[43] Burnet gives a character of the first Earl of Dysart by no means flattering. “He was well turned for a Court; very insinuating, but very false; and of so revengeful a temper that rather than any of the counsels given by his enemies should succeed, he would have revealed them, and betrayed both the King and them. He had one particular quality, that when he was drunk, which was very often, he was upon a most exact reserve, though he was pretty open at all other times.”
[44] The Duchess of Lauderdale was one of the “busiest” women of the busy age in which she lived. Burnet insinuates, that during the life-time of her first husband “she had been in a correspondence with Lord Lauderdale that had given occasion for censure.” She succeeded in persuading him that he was indebted for his escape after “Worcester fight” to “her intrigues with Cromwell.” “She was a woman,” continues the Historian, “of great beauty, but of far greater parts. She had a wonderful quickness of apprehension, and an amazing vivacity in conversation. She had studied not only divinity and history, but mathematics and philosophy. She was violent in every thing she set about; a violent friend, but a much more violent enemy. She had a restless ambition, lived at a vast expense, and was ravenously covetous; and would have stuck at nothing by which she might compass her ends.” Upon the accession of her husband to political power, after the Restoration, “all applications were made to her; she took upon her to determine everything; she sold all places; and was wanting in no methods that could bring her money, which she lavished out in a most profuse vanity.”
[45] Lysons, writing more than half a century ago, describes the furnishing of the Mansion in terms which suit exactly to describe its present state. “It is,” he says, “a curious specimen of a mansion of the age of Charles the Second. The ceilings are painted by Verrio, and the rooms are ornamented with that massy magnificence of decoration then in fashion. The furniture is very rich; even the bellows and brushes, in some of the apartments, are of solid silver, or of silver filigree. In the closet adjoining the bed-chamber, which was the Duchess of Lauderdale’s, still remains the great chair in which she used to sit and read; it has a small desk fixed to it, and her cane hangs by the side. The furniture of the whole room is such that one might almost fancy her Grace to be still an inhabitant of the house.”
[46] The ministry, popularly known as the Cabal, came into power at the latter end of the year 1667, when Clarendon was turned out of office, and impeached by Parliament. That minister had raised a host of enemies at Court, by preserving a state and decorum foreign to their reigning habits. Evelyn says, “He kept up the form and substance of things in the nation with more solemnity than some would have had. The Parliament had accused him, and he had enemies at Court—especially the buffoons and ladies of pleasure—because he thwarted them, and stood in their way.” There were, however, grave charges brought against him as Chancellor, and he was obliged to fly the kingdom, dying an exile in France about seven years afterwards. The ministry that succeeded him consisted of five noblemen, the initials of whose names formed the word Cabal, to which their actions in many instances too well answered. These noblemen were Sir Thomas Clifford, first commissioner of the Treasury, afterwards Lord Clifford and high treasurer; the Earl of Arlington, secretary of state; the Duke of Buckingham; Lord Ashley, chancellor of the Exchequer, afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury and lord chancellor; and the Duke of Lauderdale. During the ascendancy of these ministers, Charles grew more reckless than ever. As none of them possessed the power Clarendon had of restraining him, he became much more despotic, treated Parliament more contemptuously, and allowed himself to become the pensioner of the French king.
The passing of the Test Act in 1673 first disunited “the Cabal,” on which occasion Clifford, the Popish lord treasurer, resigned his staff. Soon after the Prorogation of Parliament, on the fourth of November in the same year, the King took the great Seal from Shaftesbury, and gave it to Sir Heneage Finch, as Lord Keeper. The other members of the Cabal ministry, Arlington, Buckingham, and Lauderdale, were in seeming odium at court; and Clifford was unexpectedly succeeded by Sir Thomas Osborn, who was created Lord Treasurer and Earl of Danby; he became in effect prime minister, and the Danby administration was in many respects more iniquitous than that of the Cabal.
[47] “Manuscripts and other rare documents illustrative of some of the more minute particulars of History, Biography, and Manners, from the reign of Henry VIII., to that of James I., preserved in the muniment room of James More Molyneux, Esq., at Loseley House, in Surrey. Edited by Alfred John Kempe, F.S.A., 1836.” This curious and very interesting volume contains many singular documents, “connected with passages in history and biography, with the entertainment of the Court, with the internal regulations of the magistracy, and in some instances with the minor relations of domestic life”—affording very considerable help to arrive at correct ideas and just estimates of the state of society and political government in the 16th and early part of the 17th centuries. The editor intimates that the manuscripts were discovered in the muniment room at Loseley, “of which the key had been lost, and its existence disregarded during an interval of 200 years.” One of its earliest documents is a summons to Christopher More, to come to London to welcome Anne of Cleves, with six servants in his company, to ride amongst other gentlemen in “cotes of black velvet, with cheines of gold about their neckes, and with gownes of velvet or some other good silke for their chainge.”
[48] “In 1511, a dispute arose between the college on the one part, and the mayor, burgesses, and parishioners on the other, as to the liability of their respective bodies to repair the transepts and tower, with the bell and other appurtenances belonging to the latter. By consent of the parties, the point at issue was referred to the arbitration of Thomas, Earl of Arundel, and Robert Sherburne, Bishop of Chichester; and an award was soon after published, by which the burthen was equally divided between the college and the town. To the former, the duty of repairing the south transept, commonly called ‘the chancel of the parish,’ was assigned; to the latter, the obligation of attending in the same manner to the north transept; while the expense of upholding the tower, and the emoluments to be derived from the use of its bells, were thenceforth to be shared equally by both.”
[49] At the suppression, it was endowed with a yearly revenue of 263l. 14s. 9d.
[50] By this Thomas Fitz-Alan and his wife Beatrix was founded a hospital called “Maison Dieu,” for the maintenance of as many poor as the revenues with which it was endowed, would support. At the Dissolution, these were valued at 42l. 3s. 8d. per annum.
[51] In one of the chapel windows is the figure of a swallow on the wing, which is considered to intimate the original of the name of the castle; “for history and geography,” says Mr. Tierney, “the realms of fancy and romance, have all been explored in order to discover its etymon.” One author has amused himself with a rebus founded on the resemblance between the words Hirondelle and Arundel; and “it is not improbable,” writes Dr. Beattie, “that the migratory bird, here introduced, may have been selected as an appropriate emblem for the chapel window. The conjecture is, at least, as plausible as another that has been advanced; namely, that Arundel is derived from Hirondelle—the name of Bevis’s Horse.”