yt' I With Best Wishes lor Christmas and for The New Year /<^< THE VYNE '^^'^^A^^^^^sssiS^j^gsi^^^-J^^j, »■ y s # I t 'I < t J .■^.-i^irT ■■^ j^ Q.' ':^. P^ A HISTORY 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 Unpublished letters from the poet Gray and Horace Walpole to John Chute of the Vyne, 1741-62 — Fashions of men's dress in London — Ranelagh Gardens — Francis Whithed and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 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 /'■'■ 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 -//»//,/. 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 -'//-/"- 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 my life like an anchoret in London, and within ten milts; shed my skin after the gout, and am as lively as an eel in a week after. ■ " Mr. Chute, who has drunk no more wine than a fish, grows better every year. He has escaped this winter with only a little pain in one hand. Consider that the physicians recommend wine, and then can you doubt of its being poison .'' " In October 1766, Horace Walpole was at Bath ill, and John Chute went to keep him company. " Mr. Chute " ( he wrote, 1 Horace October 5, to Montagu ' ) " stays with me till Tuesday ; when he [ I 'alpolc s Letters, ed. jg gone I do not know what I shall do, for I cannot play at Cunningham, vol, V. p. 14. cribbage by myself ; and the alternative is to see my Lady Vane open the ball and glimmer at fifty-four." -' //w. p. 326. Gray died July 30, 1771 ; and Walpole wrote- to Chute August 12, 177 1 : "I have, I own, been much shocked at reading Gray's cHAP.v. JOHN CHUTE, GRAY, W ALP OLE 117 Gray's death in the papers. Tis an hour that makes one forget any subject of complaint, especially tovvards one with whom I lived in friendship from thirteen years old. As self lies so rooted in self, no doubt the nearness of our ages made the stroke recoil to my own breast ; yet to you, who of all men living are the most forgiving, I need not excuse the concern I feel. I fear most men ought to apologise for their want of feeling, instead of palliating the sensation when they have it. I thought that what I had seen of the world had hardened my heart, but I find that it had formed my language, not extinguished my tenderness. In short I am really shocked, nay I am hurt at my own weak- ness, as I perceive that when I love anybody it is for m\- life, and I have too much reason to wish that such a disposition may very seldom be put to the trial. You at least are the only per- son to whom I would venture to make such a confession." John Chute, who never married, died May 26, 1776, at the Vyne, and was buried in the parish church of Sherborne .St. John. How keenly Horace Walpole felt his loss, the following touching letter, which he wrote to Mann,' May 27, 1776, will 1 //»;•«,,■ Walpole s show. Letters, eel. Cunningham, " It is " ( he says ) " a heavy blow, but such strokes reconcile vol. vi. p. 340. one to parting with this pretty vision, life ; what is it, when one has no longer those to whom one speaks as confidentially as to one's own soul ? Old friends are the great blessing of one's latter years : half a word conveys one's meaning. They have memory of the same events, and have the same mode of thinking. "Mr. Chute and I agreed in\"ariably in our principles; he was ii8 THE VYNE CHAP. V. was my counsel in my affairs, was my oracle in taste, the standard to whom I submitted my trifles, and the genius that presided over poor Strawberry. His sense decided me in everything; his wit and quickness illuminated everything. I saw him oftener than any man ; to him in any difficulty I had recourse ; and him I loved to have here, as our friendship was so entire, and we knew one another so entirely, that he alone was never the least constraint to me. We passed many hours together without saying a syllable to each other, for we were both above ceremony. I left him without excusing myself, read or wrote before him, as if he were not present. Alas ! alas ! and how self presides even in our grief. I am lamenting myself, not him ! No, I am lamenting my other self Half is gone, the other remains solitary. Age and sense will make me bear my afflictions with submission and composure ; — but for ever — that little for ever that remains, I shall miss him. My first thought will always be, ' I will go talk to Mr. Chute on this ; ' the second, ' Alas ! I cannot ; ' and therefore judge how my life is poisoned ! I shall only seem to be staying behind one who is set out a little before me." He then describes his friend's last hours, and continues : " A charming death for him, dearest friend 1 and why should I lament ? His eyes, alwa\-s shortsighted, were grown dimmer ; his hearing was grown im- perfect, his hands were all chalk stones and of little use, his feet very lame. Yet how not lament ? The vigour of his mind was as strong as ever ; his power of reasoning clear as demonstra- tion ; his rapid wit astonishing as at forty, about which time )-ou and I knew him first. Even the impetuosity of his temper was cHAP.v. JOHN CHUTE, GRAY, WALPOLE 119 was not abated, and all his humane virtues had but increased with his age : he was grown sick of the world ; saw very very few persons ; submitted with unparalleled patience to all his suf- ferings ; and in five and thirty years, I never once saw or heard him complain of them, nor, passionate as he was, knew him fretful. His impatience seemed to proceed from his vast sense, not from his temper : he saw everything so clearly and immedi- ately that he could not bear a momentary contradiction from folly or defective reasoning. Sudden contempt broke out, par- ticularly on politics, which, having been fixed in him by a most sensible father and nurtured by deep reflection, were rooted in his inmost soul. His truth, integrity, honour, spirit, and abhor- rence of all deceit confirmed his contempt ; and even I, who am pretty warm and steady, was often forced to break off politics with him, so impossible was it to be zealous enough to content him when I most agreed with him. Nay, if I disputed with him, I learnt something from him, and always saw truth in a stronger and more summary light. " His possession of the quintessence of argument reduced it at once into axioms, and the clearness of his ideas struck out flashes of the brightest wit. He saw so suddenly and so far, that, as Mr. Bentley said of him long ago, his wit strikes the more you analyse it, and more than at first hearing ; he jumps over two or three intermediate ideas, and couples the first with the third or fourth. Don't wonder I pour out my heart to you : you know how faithful!)- true is all I say of him. My loss is most irreparable. To me he was the most faithful and secure of friends and a most delightful companion." John I20 THE VYNE CHAP. V. John Chute was the last surviving child of Edward Chute of the Vyne, and with him the male line of the famil}- came to an end. It will be remembered that Edward Chute had a younger 1 Ante. p. 79. brother, Thomas,' to whom great kindness was shown by his relative the Lord Keeper North, and who married Elizabeth, heiress of Nicholas Rivett, of Brandeston, Suffolk. His children all died without issue excepting Elizabeth, who married Thomas Lobb of Pickenham, Norfolk ; and to her son Thomas, who was born September 19, 1 721, and took the name of Chute in addition to that of Lobb, John Chute, his cousin, bequeathed the Vyne estate by will dated November 4, 1774. Thomas Lobb Chute married Ann Rachael, only daughter of William Wiggett, Mayor of Norwich, May i, 1753, and owned the V)'ne from 1776 until 1790, when he died, and was buried at Pickenham. There are portraits at the Vyne of Anthony, Francis, and John Chute, and of Ann and Mary their sisters ; also of Thomas Chute and Elizabeth his wife, and Thomas Lcnnard and Elizabeth, their children ; also of Thomas Lobb, and his son Thomas Lobb Chute. Chap. CHAP. VI '^~ IV^ Chtte \y^ iJie \me Hounds. WILLIAM JOHN, eldest son of Thomas Lobb Chute, and Ann Rachael his wife, was born May 24, 1757. Having been educated at Harrow and Clare Hall, Cambridge, he suc- ceeded in 1790 to the Vyne, and in the same year entered Parliament as member for Hampshire, and began to keep that pack of foxhounds which he supported at his own expense until his death in 1824. In his time they were commonly called Mr. Chute's hounds, though the letters V.H., together with a vine leaf and tendril engraved upon his hunt button, as shown in the design at the head of this chapter, show that the name of the Vine Hunt was already in use. The kennels, now pulled down, were approached through the picturesque kitchen or Chapel court (Plate X.). Over the kennel door was the m.otto Multuin in parvo, in allusion to the R character 122 THE VYNE CHAP. VI. character of the hounds, which were small though strong, as Homer says, "TuJeuc,- roi /iiKiJUi; /jei' trjr Cifia(_, aWa /.iii^iitih, ' and in further allusion to the establishment generally, which was unpretentious but effective. The country which he hunted extended from the chalk downs near Winchester to the south, as far as the river Kennet on the north, and all of this country, includijig Silchester, Aldermaston, and Sulhamstead, still belongs to the Vine Hunt. The stables still exist in which the hunters, neither so numerous nor so fast as a modern establishment would require, were kept. During the summer months they were turned out day and night in the pasture between the house and the water. A picture of "New Forest Jasper," a fine hound belonging to Lord Egremont, and one of the sires of the pack, used to hang in the hounds' lodging room, and is still at the Vyne. William '^Recollections Chute used to Say ' that, "as great families have the portrait of of the V'itte Hunt, by tile their distinguished ancestor, the judge or the general or the Rev. James Edward statesman, in their rooms, he did not see why the dogs should Austen Leigh, ^ •j ^^%ublishcd] "°* )^3M& their family picture also." At the back of this picture P' ^'^' are the lines written by himself, •' Hie bene apud viemores veteris stat gloria gcntis, Hinc piles qiiani solito robore vulpes eget." Which may be turned thus : — " Here see the glory of an ancient breed, Which urges foxes to their utmost speed." Ibid. p. 51. " The hounds - usually hunted five times in a fortnight, and were CHAP. VI. WAL CHUTE & VINE HOUNDS 123 were never advertised ; even those who hunted with them could not always learn the next day's meet till late in the afternoon. It depended upon the work done and the number of hounds cut by flints, whether they would hunt twice or three times in the week, and whether on the hills or in the vale." " Half-crowns ' were collected for the men whenever a fox i Recollections of the Vine was killed after a fair run. The men wore round hats and long Hunt, p. 52. scarlet coats, which would lap over and defend their knees against wet or cold. The huntsman carried a small twisted bugle" (as represented in the design at the head of this chapter) "slung over his shoulder by a strap ; a more melodious instru- ment, but less convenient than the straight horn usually carried at the saddle bow." Among those who hunted most regularly with the pack were Thomas Chute, William Chute's brother ; Colonel Beach, father of William Beach, of Oakley Hall, the present master of the Vine hounds ; the brothers William and John Portal of Laver- stoke and Freefolk, Thomas Luttley Sclater ot Hoddington, Sir Richard Rycroft from Manydown, Lovelace Bigg Wither of Tangier, Stephen Terry, Henry Pole of Wolverton, Edward St. John from Ashe Park, and William Wickham of Bullington. The first Duke of Wellington, after he purchased Stratfieldsaye in 18 17, became an active member of the hunt. The following letter from him to William Chute ^ will be of interest. ■' Presen-cd at tlie Vyne. "Stratfieldsaye: March 23, 1S20. " My dear Sir, — I went out this morning to meet your hounds, having ordered my horses to darken Green, as I had settled with 124 THE VYNE . CHAP. VI with your huntsman. I went on as far as Dean, but could not find my groom, and I then returned to darken Green, thinking it probable that he had gone to the covert side. From darken Green I went to Ebbworth, and not finding or hearing anything of you or my horses, I have returned home. I regret this ex- ceedingly, particularly as I feel you will have waited for me. I shall be much obliged if you will let me know on what days and at what places you will go out next week. " Ever yours most faithfully, " Wellington." A picture of a meet of the Vine hounds, in which the Duke of Wellington appears as a principal figure, was painted in 1843, when Mr. Fellowes was master. Of William Chute himself, his friend Mr. Austen Leigh, late i Recoiled ions Vicar of Bray, gives' an animated description, which brings of the Vine . . , ,, , . -. , . Hiiiti. p. 70. him before our e)'es as m a picture. " I wish, he writes, 1 could make others see him as I can fancy that I see him myself, trotting up to the meet at Freefolk Wood or St. John's, sitting rather loose on his horse, and his clothes rather loose upon him, the scarlet coat flapping open, a little whitened at the collar by the contact of his hair powder and the friction of his pigtail ; tne frill of his shirt above, and his gold watch-chain and seal below, both rather prominent ; the short knee-breeches scarcely meeting the boot tops. See ! he rides up, probably with some original amusing remark, at any rate with a cheerful greeting to his friends, a nod and a kindly word to the farmer, and some laughing notice of the schoolboy on his pony CHAP. VI. WM. CHUTE & VINE HOUNDS 125 pony. Or I could give quite a different picture of him in iiis parish church, standing upright, tilting his heavy folio Prayer- book on the edge of his high pew, so that he had to look up rather than down on it. There he stands, like Sir Roger de Coverley, giving out the responses in an audible voice, with an occasional glance to see what tenants were at church and what schoolboys are misbehaving ; and, I am sorry to add, sometimes, when the rustic psalmody began its discord in the gallery, with a humour, which even church could not restrain, making some significant gesture to provoke a smile from me and other young persons in the pew. " He was' exceedingly temperate in his habits ; few men, who ' Recollections of the I'ine take such strong exercise, eat or drink so sparingly as he did. Hunt, p. 7:;. A few slices of thin bread and butter, and sometimes a small sausage roll, with a cup of green tea, was the breakfast on which he usually set forth on his long day's work, but the little which he took must be of the very best quality. He had more than a woman's delicacy of taste, and was even fanciful in his eating and drinking. He would send away his plate in disgust, if he was told that the rabbit he was eating was a home-bred and not a wild one. He disliked the idea of bread and butter spread by a man ; the rule at the Vyne was that this operation should be performed by one of the maid servants. His few glasses of wine must be ot the best old port; for claret he had a great contempt, and I have heard him declare that his butler old Bush could make as good stuff as that out of the washings of his port wine glasses. " Some of his most characteristic oddities ^ came out In his -' ibi^t p 76. manner 126 THE VYNE CHAP. VI. manner of quizzing his old bailiff Coxe, who managed the home farm ; he took an actual pleasure in this man's failures, and was most especially delighted whenever the hay intended for farm purposes was injured, after he had secured all that he required for his hunters in good condition. I once expressed to him " (continues Mr. Austen Leigh in his " Recollections ") " my con- cern at having seen his hay out in the rain. ' My hay ! ' said he ; 'what do you mean? I've no hay out; I got all mine up famously last week.' I mentioned to him the name of the field in which I had observed it. ' Oh pooh ! ' said he, ' that was not my hay, that was Coxe's. Silly fellow, it serves him right, and I am glad of it ; he might have got it all up a week ago if he had had any sense.' ' ' 1 Recollections " Sir John Cope of Bramshill,' who professed Radical politics, of the Vine Hunt. p. 74. once wrote to him that he had a litter of five dogs in that year's entry, whose names all had pretty much the same meaning, for they were Placeman, Parson, Pensioner, Pilferer, and Plunderer ; but the Tory Squire with ready invention retorted that he could show him a litter of which the five names were equally synony- mous ; being Radical, Rebel, Regicide, Ruffian, and Rascal. - Ibid. p. 75. " In a long run from St. John's to Chawton Park'^ he got into trouble at the fence out of Bradley Wood. He slipped as he was leading his horse, and the animal trod heavily on his thigh. Those who were near were in great alarm, but he got up with no other injury than a bruise. Mr. John Portal expressed his delight that it was no worse, saying, ' I thought we were going to lose our member.' 'Did you?' he replied, rubbing the injured part. 'Well, I can tell you I thought I was going to lose mine.'" He CHAP. VI. JVM. CHUTE & VINE HOUNDS 127 He was first elected member for the county of Hants together with Sir WilHam Heathcote of Hursley, in 1790, as a supporter of the younger Pitt. Lord John Russell and Mr. Clarke Jervoise of Idsworth were their opponents. On Pitt's death, January 23, 1806, Fox formed the Coalition Ministry which was nicknamed " All the Talents ; " and when he died, September 7 in the same year, there was a dissolution, and William Chute lost his seat. The following extract from Lord Palmerston's journal ' ' Life of Lord Palmcrston, gives some curious incidents relating to this election : " With ''>' ''-'"■"' ^ '=' Dating, vol. i. regard to the county of Hants, the old members were Sir Wil- p- 5^- liam Heathcote and Mr. Chute, both for many years attached to the policy of Pitt ; neither, however, had at any time taken a violent part in public affairs. Sir William Heathcote, a quiet country gentleman, lived like a recluse at Hursley ; and Chute, an hospitable squire, preferred entertaining his friends at the Vine to mixing with much zeal in Parliamentary disputes. The latter, however, had in the course of last session voted three times in opposition to ministers, on the American Inter- course Bill, on the repeal of the Defences Bill, and on Wind- ham's Plans" (the first involving the privileges of English ships, and the two latter the reform of the army). "This was an offence not easily to be forgiven, and it was determined to turn him out. Accordingly, in the month of September, Lord Temple rode to Hursley and said to Sir W. Heathcote that, Mr. Chute having gone into systematic opposition to ministers, it could not be expected that they should give him their assistance ; but that, as Sir William had not attended last session, if he would declare himself favourably disposed towards 128 THE VYNE chap. vi. towards Government, they would vote for him ; but that, if he and his friends intended to make common cause with Mr. Chute, Government must set up two candidates instead of one. This communication Lord Temple gave to understand came from Lord Grenville. Had Sir W. Heathcote acted with becoming spirit, he would have immediately taken down what Lord Temple had said, desired him to read it, and then ordered the servant to show him the door. However, he answered that with regard to himself he would never pledge himself to support any adminis- tration, not even that of Pitt, were he alive; and as to his friends he must consult them before he could give any answer with regard to them. He then, when Lord Temple had gone, wrote down the substance of what had passed, and laid it before the County Club. The indignation excited by this attempt to dictate to the county members was universal, and it was immediately determined to support the sitting members, and in them the freedom and independence of the county. Two candidates, however, were now set up by ministers : one being Mr. Herbert, a j'oung man, third son of Lord Carnarvon, and in no way connected with the county." (Mr. Thomas Thistlethwayte, of Southwick Park, was the other.) "Hereupon Sir W. Heathcote, alarmed at the trouble and expense of a contest, declined standing, upon pretence that his age and