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The New Year
/<^<
THE VYNE
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■STlTCWFwBlrKi]
A HISTORY
0
THE VYNE
in Hampjhire.
Una a fhorl account of the hu tiding ^
antiquities of that houfcMuatein the
pari[h if Sherborne S'JohnCo Hants
(ZTof verfons who have^
at fome time
lived there.
>J
CHALONER W. CHUTE
OF THE VYNE.
Jacob e. Johnson. Winchester. Simplcm.MMrshallc-C? London.
1888.
*77z^ CcnlenU ofSiC^ "Be oh
y-T^
CHAP. I. " T/ie Rovian Vindomis." An account of some ancient Roman roads and stations, in the South of England — \'indomis (the Vyne) — Calleva (Reading)— \'enta Belgarum (Win- chester)— A description of some Roman antiquities found near the Vyne — The ring of Senicianus — Silchester
CHAP. H. " 77ie Chantry C/iapci:' William Fitz- Adam— The families of De Port, St. John, Cowdray, and Sandys, early owners of the Vyne — Their Chantry Chapel founded in the twelfth century — Its re-endowment in the reign of Edward III. — The present Chapel, built about 1509— Its painted windows, oak carvings, and Italian tiles— Its vestments and plate . . . .
C H A P. H I. " The Lords Sandys." Rise of the Sandys family — The Vyne given in marriage to the Brocas family during the Wars of the Roses, and recovered again — Services of William,
hrst
SRLF URL
5140200
vl THE CONTENTS OF THIS BOOK
I'AGE
first Lord Sandys of the \'yne, to Henry \'I!I. at home and abroad — Lord Chamberlain and Captain of Guisnes — The Holy Ghost Chapel — The great house of the Vyne — Visits of King Henry and Queen Anne Boleyn — \'isits of Queen Elizabeth, Lord Burghley, Sir Walter Raleigh, and the Duke de Biron — William fourth Lord Sandys of the Vyne — Basing House — Mottisfont Abbey . . -29
CHAP. \\ . " Chaloner Chute the Speaker:' His
eminence at the Bar— His defence of the Bishops in 1641, and of other great persons at the beginning of the civil war — His purchase of the Vyne — Commemorated on the Great Seal of the Common- wealth— Speaker, 1659 — His family assisted by his kinsman the Lord Keeper North — Edward Chute's newsletters, 16S3-84, to Sir Edward Bulstrode — The Basingstoke race cup won in 1688 . . 67
CHAP. V. "John C/iuh\ Gray, ana Horace JVai-
fiole." Unpublished letters from the poet Gray and Horace Walpole to John Chute of the Vyne, 1741-62 — Fashions of men's dress in London — Ranelagh Gardens — Francis Whithed and Margaret Nichol — London Lions and Curiosities— Walpole's designs for altera- tions at the Vyne S5
CHAP. VI. ''Mr. William Chide and the Vine
HonndsP The earliest packs of foxhounds — William Chute's manner of hunting — Anecdotes of him and his neighbours — An election squib, and its explanation — Subsequent history of the \'yne to the present time . . . . . . . . . . .121
CHAP. VH. '"Description of the House." Present
state of the Vyne and its contents with many heraldic and other illus- trations— Its arrangement and furniture in the sixteenth century, from an old Inventory of 1541 . . . . . . . . 135
A
cA /i/tojdic
c7
f/
PLATES
Frontispiece : — Armorial Bearings of Chute : Gules three swords extended barways, their points towards the dexter part of the escutcheon argent, their hihs and pommels or. The crest, an arm in armour gauntleted grasping a broken sword. The legend, Fortune de Guerre. Beneath is a map showing the ground plan of the house : i. Hall and Staircase. 2. Drawing Room. 3. West Drawing Room. 4. Stone Gallery. 5. Dining Room. 6. Chapel Parlour. 7. .-Xnte-Chapel. S. The Chapel, g. The Tomb Chamber.
Pl.\tk
viii A LIST OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS
I. The Front Entrance of the Vyne with Roman Eagles lo face page i
II. The Chapel and North Side of the House
111. Interior of the Chapel .....
I\'. Canopied -Seats and Priest's Stall in the Chapel
V. South Front of the ^'yne, with the Shields of Sandys and Bray within the Garter, and the Shield of Chute
\'I. Monument of Chaloner Chute the Speaker in the Tomb
Chamber .
VII. Silver Tankard with Inscription \TIrt. Great Seal of the Commonwealth, 1652 \'III. Garden House or Summer House at the \'yne
I.\. The Staircase
X. The Kitchen Court and Entrance . XI. Oak Mantelpiece in the Tapestry Room Xl<?. Ground Plan and First Floor Plan of the House
XII. The Gallery
XIII. Fire-place in the Library ....
1 1 20
29
67 71 72 85 1 12 121
135 140 152
ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT
Two angels supporting the royal shield and crown of King Henry VIII.,
and the shield and crest of Lord Sandys, from the Gallery . . v
Specimens of Italian tiles in the Chapel vii
Shield from the mantelpiece of the Tapestry Room . . . . x
A LIST OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS ix
I'AI.K
A grotesque between two goblets, from carvings in the Oak Gallery . i Map showing the Roman roads near the Vyne, with the Eagle brought
from Rome by Horace Walpole 3
Roman ring 7
Roman leaden tablet from a temple at Lydney 9
Bow and sheaf of arrows, a badge of Katharine of Arragon, from
carvings in the Oak Gallery '°
Mitre, with the arms of Tunstall, between the cyphers of Richard Fox
and Cardinal Wolsey, from carvings in the Oak Gallery . . . i ■
Seal of Sir Fulke dc Cowdray '^'
Head of King Edward III. in stone, from the first Chantry Chapel of
the Vyne ">
Portions of frieze, from the Chapel --
Poppy-heads, from the Chapel -i
Cardinal's hat and crozicr, from carvings in the Oak Gallery . . . 2.S Cypher of William Lord Sandys, from the lock of the sacristy door in
the Chapel ; between a bray or hempbreaker, the device of Bray,
and a winged ibex, the crest of Sandys— from carvings in the Oak
Gallery -9
Demi-rose surmounted by rays of the Sun, the badge of Lord Sandys,
from carvings in the Oak Gallery ''^'''
Shield with the Speaker's mace and sword, from his monument in the
Tomb Chamber ^^
Cross swords and gauntlets, Irom carvings in the Oak Gallery . . 84
Ornaments from the Hall and Staircase S5
Cockle-shell, from carvings in the Oak Gallery 120
Grotesque, from carvings in the Oak Gallery : between the button of the
Vine Hunt, and the horn used by the first Master of the Vine hounds i J (
Weathercock
A LIST OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS
TALK
Weathercock from the home farm 134
Royal crown between the Tudor portcullis and the castle, and pome- granates of Katharine of Arragon, from carvings in the Oak Gallery 135
Drawing of the \'5'ne, as it was in 1641 137
Carved oak panel, from the Oak Gallery . . 153
Shields from the carved panels in the Oak Gallery . . . 154-159
Tudor rose, from the Oak Gallery 164
The best /hanks of /he wri/er of /his booh are due /o Mr. Lionel Mtiirliead, who has contribti/ed all the Jllustra/iotis, except tlie copy of the Great Seal at page 72, the drawing of the house ott page 137, and the plans at page 140.
.<-.^.t„».jA. im.AlCt,*A^^ 4r^-<^^,^; Life,/ i-,.^ ^-^.^ „ _
CHAP. I The'iBjjmatfS^dcmis.
THE Vyne is situated three miles north of Basing- stoke, about four miles south of the boundary between Hampshire and Berkshire, in the parish of Sherborne St. John, where a sudden change takes place from the open chalk hills of central Hampshire to the deeply wooded vale of the Loddon.
It probably occupies the site of the ancient Roman Vindomis, from which its name may be derived, a name which, having been first contracted into " Vynnes," ' acquired its present form of ' Deed nf April
29. 1268, pre-
" Vyne" or "Vine" at least as early as the fourteenth century. se,-jedatthe
^ Vyne.
When Horace Walpole presented to John Chute the stone eagles which stand on either side of the entrance to the house (Plate I.), he, no doubt, intended to restore to it somewhat of the Roman character to which it is entitled by its name and origin. The source of our acquaintance with Vindomis is a guide book of the ancient Roman roads, called the " Itinerary of . McHvaies Antonine," compiled, according to the best authorities,'' by Anto- Romans under
T T 1 • II -L '^'^ Empire,
ninus Pius, the successor of the emperor Hadrian. It describes ch. ixvii.
the
S
A
THE VYNE
CHAP. 1.
1 Mcrivales History of the Romans under the Empire, ch. Ixvi. , note.
the military roads intersecting the whole of the Roman empire, and the distances of every station through which they passed. That part of it which relates to Britain was probably drawn up about A.D. 120, in which year the emperor Hadrian made a progress through that country, on his way to construct his famous fortifications from the Tyne to Solway Firth.
According to this Itinerary, Vindomis (a name so closely resembling vini douiits, " the house of wine," as to suggest a halt- ing place for refreshment) was one of those stations just referred to, intended for the defence of the Roman roads ; and as such, it would have a permanent entrenched camp with mound and fosse, constructed at some elevated point of the highway ; while in the vicinity, occupying some less exposed position, would probably be a villa,' for the pleasure and accommodation of the officer in command.
Vindomis is described as situated upon the Roman road between Venta Belgarum and Calleva Atrebatum, twenty-one Roman (about nineteen English) miles from the former, and fifteen Roman (about thirteen English) from the latter.
The Vyne also lies (as may be seen by the map) upon an im- portant Roman road, directly between the towns of Winchester and Reading, about nineteen miles from the former and thirteen from the latter. Traces of a four-square entrenched camp may be seen on this road, where it passes nearest to the Vyne, upon high ground, while the position of the present house would accord well with the probable situation of the officer's villa. It therefore exactly coincides with the description of Vindomis given in the Itinerary, if Venta Belgarum can be identified
with
CHAl'. I.
THE ROMAN VINDOMIS
with Winchester, and Calleva Atrebatum with Reading. Now Winchester is by almost universal consent the ancient Vent a Belgarum,' and the description of Calleva in the Itinerary
* Green' s Making of England, p. 4.
(thirty-six Roman miles from Winchester, fifteen from Spinse or Speen near Newbury, twenty-two from Pontes or Staines, and forty-four from London), brings it with reasonable cer- tainty to a point about two miles west of Reading.
A
THE VYNE
CHAP. I.
' Dt. Becke, Arcliceo- logia, vol. -w. p. 186.
- Reynolds' s Itinerary of Antonine, pp. 292, 368.
"• Observations upon certain Roman Roads in tlie SoiitJi of Britain, 1836.
A succession of writers have accordingly placed Calleva at Reading, and Vindomis at the Vyne. " It is certain," says one,' " that Calleva was in the direct road from London to Bath, and consequently must have been in or near Reading, because the nature of the country has caused that the straightest is at the same time the most convenient line between those cities, and that line passes through Reading."
Another says '^ of Calleva, that " it has four numbers to agree with, and there is a town with which they agree much better than with any of those that have been proposed, and this is Reading." And of Vindomis the same writer says, that " at no greater dis- tance than four or five miles south of Silchester, Vindomis was seated. The place of it is now marked by a single house only ; it is called the Vine ; and in Camden's time this name was so ancient that he could not trace the original of it : there seems much reason to think it derived from the ancient Vindomis, of the name of which it retains the first syllable."
A third, Mr. H. L. Long, in a scholarly pamphlet upon the Roman roads, says ' that " Calleva was the chief city of the Atre- bates, who, in the earliest times of which we have any record, occupied the county of Berks. The modern capital of Berkshire is Reading, and as we find it almost invariably the case that the town which was the original capital of the district still con- tinues to hold its pre-eminence down to our times, it will be but fair to examine the pretensions of Reading, and to observe whether there is anything in its position inconsistent with what we know of the ancient Calleva ; " then, after giving reasons for concluding that the site of Calleva was at Reading, and that of
Vindomis
CHAP. I. THE ROMAN VINDOMIS 5
Vindomis near Basingstoke, he adds, "The ravages of the Danes, who estabHshed themselves in Reading as headquarters in 870, and the total destruction of the town by Henry II. for affording shelter to King Stephen's soldiers, sufficiently account for the disappearance of all remains of the ancient Calleva."
A fourth writer,' treating of the British portion of the Itine- ' Jeim Yonge
Akerman' s
rary of Antoiiine, comes to the conclusion that Calleva is repre- Arciicsoiogi-
cal Index of
sented by Reading, Vindomis by the Vyne, and Venta Belgarum English
Antiquities,
by Winchester. '^47-
Lord Carnarvon took the same view in a paper read to the British Archaeological Association in i860, and said: "I am inclined to think that the preponderance of argument leans towards the identification of Calleva with Reading, and Vin- domis with some point between Reading and Winchester."
Finally, an experienced member of the Society of Anti- quaries has recently described ^ an exploration which he made of 'Mr. h. f.
Napper in tut)
the country about two miles west of Reading, where he discovered communica- tions to the evidences of ancient Roman fortifications, and found traces of Society, Jan.
25, 1883, and
the name of Calleva in Calvepit Farm, and Coley and Calcot ^'^^''' '3- Parks.
There is indeed a theory which places Calleva Atrebatum at Silchester, but the objections to this view, as a number of writers have pointed out, are, first, that the distance from Win- chester to Silchester, being twenty-five miles, does not fit the thirty-six miles which, according to the Itinerary, lay between Calleva and Venta Belgarum ; and secondly, that, while there is some evidence that Silchester was called Caer Segont or Segontium, there is none whatever to show that it ever was
known
6 THE VYNE
CHAP. I.
known as Calleva. Silchester rose, no doubt, into great im- portance, but at a later date than that of Hadrian, when the Itinerary of Antonine was compiled.
Such are the arguments which lead to the conclusion that the Vyne, as Vindomis, was an ancient resort of the Roman legions, and was probably visited by the emperor Hadrian, the master of the world, when Britain was still regarded as a scarcely civilised country, the most recently subjugated pro- vince of his gigantic empire —
" Adjectis Britannis Imperio, gravibusque Persis."
It may be added that no satisfactory site, other than the Vyne, has ever been found for Vindomis : Farnham, Finkley and St. Mary Bourne (see the map, p. 3) have in turn been sug- gested, but it will be seen that none of these places agree with the conditions required by the Itinerary of Antonine.
Another proposed derivation of the name Vyne, from vines
planted on the spot in Roman times, is mentioned as a tradition
' Britannia. by Camden,' who refers the planting of them here, " more for
A.n. 1586.
shade however than for fruit," to the reign of the Emperor
Probus, A.D. 276.
In connexion with these vines, a bold suggestion was made -' I'outicai in the last century by Dr. John Campbell,' a writer of reputation : o'reat^" " We havc had wines," he says, " in England in different places
Bri/ain, A.D.
1774, vol. i. and in large quantities. The reason of mentionmg them par- p. 362.
ticularly in this place is the prevailing opinion that, when the
emperor Probus licensed the cultivation of vineyards, they were
first planted in this country, at a place which still bears the name
of
CHAP. I.
THE ROMAN VINDOMIS
of the Vine. I will venture to suggest what has occurred to me upon this subject, though it should make the reader smile. If our wines in Hampshire may not reach that perfection which is requisite to please our palates, or become fashionable here, they might possibly be exported with great profit to our plantations, and derive from their passage into warmer climates that excel- lence which cultivation could not give ; and this, perhaps, may also make them worth sending home again ; nor would the accumulation of freight render them dearer to the consumer than the duties that are now laid on wines of foreign growth."
Several Roman remains have been discovered near the Vyne, and, in the latter part of the last century, a gold Roman ring, which has a singular history, was found in its immediate neigh-
^I^EIN m liAiKTEiVTrVA:^!]
■-.^m^
bourhood. It bears the head of Venus, and is inscribed with the Latin words, Scniciane vivas Ilnde (i.e. seciinde) : " O Senicianus, mayest thou live prosperously ! " Its form is shown in the accom- panying woodcuts.
Being
8 THE VYNE
CHAP. I.
Being of gold, it can only have been worn by a senator or knight, or some one whose rank entitled him to the privilege calledy?/j annuli aurei.
Juvenal alludes to this privilege and to the weight of such a ring as this being too great a burden in the heat of the summer for degenerate equestrians, in the well-known lines : —
"Ventilet sestivum digitis sudantibus aurum, Nee sufferre queat majoris pondera gammas."
By an extraordinary coincidence, in Mr. Bathurst's park at Lydney in Gloucestershire, seventy miles from the Vyne, a small leaden tablet of the fourth century has been found, which apparently advertised the loss of this very ring, and imprecated woe upon Senicianus until he should restore it. This fragile tablet, the preservation of which is in itself a remarkable cir- cumstance, was dug up among the ruins of a temple dedicated to 1 Scartiis Nodens ' (a British god of the sea adopted by the Romans), on Britah,. the walls of which it was formerly fixed.
On the opposite page is a representation of the tablet, show- ing its exact size and the inscription rudely scratched upon it.
The translation of the Latin is as follows : " To the god Nodens : Silvianus has lost a ring : he has vowed the half to Nodens (if he recovers it). Among those who bear the name of Senicianus to none grant health until he bring the ring to the temple of Nodens."
After the lapse of fifteen centuries, the grounds upon which Silvianus claimed this ring can only be conjectured. Perhaps he had given it to Senicianus in token of friendship, and after- wards
P- i/S-
CHAP. I.
THE ROMAN VINDOMIS
wards had occasion to recall it, or Senicianus may have lost it in a wager and unfairly kept it back. One thing only is clear, that Senicianus, thinking that possession was nine points of the law, declined to part with it ; and it has been suggested that he had
D eVo
NODENTI SLiyl/^NVS dONAVlT N.OOEb(T( 'S^
nNTE^oyiBv^bioMEK
'SEHICI/XNINOULS ., 2XJA\LTTAS SANLTaI
WS QV E T E ^v 5 l^^A^\>f
his name engraved upon it, accompanied by the wish for his own good health, as a kind of counter-charm to the inscription on the tablet.
The ring, which was exhibited ' to the Society of Antiquaries ' Aniueo-
loi^ia, vol. viii.
in 1786, is preserved at the Vyne, and the tablet is included in p- 449- Mr. Bathurst's collection of Roman antiquities at Lydney.
The Romans left Britain A.D. 426, and the civilisation which they had introduced was speedily obliterated by the Saxons.
c The
lO
THE VYNE
CHAP.
1 Green i Making of Etigland, p. ii6. Memoirs on excavations at Silckester by Rev. J. G. Joyce : ArchcEologia,, vol. xlvi.
The town of Silchester, whose massive ruined walls enclose the remains, among other buildings, of a stately forum and basilica, with public and private baths, hypocausts, and a circular temple, is only four miles distant from the Vyne, and the inhabitants of Vindomis, lying defenceless on the border of the woodlands, probably took refuge within its gates from the Saxon onset.
There is no more interesting relic in England than the bronze eagle of a Roman standard, now at Stratfieldsaye, which was found at Silchester, buried ' beneath the charred ruins of a chamber in the forum. Under this standard it is thought that the Romanised Britons rallied in their desperate struggle for existence, and so for the last time, in the words of Cymbeline,
" The British and the Roman standards waved Friendly together,"
and then gave way before the attack of the irresistible Saxon.
Thus Vindomis fell at the close of the sixth century, and but for the one fact that the freeman Ulveva held its site at the time of the Domesday survey, a veil is drawn over its history for the period during which the Saxons held the land, not to be lifted until they in their turn yielded to the Norman Conqueror.
CHA1-.
CHAP 11 The Chantry ChaJ^eJ,
A
T the Vine," wrote ' Horace Walpole, " is the most ■ /-<■//=•;• /u sii-
H. Mann,
heavenly Chapel in the world ; it only wants a July i6. i7ss-
few pictures to give it a true Catholic air." To such a Catholic air it is well entitled, for seven hundred years have elapsed since a Chantry Chapel was first founded at the Vyne and dedicated to the Virgin Mary by John de Port of Basing and his feudal tenant William Fitz- Adam ; and in the present building (Plate II.), erected by the first Lord Sandys, masses " for the faithful departed " were celebrated four hundred years ago with a splendid ceremonial.
John de Port of Basing was born of brave and pious an- cestors. His grandfather, Hugh de Port, one of the companions of the Conqueror, received, as the reward of his services, no fewer than seventy lordships, fifty-five of which were in Hampshire. These included Amport, where his descendant the Marquis of Winchester still lives ; Basing, the head of his barony ; and Sherborne, in which the Vyne is situated ; while in the
neighbourhood
12
THE VYNE
CHAP. II
1 Rolls of Parliament quoted in Lyte's History of Eton College, P- 74-
neighbourhood of the Vyne, Bramley and Bramshill, Candover, Chinham and Church Oakley, Dummer and Ewhurst, Herriard, Hook and Kempshot, Kingsclere and Nately, Stratfieldsaye and Tunworth, Upton Gray and Winslade, are marked as be- longing to him in Domesday Book. In his old age he embraced a cloister life, and became a monk at Winchester in the ninth year of William Rufus, A.D. 1096.
Henry de Port, son of Hugh, a baron of the E.xchequer under Henry Beauclerc, is known as the founder of the Bene- dictine Priory of West Sherborne, two miles distant from the Vyne, which was suppressed as an alien priory by Henry V., was afterwards given to Eton College, and now belongs to Queen's College, Oxford. Complaints were made ' in the reign of Edward IV. against the College, that they allowed " horses and cartes dayly to goo uppon the sepultures of Cristen people in gret nombre buried in the chirch there, whereof moo than XXX sum tyme were worshipfull Barons Knyghtes and Squyers," and that they put a stop to the prayers for the founder and his family. An Act of Parliament was accordingly passed in 1475, compelling the College to maintain a priest at West Sherborne for the due performance of the offices for the dead. An effigy, curiously carved in wood, of one of the De Port family may still be seen in the chancel, which, with the central Norman tower, is all that remains of this Priory Church.
It was John, son of Henry, and grandson of Hugh de Port, who, together with his tenant William FitzAdam, then inhabit- ing the Vyne, founded and endowed the Chantry Chapel in the twelfth century, during the reign of Henry II.
