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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dukeries, by R. Murray Gilchrist
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Dukeries
+
+Author: R. Murray Gilchrist
+
+Illustrator: E. W. Haslehust
+
+Release Date: August 30, 2008 [EBook #26486]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUKERIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
+Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE PRIORY GATEWAY, WORKSOP]
+
+
+    THE
+    DUKERIES
+
+    Described by R. Murray Gilchrist
+
+    Pictured by E. W. Haslehust
+
+    [Illustration]
+
+    BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED
+    LONDON GLASGOW AND BOMBAY
+    1913
+
+
+
+
+    +--------------------------------------------------+
+    |                 ~Beautiful England~              |
+    |                   _Volumes Ready_                |
+    |                          |                       |
+    | OXFORD                   |   THE CORNISH RIVIERA |
+    | THE ENGLISH LAKES        |   DICKENS-LAND        |
+    | CANTERBURY               |   WINCHESTER          |
+    | SHAKESPEARE-LAND         |   THE ISLE OF WIGHT   |
+    | THE THAMES               |   CHESTER             |
+    | WINDSOR CASTLE           |   YORK                |
+    | CAMBRIDGE                |   THE NEW FOREST      |
+    | NORWICH AND THE BROADS   |   HAMPTON COURT       |
+    | THE HEART OF WESSEX      |   EXETER              |
+    | THE PEAK DISTRICT        |   HEREFORD            |
+    |                    THE DUKERIES                  |
+    |                                                  |
+    |              _Uniform with this Series_          |
+    |                                                  |
+    |                  ~Beautiful Ireland~             |
+    |                                                  |
+    |       LEINSTER           |     MUNSTER           |
+    |       ULSTER             |     CONNAUGHT         |
+    +--------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+                                                      Page
+
+    The Priory Gateway, Worksop             _Frontispiece_
+
+    Worksop Manor                                        8
+
+    Robin Hood's Larder                                 14
+
+    The Major Oak, Thoresby Park                        20
+
+    The Beech Avenue, Thoresby                          26
+
+    Welbeck Abbey                                       32
+
+    Clumber                                             36
+
+    Thoresby                                            42
+
+    Ollerton                                            48
+
+    Rufford Abbey                                       52
+
+    The Japanese Garden, Rufford Abbey                  56
+
+    Edwinstowe                                          60
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE DUKERIES]
+
+
+WORKSOP AND THE MANOR
+
+Although within the last twenty-five years Worksop has suffered many
+changes, unfortunate enough from an ęsthetic point of view, the Dukeries
+end of the principal street still suggests the comfortable market town
+in the neighbourhood of folk of quality. The only relic of notable
+antiquity is the quaint inn, known as the Old Ship--a building with
+projecting upper story and carved oaken beams that might have been
+transported from Chester.
+
+The twin-towered Priory Church, a gatehouse of singular interest, and
+some slight, gracefully proportioned ecclesiastical ruins are the main
+features of interest. The Priory was founded by William de Lovetot, and
+used by the canons of the order of St. Augustine. Great men were buried
+there, notably several chiefs of the Furnival family, who had for town
+residence Furnival's Inn in Holborn. The interior of the church contains
+some excellent round and octagonal pillars, and one or two ancient
+effigies. The walls are coated with stucco, which detracts considerably
+from the beauty of this handsomely proportioned building. One of the
+most interesting things to be seen is a piece of a human skull, pierced
+with an arrowhead. This hangs to the left of the doorway by which the
+vestry is reached. There is a weird superstition concerning the moving
+of this relic.
+
+Near by is the ruined chapel, erected about the middle of the thirteenth
+century. It was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and in olden times must
+have blazed with gorgeous colours. The roof has fallen; little remains
+of its former beauty save the lancet windows. The double piscina and the
+sedilia are still in fair preservation, and we are shown the round holes
+in the stonework once filled with the pegs of the canons' oaken seats.
+
+In the churchyard are a few quaint epitaphs for such as delight to dwell
+upon the virtues of the forgotten dead. The Priory Gatehouse at the
+farther end is perhaps one of the most interesting buildings of its kind
+in existence. The stonework is of soft grey, and the roof chiefly of
+well-coloured tiles. A roadway about fifteen yards in length passes
+through the building; the original ceiling of oaken beams with graceful
+braces is still in good condition. Above this was the Hospitium, or
+guest chamber, where may be seen the hooded chimney-piece and the hearth
+before which old-time travellers rested o' nights and told tales that
+Chaucer might have loved, before retiring to the smaller chambers, to
+sleep heavily after the good cheer provided by their priestly hosts. In
+front of this relic stands the old market cross; and near by, until
+within the nineteenth century, were the stocks for vagrants and
+refractory townsmen.
+
+Camden tells us that in his time Worksop was "noted for its great
+produce of liquorice, and famous for the Earl of Shrewsbury's house,
+built in our memory by George Talbot, with the magnificence becoming so
+great an Earl, and yet below envy". In Park Street, not far from the
+Priory Gateway, is one of the entrances to the Manor Park. The trees
+still remaining are not noteworthy in the matter of size, with the
+exception of a few cedars and beeches near the terrace of the house. As
+one approaches, the Manor Hills, gently sloping and well wooded, with
+heather-covered clearings, may be seen to the left. As for the house
+itself, the garden front of to-day, without being of great architectural
+interest, has a very pleasant air of unpretentious comfort and
+brightness. There is a flower garden whose beds are edged with box and
+yew. The chief object of note is a long and high wall, probably a
+portion of the ancient house; this is somewhat dignified with its worn
+coping, whereon stand various urns the carving of which time has
+softened. From the terrace one looks down on the sloping park with its
+mere, and scattered trees, and graceful groups of young horses.
+
+Passing round the house, and entering a vast gateway surmounted by a
+lion, one sees, to the right, part of the manor built after 1761, when
+the house which replaced the Elizabethan palace built by the Earl of
+Shrewsbury and his Countess Bess, with its pictures and furniture and
+some of the Arundelian marbles, was destroyed by fire. To my thinking,
+the most suggestive view of the present edifice is gained from the
+Mansfield road, within a few minutes' walk of the town.
+
+From an ancient engraving we find that the first house bore some
+resemblance to Hardwick Hall, the great Bess's most successful building.
+It contained five hundred rooms; in front was a fine courtyard, with a
+central octagonal green plot surrounding a basin with a fountain. The
+artist gave to this a touch of life by drawing a coach and six proudly
+curving towards the outlet; on the lawns beyond are ladies with
+fan-shaped hoops, and thin-legged gentlemen with puffed coat skirts.
+
+[Illustration: WORKSOP MANOR]
+
+Of this house Horace Walpole writes, in 1756: "Lord Stafford carried us
+to Worksop, where we passed two days. The house is huge and one of the
+magnificent works of Old Bess of Hardwick, who guarded the Queen of
+Scots here for some time in a wretched little bedchamber within her own
+lofty one:--there is a tolerable little picture ('The story of
+Bathsheba, finely drawn and shaded, in faint colours') of Mary's
+needlework. The great apartment is vast and _triste_, the whole leanly
+furnished: the great gallery, of about two hundred feet, at the top of
+the house, is divided into a library and into nothing. The chapel is
+decent. There is no prospect, and the barren face of the country is
+richly furred with evergreen plantations." In 1761 he records that
+"Worksop--the new house--is burned down; I don't know the circumstances,
+it has not been finished a month; the last furniture was brought in for
+the Duke of York: I have some comfort that I had seen it; except the
+bare chamber in which the Queen of Scots lodged, nothing remained of
+ancient time".
+
+Not only was Mary Stuart well acquainted with Worksop Manor, but later,
+her son, James the First, on his first progress to London, became the
+guest of Gilbert, Earl of Shrewsbury, her jailer's successor. In a
+letter to his agent, John Harpur, this nobleman writes forewarning him
+of the expected honour, and, after bidding him see to horses being in
+readiness, adds, as postcript: "I will not refuse anie fatt capons and
+hennes, partridges, or the like, yf the King come to me". We find that
+James left Edinburgh on the fifth of April, 1603, and reached Worksop on
+the twentieth, after leaving the High Sheriff of Yorkshire at Bawtry,
+and being met and escorted by his brother of Nottinghamshire. It is
+matter for surprise that the king accepted the Talbot hospitality,
+considering their melancholy connection with his mother's tragedy, but
+it is true that he never made parade of filial piety. At Worksop Park
+appeared a number of huntsmen, clad in Lincoln green, whose chief, "with
+a woodman's speech, did welcome him, offering His Majesty to show him
+some game, which he gladly consented to see, and, with a traine set, he
+hunted a good space, very much delighted: at last he went into the
+house, where he was so nobly received, with superfluitie of all things,
+that still every entertainment seemed to exceed other. In this place,
+besides the abundance of all provision and delicacies, there was most
+excellent soul-ravishing musique, wherewith His Highness was not a
+little delighted." One wonders if he was shown the royal prisoner's
+miserable little room. At Worksop he spent a night, and in the morning
+stayed for breakfast, which ended, "there was such store of provision
+left, of fowls, fish, and almost everything, besides bread, beere and
+wines, that it was left open for any man that would, to come and take".
+
+In the State papers relating to the Rebellion of '45 may be found a
+curious and interesting account of a secret hiding-place, reached by
+lifting a sheet of lead on the roof. A tattling young woman told the
+story upon oath, describing a staircase that descended to a little room
+with a fireplace, a bed, and a few chairs, with a door in the wainscot
+that opened to a place full of arms. Unfortunately, both history and
+tradition are silent concerning any shelter offered by Worksop Manor to
+proscribed folk.
+
+After the burning of the new house, in 1761, the Duke of Norfolk, Lord
+Shrewsbury's descendant, laid the foundation stone of another in 1763.
+We learn that this was to have been one of the largest in England; but
+that only one side of the proposed quadrangle was completed, although
+five hundred workmen were employed, and closely supervised by the
+duchess in person. This stood for three-quarters of a century; then, the
+estate being sold to the Duke of Newcastle, the greater part of the
+house was pulled down and the present place built.
+
+Of the original park, which Evelyn mentions as "sweet and delectable",
+nowadays there is but little to be seen. There still remains, however, a
+beech grove called the "Druid's Temple", a "Lover's Walk" for
+sentimental youth, and a wood of acacias and cedars, yews and tulip
+trees--once known as the "Wilderness", but since the eighteenth century
+called the "Menagerie", because of a Duchess of Norfolk who kept an
+aviary within its precincts. Mrs. Delany, in 1756, thus alludes to this
+place: "We went there on Sunday evening; but I only saw a crown bird and
+a most delightful cockatoo, with yellow breast and topping". There is an
+air of pleasing disorder about the drives, and one is occasionally
+reminded of Irish demesnes.
+
+Within a mile of the house once stood the celebrated "Shire oak"--a
+gigantic tree whose branches overshadowed a portion of Nottinghamshire,
+of Derbyshire, and of Yorkshire. Evelyn tells us that the distance from
+bough-end to bough-end was ninety feet, and that two hundred and
+thirty-five horses might have sheltered beneath its foliage. This tree
+disappeared entirely in the eighteenth century, and the exact site is
+now a matter of some uncertainty.
+
+
+
+
+SHERWOOD FOREST AND ROBIN HOOD
+
+To savour the full charm of Sherwood Forest one must stray from the
+highroad, lose one's path, and wander in happy patience until a broad
+avenue is reached, or above the treetops one sees the slender and
+graceful spire of some stately church. The formal beauty of the
+frequented ways--trimly kept and splendidly coloured--precludes all
+illusion: only in the remote solitudes with their monstrous old trees is
+it possible to evoke a mind picture of Robin Hood and his devoted
+followers. And even in the most secluded places the imagined pageant of
+these folk suggests the theatre. The loveliness seems unreal--a
+background devised by some scene-painter of genius.
+
+But Sherwood is always beautiful and always tranquil; to those who know
+aught of wood magic it is as fair in cold midwinter as in autumn, when
+the leaves are no longer green leaves, but a rich mosaic of russet and
+orange and sullen red. My most wonderful memory is of a November day
+when a fine snow was falling, and the leaves drifted downward in a
+continuous murmuring veil. Then, no rabbits played upon the grassy
+wayside or crossed the track, and the pheasants shivered in their hidden
+shelters. In early springtime one best realizes the antiquity; the
+first opening leaves call to mind pale lichen growing upon damp castle
+walls: in summer the air is languorous, bringing a desire for rest and
+contemplation. Storms are impious there: the ancient oaks and birches
+and chestnuts must wail and protest, like dotards wakened from senility
+to cruel hours of actual life.
+
+Of the old forest naught remains in perfection save the southern parts
+known as Birkland and Bilhagh, in the neighbourhood of Edwinstowe and
+Ollerton. Near the former village may be seen the famous "Major Oak" and
+"Robin Hood's Larder". The full glory departed several centuries ago;
+Camden himself writes of "Sherewood, which some interpret as _clear
+Wood_, others as _famous Wood_, formerly one close continu'd shade with
+the boughs of trees so entangled in one another, that one could hardly
+walk single in the paths," that "at present it is much thinner, and
+feeds an infinite number of Deer and Stags".
+
+In British times the district was occupied by the tribe of the Coritani,
+and later the Romans built several camps here, various relics of which
+were discovered in the eighteenth century. Not far away, Edwin, the
+Saxon King of Northumbria, was slain in battle--fighting against Penda,
+King of Mercia, and Cadwallader, King of Wales; and in all probability
+his body was buried at the village of Edwinstowe.
+
+[Illustration: ROBIN HOOD'S LARDER]
+
+The earliest definite notice of Sherwood dates from the days of Henry
+the Second, when William Peverel had control and profit of the district
+under the Crown. After his dispossession, a lady named Matilda de Caux
+and her husband held the office of Chief Foresters. In Edward the
+First's time this office was seized by the Crown, and granted, as a
+special mark of favour, to persons of high station.
+
+The _Charta de Foresta_, constructed in Henry the Third's reign,
+contains some curious information about woodland customs. We learn that
+"any archbishop, bishop, earl, or baron, coming to the King at his
+command, and passing through the forests, might take and kill one or two
+of the King's deer, by view of the forester if he were present; if not,
+then he might do it upon the blowing of a horn, that it might not look
+like a theft. The same might be done when they returned."[1] Courts
+called Swainmotes were held thrice yearly--one fifteen days before
+Michaelmas, a second about the Feast of St. Martin, and a third fifteen
+days before St. John Baptist's Day. At the same time the cruel
+punishments for offences against the forest laws were lessened in
+rigour. Thenceforth no man was punished with death or mutilation for
+illegally hunting, but if found taking venison was fined heavily. If he
+were unable to pay, he was imprisoned for a year and a day, and then
+discharged upon pledges; but if unable to find any surety, was exiled.
+
+    Footnote 1: Reeves's _English Law_.]
+
+The chief officers were known as foresters, verderors, woodwards, and
+agisters. Each verderor had the liberty of taking a tree out of Birkland
+or Bilhagh; but this privilege seems to have been abused, since in later
+years the officers were found to choose the best timber available, and
+in William the Third's reign the favour was withdrawn.
+
+Until the sixteenth century the forest seems to have been infested with
+wolves: we read that one, Sir Robert Plumpton, in Henry the Sixth's
+time, held land called "wolf-hunt land" at Mansfield Woodhouse, seven or
+eight miles away, by service of horn-blowing to chase or frighten away
+these creatures. In 1635, from a survey taken by royal command, it was
+discovered that the forests contained 1367 red deer, 987 of these being
+"rascalds", or ill-conditioned. A few years before, the district had
+been ravaged by fire, and a contemporary writer describes the
+conflagration as one such as was "never knowne in menes memory; beinge
+four mille longe and a mille and a halfe over all at once". Later the
+gentleman tells how "ridinge on his way through the forest homeward, he
+saw a greate herde of faire red deere, and amonst them 2 extreordanory
+greet stages, the which he never saw the like".
+
+Much of the forest oak was used for the royal navy, but more was allowed
+to decay. Folk of good birth but fallen fortunes frequently begged a
+grant of these trees from the Crown. In 1677 Thoroton writes that so
+many claims were granted that there would soon not be wood enough left
+to cover the bilberries! As time went on, the cleared portions, being of
+no further use for kingly sport, were sold to various noblemen. In 1683,
+1270 acres were bought by the Duke of Kingston, to add to Thoresby Park;
+while early in the eighteenth century 3000 acres were enclosed for the
+making of Clumber Park. The last portions of the forest remaining were
+the hays, or enclosures, of Birkland and Bilhagh, which were granted to
+the Duke of Portland about 1827, in exchange for the perpetual advowson
+of St. Mary-le-Bone. Bilhagh later became the property of the late Earl
+Manvers, its price being the manors of Holbeck and Bonbusk, near
+Welbeck. After the resignation of the Crown lands the waning historical
+interest of Sherwood ceased. Birkland and Bilhagh are still beautiful as
+in their prime, but the rest of the neighbourhood is nowadays naught but
+a wonderful pleasaunce, where drowsy pheasants wander unafraid, and
+where the chief signs of life are on holidays, when happy folk crowd
+from the neighbouring towns to view, awestricken, the wonders and the
+riches of the great houses, and the artificial beauties of perhaps the
+finest parks in England.
+
+One or two literary men of some distinction have rhapsodized over the
+charms of Sherwood, notably William Howitt and Washington Irving. Lord
+Byron, whose house of Newstead lies not far away, displayed but little
+interest in the district. The only modern writer to whom the secret of
+the real Sherwood has been fully divulged is Mr. James Prior, whose
+books, inspired by the spirit of the woodlands, should delight all who
+love fresh and wholesome pictures of unspoiled country life.
+
+Sherwood, as everybody knows, was Robin Hood's kingdom. Learned men have
+racked their brains concerning the great outlaw's existence. Joseph
+Hunter, the historian of Hallamshire, published in 1852 an ingenious
+tract concerning his period and his real character, which in short gives
+plausible enough details of his adventures. There is a well known by his
+name not far from Doncaster, another near Hathersage, in the Peak
+Country; and more than one village prides itself upon the site of his
+"Shooting Butts". A cave, by legend ascribed to him, may be found on an
+"edge" overhanging the Derwent valley, whilst within an easy walk of
+Haddon Hall one may see two rocks known as his "Stride".
+
+Langland, in the _Vision of Piers Plowman_, makes the first mention of
+his popularity:--
+
+    "I kan not parfitly my paternoster, as the priest sayeth,
+     But I kan rymes of Robyn Hode and Randolf, Earl of Chester".
+
+Again, in John Fordun's _Scottish Chronicle_, written about 1360, we
+find him described not only as a notorious robber, but as a man of great
+charity. In 1493 Wynkyn de Worde printed a sequence of old ballads
+treating of his adventures. This book, known as _The Lytel Geste of
+Robyn Hood_, became very popular, and brought into vogue the rustic
+pageants known as the Robin Hood Games, in which the adventures of the
+outlaw and his companions, Maid Marion, Little John, Will Scarlet, and
+Friar Tuck, were depicted for the admiration of the multitude.
+
+In the public library of the University of Cambridge is preserved the
+manuscript of the finest and most ancient ballad. This, which is known
+as "A Tale of Robin Hood", may be cited in its quaint and dramatic
+picturesqueness as the most perfect and complete example of song
+literature extant. It begins with Robin's desire to attend church at
+Nottingham, since "It is a fortnight and more sin' I my Saviour saw".
+Little John accompanies him, but on the way they quarrel about a wager,
+and Robin strikes him, upon which the faithful servant departs in high
+dudgeon. At Nottingham a hooded monk recognizes our hero and gives the
+alarm. He is surrounded by the sheriff and his followers, and, although
+he slays twelve men, is at last captured, and held in durance until
+Little John, who has quite forgiven him, accomplishes his release by a
+clever stratagem.
+
+The chap-book entitled _Robin Hood's Garland_, which was published at
+York, contains the generally believed account of his death and burial.
+In it we read how he visited his cousin, the Prioress of Kirklees
+Nunnery, for the purpose of being bled. She, who must have been
+soul-sister of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, took advantage of his
+defencelessness, and, after opening a vein, locked up the room and left
+him for a day. Before dying, he blew his horn, and Little John, who was
+outside, burst open the doors just in time to hear his last words. The
+_Garland_ is full of instances of Robin's nobility, and for delightful,
+invigorating reading may even be commended to the youth of to-day. It is
+a concise little history, beginning with the first day of his outlawry,
+and ending with the fatal scene at Kirklees. As a vivid series of
+woodland sketches it is without parallel of its kind, and reading, one
+may almost journey through the greater Sherwood in the company of the
+goodly archers clothed in Lincoln green.
+
+[Illustration: THE MAJOR OAK, THORESBY PARK]
+
+The humour is bucolic and breezy. The song of "Robin Hood and the
+Bishop", which the black-letter copy describes as "Shewing how Robin
+Hood went to an old woman's house, and changed cloathes with her to
+escape from the bishop, and how he robbed the bishop of all his gold and
+made him sing a mass", contains about the best specimen of this country
+wit. Again, in _Robin Hood and the Tanner of Nottingham_ is a most
+ludicrous account of the manner in which, after being threatened with a
+"knop upon his bare scop", Robin receives as sound a drubbing as ever he
+himself inflicted. But this punishment, and his philosophical manner of
+bearing it, only earned him another follower, since the victorious
+tanner became at once enamoured of the free forest life, and swore there
+and then to join the band.
+
+The Elizabethan dramatists made good use of our hero, knowing well that
+when he was presented on the stage the hearts of the people were moved.
+In "a Pleasant Commedie called Looke About You", he appears as a
+fresh-faced and pretty young nobleman, ever ready to do a good turn to
+his friends, to whom everybody defers, and who passes through the play
+laughing and merry as his namesake, the Goodfellow of Ben Jonson. So
+rosy are his cheeks and so bright his eyes that he personates the
+heroine, Lady Fauconbridge, at some unwelcome visits that she dreads.
+_The Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon_, by Anthony Munday, who
+wrote at the end of the sixteenth century, gives the next dramatic
+information. This shows him living in full state, but still young, and
+on the eve of marriage with Matilda Fitzwater, Lord Lacy's child. His
+steward, Warman, instigated by the Prior of York, betrays him in
+Judas-like fashion (for what real reason we are not told, if it be not
+for the wasting of his lands), and as an outlaw he flies to the
+greenwood, where he is joined by Matilda, who renounces her fine name
+and calls herself Maid Marion. Prince John has fallen in love with her,
+and she is in mortal fear of his pursuit. In this play Little John and
+Friar Tuck converse prettily in an aside:--
+
+    _Little John._ Methinks I see no jest of Robin Hood,
+                   No merry morrices of Friar Tuck,
+                   No pleasant skippings up and down the wood,
+                   No hunting songs, no coursings of the buck.