infirmities would not allow him to attend Parliament any longer ; and though Sir H. St. John Mildmay, after hesitating ten days, was prevailed upon to stand in conjunction with Chute, the delay caused by these arrangements gave the ministerial candidates a fortnight's start in their canvass, and this, and the great mass of voters in Portsmouth CHAR VI. JFAf. CHUTE & VINE HOUNDS 129 Portsmouth at the command of the Government, decided the fate of the contest." The following squib was issued at this election, and it so happens that all the allusions in it are explained by the extract from Lord Palmerston's diary above quoted. "Occurrences in Hampshire. A Fable. " In Hampshire once, some years ago. Upon a pleasant Heath., Close by a Pit a Cot arose ; A vine grew underneath. A stately Temple that stood near Envied their happy fate, And from the cot with art essayed To separate its mate. The cot, alas ! was doomed to fall, The vine had taken root ; Full sixteen years it flourished fair And bore the best of fruit. An apple tree * then quick sprung up, A thistle rose to boot ; Their utmost strength united tried To pluck it by the root. And fruitless their attempts shall prove, And all their efforts vain, For if we but a Alild May have. Our vine shall thrive again." * A little Herbert, a tiind of apple tree -ivell known in Gloiicestenliire. S Though i;o THE VYNE CHAP. VI. ' Recollections of the Vine Hunt, p. 72. Though defeated on this occa.sion, William Chute was elected again si.x months later in 1807, when a dissolution took place on the formation of the Portland Ministry, and he supported this and the succeeding ministries of Mr. Perceval (with whom he had been intimate at Harrow) and Lord Liverpool until the death of George III. in 1820, when he retired from Parliament. He married, in 1793, Elizabeth, daughter of Joshua Smith, of Stoke Park, Wilts, member for Devizes ; " a lady ' of rare excellence, whose good deeds were countless, though the only one displayed to the world was the spire which she added to the parish church of Sherborne St. John." " Lord Incidental notices - of him and his brother Thomas may be Brabourne. Letters of Jane found in the earlier letters of ]\Iiss Austen, the novelist, who Austen, 188.1 . lived in the neighbourhood, at Steventon Rectory. William Chute died without issue December 13, 1824, and was buried in the Church of Sherborne St. John. He left the Vyne estate to his brother, Thomas Vere Chute, who was born ]\Iarch 2, 1772, and, dying unmarried, January- 22, 1827, was buried at Pickenham, Norfolk. William and Thomas Chute had but one brother and three sisters who survived infancy, Chaloner, Elizabeth, Mary, and Ann Rachael : of these Chaloner had died unmarried in 1790; Elizabeth, who lived at the Manor House, Church Oakley, had died in 1805, unmarried ; and Mar\', who married Mr. Wither Bramston of Hall Place (now Oakley Hall) had also died without issue in 1822. Ann Rachael, married to Sir William Hicks, of Witcombe Park, Gloucestershire, was still living ; and to her only child, Ann Rachael, her uncles would have CHAP. VI. JVAf. CHUTE & VINE HO U AW S 131 have probably left the Vyne estate, had she not married Sir Lambert Cromie, an Irish baronet, against their wishes. Both William and Thomas Chute were on terms of great intimacy at college and in later life with James Wiggett, rector of Crudwell in Wiltshire, the first cousin of their mother, Ann Rachael Wiggett, and having no nearer relation to whom they wished to bequeath the Vyne, they determined to leave it to his second son, William Lyde Wiggett, godson of William Chute. This intention was accordingly carried out by Thomas V^ere Chute, in his will, dated July 23, 1826. The Wiggetts were a family long settled at Guist, co. Nor- folk ; their descent has been traced ' from Wigot de St. Denis, a > The Norman People, by companion of the Conqueror, from whom the Bigods, the famous William Palmer: tit. Earls of Norfolk, also traced their name and descent. One ''^y"""., Biilicer. branch of the family assumed the name and arms of ]5uhver, from whom the present Buhvers of Heydon are descended. William Lyde Wiggett was educated at Winchester and at University College, Oxford (where he took his degree with classical honours in 1821), and subsequently studied for the bar at the Middle Temple. On succeeding to the Vyne estate in 1827, he assumed the name and arms of Chute, as directed by Thomas Vere Chute's will. He became Member of Parliament for West Norfolk in 1837, as owner of Pickenham Hall in that county; and resigned his seat in 1847, having in the meantime sold his Norfolk estate. He lived at the Vyne from the death of Elizabeth, widow of William Chute, in 1842, until his own death, July 6, 1879. He married, 1837, Martha, second daughter of Theophilus Buckworth, of Cockley-Cley Hall, Norfolk. William THE VYNE CHAP. VI. William Wiggett Chute enriched the Vyne with pictures, statuary, and furniture, and added several bedrooms, the sleep- ing accommodation, which was anciently provided by beds in ' p. 50. (inic. the present reception rooms,' being no longer in proportion to the size of the house. He greatly improved the estate, the woodland part of which had been previously divided by deep oak or hazel rows into numerous small enclosures, while the upper or field lands were also held in small plots of about an acre apiece, divided by grassy banks or balks, and occupied on a curious half-yearly tenure, the whole of the fields being open to all the various occupiers in common immediately after the crops were gathered in. There are some old maps in the house dated 18 16-1", which show this intricate subdivision of the land. The improvements which he effected are told in the -'Vol. xiviii., Journals- of the Royal Agricultural Society of England. The farming in Hampshire. roads had been little better than drift ways, impassable bejond the Vyne except by carts and waggons, so that it was a common saying that " the Vyne was the last place upon the earth, and Beaurepaire was beyond it ; " and Horace Walpole humour- ■'P. 109. no. ouslysaid^ that "the \'yne must be approached upon stilts," ante. and that " no post but a dove could come from it." All this was altered for the better, and the Rev. James Edward Austen Leigh, whose hunting reminiscences have been already quoted, and who was intimately acquainted with the Vyne estate, wrote a letter to William Wiggett Chute, August 26, 1874, in which he spoke of his improvements, " the enclosure of the common fields, the construction of roads, which opened up Bramlcy and man}' other parts of the world, the draining and the letting in air CHAP. VI. WM. CHUTE & VINE HOUNDS air and sunshine to the dark places of the earth." " Of all the improvements," he adds, " which I have witnessed in a long life, during which improvement has been general, I know of none to equal those which you have effected." Chaloner William Chute, eldest son of William Wiggett Chute, succeeded him in 1879. He was born August i, 1838, and was educated at Eton and at Balliol College, Oxford ; gained the Ireland University Scholarship in i860; took his degree with first class classical honours in 1861 ; and subse- quently became a fellow of Magdalen College. He was called to the bar at the Middle Temple, June 1865. He married, April 6, 1875, Eleanor, daughter of Wyndham Portal, of Malshanger, Hants. The Portal family are of French extraction, so that this alliance was in happy accordance with the wish expressed by Gray in his letter ' to John Chute dated 1 p. 97, a>,te. July 1745. The family originally^ settled in Languedoc, and '^ See Smiles s Hu^ucuots, during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, many 1867. members of it held the highest office, ( that of Capitoul ), in the cit)' of Toulouse. Their arms are thus described^ in French '- Euitprhent tie la Noblesse heraldr}' : " D Argent, au lion rampant de sable, fr au chef d'azur charge de six etoiles d'or posees 3 et 3." They are frequently mentioned among the most zealous of the Huguenot leaders of their time, and they suffered much for their faith in the seventeenth centurj'. The great-great- grandfather of Wyndham Portal of Malshanger was Jean Francois de Portal, who was one of the victims of the per- secution which followed the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 1685 ^ /-a //raise, 1873-' 134 THE VYNE CHAP. VI. 1 Smiled s Hiigucnols. 1685, and being obliged to fly from France, narrowly escaped with his life. His children were concealed in an oven by a faithful nurse, while the search in their father's house was carried on. After the departure of the soldiers they were conveyed to the sea coast, and, hidden in empty wine casks, were placed on board a fishing vessel, in which they reached the hospitable shores of England.' One of them, Henri, esta- blished himself in Hampshire, and from him are descended the Portal family in that county. This concludes the varied story of the successive owners of the Vyne. The next chapter will contain a description of the house in its present state, and of the many memorials of past ares which are treasured within its walls. o There are portraits at the Vyne of the brothers William and Thomas Vere Chute ; also of William Lyde Wiggctt Chute and his wife Martha, with their son Chaloner. Chap. CHAP."VII "Defer iMicn aftlie Houfe HE words used by Professor Freeman ' of the ancient ' EngUih Towns and house of Cowdray in Sussex — built about 1520 — Districts, pp. 367, 369. may justly be applied to the Vyne, which is of the same or of a somewhat earlier date. (The interior of the room -^ occupied by Queen Anne Boleyn is shown in -P. 161./M/. Plate XL) " It belonged," he says, "to that happy moment of our national art when purely domestic architecture was at its height, and the notion of the great house, as something distinct from the castle, had been brought to perfection. The architec- ture was still purely English : it did not yet Italianise. Both the actual style and the arrangements of the building are exactly at the point which is best suited for domestic work. There are no breaks, no projections, no odd little bits put in — not because they serve any