Washington and the American Republic Part 51

JARED SPARKS.

His Excellency John A. Andrew, _Governor of Ma.s.sachusetts._

MR. SUMNER TO MR. SPARKS.

BOSTON, November 22, 1860.

MY DEAR SIR: Since our last conversation, the Earl Spencer has kindly sent to me precise copies of the two "Memorial Stones" of the English family of George Washington, which I have already described to you as harmonizing exactly with the pedigree which has the sanction of your authority. These are of the same stone and of the same size with the originals, and have the original inscriptions--being in all respects _facsimiles_. They will, therefore, give you an exact idea of these most interesting memorials in the parish church of Brington, near Althorp, in Northamptonshire.

The largest is of Lawrence Washington, the father of John Washington, who emigrated to America. It is a slab of bluish-gray sandstone, and measures five feet and nine inches long, and two feet and seven inches broad. Here is the inscription:

HERE LIETH THE BODI OF LAVRENCE WASHINGTON SONNE AND HEIRE OF ROBERT WASHINGTON OF SOVLGRAVE IN THE COUNTIE OF NORTHAMPTON ESQUIER WHO MARRIED MARGARET THE ELDEST DAUGHTER OF WILLIAM BUTLER OF TEES IN THE COUNTIE OF SUSs.e.xE ESQUIER, WHO HAD ISSU BY HER 8 SONNS AND 9 DAUGHTERS WHICH LAVRENCE DECESSED THE 13 OF DECEMBER A. DNI 1616.

THOU THAT BY CHANCE OR CHOYCE OF THIS HAST SIGHT KNOW LIFE TO DEATH RESIGNES AS DAYE TO NIGHT; BUT AS THE SUNNS RETORNE REVIVES THE DAY SO CHRIST SHALL US THOUGH TURNDE TO DUST & CLAY.

Above the inscription, carved in the stone, are the arms of the Washingtons, with an additional quartering of another family.

The other is of Robert Washington, and of Elizabeth his wife. Robert was the uncle of the emigrant. This is a slab of the same sandstone, and measures three feet and five inches long, and two feet and six inches broad. The inscription is on a small bra.s.s plate set into the stone, and is as follows:

[Ill.u.s.tration: DECORATION]

HERE LIES INTERRED Y^E BODIES OF ELIZAB. WASHINGTON WIDDOWE WHO CHANGED THIS LIFE FOR IMORTALITIE Y^E 19^TH OF MARCH 1622. AS ALSO Y^E BODY OF ROBERT WASHINGTON GENT. HER LATE HUSBAND SECOND SONNE OF ROBERT WASHINGTON OF SOLGRAVE IN Y^E COUNTY OF NORTH.

ESQ^R. WHO DEPTED THIS LIFE Y^E 10^TH OF MARCH 1622. AFTER THEY LIVED LOVINGLY TOGETHER MANY YEARS IN THIS PARISH.

On a separate bra.s.s, beneath the inscription, are the arms of the Washingtons without any addition. These, as you are well aware, have the combination of stars and stripes, and are sometimes supposed to have suggested our national flag. In heraldic language, there are bars of gules and argent, with three mullets, or stars.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HERELIETHTHEBODIOFLAVRENCE WASHINGTONSONNE&HEIREOF ROBERTWASHINGTONOFSOVLGRAVE INTHECOVNTIEOFNORTHAMPTON ESQVIERWHOMARIEDMARGARET THEELDESTDAVGHTEROFWILLIAM BVTLEROFTEESINTHECOVNTIE OFSVSs.e.xEESQVIERWHOHADISSV BYHER8SONNS&9DAVGHTERS WHICHLAVRENCEDECESSEDTHE13 OFDECEMBERA: D[^N]I:1616

THOVTHATBYCHANCEORCHOYCE OFTHISHASTSIGHT KNOWLIFETODEATHRESIGNES ASDAYETONIGHT BVTASTHESVNNSRETORNE REVIVESTHEDAYE SOCHRISTSHALLVS THOVGHTVRNDETODVST&CLAY]

In the interesting chapter on the "Origin and Genealogy of the Washington Family," which you give in the Appendix to your "Life of Washington," it appears that Lawrence, the father of the emigrant, died 13th December, and was buried at Brington, 15th December, 1616.