+
+    _Friar Tuck._  For merry jests they have been shown before,
+                   As how the friar fell into the well
+                   For love of Jenny, that fair bonny belle;
+                   How Greenleaf robbed the Shrieve of Nottingham,
+                   And other mirthful matters full of game.
+
+These passages obviously refer to the antecedent plays. After this comes
+_The Death of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon_, collaborated by the same
+author with Henry Chettle, another successful playwright. This,
+differing from the ballad account, shows how he was poisoned by his
+uncle, the wicked prior. His obsequies are solemnized with a plaintive
+little dirge:--
+
+    "Weep, weep, ye woodmen, wail,
+     Your hands with sorrow wring,
+     Your master Robin Hood lies dead,
+     Therefore sigh as you sing.
+
+    "Here lie his primer and his beads,
+     His bent bow and his arrows keen,
+     His good sword and his holy cross:
+     Now cast on flowers fresh and green;
+
+    "And as they fall, shed tears and say,
+     Wella, wella-day! wella, wella-day:
+     Thus cast ye flowers and sing,
+     And on to Wakefield take your way."
+
+After his demise poor Marion is so tormented by her royal persecutor
+that she seeks refuge in Dunmow Abbey, where she is poisoned by the
+king's order. In each play the outlaw is extolled so highly, and made so
+admirable in every way, that in spite of the quaintness one is moved to
+honest admiration. His dying scene is most pathetic, and there is no
+doubt that the simple country audience would weep as though for a dearly
+loved friend.
+
+The airs pertaining to the Robin Hood literature are merry in the
+extreme--delicious, sparkling waves of melody, to which thousands of
+country dances have been performed. They sprang from the heart, and
+even to-day, if offered to the public, might win popular success. All
+are "lusty fellows with good backbones", such as Shakespeare in his
+salad days must have listened to and admired. Gay, in his pastoral _The
+Flights_, gives a charming picture of Bowzybeus delighting the reapers
+with one of these ballads, ere falling asleep midst happy laughter.
+
+In folklore are still preserved a few relics. "To go round by Robin
+Hood's barn" is to travel in a roundabout fashion, and "to sell Robin
+Hood's pennyworths", to sell much below value, as a generous robber
+might. His "feather" is the Traveller's Joy, his "hatband" the
+club-moss. His "men" or his "sheep" are the bracken, and his "wind" a
+wind that brings on a thaw. We are told that Robin could stand anything
+but a "tho wind". The Red Campion, the Ragged Robin, and the Herb Robert
+are known in several counties by his name. His greatest claim to
+popularity was that he took away the goods of none save rich men, never
+killed any person except in self-defence, charitably fed the poor, and
+was in short, as an old writer tells us, "the most humane and the prince
+of robbers".
+
+
+
+
+WELBECK ABBEY
+
+The present house of Welbeck was built upon the site of an abbey for
+Premonstratensian canons, which was begun in 1140. Nothing, however,
+remains of the old place save some stonework in the cellars and a few
+inner walls. A portion of the house dates from 1604; in an engraving
+from the great Duke of Newcastle's book on Horsemanship we find that it
+originally bore some resemblance to a French chāteau. Charles the First
+and Henrietta Maria were entertained here--the house being placed at
+their disposal whilst their host occupied Bolsover Castle, some miles
+distant. Ben Jonson devised a masque entitled "Love's Welcome" for the
+royal amusement, and there was such feasting and show that it cost
+between fourteen and fifteen thousand pounds.
+
+The Abbey is richly furnished, and contains one of the finest
+collections of pictures and miniatures in Europe, and a wealth of
+ancient manuscripts. The miniatures were gathered together in the early
+part of the eighteenth century by Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford. Of
+these treasures Mrs. Delany writes in 1756: "I have undertaken to set
+the miniatures of the Duchess of Portland [Lord Oxford's daughter and
+heiress] in order, as she does not like to trust them to anybody else,
+and for want of proper airing they are in danger of being spoiled. Such
+Petitots! such Olivers! such Coopers!" About that time the good lady
+describes an evening walk in park and gardens: "By the time we came in,
+the moon was risen to a great height, and we sat down in the great
+dining-room to contemplate its glory, and to talk of our friends, who in
+all likelihood were at that moment admiring its splendour as well as
+we". Later she confesses that Welbeck has a _glare of grandeur_, and
+that although she admires her Duchess when receiving princely honours
+and acquitting herself with dignity, she loves her best in her own
+private dressing-room!
+
+The miniatures were wellnigh lost in the middle of the nineteenth
+century. The late duke had lent the collection to the Manchester Art
+Treasures Exhibition of 1857, and a certain well-known literary man, who
+was in the owner's confidence, arranged for all to be sent to London, so
+that, like Mrs. Delany, he might arrange them in suitable order. There
+he pawned the whole lot for trifling sums, with seven different
+pawnbrokers; but, thanks chiefly to a well-known inhabitant of Worksop,
+all, with the exception of five, were recovered.
+
+[Illustration: THE BEECH AVENUE, THORESBY]
+
+Here are two famous Riding Houses, one the pride of the author of the
+great work on Horsemanship in Stuart times. This is used nowadays as a
+picture gallery, the late Duke of Portland having built another of
+dimensions almost double. To my thinking, one of the chief beauties of
+Welbeck is the gilded gateway opening to the avenue on the road from
+Worksop to Ollerton--surely one of the most graceful and yet imposing
+structures of its kind in the country. Another and more singular
+attraction consists of the subterranean roadways--gigantic mole runs the
+cause of whose creation is, and probably always will be, a mystery to
+the world in general. The pleasure gardens are stocked with rare trees,
+and the vast lake has so natural an appearance that one forgets that it
+was made by human folk. The kitchen garden is notably fine: we are told
+that it covers thirty acres, and that the houses for peaches and other
+luscious fruits extend over a quarter of a mile. There is a story of a
+monstrous bunch of Syrian grapes having, some generations ago, been
+grown there, and sent by the duke of that time across country to
+Wentworth House. It weighed nineteen and a half pounds, and was
+carried--as was the trophy taken by the spies from Canaan--attached to a
+pole.
+
+Finest of the Welbeck trees is the "Greendale Oak", which in 1724 was
+transformed, by cutting, into an archway, the aperture being 10 feet 3
+inches high and 6 feet 3 inches wide, so that a carriage, or three
+horsemen riding abreast, could pass through. From the branches cut off
+at that time a cabinet was made for the Countess of Oxford--a fine piece
+of furniture, inlaid with a representation of her spouse driving his
+chariot and six through the opening.
+
+Horace Walpole, in 1756, writes in his usual acid style: "I went to
+Welbeck. It is impossible to describe the bales of Cavendishes, Harleys,
+Holleses, Veres, and Ogles: every chamber is tapestried with them; nay,
+and with two thousand other morsels; all their histories inscribed; all
+their arms, crests, services, sculptured on chimneys of various English
+marbles in ancient forms (and to say truth) most of them ugly. Then such
+a Gothic hall, with pendent fretwork in imitation of the old, and with a
+chimney-piece like mine in the library. Such water-colour pictures! such
+historic fragments! There is Prior's portrait and the Column and
+Verelst's flower on which he wrote; and the authoress Duchess of
+Newcastle in a theatric habit, which she generally wore, and,
+consequently, looking as mad as the present Duchess; and dukes of the
+same name, looking as foolish as the present Duke; and Lady Mary
+Wortley, drawn as an authoress, with rather better pretensions; and
+cabinets and glasses wainscoted with the Greendale Oak, which was so
+large that an old steward wisely cut a way through it to make a
+triumphal passage for his lord and lady on their wedding! What treasures
+to revel over! The horseman Duke's mančge is converted into a lofty
+stable, and there is still a grove or two of magnificent oaks that have
+escaped all these great families, though the last Lord Oxford cut down
+above an hundred thousand pounds' worth. The place is little pretty,
+distinct from all these reverend circumstances." Twenty-one years later
+he writes: "Welbeck is a devastation. The house is a delight of my eyes,
+for it is a hospital of old portraits." One is inclined to believe that
+something in the order of his reception had stung him into lasting
+pique.
+
+The great ancestress of the owner of Welbeck, and of the other nobility
+in the Dukeries, was Bess of Hardwick, who built a magnificent country
+house on the "edge" overlooking the Vale of Scarsdale, some miles
+distant from the border of Sherwood Forest. This singular woman, as
+striking a personality as her contemporary and sometime friend Queen
+Elizabeth, occasionally passed in state along the "ridings".
+
+Her life-story is a marvellous instance of genius devoted to the
+attainment of a high position. The daughter of a well-to-do squire, she
+was married at fifteen to a wealthy young gentleman whose estate lay ten
+miles away, and who, dying very soon, left her mistress of the greater
+part of his fortune. Her first house at Barlow, near Chesterfield, has
+entirely disappeared, save for a piece of old wall. She remained a widow
+for many years, then married Sir William Cavendish, by whom she had six
+children. After his death she chose Sir William St. Loe, inherited his
+extensive estates, then, well past her prime, accepted the offer of the
+widowed George, Earl of Shrewsbury; but before the marriage insisted
+that two of her young Cavendishes should be married to two of his young
+Talbots. For a few years her fourth venture proved satisfactory enough;
+but the custody of Mary Queen of Scots apparently became too much of a
+nerve-strain for both man and wife; and their wrangles finally became
+common property in high circles. She embroiled herself with Queen
+Elizabeth; she persecuted her husband for his so-called
+meanness--although she was exceedingly rich in her own right; and, worst
+of all, she sowed dissension between him and his own offspring. The poor
+earl's condition was melancholy enough; one has no doubt that he was
+thankful to the heart when they separated for the last time.
+
+In the portrait at Hardwick Hall she is represented as a comely,
+roguish-looking matron in full maturity: a better idea of her character
+may be won from the effigy lying on the tomb she erected for herself in
+All Saints' Church at Derby. There one sees a face not unbeautiful, but
+cold and masterful in the extreme.
+
+It was her grandson, William, first Duke of Newcastle, who first gave
+lustre to Welbeck, and perhaps, after all, he owed most of his celebrity
+to an intellectual wife, known in Restoration days as "Mad Madge of
+Newcastle". Few pictures of domestic life in the seventeenth century are
+more pleasing than that given by this lady in the short account of her
+girlhood, which opens her fantastical autobiography. Born the youngest
+of Sir Thomas Lucas's eight children, in a large country house near
+Colchester, she was trained under a system of education originated by
+her mother. The daughters, of whom there were five, were not kept
+strictly to their schoolbooks, but rather taught "for formality than
+benefit". Singing, dancing, music, reading, writing, and embroidery were
+their accomplishments; but Mistress Lucas, who was left a widow soon
+after the birth of Margaret, cared not so much for dancing and fiddling
+and conversing in foreign languages as that they should be bred modestly
+and on honest principles. In London, where they migrated for the season,
+they would visit Spring Gardens, Hyde Park, and similar places, and
+sometimes attended concerts, or supped in barges on the river.
+
+As she grew to womanhood Margaret became filled with the desire to play
+maid of honour to Queen Henrietta Maria, chiefly because she had heard
+that the queen in her poverty had not the same number of ladies as in
+her prosperity. After much persuasion her mother allowed her to leave
+home, and she joined the Court at Oxford, and soon afterwards met
+William Cavendish, who was her senior by nearly thirty years. They
+married, and the battle of Marston Moor forced them into exile. Obliged
+to return to England, so that she might raise funds, she wrote one or
+two volumes of _Poems_ and _Philosophical Fancies_, successors to
+another grotesque work entitled _The World's Olio_. These were the first
+three of ten immense folios, treating of every imaginable subject, and
+most slipshod in grammar and style, that she gave to the world, tenderly
+regarding them, in the absence of any other offspring, as her children.
+
+[Illustration: WELBECK ABBEY]
+
+The Lives of the duke and of herself are, however, the only productions
+remembered nowadays. Of the first, Charles Lamb says: "There is no
+casket rich enough, no casing sufficiently durable, to honour and keep
+safe such a jewel"; but Pepys, who lived at the same time as the noble
+authoress, described it as "the ridiculous History of the Duke, which
+shows her to be a mad, conceited, rediculous woman, and he an asse to
+suffer her to write what she does to and of him". Her own memoir is
+charmingly and unaffectedly egotistical. She tells us: "I fear my
+ambition inclines to vainglory, for I am very ambitious, yet 'tis
+neither for beauty, wit, title, wealth, or power, but as they are Steps
+to raise me to Fancies Tower, which is to live by remembrance in all
+ages.... My Disposition is more inclined to Melancholy than Merry, but
+not crabbed or peevish Melancholy, but soft, melting, and contemplating
+Melancholy, and I am apt rather to weep than to laugh." Always fearing
+that she might be mistaken by posterity for her husband's first wife,
+she gives an elaborate explanation at the end of the book, so that all
+in after years might accredit her with intellectual magnificence.
+
+Although she met with much ridicule at the Court of Charles the Second,
+being satirized particularly by the libertine poets Etherege and Sedley,
+the fulsome praise of men of considerable intellect was lavished upon
+her, and even the sedate and usually truthful Evelyn, after a lengthy
+enumeration of the great women of history, flattered her with the
+assurance that all of those summed up together only divided between them
+what she retained in one! A curious story is told of her appearance with
+a train-bearer in the chamber of Catherine of Portugal. As this was a
+breach of Court etiquette, she was forbidden to repeat it, and resented
+the reproof by wearing at her next appearance a train of satin and
+silver thirty yards long, with the end supported by four waiting-ladies
+in the ante-room.
+
+She wrote several plays, concerning one of which, _The Humorous Lovers_,
+Pepys tells us that although he would rather not have seen it, since it
+was so sickeningly silly, yet he was glad, because he could understand
+her better afterwards. At the end of the first performance, as a queen
+of breeding, she stood up in her box and made her respects to the
+actors.
+
+In those days of better fortunes the quaintly assorted couple spent much
+time in the country houses of Welbeck and Bolsover. The duke's income
+was very large, being equal to at least £200,000 of our money, and,
+since both had rural tastes, it is probable that they were far happier
+in Nottinghamshire than in their fine town mansion in Clerkenwell Close.
+Welbeck she admired most, since it was seated "in the bottom of a park
+environed with woods, and noble, yet melancholy". One wonders if the
+ghost of this "wise, wittie and learned lady" wanders in those beautiful
+and amazing precincts, a little bewildered and more than a little angry
+that any of her beloved spouse's descendants should have dared to
+enlarge and embellish the comfortable temple of their conjugal felicity.
+If she could have had her will, his works in architecture, like hers in
+the realms of smoky fancy, would have lasted until the end of time.
+
+
+
+
+CLUMBER
+
+The most impressive approach to Clumber is by way of Normanton Inn, a
+red-brick hostelry draped luxuriantly with virginia creeper. At some
+slight distance is a magnificent glade of varied greens, with great
+patches of blood-coloured bent-grass. In the neighbourhood grow many
+fine Spanish chestnuts; when I was last there the ground was littered
+with the fallen flowers. A vast, festooned cloud, grey as the smoke of
+some monstrous fire, drifted from the east; then lightning sported
+wickedly amongst the trees, and the rain fell in torrents. Beside the
+balustraded bridge the water seemed covered with an army of white
+puppets. But it was at the entrance to the Lime Tree Avenue that I
+looked upon the greatest wonder of the day. Behind the shifting veil the
+view of that curving road seemed as fantastically unreal as the
+background of some ancient Italian masterpiece.
+
+This avenue, three miles in length, has on either side two rows of
+limes, and on a hot July midday the fragrance is overpoweringly sweet.
+From this the house is not visible--to reach it one must pass down a
+private drive to the left. Whilst the present house was being built,
+Sir Harbottle Grimston writes on a tour enjoyed in 1768: "From Worksop
+Manor to Clumber, Lord Lincoln's, over the heath. The house is situated
+rather low in a very extensive park, near a noble piece of water, over
+which is a very handsome bridge on 'cycloidal' arches. The house is not
+yet finished, but by its present appearance seems as if it would be
+magnificent. There are nineteen windows in front, the middle one a bow,
+with two wings projecting forwards." About this time Walpole speaks of
+Clumber being "still in leading-strings". The building was finished
+about 1770, and is of white freestone, pleasantly age-coloured, with a
+south front that opens to a formal and beautiful Italian garden with
+terraced walks and graceful marble fountains. Beyond, reached by stone
+staircases, spreads the great lake, which covers eighty-seven acres. On
+this may be seen a gay full-masted frigate, the aspect of which in this
+tranquil and richly wooded country strikes a somewhat bizarre note. The
+park contains four thousand acres, and in the neighbourhood of the house
+may be seen many handsome cedars and yews. The finest view is obtainable
+from the opposite bank of the lake, or from near the head, where stands
+the home farmstead of Hardwick.
+
+[Illustration: CLUMBER]
+
+The house, though not one of the most impressive in its exterior aspect,
+contains treasures of priceless worth. The pillared entrance hall has
+several fine statues, notably one of Napoleon and another of the author
+of _The Seasons_. All the state chambers are extremely handsome, and in
+the large drawing-room may be seen five ebony cabinets and four
+pedestals surmounted with crystal chandeliers, which were brought from
+the Doge's Palace. Perhaps the most notable is the dining-room, 60 feet
+long, 34 feet wide, and 30 feet high. We are told that it can easily
+accommodate one hundred and fifty guests at dinner. The library, a fine
+room panelled with mahogany, contains many treasures, notably three
+Caxtons--_The History of Reynard the Fox_, 1481; _The Chronicles of
+England_, 1482; and _The Golden Legend_, 1493: the first and second
+folios of Shakespeare: and many examples--one printed on vellum--of
+Froissart's _Chronicles_. There is also a fifteenth-century manuscript
+of Gower's _Confessio Amantis_. In the smoking-room is to be seen a
+remarkable chimney-piece of carved marble, which once stood in Fonthill
+Abbey, the house of the author of _Vathek_. To the antiquarian, perhaps
+the most interesting objects are four funeral cysts, dating from two
+thousand years ago. There is a fine collection of pictures, chiefly of
+old masters of distinction, amongst which may be found portraits by
+Holbein, Vandyke, Lely, and Hogarth, of folk intimately associated with
+the history of our country.
+
+Near by stands the Church of the Holy Virgin, built by the present Duke
+of Newcastle. Its walls and spire are of rich red and yellowish
+sandstone, in the fourteenth-century style. This is probably one of the
+most ornately beautiful churches in the kingdom, and the view from the
+open doorway is surpassingly rich in colour. The interior contains much
+fine carving--the altar-piece is of alabaster, with the Virgin and child
+for central figures. The windows are delicately tinted: in spite of the
+excess of splendour naught can offend the artistic taste.
+
+The Clinton family, of which the Duke of Newcastle is head, is one of
+the oldest and most celebrated in our annals. Geoffrey de Clinton, a
+distinguished forbear, Chamberlain and Treasurer to Henry the First, was
+the builder of Warwick Castle, and after his day his collateral
+descendants devoted their lives to serving the Crown faithfully. Edward
+the First called one his "beloved squire"; others fought with glory in
+the French battles. A Clinton was in the deputation that received Anne
+of Cleves when she journeyed to meet her spouse. Another assisted in the
+suppression of Sir Thomas Wyatt's rebellion, and was afterwards one of
+Queen Elizabeth's Privy Council, being employed in various matters of
+high import, notably in the projected marriage of his royal mistress and
+the Duke of Anjou. He died in the fullness of honour, and was buried in
+St. George's Chapel, Windsor. His son was one of the peers at the trial
+of Mary Queen of Scots. In the time of George the First another of the
+family filled the highest office of state, and died Lord Privy Seal;
+whilst the present duke's grandfather, as illustrious as any of his
+predecessors, was a celebrated politician of Early Victorian days, and
+was, moreover, honoured with the friendship and admiration of the young
+Gladstone.
+
+
+
+
+THORESBY
+
+The village of Budby, beyond the confines of Thoresby Park, is one of
+the most placid and sleepy places I know. The stuccoed houses are
+perhaps devoid of picturesqueness, but the shallow Meden, which runs
+quietly beside the roadway, is crystal-clear, and from the wilderness on
+the farther bank one often sees pert black water hens slip gently from
+the shelter of the long grass, and glide to and fro like tiny boats.
+Beyond the bridge swans swim very proudly, with the austere dignity that
+has naught in common with the familiar bearing of petted birds in town
+parks. The Meden is a beautiful and melancholy stream, at whose side an
+exile from the hill country might sit down and weep. The rough woodland
+from which we are barred has a refreshingly cool aspect: in summer the
+wilder foliage contrasts strikingly with the rich purple of
+rhododendrons.
+
+The present house of Thoresby, which stands about a quarter of a mile
+from the site of its cold and damp predecessor, was built between 1864
+and 1874. It is in the modern Elizabethan style, its walls of stone
+quarried at Steetley, some miles away, and is surrounded by a rich and
+beautiful park where may be seen many magnificent beeches and firs and
+oaks. The mansion is rich in art treasures, and may be counted amongst
+the most luxuriously furnished in the country; and the pleasure gardens
+are stately and beautiful.
+
+Fine herds of deer wander among the bracken and heath, and the trees are
+haunted with happy squirrels. The park is thirteen miles in
+circumference, and near the house the little River Meden spreads out
+into a singularly picturesque lake, diversified with toy islands. The
+Thoresby of to-day possesses an atmosphere of tranquil splendour: in its
+neighbourhood one has some difficulty in evoking lively pictures of the
+celebrated folk who inhabited its predecessors.
+
+The great woman of Thoresby was Lady Mary Wortley Montague, who spent
+there the greater part of her youth. The house in her time was a plain
+and uninteresting building of red brick. This was destroyed by fire in
+1745. From the record by Sir Harbottle Grimston of his tour in the
+autumn of 1768, we find that--more than twenty years afterwards--the new
+hall was not completed. Sir Harbottle writes: "This parke excels the
+others much in beauty, having a very good turf, which in this country is
+very much wanting. The house, which is not nearly finished, is rather
+adapted for convenience than magnificence. It is fronted by a rising
+lawn, on the top of which is a very fine wood. On one side a noble piece
+of water, which supplies a cascade behind the house: the other side of
+this house is beautified by plantations." Horace Walpole found this hall
+dull, since he declared that "Merry Sherwood is a _triste_ region, and
+wants a race of outlaws to enliven it, and as Duchess Robin Hood has
+left her country, it has little chance of recovering its ancient glory".
+This was obviously written after the famous Duchess of Kingston had
+departed on her Continental tour.
