THE "SPANGLE" BEDROOM AT KNOLE.
The Furniture of this room was presented by James I. to the Earl of Middlesex.
(From a Photo by Mr. Corke, of Sevenoaks.)
It seems from a comparison of the Knole furniture with the designs of some of the tables and other woodwork produced during the same reign, bearing the impress of the more severe style of Inigo Jones, that there were then in England two styles of decorative furniture. One of these, simple and severe, shewing a reaction from the grotesque freedom of Elizabethan carving, and the other, copied from Venetian ornamental woodwork, with cupids on scrolls forming the supports of stools, having these ornamental legs connected by stretchers, the design of which is, in the case of those in the King's Bedchamber at Knole, a couple of cupids in a flying attitude holding up a crown. This kind of furniture was generally gilt, and under the black paint of those at Knole, traces of the gold are still to be seen.
Mr. Eastlake visited Knole, and made a careful examination and sketches of the Jacobean furniture there, and has well described and illustrated it in his book just referred to; he mentions that he found there a slip of paper tucked beneath the webbing of a settle, with an inscription in Old English characters which fixed the date of some of the furniture at 1620. Mr. Lionel Sackville West has confirmed this date in a letter to the author, by a reference to the heirloom book, which also bears out the author's opinion that some of the more richly-carved furniture of this time was imported from Italy.
In the Lady Chapel of Canterbury Cathedral there is a monument of Dean Boys, who died in 1625. This represents the Dean seated in his library, at a table with turned legs, over which there is a tapestry cover. Books line the walls of the section of the room shewn in the stone carving; it differs little from the sanctum of a literary man of the present day. There are many other monuments which represent furniture of this period, and amongst the more curious is that of a child of King James I., in Westminster Abbey, close to the monument of Mary Queen of Scots. The child is sculptured about life size, in a carved cradle of the time.
Holland House, Kensington, is a good example of a Jacobean mansion. The chief interest, inseparable from this house, is, of course, associated with the memory of the third Lord Holland, "nephew of Fox and friend of Grey," who gathered around him within its walls the most brilliant and distinguished society of the day, presiding over it with that genial courtesy which was the rich inheritance of his family.
Macaulay, at the conclusion of his essay on Lord Holland, has, with his unrivalled power of description, told us of the charm and fascination of "that circle in which every talent and accomplishment, every art and science, had its place"—enumerating also the names of many of those who formed it, and expatiating on "the grace and the kindness, far more admirable than grace, with which the princely hospitality of that ancient mansion was dispensed." Princess Liechtenstein has also preserved for us, in "Holland House," a charming record of many of the historical associations of this famous old place.
There are in the house also many objects of great interest, of various periods, which, by the courtesy of Lady Ilchester, the writer has been allowed to examine. Our business, however, is with the 17th century, and we must now return to a consideration of the furniture and woodwork of that time.