We now reach the celebrated episode of Dorothy Vernon, upon which the fate of Haddon hung and which has lent the glamour of romance to the scenes in which she moved. Sir George Vernon, her father, the last heir male of the Haddon line, was twice married, and his effigy now lies in Bakewell Church, with those of his two wives, Margaret, daughter of Sir Gilbert Tayleboys, and Maude, daughter of Sir Ralph Langford. Of his two daughters, Margaret, the elder, was married to Sir Thomas Stanley of Winwick, in Lancashire, son of the third Earl of Derby; and Dorothy, the younger—who ultimately became sole heiress—to John Manners, the second son of Sir Thomas Manners, first Earl of Rutland. It is not easy to say at this date what could have been the strong objection which the “King of the Peak” is averred to have had to his daughter’s marriage with John Manners, whose father was of high descent, and died, covered with honours, in 1543, having had a royal augmentation granted to his arms, by reason of his descent from Anne Plantagenet, sister of Edward IV. It may, indeed, be that Sir George had planned some great alliance for his daughter, and was ill content with a younger son, or perhaps differences of religion were at the root of his objection, or, we may suppose again, that some personal antipathy, of which there is no record, was felt by the knight to his daughter’s lover. However this may be, tradition tells us that the attachment was a secret one, or, at least, that the meeting of Manners and Dorothy Vernon was under her father’s ban. Legend has grown up about the episodes, and it is related that Manners lingered in the woods of Haddon disguised as a forester or a hunter, gaining speech at times with the lady, and watching the light in her window. As to the actual circumstances of the elopement—if elopement there was, which seems probable—we have tradition alone to guide us. It is said that, on the occasion of certain festivities at the Hall—held, as some aver, in honour of the marriage of her elder sister—Dorothy stole away from the gay scene, ran down to the terrace by the steps from the anteroom which now bear her name, and joined her lover, who had horses waiting near. The pair then mounted, and galloped, as the story goes, all through the night, until they reached Aylston, in Leicestershire, where they were married on the morrow. The memory of Dorothy Vernon will linger long about the tapestried chambers and sweet-scented gardens of Haddon, and whatever there may be of truth or falsehood in the story of her elopement, the visitor who passes down the steps and walks beneath the low-hanging boughs of the yew-trees on the terrace, or is shadowed by the limes and sycamores in Dorothy Vernon’s Walk, where the banks are carpeted with flowers in the spring-time, will do well to cherish this legendary history, which has given an unfailing charm to Haddon. In Bakewell Church, moreover, where both Dorothy and her husband lie buried, he may see her kneeling effigy, and, if her features should strike him as homely, and somewhat unattractive withal, he will bethink him what profound depths of feeling, and what strange capacities for romance, exist unsuspected in the life of every day. It will be of interest here to record the fact that, in the year 1841, when the church of Bakewell was being restored, excavations were made on the site of the monument of John Manners and his wife, and remains believed to be theirs were found in wooden coffins. “The head of the female,” we read, “was still covered with hair, cut short on the forehead, but long behind, extremely friable, remarkably soft, and of a beautiful auburn colour, and in it were found six brass pins.” The wife of John Manners died on Midsummer Day, 1584, but her husband survived many years, and died on the 4th of June, 1611. He continued to reside at Haddon, and showed no lack of interest in the great house that had become his own. There can be no reasonable doubt that the Long Gallery was built by him, and thus one of the chief beauties of the Hall is attributed to its first possessor of the Manners’ name. Both within and without, the three great bays relieve it from all monotony, and the first impression on entering it is of its grandeur and dignity. The Long Gallery or Ball-Room was a customary feature in great houses of Tudor and Stuart times, and may yet be seen in many places—as, for example, in very stately form at Belvoir, and characteristically at Astley Hall, in Lancashire, but nowhere more attractively than at Haddon. There its length is more than one hundred and nine feet, its width eighteen feet, and its height fifteen feet. The heavy steps of solid oak by which it is entered, and the whole flooring of the room are said to have been cut from one gigantic oak which grew in the woods. The wainscot is divided by fluted pilasters into panels, which have arched tops, and, above, the boar’s-head crest of the Vernons, and the Manners’ peacock, with roses and thistles, are alternated. In the windows also there is blazonry of the arms of Rutland and Shrewsbury, with the royal shield of England; and over the mantel hangs a very remarkable picture, representing Thomyris, Queen of the Massagetae, victorious over Cyrus, whose head is being presented to her.
