PENSHURST—the “Home” of the Sidneys—the stately Sidneys: stately in their character, in their careers, in their patriotism, in their heroism, in their rectitude, and in their verse—is surely one of the best of the Stately Homes of England to be included in our series. The very name of Penshurst seems to call up associations of no ordinary character connected with that heroic race, and with many of the most stirring incidents of British history. With Penshurst every great name memorable in the Augustan age of England is linked for ever; while its venerable aspect, the solemnity of the surrounding shades, the primitive character of its vicinity, together with its isolated position—away from the haunts of busy men—are in harmony with the memories it awakens.
Here lived the earliest and bravest of the Anglo-Norman knights. Here dwelt the ill-fated Bohuns—the three unhappy Dukes of Buckingham, who perished in succession, one in the field and two on the scaffold. And here flourished the Sidneys! Here, during his few brief years of absence from turmoil in the turbulent countries of Ireland and Wales, resided the elder Sidney, Sir Henry, who, although his fame has been eclipsed by the more dazzling reputation of his gallant son, was in all respects good as well as great—a good soldier, a good subject, a good master, and a good counsellor and actor under circumstances peculiarly perilous. This is the birthplace of “the darling of his time,” the “chiefest jewel of a crown,” the “diamond of the court of Queen Elizabeth.” Here, too, was born—and here was interred the mutilated body of—the “later Sidney:” he who had “set up Marcus Brutus for his pattern,” and perished on the scaffold—a martyr for the “good old cause,” one of the many victims of the meanest and most worthless of his race. With the memories of these three marvellous men—the Sidneys, Henry, Philip, and Algernon—are closely blended those of the worthies of the two most remarkable eras in English history. Who can speak of Penshurst without thinking of Spenser,
(“For Sidney heard him sing, and knew his voice,”)
of Shakspere, of Ben Jonson—the laureate of the place—of Raleigh, the “friend and frequent guest” of Broke, whose proudest boast is recorded on his tomb, that he was “the servant of Queen Elizabeth, the counsellor of King James, and THE FRIEND of Sir Philip Sidney”—of the many other immortal men who made the reign of Elizabeth the glory of all time? Reverting to a period less remote, who can think of Penshurst without speaking of the high spirits of a troubled age—
“The later Sidney, Marvel, Harrington,
Young Vane, and others, who called Milton—friend.”
Although its glory is of the past, and nearly two centuries have intervened between the latest record of its greatness and its present state; although it has been silent all that time—a solemn silence, broken only by the false love-note of an unworthy minstrel, for the names of “Waller” and “Sacharissa” discredit rather than glorify its grey walls—who does not turn to Penshurst as to a refreshing fountain by the wayside of wearying history?
Penshurst, from the President’s Court.
The history of the descent of Penshurst to the Sidneys may be summed up in few words—that of the Sidneys themselves will require greater space. It was “the ancient seat of the Pencestres, or Penchesters, who settled here in Norman times,[31] and one of whom was Sir Stephen, that famous Lord Warden of the Five Ports, and Constable of Dover Castle, who flourished in the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I., and who was a very learned man, and ordered all the muniments, grants, &c., relating to Dover Castle to be written in a fair book, which he called Castelli Feodarium, and out of which Darell composed the history of that fortress.” Dying without male issue, his estates were divided between his two daughters and co-heiresses, Joan, wife of Henry Cobham, and Alice, wife of John de Columbers, to the latter of whom fell Penshurst, &c., which was soon afterwards conveyed to Sir John de Poultney, who (15th Edward II.) had license to embattle his mansion houses at Penshurst and elsewhere. He was four times Lord Mayor of London, and, dying, his widow “married Lovaines, and conveyed these estates into that family with consent of her first husband’s immediate heirs;” and they afterwards passed, by an heiress, to Sir Philip St. Clere, whose son sold them to the Regent Duke of Bedford. On his decease in Paris in the reign of Henry VI., Penshurst and other manors passed to his next brother, Humphrey, the “good Duke of Gloucester,” after whose sad death, in 1447, they reverted to the crown, and were, in that same year, granted to the Staffords. On the attainder of Edward, Duke of Buckingham, Penshurst reverted to the Crown.