The Dukeries Part 2

The most agreeable memory Lady Mary preserved of this formal and cold-blooded sire was that when a member of the Kit-Cat Club he nominated her, then seven years old, as one of the toasts of the year.

The child was sent for, and, adorned with her very finest attire, presented to the members. Her health was drunk, and her name engraved, according to custom, on a drinking gla.s.s. Probably this hour of triumph was the happiest in all her life, and, moreover, may have stimulated her with the desire to shine always among the foremost. Her after life was strangely a.s.sorted--she saw much of the world, and she was accounted the brightest female wit of her time. She christened Pope the "wicked wasp of Twickenham", and did not escape scatheless either from his attacks or from those of Horace Walpole. She loved great prospects--loved rocks and heights. It is possible that her recollections of the Sherwood country were not agreeable, since she showed herself averse from any allusion in her marvellous letters; but in spite of the artificiality of her period one may be certain that her adventurous spirit prompted her to leave unexplored no portion of the ancient forest. The ruggedness of Wharncliffe Chase was more to her fancy: in her old age, writing from Avignon, she declared this the finest prospect she had ever seen.

Her nephew Evelyn, second Duke of Kingston, chose for wife the notorious lady whom Walpole nicknamed "d.u.c.h.ess Robin Hood", and from whose romantic adventures resulted one of the most celebrated trials of the eighteenth century. After his death, in 1773, the t.i.tle became extinct.

He left his widow handsomely provided for, and she in her turn returned a magnificent collection of family treasures to his nephew, Charles Meadows, who in 1806 was created first Earl Manvers. An extract from her will is interesting reading:--

"And I also give and bequeath unto said Charles Meadows all the Communion Plate which belonged to the chapel of Th.o.r.esby, and which was taken away with the other vessels and sent by mistake to St.

Petersburgh in Russia, and my gold desert plate with the case of knives forks and spoons of gold and four golden salt cellars all engraved with the arms of Kingston and also one large salt cellar called Queen Elizabeth's salt cellar together with all my other gold and gilt plate whatsoever, either for use or ornament."

Then, after a long list of other riches, one reads:--

"And I also give him my nine doz. of Moco handle knives and forks mounted in gold which I bought at Rome, and likewise the whole length portraits of the late Duke of Kingston and of the present d.u.c.h.ess of Kingston, to be put up at Th.o.r.esby which as well as all the plates shall be reputed as an heirloom to the said house; and I also give him the several pieces of cannon and the Ships and vessel on Th.o.r.esby Lake".

In the eighteenth century several quaint ships embellished the lake. The last, we learn, was broken up more than half a century ago; and, as they must have seemed singularly out of place, one is not disposed to regret their disappearance.

OLLERTON

There is one splendid approach to Th.o.r.esby, now, unfortunately enough, barred from the public. To reach this from Ollerton one crosses the bridge, turns to the right for a few yards, then on the left sees beyond a stout palisading the celebrated Beech Avenue. The first time I visited this place was on a stormy evening in August, about sunset-time. The western sky was overcast with grey low-hanging clouds; at intervals rain fell in brief showers. Once breathing the atmosphere of this strange seclusion one forgot the quaintness of Ollerton and the pleasing wildness of the forest: here the formality brought a suggestion of some old French colour print--the avenue might have been the state road to some royal chateau.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLLERTON]

Four rows of gigantic beeches stretched for almost half a mile from the roadway; between the second and third might still be seen the old pebble and gravel drive. The monstrous boles, strangely curved and divided, were coloured like green-rusted bronze; overhead the branches mingled like the upper tracery of some ancient cathedral window. There were no gra.s.s or flowers underfoot: the ground was covered thick with last year's mast and withered leaves--"yellow and black and pale and hectic red"; sometimes I saw a strange black and grey fungus, large as a fine lady's fan.

The colouring was magnificent, and yet, looking from the palings at the farther end (beyond which one sees a green and cheerful vignette) one realized that something was lacking. The handsome coach-and-six with white horses and postilions in scarlet coats and white breeches--an equipage such as is depicted in the engraving of old Worksop Manor--should always be present in this suggestive place; and even a wheeled and curtained sedan of the kind fashionable at Marie Antoinette's Court would not appear incongruous, drawn by one officious purple-liveried lackey and pushed by another along the side paths. The Beech Avenue is the only spot in the Dukeries that permits one to recreate mentally the life of the eighteenth century. It should not terminate in a roadway of comparatively slight interest, but should instead reach a water-theatre with a hornbeam hedge, with rockwork basins, and with tall silver fountains. There is something n.o.bly pathetic in this deserted avenue--even the trees themselves have a mournful look, as though they repined because of the loneliness of to-day. No living thing moves here--it might be a sacred grove, never to be frequented by creatures of the woodland.