+
+Before me lie a pair of tiny shoes of sea-green silk, shot with an
+undertone of flesh colour. For at least a century these were in the
+possession of a yeoman family in the neighbourhood of Wortley village.
+The toes are pointed, the heels high, and on the lappets are frayed
+marks where the pins of the jewelled buckles pierced the fabric. The
+insteps do not belie the tradition that a kitten could lie beneath the
+arch of the wearer's naked foot, for they are so high that it seems as
+if the blue blood of the Pierreponts were accompanied with physical
+deformity.
+
+These are relics of Lady Mary, and were probably left at her husband's
+heritage of Wharncliffe, in Yorkshire, when the first happiness of her
+married life had come to an end, and before she became engaged in those
+famous travels which, by their result--the introduction of inoculation
+for the smallpox--raised her even to a greater eminence than that given
+by her intellectual ability.
+
+She was born of a family that had already produced two men of splendid
+genius, whose names are written in golden letters in the annals of
+literature: Beaumont, the dramatist, who wrote, in collaboration with
+his friend Fletcher, some plays that are considered by our best critics
+as inferior only to Shakespeare's, was related by his mother to the
+Pierreponts of the Elizabethan age; and Henry Fielding, the novelist,
+was Lady Mary's second cousin. She is said to have written in her copy
+of _Tom Jones_ as fine a tribute to an author's power as could be
+desired--simply the words _Ne plus ultra_. Villiers, the notorious Duke
+of Buckingham, whose end served Pope for some of his best satirical
+verse, was also of the same stock.
+
+[Illustration: THORESBY]
+
+It was at Thoresby that Lady Mary's strange love affair with the
+handsome Mr. Edward Wortley, of Wharncliffe Chase--the abode of the
+Dragon of Wantley--began, and after many difficulties ended in one of
+the most mysterious marriages that ever puzzled literary students. When
+a girl of fourteen she met the gentleman at a party, and was delighted
+with the attraction which he found in her conversation. She became a
+particular friend of his sister, with whom she commenced a sentimental
+correspondence--most of the letters, it may be said, being written by
+Wortley himself. He became, through the vehicle of the complacent Miss
+Anne, her guide and philosopher, and soon we find him answering certain
+precocious queries about Latin. Then jealousy appeared--somebody had
+escorted Lady Mary to Nottingham Races! The flattered young beauty begs
+to know the name of the man she loves, "that I may (according to the
+laudable custom of lovers) sigh to the woods and groves hereabouts, and
+teach it to the echoes". Thereupon Wortley's inclinations were made
+known, and she replied: "To be capable of preferring the despicable
+wretch you mention to Mr. Wortley, is as ridiculous, if not as criminal,
+as forsaking the Deity to worship a calf; ... my tenderness is always
+built upon my esteem and when the foundation perishes, it falls".
+
+Wortley, not only in the courtship, but throughout their long wedded
+life, appears to have been singularly calm and unimpassioned. He was an
+admirable scholar, and counted among his intimate friends Addison and
+Steele. The second volume of the _Tatler_ was dedicated to him in an
+epistle probably composed by the latter writer.
+
+The easy-going sister Anne died, without Lady Mary displaying an excess
+of grief, and thenceforth the lovers corresponded directly. She alarmed
+Wortley with her society successes, and he charged her with a growing
+levity and love of pleasure. Thereupon she became wise and steady, and
+his fears increased, since the sense she displayed was more suited to a
+grave matron than to a fashionable belle. Time went on: Wortley made his
+desires known to the maiden's father, but a disagreement arose
+concerning the marriage settlement, and the Marquis of Dorchester--he
+was not created Duke of Kingston until 1715--set about looking for
+another son-in-law. A gentleman was found whom Lady Mary professed to
+hate, and in August, 1712, Wortley carried her off in a coach and they
+were made man and wife. As the father was implacable, she entered
+wedlock without any portion. Probably the marquis was not sorry to be
+rid of his worthy daughter, since one cannot doubt that his opposition
+to her happiness must have whetted the tongue that stung so keenly in
+later years.
+
+Of Lady Mary's life at Thoresby we find interesting pictures in her
+descendant, Lady Louisa Stuart's, "Introductory Anecdotes to her
+Letters". "Lord Dorchester, having no wife to do the honours of his
+table at Thoresby, imposed that task upon his eldest daughter, as soon
+as she had bodily strength for the office; which in those days required
+no small share. For the mistress was not only to invite--that is, urge
+and tease--her company to eat more than human throats could conveniently
+swallow, but to carve every dish, when chosen, with her own hands....
+There were then professed carving-masters, who taught young ladies the
+art scientifically: from one of these Lady Mary said she took lessons
+thrice a week, that she might be perfect on her father's public days,
+when in order to perform her functions without interruption she was
+forced to eat her own dinner an hour or two beforehand."
+
+In his lordship's resentment against her stolen marriage, he refused to
+allow her to have much intercourse with the rest of her family. Lady
+Louisa Stuart tells us that her mother, Lady Bute, "remembered having
+only seen him once, but that in a manner likely to leave some impression
+on the mind of a child. Lady Mary (Lady Bute's mother) was dressing, and
+she playing about the room, when there entered an elderly stranger (of
+dignified appearance and still handsome) with the authoritative air of
+a person entitled to admission at all times; upon which, to her great
+surprise, Lady Mary, instantly starting up from the toilet-table,
+dishevelled as she was, fell on her knees to ask his blessing. A proof
+that even in the great and gay world this primitive custom was still
+universal."
+
+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 glass. 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 assorted--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 "Duchess Robin Hood", and from whose
+romantic adventures resulted one of the most celebrated trials of the
+eighteenth century. After his death, in 1773, the title 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 Thoresby, 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
+    Duchess of Kingston, to be put up at Thoresby 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 Thoresby 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 Thoresby, 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 chāteau.
+
+[Illustration: 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
+grass 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 nobly
+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 glass 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 principal 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 principal 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, passes 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,
+surpasses 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 faēade 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 space, where in summer great hydrangeas blossom in green
+tubs, a fine staircase leads to the main entrance.
+
+[Illustration: 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 nobleman'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 Japanese 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 grass-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 assignation 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
+    noblemen'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."
+
+[Illustration: THE JAPANESE 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 compassion 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 damned perpetually
+    in hell-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 passed 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 nobody 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 title became extinct, and the estate with the
+Savile baronetcy passed 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 passed. 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.
+
+[Illustration: EDWINSTOWE]
+
+To the left, one passes through a wicket, and coasts a great wood for
+some hundred yards, then turns sharply and soon reaches the "Russian
+Cottage", a chalet "put together without nails", near by which is the
+well-known "Shambles Oak" or "Robin Hood's Larder", so called because in
+its hollow interior once were hooks for the storing of stolen venison.
+Unfortunately this fine tree was fired by some holiday-makers years ago,
+and to-day there is something pathetic in the valiant greenness of its
+scanty leaves. It is like an old, old man who will be brave to the end.
+
+Thence, by passing along the glades of Birkland and following paths
+faintly worn--with a chance of straying into strange solitudes--one
+comes before long to the "Major Oak"--the most virile of all the ancient
+trees. In spite of its iron stays--possibly because of them--it is still
+vigorous and hearty, although its age has been estimated at considerably
+more than a thousand years. There is something monstrous and uncanny
+about this veteran; in its vicinity folk of to-day seem strangely out of
+place.
+
+A pleasant old keeper watches it vigilantly, careful that none shall
+harm his treasure. He has a curious enough favourite: a fine cock
+pheasant which comes to his call--has done so indeed for the last four
+years--and daintily accepts plumcake from his hand. Once this bird had a
+mate; now he remains a contented widower. The quaintness of the
+good-fellowship of man and bird is very pleasant to observe.
+
+The circumference of the "Major Oak" at the height of five feet from the
+ground is over thirty feet, and the circumference of its branches is
+about two hundred and seventy yards. It was formerly called the "Queen's
+Oak", or the "Cockpen", the latter because of a fine breed of gamecocks
+that roosted there in the days of a Major Rooke, to whom it owes its
+present name. The tree is hollow, and, entering by a narrow
+opening--difficult enough for a stout person to negotiate--seventeen or
+eighteen may crowd together in the interior. Not far away is another
+magnificent tree, less known but almost equally worthy of admiration. It
+is called the "Simon Foster Oak", from the fact that a century ago a
+person of that name kept his pigs in acorn-time nightly under its
+shelter.
+
+Thence Edwinstowe may easily be reached by a path across the green.
+Historically the village is of some importance, since, according to
+general belief, Edwin, the first Christian King of Northumbria, was
+buried there. It is a sleepy, comely place; in winter the warm
+colouring of old brick and tile is very pleasant to the wayfarer, whilst
+throughout the other seasons the rich little gardens are all gay with
+old-fashioned flowers. The church is admirably situated, and has a tall
+and graceful spire with grotesque ornaments at the base, which from a
+distance bear a fantastical resemblance to roosting birds. In 1679 the
+folk of Edwinstowe humbly petitioned for permission to take two hundred
+oaks for the repair of the building, and one reads that, seven years
+before, the steeple had been beaten down by thunder, and the old body
+shaken, and in a very ruinous condition; also that without the king's
+charitable help the whole church must absolutely perish. After the
+resultory survey, the Surveyors General of the Woods wrote that most of
+the trees of Birkland and Bilhagh were decayed, very few of use to the
+navy being left. Finally it was decided that such trees might be taken
+as were not fit for Government purposes. Strangely enough, neither in
+this church nor in its sister of Ollerton are any ancient monuments,
+such as one might expect to find in so interesting a neighbourhood. At
+the vicarage here lived for some years Dr. E. Cobham Brewer, best known
+for his _Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_; whilst in a house that stood
+beside the stream lived William--afterwards Sir William--Boothby, the
+uncle of pretty Penelope, whose white marble tomb is one of the wonders
+of Ashbourne in Peakland.
+
+The birches from which Birkland takes its name are accounted amongst the
+finest in the kingdom, and at no time look better than on a sunny
+winter's morning, when they present a wonderful symphony of brown and
+silver. After crossing Edwinstowe, in a sufficiently dangerous way, the
+road continues, with Bilhagh in sight, to Ollerton, where it bridges the
+placid Maun. Not far away is a small red quarry, its toy precipice
+pierced with the retreats of sand-martins. To the left is Cockglode, the
+only large house left in the forest proper--a Georgian place with a fine
+avenue of Scots pines. This was the residence of the late Earl of
+Liverpool, who, like all his noble neighbours, counted the great Bess of
+Hardwick amongst his forbears.
+
+
+    PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
+    _At the Villafield Press, Glasgow, Scotland_
+
+
+    +---------------------------------------------------+
+    |                                                   |
+    | Transcriber's Note:                               |
+    |                                                   |
+    | Spelling and punctuation have been retained as in |
+    | the original publication.                         |
+    +---------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dukeries, by R. Murray Gilchrist
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dukeries, by R. Murray Gilchrist
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Dukeries
+
+Author: R. Murray Gilchrist
+
+Illustrator: E. W. Haslehust
+
+Release Date: August 30, 2008 [EBook #26486]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUKERIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
+Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<h2><a name="contents" id="contents"></a>Contents</h2>
+<ul class="center">
+<li class="li2"><span class="right2">Page</span><br /></li>
+
+<li><span class="left">Worksop and the Manor</span>
+<span class="right"><a href="#manor">5</a></span><br /></li>
+
+<li><span class="left">Sherwood Forest and Robin Hood</span>
+<span class="right"><a href="#hood">13</a></span><br /></li>
+
+<li><span class="left">Welbeck Abbey</span>
+<span class="right"><a href="#abbey">25</a></span><br /></li>
+
+<li><span class="left">Clumber</span>
+<span class="right"><a href="#clumber">35</a></span><br /></li>
+
+<li><span class="left">Thoresby</span>
+<span class="right"><a href="#thoresby">39</a></span><br /></li>
+
+<li><span class="left">Ollerton</span>
+<span class="right"><a href="#ollerton">48</a></span><br /></li>
+
+<li><span class="left">Rufford</span>
+<span class="right"><a href="#rufford">52</a></span><br /></li>
+
+<li><span class="left">Edwinstowe and the Oaks</span>
+<span class="right"><a href="#oaks">60</a></span><br /></li>
+</ul>
+
+<h1 class="mt2">THE<br />
+DUKERIES</h1>
+
+<div class="anchor"><a name="front" id="front"></a></div>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/i002.jpg" width="400" height="568" alt="THE PRIORY GATEWAY, WORKSOP" title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE PRIORY GATEWAY, WORKSOP</span><br />
+<p class="image"><a href="images/i002l.jpg">View larger image</a><br />
+<a href="#illustrations">Back to List of Illustrations</a></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center mt"><span class="title"><small>THE</small></span><br />
+<span class="title"><big>DUKERIES</big></span><br /><br />
+
+<span class="author">Described by R. Murray Gilchrist</span><br /><br />
+
+<span class="author">Pictured by E. W. Haslehust</span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/i003.png" width="300" height="441" alt="The Dukeries" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h4>BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED<br />
+LONDON GLASGOW AND BOMBAY<br />
+1913</h4>
+
+
+<div class="box">
+<table class="other" summary="Other titles">
+<tr>
+<th colspan="2"><h2>Beautiful England</h2>
+<h4><em>Volumes Ready</em></h4></th>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Oxford</span></td>
+<td class="tdl2"><span class="smcap">The Cornish Riviera</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The English Lakes</span></td>
+<td class="tdl2"><span class="smcap">Dickens-Land</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Canterbury</span></td>
+<td class="tdl2"><span class="smcap">Winchester</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Shakespeare-Land</span></td>
+<td class="tdl2"><span class="smcap">The Isle of Wight</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Thames</span></td>
+<td class="tdl2"><span class="smcap">Chester</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Windsor Castle</span></td>
+<td class="tdl2"><span class="smcap">York</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Cambridge</span></td>
+<td class="tdl2"><span class="smcap">The New Forest</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Norwich and the Broads</span></td>
+<td class="tdl2"><span class="smcap">Hampton Court</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Heart of Wessex</span></td>
+<td class="tdl2"><span class="smcap">Exeter</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Peak District</span></td>
+<td class="tdl2"><span class="smcap">Hereford</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Dukeries</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc" colspan="2"><em>Uniform with this Series</em></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc" colspan="2"><h2>Beautiful Ireland</h2></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl3">LEINSTER<br />
+ULSTER</td>
+<td class="tdl4">MUNSTER<br />
+CONNAUGHT</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<h2><a name="illustrations" id="illustrations"></a>
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+
+<ul class="center">
+<li class="li2"><span class="right2">Page</span><br /></li>
+
+<li><span class="left">The Priory Gateway, Worksop</span>
+<span class="right"><a href="#front"><em>Frontispiece</em></a></span><br /></li>
+
+<li><span class="left">Worksop Manor</span>
+<span class="right"><a href="#manor2">8</a></span><br /></li>
+
+<li><span class="left">Robin Hood's Larder</span>
+<span class="right"><a href="#larder">14</a></span><br /></li>
+
+<li><span class="left">The Major Oak, Thoresby Park</span>
+<span class="right"><a href="#park">20</a></span><br /></li>
+
+<li><span class="left">The Beech Avenue, Thoresby</span>
+<span class="right"><a href="#avenue">26</a></span><br /></li>
+
+<li><span class="left">Welbeck Abbey</span>
+<span class="right"><a href="#welbeck">32</a></span><br /></li>
+
+<li><span class="left">Clumber</span>
+<span class="right"><a href="#clumber2">36</a></span><br /></li>
+
+<li><span class="left">Thoresby</span>
+<span class="right"><a href="#thoresby2">42</a></span><br /></li>
+
+<li><span class="left">Ollerton</span>
+<span class="right"><a href="#ollerton2">48</a></span><br /></li>
+
+<li><span class="left">Rufford Abbey</span>
+<span class="right"><a href="#rufford2">52</a></span><br /></li>
+
+<li><span class="left">The Japanese Garden, Rufford Abbey</span>
+<span class="right"><a href="#garden">56</a></span><br /></li>
+
+<li><span class="left">Edwinstowe</span>
+<span class="right"><a href="#edwinstowe">60</a></span><br /></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+
+<div class="figc" style="width: 600px;">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>
+<img src="images/i007.png" width="600" height="322" alt="THE DUKERIES" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2><a name="manor" id="manor"></a>WORKSOP AND THE MANOR</h2>
+
+<p>Although within the last twenty-five years Worksop has suffered many
+changes, unfortunate enough from an &aelig;sthetic point of view, the Dukeries
+end of the principal street still suggests the comfortable market town
+in the neighbourhood of folk of quality. The only relic of notable
+antiquity is the quaint inn, known as the Old Ship&mdash;a building with
+projecting upper story and carved oaken beams that might have been
+transported from Chester.</p>
+
+<p>The twin-towered Priory Church, a gatehouse of singular interest, and
+some slight, gracefully proportioned ecclesiastical ruins are the main
+features of interest. The Priory was founded by William de Lovetot, and
+used by the canons of the order of St. Augustine. Great men were buried
+there, notably<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> several chiefs of the Furnival family, who had for town
+residence Furnival's Inn in Holborn. The interior of the church contains
+some excellent round and octagonal pillars, and one or two ancient
+effigies. The walls are coated with stucco, which detracts considerably
+from the beauty of this handsomely proportioned building. One of the
+most interesting things to be seen is a piece of a human skull, pierced
+with an arrowhead. This hangs to the left of the doorway by which the
+vestry is reached. There is a weird superstition concerning the moving
+of this relic.</p>
+
+<p>Near by is the ruined chapel, erected about the middle of the thirteenth
+century. It was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and in olden times must
+have blazed with gorgeous colours. The roof has fallen; little remains
+of its former beauty save the lancet windows. The double piscina and the
+sedilia are still in fair preservation, and we are shown the round holes
+in the stonework once filled with the pegs of the canons' oaken seats.</p>
+
+<p>In the churchyard are a few quaint epitaphs for such as delight to dwell
+upon the virtues of the forgotten dead. The Priory Gatehouse at the
+farther end is perhaps one of the most interesting buildings of its kind
+in existence. The stonework is of soft grey, and the roof chiefly of
+well-coloured tiles. A roadway about fifteen yards in length passes
+through<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> the building; the original ceiling of oaken beams with graceful
+braces is still in good condition. Above this was the Hospitium, or
+guest chamber, where may be seen the hooded chimney-piece and the hearth
+before which old-time travellers rested o' nights and told tales that
+Chaucer might have loved, before retiring to the smaller chambers, to
+sleep heavily after the good cheer provided by their priestly hosts. In
+front of this relic stands the old market cross; and near by, until
+within the nineteenth century, were the stocks for vagrants and
+refractory townsmen.</p>
+
+<p>Camden tells us that in his time Worksop was "noted for its great
+produce of liquorice, and famous for the Earl of Shrewsbury's house,
+built in our memory by George Talbot, with the magnificence becoming so
+great an Earl, and yet below envy". In Park Street, not far from the
+Priory Gateway, is one of the entrances to the Manor Park. The trees
+still remaining are not noteworthy in the matter of size, with the
+exception of a few cedars and beeches near the terrace of the house. As
+one approaches, the Manor Hills, gently sloping and well wooded, with
+heather-covered clearings, may be seen to the left. As for the house
+itself, the garden front of to-day, without being of great architectural
+interest, has a very pleasant air of unpretentious comfort and
+brightness. There is a flower garden whose beds are edged<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> with box and
+yew. The chief object of note is a long and high wall, probably a
+portion of the ancient house; this is somewhat dignified with its worn
+coping, whereon stand various urns the carving of which time has
+softened. From the terrace one looks down on the sloping park with its
+mere, and scattered trees, and graceful groups of young horses.</p>
+
+<p>Passing round the house, and entering a vast gateway surmounted by a
+lion, one sees, to the right, part of the manor built after 1761, when
+the house which replaced the Elizabethan palace built by the Earl of
+Shrewsbury and his Countess Bess, with its pictures and furniture and
+some of the Arundelian marbles, was destroyed by fire. To my thinking,
+the most suggestive view of the present edifice is gained from the
+Mansfield road, within a few minutes' walk of the town.</p>
+
+<p>From an ancient engraving we find that the first house bore some
+resemblance to Hardwick Hall, the great Bess's most successful building.
+It contained five hundred rooms; in front was a fine courtyard, with a
+central octagonal green plot surrounding a basin with a fountain. The
+artist gave to this a touch of life by drawing a coach and six proudly
+curving towards the outlet; on the lawns beyond are ladies with
+fan-shaped hoops, and thin-legged gentlemen with puffed coat skirts.</p>
+
+<div class="anchor"><a name="manor2" id="manor2"></a></div>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/i011.jpg" width="600" height="423" alt="WORKSOP MANOR" title="" />
+<span class="caption">WORKSOP MANOR</span>
+<p class="image"><a href="images/i011l.jpg">View larger image</a><br />
+<a href="#illustrations">Back to List of Illustrations</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p><p>Of this house Horace Walpole writes, in 1756: "Lord Stafford carried us
+to Worksop, where we passed two days. The house is huge and one of the
+magnificent works of Old Bess of Hardwick, who guarded the Queen of
+Scots here for some time in a wretched little bedchamber within her own
+lofty one:&mdash;there is a tolerable little picture ('The story of
+Bathsheba, finely drawn and shaded, in faint colours') of Mary's
+needlework. The great apartment is vast and <em>triste</em>, the whole leanly
+furnished: the great gallery, of about two hundred feet, at the top of
+the house, is divided into a library and into nothing. The chapel is
+decent. There is no prospect, and the barren face of the country is
+richly furred with evergreen plantations." In 1761 he records that
+"Worksop&mdash;the new house&mdash;is burned down; I don't know the circumstances,
+it has not been finished a month; the last furniture was brought in for
+the Duke of York: I have some comfort that I had seen it; except the
+bare chamber in which the Queen of Scots lodged, nothing remained of
+ancient time".</p>
+
+<p>Not only was Mary Stuart well acquainted with Worksop Manor, but later,
+her son, James the First, on his first progress to London, became the
+guest of Gilbert, Earl of Shrewsbury, her jailer's successor. In a
+letter to his agent, John Harpur, this nobleman writes forewarning him
+of the expected honour, and,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> after bidding him see to horses being in
+readiness, adds, as postcript: "I will not refuse anie fatt capons and
+hennes, partridges, or the like, yf the King come to me". We find that
+James left Edinburgh on the fifth of April, 1603, and reached Worksop on
+the twentieth, after leaving the High Sheriff of Yorkshire at Bawtry,
+and being met and escorted by his brother of Nottinghamshire. It is
+matter for surprise that the king accepted the Talbot hospitality,
+considering their melancholy connection with his mother's tragedy, but
+it is true that he never made parade of filial piety. At Worksop Park
+appeared a number of huntsmen, clad in Lincoln green, whose chief, "with
+a woodman's speech, did welcome him, offering His Majesty to show him
+some game, which he gladly consented to see, and, with a traine set, he
+hunted a good space, very much delighted: at last he went into the
+house, where he was so nobly received, with superfluitie of all things,
+that still every entertainment seemed to exceed other. In this place,
+besides the abundance of all provision and delicacies, there was most
+excellent soul-ravishing musique, wherewith His Highness was not a
+little delighted." One wonders if he was shown the royal prisoner's
+miserable little room. At Worksop he spent a night, and in the morning
+stayed for breakfast, which ended, "there was such store of provision
+left, of fowls, fish, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> almost everything, besides bread, beere and
+wines, that it was left open for any man that would, to come and take".</p>
+
+<p>In the State papers relating to the Rebellion of '45 may be found a
+curious and interesting account of a secret hiding-place, reached by
+lifting a sheet of lead on the roof. A tattling young woman told the
+story upon oath, describing a staircase that descended to a little room
+with a fireplace, a bed, and a few chairs, with a door in the wainscot
+that opened to a place full of arms. Unfortunately, both history and
+tradition are silent concerning any shelter offered by Worksop Manor to
+proscribed folk.</p>
+
+<p>After the burning of the new house, in 1761, the Duke of Norfolk, Lord
+Shrewsbury's descendant, laid the foundation stone of another in 1763.