The
CHAP. II. THE CHANTRY CHAPEL 13
The deed of foundation ' was in the following terms : — > Winchester
DiikeSii/i "ROBERTUS DfX.\NUS DE ShIREBURN WiLLELMO FiLIO Ad.^ ET JiamOrleio,,' s
h^redibus suis capellam concessit construere, infra parochiam ^'"'''' '°'- -^^• ecclesi^ S"^' Andre.e Shireburn, ipsius Wili.elmi et uxoris su* et famill'e usibus necessariis profuturam, et eosdem ad divinuji officium audiendum recepturam, cui serviend* idem robertus capellanum providebit, ad mensam willelmi assessurum, et de MANU Robert: mercedem sui servitii accepturum ; salvo honore
ET DIGNITATE MATRIS ECCLESI.E SCHIREBURN IN DECIMIS OMNIUM
RERUM DECIMENDARUM ET OBLATIONIBUS ET BENEFICIIS ET CONSUE- TUDINIBUS ANNUATI.M PERSOLVENDIS, IN PROPRIA MANU ET USU RE-
TiNENDis. Ipse vero Willelmus cum uxore eandem ecclesiam, veneraturus et ibidem communionem recepturus, not.itis diebus adibit; scilicet in die Natali Domini, in die Pasch.«, in die
PURIFICATIONIS, IN DIE PENTECOST.'E, IN DIE S" AnDRE.E. CuJUS GRATIA CONCESSIONIS, PR^DICTUS WiLLELMUS, DoMINO ET PR^DICT^E ECCLESI/E ScHIREBORN, QUADRAGINTA ACRAS TERR/E possidendas
perpetuo nutu Johannis DE Port et Matild/e uxoris su^e et
FILIORUM ET H.^EREDUM, IN ELEEMOSYNAM DEDIT ET CONCESSIT, VIDE- LICET XXII ACRAS, QUAS HeRBERTUS DE BOSCO ET SeLIDUS TENUE- RUNT, ET VII ACRAS IN FeRNINGHAM, ET XI IN CAMPIS SCHIREBURN."
The interpretation of this deed is as follows : — ■
" Robert the Dean of Sherborne hath permitted William FitzAdam and his heirs to build a Chapel within the parish of the Church of St. Andrew Sherborne, to serve for the use of himself and his wife and household, and to receive them for hearing the divine service ; the said Robert shall provide the Chaplain, who shall eat at William's table, and receive a stipend for his services from Robert : Saving always the honour and dignity of the mother Church of Sherborne, and all tithes and oblations and benefits and yearly offerings to be paid and retained in his own hand as heretofore ; And William FitzAdam with his wife shall attend to worship and receive the Communion at the parish
Church
14 THE VYNE
CHAP. II.
Church on specified days, that is to say, Christmas, Easter, the Purifica- tion, Whitsunday, and St. Andrew's Day. In consideration of which permission the aforesaid AMlHam, with the consent of John de Port and his wife Matilda and their heirs, hath granted in free ahiis for ever unto the Lord and to the Church of Sherborne forty acres, viz. twenty-two held by Herbert de Bosco and Selidus, and seven acres in Ferningham, and eleven in the Field-land of Sherborne."
This deed was confirmed in 1202 by Godfrey de Lucy, Bishop of Winchester, the builder of the Early English work at the eastern end of the Cathedral, and by Herbert, who succeeded Robert as " Dean and Parson of the Church of St. Andrew Sherborne." The latter describes the Chantry Chapel as "built in the demesne (/« atria') of William FitzAdam." The traditional site is near an old yew tree, about two hundred yards south of the present house.
The early use of the word " Decamts " or " Dean " in these deeds, as applied to Robert and Herbert, successively parsons of Sherborne, is remarkable, and has been variously explained. Some have thought it an early example of a surname, but it appears more probable that they were senior deans of the neighbouring Benedictine Priory of Monk Sherborne, just as the vicar of Battle, Sussex, bears the title of Dean derived from the Benedictine Priory founded by William the Conqueror.
Such Chapels or Chantries as that at the Vyne were not un- frequently sanctioned for private worship, in cases where regular attendance at the parish Church might properly be excused, either on account of the badness of the roads, or for other sufficient reasons. Thus, if a College at Oxford or Cambridge desired to have a private Chapel, instead of sending its scholars
to
CHAP. II. THE CHANTRY CHAPEL 15
to a Church outside its walls, it went through the same process of obtaining an episcopal licence as did John de Port and William FitzAdam for their Chapel at the Vyne. Such licences always saved the rights of the parish Church, and directed attendance there on the greater festivals, when oblations were commonly offered.
The Chantry Chapel of the Vyne was not consecrated ; but a consecrated Altar stone, or portable Altar {snpcraltarc con- secratum), was given by the bishop to be laid upon the Altar whenever Mass was said.
Adam de Port, son of the founder of the Chantry Chapel, having married Mabel, an heiress of the St. John family, his son William assumed the name St. John in place of De Port early in the thirteenth century. His descendants the St. Johns of Basing continued to be Lords of the Manor of the Vyne, and that part of the parish of Sherborne in which the Vyne stands took its name of Sherborne St. John from them, and not from its Church, which is dedicated to St. Andrew.
Many of the St. Johns used the Vyne as a favourite hunting resort. Thus Robert de St. John is recorded to have en- closed a park for hunting in the parish of Sherborne in the reign of Edward I., and to have given ' to the monks of Sher- • Warners
Hampshire,
borne Priory "the right shoulder of every deer that should be '''.:" P" killed in his park," a gift which his grandson, John Lord St. John, confirmed in 1309.
Morgueson Wood, which adjoins the Vyne on the north- west, was also called- in ancient deeds John Lord St. John's ^ e.g. Deed of
yan. 26, 1325,
Park of Morgarston. Horace Walpole therefore made a mistake, presenedat
the Vyne.
thoujrh
1 6 THE VYNE
CHAP. H.
though not an unnatural one, when he derived the name of
this wood from a village near Boulogne, burnt in the wars of
Henry VIII. by William, first Lord Sandys of the Vyne. " The
■ MS. pre- wood," he says,' " beyond the water at the back of the house still
set-jed at the . , , . „ , • i
Vyite. retains the name of Morgesson, a village m r ranee, near which
was fought the battle of Spours, which has been ridiculously called by historians the battle of Spurs, from the hasty flight, as they suppose, of the French, as if every battle in which one side retreated precipitately might not as justly have been called so."
The Vyne passed in the fourteenth century to the dis- tinguished family of Cowdray, whose memory is still preserved in Sussex, where they were living at the date of the Domesday Survey. The splendid mansion which bears their name in that county is deservedly famous both for its stately beauty and its tragic fate, having been ruined by fire at the same time as its owner, the eighth Lord Montague, perished by water in the falls of the Rhine near Schaffhauscn. The Cowdrays established themselves at an early date in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, and Hampshire, in which last county they became the Lords of Herriard as well as of the Vyne.
The seal of Sir Fulke de Cowdray, on which the arms of the family (gules, lO billets 4, 3, 2, and i, or) are engraved, debruising a two-headed eagle displayed, with the legend " Sigillum Fulconis de Cowdray," is represented in the accompanying drawing. This seal was attached to a Norman-French deed by which Sir Fulke de Cowdray leased
the
CHAP. 11. THE CHANTRY CHAPEL t;
the manor of the Vyne (at that time commonly called Sherborne Cowdray, after its owners) to Richard de Burton, Archdeacon of Winchester, in the twenty-fourth j-car of Edward III.
Sir Thomas de Cowdray re-endowed the Chantry Chapel by a Latin deed' of February 2, 1337, the effect of which was as ' WinchaUr
Diocesan
follows : Registry :
Book of Aifaw
1. After reciting the licence in mortmain of King Edward III., <>i-i^i-"'- and the consent of Robert de Jay, rector, and Ralph, vicar of Sherborne, he made the following grant : " I give to my brother Richard de Cowdray, whilst he shall perform divine service daily in the Chapel of Sherborne Cowdray, in honour of the Blessed Virgin, and on behalf of my good estate while I shall
live, and of my soul when I shall depart this life, and on behalf of Adam Orleton, Bishop of Winchester, and my father Sir Peter de Cowdray, and my mother the Lady Agnes, and my wife Juliana, and William Attehurst, and all the faithful de- parted, one plot of land in Sherborne Cowdray, and one rent coming to me from land held by Richard atte Ostre in the same village, and one rent of six marks issuing from lands in Herriard and Ellisfield, held by the Prioress of Hartley Wintney : To have and to hold the same to the said Richard and his suc- cessors the chaplains performing divine service in the said chapel, without any recourse to the mother church of Sherborne St. John."
2. It was provided that the patronage should belong first to Sir Thomas and his heirs, as lords of the manor ; secondly, to the Prior of the Cathedral Church of St. Swithun at Winchester ; and thirdly, to the Bishop.
» 3-
i8 THE VYNE
3. Sir Thomas de Cowdray undertook that he and his heirs would attend the parish Church on the greater festivals.
4. Sir Thomas de Cowdray gave to the " Chapel or Chantry " (" capellae seu cantariae ") the following books and ornaments, viz., a missal, a gradual, a response-book ("troparium"), a lesson-book, an antiphonal,a Psalter, two phials, a pair of vestments, a napkin or towel, and two brass candlesticks.
5. It was provided that " the duty of replacing the ornaments and finding bread and wine and lights should devolve on the chaplain, but the repair of the nave and chancel and altar upon Sir Robert de Cowdray and his heirs."
Among the witnesses to this deed were Sir John de Roches of Steventon, Sir John de Tichbornc, Sir John Pccche, Sir Hugh de Braybeof of Eastrop, Matthew de Haywood, Alexander de Cowfold, John Turgis, and Peter de Watford. It was confirmed by the Bishop at Farnham, February 7, 1337.
Thereupon Adam Orleton, Bishop of Winchester, admitted Richard de Cowdray to the chaplaincy, after the full chapter of the Deanery of Basingstoke had reported him to be " vitae laudabilis et honestae conversationis." At the same time, a dispute having arisen between Sir Thomas de Cowdray and Robert de Jay, the rector of Sherborne, as to the stipend which the latter was bound to pay to the chaplain, the bishop inspected the ancient deeds relating to the Chantry, and " having sought the divine guidance in the Chapel of his manor at Highclere," decided and awarded, June 12, 1337, that, notwithstanding any alteration in the value of land, the annual stipend payable to the chaplain by the rector should be one mark, and no more.
A
CHAP. 11.
THE CHANTRY CHAPEL
19
A well-carved head of Edward III. was disinterred at the beginning of this century, together with other stone work
belonging to the ancient
Chantry Chapel, having probably been added as an ornament at the time of its restoration by Sir Thomas de Covvdraj-. It is a curious coincidence that a similar head of Edward III. still forms a bracket at the foot of the east window in the interesting Chapel of St. Mary Magdalen at Kingston, which was also restored in that king's reign.
Soon after the date of Sir Thomas de Cowdray's benefac- tions, the Cowdray inheritance, including the Vyne, passed by marriage to Sir William Fyffhide, whose principal seat was at Fifield near Andover. This Sir William Fyffhide died in 1362, and an inquisition taken at Basingstoke on his death men- tions his property at Sherborne as including "a manor house of no value beyond the outgoings, and the advowson of the Chapel."
During the minority of his son, a second William Fyffhide, a vacancy occurred in the chaplaincy, and King Edward III., as the infant's guardian, presented one Thomas Solle of Wych- ford, January' 2, 1363.
On February 2, 1371, the second Sir William Fyffhide
leased
20 THE VYNE
CHAP. II.
' Deed leased ' the manor house of Sherborne Cowdray (i.e. the Vyne) to
preserved at
the Vyne. William Gi'egoiy of Basingstoke for certain considerations, in-
cluding " the payment of one rose at the feast of St. John the Baptist ; " reserving however " the Park, and the right of pre- sentation to the Chapel ;" while Gregory covenanted to keep in repair " the hall, and the adjoining chambers, and the grange, and the Chapel at the house."
In 13S6 the manor passed to the Sandys famil}- by marriage, and thenceforth resumed the name of the Vyne.
It will be told in the next chapter how William Waynflete (Headmaster of Winchester College, 1429; Fellow and first Headmaster of Eton, 1442 ; Provost of Eton, 1443 ; Bishop ot Winchester, 1447 ; Chancellor, 1456 ; Founder of Magdalen College, Oxford, 1458) granted a licence in 1449 for marriages to be celebrated in the Chantry Chapel of the Vyne.
In the early years of the sixteenth century, the old Chantry Chapel was replaced by the present building (Plate III.), erected by William first Lord Sandys of the Vyne. It still remains almost unaltered and in perfect preservation.
Externally, like the rest of the house, it is built of diapered red brick, with coigns and windows of stone, and has stone battlements, sculptured with the coats of arms and devices of Henry VIII., Katharine of Arragon, Lord Sandys, Sir Reginald Bray, and the officers of the Order of the Garter. (Plate II. p. II.) The eastern termination of the roof is not apsidal, like the building, but gabled, with a pierced barge board.
From within the house it is entered through an antechapel (described hereafter in Chap. VII.), by a richly carved oak door.
The
in
CHAP. II.
THE CHANTRY CHAPEL 21
The internal dimensions are 35 feet long, 19 feet wide, 25 feet high.
The eastern end terminates in an apse pierced by three Per- pendicular mullioned windows, filled with exceptionally perfect and beautiful glass of the fifteenth century, of which the subjects are as follows. The southernmost window contains, in the three upper lights, Our Lord bearing the Cross and meeting St. Vero- nica ; and, in the lower lights, the Princess Margaret, daughter of Henry VII., kneeling, attended by her patroness Saint Margaret. The centre window contains, in the upper lights, the Crucifixion ; and, in the lower. King Henry VII., kneeling, accompanied by his patron saint, Henry of Bavaria. The northernmost window contains, in the upper lights, the Resur- rection ; and, in the lower, Queen Elizabeth of York, kneeling, attended by her patroness Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, who carries clothes for the dwarf leper by her side. The sacred subjects are surmounted by the arms of Henry VII. and his Queen, and by the Tudor rose.
At this end, in the time of the first Lord Sandys,' was ' P. 2^. post. tapestry, and a picture of Our Lord. The Altar had a canopy or baldacchino, and was covered, sometimes with an altar cloth richly embroidered with gold, "with my Lord's arms at both ends ; " at other times with a pair of altar cloths of crimson velvet and cloth of gold. These were exchanged in Lent for one of white damask or linen with red roses. On the Altar stood " a cross of silver and gilt with the figures of St. Mary and St. John."
There was a font in the chapel, with a canopy of crimson satin and yellow damask.
The
22
THE VYNE
CHAP, II.
The canopied oak seats (Plate IV.) are of peculiar beauty and afford an excellent example of varied and intricate carving. Two specimens of the rich work bordering the canopy on the outside, described by Horace Walpole in his account of the house as "capricious friezes," arc here given. The canopy is
decorated on the inside with \arious carvings, including the Tudor Rose, the Portcullis, the Cross Ragulee (arms of Sandys), the St. George's Cross of the Order of the Garter, the Saltire
(the arms of Neville), and the badge of Lord Sandys, a rose 1 See drawing, surmounted by rays of the sun.' Two of the admirable poppy
p. 66, post.
heads terminating the seats are represented in the accompanying drawings.
In the south wall is the door leading into the priest's chamber. The ornamental wrought-iron lock of the door, with the cypher W. S., for William Lord Sandys, is sketched at the head of Chapter III. East of this door is an open screen giving access
to
THE CHANTRY CHAPEL
23
to the Tomb Chamber, containing the fine marble monument, b)^ Banks (Plate VI., p. 67), of Chaloner Chute, recumbent, in his Speaker's robes. This monument will be found described in Chapter VII.
The floor was formerly of stone, in a black and white pattern ; it is now of white marble, bordered with specimens of painted encaustic tiles, said by tradition to have been brought from Boulogne by Lord Sandys in the time of Henry VIII. They are probably from the manufactories of Urbino. Several of the scrolls are close imitations of Spanish or Moresque work. Some of the designs are given at the head of the " List ot Illustrations" (p. vii., ante).
An
24 THE VYNE
CHAP. II.
An iron alms box, of the time of Queen Elizabeth, bears the arms of the City of London, and the words " FUr den Armen."
At the western end, above the antechapel, is a gallery with an open screen, once the oratory of Lord Sandys, in whose day it contained —
" V pieces of hangings of great flowers, with my Lordes armes in the Garter ;
" ii small pieces of Imagery for the windows ;
" ii other small pieces or tapettes hanging beside the altar."
From this gallery a spectator might have beheld the Mass celebrated with great splendour in the early days of the six- teenth century. He would have seen the Chapel lit up with an array of candles, some in massive silver standards, others in lesser silver candlesticks ; the priest, deacon, and subdeacon attired in vestments of satin and cloth of gold, adorned either with " angels and clouds " or with " lions and eagles," or with "my lord's arms in the garter" (for all these vestments were I V. 2s-2T.post. among the Chapel furniture ' ) ; at other services with red copes, with orphreys garnished with pearl. There were two silver bells to be used at the consecration ; a set of organs to accom- pany the music ; Mass books on vellum, graduals, prick-song books, processionals, antiphonals, a silver Pyx for the Host ; six silver chalices and patens ; a silver Pax for the kiss of peace, engraved "with the crucifix, St. Mary and St. John ; " two silver censers and a " ship," partly gilt, for incense ; silver cruets for the water and wine ; silver basons for the alms ; a silver " stocke " with a " sprinkell " for the holy water ; and a silver box for the holy loaf or "singing bread," which the priest, after saying
private
CHAP. II. THE CHANTRY CHAPEL 25
private Mass, broke and distributed to the people who did not communicate, as a symbol of brotherly love.
This Chapel has been selected for description and illustra- tion by Dolman, in his " Ancient Domestic Architecture," ' as one ' \'oi. ii. of three typical examples of ancient domestic chapels in England ; the others being those of the two episcopal palaces of Lambeth and Wells.
The following is a list^ of the ornaments, plate, and furniture - inveiiioiy
tfiited 1541.
used in the Chapel in the time of the first Lord Sandys : — -'<''■<•?• 50, poi/.
" In the Chapel.
ij pieces of Parke worke,* with fountaines, lyned ;
Another piece, underneath the windowes, uf the same worke ;
ij large tablettes of the picture of Our Lord ;
A great large pair of Latten candlestickes, called standardes ;
A pair of lesser candlestickes, of Latten ;
A small pair of altar candlestickes, latten ;
ij pieces of old hanginges, sore worne, hanging beside the altar ;
An altar cloth for the upper part of the altar, richly embroidered with
gold, with my lordes armes at both endes : A pair of altar cloths, for above & beneath, of crimson velvet, & cloth
of gold, paned,+ with a lose valaunce of the same ; A canopy of coarse bawdekyn ; t
A fronte of bawdekyn, with a pageant of our Lady, embroidered ; An altar cloth & a fronte, white Damaske, with red loses, for Lent ; vij lynen altar cloths, with redd roses, for Lent ;
* Perhaps tapestry -vith garden or park scenery, as distinguished from " imagery," or tapestry containing figures. Gibbon, ch. Ixi., describing a carpet of silk belonging to Chosroes, the Persian monarch, says, '' A paradise or garden was depictured on the ground." t Striped.
X Rich brocade from Baldeck, or Bagdad, whence the canopy was called a baldacchino.
E A
26 THE VYNE
CHAP. II.
A pair of vestmentes of clothe of gold, embroidered richly, with my
lordes armes in the garter, all new ; A pair of vestmentes, crymson velvif, with an orpharus,* & cloth of
gold ; A suit of vestmentes for priest deacon and subdeacon, of green velvit,
embroidered with angelles & cloudes, with the apparell & a cope of
the same [valued at xiij/. v\s. viij(/.] ; A suit of vestementes with priest deacon & subdeacon, of redd silke, em- broidered with lyons & eagles of gold, of the old making, and a cope
to the same [valued at vj/.] ; A suit with priest deacon & subdeacon, of crimson velvit, garnished
with flowers & angelles of gold, with an orphrey of blacke & clothe
of gold ; ij copes of red tissue, with an orphrey garnyshed with peerle ; A vestment of redd satin, figury, with an orphrey of blue clothe of
gold; A cope of redd Damaske, with an orphrey of blue velvit ; A pair of vestmentes of cloth tissue ;
A canopy for the fonte, of crymson satin and yellow Damaske ; A pair f of organs.
In the Vestry.
X processionalles ;
A fair masse booke in vellum, printed ;
iiij grayles ; %
viij antiphonals, printed in paper ;
iij prick song bookes ;
ij corporas § cases of black velvet perled, with JHUS embroidered ;
ij other corporas cases, one of metal work, another of gold plain ;
vj pair of altar curteyns of sarcenet, of dyvers colours.
* Orphrey or band. f Set. . % Graiiuals or service hooks.
§ The linen cloth spread over the consecrated bread.
Chapel
CHAP. II. THE CHANTRY CHAPEL
Chapel Plate.
A crosse of sylver & gilt, with Mary & John, with a foot gilt : clwj oz. ;
vj chalices gilte, with their pattens : cxiv oz. ;
A gilt Pyx of silver, chased : xx oz. ;
A gilt box for singing bread : * iij oz. ;
A large Pax, with the Crucifix, and Mary & John : xxij oz. ;
A pair of altar basones, small, parcel gilt : xlij oz. ;
ij censers, parcel gilt, with a shipp & a spone, parcel gilt : Ixxx oz. ;
A holy water stocke, with a sprinkell, parcel gilt : xx oz. ;
A bell of sylver, parcel gilt, with the clapper : x oz. ;
A box for singing bread,* with a cover, parcel gilt : iij oz. ;
ij pair of cruettes : xviij oz. ;
A pair of altar candlesticks : xlj oz. ;
Another pair of altar candlesticks, parcel gilt : xlvj oz. ;
Another pair of greate & large altar candlesticks, all white, with roses :
cxl oz. ; A little bell of silver : ij oz.