But the genealogical tables, which you followed, gave no indication of the locality of this church. Had it appeared that it was the parish church of the Spencer family in Northamptonshire, the locality, which I believe has not been heretofore known in our country, would have been precisely fixed.

In point of fact, the slab which covers Lawrence Washington is in the chancel of the church, by the side of the monuments of the Spencer family. These are all in admirable preservation, with full-length effigies, busts, or other sculptural work, and exhibit an interesting and connected series of sepulchral memorials from the reign of Henry VIII. to the present time. Among them is a monument of the early English sculptor, Nicholas Stone; another from Nollekins from a design by Cipriani, and another by Flaxman, with exquisitely beautiful personifications of Faith and Charity. Beneath repose the successive representatives of this ill.u.s.trious family, which has added to its aristocratic claims by services to the state, and also by the unique and world-famous library collected by one of its members. In this companionship will be found the last English ancestor of our Washington.

The other slab, covering Robert, the uncle of the emigrant, is in one of the aisles of the nave, where it is sc.r.a.ped by the feet of all who pa.s.s.

The parish of Brington is between seven and eight miles from the town of Northampton, not far from the centre of England. It is written in Domesday Book "Brinintone" and also "Brintone." It contains about 2,210 acres, of which about 1,490 acres belong to Earl Spencer, about 326 acres to the rector in right of the church, and about 130 acres to other persons. The soil is in general a dark-colored loam, with a small trace of clay towards the north.

Nearly four-fifths of the whole is pasture and feeding land.

In the village still stands the house said to have been occupied by the Washingtons when the emigrant brother left them. You will see a vignette of it on the t.i.tle-page of the recent English work ent.i.tled "The Washingtons." Over the door are carved the words, "The Lord giveth; the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord;"

while the Parish Register gives a pathetic commentary by showing that, in the very year when this house was built, a child had been born and another had died in this family.

The church, originally dedicated to the Virgin, stands at the northeast angle of the village, and consists of an embattled tower with five bells, a nave, north and south aisles, a chancel, a chapel, and a modern porch; the tower is flanked by b.u.t.tresses of two stages. The present fabric goes back in its origin to the beginning of the 14th century, nearly two hundred years before the discovery of America. The chancel and chapel, where repose the Spencers and Lawrence Washington, were rebuilt by Sir John Spencer, the purchaser of the estate, at the beginning of the 16th century.

They afford one of the latest specimens of the Tudor style of architecture. The church is beautifully situated on the summit of the highest ground of Brington, and is surrounded by a stone wall flanked on the inside by trees. Dibdin says that a more complete picture of a country churchyard is rarely seen. A well-trimmed walk encircles the whole of the interior, while the fine Gothic windows at the end of the chancel fill the scene with picturesque beauty.

The Register of the Parish, which is still preserved, commences in 1560. From this it appears that Wm. Proctor was the rector from 1601 to 1627, covering the period of the last of the Washingtons there.

The following further entries occur relating to this family:

1616. "Mr. Lawrence Washington was buried XVth day of December."

1620. "Mr. Philip Curtis & Mis Amy Washington were married August 8."

1622. "Mr. Robert Washington was buried March ye 11th."

---- "Mrs. Elizabeth Washington, widow, was buried March ye 20th."

Of one of the ministers in this church we have an interesting glimpse in Evelyn's "Memoirs" (vol. i. p. 612), where the following entry will be found, under date of July, 1688: "Dr. Jeffreys, the minister of Althorp, who was my lord's chaplain when Emba.s.sador in France, _preached the shortest discourse I ever heard_; but what was defective in the amplitude of his sermon, he had supplied in the largeness and convenience of the parsonage-house."

At a short distance--less than a mile--is Althorp, the seat of the Spencers, surrounded by a park of five hundred acres, of which one of the gates opens near the church. There are oak-trees bordering on the churchyard, which were growing at the time of the purchase of the estate in the reign of Henry VII. Evelyn was often here a delighted visitor. On one occasion he speaks of "the house or rather palace at Althorp" (vol. i. p. 612). In another place he describes it as "placed in a pretty open bottom, very finely watered, and flanked with stately woods and groves in a park" (vol. i. p. 451).

