XII.
AGNES STRICKLAND.
Let us turn to an old Westmoreland family, residing between three and four hundred years ago, in the style of the period, at Sizergh Castle. Sir Thomas Strickland, the head of that family, manifested loyal attachment to the house of Stuart, and some of the lands and hereditary possessions, both in Westmoreland and Lancashire, were eventually lost through the steady adherence of Sir Thomas and his relatives to this cause.
We read of one daughter of the house in the time of Henry VIII., whose name, like that of the character we are sketching, was Agnes Strickland, marrying Sir Henry Curwen, of Workington Castle. And their son received Mary Queen of Scots, when she landed upon his estate. Camden, the historian, is also descended from the same branch of the family of Strickland.
A second Agnes Strickland married the eldest son of the Archbishop of York, Francis Sandys, and the family of the Stricklands appear to owe their conversion from Romanism to the Protestant faith to the influence of another son of the Archbishop, named George, who was a poet about two hundred years ago. They then became as staunch in the principles of the Reformation as they had previously been firm in papal policy.
One branch of the Strickland family settled at Raydon Hall, in Suffolk, and here the third Agnes Strickland was born, who has been so justly celebrated as the Historian of "The Queens of England from the Norman Conquest." Raydon Hall is a very lonely place on the sea coast, quite a mile from the nearest village, and there is no dwelling at all near to it, except one farm-house upon the estate.
The seclusion being thus extremely great during the long, bleak winter on the eastern coast, the family residing there would have passed many dreary months but for the intellectual tastes of its talented members.
There were eight children. Agnes was the third daughter, and the girls were very amicable and sociable in their simple life, varying the sterner work of severe study with delightful games, or in the care of pet animals, or by strolls in the gardens and grounds around the Hall. A governess had the partial training of Agnes and her sisters, but their father, himself a literary man, and intensely fond of history, topography and genealogy, principally conducted their education; compelling the girls to master subjects far beyond the usual attainments of young ladies, and requiring some knowledge of algebra and mathematics from the not always compliant and obedient daughters.