With the World's Great Travellers, Volume 3

by Unknown

CHATSWORTH CASTLE.

JOHN LEYLAND.

[“The Peak of Derbyshire,” concerning which Mr. Leyland has written a highly interesting book, presents in its vicinity numerous points of attraction. Here is the location of the castle of “Peveril of the Peak,” the hero of one of Scott’s romances. Here are two much more famous residences of the nobility, Haddon Hall and Chatsworth, the latter of which we have chosen as the subject of our present selection.]

If some have burst into rhapsody in describing the glories of Chatsworth, one can scarcely marvel at their extravagance, for there is in this “Palace of the Peak” and its wooded valley such a rare conjuncture of the fascinating beauties of nature with the finest expressions of art, that language can ill describe the things that are indelibly impressed upon the memory. The placid Derwent, here flowing gently between the meads on which the fallow deer are wont to herd; the graceful slopes bestudded with many a noble tree, whose spreading boughs cast down a wide expanse of shade; the hills on either hand rising in varied height and contour, crowned with a rich woodland of oak, chestnut, beech, and lime; a palace wherein every art finds most fitting expression, and where the fruits of learning are plenteously upstored,—small wonder, indeed, if here the imagination of many be stirred. As we approach the house from Baslow, crossing the Barbrook, which rises in the heights of East Moor, we enter the great park, and, passing the fruit and vegetable gardens on the right, its varied beauties are gradually unfolded with entrancing effect until Chatsworth itself is seen beyond the trees.

The House may be viewed in its majestic proportions from several points in the valley and on the slopes. From across the classic bridge of three arches, which Caius Gabriel Cibber (the father of Colley Cibber) adorned with statues, the dignity of its many-pillared façade has an imposing effect. More varied, however, is the view from the slope of the hill to the northward on the right bank of the river, where the later wing, added by the sixth Duke of Devonshire, lies prominently before the spectator, or again farther southward, where the same wing recedes in the perspective. If one would gain a fine prospect of the whole of this part of Derwent, and of the palatial edifice itself, there can be no better way than to climb to the old turreted hunting-tower, which is such a conspicuous object on the eastern hill.

There is nothing in the regular, classic lines of Chatsworth to remind us of that Chetel, the Saxon, who is believed to have given his name to the place in which he dwelt. His homestead and oxgangs of land fell, as Domesday records, to the Crown, and were given in custody to William Peveril, who had also the stronghold at Castleton, as we have seen, with Haddon by the Wye, and many a castle and manor besides. Nothing now remains of these times at Chatsworth, save, perhaps, the grove of venerable oaks, gnarled, shattered, and time-worn, upon the neighboring hill....

Sir William Cavendish and his wife built the first Chatsworth House of which we have any definite knowledge, for there is scanty record of any mediæval structure, and it was she who completed it some time after his death. The extraordinary lady—something of a vixen, we may believe—who was married to four husbands, and discomfited at any rate the last of them, was the builder also of Hardwick Hall, one of the most celebrated houses in England. The Chatsworth of her time was a quadrangular building of “surprising height,” as Cotton says, with an embattled top, and massive angle, and lateral turrets strengthening its many-windowed walls, as may be seen by a painting of it which now hangs at Chatsworth. The third husband of “Bess of Hardwick” (Sir William St. Lo) being dead, she married that powerful nobleman, George, Earl of Shrewsbury; and it was during his lifetime that Chatsworth became the residence of Mary, Queen of Scots, when she was in captivity under his charge. The unhappy prisoner is said to have passed many of her lonesome hours in that moated garden, called Queen Mary’s bower, which was laid out on the top of the low square tower or platform, seen by the visitor amid the trees as he approaches the house from the bridge; and certain rooms in the great quadrangle, though they were built long after her day, are still traditionally said to be hers. If the scandal of the Tudor court be true, the lovely queen and her imperious hostess did not well agree, and the story is not hard to believe. At any rate, the bickerings of the lady with her husband, the Earl, are matters of record, notwithstanding that Fuller has said she “was happy in her several marriages.”...

Queen Mary was brought to Chatsworth in 1570, and was there long afterwards. In that year Cecil visited the house to conduct certain negotiations, and subsequently wrote that Elizabeth was willing her rival should “take y^e ayre about your howss on horsbacke, so that your L. be in company, and not to pass from your howss above one or twoo myle except it be on y^e moores.” Several times during subsequent years she was permitted to visit Buxton, for its waters, in company with the Earl and Countess, and it will be remembered that so well did the Earl treat his charge at one time, that he thereby incurred suspicions of disloyalty to Elizabeth. During the Civil Wars the house was held by both parties. Sir John Gell occupied it for the Parliament in 1643, but, in the December of that year, the Earl of Newcastle captured it, and garrisoned it for the King, and Colonel Shalcross was besieged there in 1645 by the Parliamentary forces, but the leaguer was raised after fourteen days.

The descendants of Sir William Cavendish, and of his celebrated wife, were content, during these years, to preserve Chatsworth as it had been left to them. The present quadrangular building is the work of William, the fourth Earl and first Duke of Devonshire, who was one of those who brought about the Revolution of 1688, and placed the Prince of Orange on the throne. During the reign of James II., the Earl was committed to prison, as it is quaintly said, because he led Colonel Colepepper out of the royal presence-chamber by the nose, whereupon, after sundry difficulties, he betook himself to his estates, and, as a chronicler of the new order of things puts it, in order to prevent his patriotic mind from dwelling unduly upon the woes of his country, rebuilt the south side of Chatsworth....