practical end, but because the architect was throughout haunted by the notion, ' I must make something picturesque.' The whole house and every part of it is meant to 136 THE VYNE chap. vn. to serve its own purpose. Each part does serve its own purpose, and the reward of building rationally and straightforwardly is the creation of a magnificent and harmonious whole." The building of the Vyne was begun by William first Lord Sandys, in the later years of Henry VII., and completed early in the reign of Henry VHI. The carved wainscoting of the gallery was probably finished between 15 15, when Wolsey was made Cardinal, and 1523, when Katharine of Arragon was divorced, for the panels include the arms of the one as Cardinal and of the other as Queen. The house (Plate V. p. 29) is of red brick, with the well- known Tudor diaper of a darker colour. The string-courses, coigns, dressings, and battlements are of stone. The windows were originally mullioned, and several still exist in that state, the remainder having been altered to sashes in the seventeenth century. Some of the walls are of remarkable solidity, the central wall, dividing the rooms on the north from those on the south, being six feet in thickness. The dimensions of the house are 220 feet in length hy 50 feet in breadth, with a wing at each end extending southwards. As originally built by Lord Sandys, it was considerably larger 1 Ldaiid. than at present, and had a " fair base court," ' or Basse Court, Itin. \\\ i-t. i. foi. 10, II. forming a north quadrangle extending as far as the water 250 feet distant. This was pulled down in 1654. - P. 50, .7«A-. The Inventory^ of 1541 mentions among the rooms in the " Base Court," two " Yeomans Chambers," each containing twelve beds, a " Schoolmasters chamber," an " Armoury," and a " Chamber at the bridge foot." At cHAf. VH. DESCRIPTION OF THE HOUSE 137 At Mottisfont Abbey, Hants, the home to which the Sand>-s family retired after selling the Vyne, is a picture supposed to represent Colonel Henry Sandys' (who died 1644), which shows ' Sce-p. 65 line. in the background the Vyne as it existed in his time, with buildings running from the chapel towards the water. Tiie accompanying sketch is taken from this old picture. The appearance of the house was much altered in 1654 b)' Chaloner Chute the Speaker, who removed the Base Court, built the Grecian Portico, and substituted sashes,^ (which were not - Topographer (1780). vol. i. generally introduced into England from Holland before i688j, P- 58. for the mullions of the windows. He employed as his architect John Webb,' a pupil and nephew-in-law of Inigo Jones. The ^ H'aifuies Anecdotes of agreement with the builder for these works, dated March 4, 1654, P>rint'>ig, vol. iii. p. 93. has been preserved, and includes the following items : — T " For 138 THE VYNE CHAP. VII " For taking down the old windows and setting up the new, cut into square heads, ^ o ids. od. each. " For material, workmanship, and setting of the pillar capitals of the portico in Burford stone, ^13 o^. od. each. " For the pillar bases in Portland stone, £ 5 os. od. each. " For the Pilaster bases, ^ 4 os. od. each. " For the Frontispiece over the Portico, with Chaloner Chute's arms, ^ 3 os. od." C The stack pipes marked jr j,^ (for Edward and Katharine Chute), and an ornamental lead cistern marked E. K. now standing near the front entrance, bear the date i6g6. Among the outbuildings, the Brevvhousc and Stables are interesting examples of ancient brickwork. The kitchen court (Plate X., p. 121) is especially picturesque. The Summer- house (Plate VIII., p. 85) in the garden, excellent alike in pro- portion and colour, was designed by John Webb for Chaloner Chute the Speaker. It has now for a long time been used as a pigeon house. The piece of water on the north-west — formerly divided into four successive fish ponds, which were perhaps originally the vivaria of the Roman villa — is fed by a stream which flows into ' Popes "The Loddon slow with verdant alders crowned." ' Windsor ast c, . 342. -j-j^gj-g yyas a bowling green with a formal garden and yew hedges on the opposite side of the water in the last century, as is shown in a small picture, preserved in the house, of a little dog, "Chalons," which belonged to Anthony Chute in 1748. The main entrance is on the south, and is guarded by two ^ See-p. I, ante, cagles, presented by Horace Walpole about 1745.- The CHAP. VII. DESCRIPTION OF THE HOUSE 139 The beautiful classic STAIRCASE, with its Corinthian columns (Plate IX., p. 112), was erected about 1765. Horace Walpole speaks of it in his "Anecdotes of Painting"' (1770) as "the ' Vol. iv. p. 151. theatric staircase designed and just erected by John Chute ; " and in a manuscript description- of the house (1793) he speaks of '^ MSpn-sei- Miiratori, vol. iii. p. mdc.x.xiv. bbckh, \ol. i P- 979- ^ Mommsen, vol. vi. pt. ii. P- 1597- Sacred to the gods below : To Herennia Nike : she Hved three years, eight months, sixteen days. Anicetus, her father, erected this. I, Nike, father's darling child, here lie ; While the fourth year of tender age went by, I left my weeping parents, snatched by the gods on high. 2. " Diis M.\NiBus : Septimi.e I. F. Severn Septimius Severus MATRI SANCTISSIM.E ET COMMODO CONJUGI EJUS FECIT SIBI LIB. LIBER- TABUS POSTERISQUE OMNIBUS. In FRONT. P. IIIS. In AGR. P. HIS." ' Septimius Severus erected this for Septimia Severa, daughter of Julia, his most pious mother, and for Commodus her husband, and for himself and his freedmen and freedwomen and descendants. The dimensions are, i\ feet along the road, and 35 feet into the field. These Roman monumental inscriptions frequently mentioned the extent of the family burial ground. Thus Horace writes satirically of the public burial ground on the Esquiline Mount — " Mille pedes in fronte, trecentos cippus in agrum Hie dabat."— Sat. i. 8, 12. 3. "K. (i.e. KuraxOio'wu.) EHPTAAOS EZI12EN E I'll K.B. KAI IIMEPAN II MIITIIP TON TOIION ElIOIIIi:EN." ^ To the Gods below. Beryllus lived twelve years and a day. His mother put up the tomb. 4. "9. K. (Benlc K-aTaxdoyinic), AIAIfl i^IONY^m GEiiN 2YNTP0- 02 EnErPA'I'E."^ To ^lius Dionysius Theon, his comrade, inscribed this. 5. "D. M. QuiNTUs AuRELius Proculus fecit sibi et suis POSTERISQUE EORUM ET VALERIA COGNIT^ UXORI PIENTISSIM^ LIBERTIS LIBERTABUSQUE EORUM. Ne DE NOMINE EXEAT." ■• Quintus Aurelius Proculus erected this for himself and his family and their posterity, and for Valeria Cognita his wife, and their freed- men and freedwomen. The land is not to go away from the name. The CHAP. VII. DESCRIPTION OF THE HOUSE 143 The final words mean that the gentile name was, if neces- sary, to be taken by the liberti and libertce, who would thus become liable to the sacra gcntilicia. 6. " D M S. AURELIUS ^PAFRODITUS AURELIO FELICISSIMO FILIO DULCXSSIMO QUI VIXIT ANNIS XXIII M. VI DIEBUS XI HORIS XII BENE- MERENTI FECIT."' '^ Mommmii , vol. vi. pi. ii. Aurelius Epaphroditus to his son Aurelius, who lived twenty-three P- '588. years, six months, eleven days, twelve hours. 7. " P. QUINTIUS L.^TUS FECIT SIBI ET Marci.c Liberali conjugi SU/E BENEMERENTI ET MaRCI.E PrIMIGENI.E LIBER.E ejus." ^ -' Mnnlton. vol iii. P. Quintius LjeIus to himself, and Marcia Liberalis his wife, and v- mcccxcv. Marcia Primigenia her daughter. 8. "Dis Manibus. Hilaritas Maturo a.mico beneiierenti FECIT : LUCIL.'V." 3 ., ,^-a ,.„, ,ii p. nicdl.wiii. Hilaritas to Maturus her friend — Lucila. Here are also several antique marbles and some well- executed busts from Italy, purchased in 1753, viz. : Antinous, Caracalla, Faustina ( the beautiful daughter of Antoninus Pius, married to Marcus Aurelius ), Homer, Jupiter, Lucius AnnjEus Verus ( the shortlived son of Faustina), Nero, and Sylla. This gallery leads to the West Dr.\WIXG Roo.M, hung with crimson and white silken damask, purchased in Italy about 1760. The oval portrait of John Chute by Muntz (a painter often mentioned in Horace Walpole's letters ), and the view of the Vyne by the same artist, were formerly at Strawberry Hill. Two good landscapes by Poussin, and a fox and a pointer by the French painter Oudry, may also be noticed. A marble table 144 THE VYNE CHAP. VII. table, a present from one of the Walpole family, has the Walpole arms inlaid. In the inventory of 1541 this room was called "the chamber within the New Parlour," and contained the following furniture: "A bed with a counterpane of verder,* yellow and grene. A Flanders chaire covered with lether. An old joyned stole. ,A trussing bedd of waynscot with iiij pillars carved." This room opens into a smaller Ante-ROOM, in the centre of which stands a Florentine //tYra ditra casket, brought from Italy about 1760. It is of remarkable beauty, set with a mosaic of agates, amethysts, bloodstones, cornelians, lapis lazuli, and other stones, representing fruits and flowers. Here are also cabinets filled with Bow, Chelsea, Italian Majolica, and Oriental blue china. In 1 541 this room was "the Palet Chamber within the New Parlour," and contained a bed with a counterpane of " outnalle." t Beyond this is the DRAWING RoOM, 30 feet in length, which is also hung with crimson and white damask. The furniture for this room (six sofas and twelve chairs) was made about 1760, and covered with similar damask. The pictures include sacred subjects by Andrea del Sarto, Correggio, and Francia ; "Sunrise" and "Moonlight" by S. Pether ; "Rome" by Claude ; "The Hague" by Vander Heyden ; and portraits of John Chute by Pompeio Battoni, and of Francis ' See pp. 100, Whithed and Margaret Nichol ' by Rosalba. loi, artte. ^_^_ * Representing forest scenery. t Perhaps intended for " wadmaal" a coarse wadded stuff of the period. In CHAP. vir. DESCRIPTION OF THE HOUSE 145 In 1 541 this room was called "The New Parlour." It was hung wuth valuable tapestry, and contained the following furni- ture : — " A riche bedd of greene velvet and saten, garnished with roses and pomegarnettes with this posy ' Help God ; ' A counterpoint of Parke worke * with beastes and fowles ; A matterass of fustian stuffed with wolle ; A bedstede with iiij greate pillers all gilt, with iiij pomelles all gilt ; A cupboard carpet, Turkey making, iij yerdes ; A Flanders cheire covered with lether ; A myddell payr of andyeorns ; A lyvery t cubbord ; A table of fyrre iv yardes." Hence a vestibule opens upon the Grecian Portico already mentioned ' as having been added to the house in 1654. 