Seeing Europe with Famous Authors Volume I Part 9

KENILWORTH [Footnote: From Scott's "Kenilworth." Kenilworth is now the most stately ruined castle in England. Its destruction dates from the Civil War, when it was dismantled by soldiers under Cromwell. Then it was allowed to decay. Scott describes it as it was in Queen Elizabeth's time.]

BY SIR WALTER SCOTT

The outer wall of this splendid and gigantic structure enclosed seven acres, a part of which was occupied by extensive stables, and by a pleasure garden, with its trim arbors and parterres, and the rest formed the large base-court, or outer-yard, of the n.o.ble castle. The lordly structure itself, which rose near the center of this s.p.a.cious enclosure, was composed of a huge pile of magnificent castellated buildings, apparently of different ages, surrounding an inner court, and bearing in the names attached to each portion of the magnificent ma.s.s, and in the armorial bearings which were there blazoned, the emblems of mighty chiefs who had long pa.s.sed away, and whose history, could ambition have lent ear to it, might have read a lesson to the haughty favorite, who had now acquired and was augmenting the fair domain. A large and ma.s.sive keep, which formed the citadel of the castle, was of uncertain tho great antiquity. It bore the name of Caesar, perhaps from its resemblance to that in the Tower of London so called.

Some antiquaries ascribe its foundation to the time of Kenelph, from whom the castle had its name, a Saxon King of Mercia, and others to an early era after the Norman Conquest. On the exterior walls frowned the escutcheon of the Clintons, by whom they were founded in the reign of Henry I., and of the yet more redoubted Simon de Montfort, by whom, during the Barons' wars, Kenilworth was long held out against Henry III. Here Mortimer, Earl of March, famous alike for his rise and his fall, had once gaily revelled in Kenilworth, while his dethroned sovereign, Edward II.

languished in its dungeons. Old John of Gaunt, "time-honored Lancaster,"

had widely extended the castle, erecting that n.o.ble and ma.s.sive pile which yet bears the name of Lancaster's buildings: and Leicester himself had outdone the former possessors, princely and powerful as they were, by erecting another immense structure, which now lies crusht under its own ruins, the monument of its owner's ambition. The external wall of this royal castle was, on the south and west sides, adorned and defended by a lake partly artificial, across which Leicester had constructed a stately bridge, that Elizabeth might enter the castle by a path hitherto untrodden, instead of the usual entrance to the northward, over which he had erected a gate-house, or barbican, which still exists, and is equal in extent, and superior in architecture, to the baronial castle of many a northern chief.

Beyond the lake lay an extensive chase, full of red-deer, fallow-deer, roes, and every species of game, and abounding with lofty trees, from among which the extended front and ma.s.sive towers of the castle were seen to rise in majesty and beauty. We can not but add that of this lordly palace, where princes feasted and heroes fought, now in the b.l.o.o.d.y earnest of storm and siege, and now in the games of chivalry, where beauty dealt the prize which valor won, all is now desolate. The bed of the lake is but a rushy swamp and the ma.s.sive ruins of the castle only serve to show what their splendor once was, and to impress on the musing visitor the transitory value of human possessions, and the happiness of those who enjoy a humble lot in virtuous contentment.

ALNWICK [Footnote: From "Visits to Remarkable Places."]

BY WILLIAM HOWITT

A visit to Alnwick is like going back into the old feudal times. The town still retains the moderate dimensions and the quiet air of one that has grown up under the protection of the castle, and of the great family of the castle. Other towns, that arose under the same circ.u.mstances, have caught the impulse of modern commerce and manufacture, and have grown into huge, bustling, and noisy cities, in which the old fortified walls and the old castle have either vanished, or have been swallowed up, and stand, as if in superannuated wonder, amid a race and a wilderness of buildings, with which they have nothing in common. When, however, you enter Alnwick, you still feel that you are entering a feudal place. It is as the abode of the Percys has presented itself to your imagination. It is still, quaint, gray, and old-worldish....

In fact, the whole situation is fine, without being highly romantic, and worthy of its superb old fabric. In the castle itself, without and within, I never saw one on English ground that more delighted me; because it more completely came up to the beau ideal of the feudal baronial mansion, and especially of that of the Percys, the great chieftains of the British Border--the heroes of Otterburn and Chevy Chase.