In the Wardrobe.
ij altar cloths of Bruges satin, red & yellow, paned ;
A canopy of the same stuff fringed & curtains to the same ;
A corporas case of needle work ;
A super altare." f
The Chapel did not escape the disendowmcnt which befell all Chantries in the reign of Edward VI. It was described in the certificates of the revenues of Chantries, made in March and April 1 548, with a view to their dissolution, as follows.
* Paiti h'liii, or holy loaf, hamkd to the congregation after hi^h Mass as a syiiihol of brotherly love. " Singing bread " seems to have been a term used to denote wafers in general. \ See p. 15.
" One
28
THE VYNE
CHAP. 11
1 Cer/if fates of Chantries, 51 (i3)-
'■ IHd. 52 (9).
" One Chantry of the Vyne : ' founded by Sir Thomas Cowdray, knt, to the intent to have a priest, to do, exercise, and use, divine service for ever in the s"* chappel, to pray for the souls of the said Sir Thomas & Juiyan his wife and all Christian souls ; and the said priest to have for his Salary cvj' viij"*. the said Chantry is situate one mile from the parish church. Orna- ments plate jewels goods & chattels, merely appertaning to the said Chantry, not priced, but as appeareth by the Indenture."
And again : —
" The Chantry in the Vine,^ founded to have continuance for ever, of whose foundation they know not, and that there is belonging to the same Chantry a house & garden & orchard, valued at iij'' iiij* ; item in lands & tenements, to the yearly value of v' vj'* viij'' ; ornaments & goods there by in- ventory indented to the incumbent delivered b}- the commis- sioners valued at ij^"
The Chapel, though disendowed by the sale of its lands, and deprived of its independent emoluments, was preserved undese- crated, and still retains its original beauty, affording a memorial of the munificent piety of successive owners of the V^yne.
Chap.
^'
'^^'"0^ 1^^^^
>
CHAP. Ill '7J:i€ I^orclsSanch/s.
FOR nearly three hundred years, from the reign of Richard II. until the days of the Commonwealth, the Vyne belonged to the family of Sandys, the greatest of whom, the first Lord Sandys, was the builder of the present house (Plate V.) about 1509. He and his successors were associated with many of the principal persons and events of the Tudor period, and his " poor house," as he calls it in many of his letters, abounds in historic memories.
Here King Henry VIII. and Anne Bolcyn were guests at a momentous crisis of the Reformation ; here Queen Elizabeth, with Lord Burleigh at her side, penned one of her earliest and most important despatches with reference to the keeping of Mary Queen of Scots ; and here the Duke de Biron, with a retinue of four hundred persons, was for several days royally entertained.
The original seat of the Hampshire family of Sandys was at Choldcrton near Andover, where in Leland's time ' yet ' Leiand. iim.
iv. pt. i. fol.
remained 1°. n-
THE VYNE CHAP. III.
remained " a fair manor place builded for the most part of flint." They bore different arms from the family of the same name of Latymers in Buckinghamshire, and Ombersley in Worcester- shire, to which the archbishop, and many persons distinguished in literature and politics, belonged.
It was Sir John Sandys, a knight of the shire for the county of Hants, and governor of Winchester Castle, who acquired the V)'ne in 1386, by his marriage with Joanna, heiress of the Fyff- hides ; and his son Sir W^altcr, not foreseeing that it was about to become the principal residence of his family, " gave it out "
^ Ubi sup. (says Leland ') to his daughter Joanna, upon her marriage to
William Brocas, about 1420.
Few families were at that time more distinguished than that of Brocas. Sir John Brocas had migrated in the fourteenth century to England from Aquitaine, then part of the English
-History of king's dominions;^ and Sir Bernard Brocas, the friend and
tke Brocas
Family, by companion-in-arms of Edward the Black Prince, by whose side
Professor ' •'
Biirrcnvs, 1886. he fought at Poitiers, had become the lord of Beaurepaire, in the immediate neighbourhood of the Vyne, in the year of that battle, 1356. He died in 1395, and was honoured with a splendid monument in Westminster Abbey, which tells how, " being sent against the Moors, he overcame the King of Morocco in battle, and was allowed to bear for his crest a Moor's head
= No. 329. crowned with an Eastern crown." Readers of the " Spectator " ^
may remember that Sir Roger de Coverley, visiting West- minster Abbey, " paid particular attention to the account of the lord who had cut off the King of Morocco's head."
His son, a second Sir Bernard, was faithful to Richard \\.
in
CHAP. HI. THE LORDS SANDYS 31
in his da}- of adversit}-, and was put to death February 4, 1400,
by Henry IV. Shakespeare' speaks of his execution, with Sir ^ mdiard 11.
act V. sc. 6.
Benedict Shelley, and the chroniclers tell of his last speech at Tyburn before he was beheaded : " Blessed be God that I was born, for I shall die this night in the service of the noble King Richard."
It was his son, William Brocas, who married Joanna Sandys as his second wife, and received the V}-ne as her dowry. He served Henry V. and Henry VI. as sheriff of Hampshire in 1416, 1429, and 1436, sat for the same county in four Parlia- ments at least of the former king, and obtained such favour with the new d}'nasty that he recovered most of the property which his father had forfeited by his attainder ; the estate of Denton in Wharfedale, and the well-known Brocas meadow on the banks of the Thames at Eton, being included among his possessions. He also held the distinguished position of Master of the Royal Buckhounds, an office which, being at that time hereditary, had been acquired^ by his grandfather Sir Bernard '^ History of
the Brocas
upon his marriage with Mary, daughter and heiress of Sir John Pamiiy, p. 97.
de Roches, and widow of Sir John de Borhunte, in 1363.
Rockingham Castle in Northamptonshire, a favourite resort
of the Plantagenet kings, was then the centre of this royal
hunt ; and one of the meets of the Woodland Pytchley hounds
at the present day is the " Bocase stone," possibly a corruption
of " Brocas stone," •* in Rockingham Forest. = ind. p. 250.
William Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester, granted William Brocas a licence,' January 20, 1449, to have marriages "between * Winchester
Diocesan
his children and other persons" solemnised in " the Chapel or Kegiitiy.
Oratory
THE VYNE CHAP. .11.
Oratory within his manor of the Vine, after banns duly pro- claimed in the proper places."
An incidental notice of medieval rustic life is contained in a record of the Court Leet of Basingstoke Hundred, July 28, 1408, which tells how Roger atte Lane complained that "John Benfelde trod down his hay in le Vyne to the damage of three shillings and four pence, and the Court awarded him threepence for the trespass."
William Brocas died April 29, 1456, having by his will
directed that he should be buried " in the Chapel of the Holy
Apostle in the Church at Sherborne." There is reason to
^History of believe' that the Brocas Chantry attached to the Church of
the Brocas
Fiimiiy. pp. St. Andrew, Sherborne St. John, which contains several fine 129, 390.
monumental brasses, was completed in his lifetime, with money
left for the purpose by his grandfather Sir Bernard.
Joanna, the widow of William Brocas, occupied the Vyne
for the remainder of her life, and was succeeded by her son
Bernard, the second son of his father, who saw his grandfather's
fate avenged by the overthrow of the Lancastrian dynasty, and by
the triumph of the White Rose. The memory of Bernard Brocas
of the Vyne is preserved by an elaborate monumental brass,
placed by his wife Philippa in the Brocas chantry at Sherborne
St. John, where he was buried. He is represented in armour,
kneeling before a large cross, under which is a skeleton and
shroud, and the rhyming verse : — •
Me pie Christe Jesu Serves atr.e necis esu.
He bears a shield with the Brocas and Roches arms quartering
those
CHAP. III. THE LORDS SANDYS
those of Sandys, and holds a helmet and mantling with the Moor's head crest. The Latin inscription round the cross is curious and enigmatical : —
" pondere marmoreo tenebroso subtus in antro Bernardus Brocas jacet, armiger arma relinquens : humanus multum fuerat ; reddunt decoratum Mores dapsilitas ileum amplectendaque honestas. OccuBuiT Maii dena ternaque luce Anno sed Domini cf.ntenis multiplicatis Bis septenario septenarius duodeno, Quatuor his addo numerum tibi perficiendo."
This epitaph may be translated as follows : —
" Here in the darkness of the vaulted gloom, Beneath the weight of ponderous marble tomb, Lies Bernard Brocas, an esquire, bereft Of arms that once he bore, but now has left. His heart was kind, all honoured with delight His manners liberal, pleasing, and upright. On the thirteenth of May it was he died In the year of our Lord one hundred multiplied By seven twice told ; thereto I must intact Add seven times twelve and four to make the date exact."
The date of his death, thus curiously expressed, was May 13, 1488. The words " arma relinquens " possibly allude to the wars of the Roses, which lasted through his life.
Upon his death the Vyne was " recovered " ' by Sir William 1 Leiayid, itin.
iv. pt. i. fol.
Sandys, grandson of Sir Walter, who had "given it out" in 10,11.
F marriaee
34 THE VYNE
CHAP. III.
marriage. Sir William has the distinction of being mentioned ^ Henry VIII. by Shakespeare,' who says that he was
act i. so. 4.
" exceeding mad in love, But he would bite none."
He married Edith, daughter of Sir John Cheney of Sherland in the Isle of Sheppey, and was Sheriff of Hampshire in 1497, in which year he died, having charged his debts by will " on his personal property at Andover and the Vyne."
Thereupon his son William, who became the first Lord
Sandys, the friend of Kings Henry VH, and VHL, and Lord
Chamberlain in the court of the latter, succeeded him, and
- Leiand, itiii. finding the Vyne ^ " no very great or sumptuous manor place,
iv. pt. i.
folio, II. only contained within the moat" (perhaps that of which part
still remains, south of the present house ), he " so translated and augmented it, and beside builded a fair Base Court, that it became one of the principal houses in goodly building in all Hamptonshire."
In this undertaking he was greatly aided by his marriage with Margery Bray, niece and heiress of Sir Reginald Bray, Knight of the Garter, who, by his skill in the arts of diplomacy and architecture, earned wealth and distinction, and held many great civil employments. It was Sir Reginald Bray who de- signed the chapel of Henry VII. at W^estminster, and was the architect of a great part of St. George's Chapel, Windsor. In the middle of the south aisle of the latter he was allowed to build the Chapel, called by his name, in which he was buried ; and his device, a Bray or Hempbreaker (shown in the design at
the
CHAP. in. THE LORDS SANDYS 35
the head of this chapter), appears in many parts of that building. As he Hved till 1503, it is possible that the Vyne Chapel may owe something to his genius as an architect.
The first visit of Henry VIII. to the Vyne was in July 15 10. It appears from the book of his payments for that month ' that ' Letters and
Papers of
he went from Windsor (where he paid 66j. 8^. to "the school- Henry vin.
vol. ii. p. 1447.
master and children at Eton ") to his hunting lodge at Eastham- stead, thence to the Vyne, and thence to Reading. He paid 2s. for " a messenger from Master Sandys' place to Mr. Mewtas," and 4^. lod. for "carriage of guard jackets from Windsor to Esthamstede, thence to the Vine, and thence to Reading."
In 1 5 12 the King was persuaded to send an expedition to Fontarabia in Spain, partly to help his father-in-law Ferdinand of Arragon, then in league with the Pope against France, partly in hopes of recovering for England the lost province of Guienne. In this expedition Sir William Sandys served as " keeper of the ordnance at Fontarabia," and " in consideration of his services in the wars in Spain, Guienne, Flanders, and Picardy,"'^ he was appointed Treasurer of Calais, July 28, 1517, '- iitid.
vol. ii. p. 1120.
with an allowance of 56/. per annum out of the issues of that town.
In the next year, November 13, 15 18, we find "Master Sandys " complained of at a view of frankpledge in the Court Leet of Basingstoke, " that he keeps many more sheep upon the common of the town than he should do, and moreover that his servants misorder their cattle, whereby many poor men of the town take great damage."
He was made a Knight of the Garter, May 16, 15 18, and
two
36 THE VYNE
CHAP. III.
two years later was one of the Commissioners appointed to arrange the famous interview of Henry with Francis I. at Guisnes, known as the Field of the Cloth of Gold, June 4, ^ Henry VI II. 1520; where, as Shakespeare says,'
act i. sc. I.
" Each following day Became the next day's master, till the last Made former wonders its. To-day the French, All clinquant, all in gold, like heathen gods, Shone down the English ; and to-morrow, they Made Britain India ; every man that stood Showed like a mine."
Shakespeare tells us how Sir William Sandys (whom he calls Lord Sandys by anticipation) was amongst those to whom all this display was distasteful, and who lamented that the " spells of France should juggle even into such strange mysteries." -Ibid. sc. 3. " New customs," he says,^ addressing Charles Earl of Worcester, his predecessor in the office of Lord Chamberlain,
" Though they be never so ridiculous.
Nay, let 'em be unmanly, yet are followed."
He goes on to express a hope that the English ladies will now attend to their own fellow-countrymen once more, instead of being engrossed by the foreigners.
" An honest country lord, as I am, beaten A long time out of play, may bring his plain-song And have an hour of hearing."
He was ready, however, to take part in the King's amuse- ments upon English soil ; and Shakespeare represents that, shortly after this conversation, he attended Cardinal Wolsey's
great
CHAP. III. THE LORDS SANDYS 37
great supper at York Place, now Whitehall, and was there in- troduced to Anne Boleyn,' whom in later years he received as i Henry vili.
act i. sc. 4.
his royal guest at the Vyne ; and seating himself by her, said : —
" If I chance to talk a little wild, forgive me ; I had it from my father."
Then there follows one of those entertainments in which Henry, like his daughter Queen Elizabeth, appears to have taken so much delight. A drum and trumpets are heard, and the King himself and twelve others enter, habited like shep- herds, with sixteen torchbearers, and, ushered by the Lord Chamberlain,
" Crave leave to view these ladies, and entreat An hour of revels with 'em."
And so the masquerade began and continued until morning. And in all this Sir William Sandys joined with hearty good will. He was, however, much more than a mere companion of the King's pleasures, and showed such diligence and skill in affairs of statesmanship, that on July 24, 1521,^ Richard Pace, Secre- - siau
Papers
tary of State, wrote to Cardinal Wolsey as follows : — {Henry Vli/.).
vol. i. p. 20.
" The King signifieth unto your Grace that, whereas old men do now decay greatly within this realm, his mind is to acquaint other young men with his great affairs, and therefore he desireth your Grace to make Sir William Sandys and Sir Thomas More privy to all such matters as your Grace shall treat at Calais."
The result of Wolsey's embassy to Calais, here referred to, was that King Henry again went to war with France, and entered into alliance with the Emperor Charles V., who
thereupon
38 THE VYNE chap. m.
thereupon visited England in May 1522, and on June 22 was entertained at Winchester, where King Arthur's round table in the great hall of the Castle was painted, as it now appears, in his honour. Sir William Sandys was unable to take any part in these festivities, for, as became a good soldier, he was already at his post at Calais, defending the marches against the French.
The King hoped that Sandys would by his influence raise
two hundred men for this service ; but he wrote, May 8, 1522,
' Letters and that,' " as hc was on the French side of the water, he could not
Ftipen of
Henry VIII. raisc morc than ten men, unless aided by my Lord of Winches-
vol. iii. p, 951.
ter, who had iifty able men in readiness ; and, as the Abbot of Hyde and the Prior of St. Swithun's had forty, and the town of Winchester twenty men, it would further the King's purpose if they might be parcel of the two hundred required."
He was created Baron Sandys of the Vyne, April 27, 1523, while serving under the famous Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, against the French ; and his new dignity appears to
- HoiinsheaJ. havc Stimulated him to greater exertions, for Holinshead - tells
vol.
679. 689.
679, 681, 687, us that in a skirmish with three hundred French horse near Calais, July 3, 1523, he and Sir Edward Guilford were "whips unto the Frenchmen," and were " two that did them most dis- pleasure : " and in the same month he and other captains " entered into the confines of their enemies before Boulogne, where they had a great skirmish and put their enemies to the worse ; and, after marching into the country, took divers churches and other places which the Frenchmen had fortified ; and so, after they had been within the enemy's country almost two nights and
two
CHAP. 111. THE LORDS SANDYS 39
two days, they came back to Calais, having not lost past a dozen of their men."
Again, October 20, a breach having been made in the walls of Bray, near Amiens, " by the good comfort of the Lord Sandys and other captains " the English " got the ditches and entered upon the walls ; " and in the same month " Lord Sandys and Sir Maurice Berkeley and others, with 3,000 men, burned Marqueson with many villages." A print of this burning, with the English tents in a hurricane, taken from a picture at Cow- dray, is at the Vyne.
The troops, however, were ill supplied for war, and found Rhenish wine a poor substitute for the national beverage. Lord Sandys wrote August 16, 1522,' to ask for " 1000, or at least ^ LettenanJ
P.ifers of
700, tuns of beer." The consequence of the general want of food Hi-nry i'lii.
vol. iii. p. 1029.
was that the Duke of Suffolk, though he led his army within two miles of Paris, was obliged to retreat precipitately to Calais to save his men from dying of hunger. He sent Lord Sandys home to report the evil plight of the army, and before his envoy could return the troops were disbanded.
This was that Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, who married the King's sister, Mary, after the death of her first husband, Louis XII. of France. There is a portrait of him at the Vyne by Holbein, with the following inscription on the panel : —
" Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolk Lord Grand Alaister to K. Henry VIII. Tlie fayrest man at arms in his tyme, lieutenant to the Kyngin his greatest warres, voyd of despyte, moste fortunate to the end, never in displeasure zcith his Kyng."
Amongst the intimate friends of Lord Sandys at this time
was
40 THE VYNE
CHAP. III.
was Richard Fox, Bishop of Winchester ( i 501-1528), in con- junction with whom he obtained from the King a charter dated November 1 6, 1 5 24, for the estabHshment of the Fraternity of the Holy Ghost in Basingstoke, his country town. This, which had previously been a voluntary association for the maintenance of a chaplain to say masses in the Chapel of the Holy Ghost for the health of the inhabitants of Basingstoke, was recon- stituted and endowed by Lord Sandys and Bishop Fox, with the additional object of providing education and instruction for j'oung men and boys of the town.
Besides re-establishing the Fraternity, Lord Sandys made an important addition to the Chapel of the Holy Ghost. The graceful tower and picturesque ruins which cannot fail to arrest the attention of travellers passing by railway through Basing- stoke, belong to a Chapel which he added to the original fabric, as a burial-place for himself and his family. It well deserves a close inspection. The angles of the tower display canopied niches and brackets for images, on which were carved, and are still visible, the Sandys arms and badges. Camden speaks of this Chapel as " very beautiful," and mentions rich paintings with which the roof was adorned, " representing the history of the prophets, apostles, and disciples of Christ." Its windows were 1 Cyprianti! placed by Peter Heylyn ' in the same category with those of
introdviction, the Cathedral Church of Canterbury, and the parish Church of p. 10.
Fairford, Gloucestershire. They suffered in the civil wars, and
portions of the glass, after many vicissitudes, have found resting- places in the Churches of St. Michael, Basingstoke, and All Saints, Woolbeding, and in the Antechapel at the Vyne.
On
CHAP. III.
THE LORDS SANDYS 41
On June 2, 1525, Lord Sandys received as his guest at the Vyne the famous Henry Courtenay, Earl of Devon, who ' " broke \c,ibih>ii
•' •' ^ Roman h/n-
a lance against the French monarch at the Camp of Cloth of /'■'■<?. di. ixi. Gold," was created Marquis of Exeter by his cousin Henry VHI., and afterwards executed by him. An offering which he made "at the Holy Ghost" {i.e. at Basingstoke), when he was at the Vyne, is mentioned in his household accounts.'- = i^ners ,;«,/
In 11526, on the death of Charles Somerset, first Earl of Hnnvliii.
vol. iv.
Worcester, Lord Sandys was made Lord Chamberlain. In the pp 794. 795- same year he resigned the office of Treasurer of Calais, and was appointed Captain of Guisnes. The original deed, dated October 25, 1526, whereby Sir Robert Wingfield, his successor, " late lieutenant of the castel of Caleys," acknowledged the receipt from him of the keys of Calais, " as well of the foure principall gates as of the posterns," is preserved at the Vyne.
When Wolsey went on his embassy to Francis I. in 1527, to . concert measures for the Pope's release after the sack of Rome, Lord Sandys accompanied him. He had little acquaintance with the French except as a combatant, and thought perhaps that too much intercourse with them would change the English into
" travelled gallants, That fill the court with quarrels, talk, and tailors."^ 3 Shakespeare.
Henry Vlll. act i. sc. 3.
It was not without reason that the Cardinal instructed the members of his suite to be ready to talk to any Frenchman who might address them, and, " speaking merrily to one of the gentlemen,^ being a Welshman, ' Price,' quoth he, 'speak thou 'p^^^'l-'/of'" Welsh to him ; I am well assured that thy Welsh shall be more introciuctioM,
.^ vol. iv.
G diffuse p. cclxhi.
42 THE VYNE
CHAP. III.
diffuse {i.e. difficult) to him than his French shall be to thee.' And so he urged them in all their behaviour to study gentleness and humanity."
In 1528, the clothiers about Westbury, Wilts, being thrown
out of work, assembled with the intention of repairing to the
King, who wrote to Lord Sandys for information as to their
^ Leilas ,tiid designs. He replied' in a letter dated "The Vyne, March 9,
Papers of
Henry VIII. 1538," that hc "had not heard of it till he received the King's
vol. iv. p. 1796.
letter ; for Westbury, he is told, is near Bristol, si.xty miles from here," and added that he would go with a few persons, as if hunting, towards Sir John Seymour and Sir William Essex, and, " if there is any such movement, he will do his best to pacify it ; if not, he will follow the King's instructions, and, though he has sent all his harness to Guisnes, he will not spare his own body among them." = /i/V. p. 1951. In a letter- to Wolsey, July i, 1528, he asked for some
offices that Sir \\'illiam Compton, lately deceased, had held in connexion with certain religious houses. He excused him- self from visiting the King or Wolsey, as he had had " the Sweat in his house ; " and he defended his importunity with an " old sa}'ing, ' Where a man best loveth there he dare be boldest.' "
At the date of this letter the Sweating Sickness, which first came to England with the foreign troops of Henry VH. in 1485, was invading England for the fourth time, with such vio- lence, that the King left London, and shut himself up in his hunting-lodge at Tittenhanger Park, near St. Albans, within a circle of bonfires.