+We learn that this was to have been one of the largest in England; but
+that only one side of the proposed quadrangle was completed, although
+five hundred workmen were employed, and closely supervised by the
+duchess in person. This stood for three-quarters of a century; then, the
+estate being sold to the Duke of Newcastle, the greater part of the
+house was pulled down and the present place built.</p>
+
+<p>Of the original park, which Evelyn mentions as "sweet and delectable",
+nowadays there is but little to be seen. There still remains, however, a
+beech<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> grove called the "Druid's Temple", a "Lover's Walk" for
+sentimental youth, and a wood of acacias and cedars, yews and tulip
+trees&mdash;once known as the "Wilderness", but since the eighteenth century
+called the "Menagerie", because of a Duchess of Norfolk who kept an
+aviary within its precincts. Mrs. Delany, in 1756, thus alludes to this
+place: "We went there on Sunday evening; but I only saw a crown bird and
+a most delightful cockatoo, with yellow breast and topping". There is an
+air of pleasing disorder about the drives, and one is occasionally
+reminded of Irish demesnes.</p>
+
+<p>Within a mile of the house once stood the celebrated "Shire oak"&mdash;a
+gigantic tree whose branches overshadowed a portion of Nottinghamshire,
+of Derbyshire, and of Yorkshire. Evelyn tells us that the distance from
+bough-end to bough-end was ninety feet, and that two hundred and
+thirty-five horses might have sheltered beneath its foliage. This tree
+disappeared entirely in the eighteenth century, and the exact site is
+now a matter of some uncertainty.</p>
+
+<p class="con"><a href="#contents">Back to Contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>
+<a name="hood" id="hood"></a>SHERWOOD FOREST AND ROBIN HOOD</h2>
+
+<p>To savour the full charm of Sherwood Forest one must stray from the
+highroad, lose one's path, and wander in happy patience until a broad
+avenue is reached, or above the treetops one sees the slender and
+graceful spire of some stately church. The formal beauty of the
+frequented ways&mdash;trimly kept and splendidly coloured&mdash;precludes all
+illusion: only in the remote solitudes with their monstrous old trees is
+it possible to evoke a mind picture of Robin Hood and his devoted
+followers. And even in the most secluded places the imagined pageant of
+these folk suggests the theatre. The loveliness seems unreal&mdash;a
+background devised by some scene-painter of genius.</p>
+
+<p>But Sherwood is always beautiful and always tranquil; to those who know
+aught of wood magic it is as fair in cold midwinter as in autumn, when
+the leaves are no longer green leaves, but a rich mosaic of russet and
+orange and sullen red. My most wonderful memory is of a November day
+when a fine snow was falling, and the leaves drifted downward in a
+continuous murmuring veil. Then, no rabbits played upon the grassy
+wayside or crossed the track, and the pheasants shivered in their hidden
+shelters. In early<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> springtime one best realizes the antiquity; the
+first opening leaves call to mind pale lichen growing upon damp castle
+walls: in summer the air is languorous, bringing a desire for rest and
+contemplation. Storms are impious there: the ancient oaks and birches
+and chestnuts must wail and protest, like dotards wakened from senility
+to cruel hours of actual life.</p>
+
+<p>Of the old forest naught remains in perfection save the southern parts
+known as Birkland and Bilhagh, in the neighbourhood of Edwinstowe and
+Ollerton. Near the former village may be seen the famous "Major Oak" and
+"Robin Hood's Larder". The full glory departed several centuries ago;
+Camden himself writes of "Sherewood, which some interpret as <em>clear
+Wood</em>, others as <em>famous Wood</em>, formerly one close continu'd shade with
+the boughs of trees so entangled in one another, that one could hardly
+walk single in the paths," that "at present it is much thinner, and
+feeds an infinite number of Deer and Stags".</p>
+
+<p>In British times the district was occupied by the tribe of the Coritani,
+and later the Romans built several camps here, various relics of which
+were discovered in the eighteenth century. Not far away, Edwin, the
+Saxon King of Northumbria, was slain in battle&mdash;fighting against Penda,
+King of Mercia, and Cadwallader, King of Wales; and in all probability
+his body was buried at the village of Edwinstowe.</p>
+
+<div class="anchor"><a name="larder" id="larder"></a></div>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/i019.jpg" width="400" height="571" alt="ROBIN HOOD&#39;S LARDER" title="" />
+<span class="caption">ROBIN HOOD&#39;S LARDER</span>
+<p class="image"><a href="images/i019l.jpg">View larger image</a><br />
+<a href="#illustrations">Back to List of Illustrations</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span></p><p>The earliest definite notice of Sherwood dates from the days of Henry
+the Second, when William Peverel had control and profit of the district
+under the Crown. After his dispossession, a lady named Matilda de Caux
+and her husband held the office of Chief Foresters. In Edward the
+First's time this office was seized by the Crown, and granted, as a
+special mark of favour, to persons of high station.</p>
+
+<p>The <em>Charta de Foresta</em>, constructed in Henry the Third's reign,
+contains some curious information about woodland customs. We learn that
+"any archbishop, bishop, earl, or baron, coming to the King at his
+command, and passing through the forests, might take and kill one or two
+of the King's deer, by view of the forester if he were present; if not,
+then he might do it upon the blowing of a horn, that it might not look
+like a theft. The same might be done when they returned."<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Courts
+called Swainmotes were held thrice yearly&mdash;one fifteen days before
+Michaelmas, a second about the Feast of St. Martin, and a third fifteen
+days before St. John Baptist's Day. At the same time the cruel
+punishments for offences against the forest laws were lessened in
+rigour. Thenceforth no man was punished with death or mutilation for
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>illegally hunting, but if found taking venison was fined heavily. If he
+were unable to pay, he was imprisoned for a year and a day, and then
+discharged upon pledges; but if unable to find any surety, was exiled.</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1" class="a1"><span class="label"><sup>[1]</sup></span></a> Reeves's <em>English Law</em>.</p>
+
+
+<p>The chief officers were known as foresters, verderors, woodwards, and
+agisters. Each verderor had the liberty of taking a tree out of Birkland
+or Bilhagh; but this privilege seems to have been abused, since in later
+years the officers were found to choose the best timber available, and
+in William the Third's reign the favour was withdrawn.</p>
+
+<p>Until the sixteenth century the forest seems to have been infested with
+wolves: we read that one, Sir Robert Plumpton, in Henry the Sixth's
+time, held land called "wolf-hunt land" at Mansfield Woodhouse, seven or
+eight miles away, by service of horn-blowing to chase or frighten away
+these creatures. In 1635, from a survey taken by royal command, it was
+discovered that the forests contained 1367 red deer, 987 of these being
+"rascalds", or ill-conditioned. A few years before, the district had
+been ravaged by fire, and a contemporary writer describes the
+conflagration as one such as was "never knowne in menes memory; beinge
+four mille longe and a mille and a halfe over all at once". Later the
+gentleman tells how "ridinge on his way through the forest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> homeward, he
+saw a greate herde of faire red deere, and amonst them 2 extreordanory
+greet stages, the which he never saw the like".</p>
+
+<p>Much of the forest oak was used for the royal navy, but more was allowed
+to decay. Folk of good birth but fallen fortunes frequently begged a
+grant of these trees from the Crown. In 1677 Thoroton writes that so
+many claims were granted that there would soon not be wood enough left
+to cover the bilberries! As time went on, the cleared portions, being of
+no further use for kingly sport, were sold to various noblemen. In 1683,
+1270 acres were bought by the Duke of Kingston, to add to Thoresby Park;
+while early in the eighteenth century 3000 acres were enclosed for the
+making of Clumber Park. The last portions of the forest remaining were
+the hays, or enclosures, of Birkland and Bilhagh, which were granted to
+the Duke of Portland about 1827, in exchange for the perpetual advowson
+of St. Mary-le-Bone. Bilhagh later became the property of the late Earl
+Manvers, its price being the manors of Holbeck and Bonbusk, near
+Welbeck. After the resignation of the Crown lands the waning historical
+interest of Sherwood ceased. Birkland and Bilhagh are still beautiful as
+in their prime, but the rest of the neighbourhood is nowadays naught but
+a wonderful pleasaunce, where drowsy pheasants wander unafraid,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> and
+where the chief signs of life are on holidays, when happy folk crowd
+from the neighbouring towns to view, awestricken, the wonders and the
+riches of the great houses, and the artificial beauties of perhaps the
+finest parks in England.</p>
+
+<p>One or two literary men of some distinction have rhapsodized over the
+charms of Sherwood, notably William Howitt and Washington Irving. Lord
+Byron, whose house of Newstead lies not far away, displayed but little
+interest in the district. The only modern writer to whom the secret of
+the real Sherwood has been fully divulged is Mr. James Prior, whose
+books, inspired by the spirit of the woodlands, should delight all who
+love fresh and wholesome pictures of unspoiled country life.</p>
+
+<p>Sherwood, as everybody knows, was Robin Hood's kingdom. Learned men have
+racked their brains concerning the great outlaw's existence. Joseph
+Hunter, the historian of Hallamshire, published in 1852 an ingenious
+tract concerning his period and his real character, which in short gives
+plausible enough details of his adventures. There is a well known by his
+name not far from Doncaster, another near Hathersage, in the Peak
+Country; and more than one village prides itself upon the site of his
+"Shooting Butts". A cave, by legend ascribed to him, may be found on an
+"edge" overhanging the Derwent valley, whilst<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> within an easy walk of
+Haddon Hall one may see two rocks known as his "Stride".</p>
+
+<p>Langland, in the <em>Vision of Piers Plowman</em>, makes the first mention of
+his popularity:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="block1">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="io">"I kan not parfitly my paternoster, as the priest sayeth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But I kan rymes of Robyn Hode and Randolf, Earl of Chester".<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p class="noi">Again, in John Fordun's <em>Scottish Chronicle</em>, written about 1360, we
+find him described not only as a notorious robber, but as a man of great
+charity. In 1493 Wynkyn de Worde printed a sequence of old ballads
+treating of his adventures. This book, known as <em>The Lytel Geste of
+Robyn Hood</em>, became very popular, and brought into vogue the rustic
+pageants known as the Robin Hood Games, in which the adventures of the
+outlaw and his companions, Maid Marion, Little John, Will Scarlet, and
+Friar Tuck, were depicted for the admiration of the multitude.</p>
+
+<p>In the public library of the University of Cambridge is preserved the
+manuscript of the finest and most ancient ballad. This, which is known
+as "A Tale of Robin Hood", may be cited in its quaint and dramatic
+picturesqueness as the most perfect and complete example of song
+literature extant. It begins with Robin's desire to attend church at
+Nottingham, since "It is a fortnight and more sin' I my Saviour saw".
+Little John accompanies him, but on the way they quarrel about a wager,
+and Robin strikes him,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> upon which the faithful servant departs in high
+dudgeon. At Nottingham a hooded monk recognizes our hero and gives the
+alarm. He is surrounded by the sheriff and his followers, and, although
+he slays twelve men, is at last captured, and held in durance until
+Little John, who has quite forgiven him, accomplishes his release by a
+clever stratagem.</p>
+
+<p>The chap-book entitled <em>Robin Hood's Garland</em>, which was published at
+York, contains the generally believed account of his death and burial.
+In it we read how he visited his cousin, the Prioress of Kirklees
+Nunnery, for the purpose of being bled. She, who must have been
+soul-sister of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, took advantage of his
+defencelessness, and, after opening a vein, locked up the room and left
+him for a day. Before dying, he blew his horn, and Little John, who was
+outside, burst open the doors just in time to hear his last words. The
+<em>Garland</em> is full of instances of Robin's nobility, and for delightful,
+invigorating reading may even be commended to the youth of to-day. It is
+a concise little history, beginning with the first day of his outlawry,
+and ending with the fatal scene at Kirklees. As a vivid series of
+woodland sketches it is without parallel of its kind, and reading, one
+may almost journey through the greater Sherwood in the company of the
+goodly archers clothed in Lincoln green.</p>
+
+<div class="anchor"><a name="park" id="park"></a></div>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/i027.jpg" width="600" height="419" alt="THE MAJOR OAK, THORESBY PARK" title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE MAJOR OAK, THORESBY PARK</span>
+<p class="image"><a href="images/i027l.jpg">View larger image</a><br />
+<a href="#illustrations">Back to List of Illustrations</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span></p><p>The humour is bucolic and breezy. The song of "Robin Hood and the
+Bishop", which the black-letter copy describes as "Shewing how Robin
+Hood went to an old woman's house, and changed cloathes with her to
+escape from the bishop, and how he robbed the bishop of all his gold and
+made him sing a mass", contains about the best specimen of this country
+wit. Again, in <em>Robin Hood and the Tanner of Nottingham</em> is a most
+ludicrous account of the manner in which, after being threatened with a
+"knop upon his bare scop", Robin receives as sound a drubbing as ever he
+himself inflicted. But this punishment, and his philosophical manner of
+bearing it, only earned him another follower, since the victorious
+tanner became at once enamoured of the free forest life, and swore there
+and then to join the band.</p>
+
+<p>The Elizabethan dramatists made good use of our hero, knowing well that
+when he was presented on the stage the hearts of the people were moved.
+In "a Pleasant Commedie called Looke About You", he appears as a
+fresh-faced and pretty young nobleman, ever ready to do a good turn to
+his friends, to whom everybody defers, and who passes through the play
+laughing and merry as his namesake, the Goodfellow of Ben Jonson. So
+rosy are his cheeks and so bright his eyes that he personates the
+heroine, Lady Fauconbridge, at some unwelcome visits that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> she dreads.
+<em>The Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon</em>, by Anthony Munday, who
+wrote at the end of the sixteenth century, gives the next dramatic
+information. This shows him living in full state, but still young, and
+on the eve of marriage with Matilda Fitzwater, Lord Lacy's child. His
+steward, Warman, instigated by the Prior of York, betrays him in
+Judas-like fashion (for what real reason we are not told, if it be not
+for the wasting of his lands), and as an outlaw he flies to the
+greenwood, where he is joined by Matilda, who renounces her fine name
+and calls herself Maid Marion. Prince John has fallen in love with her,
+and she is in mortal fear of his pursuit. In this play Little John and
+Friar Tuck converse prettily in an aside:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="block2">
+<table summary="John and Friar Tuck converse">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><em>Little John.</em></td>
+<td class="tdl">Methinks I see no jest of Robin Hood,<br />
+No merry morrices of Friar Tuck,<br />
+No pleasant skippings up and down the wood,<br />
+No hunting songs, no coursings of the buck.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><em>Friar Tuck.</em></td>
+<td class="tdl">For merry jests they have been shown before,<br />
+As how the friar fell into the well<br />
+For love of Jenny, that fair bonny belle;<br />
+How Greenleaf robbed the Shrieve of Nottingham,<br />
+And other mirthful matters full of game.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>These passages obviously refer to the antecedent plays. After this comes
+<em>The Death of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon</em>, collaborated by the same
+author with Henry Chettle, another successful playwright. This,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>
+differing from the ballad account, shows how he was poisoned by his
+uncle, the wicked prior. His obsequies are solemnized with a plaintive
+little dirge:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="block3">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="io">"Weep, weep, ye woodmen, wail,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Your hands with sorrow wring,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Your master Robin Hood lies dead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Therefore sigh as you sing.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="io">"Here lie his primer and his beads,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His bent bow and his arrows keen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His good sword and his holy cross:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now cast on flowers fresh and green;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="io">"And as they fall, shed tears and say,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wella, wella-day! wella, wella-day:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus cast ye flowers and sing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And on to Wakefield take your way."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>After his demise poor Marion is so tormented by her royal persecutor
+that she seeks refuge in Dunmow Abbey, where she is poisoned by the
+king's order. In each play the outlaw is extolled so highly, and made so
+admirable in every way, that in spite of the quaintness one is moved to
+honest admiration. His dying scene is most pathetic, and there is no
+doubt that the simple country audience would weep as though for a dearly
+loved friend.</p>
+
+<p>The airs pertaining to the Robin Hood literature are merry in the
+extreme&mdash;delicious, sparkling waves of melody, to which thousands of
+country dances have been performed. They sprang from the heart, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>
+even to-day, if offered to the public, might win popular success. All
+are "lusty fellows with good backbones", such as Shakespeare in his
+salad days must have listened to and admired. Gay, in his pastoral <em>The
+Flights</em>, gives a charming picture of Bowzybeus delighting the reapers
+with one of these ballads, ere falling asleep midst happy laughter.</p>
+
+<p>In folklore are still preserved a few relics. "To go round by Robin
+Hood's barn" is to travel in a roundabout fashion, and "to sell Robin
+Hood's pennyworths", to sell much below value, as a generous robber
+might. His "feather" is the Traveller's Joy, his "hatband" the
+club-moss. His "men" or his "sheep" are the bracken, and his "wind" a
+wind that brings on a thaw. We are told that Robin could stand anything
+but a "tho wind". The Red Campion, the Ragged Robin, and the Herb Robert
+are known in several counties by his name. His greatest claim to
+popularity was that he took away the goods of none save rich men, never
+killed any person except in self-defence, charitably fed the poor, and
+was in short, as an old writer tells us, "the most humane and the prince
+of robbers".</p>
+
+
+
+<p class="con"><a href="#contents">Back to Contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
+<a name="abbey" id="abbey"></a>WELBECK ABBEY</h2>
+
+<p>The present house of Welbeck was built upon the site of an abbey for
+Premonstratensian canons, which was begun in 1140. Nothing, however,
+remains of the old place save some stonework in the cellars and a few
+inner walls. A portion of the house dates from 1604; in an engraving
+from the great Duke of Newcastle's book on Horsemanship we find that it
+originally bore some resemblance to a French ch&acirc;teau. Charles the First
+and Henrietta Maria were entertained here&mdash;the house being placed at
+their disposal whilst their host occupied Bolsover Castle, some miles
+distant. Ben Jonson devised a masque entitled "Love's Welcome" for the
+royal amusement, and there was such feasting and show that it cost
+between fourteen and fifteen thousand pounds.</p>
+
+<p>The Abbey is richly furnished, and contains one of the finest
+collections of pictures and miniatures in Europe, and a wealth of
+ancient manuscripts. The miniatures were gathered together in the early
+part of the eighteenth century by Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford. Of
+these treasures Mrs. Delany writes in 1756: "I have undertaken to set
+the miniatures of the Duchess of Portland [Lord Oxford's daughter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> and
+heiress] in order, as she does not like to trust them to anybody else,
+and for want of proper airing they are in danger of being spoiled. Such
+Petitots! such Olivers! such Coopers!" About that time the good lady
+describes an evening walk in park and gardens: "By the time we came in,
+the moon was risen to a great height, and we sat down in the great
+dining-room to contemplate its glory, and to talk of our friends, who in
+all likelihood were at that moment admiring its splendour as well as
+we". Later she confesses that Welbeck has a <em>glare of grandeur</em>, and
+that although she admires her Duchess when receiving princely honours
+and acquitting herself with dignity, she loves her best in her own
+private dressing-room!</p>
+
+<p>The miniatures were wellnigh lost in the middle of the nineteenth
+century. The late duke had lent the collection to the Manchester Art
+Treasures Exhibition of 1857, and a certain well-known literary man, who
+was in the owner's confidence, arranged for all to be sent to London, so
+that, like Mrs. Delany, he might arrange them in suitable order. There
+he pawned the whole lot for trifling sums, with seven different
+pawnbrokers; but, thanks chiefly to a well-known inhabitant of Worksop,
+all, with the exception of five, were recovered.</p>
+
+<div class="anchor"><a name="avenue" id="avenue"></a></div>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/i035.jpg" width="600" height="425" alt="THE BEECH AVENUE, THORESBY" title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE BEECH AVENUE, THORESBY</span>
+<p class="image"><a href="images/i035l.jpg">View larger image</a><br />
+<a href="#illustrations">Back to List of Illustrations</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p><p>Here are two famous Riding Houses, one the pride of the author of the
+great work on Horsemanship in Stuart times. This is used nowadays as a
+picture gallery, the late Duke of Portland having built another of
+dimensions almost double. To my thinking, one of the chief beauties of
+Welbeck is the gilded gateway opening to the avenue on the road from
+Worksop to Ollerton&mdash;surely one of the most graceful and yet imposing
+structures of its kind in the country. Another and more singular
+attraction consists of the subterranean roadways&mdash;gigantic mole runs the
+cause of whose creation is, and probably always will be, a mystery to
+the world in general. The pleasure gardens are stocked with rare trees,
+and the vast lake has so natural an appearance that one forgets that it
+was made by human folk. The kitchen garden is notably fine: we are told
+that it covers thirty acres, and that the houses for peaches and other
+luscious fruits extend over a quarter of a mile. There is a story of a
+monstrous bunch of Syrian grapes having, some generations ago, been
+grown there, and sent by the duke of that time across country to
+Wentworth House. It weighed nineteen and a half pounds, and was
+carried&mdash;as was the trophy taken by the spies from Canaan&mdash;attached to a
+pole.</p>
+
+<p>Finest of the Welbeck trees is the "Greendale Oak", which in 1724 was
+transformed, by cutting,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> into an archway, the aperture being 10 feet 3
+inches high and 6 feet 3 inches wide, so that a carriage, or three
+horsemen riding abreast, could pass through. From the branches cut off
+at that time a cabinet was made for the Countess of Oxford&mdash;a fine piece
+of furniture, inlaid with a representation of her spouse driving his
+chariot and six through the opening.</p>
+