Nothing can be more striking than the effect at first entering within the walls from the town; when, through a dark gloomy gateway of considerable length and depth, the eye suddenly emerges into one of the most splendid scenes that can be imagined; and is presented at once with the great body of the inner castle, surrounded with fair semi-circular towers, finely swelling to the eye, and gaily adorned with pinnacles, battlements, etc.

The impression is still further strengthened by the successive entrances into the second and third courts, through great ma.s.sy towers, till you are landed in the inner court, in the very center of this great citadel.

An idea may be formed of the scale of this brave castle, when we state that it includes, within its outer walls, about five acres of ground; and that its walls are flanked with sixteen towers, which now afford a complete set of offices to the castle, and many of them retain not only their ancient names, but also their original uses.

The castle courts, except the center one, are beautifully carpeted with green turf, which gives them a very pleasant aspect. In the center of the second court is a lion with his paw on a ball, a copy of one of the lions of St. Mark at Venice....

The inner court is square, with the corners taken off; and on the wall opposite to the entrance are medallion portraits of the first Duke and d.u.c.h.ess. Near the gateway appear the old wheels and axle which worked the great well, over which is the figure of a pilgrim blessing the waters.

Within the gateway you enter an octagon tower, where the old dungeon still remains in the floor, covered with its iron grate. It is eleven feet deep, by nine feet eight inches and a half square at the bottom. In the court are two other dungeons, now or formerly used for a force-pump to throw water up to the top of the castle; and one now not used at all--which could all be so closed down as to exclude the prisoners from both sound and light....

Having wandered thus around this n.o.ble pile, it is time to enter it. Of the interior, however, I shall not say much more than that it is at once a fitting modern residence for a n.o.bleman of the high rank and ancient descent of the proprietor, and in admirable keeping with its exterior. The rooms are fitted up with light Gothic tracery on the walls, very chaste and elegant; and the colors are so delicate and subdued, that you are not offended with that feeling of over-fineness that is felt at Raby.

You ascend by a n.o.ble staircase, surrounded with armorial escutcheons instead of a cornice, to a suite of very s.p.a.cious and handsome rooms, of which the princ.i.p.al are the saloon, dining-room, breakfast-room, library, and chapel. The ceilings are finely worked into compartments with escutcheons and pendants. The walls of the saloon are covered with crimson silk, sprigged with yellow flowers; those of the dining-room, with pale buff, and white moldings, rich tracery and elegant compartmented ceiling.

In the center of some of the arches you see the crescent, the crest of the Percys.

On the whole, it is a n.o.ble and highly satisfactory mansion; but still it is when you get without again that you feel the real antiquity and proud dignity of the place. The fame of the Percy and the Douglas seems to be whispered by every wind that plays around those old towers.

HAMPTON COURT [Footnote: From "Visits to Remarkable Places."]

BY WILLIAM HOWITT

To the visitors of cultivated taste and historic knowledge, Hampton Court abounds with subjects of reflective interest of the highest order. It is true, that, compared with some of our palaces, it can lay no claims to antiquity; but from the days of Henry VIII. to those of George III., there are few of them that have witnessed more singular or momentous events.

Overbearing despot as Wolsey [who built it] was, there is something magnificent in the sweep of his ambition, and irresistibly interesting in the greatness of his fall. He was the last of those haughty prelates in the good old Catholic times who rose up from the dust of insignificance into the most lordly and overgrown magnificence; outdoing monarchs in the number of their servants, and in the pomp of their state. Equaling the great Cardinals who have figured on the Continent, Ximenes, Richelieu, Mazarin, and De Retz, in political ability and personal ambition, he exceeded all in the wealth which he unhesitatingly seized, and the princely splendor in which he lived.

When we enter, therefore, the gates of Hampton Court, and are struck with the magnificent extent of the erection, which at that time not only, according to Rapin, "was a stately palace, and outshined all the king's houses," but was one of the most splendid structures in Europe, we can not help figuring to ourselves the proud Cardinal surveying its progress, and musing over the wonders of that career which had brought him, if not from the humble estate of the son of a butcher, yet from an origin of no great condition, or it could not have remained dubious to this period--the wealthiest man in Europe, the most potent in political influence, and the ardent aspirant to the Popedom itself....

