Of the original Cistercian abbey, built in 1148 and peopled with monks brought from Rievaulx in Yorkshire, little remains save a groined and pillared chamber, supposed to have been the refectory, and used nowadays as a servants' hall. There is a singular hooded fireplace with a fine old dog-grate, and against the end wall stands a long oaken table—a relic of ancient feasting.
Rufford Abbey owed its existence to the filial piety of a collateral descendant of William the Conqueror. The sixteenth-century translation of the Foundation reads thus:—
"Gilbert Gaunte Earle of Lincolne to all his men and all the Children of our Holy Mother the church sends greeting willing you to know that I have given and granted in pure alms to the monks of Ryvalls for my Father's and Mother's souls And for ye remission of my sinns the Manor of the town of Rughfforde And all that I have there in demesne to build an Abbey of the order of Cistercians in the honour of St. Mary the Virgin—Therefore I will and Command that they freely and quietly from all secular service and all customes shall hold the said land with All that to the dominion of the said Town doth belong in woods plains meadowes pastures mylnes waters ways and paths."
A striking contrast may be found in the Domestic State Papers of 10 December, 1533:—
"Thomas Legh to Cromwell. On St. Nicholas Day the quondam Abbot of Rufforth was installed at Ryvax, and the late abbot of Ryvax sang Te deum at his installation, and exhibited his resignation the same day. The assignation of his pension is left to my Lord of Rutland, in which I moved him to follow your advice. Though pity is always good, it is most necessary in time of need. I would, therefore, that he had an honest living, though he has not deserved it, either to my lord or me."
After the Dissolution, Henry the Eighth leased the estate for twenty-one years to Sir John Markham, and afterwards exchanged it for some Irish property belonging to George, Earl of Shrewsbury. Bess of Hardwick was here often, and it was at Rufford that, in 1575, she arranged the marriage of her daughter, Elizabeth Cavendish, with Darnley's brother, from which union issued the ill-fated Arabella Stuart. Queen Elizabeth was greatly offended by what she justly regarded as an encroachment upon royal prerogative, and both mothers-in-law were sent for a time to the Tower. The Earl of Shrewsbury wrote in explanation to Lord Burghley:—
"The Lady Lennox being, as I heard, sickly, rested her at Rufford five days and kept most her bedchamber, and in that time the young man her son fell into liking with my wife's daughter before intended, and such liking was between them as my wife tells me she makes no doubt of a match, and hath so tied themselves upon their own liking as cannot part. My wife hath sent him to my lady, and the young man is so far in love that belike he is sick without her."
Then, giving a slight hint of his countess's ambitions, he adds:—
"This taking effect, I shall be well at quiet, for there is few noblemen's sons in England that she hath not prayed me to deal for at one time or other, and now this comes unlooked for without thanks to me."