The subsequent relation of the Manners family with Haddon Hall need not occupy us very long, for the building itself was completed, and the addition of the terraces and some features of the gardens left it as we see it now, save that its chambers were not yet bare. John, the eighth Earl, who lived at Belvoir and Haddon alternately, espoused the cause of the Parliament, and took the Solemn League and Covenant. Belvoir Castle was captured by the Royalists, and suffered sadly in the subsequent troubles, the Earl meanwhile living mostly at Haddon, where his magnificence, it would seem, rivalled that of the “King of the Peak.” He shared in the Restoration; and, as we read in Lysons, between 1660 and 1670, although the family were then living mostly at Belvoir, there was a prodigious consumption of beeves and sheep at Haddon, and particularly that an open Christmas was held there in 1663, when, as appears by the bailiff’s charges, outlay was made for much work in the kitchen, and for pipers and dancers to make the guests merry withal. John, the ninth Earl, was created Marquis of Granby and Duke of Rutland by Queen Anne, and was succeeded, upon his death at Belvoir in 1711, by his son John, the second Duke, who died in 1721, and he again by his son, also named John, the third Duke, who lived occasionally at Haddon. It was, however, during his lifetime that the family finally quitted their ancient home by the Wye, and the Hall was dismantled about the year 1740. Yet, ever since that time, the successive Dukes of Rutland have safeguarded the venerable edifice, and, without attempting restoration, by structural supports and careful watching, have preserved it from decay. It is to them that the public owe the inestimable privilege of being allowed to linger within the time-worn walls and chambers, which, besides being of abounding interest in themselves, awaken so many delightful memories of history and romance.
When the Hall ceased to be a place of residence not all its adornments were removed. The tapestry deserves special attention, there being, in several of the rooms, some fine remains of Gobelins and other work. The graceful drawing-room is partially hung with it, as was customary, in such manner as to conceal the entrance to the Earl’s dressing-room, and there are curious iron hooks for holding it back. The Earl’s bedroom itself is tapestried with representations of the chase. One of the rooms in the western range, as well as several small chambers on the north side, including Dorothy Vernon’s room, and others not usually shown to visitors, contain much good work of Flemish and French manufacture. In addition to the large picture in the Long Gallery, and the portraits in the dining-room which have been alluded to, there are many paintings in various parts of the house. A number of them are in the anteroom leading from the Long Gallery, including portraits of Queen Elizabeth and Charles I. There is a portrait, also, in the drawing-room, of the sixth Earl of Rutland, who died in 1632, and several of less importance are in the great hall. Many of the pictures are Italian, and little seems to be known about them; but they are thought to have been brought or sent to England by Sir Oliver Manners, a younger brother of Dorothy’s husband.
The visitor to Haddon will notice some other objects of curiosity and interest, and he will do well not to hurry through the vacant rooms, for, if the plan of the house be understood, and something of the several dates of its erection, very much may be learned of the ways, manners, and surroundings of mediæval and Tudor gentlemen. Then, passing down through the pleasant gardens, and recrossing the River Wye, the stranger will look back gratefully upon the grey towers, lighted perchance by the setting sun, and will bear away with him an impression of beauty, grandeur, and romance which surely will never fade.
CATHEDRAL OF PALERMO, ITALY.