1 p. 137, ante. In 1541 there was here a room called "The Parlour," hung with " Imagery Tapestry," and furnished with — " A table and a pair of trestles of waynscott ; ij joyned chairs, one with an antelope, another with a harte : iiij joyned stoles ; iij joyned formes ; A skrene of wickers." This vestibule contains busts of the Belvidere Apollo, and of Achilles ; and there are sometimes standing in it two large vases of repousse silver of fine manufacture, bearing the English hall mark of 1650, measuring with their tops 2 feet in * See note, p. 25. t Livery, Fr. livree, denoted whatever zuas dispensed by the lord to his officials, domestics, or guests : here it means an allowance of meat or drink. U height 146 THE VYNE CHAP. VII. height, and weighing, one 169, the other 174 ounces. They are said to have been taken by Lord Anson from a Spanisli galleon in 1740. Beyond this is the DiNiNG RoOM, 38 feet in length, panelled with oak : it was at one time painted blue, and is studded with small gilded bosses, which gave it the name of " The Starred Parlour," In 1541 it was called " The great dyn)-ng chamber," i.'^rep. 51, a.nd contained the following furniture ' : — ante. " ix peces of hangings of Imagery with borders of Anticke and my lordes arms ; iiij wyndowe peces ; V curteyns of Bridges satin ; A large fyne carpet of Turkey making, v x iij yardes ; Another Turkey carpet for a cubbord with a deyse ; A cubbord of boardes with a deyse ; A chayer of black vehit trymed or garnyshed with golde olde ; A great payr of anndyerns of iron ; A large table of ffyrre, with a payr of trestelles v yards long ; V cusshins of redd tynsell lyned with damask of a yerd and iij nailes apece ; ij other cusshins of crymsen velvit and Redd tynsell lyned with damask ; ij cusshyns of Bawdekyn, one Redd, another Grene, lyned with damaske ; A cusshyn of blewe damaske a yard scant ; ij cusshyns of redd and blew damaske square ; iiij cusshynes of Tawny velvit old, of a yard long ; A cusshyn of clothe of gold lyned with redd damaske ; A dozen of cusshennes, very sore worne and old, of Roses and Pomegarnerdes ; A dozen of other cussh)ns of dyvers sortes, sore worne and old." The CHAP. VII. DESCRIPTION OF THE HOUSE 147 The pictures include Dudley, third Lord North, and his father Sir John North,' and Chrysoijona Lady Dacre as a child.- '■ -■'^'''■p- 73. Beyond the dining-room is the ClIAPEL PARLOUR, panelled with wainscot of a rich linen pattern. The Tudor fireplace of Purbeck marble is surmounted by a carved oak mantelpiece vvith the date 1691. There is a curious mirror between the windows, having in the centre a sun with four rays. Li 1541 this room was the " Hall place between the great chamber and the closet" (or oratory), and its onl\' furniture was — • "One piece of hanging of green say," and a " clocke, large, with a chyme." Over the fireplace is a copy of the Aurora, by Guido, in the Rospigliosi Palace, Rome, " Quadrijugis invectus equis Sol aureus exit, Cui septem variis circumstant vestibus HorK." The pictures include — Charles Brandon,^ Duke of Suffolk, brother-in-law of Henry '^Seep. 39, ante. VHL, by Holbein. Winifred, the Nun of Cufaude,'' by La Belle, dated 1707, in ^ .w p. .;8. the dress of a canoness of the order of St. Augustine. She was the daughter of Symeon Cufaude and niece of John Cufaude, who are both named in the pedigree of the Cufaude family, which hangs in the Librar\-. John died in i/Or, aged ninety, ha\ing in 1697 settled' a sum of 50/. a year for four years — a nun's ■' Deed of May 17, 1697. pre- portion — upon "his niece Winifred Cufaude, spinster." served at 1 he Mary, daughter of George Nevill, Lord Abergavenny, m. Thomas Fienes, ninth Baron Dacre,'' by Holbein, or Lucas » .St-c pp. 73-4. ante. de Heere. Beyond 148 THE VYNE CHAP. VII. ante ant, Beyond the Chapel Parlour is the Antechapel. Here, in I 541, was "My lady's Closet," or oratory, " next the Chapel," which contained, according to the inventory of that date — "vj paces of hangings of greate flowers with my Lordes amies in the garter ; ij paces of small hangings of Imagery for the wyndowas in the closet." A carved stone head of Edward III., a relic of the first 15a' p. 19, Chantry Chapel of the V^ne,' and several sacred pictures, in- cluding the " Last Supper," by Ferretti, presented by Horace ifc'p. Ill, Walpole,- are in this antechapel. The two mullioned windows, each of three lights, contain in the upper panes heraldic glass, displaying the following arms and badges, most of which belong to families who have been already mentioned in connection with the Vyne. 1. The Royal Tudor Rose. 2. St. John, quartering seven other coats ( Herbert, Delamere, Roos, Hussey, Walsh, Skelton, Irby), with Paulet of Basing on an escutcheon of pretence. 3. Brocas quartering Roches. 4. Sandys impaling the coats of Foster of Aldermaston, Popham (combined with Clarke), Delamere, and Achard. 5. Power of Worcestershire quartering Washbourne and D'Abbitot of the same county. (This coat is tricked in fac- simile in the Book of Heraldic Visitations of Worcestershire, -" Harkian 1569.^) ^1/5. 1532, foi. 32. 6. De Vere quartering Howard. 7. Bray quartering Bray. 8. CHAP. vii. DESCRIPTION OF THE HOUSE 149 8. Long quartering the arms of France as an augmentation for distinguished ser\-icc in the French wars, in which Sir Henry Long was a comrade of WilHam, first Lord Sandys. The lower part of these windows is filled with fragments of the rich painted glass placed in the Chapel of the Holy Ghost at Basingstoke by the first Lord Sandys, and of the same date, therefore, as the glass in the Vyne Chapel. Peter Heylyn, chaplain of Charles I. and biographer of Laud, mentions this glass,' together with that of Fairford and '■5'-<'p-4o. ^ ' '^ ante. Canterbury, as having survived the Reformation. From this Antechapel doors of open woodwork give access to The Chapel, which has been described in Chapter II. Through the Chapel is the To>n5 Chamber built by John Chute to receive the monument of his ancestor the Speaker, one of the best works of Thomas Banks, R.A., who also executed the recumbent figure of Reginald Brocas in the neighbouring church of Bramley. This monument is inscribed with a notice- of the Speaker, -5c^pp. 67, 76, ante. and the names of his descendants, with their coats of arms, as follows : — East side : The Arms of Chaloner Chute the Speaker, bear- ing those of Ann Skory, his first wife, on an escutcheon of pre- tence, and impaling those of Dorothy Lady Dacre, his second wife; above which are the sword and mace,^ the emblems ^ See headpiece. p. 67. ante, of the Speaker's authority. North side: The Arms of Chaloner, son of the Speaker, im- paling those of Catherine Lennard his wife ; also the Arms of Chaloner, eldest grandson of the Speaker. South I50 THE VYNE CHAP. VII. South side : The Arms of Edward, second grandson of the Speaker, impahng those of Katharine Keck his wife ; on the left of which are those of Anthony and John, sons of Edward ; also the Arms of Thomas Chute, third grandson of the Speaker, with those of his wife EHzabeth Rivett on an escutcheon of pre- tence ; on the right of which are those of Thomas Lobb Chute, grandson of Thomas Chute, with those of his wife Ann Rachacl Wiggett on an escutcheon of pretence. West side: A shield of 25 quarterings, viz. — (i*) Chute; (2*) Say ; (3) Mandeville ; (4) Eudo ; (5*) Chaloner ; (6) Mor- timer ; (7 and 8*) Skory ; (9*) Lanyon ; (10*) De la Launde ; (II) Harford; (12*) Hertford ; (13) Scrope ; (14) Tibetot ; (15) Badlesmere ; (16) FitzBernard ; (17) Aguillon ; (18) Clare ; (19) Gifford; (20) St. Hillary; (21) Fitzroy ; (22) FitzHamond ; (23) FitzGerald ; (24*) Keck ; (25*) Thorne. The nine coats marked * are also on a shield in the Tapestry 1 See p. t6i. Room.' ^"^'^ The windows were painted by John Rowell in 1770; he is 3 Grangers Said '^ to have " rediscovered the art of the beautiful red, so cnn- Bio^raphiial . . ,, ///i/on'.voi. vi. spicuous in our old windows. ^' '■^ " On the west wall hangs a fine woodcut 8 feet 6 inches in length, dated i 508, called " The Triumph of Faith," designed by Titian. It represents our Saviour in a chariot drawn by the four Latin doctors, St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Gre- gory, preceded by the Old Testament saints, the Evangelists, and the Holy Innocents, and followed by the Apostles, Martyrs, and Fathers of the Church with their appropriate symbols, ending with St. Christopher, St. Francis, and St. Benedict. Returnin'T CHAP. VII. DESCRIPTION OF THE HOUSE isi Returning- hence to the GRAND STAIRCASE ; the north-west vestibule on the first floor, ( in which arc pictures by Ghisolfi, Muntz, Ryder, and others ), leads into two bedrooms, which in 1 541 were together with the vestibule one chamber, known as the Oueen'.s Lying Chamber, from its having been occu- pied by Anne Boleyn on the occasion of her visit to the Vync, October 13, 1535.' It was then furnished with — i5<;ep. 46, ante. " V pieces of hanginges of fyne Imagery with borders of anticke ; A celer and tester of clothe of gold and Russett velvet, pirled wiih gold, paned, and a valance of the same fringed with silke and gold, with ij curtaynes of yellow and Russet and yellow saten paned and quylted, containing xv yerdes ; A counterpoynt * of water flowers ; A bedd with a bolster of Downe of ix quarters, marke 16 ; t A materys of fustian stuffed with woll ; A trusse bedsted with iiij gilt pillers and pomelles gilt ; A little cubbord carpet, Turkey making ; A lyvery cubbord with ij almeres ; A fiflanders chayer ; A payr of myddell andeirons ; ij wyndow curtaynes, chaungeable sarcenet lyned with buckeram containing xiiij yerdes." Beyond this are the ToWER CHAMBER, which leads into My Lord's Closet over the Chatel.''' -'5a' p. 24, ante. * There was a diversity of cotoiterpaiies in the house : thus, in the '■*■ Inner Kose Chamber" the coverlet of the bed %vas ' ' of Parke worke, with a fyon and agn'ffyn over the same." In the " Ynner Chamber over the Bullry" was a '^counterpoynt of Imagry." In the " Myddle Base Chamber" was a " counterpoynt of the Birth of our lorde ;" and in the " Ynner Base Chamber" '■' an old counterpoynt of Arras, very sore worne and broken. " f It is significant of careful housekeeping thai all the bolsters and counterpanes wei-e marked with separate numbers. The 152 THE VYNE CHAP. VII. The south-east vestibule of the staircase opens into a room formerly known as the PORTCULLIS CHAMBER, from the well- known Tudor badge, as another in the house was called the " Ro.SE Chamber " after the Tudor rose. The Poitcullis Chamber leads into " The King'.s Chamber," furnished in 1541 with — " V small peces of Imagery ; A celer and tester of grene velvit upon velvit purled, paned with clothe of gold, with a valaunce of the same fringed with silk and gold ; V curtains of sarcenet yelow and grene." Off this chamber a door opens into the Oak Gallery (Plate XII.), which occupies the entire length (82 feet) of the western wing of the house, and was originally, like the cloister walks {tinibulacra) of older buildings, intended as a place for I The "As- exercise. Thus Chaucer, describing a mansion, speaks ' of — scmbly of lat/ies.