Let me add that there is an engraving of Althorp at this time, by the younger Vosterman, a Dutch artist.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WASHINGTON HOUSE, BRINGTON.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: INSCRIPTION OVER THE DOOR OF THE WASHINGTON HOUSE, BRINGTON.]

There is one feature of the park which excited the admiration of Evelyn, and at a later day of Mrs. Jameson, who gives to it some beautiful pages in her "Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad." It is the record of the time when different plantations of trees was begun. While recommending this practice in his "Sylva," Evelyn remarks, "The only instance I know of the like in our country, is in the park at Althorp." There are six of these commemorative stones.

The first records a wood planted by Sir John Spencer, in 1567 and 1568; the second, a wood planted by Sir John Spencer, son of the former, in 1589; the third, a wood planted by Robert, Lord Spencer, in 1602 and 1603; the fourth, a wood planted by Sir William Spencer, Knight of the Bath, afterwards Lord Spencer, in 1624. The latter stone is ornamented with the arms of the Spencers, and on the back is inscribed, "Up and bee doing, and G.o.d will prosper." It was in this scenery and amidst these a.s.sociations that the Washingtons lived. When the emigrant left in 1657, these woods must have been well-grown. It was not long afterwards that they arrested the attention of Evelyn.

The Household Books at Althorp show that for many years the Washingtons were frequent guests there. The hospitality of this seat has been renowned. The Queen of James I. and the Prince Henry, on their way to London, in 1603, were welcomed there in an entertainment, memorable for a masque from the vigorous muse of Ben Jonson (Ben Jonson's Works, vol. vi. p. 475). Charles I. was at Althorp, in 1647, when he received the first intelligence of the approach of those pursuers from whom he never escaped until his life had been laid down upon the scaffold. In 1698, King William was there for a week, and, according to Evelyn, was "mightily entertained" (vol. ii. p. 50). At least one of the members of this family was famous for hospitality of a different character. Evelyn records that he used to dine with the Countess of Sunderland--the t.i.tle then borne by the Spencers--"when she invited _fire-eaters_, stone-eaters, and opera-singers, after the fashion of the day" (vol.

i. pp. 458, 483, 579).

The family was early and constantly a.s.sociated with literature.

Spencer, the poet, belonged to it, and to one of its members he has dedicated his "Tears of the Muses." It was for Alice Spencer that Milton is said to have written his "Arcades," and Sir John Harrington has celebrated her memory by an epigram. The Sacharissa of Waller was the Lady Dorothy Sidney, wife of the first Earl of Sunderland, the third Lord Spencer, who perished fighting for King Charles I. at Newbury. I do not dwell on the other a.s.sociations of a later day, as my object is simply to allude to those which existed in the time of the Washingtons.

"The n.o.bility of the Spencers has been ill.u.s.trated and enriched by the trophies of Marlborough; but I exhort them to consider the 'Fairy Queen' as the most precious jewel of their coronet." Thus wrote Gibbon in his memoirs, and all must feel the beauty of the pa.s.sage. Perhaps it is not too much to say that this n.o.bility may claim another ill.u.s.tration from its ties of friendship and neighborhood with the family of Washington. It cannot doubt that hereafter the parish church of Brington will be often visited by our countrymen, who will look with reverence upon a spot so closely a.s.sociated with American history.

I trust that this little sketch, suggested by what I saw at Althorp, during a brief visit last autumn, will not seem irrelevant. Besides my own personal impressions, and the volumes quoted, I have relied upon Dibdin's "aedes Althorpianae," so interesting to all bibliographical students, and especially upon Baker's "History of Northamptonshire"--one of those magnificent local works which ill.u.s.trate English history--to which you refer in your Appendix, but which was not completed till some time after the "Life of Washington" appeared.

Of course, the Memorial Stones which I have received from Lord Spencer are of much historic value, and I think that I shall best carry out the generous idea of the giver by taking care that they are permanently placed where they can be seen by the public; perhaps at the State House, near Chantrey's beautiful statue of Washington--if this should be agreeable to the Commonwealth.

Pray pardon this long letter, and believe me, my dear Sir, with much regard,

Ever sincerely yours,

CHARLES SUMNER.

JARED SPARKS, Esq.

The Commonwealth of Ma.s.sachusetts, by its Representatives, thanked Mr.

Sumner, and directed the Memorial Stones to be placed where they now are.

THE END.