CATHEDRAL OF PALERMO
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
While treating of Palermo, we are bound to think again of the Emperor who inherited from his German father the ambition of the Hohenstauffens and from his Norman mother the fair fields and Oriental traditions of Sicily. The strange history of Frederick—an intellect of the Eighteenth Century born out of date, a cosmopolitan spirit in the age of Saint Louis, the Crusader who conversed with Moslem sages on the threshold of the Holy Sepulchre, the Sultan of Lucera who presented Paterini while he respected the superstition of Saracens, the anointed successor of Charlemagne, who carried his harem with him to the battle-fields of Lombardy, and turned Infidels loose upon the provinces of Christ’s Vicar—would be inexplicable, were it not that Palermo still reveals in all her monuments the genius loci which gave spiritual nurture to this phœnix among kings. From his Mussulman teachers Frederick derived the philosophy to which he gave a vogue in Europe. From his Arabian predecessors he learned the arts of internal administration and finance, which he transmitted to the princes of Italy. In imitation of Oriental courts, he adopted the practice of verse composition, which gave the first impulse to Italian literature. His Grand Vizier, Piero Delle Vigne, set an example to Petrarch, not only by composing the first sonnet in Italian, but also by showing to what height a low-born secretary versed in art and law might rise. In a word, the zeal for liberal studies, the luxury of life, the religious indifferentism, the bureaucratic system of state government, which mark the age of the Italian Renaissance, found their first manifestation within the bosom of the Middle Ages in Frederick. While our King John was signing the Magna Charta, Frederick had already lived long enough to comprehend, at least in outline, what is meant by the spirit of modern culture. It is true that the so-called Renaissance followed slowly and by tortuous paths upon the death of Frederick. The Church obtained a complete victory over his family, and succeeded in extinguishing the civilization of Sicily. Yet the fame of the Emperor who transmitted questions of sceptical philosophy to Arab sages, who conversed familiarly with men of letters, who loved splendour and understood the arts of refined living, survived both long and late in Italy. His power, his wealth, his liberality of soul and lofty aspirations, formed the theme of many a tale and poem. Dante places him in hell among the heresiarchs; and truly the splendour of his supposed infidelity found for him a goodly following. Yet Dante dates the rise of Italian literature from the blooming period of the Sicilian Court. Frederick’s unorthodoxy proved no drawback to his intellectual influence. More than any other man of mediæval times he contributed, if only as the memory of a mighty name, to the progress of civilized humanity.
Let us take leave both of Frederick and of Palermo, that centre of converging influences, which was his cradle, in the cathedral where he lies gathered to his fathers. This church, though its rich sun-browned yellow[7] reminds one of the tone of Spanish buildings, is like nothing one has seen elsewhere. Here even more than at Monreale, the eye is struck with a fusion of styles. The western towers are grouped into something like the clustered sheafs of the Caen churches: the windows present Saracenic arches; the southern porch is covered with foliated incrustations of a late and decorative Gothic style; the exterior of the apse combines Arabic inlaid patterns of black and yellow with the Greek honeysuckle; the western door adds Norman dog-tooth and chevron to the Saracenic billet. Nowhere is any one tradition firmly followed. The whole wavers and yet is beautiful—like the immature eclecticism of the culture which Frederick himself endeavoured to establish in his southern kingdoms. Inside there is no such harmony of blended voices: all the strange tongues, which speak together on the outside, making up a music in which the far North, and ancient Byzance, and the delicate East sound each a note, are hushed. The frigid silence of the Palladian style reigns there—simple indeed and dignified, but lifeless as the century in which it flourished. Yet there, in a side chapel near the western door, stand the porphyry sarcophagi which shrine the bones of the Hautevilles and their representatives. There sleeps King Roger—“Dux Strenuus et primus Rex Siciliæ”—with his daughter Constance in her purple chest beside him. Henry VI. and Frederick II. and Constance of Aragon complete the group, which surpasses for interest all sepulchral monuments—even the tombs of the Scaligers at Verona—except only, perhaps, the statues of the nave of Innsprück. Very sombre and stately are these porphyry resting-places of princes born in the purple, assembled here from lands so distant—from the craggy heights of Hohenstauffen, from the green orchards of Cotentin, from the dry hills of Aragon. They sleep, and the centuries pass by. Rude hands break open the granite lids of their sepulchres, to find tresses of yellow hair and fragments of imperial mantles, embroidered with the hawks and stags the royal hunter loved. The church in which they lie, changes with the change of taste in architecture and the manners of successive ages. But the huge stone arks remain unmoved, guarding their freight of mouldering dust beneath gloomy canopies of stone, that temper the sunlight as it streams from the chapel windows.