In
cHAiMii. THE LORDS SANDYS 43
In 1530, Lord Sandys was appointed by Wolsey keeper of Farnham Castle, with an annuit}- of a hundred marks.
In August 1531, the King again visited the Vyne, and his household accounts for that month contain the following entries ' : — • ' Lata-s a,t.d
Papers of
"To one who brought a screen to the Vyne from Pexhallcs Henry r//f.
vol. V, p. 755.
house, 40J. ;
" To the keeper of Baroper (Bcaurcpaire) Park, 6s. Sif. ;
" To the keeper of Mr. Pawlets and Lord Sandj-s parks, I T,s. 4./. ;
"To the servant of the Lord Chamberlain (Lord Sandys) for bringing a stag to the \'ine, which the King had stricken before in Wolmer forest, los."
Lord Sandys made use of his connexion with France for the benefit of his cellar and larder at the Vyne, as we ma\- gather from his correspondence with Lord Lisle, the deputy at Calais, who wrote - to him September 13, 1533, to say that he -■//•/</. vol vi.
n. 467.
had sent him two hogsheads of wine, "one of claret, Gaskoyn,
the other white, better than Gaskoyn ; " adding, " if \-ou wish to
have herring and wine this winter, let me know ;" and in 1534
Lord Sandys asked ^ Lord Lisle to send him some plovers. " I '• j/m/. vol. vii.
pp. 223, 310, beg," he says, " that I may continue to participate in your Lord- 550-
ships Pewettes. I also desire license to ship such French wines
as my friend Mr. Vice-Treasurer has bought for me at Calais ; "
shortly after which he wrote to thank Lord Lisle for giving
command to his servant for the" Pewettes," and again in anotlicr
letter he asked Cromwell for a licence to disembark " twenty
tuns of wine for the provision of his house."
In
44 THE VYNE chap. m.
In May 1533, Lord Sandys took his part as Lord Chamber- lain in the public reception of Queen Anne Boleyn, after her secret marriage, when she made her splendid entry by water into ' Letters and London, with " Streamers ' of cognizances and devices ventyl)-ng Henry vni. with the wynd, trumpets blowing and shallmes and mistrelles
vol. vi. p. 250.
playing." The divorce, however, of Queen Katharine which shortly followed, and the irreconcilable schism which thence arose between England and the Holy See, caused him much distress, and it was little consolation to him that Pope Cle-
2 «/,/. vol. vi. ment VIL granted him a special indulgence,^ August 20, 1533 (together with the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of Win- chester, and the Marquis of Exeter), allowing him "to have mass celebrated three times during his life, though his country should be under an apostolic interdict." He retired from Court in 1534, on the plea of sickness, and was even ready to welcome an invasion of England by the Emperor Charles V., as prefer- able to the tyranny of his own king in matters ecclesiastical.
The following remarkable letter upon this subject, written in cypher, and dated January 14, 1534, from Chapuys, the Ambas- sador of Charles V. in London, to his Imperial master, has been
'-Jtid. vol. viii. recently found in the Vienna Archives' : —
" Lord Sandys, the King's Chamberlain, and one of the best men of war in the kingdom, sent to tell me he was very sorry the times were such that he could not invite me to his house " {i.e. the Vyne) ; "but your Majesty might be sure you had the hearts of all this kingdom, and that, if you knew the great dis- order that exists here, and the little hope of making good re- sistance, now that the people are so alienated from the King,
you
pp. 14, 15, 74.
CHAP. III. THE LORDS SANDYS .45
you would not delay to apply a remedy ; at the least disturb- ance your Majesty could make, this kingdom would be found in inestimable confusion. The said Lord Sandys is at his house pretending to be ill, he is so disgusted with the Court, and has sent this message to me by his physician, whom I know." Chapuys wrote again to the Emperor, February 9, that " the King has sent for le Seigneur Xaynel " {i.e. Sandys), " but he says he is ill."
The Emperor was hindered from taking advantage of these proposals, by his expedition against the corsair Barbarossa ; a happy circumstance, no doubt, for England, as the cruelty with which the Catholics on the Continent persecuted the Protes- tants far exceeded the severest measures of the English King against those who resisted his authority.
Whilst thus in retirement from public affairs. Lord Sandys did not fail to watch over the King's deer, and hearing that there had been poaching by night in the Queen's Park (now Great Park Farm) at Mortimer, near the Vyne, in which parish he himself had a breeding establishment, he wrote to Cromwell,' ' Letters anj
^ ' Paffl-s 0/
January 22, 1535 : " I willed my brother this day to go and see ^"{"^^^/^'^^z the manner thereof; on coming thither he found hounds and hunters, among whom were young Trapnell, Mr. Inglefield's son-in-law, and six of his servants, who immediately attacked him and hurt him sore. I write to you for redress, for if it were not more for dread of the King than of God, I would have been revenged. Young Trapnell has killed twenty of the King's deer on the borders of Windsor Forest. Two }-ears ago he slew a great hart, and carried him away in a cart ;
unless
46 THE VYNE
CHAP. III.
unless some remedy be devised, the King's deer cannot be defended."
Charges having been brought against Lord Sandys that he
was not keeping the castle of Guisnes as he ought, and that
'■Letters ami thc woods Were wastcd, he repHed,' March 14, 153S, that he
Papers of
Henry fill. would go there before Easter, if the King desired it : " It is fur-
vol. viii. 11. 154. ^
nishcd with soldiers," he adds, " according to my duty ; I know of no waste of the wood except such as has been taken for burning of brick, necessary for repairs at Calais and Guisnes."
Once more, on June 25, 1535, Lord Sandys wrote to Crom- well from the Forest of Wolmer, near Alton, Hants, to excuse his
'- Ibid. p. 363. absence from Court : ^ " I and my poor house have been pun- ished by the hand of God ; three of my tallest men have died, and most of my other servants have been sick : I am con- strained to repose in a poor lodge in the Forest of Wolmer, and my wife in another, so that I cannot wait upon the King, to whom I beg you will excuse me."
■■' Ibid. p. 379. Whilst he was in this retreat, the King granted ^ him the
materials of the neighbouring manor house of W^ardelham (now
Worldham), which had fallen to the Crown on the attainder of
Edmund de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, who having been left in the
Tower by Henry VH., was executed by Henry VHI. 15 13.
On October 13, 1535, the King, accompanied by Queen
Anne Boleyn, went to the \^ne on a visit to Lord Sandys, who
•> Ibid. vol. i.v. wrote a few days later to Cromwell as follows ^ : — ■ p. 224.
" Pleaseth it you to be advertised that the Kings highness and the Queens grace came hither to vay poor house on Friday
last
CHAP. III. THE LORDS SANDYS 47
last past, the 13th day of this month, and here continued until Tuesday then next ensuing ; where my very especial trust and hearty desire was also to have seen you ; and right so I suppose verily it might have pleased you, according to your promise, to have taken the pains, but that I remember your great business, and especially at this time : assuring you that you should have been and at all seasons shall be as heartily welcome unto mc as to any friend you have, and a great comfort it should have been to me and my poor wife to have seen you."
He then asks Cromwell to help his friend John Awdelett, of Abingdon, in a dispute with the Abbot, and ends thus : " I be- seech the Holy Ghost to preserve you with as long continuance in as good health as I would have myself.
" At the Y)-ne the xxij"'^ day of October anno rcgni regis Henrici VHI. xxvij™'.
" Yours assured to his power,
" WVLLM SaNDY.S."
The "great business" of Cromwell, referred to in this letter, included that visitation of the monasteries which, as Vicar- General (a new office created for the purpose}, he carried out with extreme severity. Among those who were in danger of deprivation was the Prior of Worcester, a friend of Margery Lady Sandys, who took up his cause with energ>% and wrote ' ' Letters „„d
Papers of
to Cromwell, immediately after the departure of her ro\-al -^""7 '^'ff-
vol. ix. p. 220.
guests, the following letter, dated October 21, 1535 : —
" I write to you of the Prior of Worcester, Uan Wm. More, who remains in Gloucester at the Kings pleasure and yours.
I
48 THE VYNE
CHAP. III.
I beg that the matter may be examined into, for he is a true monk to God and the King : he was elected to his room by the whole convent, and the gift of the Bishop of Winchester, without giving a penny for his promotion." And, knowing the character of those with whom she was pleading, she adds : "He" (the Prior) "will be glad to give you in ready money as much as any other man will give, and therefore my trust is you will be good to him."
Cromwell was also occupied with that severe persecution of those who refused to acknowledge the King's supremacy, which has well been called the English Reign of Terror, and culminated in the execution of the brethren of the Charterhouse, Bishop Fisher, and Sir Thomas More. Hence arose a romantic inci- dent ; for among those who were in the greatest danger was Marie, niece of Cardinal Pole, grand-daughter of Margaret Countess of Salisbury, and one of the nearest relations of King Edward IV. ; and she found shelter in Hampshire, probably by the intervention of Lord Sandys, and married William Cufaude, whose moated grange adjoined the manor of the Vyne. An illuminated pedigree of the Cufaude family commemorates this alliance with the last of the Plantagenets. It displays the crown of Edward IV., the insignia of many nobles of royal blood, and the scarlet hat of Cardinal Pole. This pedigree is 1 See p. 163. at the Vyne,' as is also a picture of Marie Pole's fair descendant
post.
Winifred the Nun of Cufaude. - Letien ,ni,i ' Oucc morc, at Christmas, 1535,^ Lord Sandys declined to
Papers of
Henry VIII. attend the Court, on the plea of ill-health, and yet when the
vol. ix. p. 293.
great rebellion of the North endangered the realm in 1536, he
took
CHAP. in. THE LORDS SANDYS 49
took his place, as of old, by the side of the King in Council, who, writing an "Answer to the demands of the Rebels in Yorkshire," mentions' "the Lord Sandys our chamberlain," among the ^ state Papers
(Henry VIll).
trusty advisers in whom they might well put confidence. And vol. i. pp. 506. he is again mentioned as present at a Privy Council on August 10, 1540, a few weeks before his death.
Lord Sandys " departed to God's mercy," - much lamented -' Letter from
^ '■ ■' Lord Mal-
by all those who were associated with him, at Calais, December travers to tin-
■^ ' ' K,>ig: State
4, 1540, after a long life spent in the service of his country. ^'■'//Jl^^"'^-'' A valiant soldier abroad, and an "honest country lord" at. ^'"'' p- '*'-''• home, he was averse to change, and a devoted supporter of the ancient faith. And if we hesitate to approve the design imputed to him of sacrificing his allegiance to his religion, we must remember that he did not carry into effect what he is said to have contemplated, and lived and died the loyal servant of a tyrannical and exacting master.
In accordance with his will, of which he made his son Thomas and his daughter-in-law Elizabeth executor and ex- ecutrix. Lord Sandys was buried in the Holy Ghost Chapel at Basingstoke, beneath a richly carved tomb, of which some portions still remain, displaying his arms and badge.^ A con- '■ Seedra-ming,
p. 66.
tract dated March i, 1536, has recently been discovered* at * Le Beffroi
(Bruges), tome
Antwerp, by which "Arnoult Hermassonc, natif d'Amster- iv. (1872-73),
damme en Hollande, a present dem.eurant a Aire en Artois,"
agreed with Lord Sandys that he would make this tomb
"de pierre d'Antoing," and that it should bear "one croix
de cuivre la quelle croix aura ces noms, Willem Sans at Margere
Sans."
H The
202-4.
50 THE VYNE
CHAP. 111.
The names of his children and their marriages were as
• Hark, ail followS : '
MSS. 5865, f.
^ah\ Kiir'kei \. Thomas, m. Elizabeth, daughter of George Manners, first
Exlinct Peci-
".«■''■>"■ Baron Roos.
2. Edith, m. Ralph, Lord Neville, eldest son of Ralph
sixth Baron Neville of Raby and third Earl of West- moreland.
3. John, deputy of Guisnes.
4. Reginald, a priest.
5. Elizabeth, m. Sir Humphry Foster of Aldermaston.
6. Margaret, m. Thomas, son of Sir William Essex.
7. Mary, m. (i) Sir William Peckham ; (2) Sir John Palmer
of Angmering, Sheriff of Sussex 25 Henry VHI.
8. Alice, m. Walter, Lord Hungerford of Heytesbury.
In consequence of these marriages the arms and devices of Roos, Neville, Foster, Essex, and Hungerford are carved on - p. 155-8,/w/. the wainscoting of the oak gallery ^ at the Vyne.
An extremely curious and interesting inventory of " all and singular the Goodes Catalles Dcbtes Plate Jewelles and Redy Monye " of Lord Sandys, taken in February 1541, after his decease, was left by Elizabeth his daughter-in-law and execu- trix with her father Lord Roos, ancestor of the present Duke of Rutland, among whose papers at Bel voir Castle it has recently been found. It affords a curious insight into the domestic arrangements of the household of a great nobleman in the reign of Henry VHI.
The principal reception rooms were at that time used as sleeping-chambers for important guests, and contained magni- ficent
CHAP. III.
THE LORDS SANDYS
51
ficent bedsteads. There was throughout the house an abundance of fine tapestry, and a remarkable scarcit}- of furniture. In the great dininfj-chamber itself there was but one chair, and the table consisted of fir boards laid on trestles, while the guests sat upon cushions, stuffed with feathers and covered with leather or tapestry-work, lying upon forms or stools.'
Some account of the furniture then in the house is given in Chapter VII. The horses, linen, plate, armour, and apparel were as follows : —
I'. 146. post.
Horses in the St.\ble.
The Flaunders mare; Fetiplace;* Rone Smyth ; Rone Chalcot ; The yong Baye ; The greate Donne ; The White Marke ; Parsonne ; Grayberd VVestmerland ; The balde Donne ; White Sandes ; White Combes ; Grayberd Burfeld ; A bay Hoby ; Benbroke ; Bowyer ; The Male Horse ; The greate Graye Nage ; The Lytle Graye Nagge ; Bayerd \\'estmerland.
M.\RE?, COLTES, & StALENS & NaGGES AT GrASSE.
V mares in the Vyne Park ; one stallion ; iiij foals ; vj nags ; one gelding. At Mortimer, ix mares : vj foales ; ij stallions.
In the Naperv.
A table clothe Damaske wourk of roses & crowns, viij yds. x iij yds. ; A diaper Table clothe of coarse Diamonds, \ ij yds. x ij yds. ; Another Table cloth of scalloii shellys & damaske worke, vij yds. x ij yds. ;
* TJie name of a , great Berkshire family, nmv extinel.
Another
52 THE VYNE
CHAP. III.
Another Table clothe of Damaske worke of the splayed eagle crowned,
vij yds. X iij yds. ; Another Table cloth of Damaske of the lily pot and the holy Ghost
vj yds. X iij yds. ; A cubbord cloth of Damaske wourke of smalle flowers, iv yds. X ij yds. ; Another cubbord cloth Damaske wourke braunche & flowers ; A Towell of greate Damaske flowers ; iij playne Table clothes for the Hall, xviij yds. x i yd. ; xij carving clothes, old ;
viij dozen of Napkyns Damaske worke & Dyaper ; ij fyne cover panes of Damaske wourke ; iij neck towelles.
In my Ladyes Warderobe.
vij peces of new clothe ;
iij pairs of pallet shetes ;
iiij pairs of fyne shetes of Holland ;
vij necke towelles playne clothe ;
xxxij surplesses ;
A chest full of old lynnen & broken ;
ij Flaunders chestes, with ij lockes ;
A chest of waynscote ;
A ship's chest ;
xxvij peces of riche embroidery, whereof some be unfynished, for an
aulter clothe ; xxxij payr of course shetes ; A brasen morter with a pestell.
Plate Gilte.
iij playne bowls gilt with a cover, cxxxvi oz. ; Goblettes gilt with a cover costed,* Ix oz. ;
* Richly ornamented.
CHAP. III. THE LORDS SANDYS 53
A standing bowl with a cover, chased without enamel ;
A standing cupp gilt with a cover having a woman in the top, xxxix oz. ;
Another standing cup gilt with a cover of antique havyng a man on the
top of the cover, xxxv oz. ; Another standing cupp large Antique worke with a cover without
enamell, xliv oz. ; Another standing cup chaced, with a cover having a blewe flower on the
topp, xxiv oz. ; A little lowe standing cup with a cover, having a cronell * on the cover
and graven, without a pomegarnet, xxvij oz. ; Another standing cup graven with Maltravers knottes,t with a cover
having a Round Knoppe chaced, xxvij oz. ; A gilt goblet with a cover lacking his amel,i: chaced & graven, xx oz. ; A payre of pottes gilt playn pear fashion with covers, lacking their amel,
Ixvj oz. ; iij gilt cruses with iij covers ; A payr of stocke saltes square with one cover, all gilt with an Angell on
the Topp holding my Lordes Armes in a garter, Ix oz. ; Another paier of stocke saltes gilt, without a cover, xxxiij oz. ; Another stocke salt gilted with a cover costed, xj oz. ; Another salt with a cover with antique leaves chased, xvj oz. ; A payre of costed saltes with roses, with one cover, with my Lordes
Armes on the topp, xxxix oz. ; A payre of square saltes gilt, with one cover graven with fleure de luces,
x.xxiv oz. ; xxii gilt spones of sundry sortes, xlij oz.
Plate parcell gilt.
A payr of large pottes parcell gilt with leopards' heddes, with my lordes armes in the garter on the cover, cclxxxij oz. ;
* Coronal or garland. t The Maltravers family bore a fret or knot sable.
\ Enamel, Fr. email.
A
54 THE VYNE
CHAP. 111.
A large payre of jjottes chased parcell gilt, clxi oz. ;
A payr of flagons chaced, with my lordes badge & garter, cxcv oz. ;
A payre of plnyne pottes, l.xxx oz. ;
A beere pott without a cover, xxiij oz. ;
vj bowls chaced, without cover, having my lordes badge in the garter in
the topp of the cover, cxxvij oz. ; ix bowls pounced * with martelettes with iij covers, with my lords badge
in the garter in the topps, cccxxiij oz. ; iij playn bowls with a cover, with my lordes amies in the garter, in the
topp of the cover, clxiv oz. : iij small bowls with a cover, xc oz. ;
ij basonnes and ij ewers, with my lordes amies, clxxxv oz. ; ij other basonnes with their ewers, with my lordes amies, cxcv oz. ; ij other basonnes with their ewers, with my lordes badge in the garter,
ccj oz. ; ij stocke saltes square without covers, xxv oz. ; ij dozen of Trencheis, with gilt swages,t vvith my lordes badge,
ccclxxiv oz. ; One stocke of carving knyves, with x smale knyves and a forke of sylver,
with a case of sylver, & the knyves being garnished with sylver,
Ixvj oz. ; Another stocke of smale knyves, havyng a cap, xx oz. ; A porrenger with ij ears and a cover with my lordes badge, and the
brake,t xx oz. ; A spice box with a spone, xxiij oz.
White Pl.\te.
A payr of flagons with amies on the side, clxxviij oz. ;
Another payr of flagons, clxij oz. ;
iij lowe water ewers without covers, xliv oz. ;
* Punchid or impressed. t Ornaments of beaten metal.
\ Hfinphreaker. Sic p. 34.
CHAP. III. THE LORDS SANDYS 55
iij chased goblettes, with one cover, with my lordes badge in the garter
on the topp, Ixij oz. ; A beer pot, with a cover, playne, Hx oz. ; A shaving bason and a pott, plaine, Ixxxix oz. ; X table candlestickes, chased, ccclxxxiij oz. ; ij payr of snofers, iv oz. ; xxvii spones, xliv oz.
The Chapel Plate.
\This has been described in Chapte,- 11.^
Jewelles.
A smale George, hanging on a black lace ; A smale chayne of gold.
Redy Money Jewell and others.
In Redy money at the tyme of my Lordes decease, Ix '' ;
A coller of the Garter, empledged for Ix '' :
In the handes of Richard Gifford ij nest of goblettes iS: a chayne of gold empledged for 1''
In the Armory.
Ixix backes &: brestes Almayn Ryvettes :
Ivij payr of splyntes ;
x.xxvj salettes ;
ij payr of vambrases ;
c blacke bylles ;
xxxij chasing staves ;
ix payr of Arming sturoppes white ;
XX javelyns ;
xxxiiij shef of arrowes ;
Harnes for xj men of amies complete, lacking their collers ;
Item
56 THE VYNE
CHAP. III.
Item a Pavilion containing iii chambers and a hall, new, with all their
appertenances esteemed and valued at xl '' ; ij clothe sackes ; A bare hide.*
In the Warderobe.
A gowne of blacke damaske with ij Burgonyon gardes of blacke velvit, the fore quarters furred with sables & behynde furred with old marteras ; f
A gowne of blake velvit embroidered with blacke sylke new lyned thorough with blake saten ;
A coote of purple velvit furred with white lamb & faced round about with lizerdes ;
A cote of blake velvit embroidered with blake sylke, lyned with Fryse, and edged with sables, woven ;
A kirtell of crymsen velvit lyned thorough with white sarcenet, for the order of the garter : item a robe of purple velvit for the same kyrtill, with a grete Tassell of gold, with a hode of crymsen velvit to the same lyned with white sarcenet, being all old & much worne ;
A standard a gittorn & a banar of my lordes armes of sarcenet ;
iij grose of armyng poyntes threden ;
A goune of blake velvet faced with Lyzardes and furred behynde with leopards, bequethed to Sir Humfrey Foster, knight ;
Another goun of blake velvet embroidered furred with boudge,t be- quethed to Sir William Essex ;
A goune of Frenche blake garded with velvet & facied with damaske, bequethed to Thomas Essex esquier ;
And a jacket of the same clothe lykewyse garded ;
A gowne of blake damaske & a jacket of the same, bequeathed to W'alter Chalcot ;
A cote of blake velvit with viij buttons of gold, bequeathed to John Sandes esquyer ;
* A yaw hide for a cart cover. -f Marten' s fur. % Lamb's fur.