+<p>Horace Walpole, in 1756, writes in his usual acid style: "I went to
+Welbeck. It is impossible to describe the bales of Cavendishes, Harleys,
+Holleses, Veres, and Ogles: every chamber is tapestried with them; nay,
+and with two thousand other morsels; all their histories inscribed; all
+their arms, crests, services, sculptured on chimneys of various English
+marbles in ancient forms (and to say truth) most of them ugly. Then such
+a Gothic hall, with pendent fretwork in imitation of the old, and with a
+chimney-piece like mine in the library. Such water-colour pictures! such
+historic fragments! There is Prior's portrait and the Column and
+Verelst's flower on which he wrote; and the authoress Duchess of
+Newcastle in a theatric habit, which she generally wore, and,
+consequently, looking as mad as the present Duchess; and dukes of the
+same name, looking as foolish as the present Duke; and Lady Mary
+Wortley, drawn as an authoress, with rather better pretensions; and
+cabinets and glasses wainscoted with the Greendale<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> Oak, which was so
+large that an old steward wisely cut a way through it to make a
+triumphal passage for his lord and lady on their wedding! What treasures
+to revel over! The horseman Duke's man&egrave;ge is converted into a lofty
+stable, and there is still a grove or two of magnificent oaks that have
+escaped all these great families, though the last Lord Oxford cut down
+above an hundred thousand pounds' worth. The place is little pretty,
+distinct from all these reverend circumstances." Twenty-one years later
+he writes: "Welbeck is a devastation. The house is a delight of my eyes,
+for it is a hospital of old portraits." One is inclined to believe that
+something in the order of his reception had stung him into lasting
+pique.</p>
+
+<p>The great ancestress of the owner of Welbeck, and of the other nobility
+in the Dukeries, was Bess of Hardwick, who built a magnificent country
+house on the "edge" overlooking the Vale of Scarsdale, some miles
+distant from the border of Sherwood Forest. This singular woman, as
+striking a personality as her contemporary and sometime friend Queen
+Elizabeth, occasionally passed in state along the "ridings".</p>
+
+<p>Her life-story is a marvellous instance of genius devoted to the
+attainment of a high position. The daughter of a well-to-do squire, she
+was married at fifteen to a wealthy young gentleman whose estate lay ten
+miles away, and who, dying very soon, left her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> mistress of the greater
+part of his fortune. Her first house at Barlow, near Chesterfield, has
+entirely disappeared, save for a piece of old wall. She remained a widow
+for many years, then married Sir William Cavendish, by whom she had six
+children. After his death she chose Sir William St. Loe, inherited his
+extensive estates, then, well past her prime, accepted the offer of the
+widowed George, Earl of Shrewsbury; but before the marriage insisted
+that two of her young Cavendishes should be married to two of his young
+Talbots. For a few years her fourth venture proved satisfactory enough;
+but the custody of Mary Queen of Scots apparently became too much of a
+nerve-strain for both man and wife; and their wrangles finally became
+common property in high circles. She embroiled herself with Queen
+Elizabeth; she persecuted her husband for his so-called
+meanness&mdash;although she was exceedingly rich in her own right; and, worst
+of all, she sowed dissension between him and his own offspring. The poor
+earl's condition was melancholy enough; one has no doubt that he was
+thankful to the heart when they separated for the last time.</p>
+
+<p>In the portrait at Hardwick Hall she is represented as a comely,
+roguish-looking matron in full maturity: a better idea of her character
+may be won from the effigy lying on the tomb she erected for herself in
+All Saints' Church at Derby. There one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> sees a face not unbeautiful, but
+cold and masterful in the extreme.</p>
+
+<p>It was her grandson, William, first Duke of Newcastle, who first gave
+lustre to Welbeck, and perhaps, after all, he owed most of his celebrity
+to an intellectual wife, known in Restoration days as "Mad Madge of
+Newcastle". Few pictures of domestic life in the seventeenth century are
+more pleasing than that given by this lady in the short account of her
+girlhood, which opens her fantastical autobiography. Born the youngest
+of Sir Thomas Lucas's eight children, in a large country house near
+Colchester, she was trained under a system of education originated by
+her mother. The daughters, of whom there were five, were not kept
+strictly to their schoolbooks, but rather taught "for formality than
+benefit". Singing, dancing, music, reading, writing, and embroidery were
+their accomplishments; but Mistress Lucas, who was left a widow soon
+after the birth of Margaret, cared not so much for dancing and fiddling
+and conversing in foreign languages as that they should be bred modestly
+and on honest principles. In London, where they migrated for the season,
+they would visit Spring Gardens, Hyde Park, and similar places, and
+sometimes attended concerts, or supped in barges on the river.</p>
+
+<p>As she grew to womanhood Margaret became filled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> with the desire to play
+maid of honour to Queen Henrietta Maria, chiefly because she had heard
+that the queen in her poverty had not the same number of ladies as in
+her prosperity. After much persuasion her mother allowed her to leave
+home, and she joined the Court at Oxford, and soon afterwards met
+William Cavendish, who was her senior by nearly thirty years. They
+married, and the battle of Marston Moor forced them into exile. Obliged
+to return to England, so that she might raise funds, she wrote one or
+two volumes of <em>Poems</em> and <em>Philosophical Fancies</em>, successors to
+another grotesque work entitled <em>The World's Olio</em>. These were the first
+three of ten immense folios, treating of every imaginable subject, and
+most slipshod in grammar and style, that she gave to the world, tenderly
+regarding them, in the absence of any other offspring, as her children.</p>
+
+<div class="anchor"><a name="welbeck" id="welbeck"></a></div>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/i043.jpg" width="600" height="423" alt="WELBECK ABBEY" title="" />
+<span class="caption">WELBECK ABBEY</span>
+<p class="image"><a href="images/i043l.jpg">View larger image</a><br />
+<a href="#illustrations">Back to List of Illustrations</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p><p>The Lives of the duke and of herself are, however, the only productions
+remembered nowadays. Of the first, Charles Lamb says: "There is no
+casket rich enough, no casing sufficiently durable, to honour and keep
+safe such a jewel"; but Pepys, who lived at the same time as the noble
+authoress, described it as "the ridiculous History of the Duke, which
+shows her to be a mad, conceited, rediculous woman, and he an asse to
+suffer her to write what she does to and of him". Her own memoir is
+charmingly and unaffectedly egotistical. She tells us: "I fear my
+ambition inclines to vainglory, for I am very ambitious, yet 'tis
+neither for beauty, wit, title, wealth, or power, but as they are Steps
+to raise me to Fancies Tower, which is to live by remembrance in all
+ages.... My Disposition is more inclined to Melancholy than Merry, but
+not crabbed or peevish Melancholy, but soft, melting, and contemplating
+Melancholy, and I am apt rather to weep than to laugh." Always fearing
+that she might be mistaken by posterity for her husband's first wife,
+she gives an elaborate explanation at the end of the book, so that all
+in after years might accredit her with intellectual magnificence.</p>
+
+<p>Although she met with much ridicule at the Court of Charles the Second,
+being satirized particularly by the libertine poets Etherege and Sedley,
+the fulsome praise of men of considerable intellect was lavished upon
+her, and even the sedate and usually truthful Evelyn, after a lengthy
+enumeration of the great women of history, flattered her with the
+assurance that all of those summed up together only divided between them
+what she retained in one! A curious story is told of her appearance with
+a train-bearer in the chamber of Catherine of Portugal. As this was a
+breach of Court etiquette, she was forbidden to repeat it, and resented
+the reproof by wearing at her next appearance a train of satin and
+silver thirty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> yards long, with the end supported by four waiting-ladies
+in the ante-room.</p>
+
+<p>She wrote several plays, concerning one of which, <em>The Humorous Lovers</em>,
+Pepys tells us that although he would rather not have seen it, since it
+was so sickeningly silly, yet he was glad, because he could understand
+her better afterwards. At the end of the first performance, as a queen
+of breeding, she stood up in her box and made her respects to the
+actors.</p>
+
+<p>In those days of better fortunes the quaintly assorted couple spent much
+time in the country houses of Welbeck and Bolsover. The duke's income
+was very large, being equal to at least &pound;200,000 of our money, and,
+since both had rural tastes, it is probable that they were far happier
+in Nottinghamshire than in their fine town mansion in Clerkenwell Close.
+Welbeck she admired most, since it was seated "in the bottom of a park
+environed with woods, and noble, yet melancholy". One wonders if the
+ghost of this "wise, wittie and learned lady" wanders in those beautiful
+and amazing precincts, a little bewildered and more than a little angry
+that any of her beloved spouse's descendants should have dared to
+enlarge and embellish the comfortable temple of their conjugal felicity.
+If she could have had her will, his works in architecture, like hers in
+the realms of smoky fancy, would have lasted until the end of time.</p>
+
+
+
+<p class="con"><a href="#contents">Back to Contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
+<a name="clumber" id="clumber"></a>CLUMBER</h2>
+
+<p>The most impressive approach to Clumber is by way of Normanton Inn, a
+red-brick hostelry draped luxuriantly with virginia creeper. At some
+slight distance is a magnificent glade of varied greens, with great
+patches of blood-coloured bent-grass. In the neighbourhood grow many
+fine Spanish chestnuts; when I was last there the ground was littered
+with the fallen flowers. A vast, festooned cloud, grey as the smoke of
+some monstrous fire, drifted from the east; then lightning sported
+wickedly amongst the trees, and the rain fell in torrents. Beside the
+balustraded bridge the water seemed covered with an army of white
+puppets. But it was at the entrance to the Lime Tree Avenue that I
+looked upon the greatest wonder of the day. Behind the shifting veil the
+view of that curving road seemed as fantastically unreal as the
+background of some ancient Italian masterpiece.</p>
+
+<p>This avenue, three miles in length, has on either side two rows of
+limes, and on a hot July midday the fragrance is overpoweringly sweet.
+From this the house is not visible&mdash;to reach it one must pass down a
+private drive to the left. Whilst the present<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> house was being built,
+Sir Harbottle Grimston writes on a tour enjoyed in 1768: "From Worksop
+Manor to Clumber, Lord Lincoln's, over the heath. The house is situated
+rather low in a very extensive park, near a noble piece of water, over
+which is a very handsome bridge on 'cycloidal' arches. The house is not
+yet finished, but by its present appearance seems as if it would be
+magnificent. There are nineteen windows in front, the middle one a bow,
+with two wings projecting forwards." About this time Walpole speaks of
+Clumber being "still in leading-strings". The building was finished
+about 1770, and is of white freestone, pleasantly age-coloured, with a
+south front that opens to a formal and beautiful Italian garden with
+terraced walks and graceful marble fountains. Beyond, reached by stone
+staircases, spreads the great lake, which covers eighty-seven acres. On
+this may be seen a gay full-masted frigate, the aspect of which in this
+tranquil and richly wooded country strikes a somewhat bizarre note. The
+park contains four thousand acres, and in the neighbourhood of the house
+may be seen many handsome cedars and yews. The finest view is obtainable
+from the opposite bank of the lake, or from near the head, where stands
+the home farmstead of Hardwick.</p>
+
+<div class="anchor"><a name="clumber2" id="clumber2"></a></div>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/i049.jpg" width="600" height="423" alt="CLUMBER" title="" />
+<span class="caption">CLUMBER</span>
+<p class="image"><a href="images/i049l.jpg">View larger image</a><br />
+<a href="#illustrations">Back to List of Illustrations</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p><p>The house, though not one of the most impressive in its exterior aspect,
+contains treasures of priceless worth. The pillared entrance hall has
+several fine statues, notably one of Napoleon and another of the author
+of <em>The Seasons</em>. All the state chambers are extremely handsome, and in
+the large drawing-room may be seen five ebony cabinets and four
+pedestals surmounted with crystal chandeliers, which were brought from
+the Doge's Palace. Perhaps the most notable is the dining-room, 60 feet
+long, 34 feet wide, and 30 feet high. We are told that it can easily
+accommodate one hundred and fifty guests at dinner. The library, a fine
+room panelled with mahogany, contains many treasures, notably three
+Caxtons&mdash;<em>The History of Reynard the Fox</em>, 1481; <em>The Chronicles of
+England</em>, 1482; and <em>The Golden Legend</em>, 1493: the first and second
+folios of Shakespeare: and many examples&mdash;one printed on vellum&mdash;of
+Froissart's <em>Chronicles</em>. There is also a fifteenth-century manuscript
+of Gower's <em>Confessio Amantis</em>. In the smoking-room is to be seen a
+remarkable chimney-piece of carved marble, which once stood in Fonthill
+Abbey, the house of the author of <em>Vathek</em>. To the antiquarian, perhaps
+the most interesting objects are four funeral cysts, dating from two
+thousand years ago. There is a fine collection of pictures, chiefly of
+old masters of distinction, amongst which may be found portraits by
+Holbein, Vandyke, Lely, and Hogarth, of folk intimately associated with
+the history of our country.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Near by stands the Church of the Holy Virgin, built by the present Duke
+of Newcastle. Its walls and spire are of rich red and yellowish
+sandstone, in the fourteenth-century style. This is probably one of the
+most ornately beautiful churches in the kingdom, and the view from the
+open doorway is surpassingly rich in colour. The interior contains much
+fine carving&mdash;the altar-piece is of alabaster, with the Virgin and child
+for central figures. The windows are delicately tinted: in spite of the
+excess of splendour naught can offend the artistic taste.</p>
+
+<p>The Clinton family, of which the Duke of Newcastle is head, is one of
+the oldest and most celebrated in our annals. Geoffrey de Clinton, a
+distinguished forbear, Chamberlain and Treasurer to Henry the First, was
+the builder of Warwick Castle, and after his day his collateral
+descendants devoted their lives to serving the Crown faithfully. Edward
+the First called one his "beloved squire"; others fought with glory in
+the French battles. A Clinton was in the deputation that received Anne
+of Cleves when she journeyed to meet her spouse. Another assisted in the
+suppression of Sir Thomas Wyatt's rebellion, and was afterwards one of
+Queen Elizabeth's Privy Council, being employed in various matters of
+high import, notably in the projected marriage of his royal mistress and
+the Duke of Anjou. He died in the fullness of honour,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> and was buried in
+St. George's Chapel, Windsor. His son was one of the peers at the trial
+of Mary Queen of Scots. In the time of George the First another of the
+family filled the highest office of state, and died Lord Privy Seal;
+whilst the present duke's grandfather, as illustrious as any of his
+predecessors, was a celebrated politician of Early Victorian days, and
+was, moreover, honoured with the friendship and admiration of the young
+Gladstone.</p>
+
+
+
+<p class="con"><a href="#contents">Back to Contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="thoresby" id="thoresby"></a>THORESBY</h2>
+
+<p>The village of Budby, beyond the confines of Thoresby Park, is one of
+the most placid and sleepy places I know. The stuccoed houses are
+perhaps devoid of picturesqueness, but the shallow Meden, which runs
+quietly beside the roadway, is crystal-clear, and from the wilderness on
+the farther bank one often sees pert black water hens slip gently from
+the shelter of the long grass, and glide to and fro like tiny boats.
+Beyond the bridge swans swim very proudly, with the austere dignity that
+has naught in common with the familiar bearing of petted birds in town
+parks. The Meden is a beautiful and melancholy stream, at whose side an
+exile from the hill country might sit down and weep. The rough woodland<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
+from which we are barred has a refreshingly cool aspect: in summer the
+wilder foliage contrasts strikingly with the rich purple of
+rhododendrons.</p>
+
+<p>The present house of Thoresby, which stands about a quarter of a mile
+from the site of its cold and damp predecessor, was built between 1864
+and 1874. It is in the modern Elizabethan style, its walls of stone
+quarried at Steetley, some miles away, and is surrounded by a rich and
+beautiful park where may be seen many magnificent beeches and firs and
+oaks. The mansion is rich in art treasures, and may be counted amongst
+the most luxuriously furnished in the country; and the pleasure gardens
+are stately and beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>Fine herds of deer wander among the bracken and heath, and the trees are
+haunted with happy squirrels. The park is thirteen miles in
+circumference, and near the house the little River Meden spreads out
+into a singularly picturesque lake, diversified with toy islands. The
+Thoresby of to-day possesses an atmosphere of tranquil splendour: in its
+neighbourhood one has some difficulty in evoking lively pictures of the
+celebrated folk who inhabited its predecessors.</p>
+
+<p>The great woman of Thoresby was Lady Mary Wortley Montague, who spent
+there the greater part of her youth. The house in her time was a plain
+and uninteresting building of red brick. This was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> destroyed by fire in
+1745. From the record by Sir Harbottle Grimston of his tour in the
+autumn of 1768, we find that&mdash;more than twenty years afterwards&mdash;the new
+hall was not completed. Sir Harbottle writes: "This parke excels the
+others much in beauty, having a very good turf, which in this country is
+very much wanting. The house, which is not nearly finished, is rather
+adapted for convenience than magnificence. It is fronted by a rising
+lawn, on the top of which is a very fine wood. On one side a noble piece
+of water, which supplies a cascade behind the house: the other side of
+this house is beautified by plantations." Horace Walpole found this hall
+dull, since he declared that "Merry Sherwood is a <em>triste</em> region, and
+wants a race of outlaws to enliven it, and as Duchess Robin Hood has
+left her country, it has little chance of recovering its ancient glory".
+This was obviously written after the famous Duchess of Kingston had
+departed on her Continental tour.</p>
+
+<p>Before me lie a pair of tiny shoes of sea-green silk, shot with an
+undertone of flesh colour. For at least a century these were in the
+possession of a yeoman family in the neighbourhood of Wortley village.
+The toes are pointed, the heels high, and on the lappets are frayed
+marks where the pins of the jewelled buckles pierced the fabric. The
+insteps do not belie the tradition that a kitten could lie beneath<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> the
+arch of the wearer's naked foot, for they are so high that it seems as
+if the blue blood of the Pierreponts were accompanied with physical
+deformity.</p>
+
+<p>These are relics of Lady Mary, and were probably left at her husband's
+heritage of Wharncliffe, in Yorkshire, when the first happiness of her
+married life had come to an end, and before she became engaged in those
+famous travels which, by their result&mdash;the introduction of inoculation
+for the smallpox&mdash;raised her even to a greater eminence than that given
+by her intellectual ability.</p>
+
+<p>She was born of a family that had already produced two men of splendid
+genius, whose names are written in golden letters in the annals of
+literature: Beaumont, the dramatist, who wrote, in collaboration with
+his friend Fletcher, some plays that are considered by our best critics
+as inferior only to Shakespeare's, was related by his mother to the
+Pierreponts of the Elizabethan age; and Henry Fielding, the novelist,
+was Lady Mary's second cousin. She is said to have written in her copy
+of <em>Tom Jones</em> as fine a tribute to an author's power as could be
+desired&mdash;simply the words <em>Ne plus ultra</em>. Villiers, the notorious Duke
+of Buckingham, whose end served Pope for some of his best satirical
+verse, was also of the same stock.</p>
+
+<div class="anchor"><a name="thoresby2" id="thoresby2"></a></div>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/i057.jpg" width="600" height="426" alt="THORESBY" title="" />
+<span class="caption">THORESBY</span>
+<p class="image"><a href="images/i057l.jpg">View larger image</a><br />
+<a href="#illustrations">Back to List of Illustrations</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p><p>It was at Thoresby that Lady Mary's strange love affair with the
+handsome Mr. Edward Wortley, of Wharncliffe Chase&mdash;the abode of the
+Dragon of Wantley&mdash;began, and after many difficulties ended in one of
+the most mysterious marriages that ever puzzled literary students. When
+a girl of fourteen she met the gentleman at a party, and was delighted
+with the attraction which he found in her conversation. She became a
+particular friend of his sister, with whom she commenced a sentimental
+correspondence&mdash;most of the letters, it may be said, being written by
+Wortley himself. He became, through the vehicle of the complacent Miss
+Anne, her guide and philosopher, and soon we find him answering certain
+precocious queries about Latin. Then jealousy appeared&mdash;somebody had
+escorted Lady Mary to Nottingham Races! The flattered young beauty begs
+to know the name of the man she loves, "that I may (according to the
+laudable custom of lovers) sigh to the woods and groves hereabouts, and
+teach it to the echoes". Thereupon Wortley's inclinations were made
+known, and she replied: "To be capable of preferring the despicable
+wretch you mention to Mr. Wortley, is as ridiculous, if not as criminal,
+as forsaking the Deity to worship a calf; ... my tenderness is always
+built upon my esteem and when the foundation perishes, it falls".</p>
+
+<p>Wortley, not only in the courtship, but throughout<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> their long wedded
+life, appears to have been singularly calm and unimpassioned. He was an
+admirable scholar, and counted among his intimate friends Addison and
+Steele. The second volume of the <em>Tatler</em> was dedicated to him in an
+epistle probably composed by the latter writer.</p>
+
+<p>The easy-going sister Anne died, without Lady Mary displaying an excess
+of grief, and thenceforth the lovers corresponded directly. She alarmed
+Wortley with her society successes, and he charged her with a growing
+levity and love of pleasure. Thereupon she became wise and steady, and
+his fears increased, since the sense she displayed was more suited to a
+grave matron than to a fashionable belle. Time went on: Wortley made his
+desires known to the maiden's father, but a disagreement arose
+concerning the marriage settlement, and the Marquis of Dorchester&mdash;he
+was not created Duke of Kingston until 1715&mdash;set about looking for
+another son-in-law. A gentleman was found whom Lady Mary professed to
+hate, and in August, 1712, Wortley carried her off in a coach and they
+were made man and wife. As the father was implacable, she entered
+wedlock without any portion. Probably the marquis was not sorry to be
+rid of his worthy daughter, since one cannot doubt that his opposition
+to her happiness must have whetted the tongue that stung so keenly in
+later years.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Of Lady Mary's life at Thoresby we find interesting pictures in her
+descendant, Lady Louisa Stuart's, "Introductory Anecdotes to her
+Letters". "Lord Dorchester, having no wife to do the honours of his
+table at Thoresby, imposed that task upon his eldest daughter, as soon
+as she had bodily strength for the office; which in those days required
+no small share. For the mistress was not only to invite&mdash;that is, urge
+and tease&mdash;her company to eat more than human throats could conveniently
+swallow, but to carve every dish, when chosen, with her own hands....
