Knole and the Sackvilles

by V. Sackville-West

7th. My Lord lay in my chamber.

13th. My Lord supped privately with me in the Drawing Chamber, and had much discourse of the manners of the folks at court.

By the 17th, My Lord told me he was resolved never to move me more in these business because he saw how fully I was bent;

but evidently he did not stick to this good resolution, because, on April 20th, Easter-day, “My Lord and I had a great falling-out,” and a few days later, “This night my Lord should have lain with me, but he and I fell out about matters.”

By the next day, however, they were friends again; they played at Burley Break upon the lawn; and “this night my Lord came to lie in my chamber.” The next day, too, was spent in peace, and she “spent the evening in working and going down to my Lord’s closet, where I sat and read much in the Turkish history, and Chaucer.”

So it goes on. It becomes, perhaps, a little monotonous, save that it is always so human, and so modern. One sympathizes with her in her weaknesses even more than in her defiance; when, for instance, she writes amicable letters to all her relations-in-law, sending them locks of the Child’s hair, being “desirous to win the love of my Lord’s kindred by all the fair means I could,” in reality stealing a march upon Dorset in order to get them on her side. One day she chronicles, “This night I went into a bath,” but whether this event was of such rarity as to deserve special mention is not explained. At Whitsuntide they all went to church, but “my eyes were so blubbered with weeping that I could scarce look up,” and in the afternoon of the same day they again “fell out.” But she consoles herself with new clothes—or was that an additional penance? for she was never given to personal vanity—“I essayed on my sea-water green satin gown and my damask embroidered with gold, both which gowns the tailor which was sent from London made fit for me to wear with open ruffs after the French fashion.” Little peace-offerings came from time to time from Dorset; on one occasion he sends “half a buck, with an indifferent kind letter,” and on another occasion “My Lord sent Adam to trim the Child’s hair, and sent me the dewselts of two deer and wrote me a letter between kindness and unkindness.” “Still working and being extremely melancholy” is the entry of one summer day, and a day later, “Still working and sad.” A little after this she “rode on horseback to Withyham to see my Lord Treasurer’s tomb, and went down into the vault, and came home again [to Knole] weeping the most part of the day.” This is perhaps not very surprising. I have been down into that vault myself, and it is not a cheerful expedition. In a small, dark cave underground, beneath the church, among grey veils of cobwebs, the coffins of the Sackvilles are stacked on shelves; they go back to the fourteenth century, and are of all sizes, from full-grown men down to the tiny ones lapped in lead. But, of course, when Anne Clifford went there there were not so many as there are now; the pompous ones were not yet in their places, with their rusty coronets, save those of the old Treasurer and his son; and their blood did not run in the veins of Lady Anne, so on the whole she had less reason to be impressed than I.

The Diary continues in very much the same strain until it comes to an end with December 1619, the year 1618 being entirely missed out. By that time both Dorset and Anne were in bad health; but whereas he was to die five years later, at the age of thirty-five, she, made of tougher stuff, was to survive him by fifty-two years. His last letter to her, written to her on the very day of his death, shows all the affection which was so undermined by that question of her lands:

26th March, 1624.

Sweet Heart,

I thank you for your letter. I had resolved to come down to Knole, and to have received the Blessed Sacrament, but God hath prevented it with sickness, for on Wednesday night I fell into a fit of casting, which held me long, then last night I had a fit of fever. I have for my physician Dr. Baskerville and Dr. Fox. I thank God I am now at good ease, having rested well this morning. I would not have you trouble yourself till I have occasion to send for you. You shall in the meantime hear daily from me. So, with my love to you, and God’s blessing and mine to both my children, I commend you to God’s protection.