A
CHAP. in. THE LORDS SANDYS
,1/
A cote of russet velvit to Humfrey Barkley Esqr. ;
A cote of russet velvit to Richard .Smythe ;
A cote of clothe gardyd with russet velvit to Marmaduke Bake ;
A goune of Taffata to John Cely."
The Inventory also contained a considerable quantity of "stuf being at Malshanger * that came from the Vyne," including
A pece of hanginges having Saynt George upon it ;
A pece of Imagery of fishing and birding ;
A counterpoynt of smale verdour with ij Vnicornes
Thomas, second Lord Sandys of the Vyne, succeeded in I 540. He saw the endowment which John de Port of Basing and Sir Thomas de Cowdray had bestowed upon the Chai:)el taken away in 1548 under the Chantry Acts of Edward VI., and died in 1556, having had four children, Henry, William, Mary, and Anne. Henry, his eldest son (who married Eliza- beth, daughter of William Lord Windsor), died before him, leaving a son William, who succeeded to the Vyne on the death of his grandfather, and owned it for no less than sixty- seven years.
This William, third Lord Sandys, entertained Queen Elizabeth at the Vyne in 1569, who during her visit wrote the following letter ' to the Earl of Huntingdon, desiring him 1 LuJgei to take charge of Mary Queen of Scots, then with the Earl of British
'^ History.
of Shrewsbury at Wingfield House, Derbyshire : —
* Malshanger, situated Jive miles from the Vyne [vide map, p. 3), was the seat of the Warham family and birthplace oj William Warham, Archbishop of Canterlntry, who died 1532. Of the ancient house a lofty octagonal to-tuer is still standing. Malshanger is now the residence of Wyndkam Portal, Esq.
I " Right
58 THE VYNE
CHAP. III.
" Right trusty and well-beloved Cousin, we greet you well : Whereas we understand that our cousin of Shrewsbury is much troubled with sickness, and like to fall further into the same, in such sort as he neither presently is able, nor shall be, to con- tinue in the charge, which he has, to keep the Queen of Scots, we have, for a present remedy, and to avoid the danger which might ensue, made choice of you to take the charge of the custody of her, until we shall otherwise order : and therefore we earnestly require you with all speed to repair to our cousin of Scotland, with some of your own trusty servants, and there to take charge of the said Queen, wherewith our said cousin will be so well content, as we doubt not but you shall have all that he can command to be serviceable unto you. . . . We will have you also, after conference with our said cousin of Shrewsbury, to devise how the number of the Queen of Scots train might be diminished, and reduced only to thirty persons of all sorts, as was ordered, but as we perceive too much enlarged of late time : You shall also, jointly with the Earl of Shrewsbury, give order that no such common resort be to the Queen as has been, nor that she have liberty to send posts as she hath done, to the great burden of our poor subjects ; and if she have any special cause to send to us, then \-ou shall so permit her servant with the warrant of your hand and none to come otherwise ; and if you shall think of any meeter place to keep her we require you to advertise us thereof, so as we may take order for the same.
" We have written to our cousin of Shrewsbury, whom we have willed to impart to you the contents of our letter, and so we will have you to do these : trusting that }'0U will so consider
hereof
cHAiMii. rUE LORDS SANDYS 59
hereof as the cause requircth, for our honour and quietness, without respect of any person.
" Given under our signet at the manor of the Vine the 22nd of September 1569, the eleventh year of our reign.
" Post script : After we had considered of some part of the premises, we thought in this sort to alter some part thereof: we will that no person be suffered to come from the Queen of Scots with an)- message or letter, but if she will write to us, you shall offer to send the same by one of yours ; and so we will }-ou to do, for our meaning is, that for a season she shall neither send nor receive any message or letters without our knowledge."
On the same day Sir William Cecil ( afterwards Lord Burghley ), being also at the \'yne, wrote the following letter ' \fjl"^ffj/j^,„; to the Earl of Shrewsbury :— "^f/^t^'
" M}- Lord, — My leisure serves me not to write much, but sorry I am to hear of your lack of good health. The Queen's Majesty is entered into no small offence, with the intention, that she thinks hath been to devise, of a marriage with the Scottish Queen. For my part I was not made privy thereof but of late, and, so as it might have been allowed to the Queen's Majesty, I had no particular respect to lead me one way or other, for my only scope is to serve God and Her Majesty, and so I take my leave.
" From the Vine 22nd of Sept. 1569.
" Your Lordships humbl}' at command,
"W. Cecil."
In
6o THE VYNE
CHAP. III.
1 Calendarof 111 15/4, Lord Sandys' assisted in making a survey of the
Sta-le Papers
(Domestic), forts of Hampshire. In 1587 he was one of the commissioners
1547-80,
v-48i- vvho sat upon the trial of Mary Queen of Scots; and in 15S8,
the year of the Spanish Armada, he wrote to the Council to
- ind. assure them that ^ though he was in embarrassed circumstances,
1581-90,
p- SOI- he would be ready to bring into the field, for the defence of her
Majesty, himself and his household servants, to the number of
ten soldiers, and geldings, furnished in armour of proof; and
with the help of his tenants he might furnish still more.
In 1595, as spokesman for the justices of Hampshire, he
3 Ibid. w rote to Lord Burghley ^ requesting the repair of the north aisle
1595-97,
P- 33- of the hall of Winchester Castle, "the only place in the count)'
for holding the assize and sessions, which was so decayed as to
be in danger of falling."
He took a prominent part in the insurrection of Essex, 1601, for which he was fined 5,000/. ; but after a temporary sojourn in the Tower, and a subsequent confinement at Mr. Edward Hungerford's house near Bath, he was pardoned on payment of 1, 000/.
In the September of the same year, the Duke de Biron, ambassador of the French king Henry IV., came to England to meet Queen Elizabeth, and to consult with her upon the state of Europe, and the designs of the House of Austria. When he arrived, the Queen was staying with the Marquess of Win- chester at Basing House, and the Duke and his suite were sumptuously entertained at the Vyne for four or five days at the Queen's charges. There were with him two other ambas- sadors of rank, with twenty-seven noblemen of France, and a
great
CHAP. III. THE LORDS SANDYS 6i
great number of officers, pages, and lacqueys in attendance, the entire retinue being nearly four hundred persons.
Sir Walter Raleigh was sent to London to meet the Duke and his suite, and he wrote, September 7, 1 601, to Sir Robert Cecil:' "We have carried them to Westminster to see the mo- ^ EJwunis'
Life of
numents, and this Monday we entertained them at the Bear RaUi^i,
vol. ii. p. 233.
Garden, which they had great pleasure to see. I sent to and
fro, and have laboured like a mule to fashion things so as on
Wednesday night they shall be at Bagshot, and Thursday at
the Vine." And on September 12 he wrote '-^ to Henry Burke, •'//.■,/. p. 234.
Lord Cobham : " The French wear all black, and no kind of
bravery at all, so as I have only made me a black Taffeta suit
to be in and leave all my other suits."
Stow says' that " the Vine, a fair and large house of the Lord ■> a„„.,/s,
p. 796. Sandes, was furnished with hangings and plate from the Tower
and Hampton Court, and with seven score beds and furniture,
which the willing and obedient people of Hampshire upon two
days' warning had brought thither to lend to the Queen ; and
the Duke abode there four or five daj's all at the Queen's charges,
and for that time spent her more at the Vine than her own court
spent at Basing : and Her Majest}- affirmed that she had done
that in Hampshire that none of her ancestors ever did, neither
that any prince of Christendom could do, that was, she had
in her Progresse in her subjects' houses, entertained a royal
ambassador, and had royally entertained him."
The Duke having attended the Queen at Basing, she came
in her turn to visit him at the Vyne, and a curious scene occurred
in the park. " The sheriff, ' as the manner is, being bareheaded, ^ Shm.
^ A/J/ld/s,
and «*' ■>■"/■
62
THE VYNE
CHAP. III.
1 Tlic Court of James I., I Bis/lop Good- man, vol. ii. p. 20.
- Camden's Life of Elhabeth. V- 634-
and riding next before her, stayed his horse, thinking the Queen would thus have saluted the Duke, whereat the Queen, being much offended, commanded the sheriff to go on. The Duke followed her very humbly, bowing low towards her horse's mane, with his cap off, about two hundred yards. Her Majesty on the sudden took off her mask, looked back on him, and most graciously and courteously saluted him ; as holding it not be- coming so mighty a prince as she was, and who so well knew all kingly majesty, to make her stay directly against a subject, before he had showed his obedience in following after her."
On leaving Basing, the Queen made ten knights, among whom were Sir William Kingsmill, Sir Benjamin Tichborne, and Sir Edward Hungerford.
There is an amusing reference to this visit in a letter ' from Thomas Tooke, clerk of the kitchen at Basing House, to his " very assured good friend Mr. John Hubberd," dated Sept- ember 19, 1601, in which he tells how " Her Majesty came with Scarborough warning to Basing, where all things for so great entertainment but elbow room and good will were wanting;" and how, "on Saturday the 12th, Mons. de Biron, accompanied with divers French lords and gentlemen, repaired from the Vine, where they were nobly lodged, unto Basing, and on Sunday they invited them to supper, where there was that night great revellings ; and so likewise on Monday night and Tuesday's dinner, when we were of them delivered."
Some French writers say ^ that Queen Elizabeth had with her on this occasion the skull of Essex, and showed it to the Duke de Biron, as a warning not to continue those treasonable
designs
CHAP. III. THE LORDS SANDYS 6
J
designs against his king, for which he was soon after executed at the Bastille.
William third Lord Sandys was twice married, his second wife being Catherine, daughter of Edmund Lord Chandos, the beautiful lady who is celebrated by the poet Gascoigne in the following song,' called " Praise of the Fair Brydges, afterwards ' Percy ^
'^ *= / t, ' Baltads,
Lady Sandcs, on her having a scar on her forehead." ^°'- "•
^ ' " p. 150.
" In Court who so demaundes What dame doth much excell, For my conceit I must needes say, Faire Bridges beares the bel :
Upon whose lively cheeke,
To prove my judgment true. The rose and lillie seeme to strive
For equal! change of hcwe :
And therwithall so well
Her graces all agree, No frowning cheere dare once presume
In hir sweet face to bee.
Although some lavishe lippes,
'Which like some other best, Will say the blemishe on her browe
Disgraceth all the rest."
The poet then tells how Cupid saw in her cradle —
"A peace For perfect shape that passeth all Apelles' worke in Greece."
And fearing that her beauty would "break him of his rest,"
His
64
THE VYNE
CHAP. III.
" His hot newe-chosen love He chaunged into hate ; And sodeynly with myghtie mace Gan rap hir on the pate.
It greived Nature muche
To see the cruell deede, Mee seemes I see her how she wept,
To see hir darling bleede.
' Wei yet,' quo' she, ' this hurt Shal have some helpe, I trowe : '
And quick with skin she coverd it, That whiter is than snowe ;
Wherewith Dan Cupide fled
For feare of further flame, When angel like he saw hir shine
Whome he had smit with shame.
The skar still there remains ;
No force : let there it be ; There is no cloude that can eclipse
So bright a sunne as she."
Lord Sandys died January 21, 1623, having by his will
directed that he should be buried in " his Chapel adjoining
the Chapel of the Holy Ghost at Basingstoke." He had two
children : William, who died before him without issue ; and
' Pcdis^recsof Elizabeth, who married Sir Edwyn Sandys of Latymers.'
(Sandys of Colonel Henry Sandys, son of Edwyn and Elizabeth (not to
Latymers),
voi.'v. be confounded with another Colonel Henry Sandys of Kent,
mentioned by Clarendon, a general of the Parliament, who bore an indifferent character), succeeded to the Vyne as his grand- father's
CHAP. III. THE LORDS SANDYS 65
father's heir in 1623. His name appears in the accounts of the Holy Ghost Chapel for Midsummer 1636, as having given some of his oak timber for the building of a new chapel and school. He was an active loyalist, and, having been mortally wounded while fighting for the King at Bramdene, near Alresford, March 29, 1644, died April 6 next ensuing.
In November 1643, during the siege'of Basing,' the Parlia- ^Godwins
^. ITT.,,. T-. T , Civil War in
mentary troops under bir William ualler were quartered at HampsMre.
p. 75. the Vyne in order to resist a relieving force under Sir Ralph
Hopton, and it is difficult to understand how the glass of the
windows of the Chapel, in which the figures of saints are
represented, escaped the fanaticism of the Puritans, unless the
tradition- is true that it was buried in the water which flows - Warners
Hampshire,
through the grounds. ''''■ " ^'^"e-"
A lady of the Sandys family figures as the heroine of the following romantic story of the Civil War. She was, it is said, engaged to be married to Sir Bernard Brocas of Beaurepaire, who, in order to show that his love for her did not affect his loyalty, vowed in the next engagement to capture a standard or die. The next fight was the first battle of Newbury, September 20, 1643, and on the morning after the battle he was found dead on the heath, grasping in his hand a standard, and the standard- bearer lying dead by his side. The flag supposed to have been thus captured hung for some time in the lobby of the Chapel Royal, Whitehall,'' with an inscription beneath it.
Mary, sister of Colonel Sandys of the Vyne, married Richard Atkj-ns of Tuffley, Gloucestershire, and erected a handsome monument to his memory in the Church of St.
K Andrew
•' History itf ttic Brocas Family, P- 234-
66
THE VYNE
CHAP. III.
" Sie 28 Henry VIII.. c. xviii, (Private .Ul).
Andrew, Sherborne St. John ; the shield on it bears the arms of Atkyns impahng those of her father, Sandys of Latymers.
WilHam, son of Colonel Sandys, succeeded to the Vyne 1644, and about five years later was compelled by reverses of fortune to part with his ancestral mansion and estate, which had been previously heavily mortgaged, and to retire to Mottisfont Abbey, near Romsey, Hants. This place, formerly a Priory of Canons of the order of St. Augustine, had been seized by Henry VHI., and granted,' together with the advowsons of Stock-bridge and Kings Somborne, to the first Lord Sandys of the Vyne, in a somewhat unequal exchange for lands anciently belonging to the Sandys family at Paddington and Chelsea, including the present site of Chelsea Hospital.
William Sandys was summoned as a peer to Parliament after the Restordtion. He died without issue, 1688, and his brothers Henry and Edwyn also dying without issue, this distinguished barony fell into abeyance.
Chap.
5^^-
^^^^
CHAP IV
afouer
^e Sfcaken
CHALONER CHUTE, Speaker of the House of Commons, and the first of the Chutes of the Vyne, was born about 1595. According to the inscrip- tion upon his fine marble monument in the Tomb Chamber next the Chapel (Plate VI.), his ancestors possessed the manor of Taunton until the reign of Henry VHI. ; but if this be so, they must have held it under the see of Winchester, to which it belonged from Saxon times until the seventeenth cen- tury. The family was, however, of ancient standing in Sussex, Kent, and Somersetshire ; and can trace ' a direct male descent from Alexander Chute of Taunton, who died 1268. -They are
I said
1 Berry s Hampshire Genealogies, p. 117.
68 THE VYNE
CHAP. IV.
said to " carry the memorial of the third nation of the Germans '^Mannings that conquercd the Britons, commonly called Jutes."'
Lives of the
Speakers, Thc arms of Chute (" Gules, three swords extended barrways,
p- 356-
their points towards the dexter part of the escutcheon, argent,
•Gtiiiiim, their hilts and pommels or"),^ and their crest (an arm in armour
4th ed. p. 335.
gauntleted grasping a broken sword, with the motto " Fortune de guerre "), will be found in the frontispiece. An augmenta- tion of arms was granted to Philip Chute, of Appledore, Kent, standardbearer to King Henry VIII. in his French wars.
Chaloner Chute's father, Charles Chute, was a barrister of
the Middle Temple, and member of Parliament for Thetford in
^Calendar of Norfolk, and was appointed^ to conduct one of the earliest of
State Papers
[Domestic], those experiments for the registration of titles and sales of J619-23, ^ ^
P- 537- land \\'hich have never ceased to exercise the ingenuity of law
reformers down to the present time. His mother was Ursula, daughter of John Chaloner of Fulham, and cousin of Sir Thomas Chaloner, who, having been tutor to Henry, Prince of Wales, son of James I., for whom Bramshill, co. Hants, was built, is commemorated by a fine monument in Chiswick Church.
Chaloner Chute's childhood was spent at Kensington, where his younger brother Charles was born in 1600, and his sister Dorothy in 1603, the entries of whose births in the register of St. Mary Abbots, Kensington, were made in Latin, while those of less dignified persons are in the vulgar tongue.
Chaloner was admitted a student of the Middle Temple, November 11, 161 3, as "Fi/iiis ct Iicercs apparcns Caroli Chewte dc Kehedon in coiiiitatit Essexicc" and was called to the Bar, May 23, 1623.
He
CHAP. IV. CHALONER CHUTE, SPEAKER 69
He married Ann, daughter of Sir John Skory, at St. Mil- dred's Church in the Poultry, June 14, 1627, and had b}- her a son, Chaloner, and two daughters, Scicilia and Ann ; the latter married into the family of Henry Barker of Chiswick, of whom there is a striking portrait (dated 1615, aetatis 79) at the Vyne.
Roger North describes ' Chaloner Chute as " a man of great ' i.ivcs of the
Norths, vol. i.
wit and stately carriage of himself," a description which the full- p- 13- length portrait of him at the V'yne by Vandyck confirms. " I shall mention here," he continues, "what I have been credibly told as one instance of his loftiness, even while he practised in Chancery. It was in short but this : if he had a fancy not to have the fatigue of business, but to pass his time in pleasure after his own humour, he would say to his clerk, ' Tell the people, I will not practise this term,' and was as good as his word, and then no one durst come nigh him with business. But when his clerks signified he would take business, he was in the same advanced post at the Bar, fully redintegrated as before, and his practice nothing shrunk by the discontinuance. I guess that no Chancery practiser ever did, or will do, the like ; and it shows a transcendent genius, superior to the slavery of a gainful profession."
He was a wise and far-seeing man, of singular moderation and excellent judgment, who took a fearless and independent part in the perplexing politics of his day, resisting the King wlien his conduct became arbitrary, but using at the same time all his influence and power of conciliation to restrain the violence of the opposite faction.
In May 1641, "from which very time did God" (as Fuller
says
^o THE VYNE
CHAP. IV.
' Fuller i says),' "begin to gather the twigs of that rod — a civil war — where-
History of
the c/iuirh, vvith soon after he intended to whip a wanton nation," his coura-
book xi. ^
geous spirit was put to the proof by an attack made upon the bi.shops of England, on which occasion he distinguished himself as a champion of the Church and an opponent of revolutionary excesses. The pretext for this attack was the issue b}- Convo- cation of the Canons of 1641, at a time when Parliament was not sitting. " No sooner," says Fuller, " came these canons abroad into public view, but various were mens censures upon them. Some were offended because bowing towards the communion table (now called altar hy many) was not only left indifferent, but care was taken that the observers or omitters thereof should not mutually censure each other." The House of Commons resolved to impeach the bishops before the House of Lords, for making canons without the consent of Parliament, and they were in danger of losing all their personal property under the statute of Praemunire. John Warner, Bishop of Rochester, retained the best counsel at the bar for the defence ; but none of those retained had the courage to appear, with the exception of Chaloner Chute, "who, being demanded of the lords whether he would plead, ' Yea,' said he, ' so long as I have a tongue to plead with;' and he drew up a demurrer, to show that what the bishops had done could not amount to an offence within the "- ibui. statute. This," continues Fuller,'-^ "being shown to John Williams,
the Bishop of Lincoln" (who was well acquainted with the law, having been Keeper of the Seal 1621-25), "he protested that he never saw a stronger demurrer in all the days of his life, and the notice hereof to the Lords was probably the cau.se
that
if^^
fniquicvn^cm foriitiiOinem heroiCCLV.
\u J P-^ 17 • ' /C /^ 1
et fu-ace^ram tPdenn JlfiS-^/injlice \
Tni7*e n>e/riciita. tis ^1 n'^ ; ^ ] ■
\'n
CHAP. IV. CHALONER CHUTE, SPEAKER 71
that they waved anj- further prosecution of the charge, which henceforward sunk into silence."
A fine silver tankard (Plate VII.) was presented to Chaloner Chute in recognition of his distinguished services on this his- torical occasion. It is still preserved at the Vyne ; it weighs 36 ounces, and its height is •/\ inches. The following is a trans- lation of the inscription engraved upon it (see the Plate): — " To the worshipful Chaloner Chute, Esquire, presented by John, Bishop of Rochester, as a memorial of the singular wisdom, heroic courage, and unswei-ving fidelity shown by him towards the Bishops of England in their extreme peril in the year 1641."
Amongst the remarkable trials in which he was engaged was that of Archbishop Laud, 1643, for whom he "and Master Hearn were assigned to be of counsel, and were permitted to have free access in and out to him." ' 1 cvprianm
He was elected a bencher of the Middle Temple, October '(UfeofLaud),
, lib. V. p. 41.
31,1645.
The House of Commons nominated him,- together with 2 whudock's Sir John Bramston and Sir Thomas Bedingfield, to have the pp'.' 238, '244. custody of the Great Seal of England, Januar}' 13, 1646 ; but were reluctantly obliged to give way to the House of Lords, who insisted on the appointment of Speaker Lenthall and the Earl of Manchester to this great office.
In July 1647, he defended^ the eleven members whom -^ //-z,/. p. 261. Cromwell charged with high treason, as enemies to the army and evil counsellors to the Parliament ; and in the same year, the city of Oxford having surrendered to Sir Thomas Fairfax, and an ordinance having been passed for the "Visitation and
Reformation
THE VYNE CHAP. IV.
Reformation of the University," commonly known as the "Puri- tan Visitation," he was selected by John Selden and the heads of colleges to act as their counsel, together with the celebrated Sir Matthew Hale. In February 1648, he was selected to be 1 Whiiehxk. counsel for the Duke of Cambridge;' and in February 1649, ^^' Mel'roh-^ of f°'' J^mes Dukc of Hamilton, on whose behalf, saj's Burnet,^ "Hamihcf. he "spoke learnedly and well, and Mr. Hale elaborately and ''■3''- ' at length."