The village, or--not to wound local susceptibilities--the town of Ollerton is quaint and richly coloured; even in the depth of winter it has a warm and inviting aspect. Being situated on a loop of the Great North Road, it possesses two fine old inns, the more conspicuous being the "Hop Pole", a handsome formal place that might have been depicted in an ancient sampler. This faces the open forest, separated only from it by a small green, the placidly flowing Maun, and a few fields.

Near at hand is the brown, square-towered church, contrasting strangely with the houses of ripe-hued brick and tile. The churchyard has an air of sleepy comfort, but the interior of the building contains little of any interest to the antiquarian. All the armorial gla.s.s has disappeared; naught is left to carry one's mind back to ancient days. To my thinking the finest feature of Ollerton is the old Hall, within a stone's throw of the "Hop Pole". This was probably erected upon the site of a former house in the beginning of the eighteenth century. The walls are admirably mellowed, and many of the windows have been blocked up--probably in the days of the window tax. The princ.i.p.al front has been disfigured with various domestic offshoots; none the less the house still presents an aspect of austere dignity, and one regrets that to-day it should not still be used as a residence of note instead of an estate office. Inside, one of the princ.i.p.al features is a singularly handsome staircase. The garden is formal and pretty--a pleasant nook for an idle afternoon.

The Markhams, original owners of this property, were people of considerable note in our history, many of them holding high offices. One was dubbed by the Virgin Queen "Markham the Lion", another championed the cause of Arabella Stuart, and was condemned to death, but reprieved at the last moment after a ghastly little performance beside the execution block. A daughter of this house married Sir John Harrington, and enjoyed through her lifetime the friendship of Elizabeth.

Within easy walking distance, not far from the tantalizing glimpse of the Rufford Avenue, a road turns eastward, pa.s.ses a small wayside inn dignified with the name of Robin Hood, and soon reaches what was known as the King's House at Clipstone--to-day a lamentable ruin with no trace of its former magnificence. Here the Plantagenet kings held their Courts and rested after their days of hunting, and the rising ground about the house, nowadays devoted to the growing of oats, must once have blazed with all the colours of pageantry. What remains of the palace might be naught but the broken wall of an old kiln, or the fragment of some burned-out factory. The most fatal blow was dealt to this relic by a Duke of Portland, who, in 1812, had the foundations dug up and used for the drainage of the surrounding country. Clipstone Park, which Mad Madge of Newcastle described as a chase in which her lord took great delight (it being richly wooded, and watered with a stream full of fish and otters--in short, an ideal place for hunting, hawking, coursing and fishing), is now a placid pastoral district without distinction, such as may be found in any gently undulating country.

RUFFORD

Rufford Abbey, which is within easy walking distance of Ollerton, surpa.s.ses in interest and beauty the other great houses of the neighbourhood. The view from the pelican-crowned gateway, with its avenue of limes (some of which are considered the finest in all England) and beeches and elms, terminating in a glimpse of the facade of reddish stone, reminds one of the palace of the Sleeping Beauty in the days before briers and brambles barred the way. Separated from this avenue by a gravelled s.p.a.ce, where in summer great hydrangeas blossom in green tubs, a fine staircase leads to the main entrance.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RUFFORD ABBEY]

The house, which is not open to the public, and which for several centuries has been a favourite resting-place of kings, possesses a singular atmosphere of beauty and charm. The walls are hung with priceless old tapestry and marvellous portraits by the great English masters. There is much wonderful needlework--an eighteenth-century lady of the Savile family was as devoted to her embroidery frame as Mary Stuart herself. On screens and quaint chairs are seen her masterly copies of Hogarth's pictures.

No brief description could do justice to the wonders of a house so rich in objects connected with our history. The whole is remarkable and strange: in no place have I felt so deeply the influence left by the famous dead. Weird legends are connected with certain rooms: if the history of Rufford were written in full it would be remarkable beyond imagination. One of the most fascinating places is the chapel, erected in the time of Charles the Second, and surely the most comfortable sanctuary in any n.o.bleman's house. At the west end is a gallery, its walls lined with ancient embossed leather, its Prayer Books dating from the Restoration, its faded and antique chairs suggesting all manner of pleasant reveries during service.

