The portion now ruined was standing in those early days of England’s history, but it was not until the third year of Richard the Second’s reign that the other portion of the old fortress was completed by Sir Robert Chisholm, who (together with Sir John Calveley of Chester and Sir John Hawkwood of Haughmond Castle), was a celebrated captain of those marauding bands that shared in the triumphs of Cressy and Poitiers. The following distich, by a mediaeval poet, records his prowess:
“O Roberte Chisholme, per te fit Francia mollis,
Ense tuo tollis praedas, dans vulnera collis.”
O Robert Chisholm, the stubborn souls
Of Frenchmen well you check;
Your mighty blade has largely preyed,
And wounded many a neck.
During those stormy days of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Wroxeter withstood many a fierce assault and sheltered not a few of England’s kings and queens as guests of the Chisholms, many of whom had been favourites at Court and held official positions of high importance. Queen Elizabeth was the last monarch to visit the castle, and the memory of that event was kept green by the name given to the old-world garden over-looking the Severn, which was known as the Queen’s Garden.
It was a grand old building, this feudal home to which Dudley Chisholm returned on the night following the farewell scene which had taken place between himself and the frivolous woman with whose name his own had been linked. He had invited for three days’ shooting two men—Colonel Murray-Kerr, a retired military attaché, and Henry Benthall, a man who had been at college with him, and who had, after being called to the bar, successfully contested East Glamorganshire. All three had travelled down from Euston together; but Dudley, after a sleepless night, had risen long before his guests and wandered through the vast and lonely chambers, full of melancholy musings. He would have put the men off, for he was in no mood to entertain, but there had been no time.
So he spent an idle hour alone before his guests appeared for breakfast.
He wandered through the great and gloomy hall, the vaulted ceiling of which had so often echoed to the laughter of the banquets held there in bygone days. It was now tenanted only by the many suits of armour that had belonged to his illustrious forefathers. His steps sounded in a grim fashion upon the floor of polished oak, and as he passed the huge fireplace, where once the oxen had been roasted whole to satisfy the Gargantuan appetites of mediaeval warriors, a servant threw open the door leading into the long picture gallery.
What an array of fine pictures was there! For each member of this ancient family his or her arms had been painted in the right-hand corner of the canvas. The Chisholms were a handsome, stalwart race, the men strong and the women beautiful. In the features of nearly all, however, there was the same predominant characteristic, the stern gravity, which in Dudley was so often mistaken for actual asperity. Before the last portrait at the farther end of the gallery—the picture of a young and eminently beautiful woman—the young man paused. It was his mother.
Deep in contemplation, he stood before it for a long time. His lips moved, but no sound escaped them. At last, with a deep sigh, he passed on, still walking at the same slow pace, plunged in his melancholy thoughts.
He passed round the big quadrangle, through one great room after the other: the blue drawing-room, Anne Boleyn’s sitting-room, the grand drawing-room, the library, each an apartment of fine dimensions, mostly panelled in oak dark with age and containing antique furniture, curios connected with the family history through eight unbroken centuries, with many other priceless works of art.
Two or three of the smaller rooms, such as the breakfast-room, the dining-room, and his dead mother’s boudoir, were alone furnished in modern style. In all the others there seemed to linger an atmosphere of bygone centuries. This was the fine old home which so many mothers coveted for their daughters. Indeed, there were a hundred pretty and well-born girls in London, each of whom was at that moment ready to become châtelaine of Wroxeter.