STATESMEN AT HOME.
DCXLII. The Marquis of Salisbury, K.G., at Hatfield House.
RRIVING at the Great Northern Station at King's Cross, and desirous of testing the culture of the clerk at the Booking-office, you ask for a first-class return for Hetfelle. The clerk mechanically puts out his hand towards the receptacle for tickets, drops it, stares at you, and says Hetfelle is not on their line. You insist that it must be, being clearly set forth in Domesday Book. The clerk shows a disposition to speak alliteratively but disrespectfully of Domesday, and, as the crowd presses at your heels, you yield to modern prejudice, and take your ticket for Hatfield. Still, you have the satisfaction of knowing that it was Hetfelle when the Abbey of Ely held it by favour of King Edgar.
When Ely was made a bishopric, the Bishops lived at Hetfelle, which presently came to be known as Bishops Hatfield, and a sumptuous palace was built, that housed in turn a son of Edward the Third, and the son and heir of Henry the Eighth. The latter Prince coming to the throne, under the title of Edward the Sixth, he gave Hatfield to his sister, the Princess Elizabeth. When, in due time, you arrive at Hatfield, your host takes you out, leading you by the stately avenue to show you the oak under which Elizabeth was sitting, reading Greek, when news came to her that Mary was dead, and Elizabeth reigned in her stead.
"La reine est morte; Vive la reine!" you opportunely remark.
"Quite so," says the Markiss, evidently struck by your readiness of rejoinder.
You approach Hatfield House by the gateway near the Church, and enter an oblong court bounded by the west wing of the Bishop's Palace, now a stately wreck, with horses stabled in the Hall where one time Bishops and Princes sat at meat. You feel inclined to linger here, and moralise upon the theme. But you perceive your noble host awaiting you on the broad steps of the magnificent Jacobean mansion, a picture worthy to be set in such a framework. It is like a portrait of one of the earlier Cecils stepped out of the frame in the Long Gallery. The stately figure is attired in white doublet, trunks, and hose, embroidered with pearls. On the purple surcoat, lined with red, gold buttons gleam. The white ruff is fastened at wrist and throat with gold buttons: the black cap is solely adorned with a knot of pearls; a golden cord hangs from the neck; the right hand rests upon the head of a large dog, that has, perhaps, a rather stuffed look; whilst the left negligently lounges on the hip above the ready sword.
Is it Thomas, Earl of Exeter? Or is it his half-brother, Robert, Earl of Salisbury, joint ancestor of the two great branches of the Cecil family? Or is it, perchance, Robert, Earl of Salisbury, or James Cecil, first Markiss?
A familiar voice breaks the charm, and discloses the secret.
"Welcome to Hatfield, Toby, dear boy; but don't suppose that every day I am got up in this style. It is only in honour of your visit, and as soon as you are gone, I doff my doublet and hose, put on an old coat, and go down into my workshop, where I have a little tinkering to do with one of the electric wires which has gone wrong, and threatens to burn up the premises. So glad to see you. Always think these informal conferences between individual members of the two Houses are not only personally agreeable, but may be fraught with the greatest benefit to the State, which we both serve. Wait till you see my dog move."
The noble Markiss, stooping down a little stiffly (owing to the tightness of the hose), turned a clock-key. After a few rotations, the dog, being set in the right direction, moved out of the way.
"Yes," said the Markiss, pleased at my enthusiasm, "that is rather a triumph, I think. It is common enough to see an automatic dog move its two fore-paws; but, observe, all the paws here work in natural sequence. Took me six months to bring this to perfection, working at it at the time when you would read in the newspapers of my conspiring with Hartington to keep out Gladstone, or negociating with Bismarck to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for him in Africa."
Your host leads you to King James's Room, a fine apartment, which stands to-day in exactly the state in which the King left it when he got up to breakfast. But the place is a little stuffy, and you do not care for the particular state of fadedness yet reached by the Turkey carpet. Walking beside your host, with one eye on the sword, which seems determined to get between somebody's legs, you pace the Marble Hall, cricking your neck with gazing upon the heads of the Cæsars that look down on you from panels in the coved ceiling. Up you go by the grand staircase with its massive carved baluster with unclothed Highlanders playing the bagpipes and lions bearing heraldic shields; into the Long Gallery, with its coats of mail, its antique japanned cabinets, its cradle in which Elizabeth squealed, its massive fireplaces, its rare panelling; into the Armoury, where you try on several suits of armour and handle relics of the Great Armada cast ashore in the spacious times of Elizabeth; on to the Library with its rare collection of papers, including Lord Burleigh's Diary, in which you are privileged to read in the original manuscript the well-known poem which tells how:
"Here he lives in state and bounty,
Lord of Burleigh, fair and free,
Not a lord in all the county
Is so great a lord as he."
On to the Summer Dining-room through the Winter Dining-room, into the Drawing-room, and thence into the Chapel where you admire the painted window of Flemish work, representing in compartments various scriptural subjects.
You have been so interested in the journey, that there has been no time for Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoigne-Cecil, P.C., K.G., Third Marquis of Salisbury, Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and Prime Minister of England, to tell you the story of his life. This you the less regret, as the Markiss is manifestly growing increasingly uncomfortable in his doublet and hose. So he conducts you to the hall, and bids you a friendly farewell. As you walk down the Avenue—"The Way to London," as Cecils dead and buried used to call it—you turn to take one last look at the noble pile, Italian renaissance in character, of two orders, the lower Doric, the upper Ionic, with a highly-enriched Elizabethan central gate-tower, and stepped gables.