The state rooms are admirable in so far as restfulness and quiet beauty take the place of excessive pomp. Each piece of furniture is storied and of great value. Nothing startles the eye; the colouring is always subdued and pleasing; in short, Rufford combines in perfection the palace and the home.

The outward appearance suggests harmony without extravagance. The pleasure grounds, although not on as large a scale as those of the other houses, are exceedingly beautiful--the j.a.panese Garden being a wonderful pleasaunce in miniature, with paved walks and toy lake and waterfall.

Not far away the River Maun, with rich flowers and shrubs on its banks, glides calmly to a tranquil mere, where grey herons perch like birds of stone on the boughs of the island trees. In front of an older entrance to the house stretches a gra.s.s-grown avenue, by which is the "Wilderness" of Elizabethan days. There lie the remains of famous racehorses, reared on the estate. The park itself has not been submitted to the attentions of the landscape gardener: it is natural and unspoiled as in monkish times.

Of the original Cistercian abbey, built in 1148 and peopled with monks brought from Rievaulx in Yorkshire, little remains save a groined and pillared chamber, supposed to have been the refectory, and used nowadays as a servants' hall. There is a singular hooded fireplace with a fine old dog-grate, and against the end wall stands a long oaken table--a relic of ancient feasting.

Rufford Abbey owed its existence to the filial piety of a collateral descendant of William the Conqueror. The sixteenth-century translation of the Foundation reads thus:--

"Gilbert Gaunte Earle of Lincolne to all his men and all the Children of our Holy Mother the church sends greeting willing you to know that I have given and granted in pure alms to the monks of Ryvalls for my Father's and Mother's souls And for ye remission of my sinns the Manor of the town of Rughfforde And all that I have there in demesne to build an Abbey of the order of Cistercians in the honour of St. Mary the Virgin--Therefore I will and Command that they freely and quietly from all secular service and all customes shall hold the said land with All that to the dominion of the said Town doth belong in woods plains meadowes pastures mylnes waters ways and paths."

A striking contrast may be found in the Domestic State Papers of 10 December, 1533:--

"Thomas Legh to Cromwell. On St. Nicholas Day the quondam Abbot of Rufforth was installed at Ryvax, and the late abbot of Ryvax sang _Te deum_ at his installation, and exhibited his resignation the same day. The a.s.signation of his pension is left to my Lord of Rutland, in which I moved him to follow your advice. Though pity is always good, it is most necessary in time of need. I would, therefore, that he had an honest living, though he has not deserved it, either to my lord or me."

After the Dissolution, Henry the Eighth leased the estate for twenty-one years to Sir John Markham, and afterwards exchanged it for some Irish property belonging to George, Earl of Shrewsbury. Bess of Hardwick was here often, and it was at Rufford that, in 1575, she arranged the marriage of her daughter, Elizabeth Cavendish, with Darnley's brother, from which union issued the ill-fated Arabella Stuart. Queen Elizabeth was greatly offended by what she justly regarded as an encroachment upon royal prerogative, and both mothers-in-law were sent for a time to the Tower. The Earl of Shrewsbury wrote in explanation to Lord Burghley:--

"The Lady Lennox being, as I heard, sickly, rested her at Rufford five days and kept most her bedchamber, and in that time the young man her son fell into liking with my wife's daughter before intended, and such liking was between them as my wife tells me she makes no doubt of a match, and hath so tied themselves upon their own liking as cannot part. My wife hath sent him to my lady, and the young man is so far in love that belike he is sick without her."

Then, giving a slight hint of his countess's ambitions, he adds:--

"This taking effect, I shall be well at quiet, for there is few n.o.blemen's sons in England that she hath not prayed me to deal for at one time or other, and now this comes unlooked for without thanks to me."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE j.a.pANESE GARDEN, RUFFORD ABBEY]

Arabella Stuart was born at Chatsworth, and thenceforth all Lady Shrewsbury's pride was fixed upon this granddaughter who might possibly become a queen. At Rufford there are two curiously touching portraits of this dreamy child, in whose sad little face one reads the promise of untoward fortunes. In 1576 the Earl of Lennox died, and two years later Queen Elizabeth took "oure lyttl Arbella" under her protection. When she was seven years old, this "very proper child" sent a specimen of her handwriting to her royal kinswoman, desiring the bearer to present her "humble duty to her Majesty, with daily prayers for her". The Queen of Scots in the following year maliciously informs her sister of England that "nothing has alienated the Countess of Shrewsbury from me but the vain hope, which she has conceived, of setting the crown of England on the head of her little girl, Arabella, and this by marrying her to a son of the Earl of Leicester. These children are also educated in this idea; and their portraits have been sent to each other."