It was only at Hampton Court that his vast train of servants and attendants, with the n.o.bility and amba.s.sadors who flocked about him, could be fully entertained. These, as we learn from his gentleman-usher, Cavendish, were little short of a thousand persons; for there were upon his "cheine roll" eight hundred persons belonging to his household, independent of suitors, who were all entertained in the hall. In this hall he had daily spread three tables. At the head of the first presided a priest, a steward; at that of the second a knight, as treasurer; and at the third his comptroller, who was an esquire.... Besides these, there was always a doctor, a confessor, two almoners, three marshals, three ushers of the hall, and groom. The furnishing of these tables required a proportionate kitchen; and here were two clerks, a clerk-comptroller, and surveyor of the dressers; a clerk of the spicery; two cooks, with laborers and children for a.s.sistants: turnspits a dozen; four scullery-men; two yeomen of the pastry, and two paste-layers. In his own kitchen was his master-cook, daily drest in velvet or satin, and wearing a gold chain.

Under him were two other cooks and their six laborers; in the larder a yeoman and groom; in the scullery a yeoman and two grooms; in the ewry two yeomen and two grooms; in the b.u.t.tery the same; in the cellar three yeomen and three pages; in the chandlery and the wafery, each two yeomen; in the wardrobe the master of the wardrobe and twenty a.s.sistants; in the laundry, yeoman, groom, thirteen pages, two yeoman-purveyors and groom-purveyor; in the bake-house, two yeomen and two grooms; in the wood-yard one yeoman and groom; in the barn a yeoman; at the gate two yeomen and two grooms; a yeoman of his barge; the master of his horse; a clerk and groom of the stables; the farrier; the yeoman of the stirrup; a maltster; and sixteen grooms, each keeping four horses.

There were the dean and sub-dean of his chapel; the repeater of the choir; the gospeler, the epistler, or the singing priest; the master of the singers, with his men and children. In the vestry were a yeoman and two grooms. In the procession were commonly seen forty priests, all in rich copes and other vestments of white satin, or scarlet, or crimson. The altar was covered with ma.s.sy plate, and blazed with jewels and precious stones. But if such were his general establishment, not less was the array of those who attended on his person. In his privy chamber he had his chief chamberlain, vice-chamberlain, and two gentlemen-ushers. Six gentlemen-waiters and twelve yeomen; and at their head nine or ten lords to attend on him, each with their two or three servants, and some more, to wait on them, the Earl of Derby having five. Three gentlemen-cupbearers, gentlemen-carvers, and servers to the amount of forty in the great and the privy chamber; six gentlemen-ushers and eight grooms. Attending on his table were twelve doctors and chaplains, clerk of the closet, two clerks of the signet, four counsellors learned in the law, and two secretaries.

He had his riding-clerk; clerk of the crown; clerk of the hamper and chaffer; clerk of the cheque for the chaplains; clerk for the yeomen of the chamber; and "fourteen footmen garnished with rich running-coates, whensoever he had any journey;" besides these, a herald-at-arms, sergeant-at-arms, a physician, an apothecary, four minstrels, a keeper of the tents, an armorer; an instructor of his wards in chancery; "an instructor of his wardrop of roabes;" a keeper of his chamber; a surveyor of York, and clerk of the green cloth....

I am afraid the story of Henry VIII. coming to see this splendid palace on its first being built, and saying in a jealous surprize, "My Lord Cardinal, is this a dwelling for a subject?" and the courtly Cardinal replying, "My gracious liege, it is not intended for a subject; it is meant only for the greatest and most bounteous king in Christendom," is too good to be true; for altho Wolsey did give up this favorite palace to his royal master, it was long afterward, and only on the palpable outbreak of his displeasure, as a most persuasive peace-offering; an offering which, tho especially acceptable, failed nevertheless to ensure lasting peace. The sun of the great Cardinal was already in its decline....