= Ch. Kx.; and Lord Campbell relates, in his "Lives of the Chancellors,"^
p. 405. ' how Chute and some other public-spirited barristers spent the
Long Vacation of 1649 in making new rules for the conduct of
suits in Chancery, which have been greatly for the advantage
of the suitors in that court for succeeding generations.
He became the purchaser of the Vyne from William fourth Lord Sandys about the time of the execution of King Charles L, though the final conveyance was dated a few years later, June 10, 1653. This purchase fulfilled almost to the letter
" Satire xiv. the prcccpt in Juvenal ^ : — 1. 191.
" Clamosus juvenem pater excitat ; accipe ceras, Scribe puer, vigila, causas age, perlege rubras Majorum leges, aut vitem posce libello ; "
for Chaloner Chute was a learned law}-er and an intrepid advocate, and the Vyne was the prize of his successful pleading. The eminent position to which he had at this time attained is attested in a most remarkable manner by the Great Seal of the Commonwealth of England, A.U. 165 I (see Plate opposite). This seal is a great curiosity, and bears on its obverse a map
of
Thr Great --SEAL ofr/if
Com ni on -We a 1 1 h of ' Eng L A ND .
' Jone fy Tho Simon
m/iu'/i 'n'luf ifi '^//^ {h//r,//o/i tV y/z^-i^^' '/^/'//'^Jeaiu./'/ Oxford, I ///?//■/ />? {-y^v^/^'^n ef^Ae'r//fnrr ^A^ Dutchess yf Portland .
CHAP. IV. CHALONER CHUTE, SPEAKER n
of England and Ireland, " so distinctly expressed and named
in such minute characters," ' says George Vertue (from whose ^Simons
Medals, p. s.
drawing of the seal the plate is copied ), " as to make it a work truly admirable and beyond compare." More curious still is the fact, that though there are six places only marked in Hampshire, one of these is " The Vine ; " the other five being Winchester, Hampton (Southampton), Portsmouth, Basingstoke, and Andover. It can hardh- be doubted that the esteem and respect entertained by the Parliament for the noble cha- racter and influential position of Chaloner Chute led them to pay him the remarkable compliment of causing his residence to be inscribed on the Great Seal of the Commonwealth.
Chaloner Chute married, as his second wife, Dorothy, widow of Richard Lennard thirteenth Baron Dacre of Hurstmonceaux, and daughter of Dudley third Baron North. This marriage was the occasion of four interesting portraits being brought to the Vyne, two of the North and two of the Dacre family : —
(i) Dudley third Lord North, called the "old " Lord North, father of Dorothy Lady Dacre, grandfather of the Lord Keeper North : succ. 1600, d. 1666, aged 85.
(2) Sir John North, son of Roger second Baron North, father of the " old " Lord North : d. 1 597.
(3) Chrysogona, daughter of Sir Richard Baker of Sissen- hur.st, Kent, a little girl in a quaint dre.ss at the age of six (a.d. 1579), who became the wife of Henry Lennard twelfth Baron Dacre.
(4) Mary, wife of Thomas Fienes ninth Baron Dacre, who was executed at the age of twenty-four in 1 540, as accessor)-
L to
74 THE VYNE chap. iv.
to the death of a keeper, when he and others had gone by
night in a froHc to hunt deer in Sir Nicholas Pelham's park
• See Waipoics at Crovvhurst, Kent. A similar picture ' is at Belhus, Essex, the
Anecdotes qf
Painting, seat of Sir Thomas Lennard.
voi. i. p. 144.
Chaloner Chute was elected Treasurer of the Middle Temple in 1655 ; and while he was serving this office, his nephew, the future Lord Keeper North, was brought by his father. Sir Dudley, to be admitted as a student. Roger North tells how Sir Dudley "treated hardly about the fine of admission, which is in the Treasurer's power to tax, and he may use an}' one well if he pleaseth. Mr. Treasurer asked Sir Dudley what he was willing to give ; and, the common fine being 5/., he answered 3/. \Os, 'Well,' said the Treasurer, 'lay down the money,' which being done he called for the young man's hat, and swept it all in, and gave it him, and, marking the admission ' ;///,' or nothing, ' let this,' said he, ' be a beginning of }-our getting money here,' where his Lordship made good the omen."
He was elected Knight of the Shire for Middlesex in 1656,
■ ''■ and again in 1658. Whitelock ^ says that he was "an excellent
orator, a man of good parts and generosity, of whom many
doubted he would not join with the Protector's party, but he
did heartily."
Upon the assembling of Parliament under Richard Crom- well, January 29, 1659, he was unanimously chosen Speaker of the House of Commons. The French ambassador, M. de Bordeaux, in a letter to Cardinal Mazarin dated February ^ r.uizof s Life ^_6 \6^Q, says ^ that "the Parliament proceeded to elect its
of R. Crom- -^ '
Tveti, pp. 46, Speaker, who is one of the most celebrated lawyers in the
nation
CHAP. IV. CHALONER CHUTE, SPEAKER 75
nation, and there appeared to be no diversity of opinion regarding his election."
He made the follovving address on being led to the chair : ' ^Bm-fon's
'=> ° Diiirv, vol. III.
" As the form is, gentlemen, you called me to this place for pp- 4. '8. directions, so that I must not give ill examples, by troubling you with a long speech. I never knew much said in long speeches. I never loved them. I desire that you would think of me as the motto on the sundial is — ' Aspice me ut te aspiciaiit'. "
Two days after his election, Hazlerig addressed him (speak- ing of his jurisdiction to send for certain records) : "Yourself is now the greatest man in England. I look upon you so, e.xcept what is to be excepted. I had almost forgot myself, but I am pretty right yet. I say, I look upon you as the greatest man in England."
He had at once to preside over late sittings and long debates on two exciting questions : first, whether the Protectorate should continue ; and secondly, whether there should be a House of Lords, and, if so, who should be summoned to it. The dis- cussion of the latter question occupied twenty-three sittings. The republicans used violent language against the Peers, while several members openly expressed their admiration of the Barons of the realm, " who had fought for Magna Charta, and were anciently the great bulwark and defence of the liberties of the nation." The Speaker, being a man of moderate views, and respected by all parties, "so much gained the affection of the House," says Whitelock,- " that he swayed much with them." - P- 677.
The incessant fatigue of his office, however, was too great a strain upon his health, and, after an ineffectual struggle to
continue
THE VYNE CHAP. IV.
continue his duties, he obtained leave of absence, and went to Sutton Court, an estate belonging to him at Chiswick. Here, as a special mark of honour, the Lord Fairfax and other members visited him by order of the House of Commons.
His retirement was speedily followed by his death, April 14,
1659. He died, to use the words inscribed upon his monument
at the Vyne, "in the service of his arduous post, to the regret of
^Clarendon's all parties." Lord Clarendon himself wrote,' May 9, 1659, from
State Papers, . ,
vol. iii. pp. 453, Rome to his friend Mr. Mordaunt, "I am heartily sorry for the
464, 465.
death of the Speaker, whom I have known well, and am per- suaded that he would never have subjected himself to that place if he had not entertained some hope of being able to serve the
« James King." And a contemporary historian,' describing the military
Heatlis Brief
ciironicieofthe Cabal which ended in the resignation of Richard Cromwell, says
Late Intestine
Wars. that "in the heat of the business died Master Chaloner Chute
the Speaker, a man fit in every respect for the chair, and of a judgment and resolution cross to the sway of the times, which he was designed in this place to oppose."
His will, dated June 3, 1653, "written all with hisowne hand," and signed at Sutton Court, bears witness to the pious dignity of his character. " It hath pleased Almighty God " (he begins) " of His great good will since the making of some former wills to alter my condition in several particulars, adding thereby infinitely to my contentment & bounden duty to blesse His holy name, and ever assuredly to trust in His mercy and goodness towards me in His beloved Sonne Jesus Christ my Savior." He then speaks of "the naturall infirmity of my body, which dayly summons me to another life," and " the
violence
CHAP. IV. CH A LONER CHUTE, SPEAKER -jj
violence and distraction of these times, whicli He that can bring Hght out of darkness will in the end dispose, I am sure, to His Glory ; " and, after devising the Vyne and his lands in Hampshire to his son Chaloner in fee, he concludes : " May the Infinite Almighty and most Gratious God, who hath vouch- safed me His goodness in abundant measure, goe along with my Sonne in the whole course of his life, that, with an humble mind and a generous carriage, he may make himself acceptable to good men, continue to be beloved of all those that relate to him, be an ornament to his family, and dye the true servant of the God of his father."
It is also significant of a religious and contemplative mint!, that in the copy of Kenelm Digby's "Treatise on the Immor- tality of Reasonable Souls," which belonged to him, and is still at the Vyne, are inscribed the words, " Sum e libris Chaloneri Chute prascipuis."
He was, in accordance with his will, buried in the Church of St. Nicholas, Chiswick. In the county hall at Winchester his arms deservedly occupy a conspicuous position among those of other Hampshire worthies. The beautiful recumbent figure of him in his Speaker's robes, erected by his descendant John Chute, has already been mentioned, and a full description of it will be found in Chapter VII.
He removed the base court towards the water, and built the Portico and Summer House (Plate VHI. p. 85) at the Vyne.
He left surviving him his widow Dorothy, Lady Dacre,
and his son, Chaloner Chute, who married Catherine Lennard,
daughter of the said Lady Dacre. Guillim,' in his " Display of ' 4"' <^^-
^ -^ (i6eo), p. 335.
Heraldry
78 THE VYNE
CHAP. IV.
Heraldry," speaks of him as " a worthy successor of his father's virtues."
The second Chaloner Chute was elected Member for Devizes 1656, three years before his father's death, and was amongst those whom Oliver Cromwell tried to exclude from the House on September 22 of that year, as unfriendly to the Protectorate. Thereupon he and the other excluded members drew up a Re- 1 WhiieiKk's monstrance, in which they protested' that "if our kings might
Memorials,
p. 640. have commanded away from the Parliament all such persons
of conscience, wisdom, and honour as could not be corrupted, frighted, or cozened by them to betray their country, our ances- tors could not have left us either liberties or estates to defend." At a later period he was member for the city of Westminster.
He died in the year of the Great Fire of London, 1666, aged thirty-six, and was buried by his father's side at Chiswick. He left three sons, Chaloner, Edward, and Thomas ; and one daughter, Elizabeth, who married Sir Charles Cotterell, of the fine old manor house of Rousham, Oxfordshire.
The three younger children were maintained by a charge on the Vyne estate, Dorothy, Lady Dacre, their grandmother, acting as guardian ; and the Lord Keeper North devised for her security a precaution which, though now a matter of every day practice in Chancery, was then novel, viz., that she should her- self bring an action to have the accounts taken. " And this,"
-Lii'eso/tiie says Roger North,- " preserved her, who kept no good account,
Norths, vol. i.
/. 87. from oral testimonies of imaginary values, which had pinched
her to the quick if she had not had that defence : it fell not under every ones cap to give so gopd advice."
The
CHAP. IV. CH ALONE R CHUTE, SPEAKER 79
The Lord Keeper took especial care of Tliomas. the third son,' who, being placed at the Middle Temple by Lady Dacre, ^ Lives of the
Niyrths, vol. i.
obtained by his influence a lucrative office in the law, and p. 16 ; vol. ii.
p. 221. married, in 1687, Elizabeth, daughter of Nicholas Rivett of
Brandeston, Suffolk. The Vyne eventually came to his de- scendants, on the failure of male issue of his elder brothers, Chaloner and Edward.
A letter from Thomas Chute, March 8, 1697, to his cousin Barrett Lennard, has been preserved,- in which he proposes to go ■>- ms. at
Belli Its, Jissex,
with Lord Lovelace and Mr. Hoskins to Belhus, " to destroy that subtle species called foxes out of your country, in which we think we shall not only divert ourselves but do the country service."
Chaloner the eldest brother was born 1656, succeeded 1666, and died November 16, 1685. He wrote from the Vj'ne, July 18, 1682, to Mr. Herbert of Belvoir,' then living with John ninth ^ MS. at
Belvoir.
Earl and afterwards first Duke of Rutland, known ^ as a patron < j^^,„- cy-
r ■ ,, 1 t r 1 ■ • 1 1' chpedia. tit.
of music : "judge of everything concerning me by my readiness - Rutland,
to send you the tune and words you desired of me." And in another letter of October 26, he sa\-s : " I find myselfe unable to accknowledge those obliging marks of favour that my loid is pleased almost every day to show me. ... I hope a barrell or two of Colchester Oysters will be no less acceptible at Belvoir than a Belvoir doe att London. If I am not mistaken, I remember the time when he seemed as greate a lover of them as I of Belvoir venison. I have sent the oysters b}' the Grantham carryer." From other letters at Belvoir it appears that he sought in mar- riage the Lady Bridget Noel, daughter of Viscount Campden, and sister of the Countess of Rutland ; she died unmarried in 17 19.
Edward
Duke of,"
So THE VYNE
Edward Chute, who was born 1658, succeeded his brother
Chaloner, 1685 ; he was educated at Winchester College, and
New College, Oxford, of which society he became a fellow
August 12, 1678. The Lord Keeper North, his cousin, placed
'Lhnoft/ie him' "with Dr. Brevint, a French refugee, and Prebendary of
Norths, vol. ii.
p. 220. Westminster, where by the family conversation, as well as some
instruction, he might acquire a ready use of the French tongue ; and finding him fit," he recommended him to a clerkship under Sir Leoline Jenkins, Secretary of State to Charles II.
Some letters are preserved which he wrote in this capacity, 1683-84, to Sir Edward Bulstrode, who, having been adjutant to the army of Charles I. after Naseby, became envoy at Brussels after the Restoration, and died in exile with the Stuarts at the age of 1 01. At the period when these letters were written, the discovery of the Rye House Plot had given the King a pretext for .severe measures against the Whigs ; while the corruption of justice, as shown in the trials of Russell and Sidney, and the de- spicable foreign policy adopted in subservience to Louis XIV., were already paving the way for the Revolution of 1688.
-MS. at the In the first letter,'-* dated Whitehall, July 9, 1683, he wrote :
' ' "There continue to be further discoveries of the late conspiracy
and designed insurrection. My Lord Howard was pleased to be very ingenuous upon his examination this day before his Majesty : since which my Lord Brandon Gerard and Mr. Hambden have been committed to the Tower. Captain Wallcott, whose name is in the first Proclamation, was taken yesterday, and committed to Newgate. The trial of my Lord Russell is certainly to be on Thursday next."
A
CHAP. IV. CHALONER CHUTE, SPEAKER 8i
A second letter is ' dated February 4, 1684 (at which time, ^ MS. ai lUc
I 'ync.
as we learn from Evelyn's Diary, the frost was so severe that streets of booths were set up on tlie Thames, and the seas were so locked up with ice that for eight weeks no ships could stir in or out), and in it he mentions that "the frozen sea keeps us ■ in utter dearth of news, and the theme of almost everybody's discourse is our own ice at home, which is like to bring a worse dearth upon a great many poor people. My Lord Danby's plea was heard at the King's Bench this morning."
A third letter,^ dated February 15, 1684, gives intelligence -//»/</. that Sir Samuel Barnardiston, foreman of the grand jury which ignored the bill of indictment against Lord Shaftesbury, " was tried yesterday, and found guilty upon an information preferred against him for spreading false and seditious news, and for arraigning the Government by affirming that my Lord Russell and Mr. Sidney died innocently. We are alarmed with a piece of news from Holland, which says that the Prince of Orange has attacked some of the Amsterdammers, whom he charged with holding correspondence with France, after having disclosed the matter to the States General with an oath of secresy from them, and that the Deputys from the Hague went out of their houses at midnight hereupon in great disgust."
In a fourth letter^ of March 10, 1684, he says, "My being at '^ /bhi. the assizes at Winchester will excuse me, I hope, for acknow- ledging myself to you no sooner : my business was to serve Sir Wm. Kingsmill, of that country, who was tried for killing a gentleman iiis near relation, upon a sudden quarrel between them, and found guilty of manslaughter. The Duke of Ormond
M is
82 THE VYNE
CHAP. IV.
is like to recover of a fever which he has had, and been very dangerously ill." ^ MS. at the A letter' of March \J, 1684, mentions the death of Mrs.
Vync.
Godolphin, whose memoir, written by John Evelyn, and edited by Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, reveals her as the purest of characters in the most dissolute of courts. " This after- noon Mrs. Godolphin, Maid of Honour to the Queen, died of the small-pox, after she had been almost past the danger, as was thought. 'Tis believed that the Duke of Grafton will be made Governor of the Isle of Wight in a little time, Sir Robert Holmes being very infirm, and, as they say, very much inclined to live a retired life, for which reason he resigns that charge. We have nothing but complaints of the severity of the weather from Newmarket, from whence the Prince is expected to-mor- row, the Duke on Thursday, His Majesty on Saturday next. Mrs. Temple, Maid of Honour to the Princess, is said to be married bypro.xy to Sir Thomas Lynch, Governour of Jamaica." 2 Ibid. The last letter,- dated March 24, 16S4, tells that " His Majesty
and the rest of the Court that were at Newmarket returned hither upon Saturday last, and are in most perfect health. . . . There is a long memorial which the Dutch Ambassador presented to His Majesty yesterday by way of reply to the answer of his last memorial : I am not able to give you any account of it here, having not had the opportunity to read it yet.
" I am, Sir, your most obed' humble serv^',
"E. Chute."
Edward Chute married Katharine, daughter of Sir Anthony
Keck
CHAP. IV. CH A LONER CHUTE, SPEAKER 8
o
Keck, widow of Ferdinand Tracy, in 1686. He kept race- horses at the Vyne, and in the year of the Revolution won a handsome silver punch-bowl at the Basingstoke races, then run on the downs west of the town. This bowl, which is preserved at the Vyne, is nine inches in height and twelve in diameter, and is richly chased with quaint figures of Oriental character engaged in various field sports ; it is surmounted with a crene- lated rim, and bears the date " Oct : y" 2nd 1688."
Edward Chute was High Sheriff of Hampshire in 1699. He lived through the shifting politics of Anne and George I., as a staunch supporter of the House of Hanover. He died April 18, 1722, aged 65, was buried in the church of Sherborne St. John, and was succeeded by his son Anthony.
Of Anthony Chute, who was born March 6, 1691, little is recorded. He seems to have kept race-horses like his father, if we may trust his portrait, which has a race-horse and jockey in the background. He was elected member of Parliament for Yarmouth in the Isle of Wight in 1734, having stood for the county without success in the same year against Lord Harry Powlett and Edward Lisle. On the occasion of the county contest, Charles Powlett Duke of Bolton, of Hackwood, wrote to " the Mayor, Aldermen, Burgesses, and other freeholders of Basingstoke," the following remarkable letter.
"14 April, 1734.
"Gentlemen, — As it is with great Reluctancy that I am obliged to oppose Mr. Chute's Election for the county, but since he has put it out of my power to promote his Interest, I
desire
84 THE VYNE
CHAP. IV.
desire you will not give him your votes at the next Election. I will say no more to you though I have provocation enough, but the not voteing at all will equally oblige
" Y"' Humble Serv',
"B N."
Anthony Chute died 1754, unmarried and intestate. All his brothers predeceased him, except John the youngest, who suc- ceeded him as next heir. There is a monument in the church of St. Lawrence, Rotterdam, to his brother Chaloner, who died in that city May 5, 1705.
There are pictures at the Vyne of Chaloner Chute, the Speaker, and of both his wives ; of his son and grandson, both named Chaloner ; and of his younger grandsons Edward and Thomas ; also of Anthony, son of Edward ; and of Thomas Lennard and Elizabeth, children of Thomas.
Chap.
^•y^
vm
CHAP. -V
jchrt CJiiile^ ^CratJ 'xy* ^cx^fice M/alpoIe
JOHN CHUTE, who succeeded his brother Anthony at the Vyne in 1754, was born December 30, 1701, the tenth and youngest child of Edward Chute and his wife Katharine. He was educated at Eton College, then under the rule of Dr. Godolphin as Provost, who was brother of the Minister, and set up the statue of Henry VI. in the school-yard. Afterwards, at the Vyne, using the Speaker's summer-house ( Plate VHI. ), then decorated within and furnished with statuary, for his Temple of the Muses, he applied himself further to literature and archaeological studies, thus acquiring accomplishments which, together with his social qualities, endeared him to Horace Walpole and the poet Gray.
From the death of his father in 1722, until that of his brother Anthony in 1754, he lived principally abroad, spending
much
86 THE VYNE
CHAP. V.
much of his time in Florence at Casa Ambrosio, the house of Horace Mann, the British Resident. Here, in 1740, he made the acquaintance of Walpole and Gray, who had just completed their studies at Eton and Cambridge, and were travelling together upon the Continent.
Gray parted company with Walpole at Reggio, through an unfortunate disagreement, in the spring of 1741, and con- soled himself with the companionship of John Chute and his young relative, Francis Thistlethwayte, of Southwick Park, Hampshire, who had recently taken the name of Whithed under his uncle's will. These three spent the festival of Ascensiontide, 1741, in Venice together, after which Gray returned to England, and having, soon after his arrival, visited Galfridus, twin brother of Horace Mann, in London, wrote as follows to John Chute, in reply to a letter from him, enclosing one from Mann. The latter was at this time much tried by illness, which he bore most patiently.
