These will speak and men will blush for shame;
Without offence to speak what I do know,
Great is the debt England to him doth owe.”
There are other inscriptions playing upon the characteristic words of his motto, Garde la Foy, and the three swords of his crest; but it is time for us to leave the stone precincts and mount the old tower, from which we get an exquisite view of the surrounding country and the rambling old house.
The most ancient part of the present building was the work of Sir Amyas’ grandfather. The present front was built by the first Earl Poulett, Queen Anne’s minister. We cannot help regretting the “right goodly manor place of free stone with two goodly towers embattled in the inner court,” which old Leland saw in Henry VIII.’s days; but we may rejoice that the pretty wings remain in which “the slabs of the sandstone of the country forming the outer walls are cut in the shape of the rounded stones of the sea-shore.” When gay flowers again relieve the long line of stone, and a touch of green is added to the rows of white jalousies, perhaps a look of home will return to the old mansion.
The quiet park where deer haunt the glades must have looked gay indeed when the grandson of Elizabeth’s Sir Amyas entertained Mary of Scotland’s grandson, Charles I., at Hinton in 1644, with a loyalty that was ready to face much and pay heavily for his allegiance to the King. It was only fifty-five years from the day of Queen Mary’s execution when the two grandsons met at Hinton. Five short years were to pass, and the head of Charles I. fell from the block with a fortitude not unlike that of his grandmother, Mary Queen of Scots.
A few years more, and Hinton is holding high festival again, and feasting the Duke of Monmouth with junketing in the park. Almost directly after, the Duke was fleeing from Sedgemoor to be captured in the Hampshire fields, and travel to London and the headsman’s axe on Tower Hill.
As we walk back past the closed windows and fancy the treasures inside of portraits and statues, and frames by Grinling Gibbons, we find a poor dead thrush, called a “home-screech” in these parts, because its note is not so tuneful as that of its brother thrushes. The bird and its empty nest expresses the want we feel about this lovely spot with its sad memories. The nest is too good and fair to be left untenanted.
Clotilda Marson.