- iitima « -pi^g galeryes right well ywrought For daunsing and other wyse disport." In 1 541 it was furnished with — " vj curtayns of sarcenet paned redd and grene ; V dornex * carpetes ray ling in the wyndowes ; ij Turkey carpettes ; A Spanishe folding chaire ; ij small tables of waynscot ; Another small table or cubbord of waynscot with a bottom carved ; ij small crepers of Iron." Over the door in the eastern wall are the Royal Arms of England, richly carved, supported by two angels, each of whom * A coarse clot/t originally made at Tournay, called in Flemish " Dornick." bears CHAP, vr ,. DESCRIPTION OF THE HOUSE 15: bears in his hand a circle ; one displaying the arms (the cross ragulee), the other the crest (the winged ibex), of the Sand)-s family.' ^ See hemipic-e to Table of The gallery is panelled throughout with oak wainscoting, Contents, p. v, each panel containing an intricately carved linen scroll, above and below which occurs some ornamental or heraldic de- vice. Of these panels there are upwards of four hundred, and the heraldic devices displayed upon them are those of King Henry VIII. of Queen Katharine of Arragon, of the first Lord Sand3-s of the V\-nc, and of his friends: — (I.) HERALDIC DEVICES OF KING HENRY VIII. AND KATHARINE OK ARRAGON. The Royal Arms of England. The Crown of King Henry the Seventh. The Fleur de lys. The Tudor Rose, being the roses of York and Lancaster united one within the other.'-' X The See headpiece, >. 164, post. ^54 THE VYNE CHAP. VII ' See headpiece, p. 135, ante. = Ibid. 5 See tailpiece, p. 10, ante. ■• See headpiece, p. 135, ante. 5 Oiiil/im, 4t]i ed. p. 382. ^ 5(?e A(?(Z Ipiece, p. 29, ««/£. ^ Si'^ tailpiece, p. 66, rt;//i:. The Portcullis.' The St. George's Cross, for the Order of the Garter. The legend " King Harri." The arms of Katharine of Arragon (b. Dec. 15, 1485, near Toledo ; m. Prince Arthur, son of Henry VII., Nov. 14, 1501 ; m. King Henry VIII., June 7, 1509 ; divorced May 23, 1533 ; died at Kimbolton Jan. 7, 1536) : being i and 4 the arms of Castile and Leon ; 2 and 3 those of Arragon, with a pomegranate in the base point of the escutcheon. The bursting pomegranate,- and the sheaf of arrows,' badges of Katharine of Arragon. The triple-crowned castle of Castile.'' II. THE HERALDIC DEVICES OF WILLIAM, FIRST LORD SANDYS OF THE VYNE, AND HIS FRIENDS. I. The arms of SANDYS: on a field /^'^r/ a cross ragulcd and trunkcd diaiiioiid^ with those of Bray upon an escutcheon of pretence. The crest of Sandys, the winged head of an ibex.*' The badge of Lord Sandys, a demi-rose sur- mounted by rays of the sun.' The mottoes, "Aide Dieti," "Help God," "Good Hope." The cyphers, W. S. (William Sandys) and T. S. (Thomas Sandys). :hap.vii. description of the house 155 2. The shield of Bray ( as in the escutcheon of pretence on No. I ) ; and the "Bray" or " Hempbreaker,"' for SIR REGINALD ■ Seehcadpkcc, p. 29. ante. Bray, Knight of the Garter, and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster under Henry VII., d. 1503. Margery, his niece and heiress, m. William, first Lord Sandys. 3. The arms of Brocas of Beaurepaire, for William Brocas, Master of the Royal Buck- hounds, owner of the Vyne, d. April 29, 1456 ; and his son Bernard Brocas, owner of the Vyne 1456-1488. Some account of them, and of their descent from Sir Bernard Brocas, has been already given.- 4. The arms of De Vere, quartering Howard, for JOHN DE Vere, fifteenth Earl of Oxford, Great Chamberlain, Knight of the Garter, Privy Councillor to Henry VHI. ; d. 1539. He was great-nephew of John de Vere, twelfth Earl of Oxford, who brought the estates and arms of Howard into the family by his marriage with Elizabeth, only daughter and sole heiress of Sir John Howard, uncle of John Howard, first Duke of Norfolk. 5. The arms of the family of Essex, county Wilts, for Sir William Essex, of Easton Percey in that county. Lord Treasurer and Privy Councillor of Henry VHI. ; arrested in 1537 for complicity with the Yorkshire Re- bellion of 1536. His son Thomas married Margaret, daughter of William first Lord Sandys of the X'j-ne. 6. - 5fpp. 30-33, ante. 156 THE VYNE CHAP. VII. * See headpiece, p. II, ante. 6. The arms of Foster, quartering Dela- mere, Popham, and Achard, for SlR HUMPHRY Foster, of Aldermaston, co. Berks, Esquire of the Body to Henry VHI. at Boulogne 1520 ; Steward of Stratfield Mortimer 1521 ; High Sheriff of Berkshire 1533 ; keeper of Fremantle Park 1542. He married Elizabeth, daughter of William, first Lord Sandys of the Vyne. 7. The arms of Fox, a " pelican in her piety," for Richard Fox, Bishop of Winchester ; born, 1466, near Grantham, educated at Mag- dalen College, Oxford, and Pembroke Hall, Cambridge ; Bishop of Exeter and Master of St. Cross, Winchester, 1487 ; Bishop of Bath and Wells 1491, of Durham 1494, of Winchester 1501 ; arranged the marriage of the Princess Margaret with James IV. of Scotland, I 501 ; founder of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 15 16 (which bears his arms); d. September 14, 1528, and buried under a canopied tomb of great magnificence in the nave of Winchester Cathedral. Also the letters R. F. with a crozier.' 8. The device of Hungerford, "three sickles," for Sir Walter Hungerford, summoned to Parliament as Baron Hungerford of Heytes- bury, June 8, 1536; married Alice, daughter of William, first Lord Sandj's ; charged, 1540, with " retaining a chaplain who called the King a heretic, and procuring certain persons to ascertain by con- juration CHAP. V „. DESCRIPTION OF THE HOUSE 157 juration how long the King should live;" beheaded July 28, 1541. 9. The arms of Neville, " a silver saltire upon martial red," for RALPH LORD NEVILLE, only son of Ralph, sixth Baron Neville of Rabyand third Earl of Westmoreland ; married Edith, daughter of William, first Lord Sandys ; d. 1522, in the lifetime of his father, leaving two children, Ralph and Anne. 10. The arms of Paulet, for Willlvm Paulet of Basing, lineal descendant of the De Forts and St. Johns, anciently lords of the manor of the \'}-ne ; Sheriff of the county of Southampton 15 10; controller of the King's household 153S; created Baron St. John of Basing by Henry \TII. 1539; Knight of the Garter 1544; entrusted with the Great Seal 1 547 ; created Marquis of Winchester by Edward VI. 1551 ; retained the favour of Queens Mary and Elizabeth "by being" (as he said) "a willow and not an oak ; " d. at Basing 1572, aged ninety-six. 11. The badge of Paulet, a "falcon" with the initials H. P., for SiR HUGH Paulet, son of that Sir Amyas Paulet, of Hinton St. George, Somersetshire, treasurer of the Middle Temple, who put Wolsey in the stocks at Lymington, Somersetshire, in the reign of Henry VH., and in the next reign, hoping to appease his displeasure, rebuilt the gate of the Middle Temple, beautifying it with the Cardinal's arms 15^ THE VYNE CHAP. VII. arms and devices. Sir Hugh was knighted 1544 for services in the French wars, was treasurer of Boulogne 1545, afterwards governor of Guernsey and Jersey ; d. 1578. 12. The arms of POWER, county Worcester already mentioned as occurring in the painted glass of the Antechapel, where the arms of Power quarter those of Washbourn and D'Ab- bitot, on account of marriage alliances com- pleted in the reign of Richard II. 13. The crest of Roos for John Manner.s, first Baron Roos, whose third daughter Eliza- beth m. Thomas, second Baron Sandys of the Vyne ; d. 1 5 1 3, and was succeeded by his son Thomas Manners, who was created Earl of Rutland 1525. 14. The arms of the See of London im- paling those of Tunstail, for CUTHBERT TuN- STALL, Bishop of London ; born about 1474 in Hertfordshire ; Master of the Rolls 1 5 16 ; Bishop of London 1522 ; accompanied Wolsey's embassy to France 1527; Bishop of Durham 1530; impri- soned by Queen Elizabeth, and d. in prison 18 November, 1559. 1 5. The arms of the See of Canterbury impaling those of Warham, for William War- IIAM, Archbishop of Canterbury ; born at Mals- hanger in the parish of Church Oakley, Hants, about 1460 ; educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford ; sent on an embassy to Philip Duke CHAP. VII. DESCRIPTION OF THE HOUSE 159 Duke of Burgundy, to remonstrate against the assistance given by the Duchess to Perkin Warbeck, 1493 ; Master of the Rolls 1494 ; Bishop of London and Lord Keeper, 1502 ; Archbishop of Canterbury and Chancellor, 1 504 ; resigned the Great Seal in favour of Wolsey, 1 5 1 5 ; d. at St. Stephens, near Canterbury, 1532. He pleaded that his successor might not charge his executors with dilapidations, because he had expended above 30,000/. in building and repairing the edifices belonging to the archbishopric. 