' MS. at the " My dear Sir,' — I complain no more, j-ou have not then
tifor'c frintcd. forgot me. Mrs. Dick, to whom I resorted for a dish of coffee, instead thereof produced your kind letter, big with another, no less kind, from our poor mangled friend ; to whom I now address myself (you don't take it ill ?), and let him know that, as soon as I got hither, I took wing for the Strand to see a certain acquaintance of his (for I then knew not whether he were dead or alive), and get some news of him. I was so struck with the great resemblance between them, that it made me cry out. He
is
cHAP.v. JOHN CHUTE, GRAY, WALPOLE 87
is a true eagle, but a little tamer and a little fatter than the eagle resident : I told him so, but he did not seem to think it so great a compliment as I did. His house was half pulled down, but rising again more magnificent from its ruins. He received me as became a bird of his race, and suffer'd himself to be caressed without giving me one peck or scratch ; the only bad thing I know of him is that he wears a frock and a bob-wig. May I charge j'ou, my dear Mr. Chute ( I give you your great name for want of a little tiny one), with my compliments to Dr. Cocchi, Benevoli (tho' I hate him), and their patient, par- ticularly to this last for recovering so soon, and so much to my satisfaction. I think one may call him dear creature, and be fond in security under the sanction of your cover. I carried his Museum Florentinum to Commissioner Haddock, who is Liddel's uncle. That gentleman had left Paris, having been elected for some place in this Parliament, and (the' it is like to be controverted ) took that opportunity to return to England for a time, but is now gone, I think, to Spain. Adieu, Mr. M.
"■Nunc ad te totum ntc converto, suavissiuie Cliuti, whom I wrote to from Dover. If this be London, Lord send me to Constantinople : either I or it are extremely odd : the boys laugh at the depth of my ruffles, the immensity of my bag, and the length of my sword. I am as an alien in my native land, yea I am as an owl among the small birds. It rains : every body is discontented, and so am I. You can't imagine how mortifying it is to fall into the hands of an English barber. Lord, how you or Pclleri would storm in such a case ! Don't think of coming
hither
88 THE VYNE
CHAP. V.
hither without Lavour or something equivalent to him (not an elephant'). The natives are alive and flourishing: the fashion is a grey frock with round sleeves, bob wig, or a spencer, plain hat with enormous brims and shallow crown cocked as bluff as possible, muslin neckcloth twisted round, rumpled, and tucked into the breast : all this with a certain Sa-faring air, as if they were just come back from Cartagena. If my pockets had any- thing in them, I should be afraid of everj' body I met : look in their face, they knock you down ; speak to them, they bite off your nose. I am no longer ashamed in public, but extremely afraid. If ever they catch me among 'em, I give them leave to eat me. So much for Dress ; as for Politics, every body is extremely angry with all that has been or shall be done. Even a victory at this time would be looked upon as a wicked attempt to please the nation. The theatres open not till to-morrow, so you will excuse my giving no account of them to-night. Now I have been at home and seen how things go there, would I were with you again, that the remainder of my dream might at least be agreeable. As it is, my prospect cannot well be more unpleasing ; but why do I trouble your good nature with such considerations ? Be assured, that when I am happy ( if that can ever be), your esteem will greatly add to that happiness ; and when most the contrary, will always alleviate what I suffer. Many, many thanks for your kindness, for your travels, for }'our news, for all the trouble I have given and must give you. Omit nothing when you write, for things that were quite indif- ferent to me at Florence, at this distance become interesting. Humble service to Polleri : obliged for his harmonious saluta-
tion
CHAP.v. JOHN CHUTE, GRAY, WALPOLE 89
tion. I hope to see some scratches with his black claw in your next. Adieu !
" I am most sincerely and e\er yours,
" T. G.
" London, Sept. 7, O.S. [ 1741 ].
" P.S. — Nobody is come from Paris yet."
The expression " an equivalent, not an elephant," alludes to an old and well-known story of an Anglo-Indian, who wrote to a friend in England, promising him an " equivalent," for kindnesses done, and his friend by mistake read " equivalent " as " elephant," and made preparations for the animal accordingly.
In this same year, 1741, Walpole, now in the House of Commons, supported John Chute's brother Francis, a Chancer}- barrister, as a candidate for Parliamentary honours. In a letter to Mann, December 10, 1741, he wrote : ' "You can't conceive 1 Waipot^s
Letters, ed.
how I was pleased with the vast and deserved applause that Cunningham
vol. i. p. 99.
Mr. Chute's brother the lawyer got. I never heard a clearer or a finer speech. When I went home, ' Dear Sir,' said I to Sir Robert, ' I hope Mr. Chute will carry his election for Heydon : he would be a great loss to you.' He replied, 'We will not lose him.' I, who meddle with nothing, especially elections, and go to no committees, interest myself extremely for Mr. Chute."
On January 22, 1742, Walpole describes in a letter^ to John - /tni^ p 122. Chute his introduction to his brother Anthony, whom Sir Robert had brought home to dinner, and adds, " Now, Mr. Chute, I know both your brothers " ...
Gray wrote to him again from London on May 24, 1742: —
N " My
90 THE VYNE
CHAP. V.
1 i/5_ ^jtthe " ^y ^^^'' Sir,' — Three days ago as I was in the Coffee house
very deep in advertisements, a servant came in and waked me (as I thought), with the name of Mr. Chute ; for half a minute I was not sure but that it was you, transported into England by some strange chance, till he brought me to a coach that seemed to have lost its way by looking for a needle in a bottle of hay ; in it was a lady, who said she was not you but only a near relation, and was so good to give me a letter, with which I returned to my den in order to prey upon it. I had wrote to you but a few days ago, and am glad of so good an excuse to do it again, which I may the better do, as my last was all out, and nothing to the purpose, being designed for a certain Mr. Chute at Rome, and not him at Florence.
" I learn from it that I have been somewhat smarter than I ought, but ( to shew you with how little malice ) I protest I have not the least idea what it was : my memory would be better did I read my own letters so often as I do yours. You must attribute it to a sort of kittenish disposition that scratches when it means to caress ; however, I don't repent neither, if 'tis that has made you write. I know I need not ask pardon, for you have forgiven me ; nay, I have a good mind to complain myself. How could you say, that I designed to hurt you, because I knew you could feel ? I hate the thoughts of it and would not for the world wound anything that was sensible. 'Tis true, I should be glad to scratch the careless or the foolish, but no armour is so impenetrable as indifference and stupidity ; and so I may keep my claws to myself. . . .
" Did I tell you about Mr. Garrick, that the Town are horn- mad
cHAP.v. JOHN CHUTE, GRAY, WALPOLE 91
mad after ? There are a dozen Dukes of a night at Goodmans- fields sometimes, and yet I am stiff in the opposition. Our fifth Opera was the Olympiade, in which they retain'd most of Pergo- lesi's songs, and yet 'tis gone already, as if it had been a poor thing of Galuppi's. Two nights did I enjoy it all alone, snug in a nook of the gallery, but found no one in those regions had ever heard of Pergolesi ; nay, I heard several affirm it was a composition of Pescetti's ; now there is a sixth sprung up b)- the name of Cefalo & Procri.
" My Lady of Oueensbury is come out against my Lady of Marlborough ; and she has her spirit too and her originality, but more of the woman I think than t'other ; as to the facts, it don't signify two pence who's in the right, the manner of fighting and character of the Combatants is all : 'tis hoped old Sarah will at her again.
" The Invalides at Chelsea intend to present Ranelagh Gar- dens as a nuisance for breaking their first sleep with the sound of fiddles : it opens I think to-night. Messieurs the Commons are to ballot for 7 persons to-morrow, commissioned to state the public accounts, and they are to be such who have no places, nor are any ways dependent on the King. The Committee have petition'd for all papers relating to the Convention : a bill has passed the lower House for indemnifying all who might subject themselves to penalties by revealing any transaction with regard to the conduct of my Lord Orford, and to-morrow the Lords are summon'd about it. The Wit of the times consists in satiri- cal prints. I believe there have been some hundreds within this month ; if you have any hopeful young designer of caricaturas
that
92 THE VYNE chap. v.
tliat has a political turn, he may pick up a pretty subsistence here ; let him pass thro' Holland to improve his taste. By the way, we are all very sorry for poor Queen Hungary ; but we know of a second battle (which perhaps you may never hear of but from me), as how Prince Lobbycock came up in the nick of time, and cut 120,000 of 'em all to pieces, and how the King of Prussia narrowly escaped aboard a ship, and so got down the Daunub to Wolf in Bottle, where Mr. Mallyboyce lay incamp'd, and how the Hannoverians with Prince Hissy Castle at their head fell upon the French Mounseers, and took him away with all his Treasure, among which is Pitt's Diamond and the Great Cistern. All this is firmly believed here and a vast deal more ; upon the strength of which we intend to declare war with France.
" You are so obliging as to put me in mind of our last year's little expeditions ; alas. Sir, they are past, and how many years will it be, at the rate you go on, before we can possibly renew them in this country? In all probability I shall be gone first on a long expedition in that undiscover'd country from whose bourn no Traveller returns ; however (if I can) I will think of you as I sail down the River of Eternity. I can't help thinking that I should find no difference almost between this world and t'other (for I converse with none but the dead here), only indeed I should receive nor write no more letters. . . .
" My Dab of musick and prints you are very good to think of sending with your own ; to which I will add a farther trouble by desiring you to send me some of the roots of a certain flower w'='' I have seen at Florence ; it is a huge white hyacinth tinged
with
cHAP.v. JOHN CHUTE, GRAY, WALPOLE 93
with pink (Mr. M. knows what I mean, by the same token that they grow sometimes in the fat Gerina's boosoni). I mean if they bear a reasonable price, which you will judge of for me ; but don't give yourself any pains about it, for if they are not easily- had and at an easy rate I am not at all eager for them. Do you talk oi strumming? Ohime ! who have not seen the face of a harpical since I came home. No ; I have hanged up my harp on the willows : however, I look at my music now and then, that I may not forget it ; for when you return I intend to sing a song of thanksgiving, and praise the Lord with a cheerful noise of many stringed instruments. Adieu, dear Sir.
" I am sincerely yours,
" T. G. "May (O.S.), London.
" Not forgetting my kiss hands to Mr. Whithed."
The date of this letter— May 24, 1742 — is determined by the incidents referred to in it, viz., the proceedings taken against Sir Robert Walpole, who had been Prime Minister for twenty-one years, and was now reluctant to go to war for the sake of Maria Theresa, which made him unpopular and caused his fall ; the opening of the Rotunda at Ranelagh Gardens ; the debut of Garrick at Goodman's Fields near the Minories; and the per- formance of Pergolesi's music, which Gray had done much to introduce into England.
The playful allusions to an imaginary victory of Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary, over Frederick of Prussia requires some explanation. " Prince Lobbycock " is Lobkowitz, one of
her
94 THE VYNE
CHAP. V.
her generals, and " Mallyboyce " is Maillebois, a French general who was on Frederick's side. " Pitt's diamond," had once be- longed to the grandfather of the great Pitt, and was at this time a crown jewel of France ; and " the great cistern " may be an allusion to the Basin of Apollo at Versailles, which Gray describes in a letter to West, May 22, 1739.
Horace Walpole contrasts the excesses of his Norfolk neigh- bours with John Chute's temperate way of living in a letter to him from Houghton dated August 20, 1743. ^ tellers of "Indeed,' my dear Sir, you did not use to be stupid, and
Cunningham, until you givc me substantial proof that you are so, I shall not believe it : as for your temperate diet and milk bringing about such a metamorphosis, I hold it impossible : I have such lament- able proofs every day before my eyes of the stupefying effects of beef, ale and wine that I have contracted a most religious venera- tion for your spiritual noiirritiire. Only imagine that I here every day see men who are mountains of roast beef, and only seem just roughly hewn out into the outlines of human form, like the giant rock at Pratolino. I shudder when I see them brandish their knives in act to carve, and look on them as savages that devour one another. I should not stare at all more if yonder Alderman at the lower end of the table were to stick his fork into his jolly neighbour's cheek and cut a brave slice of brown & fat. . . .
" Oh, my dear Sir, don't you find out that nine parts in ten of the world are of no use but to make you wish yourself with that tenth part } I am so far from growing used to mankind by living amongst them, that my natural ferocity and wildness does
but
CHAP. V. JOHN CHUTE, GRAY, WALPOLE 95
but every day grow worse. They tire me, they fatigue me. I don't know what to do with them. I don't know what to say to them. I fling open the windows and fancy I want air ; and when I get by myself I undress myself and seem to have had people in my pockets, in my plaits, and on my shoulders."
Another letter to Chute from Gray is dated " Cambridge " (where he went into residence in the winter of 1742), "October 25 "(1743)-
"My dear Sir,' — What do you chuse I should think of a MS. at the
Vyne,
whole year's silence? Have you absolutely forgot me, or do
you not reflect that it is from yourself alone I can have any
information concerning you ? I do not find myself inclined to
forget you : the same regard for your person, the same desire of
seeing you again I felt when we parted, still continues with me
as fresh as ever. Don't wonder then if, in spite of appearances,
I try to flatter myself with the hopes of finding sentiments
something of the same kind, however buried, in some dark corner
of your heart, perhaps more than half extinguished by long
absence and various cares of a different nature. I will not alarm
your indolence with a long letter ; my demands are only three,
» and may be answer'd in as many words : how you do .' where
you are? when you return? If you chuse to add anything
further it will be a work of superer I will not write so long
a word entire lest I fatigue your delicacy, and you may think it
incumbent on you to answer it by another of equal dimensions.
You believe me, I hope, with great sincerity, yours
" T. G.
"P.S.
96
THE VYNE
CHAP. V.
" P.S. — For ought I know you may be in England. My very true compliments (not such as people make to one another) wait upon Mr. Whithed. He will be the most travel'd gentleman in Hampshire."
' Doraii's .Maim and Manners in Florence, vol. i. p. 208,
Many of John Chute's own letters were preserved by his
friends. In one to Sir Horace Mann,' dated New Year's Day
1745, he writes: "I am resolved my letter shall begin with
something new, and therefore date it at this end. I dare say
this is the first 1745 you have ever seen in your life. If I were
to live till 1800, a new century ! Who will be Czar of Muscovy,
who King of England in those days ? " In a letter to Walpole
'//>/,/. pp. 216. from Rome, June 26, 1745,^ he deplored the recent death of his 217.
brother Francis. " I should never have believed " ( he adds ) " that
it was possible for me to look with such an eye of indifference
as I do upon Rome ; all statues appear like those at Hyde Park
Corner." By which, it should be explained, he means those in
the stonemasons' yards which then stood on the site of Apsley
House, and were afterwards removed to the New Road.
Francis Chute, whose death is here mentioned, was an
eminent lawyer, intimate with the most intellectual men of his
day, some of whose conversations with him were inserted by
Spence in his well-known " Book of Anecdotes." The most
interesting of these relates to Sir Isaac Newton, of whom Francis
Chute says : ' that " though he scarce ever spoke ill of any
man, he could hardly avoid showing his contempt for virtuoso
collectors and antiquarians; and speaking of Lord Pembroke"
(the eighth, who purchased many of the Arundel busts for
Wilton
5 spence s Anecdotes, 2nd ed. pp. 247. 248,
cHAP.v. JOHN CHUTE, GRAY, WALPOLE 9;
Wilton House), " he said, ' Let him have but a stone doll and he is satisfied. I can't imagine the utility of such studies ; all their pursuits are below Nature.' "
In a letter' to Mann, July 26, 1745, Walpole mentions the ^ utters of
Walpole, etl.
eagle, mounted on an altar, found in the Baths of Caracalla at Cunningham,
vol. 1. p. 379.
Rome, which John Chute advised him to buy. " I don't know what to say to Mr. Chute's eagle : I would fain have it. I can depend on his taste ; but would it not be folly to be buying curiosities now .'' How can I tell that I shall have anything in the world to pay for it by the time it is bought? You may present these reasons to Mr. Chute, and if he laughs at them, why he will buy the eagle for me." The purchase was com- pleted, and the eagle became one of the most valued curiosities in the Strawberry Hill collection.
In July 1 745 Gray wrote John Chute a letter,'-^ in which he •> MS. at the
I 'vfic.
bids him, " ask Mr. Whithed if he does not expect that his favourite hens, all his dear little pouts, untimely victims of the pot and the spit, will in another world come pipping and gobbling in a melodious voice about him ? I know he does : there's nothing so natural. Poor Conti, is he going to be a cherub ? I remember here (but he was not ripe then ) he had a very promis- ing squeak with him, and that his mouth when open made an exact square. I have never been at Ranelagh Gardens since they were open'd (for what docs it signify to me ?), but they do not succeed. People see it once or twice, and so they go to Vauxhall. ... I think we are a reasonable, but by no means a pleasurable people, and, to mend us, we must have a dash of the French and Italian ; yet I don't know how, travelling
O does
98 THE VYNE
CHAP. V.
does not produce its right effect. I find I am tallying ; but you are to attribute it to my having at last found a pen that writes.
" You are so good, 'tis a shame to scold at you, but you never till now certified me that you were at Casa Ambrosio ; I did not know in what light to consider you. I had an idea, but did not know where to put it, for an idea must have a place per caiii- peggiar bene. You were an intaglia unset, a picture without a frame ; but now all is well, tho' I am not very sure yet whether you are above stairs or on the ground floor, but by your mentioning the Terrazzino it must be the latter. Do the frogs of Arno sing as sVveetly as they did in my days .' Do you sup al fresco ? Have you a mugherino tree and a Xanny ? I fear I
don't spell this last word right ; pray ask Mr. M . Oh dear!
I fear I am a blunderer about hyacynths, for, to be sure, they can't be taken out of the ground till they have done blooming, and they are perhaps just now in flower. That you may know my place, I am just going into the country for one easy fort- night, and then in earnest intend to go to Cambridge to Trinity Hall."
He then mentions certain books that he is sending to Mann, viz. " Etat de la France," and the Life of Mahomet, by the Comte de Boulainvilliers ; Lord Burleigh's papers ; the Life of Cicero, and a letter on Catholic religion by Dr. Middle- ton ; Philip dc Comines ; Warburton on the Miracles, "a very impudent fellow, his dedications will make you laugh ; " Lud- low's Memoirs, " as unorthodox in politics as the other in religion ; " "2 lyttel bookys tocheing Kyng James the fyrst,"
" very
CHAP. V. JOHN CHUTE, GRA V, WALPOLE 99
" very rare ; " " Le Sopha de Crebillon ; " " a collection of Plays, 10 vols. ; 3 parts of ' Marianne ' for Mr. Chute."
" And now let me congratulate you as no longer a Min. ; but far del inondo ! veravientc iin Ministrone and King of the Mediterranean. Pray your Majesty give order to your Men of War if they touch at Naples to take care of the Parma Collec- tion, and be sure don't let them bombard Genoa. If you can bully the Pope out of the Apollo Belvedere, well and good, I m not against it. I'm enchanted with your good Sister the Queen of Hungary ; as old as I am, I could almost fight for her myself See what it is to be happy ; everybody will fight for those that have no occasion for them. Pray take care to continue so ; but,
whether you do or not, I am truly yours
T , r , " T. G.
" July, London.
" The Parliament's up, and all the world are made Lords and Secretaries and Commissioners."
Bishop VVarburton's dedication of his book on Miracles to Sir Robert Sutton, here alluded to, is a curiosity, occupying twenty-two pages out of a thin small volume, and ending thus : " Your great name can but lift me up to be the more exposed ; while, like young Euryalus in the shining helmet of the divine Messapus, my bright defence but makes me the more obnoxious to danger : safe, had I been contented in my native obscurity."
The " Parma Collection " was a fine gallery of pictures which had belonged to the Dukes of Parma, but which the King of Naples had carried away, as Gray mentions in a letter ot December 9, 1739, written to his mother from Bologna.
In
loo THE VYNE
CHAP. V.
In the autumn, 1746, John Chute and Francis Whithed came 1 MS. at the home, and Gray, impatient to see them, wrote ' from Cambridge
Vyne.
to the former, as follows : —
" I can find no where one line, one syllable, to tell me you are arrived. I will venture to say there is nobody in England, how- ever nearly connected with you, that has seen you with more real joy and affection than I shall. You are, it seems, gone into the country, whither ( had I any reason to think you wished to see me ) I should immediately have foUow'd you ; as it is I am returning to Cambridge ; but with intention to come back to town again whenever you do, if you will let me know the time and place.
" I readily set Mr. Whithed free from all imputation ; he is a fine young personage in a coat all over spangles, just come over from the tour of Europe to take possession and be married, and consequently can't be supposed to think of anything or
remember any body : but you ! However, I don't altogether
clear him. He might have said something to one who re- members him when he was but a pout. Nevertheless I desire my hearty gratulations to him, and say I wish him more spangles and more estates and more wives. Adieu ! my dear Sir. " I am ever yours
" T. Gray."
" London : Oct. [1746]."
A portrait of Francis Whithed at the Vyne by Rosalba shows him much as this letter describes him, " a fine young
personage
cHAP.v. JOHN CHUTE, GRAY, WALPOLE loi
personage in a coat all over spangles." The picture is matched by a portrait, also by Rosalba, of Margaret, daughter and heiress of John Nichol, of Southgate, Middlesex, the lady here alluded to, to whom he was engaged to be married.
In the same month, Gray wrote another letter' to John ^ ms. „t iiic
I 'yiic.
Chute (addressed to " Mr. Whitheds at Southwick Park near Fareham in Hampshire " ), which brings to memory his own lines " To Adversity " : —
" What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know. And from her own she learn'd to melt at others' woe."
" My dear Sir, — You have not then forgot me, and I shall see you soon again ; it suffices, and there needed no other excuse. I loved you too well not to forgive you without a reason, but I could not but be sorry for myself
" You are lazy ( you say ) and listless and gouty and vex'd and perplex'd. I am all that ( the gout excepted ), and many things more that I hope you never will be : so that what you tell me on that head est trop flateux pour moi: our imperfections may at least excuse and perhaps recommend us to one another : me- thinks I can readily pardon sickness and age and vexation for all the depredations they make within and without, when I think they make us better friends and better men ; which I am per- suaded is often the case. I am very sure I have seen the best- tempered generous tender young creatures in the world that would have been very glad to be sorry for people they liked, when under any pain, and could not, merely for want of knowing rightly what it was themselves.
"I
I02 THE VYNE
CHAP. V.