Henry VIII. used to keep his court here frequently in great state, and here he used to celebrate Christmas in all its ancient festivity. Here he lost his third wife, Jane Seymour, a few days after the birth of his son Edward VI., and felt or affected much grief on that account, perhaps because he had not had the pleasure of cutting off her head. Here he married his sixth wife, Lady Catherine Parr, widow of Neville, Lord Latimer, and sister of the Marquis of Northampton. This lady, who had the hardihood to marry this royal Bluebeard, after he had divorced two wives and chopped off the heads of two others, narrowly escaped the fate she so rashly hazarded. The very warrant for her committal to the Tower, whence she was only to be brought forth to be burned at the stake for heresy, was signed, and on the point of execution, when she accidentally became aware of it, and managed to soothe the ferocious tyrant by the most artful submission to his conceit of his theological learning, and by rubbing his ulcerated leg.

Here, as we have said, Edward VI. was born; and three days after he was baptized in the king's chapel in the palace in great state--Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, and the Duke of Norfolk, being G.o.d-fathers.

Hampton Court was appropriated by the guardians of Edward as his residence, and he was residing here when the council rose against the authority of the Protector Somerset, and was removed by him hence to Windsor Castle, lest the council should obtain possession of his person.

Here b.l.o.o.d.y Mary, and her husband, Philip of Spain, pa.s.sed their honeymoon in great retirement; and here--when they were desirous of effacing from the mind of their sister, the Princess Elizabeth, the recollection of her imprisonment at Woodstock, and the vain attempts of their arch-rascal priest Stephen Gardiner, Lord Chancellor and Bishop of Winchester, to coerce her into popery, or to convict her of heresy, and probably bring her to the flaming stake--they invited her to spend some time with them, and set on foot banquets, maskings, and all sorts of revelries.

Here they kept Christmas with her as royally as the father, Henry VIII., had kept it in his day; Elizabeth being seated at the royal table with their majesties, next the cloth of state, and, at the removal of the dishes, served with a perfumed napkin and plate of confect by the Lord Paget. Here, too, during her stay, they gave a grand tournament, wherein two hundred spears were broken by contending knights. Here Elizabeth also, when she was become the potent queen instead of the jealously-watched sister, continued occasionally to a.s.semble her brilliant court, and to hold merry Christmas, as Mary, Edward, and her father had done before.

Here also the especial festivals of the Christmases of 1572 and 1593 were kept by her....

The entrance to the portion of the palace built by Wolsey is by a sort of outer court of great extent, the gates of which have their pillars surmounted by a large lion and unicorn as supporters of the crown royal, and each of the side gates by a military trophy. Along the left side of the area are barracks and such offices; the greater part of the right side is open toward the river, and there stand nine as lofty and n.o.ble elms, in a row, as perhaps any part of England can match. Two gateways are before you; the one to the left leading to the kitchen-court, the center one to the first quadrangle. This chief gateway has been restored, in excellent keeping with the old building, and has a n.o.ble aspect as you approach it, being flanked with octagon towers, pierced with a fine pointed arch, over which are cut, in rich relief, the royal arms, and above them projects a large and handsome bay-window, framed of stone.

You now enter by a Gothic archway the first of the courts of Wolsey remaining. These two are said to have been the meanest then in the palace.

There were originally five; the three finest of which were pulled down to make way for William III.'s great square ma.s.s of brickwork. The writers who saw it in its glory, describe it in entireness as the most splendid palace in Europe. Grotius says, "other palaces are residences of kings, but this is of the G.o.ds." Hentzner, who saw it in Elizabeth's time, speaks of it with astonishment, and says, "the rooms being very numerous, are adorned with tapestry of gold, silver, and velvet, in some of which were woven history pieces; in other Turkish and Armenian dresses, all extremely natural. In one chamber are several excessively rich tapestries, which are hung up when the queen gives audience to foreign amba.s.sadors. All the walls of the palace shine with gold and silver. Here is likewise a certain cabinet called Paradise, where, besides that every thing glitters so with silver, gold, and jewels, as to dazzle one's eyes, there is a musical instrument made all of gla.s.s except the strings."

It was, indeed, a Dutch taste which leveled all these stately buildings to the ground, to erect the great square ma.s.s which replaced them. A glorious view, if old drawings are to be believed, must all that vast and picturesque variety of towers, battlements, tall mullioned windows, cupolas and pinnacles, have made, as they stood under the clear heaven glittering in the sun....

The hall, the chapel, the withdrawing-room, are all splendid specimens of Gothic grandeur, and possess many historic a.s.sociations. In the hall, Surrey wrote on a pane of gla.s.s some of his verses to Geraldine; and there, too, it is said, the play of Henry VIII., exhibiting the fall of Wolsey in the very creation of his former glory, was once acted, Shakespeare himself being one of the performers!

