The Stately Homes of England

by Llewellynn Frederick William Jewitt; S. C. Hall

The engraving from Knyff’s drawing illustrates, to a remarkable degree, this description by Cotton, but for our present purpose it is not necessary, perhaps, to enter further into it. The house formed a quadrangle, the west front being the principal. An enclosed carriage-drive with large gates led up to the north front; the stables and stable-yard were at the north-west angle; and the part where now the Italian garden stands, was a large square pool of water with a fountain in its midst. Since then the whole of the grounds have been remodelled, the immense fish-pools, the stables, &c., taken away, and a new part added to the mansion. The grounds were as fine, according to the taste of the times, as any then existing, and the description given of them by Charles Cotton brings vividly to the mind the time when “Sunday posies,” of “roses and lilies and daffy-down-dillies” were in vogue, and when peonies were worn in the button-hole; while rosemary and bay were the choicest of scents.

Fountains and statues as described by Hobbes and by Cotton still adorn the grounds, and it may be well to note that the busts on the pillars in the Italian garden, which we engrave, originally belonged to the inner court of the old mansion.

In 1687, William Cavendish, third Earl of Devonshire, who was afterwards created Duke of Devonshire, after making considerable alterations in the gardens and grounds, commenced rebuilding the house. The first part commenced was the south front, which appears to have been begun to be rebuilt on the 12th of April, 1687, under the direction of William Talman, the architect. The east side next followed; the great hall and staircase being covered in, in April, 1690. In 1692 Sir Christopher Wren came down and surveyed the works, at which time it appears that about £9,000 had been expended. In 1693 the east front and the north-east corner were commenced, Talman receiving £600 in advance for the work. In 1700 the east front appears to have been completed, and about the same time the principal, or west, front of the old mansion was taken down, and the rebuilding completed in 1706. In 1703 the old south gallery was demolished and rebuilt, and in 1704 the north front was removed, and the building of the new one to take its place commenced. The whole edifice appears to have been finished in 1706, but its noble owner, whose munificence and taste reared the magnificent pile, did not long live to enjoy its beauties, for he died in the following year, 1707. Dr. White Kennett, Bishop of Peterborough, who preached the funeral sermon of this nobleman, wrote at the time some account of the Cavendish family, in the course of which he introduced some highly interesting particulars relating to the mansion and grounds, remarking that “tho’ such a vast pile (of materials entirely new) required a prodigious expense, yet the building was the least charge, if regard be had to his gardens, water-works, pictures, and other of the finest pieces of Art and Nature that could be obtained abroad or at home.”

The Duke seems to have determined to erect a true Palace of Art, and for that purpose he employed the best artists of the time in its decoration. Among the painters employed to decorate the ceilings and walls of the various rooms with the creations of their genius, were Verrio, Laguerre, Sir James Thornhill, Ricard, Highmore (sergeant-painter to William III.), Price, and Huyd. The carvers in stone and wood, whose names appear in the accounts, were Caius Gabriel Cibber, Samuel Watson, Henry Watson his son, Mons. Nadauld, J. T. Geeraerslius, Augustine Harris, Nost, William Davies, M. Auriol, Joel Lobb, and Lanscroon. The principal iron-worker appears to have been Mons. Tijou, a French smith, whose daughter was wife of Laguerre the painter; and the lead-worker, who did the regular plumber’s work, as well as the lead-piping of the willow-tree, and other water-works under the guidance of Mons. Grillet, was a Mr. Cock, of London, whose bill came to about £1,000.

In 1820 the late Duke—William Spencer Cavendish, sixth Duke of Devonshire—who had succeeded to the title in 1811, commenced some great improvements at Chatsworth by erecting, from the designs of Sir Jeffrey Wyatt, the north wing, containing, with all the domestic offices, a number of other apartments, as well as the dining-room, sculpture-gallery, orangery, banqueting-room, and pavilion; and by altering and re-arranging several other rooms. The grounds and gardens, also, were by this gifted nobleman, very materially remodelled and improved under the direction of his head-gardener, the late Sir Joseph Paxton, to whose labours, including the erection of the gigantic conservatory, the forming of the artificial rocks, &c., we shall have to refer.