+There were then professed carving-masters, who taught young ladies the
+art scientifically: from one of these Lady Mary said she took lessons
+thrice a week, that she might be perfect on her father's public days,
+when in order to perform her functions without interruption she was
+forced to eat her own dinner an hour or two beforehand."</p>
+
+<p>In his lordship's resentment against her stolen marriage, he refused to
+allow her to have much intercourse with the rest of her family. Lady
+Louisa Stuart tells us that her mother, Lady Bute, "remembered having
+only seen him once, but that in a manner likely to leave some impression
+on the mind of a child. Lady Mary (Lady Bute's mother) was dressing, and
+she playing about the room, when there entered an elderly stranger (of
+dignified appearance and still handsome)<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> with the authoritative air of
+a person entitled to admission at all times; upon which, to her great
+surprise, Lady Mary, instantly starting up from the toilet-table,
+dishevelled as she was, fell on her knees to ask his blessing. A proof
+that even in the great and gay world this primitive custom was still
+universal."</p>
+
+<p>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 glass. 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 assorted&mdash;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&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>Her nephew Evelyn, second Duke of Kingston, chose for wife the notorious
+lady whom Walpole nicknamed "Duchess Robin Hood", and from whose
+romantic adventures resulted one of the most celebrated trials of the
+eighteenth century. After his death, in 1773, the title 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:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"And I also give and bequeath unto said Charles Meadows all the
+Communion Plate which belonged to the chapel of Thoresby, 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."</p></div>
+
+<p class="noi">Then, after a long list of other riches, one reads:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"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
+Duchess of Kingston, to be put up at Thoresby which as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> 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 Thoresby Lake".</p></div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+
+<p class="con"><a href="#contents">Back to Contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="ollerton" id="ollerton"></a>OLLERTON</h2>
+
+<p>There is one splendid approach to Thoresby, 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&mdash;the avenue might have been the state road to
+some royal ch&acirc;teau.</p>
+
+<div class="anchor"><a name="ollerton2" id="ollerton2"></a></div>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/i065.jpg" width="400" height="572" alt="OLLERTON" title="" />
+<span class="caption">OLLERTON</span>
+<p class="image"><a href="images/i065l.jpg">View larger image</a><br />
+<a href="#illustrations">Back to List of Illustrations</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span></p><p>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
+grass or flowers underfoot: the ground was covered thick with last
+year's mast and withered leaves&mdash;"yellow and black and pale and hectic
+red"; sometimes I saw a strange black and grey fungus, large as a fine
+lady's fan.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;an
+equipage such as is depicted in the engraving of old Worksop
+Manor&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> should
+instead reach a water-theatre with a hornbeam hedge, with rockwork
+basins, and with tall silver fountains. There is something nobly
+pathetic in this deserted avenue&mdash;even the trees themselves have a
+mournful look, as though they repined because of the loneliness of
+to-day. No living thing moves here&mdash;it might be a sacred grove, never to
+be frequented by creatures of the woodland.</p>
+
+<p>The village, or&mdash;not to wound local susceptibilities&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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 glass 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> 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&mdash;probably in the days of the window tax. The principal 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 principal features is a singularly handsome
+staircase. The garden is formal and pretty&mdash;a pleasant nook for an idle
+afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Within easy walking distance, not far from the tantalizing glimpse of
+the Rufford Avenue, a road turns eastward, passes a small wayside inn
+dignified with the name of Robin Hood, and soon reaches what was known
+as the King's House at Clipstone&mdash;to-day<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> 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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+
+
+<p class="con"><a href="#contents">Back to Contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="rufford" id="rufford"></a>RUFFORD</h2>
+
+<p>Rufford Abbey, which is within easy walking distance of Ollerton,
+surpasses 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 fa&ccedil;ade 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 space, where in summer great hydrangeas blossom in green
+tubs, a fine staircase leads to the main entrance.</p>
+
+<div class="anchor"><a name="rufford2" id="rufford2"></a></div>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/i071.jpg" width="600" height="425" alt="RUFFORD ABBEY" title="" />
+<span class="caption">RUFFORD ABBEY</span>
+<p class="image"><a href="images/i071l.jpg">View larger image</a><br />
+<a href="#illustrations">Back to List of Illustrations</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p><p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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 nobleman's house. At<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;the Japanese 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 grass-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.</p>
+
+<p>Of the original Cistercian abbey, built in 1148 and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> 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&mdash;a
+relic of ancient feasting.</p>
+
+<p>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:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"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&mdash;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."</p></div>
+
+<p>A striking contrast may be found in the Domestic State Papers of 10
+December, 1533:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"Thomas Legh to Cromwell. On St. Nicholas Day the quondam Abbot of
+Rufforth was installed at Ryvax, and the late abbot of Ryvax sang
+<em>Te deum</em> at his installation, and exhibited his resignation the
+same day. The assignation 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> of need. I would,
+therefore, that he had an honest living, though he has not deserved
+it, either to my lord or me."</p></div>
+
+<p>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:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"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."</p></div>
+
+<p>Then, giving a slight hint of his countess's ambitions, he adds:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"This taking effect, I shall be well at quiet, for there is few
+noblemen'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."</p></div>
+
+<div class="anchor"><a name="garden" id="garden"></a></div>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/i077.jpg" width="600" height="424" alt="THE JAPANESE GARDEN, RUFFORD ABBEY" title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE JAPANESE GARDEN, RUFFORD ABBEY</span>
+<p class="image"><a href="images/i077l.jpg">View larger image</a><br />
+<a href="#illustrations">Back to List of Illustrations</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p><p>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."</p>
+
+<p>Bess of Hardwick died in 1608, and in her will, which must have been
+made many years before, left &pound;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 compassion upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> and be gracious to her poor grandchild
+Arabella Stuart. After the old lady's death, Arabella's connection with
+Rufford soon ceased.</p>
+
+<p>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:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"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:&mdash;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 damned
+perpetually in hell-fire."</p></div>
+
+<p class="noi">From this beginning ensued one of the most noted and romantic feuds of
+the seventeenth century.</p>
+
+<p>After the death of this outspoken lady&mdash;her husband's father had accused
+the great Bess of occasionally using the language of Billingsgate&mdash;the
+Rufford estate passed to the Savile family, her sister-in-law,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> 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:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"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 nobody 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."</p></div>
+
+<p class="noi">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 title became extinct, and the estate with the
+Savile baronetcy passed to a somewhat distant kinsman, whose collateral<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>
+descendant is present owner of this fine estate, the traditions of which
+are almost without parallel in the matter of interest and romantic
+colouring.</p>
+
+
+
+<p class="con"><a href="#contents">Back to Contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="oaks" id="oaks"></a>EDWINSTOWE AND THE OAKS</h2>
+
+<p>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&mdash;she died in the following month at Harby
+near Lincoln&mdash;and thence was made the most notable funeral progress in
+English history.</p>
+
+<p>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 passed. 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.</p>
+
+<div class="anchor"><a name="edwinstowe" id="edwinstowe"></a></div>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/i083.jpg" width="400" height="573" alt="EDWINSTOWE" title="" />
+<span class="caption">EDWINSTOWE</span>
+<p class="image"><a href="images/i083l.jpg">View larger image</a><br />
+<a href="#illustrations">Back to List of Illustrations</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span></p><p>To the left, one passes through a wicket, and coasts a great wood for
+some hundred yards, then turns sharply and soon reaches the "Russian
+Cottage", a chalet "put together without nails", near by which is the
+well-known "Shambles Oak" or "Robin Hood's Larder", so called because in
+its hollow interior once were hooks for the storing of stolen venison.
+Unfortunately this fine tree was fired by some holiday-makers years ago,
+and to-day there is something pathetic in the valiant greenness of its
+scanty leaves. It is like an old, old man who will be brave to the end.</p>
+
+<p>Thence, by passing along the glades of Birkland and following paths
+faintly worn&mdash;with a chance of straying into strange solitudes&mdash;one
+comes before long to the "Major Oak"&mdash;the most virile of all the ancient
+trees. In spite of its iron stays&mdash;possibly because of them&mdash;it is still
+vigorous and hearty, although its age has been estimated at considerably
+more than a thousand years. There is something monstrous and uncanny
+about this veteran; in its vicinity folk of to-day seem strangely out of
+place.</p>
+
+<p>A pleasant old keeper watches it vigilantly, careful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> that none shall
+harm his treasure. He has a curious enough favourite: a fine cock
+pheasant which comes to his call&mdash;has done so indeed for the last four
+years&mdash;and daintily accepts plumcake from his hand. Once this bird had a
+mate; now he remains a contented widower. The quaintness of the
+good-fellowship of man and bird is very pleasant to observe.</p>
+
+<p>The circumference of the "Major Oak" at the height of five feet from the
+ground is over thirty feet, and the circumference of its branches is
+about two hundred and seventy yards. It was formerly called the "Queen's
+Oak", or the "Cockpen", the latter because of a fine breed of gamecocks
+that roosted there in the days of a Major Rooke, to whom it owes its
+present name. The tree is hollow, and, entering by a narrow
+opening&mdash;difficult enough for a stout person to negotiate&mdash;seventeen or
+eighteen may crowd together in the interior. Not far away is another
+magnificent tree, less known but almost equally worthy of admiration. It
+is called the "Simon Foster Oak", from the fact that a century ago a
+person of that name kept his pigs in acorn-time nightly under its
+shelter.</p>
+
+<p>Thence Edwinstowe may easily be reached by a path across the green.
+Historically the village is of some importance, since, according to
+general belief, Edwin, the first Christian King of Northumbria, was
+buried there. It is a sleepy, comely place; in winter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> the warm
+colouring of old brick and tile is very pleasant to the wayfarer, whilst
+throughout the other seasons the rich little gardens are all gay with
+old-fashioned flowers. The church is admirably situated, and has a tall
+and graceful spire with grotesque ornaments at the base, which from a
+distance bear a fantastical resemblance to roosting birds. In 1679 the
+folk of Edwinstowe humbly petitioned for permission to take two hundred
+oaks for the repair of the building, and one reads that, seven years
+before, the steeple had been beaten down by thunder, and the old body
+shaken, and in a very ruinous condition; also that without the king's
+charitable help the whole church must absolutely perish. After the
+resultory survey, the Surveyors General of the Woods wrote that most of
+the trees of Birkland and Bilhagh were decayed, very few of use to the
+navy being left. Finally it was decided that such trees might be taken
+as were not fit for Government purposes. Strangely enough, neither in
+this church nor in its sister of Ollerton are any ancient monuments,
+such as one might expect to find in so interesting a neighbourhood. At
+the vicarage here lived for some years Dr. E. Cobham Brewer, best known
+for his <em>Dictionary of Phrase and Fable</em>; whilst in a house that stood
+beside the stream lived William&mdash;afterwards Sir William&mdash;Boothby, the
+uncle of pretty Penelope, whose white<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> marble tomb is one of the wonders
+of Ashbourne in Peakland.</p>
+
+<p>The birches from which Birkland takes its name are accounted amongst the
+finest in the kingdom, and at no time look better than on a sunny
+winter's morning, when they present a wonderful symphony of brown and
+silver. After crossing Edwinstowe, in a sufficiently dangerous way, the
+road continues, with Bilhagh in sight, to Ollerton, where it bridges the
+placid Maun. Not far away is a small red quarry, its toy precipice
+pierced with the retreats of sand-martins. To the left is Cockglode, the
+only large house left in the forest proper&mdash;a Georgian place with a fine
+avenue of Scots pines. This was the residence of the late Earl of
+Liverpool, who, like all his noble neighbours, counted the great Bess of
+Hardwick amongst his forbears.</p>
+
+
+<h5>PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN<br />
+<em>At the Villafield Press, Glasgow, Scotland</em></h5>
+
+<div class="tn">
+<p class="center"><strong>Transcriber's Note</strong>:<br />
+<br />
+Spelling and punctuation have been retained as in
+the original publication.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dukeries, by R. Murray Gilchrist
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+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dukeries, by R. Murray Gilchrist
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Dukeries
+
+Author: R. Murray Gilchrist
+
+Illustrator: E. W. Haslehust
+
+Release Date: August 30, 2008 [EBook #26486]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUKERIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
+Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE PRIORY GATEWAY, WORKSOP]
+
+
+    THE
+    DUKERIES
+
+    Described by R. Murray Gilchrist
+
+    Pictured by E. W. Haslehust
+
+    [Illustration]
+
+    BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED
+    LONDON GLASGOW AND BOMBAY
+    1913
+
+
+
+
+    +--------------------------------------------------+
+    |                 ~Beautiful England~              |
+    |                   _Volumes Ready_                |
+    |                          |                       |
+    | OXFORD                   |   THE CORNISH RIVIERA |
+    | THE ENGLISH LAKES        |   DICKENS-LAND        |
+    | CANTERBURY               |   WINCHESTER          |
+    | SHAKESPEARE-LAND         |   THE ISLE OF WIGHT   |
+    | THE THAMES               |   CHESTER             |
+    | WINDSOR CASTLE           |   YORK                |
+    | CAMBRIDGE                |   THE NEW FOREST      |
+    | NORWICH AND THE BROADS   |   HAMPTON COURT       |
+    | THE HEART OF WESSEX      |   EXETER              |
+    | THE PEAK DISTRICT        |   HEREFORD            |
+    |                    THE DUKERIES                  |
+    |                                                  |
+    |              _Uniform with this Series_          |
+    |                                                  |
+    |                  ~Beautiful Ireland~             |
+    |                                                  |
+    |       LEINSTER           |     MUNSTER           |
+    |       ULSTER             |     CONNAUGHT         |
+    +--------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+                                                      Page
+
+    The Priory Gateway, Worksop             _Frontispiece_
+
+    Worksop Manor                                        8
+
+    Robin Hood's Larder                                 14
+
+    The Major Oak, Thoresby Park                        20
+
+    The Beech Avenue, Thoresby                          26
+
+    Welbeck Abbey                                       32
+
+    Clumber                                             36
+
+    Thoresby                                            42
+
+    Ollerton                                            48
+
+    Rufford Abbey                                       52
+
+    The Japanese Garden, Rufford Abbey                  56
+
+    Edwinstowe                                          60
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE DUKERIES]
+
+
+WORKSOP AND THE MANOR
+
+Although within the last twenty-five years Worksop has suffered many
+changes, unfortunate enough from an aesthetic point of view, the Dukeries
+end of the principal street still suggests the comfortable market town
+in the neighbourhood of folk of quality. The only relic of notable
+antiquity is the quaint inn, known as the Old Ship--a building with
+projecting upper story and carved oaken beams that might have been
+transported from Chester.
+
+The twin-towered Priory Church, a gatehouse of singular interest, and
+some slight, gracefully proportioned ecclesiastical ruins are the main
+features of interest. The Priory was founded by William de Lovetot, and
+used by the canons of the order of St. Augustine. Great men were buried
+there, notably several chiefs of the Furnival family, who had for town
+residence Furnival's Inn in Holborn. The interior of the church contains
+some excellent round and octagonal pillars, and one or two ancient
+effigies. The walls are coated with stucco, which detracts considerably
+from the beauty of this handsomely proportioned building. One of the
+most interesting things to be seen is a piece of a human skull, pierced
+with an arrowhead. This hangs to the left of the doorway by which the
+vestry is reached. There is a weird superstition concerning the moving
+of this relic.
+
+Near by is the ruined chapel, erected about the middle of the thirteenth
+century. It was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and in olden times must
+have blazed with gorgeous colours. The roof has fallen; little remains
+of its former beauty save the lancet windows. The double piscina and the
+sedilia are still in fair preservation, and we are shown the round holes
+in the stonework once filled with the pegs of the canons' oaken seats.
+
+In the churchyard are a few quaint epitaphs for such as delight to dwell
+upon the virtues of the forgotten dead. The Priory Gatehouse at the
+farther end is perhaps one of the most interesting buildings of its kind
+in existence. The stonework is of soft grey, and the roof chiefly of
+well-coloured tiles. A roadway about fifteen yards in length passes
+through the building; the original ceiling of oaken beams with graceful
+braces is still in good condition. Above this was the Hospitium, or
+guest chamber, where may be seen the hooded chimney-piece and the hearth
+before which old-time travellers rested o' nights and told tales that
+Chaucer might have loved, before retiring to the smaller chambers, to
+sleep heavily after the good cheer provided by their priestly hosts. In
+front of this relic stands the old market cross; and near by, until
+within the nineteenth century, were the stocks for vagrants and
+refractory townsmen.
+
+Camden tells us that in his time Worksop was "noted for its great
+produce of liquorice, and famous for the Earl of Shrewsbury's house,
+built in our memory by George Talbot, with the magnificence becoming so
+great an Earl, and yet below envy". In Park Street, not far from the
+Priory Gateway, is one of the entrances to the Manor Park. The trees
+still remaining are not noteworthy in the matter of size, with the
+exception of a few cedars and beeches near the terrace of the house. As
+one approaches, the Manor Hills, gently sloping and well wooded, with
+heather-covered clearings, may be seen to the left. As for the house
+itself, the garden front of to-day, without being of great architectural
+interest, has a very pleasant air of unpretentious comfort and
+brightness. There is a flower garden whose beds are edged with box and
+yew. The chief object of note is a long and high wall, probably a
+portion of the ancient house; this is somewhat dignified with its worn
+coping, whereon stand various urns the carving of which time has
+softened. From the terrace one looks down on the sloping park with its
+mere, and scattered trees, and graceful groups of young horses.
+
+Passing round the house, and entering a vast gateway surmounted by a
+lion, one sees, to the right, part of the manor built after 1761, when
+the house which replaced the Elizabethan palace built by the Earl of
+Shrewsbury and his Countess Bess, with its pictures and furniture and
+some of the Arundelian marbles, was destroyed by fire. To my thinking,
+the most suggestive view of the present edifice is gained from the
+Mansfield road, within a few minutes' walk of the town.
+
+From an ancient engraving we find that the first house bore some
+resemblance to Hardwick Hall, the great Bess's most successful building.
+It contained five hundred rooms; in front was a fine courtyard, with a
+central octagonal green plot surrounding a basin with a fountain. The
+artist gave to this a touch of life by drawing a coach and six proudly
+curving towards the outlet; on the lawns beyond are ladies with
+fan-shaped hoops, and thin-legged gentlemen with puffed coat skirts.
+
+[Illustration: WORKSOP MANOR]
+
+Of this house Horace Walpole writes, in 1756: "Lord Stafford carried us
+to Worksop, where we passed two days. The house is huge and one of the
+magnificent works of Old Bess of Hardwick, who guarded the Queen of
+Scots here for some time in a wretched little bedchamber within her own
+lofty one:--there is a tolerable little picture ('The story of
+Bathsheba, finely drawn and shaded, in faint colours') of Mary's
+needlework. The great apartment is vast and _triste_, the whole leanly
+furnished: the great gallery, of about two hundred feet, at the top of
+the house, is divided into a library and into nothing. The chapel is
+decent. There is no prospect, and the barren face of the country is
+richly furred with evergreen plantations." In 1761 he records that
+"Worksop--the new house--is burned down; I don't know the circumstances,
+it has not been finished a month; the last furniture was brought in for
+the Duke of York: I have some comfort that I had seen it; except the
+bare chamber in which the Queen of Scots lodged, nothing remained of
+ancient time".
+
+Not only was Mary Stuart well acquainted with Worksop Manor, but later,
+her son, James the First, on his first progress to London, became the
+guest of Gilbert, Earl of Shrewsbury, her jailer's successor. In a
+letter to his agent, John Harpur, this nobleman writes forewarning him
+of the expected honour, and, after bidding him see to horses being in
+readiness, adds, as postcript: "I will not refuse anie fatt capons and
+hennes, partridges, or the like, yf the King come to me". We find that
+James left Edinburgh on the fifth of April, 1603, and reached Worksop on
+the twentieth, after leaving the High Sheriff of Yorkshire at Bawtry,
+and being met and escorted by his brother of Nottinghamshire. It is
+matter for surprise that the king accepted the Talbot hospitality,
+considering their melancholy connection with his mother's tragedy, but
+it is true that he never made parade of filial piety. At Worksop Park
+appeared a number of huntsmen, clad in Lincoln green, whose chief, "with
+a woodman's speech, did welcome him, offering His Majesty to show him
+some game, which he gladly consented to see, and, with a traine set, he
+hunted a good space, very much delighted: at last he went into the
+house, where he was so nobly received, with superfluitie of all things,
+that still every entertainment seemed to exceed other. In this place,
+besides the abundance of all provision and delicacies, there was most
+excellent soul-ravishing musique, wherewith His Highness was not a
+little delighted." One wonders if he was shown the royal prisoner's
+miserable little room. At Worksop he spent a night, and in the morning
+stayed for breakfast, which ended, "there was such store of provision
+left, of fowls, fish, and almost everything, besides bread, beere and
+wines, that it was left open for any man that would, to come and take".
+
+In the State papers relating to the Rebellion of '45 may be found a
+curious and interesting account of a secret hiding-place, reached by
+lifting a sheet of lead on the roof. A tattling young woman told the
+story upon oath, describing a staircase that descended to a little room
+with a fireplace, a bed, and a few chairs, with a door in the wainscot
+that opened to a place full of arms. Unfortunately, both history and
+tradition are silent concerning any shelter offered by Worksop Manor to
+proscribed folk.
+
+After the burning of the new house, in 1761, the Duke of Norfolk, Lord
+Shrewsbury's descendant, laid the foundation stone of another in 1763.
+We learn that this was to have been one of the largest in England; but
+that only one side of the proposed quadrangle was completed, although
+five hundred workmen were employed, and closely supervised by the
+duchess in person. This stood for three-quarters of a century; then, the
+estate being sold to the Duke of Newcastle, the greater part of the
+house was pulled down and the present place built.
+
+Of the original park, which Evelyn mentions as "sweet and delectable",
+nowadays there is but little to be seen. There still remains, however, a
+beech grove called the "Druid's Temple", a "Lover's Walk" for
+sentimental youth, and a wood of acacias and cedars, yews and tulip
+trees--once known as the "Wilderness", but since the eighteenth century
+called the "Menagerie", because of a Duchess of Norfolk who kept an
+aviary within its precincts. Mrs. Delany, in 1756, thus alludes to this
+place: "We went there on Sunday evening; but I only saw a crown bird and
+a most delightful cockatoo, with yellow breast and topping". There is an
+air of pleasing disorder about the drives, and one is occasionally
+reminded of Irish demesnes.