Bess of Hardwick died in 1608, and in her will, which must have been made many years before, left 200 to purchase a golden cup for the Queen, "as a remembrance from her that has always been a dutiful and faithful heart to her highness". She craves, moreover, that Elizabeth may have compa.s.sion upon and be gracious to her poor grandchild Arabella Stuart. After the old lady's death, Arabella's connection with Rufford soon ceased.

Mary, Bess of Hardwick's daughter, who had married Earl Gilbert, lived at Rufford in her widowhood. This lady inherited a considerable share of her mother's ambition and lack of scruple. In a quarrel with Sir Thomas Stanhope, a Nottinghamshire knight from whom are descended three earldoms, she dispatched a servant with the following unpleasing message:--

"My lady hath commanded me to say thus much to you. That though you be more wretched, vile, and miserable than any creature living; and, for your wickedness, become more ugly in shape than any living creature in the world; and one to whom none of reputation would vouchsafe to send any message; yet she hath thought good to send thus much to you:--That she be contented you should live, and doth in no ways wish you death; but to this end, that all the plagues and miseries that may befal any man may light upon such a caitiff as you are, and that you should live to have all your friends forsake you; and without your great repentances, which she looketh not for, because your life hath been so bad, you will be d.a.m.ned perpetually in h.e.l.l-fire."

From this beginning ensued one of the most noted and romantic feuds of the seventeenth century.

After the death of this outspoken lady--her husband's father had accused the great Bess of occasionally using the language of Billingsgate--the Rufford estate pa.s.sed to the Savile family, her sister-in-law, Lady Mary Talbot, having married a Lincolnshire baronet of that name. Later, one of the Savile ladies, wife of Sir William, and daughter of Thomas, Lord Keeper Coventry, earned lasting fame by her bravery at the siege of Sheffield Castle. The Saviles were Royalists: in the Bodleian Library may be seen a letter to Cromwell from a certain unknown person who had been instructed to take into custody young Sir George and such friends as might be found at Rufford:--

"Sir George Savill is not at home. We have detained one Mr.

Coventry, who is the Lady Savill's brother, until Sir George shall appear to yr. highness. He is said to be in London at his house in Lincolns in field, at the corner of queene streete, called Carlisle house or Savill house. We can find n.o.body in his house, that gives any light, onely we heare that one of his family, Mr. Davison, who is Tutor to Sir George, was at the meeting, and stayed in the house till after dinner on fryday (a supposed gathering of Royalists) and then went away. We cannot yett get him."

This Sir George was created Earl and finally Marquis of Halifax by Charles the Second, and became one of the leading statesmen of the seventeenth century. One of his grandsons was the witty Earl of Chesterfield; another descendant was Henry Carey, the writer and composer of "Sally in our Alley". On the death of the second marquis, without male issue, the t.i.tle became extinct, and the estate with the Savile baronetcy pa.s.sed to a somewhat distant kinsman, whose collateral descendant is present owner of this fine estate, the traditions of which are almost without parallel in the matter of interest and romantic colouring.

EDWINSTOWE AND THE OAKS

Of the few trees of distinction pertaining to old Sherwood, perhaps the most famous, and certainly the least picturesque, is the "Parliament Oak", which may be seen to the right of the Mansfield road as it approaches Edwinstowe. To this venerable ruin, which an iron palisading protects from wanton hands, clings the tradition that Parliaments of King John and Edward the First met under its shade, the last in October, 1290. Queen Eleanor was ill--she died in the following month at Harby near Lincoln--and thence was made the most notable funeral progress in English history.

The country around is tranquil and pleasing; not far away stands the quaintest of windmills, which must certainly tumble from very weariness before many years have pa.s.sed. Above the tops of the closely-planted trees to the right are to be seen the chimneys of a deserted-looking building, raised in the early nineteenth century by a Duke of Portland, in imitation of the Priory Gatehouse at Worksop. This stands at the end of a fine undulating glade. On the north side are statues of Richard the First, Allan-a-Dale, and Friar Tuck; on the south, others of Robin Hood, Maid Marion, and Little John.