off countries, and do not blush to acknowledge entire ignorance of those that bless and beautify their own.
England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, are, each and all, rich in “the picturesque;” to the artist and art-lover they present attractions second to none they will find in any country of the Continent: that is the truest “patriotism,” which inculcates, as a first duty, a full appreciation of
“Our own, our native land!”
ALNWICK CASTLE.[18]
WITH the single exception of Royal Windsor, ALNWICK CASTLE is second to none of the mediæval British strongholds which, in our own times, combine the characteristics of the early fortress and the modern palace. With its magnificent architectural features, all of them deeply impressed with the attributes of a baronial castle of the olden time, and placed in the midst of that famous scene of long-continued strife, of daring deeds, and of summary retribution, the Northern Border, Alnwick may truly be said to be an historical monument, standing upon historic ground. The names of the great barons, in like manner, who have successively been lords of Alnwick, have been enrolled by English chroniclers among the foremost ranks of their countrymen, so that their own biographies, interwoven with the history of their renowned castle, are written in the annals of England. Then, on the other hand, while in an extraordinary degree rich as well in relics as in memories of the past, Alnwick still maintains the unclouded splendour of its ancient dignity in its present capacity as the residence of an existing ducal family. Thus, from whatever point of view it may be regarded, Alnwick Castle must be esteemed as one of the finest and most interesting of our national edifices, and it also always will establish its claim to a foremost place among “the stately homes of England.”
When Nature declined to provide any one of her own emphatic boundary-lines, such as a mountain-chain or a broad and deep river, to determine the frontier which should divide England from Scotland, she left a very delicate and difficult international question to be adjusted by the rulers of the two adjacent realms, so long as this single island of Britain should be divided into two distinct, and by no means necessarily friendly, kingdoms. An artificial line of demarcation, accordingly, had to be drawn, and was drawn, which was supposed to be accepted and recognised both to the north and to the south of it. Here and there, as if to show in the clearest manner possible the unsatisfactory character of a frontier such as this, to a tract of country the ominous name of “Debateable Land” was assigned by common consent. On either side of the frontier-line, again, and including all the “Debateable Land,” the “Border” stretched far away to both the north and the south; and, throughout its whole extent, it formed a decidedly exceptional territory, in which there prevailed a system of wild laws that were administered after a still wilder fashion: hence, whatever may have been the state of things between England and Scotland, and between the two sovereigns and the two nations, along the Border there flourished a chronic local warfare, duly distinguished by gallant exploits, desperate enterprises, and barbarous devastation, with the occasional variety of an expedition of sufficient magnitude almost to constitute a regular campaign, or the formal investment, and perhaps the storm and sack, of some important fortified castle.[19]
The Borderers appear to have become so accustomed to this kind of life, that they looked upon it as their proper lot, and after a manner even regarded it with a kind of grim approval. Among them, doubtless, there were but too many who were thoroughly in earnest in their devotion to what may be styled the Border system—men
“Stout of heart and steady of hand,”
who, living in the constant expectation of some sudden assault, were both “good at need,” and ready and resolute at all times to take advantage to the utmost of every promising opportunity for successfully and profitably assaulting their hostile neighbours. In order to keep a check upon this predatory warfare, and to maintain something more than the semblance of a supreme constituted authority, certain warlike barons, intrusted with high powers as Lords Wardens, were established in fortified castles of great strength along the line of the Border, and in those northern districts of England which adjoined it. Of these early strongholds one of the proudest and the sternest was the Castle of Alnwick.
Distant from London, north by west, 313 miles (by railway), Alnwick, the county-town of Northumberland, is pleasantly situated on high ground, rising about 200 feet above the sea-level, on the south bank of the river Aln. From the name of this river, with the addition of _wick_, a place of human habitation, ALNWICK, always pronounced by its native inhabitants “Annick,” is evidently derived.[20]
Still remaining but little changed from what it was in times long passed away, while from the humblest of origins other towns have grown up and increased until they have attained to great magnitude and wealth and importance, Alnwick derives its interest from its early association with our national history—an association blended with the connection of the town with its castle, and with the great barons, the lords of that castle. The site of the castle and town of Alnwick is of a character which necessarily leads to the conclusion, that it must have been occupied both by a settlement and by some stronghold from a very remote period; and this opinion is confirmed by the presence of numerous relics in the immediate neighbourhood, that may be assigned without hesitation to ages anterior to the Roman settlement in Britain: the authentic history of Alnwick, however, cannot be carried back further than the era of the Norman Conquest, and even then for awhile more than a little of uncertainty overshadows the earliest pages of the chronicle. There exists no evidence to show that in the year 1066 any castle was standing at Alnwick; nor have we any knowledge of what lords may have held the high ground on the southern bank of the Aln during the Anglo-Saxon rule.
On Alnwick Moor, and in many places in the neighbourhood, are some remarkably interesting camps and other earth-works, and also some barrows, in which various relics have been discovered. In one of these was found a stone cist, containing a skeleton in the usual contracted position of Celtic interments; and in another, in a similar cist, was found a fine food-vessel, ornamented with a lozenge pattern. In other barrows Celtic remains, including cinerary urns, drinking-cups, food-vessels, flints, celts, and other implements of stone, bronze daggers, &c., have been found, and prove incontestably the early occupation of the site of Alnwick. In the neighbourhood, too, occur many of those curious remains of antiquity, sculptured stones, bearing circles and other rude and singular characters, which are supposed to be inscriptions.