The estate was afterwards purchased for Henrietta Maria, Queen of Charles the First, and here the King and she sometimes resided. “The mansion at Wimbledon,” says Mr. Lysons, in his work on the Environs of London, “is mentioned among the houses as belonging to the crown, in the inventory of the jewels and pictures of King Charles the First. It is remarkable that that monarch was so little aware of the fate preparing for him by his enemies, that, a few days before he was brought to trial, he ordered the seeds of some melons to be planted in his garden at Wimbledon. It was afterwards sold to Baynes, and by him probably to Lambert, the parliament’s general. When he had been discarded by Cromwell, he retired to this house, and turned florist, having the finest tulips and gillyflowers that could be got for love or money. He also excelled in painting flowers, some specimens of which remained for many years at this house.”
A fate seems to hang over certain estates and houses. The Restoration gave back Wimbledon to Queen Henrietta, who sold the house to Lord Bristol, and he to the Marquis of Carmarthen, whose trustees sold it to Sir Theodore Janseen. Sir Theodore, for what reason does not appear, pulled down the magnificent house in which Charles and his Queen had resided, and began to build a new one, probably on a smaller scale than the old building. The South Sea business involving Sir Theodore in the general ruin, the estate was purchased by the Duchess of Marlborough. She, in her turn, destroyed what Sir Theodore had built, and erected a new house on the north side of the knoll on which the present house stands, after a design of the Earl of Burlington.[[365]]
This fabric was not doomed long to stand, for the Duchess, not approving of the situation, desired his lordship to give her a design for a house on the south side; and having obtained a plan, she pulled down her partly-erected house, and constructed another. But this mansion was destined to destruction also; it was bequeathed by her to John Spencer, Esq., from whom it came to his son, Earl Spencer, in whose time, and on Easter Monday, 1785, it was almost entirely burnt down by accident. The ruins were cleared away, and the grounds levelled and turfed, so that scarcely a trace even of the foundation was left. Such was the fate of this abode of the Duchess, which, in her later days, she preferred to all others. The present house was built in 1798. It stands in a park seven miles in compass, containing about twelve hundred acres, (laid out by Browne,) which affords a beautiful home prospect, with a fine piece of water towards the north, and an extensive view over Surrey and Kent to the south.
The Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, could they have foreseen these occurrences, might have been excused if superstitious fears had assailed them, when on the eve of devoting a portion of their wealth to some new structure. The desire of Marlborough, so feelingly expressed, that he might live at Blenheim in peace, was not to be gratified. The progress of that structure was attended by difficulties and vexations truly inimical to quiet; and various accounts have been given of the cause and details of those wearying disputes and disappointments which embittered Marlborough’s associations with Blenheim. Upon the proposal of Queen Anne, and the vote of Parliament, it had been determined, in 1704, that the British nation should build the Duke of Marlborough a structure suitable to the residence of their great and wealthy general, and emblematic of national gratitude and of royal munificence. Half a million was voted for the building, and on the eighteenth of June, 1705, the first stone of the Castle, as it was called, was laid.[[366]]
Notwithstanding the vote of parliament, the Duke of Marlborough, considering, as he well might, the uncertainty of public favour, and the slender nature of that cobweb entitled public honour, deemed it prudent never to issue any orders for the building except through the Treasury.[[367]] There is a manuscript letter of his extant, which expressly enforces this caution. The architect selected for the great work was Sir John Vanburgh, probably appointed from interest, when we reflect that Sir Christopher Wren was in all his strength and fame, and actually made a plan of one side of the building, of which Lord Godolphin approved much more highly than of anything that was subsequently done by Vanburgh; adding to his commendations, that he was sure nothing that was designed by Vanburgh or Hawkesmoor would please him so well. Wren was afterwards employed in the construction of Marlborough-house.
No sooner was the work commenced, than we find, by the manuscript letters, that the Duchess took a considerable share in the management of the works, combating stoutly against the extravagances and impositions of Sir John Vanburgh in detail, though she was wholly unable to check the gross amount of his charges.
On a contract for lime to build Blenheim, made, in 1705, between the Duke and Vanburgh, the Duchess wrote these characteristic words: “Is not that, sevenpence-halfpenny per bushel, a very high price, when they had the advantage of making it in the park? besides, in many things of that nature, false measure had been proved.”[[368]] It is no wonder that Sir John Vanburgh, very soon afterwards, began to call the Duchess very “stupid and troublesome,” and ended by venting upon her grace the coarsest terms of abuse that anger, unmitigated by good breeding, could devise.
In 1709, the works at Blenheim had progressed so far as to enable Vanburgh to flatter the Duke with a hope that the house would be ready for his grace’s reception soon after his return from the continent, where Marlborough then was. In the same letter in which this intimation was given, a minute detail of all the offices was also set forth; so that notwithstanding the difficulty of procuring stone, of which Vanburgh complained, and other hindrances, there seemed to be every prospect of a favourable termination to the long-deferred hopes of the noble owners of Blenheim.[[369]]
And now a question arose, in which, without any partiality to Sir John Vanburgh’s conduct, we must acknowledge that his taste and judgment were conspicuously displayed, and that to him we owe an effort (fruitless, unfortunately,) to preserve and restore one of those remains, truly of English character, which are so fondly prized by all British hearts.
The manor-house, or ancient palace of Woodstock, was, in 1709, before the ravages of improvement, and the chimeras of the landscape gardener, attacked and laid it low, still standing in tolerable repair. It appears, from an old print,[[370]] to have been a picturesque building, with a quadrangular court, and towers at each corner. It occupied a slightly elevated spot near the river Glyme, then a narrow stream, at a short distance from the grand bridge now thrown across the lake. The situation was extremely beautiful, for art had not then lowered the rugged hill, of which Vanburgh in his letters complains. Rich coverlets of wood concealed the old house, whilst in front flowed the gentle stream on whose banks Chaucer wandered. The manor was not only distinguished as the scene of several parliaments which were held there, but had still more romantic claims to respect and preservation. It was within its precincts that a bower, or retired dwelling, was erected by Henry the Second for his Rosamond, in whose gentle name, seclusion, and misfortunes, we are apt to forget her error, and the cause of her fate. The fabled labyrinth is said to have derived its origin from being confounded with the structure of the palace gardens, which were formed of the Topiary work—twisted alleys resembling a maze. A gate-house in front of the palace gave dignity to the whole tenement, and enclosed at one time Elizabeth of England, the captive inmate of the manor, from a window of which she is said to have viewed with envy a milkmaid, and to have written on a shutter, with some charcoal, those beautiful lines expressive of her wishful desire for freedom, which are extant.