16. The arms of THOMAS WOLSEY ; b. at Ipswich, 147 1 ; fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, 1495; King's Almoner, 1509; Bishop of Lincoln and Archbishop of York, 15 14; '^^^^^^^ Cardinal and Lord Chancellor, 151 5; Bishop of Durham, 1523; founded Cardinal's College, afterwards Christchurch, Oxford, 1525 ; Bishop of Winchester, 1529 ; deprived of Great Seal, 1529 ; d. November 29, 1530. Also the cypher T. W. with two crosses, and with the Cardinal's hat and crozier.' ^Seedra-L'ings, pp. II, 28, The arms of Hungerford, (whose device has been already ante. mentioned ), " salle two bars argent, and in chief three plates," also occur in the panels. There are curious and grotesque devices on many of the panels, e.g. — • Goblets of various forms. ^ ^Seedrcmhig!. pp. I, 84, 121, Tivo swords in saltire with gauntlets.^ ante. A head blowing two horns.^ A ram's head with tassels hanging from the horns. A shield containing three escallops. A i6o THE VYNE CHAT. VII. A sword piercing a winged heart. A winged helmet. An animal emerging from a snail shell. Curiously carved heads of men and women. The motto " Coeur per cccur." Over the fireplace is a gilt carving of St. George and the Dragon, the jewel of the Order of the Garter. The armour on the walls dates from the seventeenth century. The two portraits at the north end of the gallery are — 1. Frances Duchess of Richmond and Lennox (with the •^ See Lodges initials F. R. L. on her handkerchief).' She married first one Portmits, vol. V. Henry Prannell, 1597; secondly, the Marquess of Hertford, (whereupon Sir George Rodney wrote her a long copy of verses, answered by her in one of equal length, and then committed suicide ) ; thirdly, Lodowick Stuart, Duke of Richmond and Lennox ; and afterwards was ambitious of marr\-ing King James L 2. A lady in a richly ornamented costume of the later j-ears of Queen Elizabeth, entitled Mrs. Penobscot, a name not to be traced in England. The State of Maine, in North America, was formcrl}- inhabited by an Indian tribe called Penobscot, after which a town, river, and bay are named. At the south end of the gallery are some of the old and curious washing stands on either side of a large tortoiseshell and ebony cabinet. Among the statuary should be noticed : — Rameses IV., an ancient Eg}-ptian statue, in basalt. The Laughing Faun. Four CHAP. VII. DESCRIPTION OF THE HOUSE 161 Four Caesars: (i) Caligula, A.D. 37; (2) Nero, .^.D. 54; (3) Galba, A.D. 68; (4) Antoninus Caracalla A.D. 211-217 (inscribed in error with the name Antoninus Pius). The Infant Hercules. Seneca, Milton, Mary Queen of Scots, and Shakespeare. Pitt and Fox. A door at the north end of the gallery leads into the Tapestry Room, so called from the fine tapestry with which it is hung, representing imaginary scenes of Eastern life. The elaborate mantelpiece in this room (Plate XL, p. I35)> with the figures of "Justice" and "Mercy" on it, was formerly in the Chapel Parlour.' It bears, in a richly carved shield, the ' Warners Hampshife, tit. arms of Chute, Say, Chaioner, Skory, De la Launde, Lan}-on, " The I'i/n-r Hertford, Keck, and Thorne. The crests surmounting the shield are those of Chute and Keck.- The fireback is a curious reprc- • See tailpiece to Listof Illiis- sentation of Neptune and his Trident. '!','!,'!""''' ''' ^' In 1 541 this room was called the " Queen's Great Chamber," and contained the following furniture : — " viij pieces of fine Imagery hangings with a border of antike and my lordes amies with this posy ' Aides Dieu ; ' A celer and tester of grone and crymson velvet paned, embroidered with my lordes armes, with his cognizance and the garter, with a valaunce fringed with silk and gold, with v curtains of Damaske, red and grene paned ; A large quilt of red satin lined with green buckeram ; A large counterpoynt of water flowers ; A bed of downe and a bolster, mark 15 ; A trussing bed with iiij gilt pillars and iiij pomelles gilt ; An old chair of black velvit, sore worne, embroidered with gold ; Y A ante. 1 62 THE VYNE CHAP. VII A large pair of andirons with latten pomelles ; A cubberd carpet of Turkey making, ij yards long ; A lyvery cubbord ; iiij curtains of satin of Bruges, paned red and yellow ; A looking glass gilt." Beyond the Tapestry Room is an Ante-ROOM known in 1541 as the Queen's Pallet Chamber, when it contained a "large feather bed with a large counterpoynt, with St. George over the same." This room is now hung with curious tapestry of French workmanship of the date of Louis XIII., the subject being Dido receiving .^neas, and Troy burning in the distance. Beyond this ante-room is the Library. In 1541 it was called " The Great Chamber over the New Parlour," and con- tained — " Five pieces of hanging fyne Imagery with the History of Cupid ; A celer and testour of yellow and white damask paned, with a valaunce of the same, fringed with v curtains of the same stuff and colour, and a counterpoynt of the same, likewise paned, lined with red buckeram ; A bed of downe with a ray French Tyck, marke 1 1 , and a bolster to the same ; A matteras of fustian stuffed with wool ; A Flanders bedsted with iiij pomelles gilt ; A pair of andirons ; A Flanders chair covered with leather ; A lyvery cubboard of oak." The fine stone fireplace (Plate XIII.) has an overmantel containing the portrait of Arthur Chute and his wife Eliza- beth, CHAP. Ml. DESCRIPTION OF THE HOUSE 163 beth, grandfather and grandmother of the Speaker. On the canvas is written — " Pura qui Domino fide orabit Huic pacem et veniam dabit." There is a tradition that thej' are represented receiving tlie news of the death of their son. Their ages are written on the canvas : his age as eiglity, and hers as seventy. Here are two cabinets, fine examples of lacquer work — the one of old Oriental, the other of French manufacture. The crest of Lord Sandys, and the hempbreaker of Margery Bray his wife, are in the oak panels over the windows. In this library hangs the illuminated pedigree of the Cufaude family, of which mention has been made.' It was found about ' i' 4S. ante. i/60 in Basingstoke stopping up a cottage window ; was ex- hibited to the Society of Antiquaries in 1882 ; and a paper read on it June 22 in that year. The first arms quartered with those of Cufaude are those of Helen, daughter of Richard Kingsmill, temp. Henry VI. On either side of the fireplace are the portraits of Chaloner Chute the Speaker, by Vandyck; and Lady Dacre of Hurst- monceaux, his second wife, by or after the same artist. She is wearing the pearl necklace which she bequeathed to her grandson, Thomas Chute, from whom it has descended as an heirloom to successive owners of the Vyne. There is a similar portrait of her at Belhus, Essex, attributed to Vandyck, a copy of which is in the Queen's Lying Chamber.^ By a codicil - P- 15'. ■""'''■ to her will, dated March 1694, she bequeathed the "portrait of herself, by Sir Anthony Vandyck," to her grandson Thomas Chute 164 THE VYNE CHAP. VU. Chute. The portrait of Chaloner Chute the Speaker was in- cluded in the Loan Collection of National Portraits in London, 1868. Here this account of the Vyne may come to a fit conclusion, leaving us before the portrait of one of its most illustrious owners. May the courage and wisdom displayed by him in one great crisis of our national history, and by the first Lord Sandys of the Vyne in another, not be wanting, should occasion arise, to those who shall hereafter possess this ancient and historic house. " Eccjuid in antiquam virtutem animosque viriles, Et pater .-Eneas, et avunculus excitet Hector?" L\DEX INDEX BEN Abergavenny, Lord, 147 Abingdon, Abbot of, 47 Achard arms, 148 Adam, John, 141 Aguillon anus, 1 50 Ailesbury, Lady, 1 1 3 Aldennaston, 122, 156 Alresford, 65 Alton, 46 Amport, II Amsterdam, 49, Si Andover, 19, 29, 34, 73 Angmering, Sussex, 50 Anson, Lord, 146 Antecliapel, 20, 148 Antonine, 161 — Itinerary of, 1-6 Antwerp, 49 Aquitaine, 30 {see Guienne) Armoury, 55 Arragon, Katharine of, 136, 153 4 Arthur, King, Round Table, 38 Atkyns of Tuffley, 65 Attehurst, Atte Ostre, 17 Atte Lane, 32 Augustine, St., 150 order of, 66, 1 47 Austen, Miss, 130 Austen-Leigh, Rev. J. Edward 124, 126, 132 Awdelett, 47 B-VCON, Lord, 140 Badlesmere ar;;zj, 150 Bagshot, 61 Baker of Sissenhurst, 73 Banks, 23, 149 Barbarossa, 45 Barker of Chiswick, 6g Base Court, 34, 136, 137 Basing, 1 1, 60, 62, 65 Basingstoke, 18, 20, 32, 35, -jt, — church, 40 ; races, 83 Bath, 4, 60 Bathurst of Lydney, 8 Battle Abbey, 14 Beach, Col., and William, 123 Beaurepaire, 30, 43 Bedingfiekl, Sir T., 71 Beke, Marmadukc, 57 Belhus, Esse.x, 74, 79, 163 Belvoir Castle, 50, 79 Benedictine Priories, 12, 14 Benfelde, 32 Ben Jonson, 140 Bentlev 1 66 INDEX BEN Bentley, 105-1 12 Berkeley, 39 {see 57) Biron, Duke de, 60-63 Bishop's cup, 7 1 Boleyn, Queen Anne, 37, 44-46, •35! 151 Bolton, Duke of, 83 Bordeaux, M. de, 74 Borhunte, de, 31 Boulainvilliers, Count de, 98 Bramdene, 65 Bramley, 12, 132, 149 Bramshill, 12, 68 Bramston, 71, 130 Brandon, Duke of, 38, 39, 147 Bray, Sir R. and Margery, 34 — arms and badge, 20, 34, 54, 148, 155.163 Braybeof, 18 Brevint, Dr., 80 Brocas, 30,65, 149 ; anus, 148, 155 Brydges, 63, 106 Buckingham, Villiers Duke of, 140 Buckvvorth, 131 Bulstrode, Sir E., 80 Bulwer, 131 Burghley, Lord, 59, 60, 98 Burton, Richard de, 17 Byng, 113 Caer Segont, 5 Caius College, 112 Calais, 35, 38, 39 ; keys of, 41 Calcot Park, 5 Calleva, 2-5 Cambridge, Duke of (1648), 72 Candover, 12 Carnarvon, Lord, 5, 127, 128 — Brydges, Marquis of, 106 Cartagena, 88 COB Castalio, 103 Cecil, Sir VV., 59 ~~ Sir R., 61 Chalcot, Walter, 56 Chalfont, 105 Chaloner, 68 ; arms, 150, 161 Chandos, Duke of, 63, 106 Chapel, 1 1-28, 65 Chapuys, 44 Charles IL, 80-82 — V. (Emperor), 37, 44 Chawton, 126 Chelsea, 66, gi ; College, 114 Cheney of Sherland, 34 Chiswick, 68, 69, 76-78 Cholderton, 29 Church Oakley, 12, 130, 158 Churchill, Lady Mary, 105 Chute, 67-68 ; arms, 68, 150, 161 — Arthur and Elizabeth, 162 — Chaloner, the Speaker, 67-77, '37> 138; monument, 149, 150 his son, ■]•], 78 grandson, 79 — Thomas (1687), 79, 120 — Edward (1685), 80-83, 120, 138 — Anthony (1722), 83-84 — John (1754), 85-117 — Francis, f 9, 96 — Thomas Lobb (1776), 120 — William John (1790), 121-30 — Thomas Vere (1824), 130 — William Lyde Wiggett (1827), 131-3 — Chaloner William (1879), 133 Clare arms, 150 Clarendon, Lord, 64, 76 Clarke arms, 148 Clement VIL, 44 Cley [or Cockley Cley), 131 Cobham, Lord, 61 Cocchi INDEX 167 coc Cocchi, 87, I ro Colbert, 109 Colchester oysters, 79 Coley Park, 5 Compton, Sir William, 42 Cope, Sir John, 126 Cotterell, 78 Courtenay, Earl of Devon, 41 Cowdray family, 16-19 Cowdray, Sussex, 16, 135 Crebillon, 99 Cromwell, Oliver, 78 — Richard, 74 — Thomas, 43-48 Cufaude or Cuffold, 18, 48, 147, 163 D'Abbitot rtrwj-, 148, 158 Dacre of Hurstmonceaux, 73, 77, 79. loS, 147. 