XXXII
Restrictions upon sight-seeing in this neighbourhood are particularly severe. On the rising ground out of Lamberhurst, for example, lies Scotney Castle, a lovely, sequestered ruin partly surrounded by a great, lake-like moat, and only a little less romantic than Bodiam itself. To reach it you go past a very modern lodge and along a half-mile of wooded drive, chiefly of laurels and sweet chestnuts. But permission is granted on only one day of the week, doubtless in the hope that the precise day will not be remembered. On any summer’s day numerous vehicles and parties, some of them come from long distances, may be seen turned back by the lodge-keeper.
Scotney was ever the home of romance, for one of its earliest owners, Walter de Scotney, was executed at Winchester in 1259 for administering poison to the Earl of Gloucester and others. The humour of it is that Walter de Scotney was probably quite innocent. The Earl recovered, but his brother, William de Clare, died, as also did the Abbot of Westminster. The Earl himself seems to have had a narrow escape, for he lost hair, nails, teeth, and skin, and must have been one vast comprehensive ache, and in a more painful condition than that of a chicken plucked alive.
Scotney then passed to the Darrells, who led a finely dramatic life here until they ended, to an effective and tragical “curtain.”
The old castle lies in a watery hollow beneath the modern Gothic mansion, and itself consists of two distinct portions: the castellated building erected about 1418 by Archbishop Chicheley, and the later manor-house of the Darrells, who in Queen Elizabeth’s time were Roman Catholics, maintaining their religion and its observances in spite of the laws, ordinances, and penalties levelled against Papist recusants.
SCOTNEY CASTLE.
To secure their officiating priests against arrest the Darrells contrived a highly ingenious hiding-hole in their mansion, and it was speedily found useful. It was the Christmas night of 1598, towards the end of Elizabeth’s long reign, and Father Blount, a well-known and keenly sought priest, was in the house with his servant when the party were surprised by a search-expedition, who, having got wind of Blount’s presence, were bent on capturing him.
While the enemy were demanding admittance, Blount and his servant were hurried into the courtyard, where a huge stone in the wall, turning upon a pivot, gave entrance to the hiding-place. Unluckily for them, a portion of a girdle-strap was caught between the stone and the rest of the wall, and showed plainly. Meanwhile the search-party had been admitted, and, securing the inmates of the house in one room, proceeded to search the place.
While they were thus engaged an outside servant of the family chanced to see the girdle, and promptly cut it off, calling as loudly as he dared to the fugitives to pull in the fragment that was still visible. The sharp-eared search-party, hearing a voice in the courtyard, rushed out and sounded the walls all round, without making any discovery, but kept it up until the rain, which had set in, disgusted them, when they retired, intending to resume the search on the morrow.
As Blount’s own record of the adventure tells us, he and his servant were concealed for days under a staircase. At last, afraid to risk the result of another day’s proceedings, they escaped under cover of night. Barefooted they crossed the courtyard, climbed the walls and swam the moat, then covered with thin ice. They did well to fly, for next day their hiding-place was discovered.
In later years the castle and manor-house, by that time ruined, was the haunt of smugglers, among whom the Darrells themselves were reputed to be prominent. To-day the beautiful spot is surrounded not only by the moat, but by exquisite gardens. The two remaining towers of the mediæval castle rise picturesquely from the still waters, and within the wreck of the Elizabethan mansion there are rooms contrived for the gamekeeper.