Chatsworth from the River Derwent.

Having now traced so far as is necessary for our present purpose the history of Chatsworth, we proceed to speak of the noble and historical family of Cavendish, its princely owners. This, however, we shall do but briefly; having already, in our account of Hardwick Hall, gone into the family history at some length.

The family of Cavendish, to whose noble head Chatsworth belongs, traces back to the Conquest, when Robert de Gernon, who came over with the Conqueror, was rewarded by him for his services with large grants of lands in Hertfordshire, Gloucestershire, &c. His descendants held considerable land in Derbyshire; and Sir William Gernon, temp. Henry III., had two sons, Sir Ralph de Gernon, lord of Bakewell, and Geoffrey de Gernon, of Moor Hall, near Bakewell. From the second of these, Geoffrey de Gernon, the Cavendishes are descended; his son, Roger de Gernon (who died in 1334), having married the heiress of the lord of the manor of Cavendish, in Suffolk; and by her had issue four sons, who all assumed the name of Cavendish from that manor. These sons were Sir John Cavendish, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench; Roger Cavendish, from whom descended the celebrated navigator, Sir Thomas Cavendish; Stephen Cavendish, Lord Mayor of London; and Richard Cavendish. Sir John married Alice Odyngseles, who brought to her husband the manor of Cavendish Overhall; and their eldest son, Sir Andrew Cavendish, left issue, one son, William, from whom the estates passed to his cousin. Sir Andrew was succeeded by his brother, Sir John Cavendish, who, for his gallant conduct in killing the rebel, Wat Tyler, was knighted by the king; he married Joan, daughter to Sir William Clopton, and was succeeded by his eldest son, William, a citizen and mercer of London, who married Joan Staventon, by whom he had issue two sons, the eldest of whom, Thomas, succeeded him; and whose son and heir, Sir Thomas Cavendish, Clerk of the Pipe, &c., married twice, and left by his first wife three sons, George Cavendish, who wrote the “Life of Cardinal Wolsey,” Sir William Cavendish, and Sir Thomas Cavendish. The second of these sons, Sir William Cavendish, became the founder of the present ducal house of Devonshire and of several other noble families. He married, first, a daughter of Edward Bostock, of Whatcross, in Cheshire; second, a daughter of Sir Thomas Conyngsby, and widow of William Paris; and third, Elizabeth, daughter of John Hardwick, of Hardwick, Derbyshire, and widow of Robert Barley, of Barley, in the same county. Of this lady, who became much celebrated as the Countess of Shrewsbury—“Bess of Hardwick,” as she was called—an account will be found in the present volume under the head of Hardwick Hall. By these three wives Sir William had a numerous family. By his first he had one son and two daughters who died young, and two daughters who married; by his second he had three daughters, who died young; and by his third (“Bess of Hardwick”), he had also several children. These were Henry Cavendish of Tutbury; Sir William Cavendish, created Earl of Devonshire, and who was the direct ancestor of the Dukes of Devonshire; Sir Charles Cavendish, whose son was created Baron Cavendish of Bolsover, Baron Ogle, Viscount Mansfield, and Earl, Marquis, and Duke of Newcastle; Frances, married to Sir Henry Pierrepoint, ancestor of the Duke of Kingston; Elizabeth, married to Charles Stuart, Duke of Lennox (brother of Lord Darnley, the husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, and father of King James I.), the issue of which marriage was the ill-fated Arabella Stuart, who was born at Chatsworth; and Mary, who became the wife of Gilbert, Earl of Shrewsbury. Sir William Cavendish was succeeded by his son, Sir William Cavendish, who was created Baron Cavendish of Hardwick, and Earl of Devonshire, by King James I., “at which time of his creation his Majesty stood under a cloth of state in the hall at Greenwich, accompanied with the princes, his children, the Duke of Holstein, the Duke of Lennox, and the greatest part of the nobility, both of England and Scotland.” The earl married, first, Anne, daughter of Henry Kighley, of Kighley; and, second, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Edward Boughton, and widow of Sir Richard Wortley.