About this time, from 1660 to 1670, although the family resided chiefly at Belvoir, there were generally killed and consumed every year, at Haddon, between 30 and 40 beeves, between 400 and 500 sheep, and 8 or 10 swine.”
[15] A romantic tradition is still current in the vicinity of Haddon, relative to the courtship and marriage of Mr. Manners (afterwards Sir John) with the younger co-heiress of Vernon. The tradition purports that the lover (who was, perhaps, thirty years of age) having conceived an attachment for Miss Vernon, a beautiful girl of eighteen, dwelt for some time in the woods of Haddon as an outlaw, or, rather, in the dress of a gamekeeper (probably with the popular reputation of being an outlawed man), for the purpose of concealment, and in order to facilitate secret interviews with his mistress; and that he at length succeeded in persuading the young lady to elope with him during the festivities of a masked ball, given by Sir G. Vernon in honour of the marriage of his eldest daughter, Margaret, with Sir Thomas Stanley, a younger son of the Earl of Derby.
[16] According to Walpole, “Anecdotes of Painting,” there is a tradition in the family of Cavendish, that a fortune-teller had told this imperious lady that “she should not die while she was building: accordingly, she bestowed a great deal of the wealth she had obtained from three of her four husbands in erecting large seats at Hardwicke, Chatsworth, Bolsover and Oldcote, and, I think, at Worksop; and died in a hard frost, when the workmen could not labour.”
[17] Hardwicke was built subsequently to the death of Mary; but there is little doubt that the room called “The Queen’s Room,” in memory of the unhappy lady, was furnished with the bed and other furniture removed thither from Chatsworth, where she was for some time a prisoner. Probably the hangings said to have been wrought by her were actually the work of her hands; needlework was unquestionably one of the modes by which she sought to solace her dismal confinement. Mr. White, writing to Sir William Cecil, describes an interview he had with her at Tutbury Castle, in 1568: “She sayd that all day she wrought with her nydill and that the diversity of the colours made her work seem less tedious, and contynued so long at it, till very payne made her to give over.”
[18] The curious in such matters may find further information on this head in the “Churchman’s Magazine” of 1801; and in the tenth volume of Bowles’ edition of Pope’s Works, 1806.
[19] Lord Braybrooke’s “History of Audley End;” to which copious volume we are principally indebted for our notices of the history of the house and its occupants.
[20] Evelyn records, in his “Diary,” his visit thus:—“From Cambridge, on August 31, 1654, we went to Audley End, and spent some time in seeing that goodly palace, built by Howard, Earl of Suffolk, once Lord Treasurer. It is a mixt fabric, ’twixt ancient and modern, but observable for its being completely finished; and it is one of the stateliest palaces of the kingdom. It consists of two courts, the first very large, winged with cloisters. The front hath a double entrance; the hall is faire, but somewhat too small for so august a pile; the kitchen is very large, as are the cellars, arched with stone, very neate, and well disposed. These offices are joyned by a wing out of the way very handsomely. The gallery is the most cheerful, and, I think, one of the best in England; a faire dining-roome, and the rest of the lodgings answearable, with a pretty chapel. The gardens are not in order, though well inclosed; it has also a bowling alley, and a nobly walled, wooded, and watered park. The river glides before the palace, to which is an avenue of lime-trees, but all this is much diminished by its being placed in an obscure bottom. For the rest it is a perfectly uniform structure, and shews without like a diadem, by the decoration of the cupolas and other ornaments on the pavilions. Instead of railings and balusters, there is a bordure of capital letters, as was lately, also, in Suffolke house.”
[21] It has recently been pulled down.
[22] Lord Braybrooke’s “History of Audley End.”
[23] The story of St. Osyth, as given in an old tract, entitled “Purgatory Proved by Miracles,” is printed by Wright in his History of Essex:—“St. Ositha was daughter of a Mercian prince named Frithwald, and of Wilterburga, daughter of Pende, king of the Mercians. She was bred up in great piety; and through her parents’ authority, became wife to Sighere, companion to St. Seb, in the kingdom of East Angles. But preferring the love of a heavenly bridegroom before the embraces of a king, her husband complied with her devotion; and, moreover, not only permitted her to consecrate herself to our Lord, but bestowed on her a village, situated near the sea, called Chic, where, building a monastery, she enclosed herself, and after she had spent some time in the service of God, it happened that a troop of Danish pirates landed there; who, going out of their ships, wasted and burned the country thereabout, using all manner of cruelty to the Christian inhabitants. Then he who was the captain of that impious band, having learnt the condition and religious life of the blessed virgin St. Ositha, began by entreaties and presents to tempt her to idolatry; adding withal threats of scourging, and other torments, if she refused to adore the gods he worshipped. But the holy virgin, despising his flatteries, and not fearing his threats, made small account of the torments attending her. Whereupon the said captain, enraged at her constancy and scorn of his idols, pronounced sentence of death against her, commanding her to lay down her head to be cut off. And in the same place where the virgin suffered martyrdom, a clear fountain broke forth, which cured several kinds of diseases. As soon as her head was off, the body presently rose up, and taking up the head in the hands, by the conduct of angels, walked firmly the straight way to the church of the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, about a quarter of a mile distant from the place of her suffering. And when it was come there, it knocked at the door with the bloody hands, as desiring it might be opened, and thereon left marks of blood. Having done this, it fell there down to the ground.”