" I find Mr. Walpole then made some mention of me to you. Yes, we are together again. It is about a year I beHeve since he wrote to me to offer it, and there has been (particularly of late) in appearance the same kindness and confidence almost as of old. What were his motives I cannot yet guess ; what were mine, you will imagine, and perhaps blame me. However as yet I neither repent nor rejoice over much : but I am pleased. He is full, I assure you, of your panegyric, never any body had half so much wit as Mr. Chute (which is saying everything with him, you know), and Mr. Whithed is the finest young man that ever was imported. I hope to embrace this fine man ( if I can ), and thank him heartily for being my advocate, tho' in vain ; he is a good creature, and I am not sure but I shall be tempted to eat a wing of him with sellery sauce. . . . Heaven keep you all ! " I am, my best Mr. Chute, very faithfully yours,
" T. G.
"Cambr?', Oct. 12 [1746], Sunday."
This letter was followed by another addressed to " Mr. Whithed's house in New Bond St."
" Cambridge, Sunday.
' MS. at the " Lustrissimo,' — It is doubtless reasonable, that two young
/ 'vne, never . * . ^ i 1
before priuted. foreigners, come mto so distant a country to acquamt themselves with strange things, should have some time allowed them to take a view of the King (God bless him), and the Ministry, and the Theatres, and Westminster Abbey, and the lions, and such other curiosities of the capital city. You civilly call them dissipations ; but to me they appear employments of a very serious nature, as
they
cHAP.v. JOHN CHUTE, GRAY, W A LP OLE 103
they enlarge the mind, give a great insight into the nature and genius of a people, keep the spirits in an agreeable agitation, and (like the true artificial spirit of lavender) amazingly fortify and corroborate the whole nervous system. But as all things sooner or later must pass away, and there is a certain period when ( by the rules of proportion ) one is to grow weary of every thing ; I may hope at length a season will arrive, when you will be tired of forgetting me. 'Tis true you have a long journey to make first, a vast series of sights to pass thro'. Let me see ! you are at Lady Brown already. I have set a time, when I may say, ' Oh ! he is now got to the Waxwork in Fleet Street : there is nothing more but Cupids Paradise, and the Hermaphrodite from Guinea, and the original Basilisk Dragon, and the Buffalo from
Babylon, and the New Chimpanzee, and then I ' Have a
care, you had best, that I come in my turn : you know in whose hands I have deposited my little interests. I shall infallibh- appeal to my best invisible friend in the country.
"I am glad Castalio has justified himself and me to you. He seemed to me more made for tenderness than horror, and ( I have courage again to insist upon it ) might make a better player than an\- now on the stage. I have not alone received ( thank you ), but almost got through, Louis Onze. 'Tis very well, me- thinks, but nothing particular. What occasioned his expur- gation in Paris, I imagine, were certain strokes in defence of the Galilean Church and its liberties. A little contempt cast upon the Popes, and something here and there on the conduct ot great princes. There are a few instances of malice against our nation that are very foolish.
" My
I04 THE VYNE
CHAP. V.
"My companion, whom you salute, is (much to my sorrow) only so now and then. He liv^es 20 miles off at nurse, and is not so meagre as when you first knew him, but of a reasonable plumposity. He shall not fail being here to do the honours, when you make your publick entry. Heigh ho ! when will that be, clii sa ? but mi lusigna il dolce sogno ! I love Mr. Whithed and wish him all happiness. Farewell, my dear Sir.
" I am, ever yours,
" T. G.
" Commend me kindly to Mr. Walpole."
Shortly after writing these letters, Gray joined his friends in ' Miifords London, and in a letter to Wharton of Dec. 1 1, 1746, says : ' " I
Grav, vol. ii- , . _ . i i- i • i
p. i'6s. have been m town flauntmg about at public places with mj- two
Italianized friends. The world has some attractions still in it to a solitary of six years' standing, and agreeable well meaning people are my peculiar magnet."
Walpole's letters of this period are full of references to John
Chute. Thus in a letter to Mann, October 2, 1747, he says : " If
I were to say all I think of Mr. Chute's immense honesty, his
sense, his wit, his knowledge, and his humanity, you would think I
-- Walpole s was writing a dedication." " I must tell you'"'' (he writes, De-
c uiiningham, ccmbcr 2, 1 748, to Mann) "an admirable bon mot oi Mr. Chute.
vol. ii. pp. 96,
13s. 183, 300, Passing by the door of Mrs. Edwards, who died of drams, he
444-
saw the motto which the undertakers had placed to her escutcheon, ' Mors janua vitcr ; ' he said it ought to have been 'Mors aqua vths.'" And again to Mann, June 15, 1755 : "Mr. Chute has found you a very pretty motto ; it alludes to the
goats
cHAP.v. JOHN CHUTE, GRAY, U'ALPOLE 105
goats in your arms, and not a little to you ; 'per ardua stabihs : ' all }'our friends approve it." Again, speaking of their common antiquarian pursuits : " You know " ( he writes to Montagu, September 28, 1749) "how out of humour Gray has been about our diverting ourselves with pedigrees. I believe neither Mr. Chute nor I ever contracted a moment's vanity from any of our discoveries, or ever preferred them to anything but brag and whist. Well, Gray has set himself to compute, and has found that there must go a million of ancestors in 20 gene- rations to every body's composition." And writing to Bentley, August 5, 1752, of a visit to Hurstmonceaux, Sussex, he says : " Over the great drawing-room chimney is the coat armour of the first Leonard Lord Dacre, with all his alliances. Mr. Chute was transported, and called cousin with ten thousand quarterings." ' ' "'"//'"'^■^
^ " Lcllers. ed.
Another bond of sympathy between them was a taste for Cunningham,
^ ^ ^ vol. n. pp. 324,
architecture. Thus Walpole wrote to Mann, March 4, 1753 : •*'*^" " Mr. Chute has come to Strawberry to inspect the progress of a Gothic staircase, which is so pretty and so small that I am inclined to wrap it up and send it }-ou in m\' letter ; " and to Bentley, July 5, 1755, he speaks of the " prettiest house in the world," which John Chute had designed for Lady Mary Churchill ( Walpole's sister ) at Chalfont, Bucks.
Writing to Mann, June 12, 1753,^ he speaks of a sleeping -'//-/</. p. 339. room at Strawberry Hill, v/hich he constantly reserved for John Chute, and his " college of arms " in the tower.
When John Chute succeeded to the Vyne as heir to his brother Anthony in 1754, he was greeted by Horace Walpole in
P the
io6 THE VYNE
CHAP. V.
the following letter. It must be mentioned in explanation of some passages in it that Francis Whithed, already mentioned, had died at the Vyne in March 175 1, and John Chute endea- voured (thereby giving some offence to his brother Anthony) to bring about a marriage between Margaret Nichol and Horace Walpole's nephew Lord Orford. This, however, fell through, and the lady eventually married James Brydges, Marquis of Carnarvon, afterwards third Duke of Chandos.
" May 21, 1754.
';w H^rv "My dearest Sir,' — Don't be surprised if I write you a great
efoiefrtnic . ^^.^\ pf incoherent nonsense. The triumph of m\' joy is so great that I cannot think with any consistence. Unless you could know how absolutely persuaded I was that your brother would • disinherit you, you cannot judge of my satisfaction. I am sure the frame-maker could not. When Francesco brought me 3'our letter and told me in Italian the good news, I started up and embraced him and put myself in such an agitation that I believe I shall not get over it without being blooded. I have hurried to Mrs. [Francis] Chute to embrace her too, but was not so lucky as to find her. I am overjoyed you will not come away without leaving her there. I would not trust a cranny of the house into which a will might be thrust in any other hands. Well, it was so unexpected. How kind you were to conceal his illness. I should have lived in agonies of apprehension for the conse- quence. You are in the right to think I should be overjoyed. Think of the obligations I have to you ; remember that in the transports of your grief for Mr. Whithed your first thought was
for
cHAP.v. JOHX CHUTE, GRAY, W ALP OLE 107
for me and my family ; recollect the persecutions you suffered on my account ; judge how great and continued my fears were that you might be an essential sufferer from that a^ra, and then imagine how unmixed my joy must be at deliverance from such fears, how impatient I am to be quite secure that I may crowd into the papers the most exaggerated paragraph of your good fortune that I could desire. . . . My uncle shall read it in every journal. How strange that I should live to be glad that he is alive ; but it is comfortable that he is yet to have this mortifica- tion. And Harrison — you don't tell me that you will discard him. I expect an absolute promise of that. I distrust the goodness of your heart, lest it should dispose you to forgiveness. Do you know that I relent so little that I would give much to hear Mr. and ]\Irs. Atkyns go down to-day with a will in their pockets for your brother to sign, and find him dead and you in possession. An de ma vie ! Am I in the right to take it for my motto? Erasmus Shorter! Henry Pelham ! Anthony Chute ! Where could I have chosen three such other hatch- ments ? Nay, my dear Sir, even things apparently ill have their good fortune. If }'ou had not been laid up with the gout, you would have returned from the Vine and the Atkj-ns and Tracys might have been there in your place. I can scarcely contain from divulging my joy till I hear further. I have stifled Mr. Mann with it, and nobody was ever more pleased than to be so stifled. ... I am going to notify it to Gray and to our poor cUquetee. It will make his bleak rocks and barren mountains smile. I am going to write to G. Montagu. I am sure he will be truly happy. My onh^ present anxiety after the desire of
certaint)-
To8 THE VYNE
CHAP. V.
certainty is lest you should not come to town on Sunday night. Sir George and Lady Lyttelton are engaged to be at Strawberry on Monday and Tuesday, and I cannot bear to loose a minute of seeing you. If it should happen so unluckily that you should not come till Monday, I beg and insist that you will come the next minute to Strawberry. I am really in a fever and you must not wonder at any vehemence in a light-headed man in whose greatest intermissions there is always vehemence enough. Take care that I do not meet with the least drawback or disappoint- ment in the plenitude of my satisfaction. The least that I intend to call you is a fortune of five thousand pounds a year and seventy thousand pounds in money. You shall at least exceed Woolterton. This is for the public ; with regard to myself, I don't know that I shall, but if I should grow to love you less you will not be surprized. You know the partiality I have to the afflicted, the disgraced, and the oppressed, and must recollect how many titles to my esteem you will lose when you are rich Chute of the Vine, when you are courted by Chancellors of the Exchequer for your interest in Hampshire ; by a thousand nephew Tracj-s for your estate, and by my Lady Brown for her daughter. Oh you will grow to wear a slit gouty shoe and a gold-headed cane with a spying glass ; you will, talk stocks and actions with Sir R. Brown, and be obliged to go to the South Sea House when one wants you to whisk in a comfortable way to Strawberry. You will dine at Farley in a swagging coach with fat mares of your own, and have strong port of a thousand years old got on purpose for you at Hackwood because you will have lent the Duke thirty thousand pounds. Oh you will be insup- portable
cHAP.v. JOHN CHUTE, GRAY, W A LP OLE log
portable, shan't you? I find I shall detest you. En attendant I do wish you joy ! =' Y" ever,
" H. W.
" P.S. — Pray mind how I direct to j-qu ! I would not be so insolent as to frank to you for all the world. When the rich citizens who get out of their coaches backwards used to dine with my father, my mother called them ' rump days.' Take notice I will never dine with you on rump days. I hope your brother won't open this letter.
" 2nd P.S. — I always thought Sophy had a good heart, and indeed had no notion that a cat could have a bad one, but I must own that she is shocked to death with envy on my telling her that the first thing you would certainly do would be to give her sister Luna a diamond pompon and a bloodstone Torcy."
The pleasantry in the second postscript turns upon the relationship of Colbert, Marquis de Torcy ( nephew of the great Colbert ), whose Memoirs had been recently published, to M. Pompon, minister of Louis XIV., with a play on the word pompon, meaning an ornament in a cap.
Walpole became now a frequent visitor at the Vyne, and mentions its summer beauty in his letters ; he complained, how- ever, of the rough and indifferent roads by which it was then approached. Thus he wrote ' to Montagu, August 29, 1754: 1 waipoUs " In October you will find it a little difficult to persuade me Cunningham,
to accompany you there on stilts." And to Bentle\', January 6, 497; vui. lii.
p. 215. 1756
no THE VYNE
CHAP. V.
1756 : " No post but a dove can come from thence ; " and in a letter to John Chute, March 13, 1759, he begs him to leave it lest he should " die of mildew," and calls upon
"Mater, Cyrene mater, qu?e gurgitis hujus Ima tenes,"
to send him away to London. 1 Waipoics In a letter to Bcntley, ' November 3, 17S4, Walpole wrote :
Cunnin'gimm, " I carried down incense and mass books, and we had most
vol. ii. pp. 401, ...
448- Catholic enjoyment of the Chapel. In the evenmgs, indeed, we
did touch a card a little to please George. So much that truly I have scarce an idea left that is not spotted with hearts, spades and diamonds. There is a vote of the Strawberry committee for great embellishments of the Chapel." And again, in a letter to Mann, July 16, 1755, he says: "At the Vine is the most heavenly Chapel in the world ; it only wants a few pictures to give it a true Catholic air — we are so conscious of the goodness of our Protestantism that we do not care how things look. If }-ou can pick us up a tolerable Last Supper, or can have one copied tolerably and very cheap, we will say many a mass for the repose of your headaches. . . . The colouring must be very light, for it will hang directly under the window."
In accordance with this request Mann went with Dr. Cocchi
( a learned physician and author at Florence, some of whose
observations are to be found in Spence's Anecdotes ) to look at
5 Mann and Several pictures, and wrote to Walpole : - " I was greatly tempted
Florence, " to Steal a piccc of chapcl furniture from a private oratory, which
vol. i. p. 381.
would answer the end of giving a true Catholic air to our friend's
Chapel
CHAP. V. JOHN CHUTE, GRA F, WALPOLE 1 1 1
Chapel. It was a little tabernacle of about two feet, with folding- doors, which always stand open to shew a small Madonna and Child in her arms, surrounded by some angels and saints, all composed, as the man assured me, of martyr's bones pulverised and worked up into a paste." A picture by Ferretti was even- tually sent, and is now in the antechapel.
In July 1755 ' Gray went to the Vyne on a visit, and thence ' GossesLi/eo/
Gray. p. 123.
for a Hampshire tour, in which he ov'ertaxed his powers, and from this time to the end of his life, a period of sixteen years, he was a constant sufferer from ill health. On August 14, he wrote - -' ms. at the
I'yiie.
to John Chute : " I was to have gone to Strawberry on Monday last, but being ill was obliged to write the day before and excuse myself. I have been ill ever since I came out of Hampshire. I have had a<h'ia\ been bloodied, and taken draughts of salt of wormwood, lemons, tincture of guiacum, magnesia, and the devil."
Walpole wrote ' to Chute, September 29, 1755, when war had ^ iVa/poies
Letters, ed.
broken out with France : " A commission has passed the seals to Cunningham,
vol. ii. p. 472.
get you some swans ; and, as in this age one ought not to despair of anything where robbery is concerned, I have some hopes of succeeding. If you should want any French ships for j-our water, there are great numbers to be had cheap and small enough."
Walpole suggested numerous alterations at the Vyne, and was impatient that they were not immediately taken in hand. "Chute is so reasonable ( he wrote ' to Bentley, July 5, i/SS), ••//'/(/. p. 446. and will think of d\"ing and of the gout and of twenty dis- agreeable things that one must do, that he takes no pleasure
in
112 THE VYNE
in planting and future views." The following were some of ' MS. iiivcn- Horace Walpole's proposals.'
iionarv, by . . . . .
Waifoie,' pre- " The chapel to have 3 pictures under the windows — viz.
served at the
f->"- the Lord's Supper, Christ in the Garden, and Christ walking on
the Sea. The four Evangelists in the long panels on each side ; a rich purple and silver altar cloth, with handsome old embossed plate ; a brass eagle for a reading desk. The walls above to be painted in a Gothic pattern ; and a closet with a screen in the same pattern.
" Out of doors, a semicircular court with a gate like Caius college : a sheep paddock of 30 acres. Two towers to be added. The new walk to be continued across the meadow to Morguison. Opposite to the house a Roman Theatre with an obelisk, two urns, two Sphynxes, cypresses, and cedars. The old garden to be an open grove, the hither wall of the garden to be pulled down and the garden to be hid. A spire upon the barn, cypresses about the summer-house, and the house. Two lanes of flowering shrubs without the garden. The water to be done what one can do with it."
= Waipoics In a letter- to Montagu, August 25, 1757, he complains of
Letters, ed. . . . . . ,
Cunningham, his friend s hesitation in carrying out his suggestions, and says,
vol. iii. p. 100,
" When he could refrain from making the Gothic columbarium for his family which I propose, and Mr, Bentley had drawn so divinely, it is not probable he should do anything else."
John Chute, however, made considerable alterations in the
house, and in particular added the staircase (Plate IX.) and the
recumbent monument of Chaloner Chute the Speaker (Plate VI.,
p. 67).
^md.p.17. Walpole wrote' to John Chute, June 8, 1756 (alluding to
Byng's
CHAP. V. JOHN CHUTE, GRAY, WALPOLE 113
Byng's failure at Minorca) : " Pray have a thousand masses said in \-our divine chapel,;? l' intention of \-our poor countr}-. I belie\'e the occasion will disturb the founder of it, and make him shudder in his shroud for the ignominy of his countrymen."
In 1757 Chute was High Sheriff of Hampshire ; and in\ited Walpolc in the summer to visit him at the Vyne. He excused himself, however, on the ground that the Strawberry Hill Printing Press, which he calls " Officina Arbuteana," was about to begin work with the printing of two of Gray's odes, the " Progress of Poesy" and the "Bard." He wrote,' July I2, 1757: — • Waipuies
Letter i. ed.
"It would be very easy to persuade me to a Vine voyage if Cunningham,
vol. iii. p. 89.
it were possible. I shall represent mj- impediments, and then you shall judge. I say nothing of the heat of this magnificent weather ; with the glass j'esterday up to three quarters of sultry . . . But hear : my Lady Ailesbury and Miss Rich came hither on Thursday for two or three days, and on Monday next the Officina Arbuteana opens in form. The Stationers Company are summoned to meet here on Sunday night — and with what do you think we open? ' Cedite Koniani iiiiprcssores' : — with nothing under Graii Cannina. I found him. Gray, in town last week ; he had brought his two odes to be printed. I snatched them out of Dodsley's hands, and they are to be the first fruits of my press. . . . Now, my dear sir, can I stir?
' Not ev'n thy virtues, tyrant, can avail ! '
. . . Seriously, you must come to us and shall be -witness that the first holidays we have, I will return with you."
In 1759, Mrs. Grenville, wife of the Hon. Henry Grenville,
Q wished
114 THE VYNE
CHAP. V.
wished to take John Chute's house in London, and Walpole 1 Waipoie's undertook to negotiate with her. He wrote,' however, February
Letters, ed.
Cunningham, j lycg "I ilon't quite like this commission : If you part with
vol. iii. p. 204. ' -^ '
your house in town you will never come hither : at least stow your cellars with drams and gunpowder as full as Guy Fawkes. You will be drowned if you don't blow yourself up. I don't believe that the Vine is within the verge of the rainbow — seriously, it is too damp for you." ^ MS. at the A few days later, February 6, Walpole wrote ^ from
Vy7ie, never
before printed. Arlington Street : —
" Mrs. H. Grenville is a foolish gentlewoman and don't know her own mind. Before it was possible for me to receive your answer she fixed herself in Clifford Street. I find, instead of a physician, it would have been a shorter way to send you a housekeeper, as all La Cour's prescriptions are at last addressed to the confectioner, not to the apothecary.
" I don't approve your changing your arms for those of Chelsea College ; nor do I understand what the chief means, I mean the bearing in it. The crest I honour ; it was anciently a coat. The late Lord Hervey said his arms should be a cat scratchant, with this motto : ' For my friends where they itch ; for my enemies where they are sore.' "
In 1762, Gray was persuaded to stand for the Professorship 5 MS. at the of Modem History at Cambridge, and he wrote ^ to John Chute
Vyne, nc'er
before printed, as follows in the autumn of that year : — -
"My dear Sir, — I was yesterday told that Turner (the Pro- fessor of Modern History here) was dead in London. If it be
true
cHAP.v. JOHN CHUTE, GRAY, WALPOLE 115
true, I conclude it is now too late to begin asking for it ; but we had ( if you remember ) some conversation on that head at Twickenham ; and as you have probably found some opportunity to mention it to Mr. W. since, I would gladly know his thoughts about it — what he can do, he only can tell us ; what he will do, if he can, is with me no question — if he could find a proper channel ; I certainly might ask it with as much or more pro- priety than anyone in this place. If anything were done, it should be as private as possible ; for if the people who have any sway here could prevent it, I think they would most zealously.
" I am not sorry for writing you a little interested letter : perhaps it is a stratagem, the only one I have left, to provoke an answer from you, and revive our — correspondence, shall I call it 1 There are many particulars relating to you that have long interested me more than twenty matters of this sort, but you have had no regard for my curiosity : and yet it is something that deserves a better name ! I don't so much as know your direction, or that of Mr. Whithed. Adieu.
" I am ever yours,
" T. Gray."
Though this attempt was not successful. Gray was appointed to the professorship six years later.
The following letters of Horace Walpole exhibit him as an advocate, and John Chute as an example, of total abstinence. The first he wrote' to Mann, October 21, 1764, from Strawberr_\- ^ jionu-e
IV.il/'ok's
Hill : " I am writing to j'ou by Mr. Chute's bed-side, who is laid uth-n. ed.
Cunningham.
up here with the gout. It is not one of his bad fits, which his vol. iv. p. 281
vol. V. p. 159,
perseverance
ii6 THE VYNE
CHAP. V.
perseverance in water does not suffer to come as often as they wish. He desires me to say a thousand kind things to you. As my gout cannot boast so ancient a descent, I easily keep it in order by the same abstinence. If wc had minded good advice from professors of gout, or bad advice from physicians, I do not doubt but he would be in his grave and I half a cripple ; but we defy wine and all its works. I believe in it no more than in physic." The second is to Montagu, dated Arlington Street, April 15, 1769: "For your other complaints I revert to my old sermon, temperance. If you will live in a hermitage, methinks it is no great addition to live like a hermit. Look in Sadelers prints : they had beards down to their girdles ; and with all their impatience to be in heaven, their roots and water kept them for a century from their wishes. I ha\'e lived all