CHATSWORTH AND HADDON HALL [Footnote: From "A Walk From London to John O'Groats."]

BY ELIHU BURRITT

It was a pleasure quite equal to my antic.i.p.ation to visit Chatsworth for the first time, after a sojourn in England, off and on, for sixteen years.

It is the lion number three, according to the American ranking of the historical edifices and localities of England. Stratford-upon-Avon, Westminster Abbey and Chatsworth are the three representative celebrities which our travelers think they must visit if they would see the life of England's ages from the best standpoints. And this is the order in which they rank them. Chatsworth and Haddon Hall should be seen the same day if possible; so that you may carry the impression of the one fresh and active into the other. They are the two most representative buildings in the kingdom. Haddon is old English feudalism edificed. It represents the rough grandeur, hospitality, wa.s.sail and rude romance of the English n.o.bility five hundred years ago. It was all in its glory about the time when Thomas-a-Becket, the Magnificent, used to entertain great companies of belted knights of the realm in a manner that exceeded regal munificence in those days--even directing fresh straw to be laid for them on his ample mansion floor, that they might not soil the bravery of their dresses when they bunked down for the night. The building is brimful of the character and history of that period. Indeed, there are no two milestones of English history so near together, and yet measuring such a s.p.a.ce of the nation's life and mariners between them, as this hall and that of Chatsworth.

It was built, of course, in the bow and arrow times, when the sun had to use the same missiles in shooting its barbed rays into the narrow apertures of old castles--or the stone coffins of fear-hunted knights and ladies, as they might be called. What a monument this to the dispositions and habits of the world, outside and inside of that early time! Here is the porter's or warder's lodge just inside the huge gate. To think of a living being with a human soul in him burrowing in such a place!--a big, black sarcophagus without a lid to it, set deep in the solid wall. Then there is the chapel. Compare it with that of Chatsworth, and you may count almost on your fingers the centuries that have intervened between them. It was new-roofed soon after the discovery of America, and, perhaps, done up to some show of decency and comfort. But how small and rude the pulpit and pews--looking like rough-boarded potato-bins! Here is the great banquet-hall, full to overflowing with the tracks and cross-tracks of that wild, strange life of old. There is a fire-place for you, and the mark in the chimney-back of five hundred Christmas logs. Doubtless this great stone pavement of a floor was carpeted with straw at banquets, after the ill.u.s.trious Becket's pattern.

Here is a memento of the feast hanging up at the top of the kitchenward door--a pair of roughly-forged, rusty handcuffs amalgamated into one pair of jaws, like a muskrat trap. What was the use of that thing, conductor?

"That sir, they put the 'ands in of them as shirked and didn't drink up all the wine as was poured into their cups, and there they made them stand on tiptoe up against that door, sir, before all the company, sir, until they was ashamed of theirselves." Descend into the kitchen, all scarred with the tremendous cookery of ages. Here they roasted bullocks whole, and just back in that dark vault with a slit or two in it for the light, they killed and drest them. There are relics of the shambles, and here is the great form on which they cut them up into manageable pieces. It would do you good, you Young America, to see that form, and the cross-gashes of the meat ax in it. It is the half of a gigantic English oak, which was growing in Julius Caesar's time, sawed through lengthwise, making a top surface several feet wide, black and smooth as ebony. Some of the bark still clings to the under side. The dancing-hall is the great room of the building. All that the taste, art and wealth of that day could do, was done to make it a splendid apartment, and it would pa.s.s muster still as a comfortable and respectable salon. As we pa.s.s out, you may decipher the short prayer cut in the wasting stone over a side portal, "G.o.d Save the Vernons." I hope this prayer has been favorably answered; for history records much virtue in the family, mingled with some romantic escapades, which have contributed, I believe, to the entertainment of many novel readers.

Just what Haddon Hall is to the baronial life and society of England five hundred years ago, is Chatsworth to the full stature of modern civilization and aristocratic wealth, taste and position. Of this it is probably the best measure and representative in the kingdom; and as such it possesses a special value and interest to the world at large. Were it not for here and there such an establishment, we should lack way-marks in the progress of the arts, sciences and tastes of advancing civilization.