+
+Within a mile of the house once stood the celebrated "Shire oak"--a
+gigantic tree whose branches overshadowed a portion of Nottinghamshire,
+of Derbyshire, and of Yorkshire. Evelyn tells us that the distance from
+bough-end to bough-end was ninety feet, and that two hundred and
+thirty-five horses might have sheltered beneath its foliage. This tree
+disappeared entirely in the eighteenth century, and the exact site is
+now a matter of some uncertainty.
+
+
+
+
+SHERWOOD FOREST AND ROBIN HOOD
+
+To savour the full charm of Sherwood Forest one must stray from the
+highroad, lose one's path, and wander in happy patience until a broad
+avenue is reached, or above the treetops one sees the slender and
+graceful spire of some stately church. The formal beauty of the
+frequented ways--trimly kept and splendidly coloured--precludes all
+illusion: only in the remote solitudes with their monstrous old trees is
+it possible to evoke a mind picture of Robin Hood and his devoted
+followers. And even in the most secluded places the imagined pageant of
+these folk suggests the theatre. The loveliness seems unreal--a
+background devised by some scene-painter of genius.
+
+But Sherwood is always beautiful and always tranquil; to those who know
+aught of wood magic it is as fair in cold midwinter as in autumn, when
+the leaves are no longer green leaves, but a rich mosaic of russet and
+orange and sullen red. My most wonderful memory is of a November day
+when a fine snow was falling, and the leaves drifted downward in a
+continuous murmuring veil. Then, no rabbits played upon the grassy
+wayside or crossed the track, and the pheasants shivered in their hidden
+shelters. In early springtime one best realizes the antiquity; the
+first opening leaves call to mind pale lichen growing upon damp castle
+walls: in summer the air is languorous, bringing a desire for rest and
+contemplation. Storms are impious there: the ancient oaks and birches
+and chestnuts must wail and protest, like dotards wakened from senility
+to cruel hours of actual life.
+
+Of the old forest naught remains in perfection save the southern parts
+known as Birkland and Bilhagh, in the neighbourhood of Edwinstowe and
+Ollerton. Near the former village may be seen the famous "Major Oak" and
+"Robin Hood's Larder". The full glory departed several centuries ago;
+Camden himself writes of "Sherewood, which some interpret as _clear
+Wood_, others as _famous Wood_, formerly one close continu'd shade with
+the boughs of trees so entangled in one another, that one could hardly
+walk single in the paths," that "at present it is much thinner, and
+feeds an infinite number of Deer and Stags".
+
+In British times the district was occupied by the tribe of the Coritani,
+and later the Romans built several camps here, various relics of which
+were discovered in the eighteenth century. Not far away, Edwin, the
+Saxon King of Northumbria, was slain in battle--fighting against Penda,
+King of Mercia, and Cadwallader, King of Wales; and in all probability
+his body was buried at the village of Edwinstowe.
+
+[Illustration: ROBIN HOOD'S LARDER]
+
+The earliest definite notice of Sherwood dates from the days of Henry
+the Second, when William Peverel had control and profit of the district
+under the Crown. After his dispossession, a lady named Matilda de Caux
+and her husband held the office of Chief Foresters. In Edward the
+First's time this office was seized by the Crown, and granted, as a
+special mark of favour, to persons of high station.
+
+The _Charta de Foresta_, constructed in Henry the Third's reign,
+contains some curious information about woodland customs. We learn that
+"any archbishop, bishop, earl, or baron, coming to the King at his
+command, and passing through the forests, might take and kill one or two
+of the King's deer, by view of the forester if he were present; if not,
+then he might do it upon the blowing of a horn, that it might not look
+like a theft. The same might be done when they returned."[1] Courts
+called Swainmotes were held thrice yearly--one fifteen days before
+Michaelmas, a second about the Feast of St. Martin, and a third fifteen
+days before St. John Baptist's Day. At the same time the cruel
+punishments for offences against the forest laws were lessened in
+rigour. Thenceforth no man was punished with death or mutilation for
+illegally hunting, but if found taking venison was fined heavily. If he
+were unable to pay, he was imprisoned for a year and a day, and then
+discharged upon pledges; but if unable to find any surety, was exiled.
+
+    Footnote 1: Reeves's _English Law_.]
+
+The chief officers were known as foresters, verderors, woodwards, and
+agisters. Each verderor had the liberty of taking a tree out of Birkland
+or Bilhagh; but this privilege seems to have been abused, since in later
+years the officers were found to choose the best timber available, and
+in William the Third's reign the favour was withdrawn.
+
+Until the sixteenth century the forest seems to have been infested with
+wolves: we read that one, Sir Robert Plumpton, in Henry the Sixth's
+time, held land called "wolf-hunt land" at Mansfield Woodhouse, seven or
+eight miles away, by service of horn-blowing to chase or frighten away
+these creatures. In 1635, from a survey taken by royal command, it was
+discovered that the forests contained 1367 red deer, 987 of these being
+"rascalds", or ill-conditioned. A few years before, the district had
+been ravaged by fire, and a contemporary writer describes the
+conflagration as one such as was "never knowne in menes memory; beinge
+four mille longe and a mille and a halfe over all at once". Later the
+gentleman tells how "ridinge on his way through the forest homeward, he
+saw a greate herde of faire red deere, and amonst them 2 extreordanory
+greet stages, the which he never saw the like".
+
+Much of the forest oak was used for the royal navy, but more was allowed
+to decay. Folk of good birth but fallen fortunes frequently begged a
+grant of these trees from the Crown. In 1677 Thoroton writes that so
+many claims were granted that there would soon not be wood enough left
+to cover the bilberries! As time went on, the cleared portions, being of
+no further use for kingly sport, were sold to various noblemen. In 1683,
+1270 acres were bought by the Duke of Kingston, to add to Thoresby Park;
+while early in the eighteenth century 3000 acres were enclosed for the
+making of Clumber Park. The last portions of the forest remaining were
+the hays, or enclosures, of Birkland and Bilhagh, which were granted to
+the Duke of Portland about 1827, in exchange for the perpetual advowson
+of St. Mary-le-Bone. Bilhagh later became the property of the late Earl
+Manvers, its price being the manors of Holbeck and Bonbusk, near
+Welbeck. After the resignation of the Crown lands the waning historical
+interest of Sherwood ceased. Birkland and Bilhagh are still beautiful as
+in their prime, but the rest of the neighbourhood is nowadays naught but
+a wonderful pleasaunce, where drowsy pheasants wander unafraid, and
+where the chief signs of life are on holidays, when happy folk crowd
+from the neighbouring towns to view, awestricken, the wonders and the
+riches of the great houses, and the artificial beauties of perhaps the
+finest parks in England.
+
+One or two literary men of some distinction have rhapsodized over the
+charms of Sherwood, notably William Howitt and Washington Irving. Lord
+Byron, whose house of Newstead lies not far away, displayed but little
+interest in the district. The only modern writer to whom the secret of
+the real Sherwood has been fully divulged is Mr. James Prior, whose
+books, inspired by the spirit of the woodlands, should delight all who
+love fresh and wholesome pictures of unspoiled country life.
+
+Sherwood, as everybody knows, was Robin Hood's kingdom. Learned men have
+racked their brains concerning the great outlaw's existence. Joseph
+Hunter, the historian of Hallamshire, published in 1852 an ingenious
+tract concerning his period and his real character, which in short gives
+plausible enough details of his adventures. There is a well known by his
+name not far from Doncaster, another near Hathersage, in the Peak
+Country; and more than one village prides itself upon the site of his
+"Shooting Butts". A cave, by legend ascribed to him, may be found on an
+"edge" overhanging the Derwent valley, whilst within an easy walk of
+Haddon Hall one may see two rocks known as his "Stride".
+
+Langland, in the _Vision of Piers Plowman_, makes the first mention of
+his popularity:--
+
+    "I kan not parfitly my paternoster, as the priest sayeth,
+     But I kan rymes of Robyn Hode and Randolf, Earl of Chester".
+
+Again, in John Fordun's _Scottish Chronicle_, written about 1360, we
+find him described not only as a notorious robber, but as a man of great
+charity. In 1493 Wynkyn de Worde printed a sequence of old ballads
+treating of his adventures. This book, known as _The Lytel Geste of
+Robyn Hood_, became very popular, and brought into vogue the rustic
+pageants known as the Robin Hood Games, in which the adventures of the
+outlaw and his companions, Maid Marion, Little John, Will Scarlet, and
+Friar Tuck, were depicted for the admiration of the multitude.
+
+In the public library of the University of Cambridge is preserved the
+manuscript of the finest and most ancient ballad. This, which is known
+as "A Tale of Robin Hood", may be cited in its quaint and dramatic
+picturesqueness as the most perfect and complete example of song
+literature extant. It begins with Robin's desire to attend church at
+Nottingham, since "It is a fortnight and more sin' I my Saviour saw".
+Little John accompanies him, but on the way they quarrel about a wager,
+and Robin strikes him, upon which the faithful servant departs in high
+dudgeon. At Nottingham a hooded monk recognizes our hero and gives the
+alarm. He is surrounded by the sheriff and his followers, and, although
+he slays twelve men, is at last captured, and held in durance until
+Little John, who has quite forgiven him, accomplishes his release by a
+clever stratagem.
+
+The chap-book entitled _Robin Hood's Garland_, which was published at
+York, contains the generally believed account of his death and burial.
+In it we read how he visited his cousin, the Prioress of Kirklees
+Nunnery, for the purpose of being bled. She, who must have been
+soul-sister of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, took advantage of his
+defencelessness, and, after opening a vein, locked up the room and left
+him for a day. Before dying, he blew his horn, and Little John, who was
+outside, burst open the doors just in time to hear his last words. The
+_Garland_ is full of instances of Robin's nobility, and for delightful,
+invigorating reading may even be commended to the youth of to-day. It is
+a concise little history, beginning with the first day of his outlawry,
+and ending with the fatal scene at Kirklees. As a vivid series of
+woodland sketches it is without parallel of its kind, and reading, one
+may almost journey through the greater Sherwood in the company of the
+goodly archers clothed in Lincoln green.
+
+[Illustration: THE MAJOR OAK, THORESBY PARK]
+
+The humour is bucolic and breezy. The song of "Robin Hood and the
+Bishop", which the black-letter copy describes as "Shewing how Robin
+Hood went to an old woman's house, and changed cloathes with her to
+escape from the bishop, and how he robbed the bishop of all his gold and
+made him sing a mass", contains about the best specimen of this country
+wit. Again, in _Robin Hood and the Tanner of Nottingham_ is a most
+ludicrous account of the manner in which, after being threatened with a
+"knop upon his bare scop", Robin receives as sound a drubbing as ever he
+himself inflicted. But this punishment, and his philosophical manner of
+bearing it, only earned him another follower, since the victorious
+tanner became at once enamoured of the free forest life, and swore there
+and then to join the band.
+
+The Elizabethan dramatists made good use of our hero, knowing well that
+when he was presented on the stage the hearts of the people were moved.
+In "a Pleasant Commedie called Looke About You", he appears as a
+fresh-faced and pretty young nobleman, ever ready to do a good turn to
+his friends, to whom everybody defers, and who passes through the play
+laughing and merry as his namesake, the Goodfellow of Ben Jonson. So
+rosy are his cheeks and so bright his eyes that he personates the
+heroine, Lady Fauconbridge, at some unwelcome visits that she dreads.
+_The Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon_, by Anthony Munday, who
+wrote at the end of the sixteenth century, gives the next dramatic
+information. This shows him living in full state, but still young, and
+on the eve of marriage with Matilda Fitzwater, Lord Lacy's child. His
+steward, Warman, instigated by the Prior of York, betrays him in
+Judas-like fashion (for what real reason we are not told, if it be not
+for the wasting of his lands), and as an outlaw he flies to the
+greenwood, where he is joined by Matilda, who renounces her fine name
+and calls herself Maid Marion. Prince John has fallen in love with her,
+and she is in mortal fear of his pursuit. In this play Little John and
+Friar Tuck converse prettily in an aside:--
+
+    _Little John._ Methinks I see no jest of Robin Hood,
+                   No merry morrices of Friar Tuck,
+                   No pleasant skippings up and down the wood,
+                   No hunting songs, no coursings of the buck.
+
+    _Friar Tuck._  For merry jests they have been shown before,
+                   As how the friar fell into the well
+                   For love of Jenny, that fair bonny belle;
+                   How Greenleaf robbed the Shrieve of Nottingham,
+                   And other mirthful matters full of game.
+
+These passages obviously refer to the antecedent plays. After this comes
+_The Death of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon_, collaborated by the same
+author with Henry Chettle, another successful playwright. This,
+differing from the ballad account, shows how he was poisoned by his
+uncle, the wicked prior. His obsequies are solemnized with a plaintive
+little dirge:--
+
+    "Weep, weep, ye woodmen, wail,
+     Your hands with sorrow wring,
+     Your master Robin Hood lies dead,
+     Therefore sigh as you sing.
+
+    "Here lie his primer and his beads,
+     His bent bow and his arrows keen,
+     His good sword and his holy cross:
+     Now cast on flowers fresh and green;
+
+    "And as they fall, shed tears and say,
+     Wella, wella-day! wella, wella-day:
+     Thus cast ye flowers and sing,
+     And on to Wakefield take your way."
+
+After his demise poor Marion is so tormented by her royal persecutor
+that she seeks refuge in Dunmow Abbey, where she is poisoned by the
+king's order. In each play the outlaw is extolled so highly, and made so
+admirable in every way, that in spite of the quaintness one is moved to
+honest admiration. His dying scene is most pathetic, and there is no
+doubt that the simple country audience would weep as though for a dearly
+loved friend.
+
+The airs pertaining to the Robin Hood literature are merry in the
+extreme--delicious, sparkling waves of melody, to which thousands of
+country dances have been performed. They sprang from the heart, and
+even to-day, if offered to the public, might win popular success. All
+are "lusty fellows with good backbones", such as Shakespeare in his
+salad days must have listened to and admired. Gay, in his pastoral _The
+Flights_, gives a charming picture of Bowzybeus delighting the reapers
+with one of these ballads, ere falling asleep midst happy laughter.
+
+In folklore are still preserved a few relics. "To go round by Robin
+Hood's barn" is to travel in a roundabout fashion, and "to sell Robin
+Hood's pennyworths", to sell much below value, as a generous robber
+might. His "feather" is the Traveller's Joy, his "hatband" the
+club-moss. His "men" or his "sheep" are the bracken, and his "wind" a
+wind that brings on a thaw. We are told that Robin could stand anything
+but a "tho wind". The Red Campion, the Ragged Robin, and the Herb Robert
+are known in several counties by his name. His greatest claim to
+popularity was that he took away the goods of none save rich men, never
+killed any person except in self-defence, charitably fed the poor, and
+was in short, as an old writer tells us, "the most humane and the prince
+of robbers".
+
+
+
+
+WELBECK ABBEY
+
+The present house of Welbeck was built upon the site of an abbey for
+Premonstratensian canons, which was begun in 1140. Nothing, however,
+remains of the old place save some stonework in the cellars and a few
+inner walls. A portion of the house dates from 1604; in an engraving
+from the great Duke of Newcastle's book on Horsemanship we find that it
+originally bore some resemblance to a French chateau. Charles the First
+and Henrietta Maria were entertained here--the house being placed at
+their disposal whilst their host occupied Bolsover Castle, some miles
+distant. Ben Jonson devised a masque entitled "Love's Welcome" for the
+royal amusement, and there was such feasting and show that it cost
+between fourteen and fifteen thousand pounds.
+
+The Abbey is richly furnished, and contains one of the finest
+collections of pictures and miniatures in Europe, and a wealth of
+ancient manuscripts. The miniatures were gathered together in the early
+part of the eighteenth century by Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford. Of
+these treasures Mrs. Delany writes in 1756: "I have undertaken to set
+the miniatures of the Duchess of Portland [Lord Oxford's daughter and
+heiress] in order, as she does not like to trust them to anybody else,
+and for want of proper airing they are in danger of being spoiled. Such
+Petitots! such Olivers! such Coopers!" About that time the good lady
+describes an evening walk in park and gardens: "By the time we came in,
+the moon was risen to a great height, and we sat down in the great
+dining-room to contemplate its glory, and to talk of our friends, who in
+all likelihood were at that moment admiring its splendour as well as
+we". Later she confesses that Welbeck has a _glare of grandeur_, and
+that although she admires her Duchess when receiving princely honours
+and acquitting herself with dignity, she loves her best in her own
+private dressing-room!
+
+The miniatures were wellnigh lost in the middle of the nineteenth
+century. The late duke had lent the collection to the Manchester Art
+Treasures Exhibition of 1857, and a certain well-known literary man, who
+was in the owner's confidence, arranged for all to be sent to London, so
+that, like Mrs. Delany, he might arrange them in suitable order. There
+he pawned the whole lot for trifling sums, with seven different
+pawnbrokers; but, thanks chiefly to a well-known inhabitant of Worksop,
+all, with the exception of five, were recovered.
+
+[Illustration: THE BEECH AVENUE, THORESBY]
+
+Here are two famous Riding Houses, one the pride of the author of the
+great work on Horsemanship in Stuart times. This is used nowadays as a
+picture gallery, the late Duke of Portland having built another of
+dimensions almost double. To my thinking, one of the chief beauties of
+Welbeck is the gilded gateway opening to the avenue on the road from
+Worksop to Ollerton--surely one of the most graceful and yet imposing
+structures of its kind in the country. Another and more singular
+attraction consists of the subterranean roadways--gigantic mole runs the
+cause of whose creation is, and probably always will be, a mystery to
+the world in general. The pleasure gardens are stocked with rare trees,
+and the vast lake has so natural an appearance that one forgets that it
+was made by human folk. The kitchen garden is notably fine: we are told
+that it covers thirty acres, and that the houses for peaches and other
+luscious fruits extend over a quarter of a mile. There is a story of a
+monstrous bunch of Syrian grapes having, some generations ago, been
+grown there, and sent by the duke of that time across country to
+Wentworth House. It weighed nineteen and a half pounds, and was
+carried--as was the trophy taken by the spies from Canaan--attached to a
+pole.
+
+Finest of the Welbeck trees is the "Greendale Oak", which in 1724 was
+transformed, by cutting, into an archway, the aperture being 10 feet 3
+inches high and 6 feet 3 inches wide, so that a carriage, or three
+horsemen riding abreast, could pass through. From the branches cut off
+at that time a cabinet was made for the Countess of Oxford--a fine piece
+of furniture, inlaid with a representation of her spouse driving his
+chariot and six through the opening.
+
+Horace Walpole, in 1756, writes in his usual acid style: "I went to
+Welbeck. It is impossible to describe the bales of Cavendishes, Harleys,
+Holleses, Veres, and Ogles: every chamber is tapestried with them; nay,
+and with two thousand other morsels; all their histories inscribed; all
+their arms, crests, services, sculptured on chimneys of various English
+marbles in ancient forms (and to say truth) most of them ugly. Then such
+a Gothic hall, with pendent fretwork in imitation of the old, and with a
+chimney-piece like mine in the library. Such water-colour pictures! such
+historic fragments! There is Prior's portrait and the Column and
+Verelst's flower on which he wrote; and the authoress Duchess of
+Newcastle in a theatric habit, which she generally wore, and,
+consequently, looking as mad as the present Duchess; and dukes of the
+same name, looking as foolish as the present Duke; and Lady Mary
+Wortley, drawn as an authoress, with rather better pretensions; and
+cabinets and glasses wainscoted with the Greendale Oak, which was so
+large that an old steward wisely cut a way through it to make a
+triumphal passage for his lord and lady on their wedding! What treasures
+to revel over! The horseman Duke's manege is converted into a lofty
+stable, and there is still a grove or two of magnificent oaks that have
+escaped all these great families, though the last Lord Oxford cut down
+above an hundred thousand pounds' worth. The place is little pretty,
+distinct from all these reverend circumstances." Twenty-one years later
+he writes: "Welbeck is a devastation. The house is a delight of my eyes,
+for it is a hospital of old portraits." One is inclined to believe that
+something in the order of his reception had stung him into lasting
+pique.
+
+The great ancestress of the owner of Welbeck, and of the other nobility
+in the Dukeries, was Bess of Hardwick, who built a magnificent country
+house on the "edge" overlooking the Vale of Scarsdale, some miles
+distant from the border of Sherwood Forest. This singular woman, as
+striking a personality as her contemporary and sometime friend Queen
+Elizabeth, occasionally passed in state along the "ridings".
+
+Her life-story is a marvellous instance of genius devoted to the
+attainment of a high position. The daughter of a well-to-do squire, she
+was married at fifteen to a wealthy young gentleman whose estate lay ten
+miles away, and who, dying very soon, left her mistress of the greater
+part of his fortune. Her first house at Barlow, near Chesterfield, has
+entirely disappeared, save for a piece of old wall. She remained a widow
+for many years, then married Sir William Cavendish, by whom she had six
+children. After his death she chose Sir William St. Loe, inherited his
+extensive estates, then, well past her prime, accepted the offer of the
+widowed George, Earl of Shrewsbury; but before the marriage insisted
+that two of her young Cavendishes should be married to two of his young
+Talbots. For a few years her fourth venture proved satisfactory enough;
+but the custody of Mary Queen of Scots apparently became too much of a
+nerve-strain for both man and wife; and their wrangles finally became
+common property in high circles. She embroiled herself with Queen
+Elizabeth; she persecuted her husband for his so-called
+meanness--although she was exceedingly rich in her own right; and, worst
+of all, she sowed dissension between him and his own offspring. The poor
+earl's condition was melancholy enough; one has no doubt that he was
+thankful to the heart when they separated for the last time.
+
+In the portrait at Hardwick Hall she is represented as a comely,
+roguish-looking matron in full maturity: a better idea of her character
+may be won from the effigy lying on the tomb she erected for herself in
+All Saints' Church at Derby. There one sees a face not unbeautiful, but
+cold and masterful in the extreme.
+
+It was her grandson, William, first Duke of Newcastle, who first gave
+lustre to Welbeck, and perhaps, after all, he owed most of his celebrity
+to an intellectual wife, known in Restoration days as "Mad Madge of
+Newcastle". Few pictures of domestic life in the seventeenth century are
+more pleasing than that given by this lady in the short account of her
+girlhood, which opens her fantastical autobiography. Born the youngest
+of Sir Thomas Lucas's eight children, in a large country house near
+Colchester, she was trained under a system of education originated by
+her mother. The daughters, of whom there were five, were not kept
+strictly to their schoolbooks, but rather taught "for formality than
+benefit". Singing, dancing, music, reading, writing, and embroidery were
+their accomplishments; but Mistress Lucas, who was left a widow soon
+after the birth of Margaret, cared not so much for dancing and fiddling
+and conversing in foreign languages as that they should be bred modestly
+and on honest principles. In London, where they migrated for the season,
+they would visit Spring Gardens, Hyde Park, and similar places, and
+sometimes attended concerts, or supped in barges on the river.
