The story of its destruction is peculiar. It was deliberately dismantled and partially torn down in 1777 by its owner, who used the materials in erecting a smaller house, now called Herstmonceux Place, which would be less expensive to maintain. It is interesting to know that Wyatt, the architect who dealt so barbarously with Salisbury and Hereford Cathedrals, was the advisor of this wanton destruction. The last descendant of the original owner died in 1662, and since then the estate has changed hands many times. It is now one of the most popular tripper resorts in Sussex and during the summer months the daily visitors number hundreds.
It is not our wont to trouble ourselves much with the sober history of such places, but there is one melancholy incident of the early days of the palace which has weird interest for the wanderer who stands amidst the shattered grandeur, and which we may best relate in the words of an English historian:
“Lord Dacre, of Herstmonceux, a young nobleman of high spirit and promise, not more than twenty-four years old, was tempted by his own folly, or that of his friends, to join a party to kill deer in the park of an unpopular neighbor. The excitement of lawless adventure was probably the chief or only inducement for the expedition; but the party were seen by the foresters; a fray ensued, in which one of the latter was mortally wounded and died two days after.
“Had Lord Dacre been an ordinary offender he would have been disposed of summarily. Both he and his friends happened to be general favorites. The Privy Council hesitated long before they resolved on a prosecution and at last it is likely they were assisted by a resolution from the King.
“‘I found all the Lords at the Star Chamber,’ Sir William Paget wrote to Wriothesley, ‘assembled for a conference touching Lord Dacre’s case. They had with them present the Chief Justice with others of the King’s learned council, and albeit I was excluded, yet they spoke so loud, some of them, that I might hear them notwithstanding two doors shut between us. Among the rest that could not agree to wilful murder, the Lord Cobham, as I took him by his voice, was very vehement and stiff.’ They adjourned at last to the King’s Bench. The Lord Chancellor was appointed High Steward and the prisoner was brought up to the bar. He pleaded ‘not guilty,’ he said that he intended no harm, he was very sorry for the death of the forester, but it had been caused in an accidental struggle; and ‘surely,’ said Paget, who was president, ‘it was a pitiful sight to see a young man brought by his own folly into so miserable a state.’ The lords, therefore, as it seems they had determined among themselves, persuaded him to withdraw his plea and submit to the King’s clemency. He consented; and they repaired immediately to the Court to intercede for his pardon. Eight persons in all were implicated—Lord Dacre and seven companions. The young nobleman was the chief object of commiseration; but the King remained true to his principles of equal justice; the frequency of crimes of violence had required extraordinary measures of repression; and if a poor man was to be sent to the gallows for an act into which he might be tempted by poverty, thoughtlessness could not be admitted as an adequate excuse because the offender was a peer. Four out of the eight were pardoned. For Lord Dacre there was to the last an uncertainty. He was brought to the scaffold, when an order arrived to stay the execution, probably to give time for a last appeal to Henry. But if it was so the King was inexorable. Five hours later the sheriff was again directed to do his duty; and the full penalty was paid.”
Leaving the ruined mansion we drop down to the seashore, passing Bexhill on the way to Hastings, which is now a modern city of sixty-five thousand people, its red-brick, tile-roofed houses rising in terraces overlooking the sea. Once it was an important seaport, but here the sea has advanced and wiped out the harbor, and it is now chiefly known as a watering-place. A few miles from the town was fought the Battle of Hastings, which stamped the name so deeply on English history and marked the overthrow of the Saxon dynasty. On a precipitous hill looking far over town and sea stands the scanty ruin of its castle, whose story is much clouded, though legend declares it was built by the Conqueror.
Far greater is the attraction of the unspoiled old towns of Winchelsea and Rye, a few miles farther on the coast road. A former visit gives them a familiar look, but we stop an hour in Rye. The receding sea robbed these towns of their importance hundreds of years ago, and their daily life is now quite undisturbed by modern progress. Each occupies a commanding hill separated by a few miles of low-lying land. A local writer makes the truest appeal for Rye when he declares that it gives us today a presentment of a town of centuries earlier. “Rye,” he says, “is southern and opulent in coloring. There is here mellowness, a gracious beauty; one has the feeling that every house and garden is the pride and love of its owner, and indeed this impression is a true one, for it is the characteristic of Rye to inspire the loving admiration of its inhabitants, whether native-born or drawn thither in later life.”
Rye has a magnificent church, the largest in Sussex, which overshadows the town from the very crest of the hill. A very unusual church it is, with a low cone-pointed tower and triple roofs lying alongside each other. At the end of the nave are three immense stone-mullioned windows, very effective and imposing, though the glass is modern. Queen Elizabeth presented to the church the remarkable old tower clock which has marked time steadily for more than three hundred years. The pendulum swings low inside, describing a wide arc only a little above the preacher’s head.
