From the windows of this room a noble view of the country is obtained, which is very undulatory and beautiful; the lake, the avenues, and the antique oaks which surround the house, also add to the beauty of the prospect. The effect of the pavilion opposite each wing of the building is here seen to good effect, surrounded as they generally are with trees and flowers. We engrave one of them. The chimney upon its exterior bracket is a peculiar feature in their design.
Among the portraits preserved in the mansion may be noticed particularly a curious one of Sir John Perrott, Knight of the Bath, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1583 to 1588, who was descended from a very ancient family in Pembrokeshire; his mother was Mary, daughter of James Berkeley, Esq., second son of Lord Berkeley. Sir Robert Naunton, in his “Fragmenta Regalia,” intimates that he was a natural son of Henry VIII. “If we compare,” says he, “his picture, his qualities, gesture, and voice, with those of the king, which memory retains yet amongst us, they will plead strongly that he was a surreptitious child of the blood-royal.” His first appearance at court was early in the reign of Edward VI. He was arraigned of high treason at Westminster, April 17, 1592, and received sentence of death; but did not suffer, for he died five months after in the Tower. He left one son, Sir Thomas Perrot, knight, who married Dorothy, sister to the favourite Earl of Essex, by whom he had one or more daughters. Sir Thomas dying early, his widow married Henry Percy, the ninth Earl of Northumberland, and his estate came afterwards by marriage to the Pakingtons.
Sir John Pakynton, knight, son of the first grantee, was sheriff of this county in the reign of Elizabeth, and a favourite with that queen, who first took notice of him in her progress to Worcester; he followed her to court, and was made a Knight of the Bath. On one occasion he betted with three courtiers, for 3000l., to swim against them from Westminster to Greenwich, but the queen, by her especial command, prevented it. His only court favour on record was a monopoly of starch. Fuller says of him, that, “being a fine but no assiduous courtier, he drew the curtain between himself and the light of the queen’s favour, and then death overwhelmed the remnant, and utterly deprived him of recovery; and they say of him, that had he brought less to the court than he did, he might have carried away more than he brought, for he had a time of it, but was no good husband of opportunity.” He died of gout at the age of seventy-seven, and was buried at Aylesbury, 1625.
Sir John Pakyngton, Bart., knight of the shire 15 Charles I., was a confirmed loyalist, and was tried for his life by the Parliament, his estates were sequestered, and he was plundered for his loyalty, but he ultimately compounded with the parliamentary committee for 5000l., and died in 1679. His house was an asylum for all learned men in these troublesome times. Nash says, “Dr. Hammond, Bishops Morley, Fell, Gunning, and others, always met with hospitable entertainment here, during the troubles of the kingdom. In concert, with some of these, Dorothy, “the good Lady Pakington” as she was called, is supposed to have written “The Whole Duty of Man,” one of the most popular of religious volumes. In defence of her supposed authorship, it is said that Lady Pakington’s letters and prayers are marked with the easy familiar language of that book; and it has been asserted that the original MS. in the handwriting of this lady, and interlined with corrections by Bishop Fell, was sometime in possession of her daughter, Mrs. Ayre, of Rampton, who often affirmed it to be the performance of her mother, adding that she was also the authoress of the “Decay of Christian Piety,” another celebrated religious work. But “upon the whole,” adds Nash, “it still remains a doubt, and it is much easier to prove who was not the author than to assert who was.”
At the Revolution, the doors of Westwood were open to some persons who scrupled to take oaths to King William. Dean Hickes wrote here great part of his “Linguarum Septentrionalium Thesaurus;” and the preface to his “Grammatica Anglo-Saxonica” is dedicated to Sir John Pakington. In it he gives the following declamatory description of Westwood,—“Ibi porticus, atria, propylæa, horti, ambulacra clausa et subdialia, recta et sinuosa, omnia studiis commoda; ibi luci, silvæ, nemora, prata, saltus, planities, pascua, et nihil non, quod animum pene a literis abhorrentem et legendum, audiendumve, et quovismodo discendum componere, et conciliare potest.”
From a drawing by Wᵐ Richardson. Day & Son, Lithʳˢ to The Queen.
FOUNTAINS HALL, YORKSHIRE