WITHDRAWING ROOM, HADDON.
Among the rooms were the "Green Chamber," the "Rose Chamber," the "Great Chamber," the "Best Lodging," the "Hunters' Chamber," the "School-house Chamber," the "Nursery," the "Smoothing Chamber," the "Partridge Chamber," "Windsor," the "Little Gallery," etc. "The uppermost chamber in the nether tower" is almost suggestive of something gruesome, while "my mistress's sweetmeat closet" sounds tempting; and a list of contents included things to make the juvenile palate water—"Glasses of apricots, marmalett, and currants, cherry marmalett, dried pears and plums and apricots, preserved and grated oranges, raspberry and currant cakes, conserved roses, syrup of violets," etc. These things perhaps are trivial, but there is a domesticity about them by which we may think of Haddon as a country home as well as a historic building.
DOORWAY, HADDON.
Haddon ceased to be a residence of the Dukes of Rutland more than a century ago. In the days of the Merry Monarch the ninth earl kept open house in a very lavish style. It is said the servants alone amounted to one hundred and forty; and capacious as are the ancient walls, it is a marvel how they all were housed. The romantic Dorothy, who a century before ran away upon the evening of a great ball, was the daughter of the "King of the Peak," Sir George Vernon, thus nicknamed for his lordly and open-handed way of living. She died in 1584, and Sir George Manners, the eldest of her four children, sided with the Parliament during the Civil Wars. But his mode of living was by no means puritanical, and Haddon was kept up in its traditional lavish style. In Bakewell church there is a fine marble tomb representing him and his wife and children, as well as the tomb of the famous Dorothy and her husband, Sir John Manners. The family crest, a Peacock in his pride, that is, with his tail displayed, so conspicuous with the Vernon boar's head in the panelling and parqueting of Haddon, gives its name to the most delightful of ancient hostelries at Rowsley. The proximity of the mansion must have made its fortune over and over again, apart from its piscatorial attractions. The gable ends and latticed windows, and the ivy-grown battlemented porch and trim gardens, are irresistible, and no one could wish for quarters more in harmony with the old baronial Hall.
INTERIOR COURTYARD, HADDON.
In striking contrast to the sturdy ruggedness of hoary Haddon is princely Chatsworth. The comparison may be likened to that between a mediæval knight and a gorgeous cavalier. The art treasures and sumptuous magnificence of Chatsworth, the elaborate and graceful carvings (which by the way are not nearly all by the hand of Gibbons, but by a local man named Samuel Watson), and the beauty of the gardens, make it rightly named the "Palace of the Peak." But it is its association with the luckless Mary Queen of Scots which adds romantic interest to the mansion,—not that the existing classical structure can claim that honour, for nothing now remains of the older building, a battlemented Tudor structure with an entrance like the gatehouse of Kenilworth Castle, and a "gazebo" on either side of the western front. It is odd, however, that Lord Burleigh should have selected it as "a mete house for good preservation" of a prisoner "having no toure of resort wher any ambushes might lye," for there were no less than eight towers, but presumably not the kind the Lord High Treasurer meant. During her twelve years' captivity in Sheffield (where, by the way, "Queen Mary's Chamber," with its curious heraldic ceiling, may still be seen in the manor-house), she was frequently at Chatsworth and Wingfield Manor under the guardianship of George Talbot, sixth Earl of Shrewsbury, the fourth husband of that remarkable woman, Bess of Hardwick, who was not a little jealous of her husband's fascinating captive, and circulated various scandalous stories, about which the Earl thought fit to justify himself in his own epitaph in St Peter's church, Sheffield. When the important prisoner was under his custody in that town, she was not permitted to go beyond the courtyard, and usually took her exercise upon the leads. But at Chatsworth her surveillance was less strict, although truly John Beaton, the master of her household (who predeceased his mistress, and was buried at Edensor close by, where a brass to his memory remains), had strict instructions regarding her. Her attendants, thirty-nine in all, were none of them allowed to go beyond the precincts of the grounds without special permission, nor was anybody allowed to wait upon the queen between nine o'clock at night and six in the morning. None were sanctioned to carry arms; and when the fair prisoner wished to take the air, Lord Shrewsbury had to be informed an hour beforehand, that he and his staff might be upon the alert. One can picture Mary and her maids of honour engaged in needlework upon the picturesque moated and balustraded stone "Bower" near the river, with guards around ever on the watch. This and the old Hunting-tower high up among the trees, a massive structure with round Elizabethan towers, are the only remains to take us back to the days of the Scots queen's captivity.