163 — Dorothy, Lady, 73, 77, 79, 147, 149. 163 Danby, 81 Dean (Decanus), 14 De Bosco, 14 De Coverley, Roger, 30 De la Launde arms, 150, 161 De la Mere anus, 148 De Lucy, Bishop, 14 Denton, Wharfedale, 31 De Port, 1 1-13 De Roches, 18, 31, 32 ; arms, 14S De Vere arms, 148, 155 Devon, Courtenay Earl of, 41 {see Exeter) Digby, Kenelm, 77 Dining CItamber, 1 39, 1 46 Dolman's " Architecture,' 25 Domesday Book, 10, 12, 16 Drawing Rooms, 144 Dummer, 12 FIT Eagle {see Roman) Easthamstede, 35 Eastrop, i8 Ebbvvorth, 124 Edward II L, 17 ; head of, 19, 14S -IV., 12,48 — VI., 27, 57 Egremont, Lord, 122 Elizabeth of Hungary, 21 — of York, 2 1 — Queen, 57-62 Elvetham, 130 Essex, Sir W., 42, 50, 56 ; arms 155 — Earl of, 60, 62 — second Earl of, 140 — Countess of, 140 Eton College, 12, 20, 35, 85 Eudo artns, i 50 Evelyn, 81, 82 Ewhurst, 12 Exeter, Courtenay Marquis of, 41, 44 {see Devon) Fairfax, 71, 76 Fairford windows, 40, 149 Farley, 108 Farnham, 6, 18 — Castle, 43 Ferdinand of Arragon, 35 Ferretti, in, 148 Fetiplace, 51, note Field of Cloth of Gold, 36, 41 Finkley, 6 Fisher, Bishop, 48 FitzAdam, 1 1-13 FitzBernard arms, 1 50 FitzGerald arms, i 50 FitzHamond arms, 15c FitzRoy 1 68 INDEX FIT FitzRoy arms, 1 50 Florence, 86-98 Florentine casket, 144 Fontarabia, 35 Foster, Sir Humphrey, 50, 56 — arms, 14S, 156 Fox, Bishop, 40 — arms, 156 France, arms, 149 Frederick the Great, 93 Fremantle Park, i 56 ■ Fuller, 69, 70 Fyfifhide, 19, 30 Gallery, Sioiie, 140 — oak, 152 Galuppi, 91 Garrick, 90, 93 Gascoigne, poet, 63 "Gaskoyn" claret, 43 Gerard, Lord Brandon, 80 Gifford, 55 • — arms, 150 Godolphin, Dr., 85 — Mrs., 82 Goodman's Fields Theatre, 91, 93 Grafton, Duke, 82 Grantham, 79, 156 Gray, T., 85-117 Great Seal of the Coininonwealth (1651), 72 Gregory, St., 150 — William, 20 Grenville, 113, 128 Guernsey, 158 Guienne, 35 {sec Aquitaine) Guilford, Sir E., 38 Guillim, 77 Guisnes, 36 ; captain of, 41- 46 Guist, 131 HOU Hackwood, S3, 108 Haddock, Commissioner, 87 Hadrian, 2,6 Hague, Si, 144 Hale, Sir M., 72 Hambden, 80 Hamilton, James, Duke of, 72 Hampton Court, 61, 140 Harford arms, 150 Hartley Wintney, 17 Hazlcrig, 75 Heam, Master, 71 Heathcote, Sir W., 126-29 Hempbreakerh?iAgc, 34, 54 Henry I. (Beauclerc), 12 — n., 12 -IV., v., VI., 31 -VI., 85 — VII., 21, 34,42, 136 — VIII., 23, 34-49, 67,68, 136, 139, 153 — of Bavaria, 2 1 Herbert, 79 ; arms, 148 Hermassone, Arnoult, 49 Herriaid, 12, 16, 17 Hertford, Lord, 140, 160 — arms, 150, 161 Hervey, Lord, 1 14 Heydon, 89, 131 Heylyn, Peter, 40, 149 Heytesbuiy, 50, 156 Hicks, Sir William, 130 Highclere, 18 Hoddington, 123 Holbein, 39, 139, 147 Holinshead, 38 Holland, 81, 92 Holmes, Sir R., 82 Holy Ghost Chapel, 40, 64, 65, 149 Hopton, Sir R., 65 Houghton, 94 Hound.s INDEX 169 HOU Hounds, Mr. Chute's, 12 1-6 — Pytchley, 31 — Vine, 121, 123 Howard, Lord, 80 — arms, 148, 155 Hubberd, John, 62 Huguenots, 133 Hungerford, 50, 60, 62 — arms, 1 56 Huntingdon, Earl of, 57 Hursley, 126-2S Hurstmonceaux, 73, 105 {see Dacre) Hussey arms, 148 Hyde, Abbot of, 38 Inglefield, 45 Inventory, Ancient, 25, 50, 144-48, 151, 152 Irby arms, 148 Jamaica, 82 James I., 68, 160 — II., 82 — IV. of Scotland, 156 Jay, Robert de, 17, 18 Jenkins, Sir L., 80 Jerome, St., 150 Jervoise, 127 Jones, Inigo, 137 Jutes, 68 Juvenal, 8, 72 Katharine of Arragon, 20, .-14, 136, 153-54 Keck, Sir Anthony and Katharine, 82,83 — arms, 150, 16 1 Kelvedon, 68 Kempshot, 12 MAI Kennet, River, 122 Kensington, 68 Kimbolton, 154 Kingsclere, 12 Kingsmill, 62, 81, 163 King's Somborne, 66 Kingston Chapel, 19 La Belle, 147 La Cour, 114 Lambeth Palace Chapel, 25 Languedoc, 133 Lanyon, arms, 150, 161 Laud, 71 Laverstoke, 123 Lavour, 88 Leland, 29, 30, 34 Lennard, 74, 77 ; arms, 149 [sec Dacre) Lenthal, Speaker, 71 Liddel, 87 Lincoln, Bishop of (1641), 70 Lisle, Mr. Edward, 83 ; Lord, 43 Liverpool, Lord, 130 Lobkowitz, 92, 93 London, city arms, 24 — map of, 141 Long arms, 149 Louis XII. of France, 39 — XIII. of France, 162 — XIV. of France, 80, 109 Lovelace, Lord, 79 Lydney (Gloucestershire), 8 Lynch, Sir T., 82 Lyttelton, Sir G., 108 Lyvery .Cupboard, 145 Macaulay, 140 Magdalen College, 20, 133, 159 Maillebois, 92, 94 Maine 170 INDEX MAI Maine, State of, 160 Malshanger, 57, 133, 15S Maltravers, Lord, 49 ; knot, 53 Manchester, Earl of, 71 Mandeville arms, 1 50 Mann, Sir H., 86-117 Manners (see Roos) Margaret, daughter of Henry VII., 21, 156 Maria Theresa, 92, 93, 99 Marlborough, Duchess of, 91 Mary, sister of Henry VIII., 39 — Queen of Scots, 57-60, i6i Mazarin, Cardinal, 74 Mewtas, Mr., 35 Middleton, Dr., 98 Mildmay, Sir H., 128-29 Minorca, 113 Montague, G., 105-112 — Lord, 16 Mordaunt, Mr., 76 Morden's maps, 141 More, Sir T., 37, 48 — Wm., Prior of Worcester, 47 Morgueson, 15, 16, 39, 112 Mortimer {see Stratfield Mortimer) — arms of, 1 50 Mottisfont Abbey, 66, 137 Muntz, 143 Nantes, Edict of, 133 Naples, 99 Naseby, So Neville, Lord, 50, 157 — arms, 22, 157 Newbury, 3, 65 Newmarket, 82 Newton, Sir I., 96 Nichol, Margaret, loi, 106 Nodens, temple of, 8, 9 PON Noel, Lady Bridget, 79 North, Roger, 69, 74 — Lord, 73, 74, 78-80, 120, 147 Oakley [see Church Oakley) Orford, Lord, 91, 106 Orleton, Bishop, 17, 18 Ormond, Duke of, 81 Oxford, visitation of, 71, 72 Pace, Richard, 37 Paddington, 66 Palmer, Sir John, 50 Palmerston, Lord, 127-29 Park work, Tapestry, 25, 145 Parma collection, 99 Paulet 43, 140, 157 — arms, 148, 157 {see Powlett) Peckham, Sir W., 50 Peeche, Sir J., 18 Pelham, 74, 107 Pembroke, Lord, 96 Penobscot, 160 Perceval, Mr., 130 Pergolesi, 91, 93 Perkin Warbeck, 159 Pescetti, 91 Pexhalle, 43 Pickenham, 120, 130, 131 Pitt, 127-29, 161 Pitt's diamond, 92, 94 Poitiers, 30, 131 Pole, Cardinal, 48 — Earl of Suffolk, 46 — Marie, 48 — of Wolverton, 1 23 Pompeio Battoni, 144 Pompon, 109 Pontes, 3 Popham INDEX i/i POP Popham arms, 148 Portal, 57, 123, 133, 134 Portico, the, 137, 138 Portland, ministry, 130 Portsmouth, •]■;,, 129, 140 Poussin, 143 Power, CO. Worcester, arms, 148, 158 Powlett, 83 {see Bolton) Pratolino, 94 Price, 41 Probus, Emperor, 6, 140 Pytchley hounds, 31 QUEENSBURY, Lady, gi Queen's College, 12 Raby, Neville of, 50, 157 Raleigh, 61 Ranelagh Gardens, 91, 93, 97 Reading, 2-5, 35 Richard II., 30 Richmond, Duchess of, 160 Rivett of Brandeston, 79, 120, 150 • — arms, 1 50 Roches {see De Roches) — arms, 148 Rochester, Bishop of (1641;, 70, Rockingham Castle, 31 Rodney, Sir George, 160 Roman eagle, 10, 97 — monumental inscriptions, 141-43 — ring, 7-9 Roos, Baron, 50 ; anns, 148, 1 58 Rosalba, 100, 10 1 Rotterdam, 84 Rousham, 78 SID Rowell, John, 1 50 Russell, Lord, 80, 81 — Lord John, 127 Rutland, Duke of, 50, 79, 1 58 Rycroft, Sir R., 123 Rye House Plot, 80 Sadei-.er'S prints, 116 St. Hillary arms, 150 St. John, 15 ; arms, 148 St. Mary Bourne, 6 Salisbury, Countess of, 48 Sandys, 20, 29-65 — arms, 33, 154 ; badge, 22, 49, 154 — motto Qx posy, 145, 154, 161 — of Latymers, ;^o, 64, 66 — first Lord, of the Vyne, 34-57, 136, 154, 163 — Margery, Lady, 34, 47, 163 — second Lord, of the Vyne, 57 — third Lord, of the Vyne, 57-65 — Catherine, Lady, 63 — Colonel Henry, 64, 66, 137 — fourth Lord, 66 Say arms, 150, 161 Sclater, 123 Scrope arms, 1 50 ^fa/ of Cowdray, 16 {sec Great Seal) Segontium, 5 Selden, John, 72 Senicianus, ring of, 7-9 Seymour, Sir John, 42 Shaftesbury, Lord, (1684), 81 Shelley, Sir Benedict, 31 Sherborne, I, 12, 14, 15, 17 — church, 13, 14, 32, 66, 117, 130 — Cowdray, 17, 20 — Priory, 12, 14 Shrewsbury, Earl of, 57-59 Sidney, 80, 81 Silchester 172 INDEX SIL Silchester, 4, 5, 10, 122 Singing Bread, 27 Sissenhurst, ll Skelton arms, 148 Skory, 69 ; arms, 149, 150, 161 Smith, Joshua, 130 SoUe, Thomas, 19 Southampton, 73 Spanish Armada, 60 Speen, 3 Spence's "Anecdotes," 96, no Spours or Spurs, battle of, 16 Staircase, 112, 139 Steventon, 18, 130 Stockbridge, 66 Stratfield Mortimer, 45, 51, 156 Stratfieldsaye, 10, 12, 123 Strawberry Hill, 97, 105, 113, 143 — Parlour, 1 39 Sulhamstead, 122 Summer House, 77, 85, 138 Superaltar, 15, 27 Sutton Court, 76 Sutton, Sir R., 99 Sweating sickness, 42 Swithun, St., Prior of, 17, 38 Taunton, 67 Temple, Lord, 127-29 — Mrs., 82 Terry, Stephen, 123 Thetford, 68 Thistlethwayte, of Southwick Park, 86, 128, 129 Thorne arms, 150, i6i Tibetot arms, 1 50 Tichborne, 18, 62 Tiles, Italian, 23 Titian, 150 Tittenhanger, 42 WES Torcy, 109 Toulouse, 133 Tracy, Ferdinand, 83 Trapnell, 45 Tunstall, Bishop, 158 Tun worth, 12 Turgis, 18 Turner, Professor, 114 Twickenham, 1 1 5 Ulveva, 10 Upton Gray, 12 Urbino tiles, 23 Vauxhall, 97 Venice, 86 Venta Belgarum, 2, 3 Versailles, Basin of, 94 Vindomis, 1-6 Vyne or Vine, origin of name, 1-6 (See Chapel, Gallery, Inventory) Wallcott, Captain, 80 Waller, Sir William, 65 Walpole, Horace, i, 11, 15, 85-119, 138, 139, 148 ; Edward, 141 Walsh arms, 148 Warburton, Bisliop, 98, 99 Warham, Arclibishop, 57, 150; arms, 15S Warner, John, Bishop, 70 Washbourne arms, 148, 158 Waynflete, William, 20, 31 Webb, John, 137, 138 Wellington, Duke of, 123 Wells chapel, 25 Westbury, 42 Westmoreland, Earl of, 50, 157 Whitehall INDEX 173 WHI Whitehall, 37, 65, 80 Whitelock, 74, 75 Whithed, 86, 96, icx)-2, 106 Wickham of BulHngton, 123 Wiggett, 120, 131 ; arms, 150 William I. (Conqueror), 11, 131 — II. (Rufus), 12 — III. (of Orange), 81 Williams, John, Bishop, 70 Winchester, 2-5, 12, 38, -Ji, 81, 122 — Bishops, 14, 17,20,31, 44, 48,82 — Castle, 38, 60 — College, 20, So, 131, 158 — Marquis of, n, 60 Windows, nmllioned, 136 ; sashed, 137 Windsor, 35, 45 — Lord, 57 Wingfield, Sir R., 41 — House, 57 YOR Winslade, 12 Witcombe Park, 130 Wither, Lovelace Bigg, 123 Wolmer Forest, 43, 46 Wolsey, 36, 41, 42, 136, 157-59 — arms of, 1 59 Wolverton, 123 Woolbeding, 40 Woolterton, 108 Worcester, Earl of, 36, 41 — Prior of, 47 Worldham, 46 Wren, Sir Christopher, 141 Wychford, 19 Y.\RMOUTH (Isle of Wight), 83 York, Archbishop of, 44 — Place, 37 PRINTED nv SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE LONDON UC SOUTHERN BEGKXAl. UBH*HY FAOUTY D boo 339 873 2