+
+As she grew to womanhood Margaret became filled with the desire to play
+maid of honour to Queen Henrietta Maria, chiefly because she had heard
+that the queen in her poverty had not the same number of ladies as in
+her prosperity. After much persuasion her mother allowed her to leave
+home, and she joined the Court at Oxford, and soon afterwards met
+William Cavendish, who was her senior by nearly thirty years. They
+married, and the battle of Marston Moor forced them into exile. Obliged
+to return to England, so that she might raise funds, she wrote one or
+two volumes of _Poems_ and _Philosophical Fancies_, successors to
+another grotesque work entitled _The World's Olio_. These were the first
+three of ten immense folios, treating of every imaginable subject, and
+most slipshod in grammar and style, that she gave to the world, tenderly
+regarding them, in the absence of any other offspring, as her children.
+
+[Illustration: WELBECK ABBEY]
+
+The Lives of the duke and of herself are, however, the only productions
+remembered nowadays. Of the first, Charles Lamb says: "There is no
+casket rich enough, no casing sufficiently durable, to honour and keep
+safe such a jewel"; but Pepys, who lived at the same time as the noble
+authoress, described it as "the ridiculous History of the Duke, which
+shows her to be a mad, conceited, rediculous woman, and he an asse to
+suffer her to write what she does to and of him". Her own memoir is
+charmingly and unaffectedly egotistical. She tells us: "I fear my
+ambition inclines to vainglory, for I am very ambitious, yet 'tis
+neither for beauty, wit, title, wealth, or power, but as they are Steps
+to raise me to Fancies Tower, which is to live by remembrance in all
+ages.... My Disposition is more inclined to Melancholy than Merry, but
+not crabbed or peevish Melancholy, but soft, melting, and contemplating
+Melancholy, and I am apt rather to weep than to laugh." Always fearing
+that she might be mistaken by posterity for her husband's first wife,
+she gives an elaborate explanation at the end of the book, so that all
+in after years might accredit her with intellectual magnificence.
+
+Although she met with much ridicule at the Court of Charles the Second,
+being satirized particularly by the libertine poets Etherege and Sedley,
+the fulsome praise of men of considerable intellect was lavished upon
+her, and even the sedate and usually truthful Evelyn, after a lengthy
+enumeration of the great women of history, flattered her with the
+assurance that all of those summed up together only divided between them
+what she retained in one! A curious story is told of her appearance with
+a train-bearer in the chamber of Catherine of Portugal. As this was a
+breach of Court etiquette, she was forbidden to repeat it, and resented
+the reproof by wearing at her next appearance a train of satin and
+silver thirty yards long, with the end supported by four waiting-ladies
+in the ante-room.
+
+She wrote several plays, concerning one of which, _The Humorous Lovers_,
+Pepys tells us that although he would rather not have seen it, since it
+was so sickeningly silly, yet he was glad, because he could understand
+her better afterwards. At the end of the first performance, as a queen
+of breeding, she stood up in her box and made her respects to the
+actors.
+
+In those days of better fortunes the quaintly assorted couple spent much
+time in the country houses of Welbeck and Bolsover. The duke's income
+was very large, being equal to at least L200,000 of our money, and,
+since both had rural tastes, it is probable that they were far happier
+in Nottinghamshire than in their fine town mansion in Clerkenwell Close.
+Welbeck she admired most, since it was seated "in the bottom of a park
+environed with woods, and noble, yet melancholy". One wonders if the
+ghost of this "wise, wittie and learned lady" wanders in those beautiful
+and amazing precincts, a little bewildered and more than a little angry
+that any of her beloved spouse's descendants should have dared to
+enlarge and embellish the comfortable temple of their conjugal felicity.
+If she could have had her will, his works in architecture, like hers in
+the realms of smoky fancy, would have lasted until the end of time.
+
+
+
+
+CLUMBER
+
+The most impressive approach to Clumber is by way of Normanton Inn, a
+red-brick hostelry draped luxuriantly with virginia creeper. At some
+slight distance is a magnificent glade of varied greens, with great
+patches of blood-coloured bent-grass. In the neighbourhood grow many
+fine Spanish chestnuts; when I was last there the ground was littered
+with the fallen flowers. A vast, festooned cloud, grey as the smoke of
+some monstrous fire, drifted from the east; then lightning sported
+wickedly amongst the trees, and the rain fell in torrents. Beside the
+balustraded bridge the water seemed covered with an army of white
+puppets. But it was at the entrance to the Lime Tree Avenue that I
+looked upon the greatest wonder of the day. Behind the shifting veil the
+view of that curving road seemed as fantastically unreal as the
+background of some ancient Italian masterpiece.
+
+This avenue, three miles in length, has on either side two rows of
+limes, and on a hot July midday the fragrance is overpoweringly sweet.
+From this the house is not visible--to reach it one must pass down a
+private drive to the left. Whilst the present house was being built,
+Sir Harbottle Grimston writes on a tour enjoyed in 1768: "From Worksop
+Manor to Clumber, Lord Lincoln's, over the heath. The house is situated
+rather low in a very extensive park, near a noble piece of water, over
+which is a very handsome bridge on 'cycloidal' arches. The house is not
+yet finished, but by its present appearance seems as if it would be
+magnificent. There are nineteen windows in front, the middle one a bow,
+with two wings projecting forwards." About this time Walpole speaks of
+Clumber being "still in leading-strings". The building was finished
+about 1770, and is of white freestone, pleasantly age-coloured, with a
+south front that opens to a formal and beautiful Italian garden with
+terraced walks and graceful marble fountains. Beyond, reached by stone
+staircases, spreads the great lake, which covers eighty-seven acres. On
+this may be seen a gay full-masted frigate, the aspect of which in this
+tranquil and richly wooded country strikes a somewhat bizarre note. The
+park contains four thousand acres, and in the neighbourhood of the house
+may be seen many handsome cedars and yews. The finest view is obtainable
+from the opposite bank of the lake, or from near the head, where stands
+the home farmstead of Hardwick.
+
+[Illustration: CLUMBER]
+
+The house, though not one of the most impressive in its exterior aspect,
+contains treasures of priceless worth. The pillared entrance hall has
+several fine statues, notably one of Napoleon and another of the author
+of _The Seasons_. All the state chambers are extremely handsome, and in
+the large drawing-room may be seen five ebony cabinets and four
+pedestals surmounted with crystal chandeliers, which were brought from
+the Doge's Palace. Perhaps the most notable is the dining-room, 60 feet
+long, 34 feet wide, and 30 feet high. We are told that it can easily
+accommodate one hundred and fifty guests at dinner. The library, a fine
+room panelled with mahogany, contains many treasures, notably three
+Caxtons--_The History of Reynard the Fox_, 1481; _The Chronicles of
+England_, 1482; and _The Golden Legend_, 1493: the first and second
+folios of Shakespeare: and many examples--one printed on vellum--of
+Froissart's _Chronicles_. There is also a fifteenth-century manuscript
+of Gower's _Confessio Amantis_. In the smoking-room is to be seen a
+remarkable chimney-piece of carved marble, which once stood in Fonthill
+Abbey, the house of the author of _Vathek_. To the antiquarian, perhaps
+the most interesting objects are four funeral cysts, dating from two
+thousand years ago. There is a fine collection of pictures, chiefly of
+old masters of distinction, amongst which may be found portraits by
+Holbein, Vandyke, Lely, and Hogarth, of folk intimately associated with
+the history of our country.
+
+Near by stands the Church of the Holy Virgin, built by the present Duke
+of Newcastle. Its walls and spire are of rich red and yellowish
+sandstone, in the fourteenth-century style. This is probably one of the
+most ornately beautiful churches in the kingdom, and the view from the
+open doorway is surpassingly rich in colour. The interior contains much
+fine carving--the altar-piece is of alabaster, with the Virgin and child
+for central figures. The windows are delicately tinted: in spite of the
+excess of splendour naught can offend the artistic taste.
+
+The Clinton family, of which the Duke of Newcastle is head, is one of
+the oldest and most celebrated in our annals. Geoffrey de Clinton, a
+distinguished forbear, Chamberlain and Treasurer to Henry the First, was
+the builder of Warwick Castle, and after his day his collateral
+descendants devoted their lives to serving the Crown faithfully. Edward
+the First called one his "beloved squire"; others fought with glory in
+the French battles. A Clinton was in the deputation that received Anne
+of Cleves when she journeyed to meet her spouse. Another assisted in the
+suppression of Sir Thomas Wyatt's rebellion, and was afterwards one of
+Queen Elizabeth's Privy Council, being employed in various matters of
+high import, notably in the projected marriage of his royal mistress and
+the Duke of Anjou. He died in the fullness of honour, and was buried in
+St. George's Chapel, Windsor. His son was one of the peers at the trial
+of Mary Queen of Scots. In the time of George the First another of the
+family filled the highest office of state, and died Lord Privy Seal;
+whilst the present duke's grandfather, as illustrious as any of his
+predecessors, was a celebrated politician of Early Victorian days, and
+was, moreover, honoured with the friendship and admiration of the young
+Gladstone.
+
+
+
+
+THORESBY
+
+The village of Budby, beyond the confines of Thoresby Park, is one of
+the most placid and sleepy places I know. The stuccoed houses are
+perhaps devoid of picturesqueness, but the shallow Meden, which runs
+quietly beside the roadway, is crystal-clear, and from the wilderness on
+the farther bank one often sees pert black water hens slip gently from
+the shelter of the long grass, and glide to and fro like tiny boats.
+Beyond the bridge swans swim very proudly, with the austere dignity that
+has naught in common with the familiar bearing of petted birds in town
+parks. The Meden is a beautiful and melancholy stream, at whose side an
+exile from the hill country might sit down and weep. The rough woodland
+from which we are barred has a refreshingly cool aspect: in summer the
+wilder foliage contrasts strikingly with the rich purple of
+rhododendrons.
+
+The present house of Thoresby, which stands about a quarter of a mile
+from the site of its cold and damp predecessor, was built between 1864
+and 1874. It is in the modern Elizabethan style, its walls of stone
+quarried at Steetley, some miles away, and is surrounded by a rich and
+beautiful park where may be seen many magnificent beeches and firs and
+oaks. The mansion is rich in art treasures, and may be counted amongst
+the most luxuriously furnished in the country; and the pleasure gardens
+are stately and beautiful.
+
+Fine herds of deer wander among the bracken and heath, and the trees are
+haunted with happy squirrels. The park is thirteen miles in
+circumference, and near the house the little River Meden spreads out
+into a singularly picturesque lake, diversified with toy islands. The
+Thoresby of to-day possesses an atmosphere of tranquil splendour: in its
+neighbourhood one has some difficulty in evoking lively pictures of the
+celebrated folk who inhabited its predecessors.
+
+The great woman of Thoresby was Lady Mary Wortley Montague, who spent
+there the greater part of her youth. The house in her time was a plain
+and uninteresting building of red brick. This was destroyed by fire in
+1745. From the record by Sir Harbottle Grimston of his tour in the
+autumn of 1768, we find that--more than twenty years afterwards--the new
+hall was not completed. Sir Harbottle writes: "This parke excels the
+others much in beauty, having a very good turf, which in this country is
+very much wanting. The house, which is not nearly finished, is rather
+adapted for convenience than magnificence. It is fronted by a rising
+lawn, on the top of which is a very fine wood. On one side a noble piece
+of water, which supplies a cascade behind the house: the other side of
+this house is beautified by plantations." Horace Walpole found this hall
+dull, since he declared that "Merry Sherwood is a _triste_ region, and
+wants a race of outlaws to enliven it, and as Duchess Robin Hood has
+left her country, it has little chance of recovering its ancient glory".
+This was obviously written after the famous Duchess of Kingston had
+departed on her Continental tour.
+
+Before me lie a pair of tiny shoes of sea-green silk, shot with an
+undertone of flesh colour. For at least a century these were in the
+possession of a yeoman family in the neighbourhood of Wortley village.
+The toes are pointed, the heels high, and on the lappets are frayed
+marks where the pins of the jewelled buckles pierced the fabric. The
+insteps do not belie the tradition that a kitten could lie beneath the
+arch of the wearer's naked foot, for they are so high that it seems as
+if the blue blood of the Pierreponts were accompanied with physical
+deformity.
+
+These are relics of Lady Mary, and were probably left at her husband's
+heritage of Wharncliffe, in Yorkshire, when the first happiness of her
+married life had come to an end, and before she became engaged in those
+famous travels which, by their result--the introduction of inoculation
+for the smallpox--raised her even to a greater eminence than that given
+by her intellectual ability.
+
+She was born of a family that had already produced two men of splendid
+genius, whose names are written in golden letters in the annals of
+literature: Beaumont, the dramatist, who wrote, in collaboration with
+his friend Fletcher, some plays that are considered by our best critics
+as inferior only to Shakespeare's, was related by his mother to the
+Pierreponts of the Elizabethan age; and Henry Fielding, the novelist,
+was Lady Mary's second cousin. She is said to have written in her copy
+of _Tom Jones_ as fine a tribute to an author's power as could be
+desired--simply the words _Ne plus ultra_. Villiers, the notorious Duke
+of Buckingham, whose end served Pope for some of his best satirical
+verse, was also of the same stock.
+
+[Illustration: THORESBY]
+
+It was at Thoresby that Lady Mary's strange love affair with the
+handsome Mr. Edward Wortley, of Wharncliffe Chase--the abode of the
+Dragon of Wantley--began, and after many difficulties ended in one of
+the most mysterious marriages that ever puzzled literary students. When
+a girl of fourteen she met the gentleman at a party, and was delighted
+with the attraction which he found in her conversation. She became a
+particular friend of his sister, with whom she commenced a sentimental
+correspondence--most of the letters, it may be said, being written by
+Wortley himself. He became, through the vehicle of the complacent Miss
+Anne, her guide and philosopher, and soon we find him answering certain
+precocious queries about Latin. Then jealousy appeared--somebody had
+escorted Lady Mary to Nottingham Races! The flattered young beauty begs
+to know the name of the man she loves, "that I may (according to the
+laudable custom of lovers) sigh to the woods and groves hereabouts, and
+teach it to the echoes". Thereupon Wortley's inclinations were made
+known, and she replied: "To be capable of preferring the despicable
+wretch you mention to Mr. Wortley, is as ridiculous, if not as criminal,
+as forsaking the Deity to worship a calf; ... my tenderness is always
+built upon my esteem and when the foundation perishes, it falls".
+
+Wortley, not only in the courtship, but throughout their long wedded
+life, appears to have been singularly calm and unimpassioned. He was an
+admirable scholar, and counted among his intimate friends Addison and
+Steele. The second volume of the _Tatler_ was dedicated to him in an
+epistle probably composed by the latter writer.
+
+The easy-going sister Anne died, without Lady Mary displaying an excess
+of grief, and thenceforth the lovers corresponded directly. She alarmed
+Wortley with her society successes, and he charged her with a growing
+levity and love of pleasure. Thereupon she became wise and steady, and
+his fears increased, since the sense she displayed was more suited to a
+grave matron than to a fashionable belle. Time went on: Wortley made his
+desires known to the maiden's father, but a disagreement arose
+concerning the marriage settlement, and the Marquis of Dorchester--he
+was not created Duke of Kingston until 1715--set about looking for
+another son-in-law. A gentleman was found whom Lady Mary professed to
+hate, and in August, 1712, Wortley carried her off in a coach and they
+were made man and wife. As the father was implacable, she entered
+wedlock without any portion. Probably the marquis was not sorry to be
+rid of his worthy daughter, since one cannot doubt that his opposition
+to her happiness must have whetted the tongue that stung so keenly in
+later years.
+
+Of Lady Mary's life at Thoresby we find interesting pictures in her
+descendant, Lady Louisa Stuart's, "Introductory Anecdotes to her
+Letters". "Lord Dorchester, having no wife to do the honours of his
+table at Thoresby, imposed that task upon his eldest daughter, as soon
+as she had bodily strength for the office; which in those days required
+no small share. For the mistress was not only to invite--that is, urge
+and tease--her company to eat more than human throats could conveniently
+swallow, but to carve every dish, when chosen, with her own hands....
+There were then professed carving-masters, who taught young ladies the
+art scientifically: from one of these Lady Mary said she took lessons
+thrice a week, that she might be perfect on her father's public days,
+when in order to perform her functions without interruption she was
+forced to eat her own dinner an hour or two beforehand."
+
+In his lordship's resentment against her stolen marriage, he refused to
+allow her to have much intercourse with the rest of her family. Lady
+Louisa Stuart tells us that her mother, Lady Bute, "remembered having
+only seen him once, but that in a manner likely to leave some impression
+on the mind of a child. Lady Mary (Lady Bute's mother) was dressing, and
+she playing about the room, when there entered an elderly stranger (of
+dignified appearance and still handsome) with the authoritative air of
+a person entitled to admission at all times; upon which, to her great
+surprise, Lady Mary, instantly starting up from the toilet-table,
+dishevelled as she was, fell on her knees to ask his blessing. A proof
+that even in the great and gay world this primitive custom was still
+universal."
+
+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 glass. 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 assorted--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 "Duchess Robin Hood", and from whose
+romantic adventures resulted one of the most celebrated trials of the
+eighteenth century. After his death, in 1773, the title 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 Thoresby, 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
+    Duchess of Kingston, to be put up at Thoresby 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 Thoresby 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 Thoresby, 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.
+
+[Illustration: 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
+grass 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 nobly
+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 glass 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 principal 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 principal 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, passes 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,
+surpasses 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 space, where in summer great hydrangeas blossom in green
+tubs, a fine staircase leads to the main entrance.
+
+[Illustration: 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 nobleman'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 Japanese 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 grass-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 assignation 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
+    noblemen'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."
+
+[Illustration: THE JAPANESE 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 L200 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 compassion 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 damned perpetually
+    in hell-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 passed 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 nobody 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 title became extinct, and the estate with the
+Savile baronetcy passed 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 passed. 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.
+
+[Illustration: EDWINSTOWE]
+
+To the left, one passes through a wicket, and coasts a great wood for
+some hundred yards, then turns sharply and soon reaches the "Russian
+Cottage", a chalet "put together without nails", near by which is the
+well-known "Shambles Oak" or "Robin Hood's Larder", so called because in
+its hollow interior once were hooks for the storing of stolen venison.
+Unfortunately this fine tree was fired by some holiday-makers years ago,
+and to-day there is something pathetic in the valiant greenness of its
+scanty leaves. It is like an old, old man who will be brave to the end.
+
+Thence, by passing along the glades of Birkland and following paths
+faintly worn--with a chance of straying into strange solitudes--one
+comes before long to the "Major Oak"--the most virile of all the ancient
+trees. In spite of its iron stays--possibly because of them--it is still
+vigorous and hearty, although its age has been estimated at considerably
+more than a thousand years. There is something monstrous and uncanny
+about this veteran; in its vicinity folk of to-day seem strangely out of
+place.
+
+A pleasant old keeper watches it vigilantly, careful that none shall
+harm his treasure. He has a curious enough favourite: a fine cock
+pheasant which comes to his call--has done so indeed for the last four
+years--and daintily accepts plumcake from his hand. Once this bird had a
+mate; now he remains a contented widower. The quaintness of the
+good-fellowship of man and bird is very pleasant to observe.
+
+The circumference of the "Major Oak" at the height of five feet from the
+ground is over thirty feet, and the circumference of its branches is
+about two hundred and seventy yards. It was formerly called the "Queen's
+Oak", or the "Cockpen", the latter because of a fine breed of gamecocks
+that roosted there in the days of a Major Rooke, to whom it owes its
+present name. The tree is hollow, and, entering by a narrow
+opening--difficult enough for a stout person to negotiate--seventeen or
+eighteen may crowd together in the interior. Not far away is another
+magnificent tree, less known but almost equally worthy of admiration. It
+is called the "Simon Foster Oak", from the fact that a century ago a
+person of that name kept his pigs in acorn-time nightly under its
+shelter.
+
+Thence Edwinstowe may easily be reached by a path across the green.
+Historically the village is of some importance, since, according to
+general belief, Edwin, the first Christian King of Northumbria, was
+buried there. It is a sleepy, comely place; in winter the warm
+colouring of old brick and tile is very pleasant to the wayfarer, whilst
+throughout the other seasons the rich little gardens are all gay with
+old-fashioned flowers. The church is admirably situated, and has a tall
+and graceful spire with grotesque ornaments at the base, which from a
+distance bear a fantastical resemblance to roosting birds. In 1679 the
+folk of Edwinstowe humbly petitioned for permission to take two hundred
+oaks for the repair of the building, and one reads that, seven years
+before, the steeple had been beaten down by thunder, and the old body
+shaken, and in a very ruinous condition; also that without the king's
+charitable help the whole church must absolutely perish. After the
+resultory survey, the Surveyors General of the Woods wrote that most of
+the trees of Birkland and Bilhagh were decayed, very few of use to the
+navy being left. Finally it was decided that such trees might be taken
+as were not fit for Government purposes. Strangely enough, neither in
+this church nor in its sister of Ollerton are any ancient monuments,
+such as one might expect to find in so interesting a neighbourhood. At
+the vicarage here lived for some years Dr. E. Cobham Brewer, best known
+for his _Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_; whilst in a house that stood
+beside the stream lived William--afterwards Sir William--Boothby, the
+uncle of pretty Penelope, whose white marble tomb is one of the wonders
+of Ashbourne in Peakland.
+
+The birches from which Birkland takes its name are accounted amongst the
+finest in the kingdom, and at no time look better than on a sunny
+winter's morning, when they present a wonderful symphony of brown and
+silver. After crossing Edwinstowe, in a sufficiently dangerous way, the
+road continues, with Bilhagh in sight, to Ollerton, where it bridges the
+placid Maun. Not far away is a small red quarry, its toy precipice
+pierced with the retreats of sand-martins. To the left is Cockglode, the
+only large house left in the forest proper--a Georgian place with a fine
+avenue of Scots pines. This was the residence of the late Earl of
+Liverpool, who, like all his noble neighbours, counted the great Bess of
+Hardwick amongst his forbears.
+
+
+    PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
+    _At the Villafield Press, Glasgow, Scotland_
+
+
+    +---------------------------------------------------+
+    |                                                   |
+    | Transcriber's Note:                               |
+    |                                                   |
+    | Spelling and punctuation have been retained as in |
+    | the original publication.                         |
+    +---------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dukeries, by R. Murray Gilchrist
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